tagged: Cape Town Commitment, David Rogers, Featured, Lausanne Movement, Prosperity Gospel

The Cape Town Commitment (and the Prosperity Gospel)

Posted by David Rogers in Baptist Life, Bible & Theology, Church & Missions, Uncategorized

I have finally gotten around to reading the Cape Town Commitment. The Cape Town Commitment, for those who may not know, is “a masterful and comprehensive document, faithfully reflecting the proceedings of The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, which took place in Cape Town, South Africa (October 2010).”¹ It has a publication date of 2011, and has been available online now for at least a couple of months. In the meantime, over the last couple of months, I have been busy, using just about every spare minute reading for my PhD seminars at SEBTS, which, thank God, are now finished for this round. Now that I’ve got a little bit of breathing room, while waiting in the airport getting ready to catch my flight back home, I decided I would take advantage of the time, and see if I could read the entire Cape Town Commitment.

As I am signed up to receive e-mail notifications from the Lausanne Movement, I got the notice about the online availability of the Cape Town Commitment several months ago, and have been wanting to read it ever since. The online PDF document is 49 pages long, and I had about an hour to wait before my boarding my plane. I was able to finish the whole thing just before they called for my section to board.

I am glad I took the time to read the Cape Town Commitment. Though I did not necessarily learn anything new or change my views on any specific topic as a result of reading it, I did gain a greater appreciation for the Body of Christ around the world, especially as expressed through the Evangelical movement. The Cape Town Commitment reflects the thoughts of 4,200 evangelical leaders from 198 countries who attended the conference, hundreds of thousands of others who participated in other related meetings as well as online, and a team of international leaders and theologians who worked on the wording of the document over a period of several years (the entire process is described in greater detail here).

In preparation for one seminar I just finished at SEBTS, I had to do quite a bit of reading on positions taken by the Roman Catholic Church regarding their relationship to other world religions. This involved reading through a number of the Encyclical letters written by various popes in recent years. As Evangelicals, we don’t have a pope or an official Magisterium to write official documents expressing our point of view on this subject or that subject. Personally, I am glad this is the case. Statements like the Cape Town Commitment, however, may well be the closest thing we have as Evangelicals to something like a papal Encyclical.

In the overall scheme of things, I don’t need the Cape Town Commitment to tell me what to believe. I have the Bible, which, in and of itself, is the authoritative Word of God. As Southern Baptists, we also have the Baptist Faith & Message, which spells out those doctrines we have decided together are defining for us as a denomination. But I think there is something healthy about a group such as the delegates of the Lausanne Congress coming up with a statement that is broader in its representation than just one denomination of Christians in one part of the world.

For us as Southern Baptists, does agreeing to the Cape Town Commitment override or conflict with agreement to the Baptist Faith & Message? I don’t think so. Though the BF&M is more specific on certain points, and the Cape Town Commitment more specific on other points, they are not mutually contradictory. As Southern Baptists, it is good to cooperate together on certain ministry projects, such as the Cooperative Program, specifically as Southern Baptists. But I think it is also important that we as Southern Baptists realize we are part of something bigger and broader than the Southern Baptist Convention. We are members of the Body of Christ.

The Cape Town Commitment itself recognizes that the Body of Christ is broader than those who identify themselves as Evangelicals alone. If you want to know the truth, I winced a bit when I first read this. For me, the term “evangelical” is synonymous with “gospel-centered.” Etymologically, that is precisely what it means. I am aware, however, that, as words often do, the term “Evangelical” has, in history, and in recent uses, taken on other connotations as well. I do think that the Body of Christ is the company of the redeemed, and the only way one can be redeemed is through the gospel. As I understand it, for the most part, in the world in which we live today, it is those who have identified themselves as Evangelicals who have maintained the centrality of the gospel better than anyone else. In this sense, I believe the Lausanne Movement, and its sister organization, the World Evangelical Alliance, speak in a representative way for the Body of Christ around the world about as authentically as anyone. More and more, the Lausanne Movement is trying to give as balanced a representation as possible to bona fide gospel-centered Christians from different nations, cultural backgrounds, churches, denominations, and organizations. Of course, it has not arrived at perfection in this regard. But who represents worldwide Evangelicals any better?

Is the Cape Town Commitment a perfect document? No. If I had written the Cape Town Commitment, I would have undoubtedly worded certain phrases and sentences a bit differently than those who did. The emphasis it gives to certain aspects of the issues it treats is not exactly the same I would give to each one. But, as I write this, I am very conscious that it is a good thing that my views on this or that were not the only views that were taken into account when the committee was working on writing and editing the Cape Town Commitment. As much as it pains me to say it, if I am truly honest, I must admit that my views are not totally balanced—and I hate to break the news, but neither are yours! It is only as all of us together as brothers and sisters in Christ come jointly to submit ourselves to the authority of the Word of God that this balance can be found.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t read something like the Cape Town Commitment with a critical eye. If I had detected anything in it that was directly counter to the teaching of the Word of God, I would not be writing this post right now recommending that you read it. And, as each of you read it, I highly recommend that you read it with the same critical eye. As gospel-centered Christians, we don’t take the word of any man or woman on earth, or even that of a committee as broadly representative as that behind the Cape Town Commitment, as our authority on an equal footing with that of the Bible, and we don’t let anyone else bind our conscience with regard to how to interpret the Bible.

That doesn’t mean, however, that we don’t listen very carefully when others who show signs of spiritual maturity and careful study of the Word of God share their insights. Especially, when a group of brothers and sisters in Christ from so many nations, cultures, churches, denominations, and organizations prays, and labors, and dialogues with each other, and diligently seeks God, in the way the drafters of the Cape Town Commitment have done, we need to pay extra careful attention.

The Cape Town Commitment is too long for me to go point by point and give a running commentary. I will limit myself in this post to reproducing the section on the prosperity gospel. Personally, I believe when you look around the world today, very possibly, the most critical issue facing us as Evangelicals is how we should respond to the prosperity gospel. In many places around the world, especially in the Global South, the church of Jesus Christ is growing by leaps and bounds. We rejoice in this. At the same time, however, our hearts are saddened, and we react with much consternation, as we see the so-called “prosperity gospel” wreaking havoc in the hearts, minds, and lives of many of these new believers, and placing many stumbling blocks in front of others, keeping them from coming to an accurate knowledge of the truth.

As in so many other sections, the Cape Town Commitment strikes a healthy balance in its treatment of the prosperity gospel. If I had written it, I would probably have been tempted to use even stronger language of condemnation. But, after reading it, I am pleased with the treatment the Cape Town Commitment gives to this crucial issue. The collective wisdom of the committee, representing Evangelical Christians from all around the world, presents a biblical balance.

As you read the following statement, I hope you will pray at the same time that the Holy Spirit will work to counteract the destructive effect of the prosperity gospel around the world. As you have opportunity, I hope you will speak out against the prosperity gospel, and teach in a balanced manner what the Bible teaches regarding it. Some of you may well have opportunities to have input regarding this in some of the places in the Global South where this problem is most acute. I hope the Cape Town Commitment will be a helpful tool for doing this.

I strongly recommend you take the time to prayerfully and carefully read the entire Cape Town Commitment here. If there are particular issues you consider worthy of discussion, we can discuss them in greater detail in the comment stream. But first of all, read what it has to say regarding the prosperity gospel:

The widespread preaching and teaching of ‘prosperity gospel’ around the world raises significant concerns. We define prosperity gospel as the teaching that believers have a right to the blessings of health and wealth and that they can obtain these blessings through positive confessions of faith and the ‘sowing of seeds’ through financial or material gifts. Prosperity teaching is a phenomenon that cuts across many denominations in all continents.

We affirm the miraculous grace and power of God, and we welcome the growth of churches and ministries that lead people to exercise expectant faith in the living God and his supernatural power. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. However, we deny that God’s miraculous power can be treated as automatic, or at the disposal of human techniques, or manipulated by human words, actions, gifts, objects, or rituals.

We affirm that there is a biblical vision of human prospering, and that the Bible includes material welfare (both health and wealth) within its teaching about the blessing of God. However, we deny as unbiblical the teaching that spiritual welfare can be measured in terms of material welfare, or that wealth is always a sign of God’s blessing. The Bible shows that wealth can often be obtained by oppression, deceit or corruption. We also deny that poverty, illness or early death are always a sign of God’s curse, or evidence of lack of faith, or the result of human curses, since the Bible rejects such simplistic explanations.

We accept that it is good to exalt the power and victory of God. But we believe that the teachings of many who vigorously promote the prosperity gospel seriously distort the Bible; that their practices and lifestyle are often unethical and un-Christlike; that they commonly replace genuine evangelism with miracle-seeking, and replace the call to repentance with the call to give money to the preacher’s organization. We grieve that the impact of this teaching on many Churches is pastorally damaging and spiritually unhealthy. We gladly and strongly affirm every initiative in Christ’s name that seeks to bring healing to the sick, or lasting deliverance from poverty and suffering. The prosperity gospel offers no lasting solution to poverty, and can deflect people from the true message and means of eternal salvation. For these reasons it can be soberly described as a false gospel. We therefore reject the excesses of prosperity teaching as incompatible with balanced biblical Christianity.

A) We urgently encourage church and mission leaders in contexts where the prosperity gospel is popular to test its teaching with careful attention to the teaching and example of Jesus Christ. Particularly, we all need to interpret and teach those Bible texts that are commonly used to support the prosperity gospel in their full biblical context and proper balance. Where prosperity teaching happens in the context of poverty, we must counter it with authentic compassion and action to bring justice and lasting transformation for the poor. Above all we must replace self-interest and greed with the biblical teaching on self-sacrifice and generous giving as the marks of true discipleship to Christ. We affirm Lausanne’s historic call for simpler lifestyles.

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¹Kevin Smith, “Summary of the Cape Town Commitment.” Online: http://www.lausanne.org/documents/ctc-summary.html