‘No further revisions to the Seoul Statement,’ Lausanne leaders say

Michael Oh, CEO of the Lausanne Movement, delivering his keynote address during the closing ceremony of the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Incheon, South Korea, on Sept. 28, 2024. | The Christian Post/Hudson Tsuei

No further changes will be made to the Seoul Statement that came out of the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Seoul, Korea, last year. The Lausanne Movement’s leadership made the announcement on a conference call with some 200 Congress participants on Wednesday.

The statement’s unexpected publication on the first day of the event and last-minute edits to sections related to homosexuality triggered controversy among participants who felt they did not have any opportunity to shape the document, which would remain as a historic statement from the Congress.

There were also several groups taking issue with specific sections or emphases of the statement and desiring a wider conversation among all Congress participants to find wording that would be more reflective of the diverse perspectives. With almost 5,400 attendees from 200 countries and territories and another 2,000 online participants, Lausanne 4 was the largest and most diverse event in the movement’s history.

Toward the end of the Congress, the Lausanne leadership acknowledged the strong reactions in an announcement to all participants. And they laid out a consultation process beyond the event that encouraged participants to provide feedback via an online form raising the possibility that the statement might undergo further revisions.

‘The Seoul Statement is in its final form’

Five months later, Lausanne invited participants for a conference call where they could “hear directly from Theology Working Group chairs Ivor Poobalan and Victor Nakah, who [ would discuss] the purpose, development, and key themes of the statement and its implications for mission today.”

The call was introduced as “a time to listen, reflect, and engage with Poobalan and Nakah." Participants were also given time to "share their thoughts and questions during the session,” according to the invitation email titled “Seoul Statement in the Spotlight” sent on Feb. 18.

It was the second in a series of follow up calls where participants could hear about different topics, such as the Action Hub online platform that was launched post-Congress or the upcoming Younger Leaders Gathering in 2027.

The invitation itself did not mention the feedback process or indicate when or how the statement would be finalized. There was equally no reference to it by any of the speakers during their presentations, which focused largely on how the Theology Working Group was formed and how they drafted the statement involving some 30 theologians from different parts of the world.

It was in response to a question by one of the participants in the chat room asking whether there would be a “final document” that the Lausanne leadership responded that the statement would not change.

“The Seoul Statement is in its final form,” Lausanne Chief Communications Officer Michael du Toit wrote in the chat.

He went on to quote from a statement on Lausanne’s website published two days earlier on Feb. 24 that said: “While no further revisions to the Seoul Statement will be made by the Theology Working Group, we see this as the beginning, not the end, of engagement with the theological and missiological issues it raises.

“The feedback received by the Theology Working Group to date has been reviewed and is appreciated. The topical gaps that have been identified in these submissions will be used in their exploration of potential areas for future study, elaboration, and expansion. We are committed to maintaining the conversation beyond the Congress. This is an ongoing journey — one that the Theology Working Group is prepared to continue, welcoming a diversity of voices and perspectives as we press forward.”

Never the intent to involve Congress participants in crafting the statement

“Recognizing that the release of the Seoul Statement sparked many conversations, we want to engage openly and transparently with the global church,” says the online article written by du Toit.

“While we intended the Seoul Statement to be a resource to engage and inform the Congress, practical challenges in review and translation processes prevented releasing it any earlier. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused, and we appreciate the feedback from those who voiced their concerns,” he adds.

Lausanne’s Congress Program Director David Bennett previously explained the timing of the Statement’s release pre-event during a press conference in Seoul. He said that Lausanne wanted the document to inform and inspire participants and that it should be read in combination with the earlier released State of the Great Commission report.

Bennett also emphasized at that time that the Seoul Statement “stands as part of the larger collection of key documents within the Lausanne Movement, building on the legacy of the Lausanne Covenant, the Manila Manifesto, and the Cape Town Commitment. It is designed not to replace, but to complement these foundational documents, providing fresh insights into contemporary theological and missional challenges.”

During the conference call, Bennett elaborated further that unlike with previous Lausanne documents, “there never was an intention or process to have the whole Congress discussing the statement.”

“The intention was to have a document that people could bring into the discussions, and that's why there was no attempt to say, ‘Let's delay the release so that then we can have another round of input from several thousand people.’ That was not the intent. It was to get a carefully crafted document from the Theology Working Group, which then would be a resource like all the other Lausanne documents to the global Lausanne family.”

Theology Working Group saw statement’s purpose as ‘filling the gaps’

The two co-chairs of Lausanne’s Theology Working Group echoed Bennett’s comments about the different purpose of the document as they recounted the process that led to the formation of the group and the considerations behind the Seoul Statement.

“The way the Theology Working Group was formed after [Nakah] and I were asked to co-chair was that initially we asked the Lausanne leadership, Michael Oh and others, to give us suggested names because we were new to this work, and we needed their advice,” said Poobalan, who has served as principal at Colombo Theological Seminary (CTS) in Sri Lanka since 1998.

“And with the list of names given to us, we reached out to a number of theologians around the world and some of them were available,” he recounted, adding that this formed the core team that began the work. Over the following months, they “discovered other theologians who were definitely fit for the task that was before us,” and again some of them were available and co-opted.

As they began to consider the outline of what would become the Congress statement, Poobalan said that “one of the guiding ideas of the Lausanne Congress was the book of Nehemiah and the building of the wall, and particularly the idea that Nehemiah and the people in Jerusalem had to focus on the gaps in the wall.”

This narrative led the TWG to adopt the same language and they “began to identify gaps in the wall of the Gospel,” he said, which ultimately led them to decide on the six themes of the Seoul Statement.

“Now we know there are many other gaps that we might identify, but we also had a limit on what we could make as the put together as a so statement in terms of word count,” Poobalan commented.

He went on to talk about the context of the first Lausanne Congress in 1974 and how the TWG believed it differed from the situation of the global Church today.

“It was a time when people were debating if the Bible was fully the inspired, authoritative word of God. And at that time, John Scott and the Lausanne Movement made a huge contribution to affirm the authority of Scripture,” Poobalan said. “We didn't have to revisit that, but we recognized that 50 years on it is not so much a debate about the authority of Scripture, but how we interpret the Scriptures. That has become the biggest sticking point.”

Another section focused on the Church because “we are not quite sure where the Church fits into our understanding of salvation and our journey to Heaven sometimes, so we needed more clarification, further reinforcement of what the Bible actually teaches us about the Church.”

Poobalan also highlighted that the issue of discipleship clearly emerged as one of the key challenge today. “Out of all the listening calls, the one that came right on top was the need for discipleship. And we recognize that we have to speak more about what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and how do we make true disciples of Jesus Christ?”

“And so, the global church cried out that the biggest need all over the world was the need for discipleship,” he said, but explained that the TWG “had to narrow down and take specific issues, like holiness and discipleship, interpretation of Scripture because we are not very sure what an Evangelical hermeneutic looks like. We had to narrow down on issues that could become serious threats to the Gospel if those gaps were not filled.”

Thus, Poobalan reiterated that the Seoul Statement sought to raise questions about these gaps specifically and not become a comprehensive standalone document. Pointing to the three previous Lausanne statement, he said, “It is complimenting these amazing documents that have been produced before and that have been so well embraced globally.”

Discussions to continue on Lausanne’s online platform

How well the Seoul Statement will be embraced by the global church will be seen in the years to come. Yet frustrations remained among some participants in the conference call, not only about the content itself but also about the process and lack of communication before and after it was released.

“I was concerned about the lack of connection to Stott’s holistic vision, including his clearly stated priority of evangelism that was not clearly articulated in the statement. I’ve emailed those questions — before publishing about the issues, and then twice after, simply asking questions about next steps,” one of Lausanne’s regional directors wrote in the chat.

“No one has responded. Will anyone reply to questions to the committee, or should I expect no reply?”

Another participant raised questions about passages that did not reflect a consensus perspective, asking in the chat: “While you have highlighted the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the theologians involved in crafting the [Seoul Statement], certain sections may elide dissenting theological views held by some evangelicals. How did the [Theology Working Group] account for theological and political diversity?

“While humility has been mentioned, dissenting opinions are still missing from the final statement. Could this shut down ongoing discussions and debates prematurely, and alienate certain evangelicals who hold differing views?”

Acknowledging that many questions remained open and that the conference call did not allow sufficient time to respond to all of them, however, the Lausanne leadership invited participants to engage in further discussion on its online platform instead.

“There were many more questions that were posted in the Q&A and I'm hoping that we can encourage you to take those questions and engage with one another on our Action Hub,” said Jason Watson, Lausanne’s director of content who moderated the call.

“This is a space for you as a movement to engage with one another. You might be wrestling with questions of integral mission or proclamation evangelism or what was missing and what should have been in and what could have been in, and we can continue down those lines,” he said.

“Continue those conversations, spark interest and engage with others.”

This article was originally published at Christian Daily International 

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