The Seoul Statement: Its Strengths and Weaknesses

The Fourth Lausanne Congress, September 2024, Memos from Incheon Memo #5

A second signature statement coming out of the Lausanne Congress here in Incheon, (alongside of the ‘State of the Great Commission’ report), is The Seoul Statement released at the beginning of the congress.

We are told in the preface of The Seoul Statement (heretofore referred to as SS) that it builds upon previous Lausanne declarations such as the original Lausanne Covenant, the Manila Manifesto, and the Cape Town Commitment. None of these declarations is meant to be comprehensive. Each new statement is an attempt to address contemporary or theological gaps speaking to areas that the previous Lausanne documents have not given attention to.

This new statement, the authors say, gives careful attention to every detail, “scrutinizing every word and sentence.” But adds, “they invite leaders within the Lausanne movement to contribute additional content.” And that is exactly why I am writing about some of its strengths and weaknesses.

Overall, I see it as is a strong, supplemental statement that helpfully addresses seven key gap areas. But I’ll also highlight a few “gaps” within this new statement.

Section One is titled: The Gospel: The Story We Live To Tell. The committee helpfully puts first things first—the story and centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In doing this it helpfully places theology before mission, yet for mission. Sometimes missiologists are inclined to so emphasize mission that they bend over backwards not to offend the prevailing culture. In so doing, mission overlooks or “swallows up” theology. Thankfully, not here. The SS reminds us that the gospel “defines our identity, drives our mission, assures us that the ending of the story is in God’s hands.”

Section Two is titled: The Holy Scriptures We Read and Obey. This section articulates a strong and unwavering commitment to Scripture “as God’s authoritative word, the only rule of faith and practice for the church, its mission, and the Christian life.” It asserts the Bible’s truthfulness and unity. But then it rightly shifts the focus to how we read and interpret the Bible. Because an assertion of the Bible’s truthfulness does not solve all our problems. The practical issue of how we interpret it has to be addressed. Consequently, the SS emphasizes the unity and coherent testimony of the Bible. Both the Old and New Testaments together make up Holy Scripture. We must know the Bible’s central message as we interpret it. As we read it we should be attentive to its historical, literary, and canonical contexts, illumined by the Holy spirit and guided by the interpretive tradition of the church. This emphasis on reading the Bible faithfully by remaining connected to tradition is a new note for many evangelicals. Because while evangelicals do not put tradition on the same level of as the authority of Scripture, we are sometimes accused of ignoring tradition altogether. This statement rightly emphasizes that we are helped by the deep Christian tradition as we read and understand and apply the Bible today.

Section Three: The Church: The People of God We Love and Build Up.  The gap addressed here is that, in pursuing mission, evangelicals have often downplayed the church. The SS says, “we recognize that the doctrine of the church has received little attention during these decades of extraordinary Christian expansion in the world.” It also adds that among evangelicals “there is little consensus about what the church is.” It says there are many aberrant forms of the church that distort the values of Christ and the gospel. It affirms that we need a more comprehensive biblical understanding of the church. If the church’s mission is to make disciples, then we must know what the church actually is. The statement goes on to explain how the church today faces challenges from without and within. It highlights the importance of worship for making disciples. It also acknowledges that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church must display Christ in culturally diverse yet faithful ways.

Section Four: The Human Person: The Image of God Created and Restored. A fourth gap addressed by the SS focuses on biblical anthropology. It begins, “Today, the world is absorbed with the question, “What does it mean to be human?” and adds, “We need a sound doctrine of the human person.” The statement affirms that the image of God is the essence of being human. We were created in God’s image. This is true of all people. However, this image has been marred by sin. Nevertheless, through Christ, who is the permanent and perfect image of God, we can be restored. The church is called to bear the image of Christ in the world.

The SS launches into an extended section on the image of God and human sexuality. It laments the many distortions of sexuality being promoted today. It affirms that we were created male and female. “We reject the notion that individuals may determine their gender without regard to our createdness.” “Male and femaleness are an inherent fact of human createdness.” It adds, “We also reject the notion of gender fluidity.” It then goes on to address the Christian understanding of marriage and singleness, lamenting “all attempts in the church to define same-sex partnerships as biblically valid marriages.” It also offers a Christian understanding of same-sex relations, going into great detail on the Biblical teaching. “All the biblical references to sex between persons of the same sex lead us to the inescapable conclusion that God considers such acts as a violation of his intention for sex and a distortion of the Creator’s good design, and therefore, sinful.” I for one, am grateful that Lausanne has been so clear, so forthright, on these issues at this time.

The one big oversight of this section is its failure to say anything significant about abortion, besides a passing reference in paragraph 63 to the dramatic increase in abortions globally. Since abortion is one of the biggest human rights issue of our time, and especially in light of the massive cultural pressure to approve of abortion-on-demand all the way up to birth, I find it startling that Lausanne could not even give one sentence to this issue. I do not understand this oversight. Afterall, they can’t claim other Lausanne documents have dealt with this. The Manila Manifesto of 1989 mentions abortion as a social evil, but does not explain why or how Christians should respond. If the SS comes out in a second edition, I highly recommend that this issue be addressed. If this statement is not edited, I strongly suggest that it be a key agenda item for the next round of Lausanne statements.

Section Five: Discipleship: Our Calling to Holiness and Mission.  Lausanne has already received criticism that the SS does not say enough about evangelism. Lausanne can rightly defend itself that this is not really a gap, since it has previously said so much about evangelism. This section of the statement rightly focuses on the discipleship gap. The issue is that the church does not always look like the church—people transformed by Christ. There is a real holiness-sanctification gap. This statement not only highlights the importance of loving God and others, and of making disciples, it also highlights the importance of an on-going transformation in our lives, especially our corporate lives. It calls the church to provide more accountability for its leaders and so promote more healthy patterns of leadership and governance. This is greatly needed as it sometimes feels like the church goes from one leadership scandal to the next. I only wish that this statement said even more about the need for a “thicker,” stronger discipleship. As culture now catechizes through pervasive and intrusive social media channels, we must double down on what it means to live like a Christian. We must counter-catechize.

Section Six: The Family of Nations: The Peoples in Conflicts We See and Serve For Peace.  To me, this was the weakest part of the SS because of what it confused or left out. Its intention is to call God’s people to be peacemakers in a world torn by conflict. It names some of the international conflicts that are festering today. It mentions Christianity’s historical complicity in the legacy or racism and black slavery, the holocaust against Jews, ethnic violence, Palestinian suffering, cast oppression, etc. It then calls us to “repent of our failures to condemn or restrain violence by remaining silent, promoting nationalism, or by unjustly supporting conflicts through deficient theological justification.” Then it says that much of this defective theological justification comes from a failure to distinguish between “nations” in Scripture and modern nation states, and “from a failure to think biblically about nationality.”

The SS overly simplifies, saying that what we have today are nations in the modern sense, i.e., nation states. Whereas, what we have in the Bible are nations as culturally distinct peoples. The SS defines Nationalism as “the belief that every state should have a single, national culture and no other—or ethno-nationalism.” It adds, “this is a great evil in our world.” But then the statement launches into a large paragraph about the Korean peninsula and its people who are forcibly divided. This, it says is a “wrongful separation” that has caused death and trauma to millions. We are asked  to pray that “one day Korea and the Korean people will be one.”

Now, I have no problem praying for this. I think Korea should be Korean, (though friendly to people of other nationalities who live here). But I do have a problem with the SS’s definition of nationalism. It is too simplistic. Yes, there are many modern pluralistic states. And yes, nations in Scripture were culturally distinct peoples. But there are many nations today that are also culturally distinct. It is natural for Germans to be German, Ethiopians to be Ethiopian, and Koreans to be Korean. This is not a “great evil,” but rather reflects God’s global mosaic, which we are in fact celebrating here in Lausanne when we encourage people to come to meetings dressed in their native dress. I think the authors have unwittingly described the ideal of a modern, liberal, Enlightenment view of the state and neglected a natural nationalism—where nations reflect families, clans, tribes, ethnicities, deep traditions, and where they intentionally cherish and pass on this heritage. The SS asks us to think biblically about nationalism but neglects to do this. It forgets that Israel of old was called to be “one nation under God,” with a national covenant that acknowledged and honored God. It forgets that it is proper for nations to reflect national distinctives and interests. What the statement should have rejected, is not nationalism per se, but a nationalism that hates outsiders, that becomes arrogant, that asserts its primacy over all, or sees itself as the center of the earth. What it should have taken aim at is nations which become empires. I suspect that what the authors are trying to say is that is that nationalism can easily become distorted. It goes awry when it claims ethnic or racial supremacy, or when it becomes idolatrous and places love of nation over love of God.

I also found it surprising that in mentioning world conflicts, the SS mentions Palestinian suffering in the present tense, but looks at Jewish suffering in the past tense (i.e. the holocaust) when in fact Jews have been and often still are the most despised, oppressed people in history. Given the current explosion of antisemitism around the globe, and the given the intent of certain nations and terrorist semi-states to destroy the majority population of Jews today by “wiping Israel off the map,” I would like to see a future Lausanne statement take a clear stand against this kind of Jew hatred and address it in terms of God’s irrevocable covenant with his people (Romans 11).

I also wish that in calling Christians to be champions of peace, that the statement would have included some brief recognition of just wars of defense and the legitimate calling of those in law enforcement and the military, rather than just making sweeping statements that come off as somewhat pacifist.

Section Seven: Technology: The Accelerating Innovation We Discern and Steward. This final section addresses the benefits and challenges of technology. Speaking positively, it says, “we affirm that technological innovation is an expression of the image of God because human creativity reflects the creativity of God.” Then it notes that “sin mars not just the use of technology but, in some cases, innovation itself.” Current technological breakthroughs such as genetic engineering, cloning, biotechnology, digital media, virtual reality and AI, must be looked at ethically from a Christian worldview. Certain technologies can deceive, isolate, or make us less human. Rather than just pose questions about certain technologies that seek to reshape the very building blocks of physical human life, I wish the SS had deeply challenged them as an attempt to remake man in our own image.

In conclusion, The Seoul Statement seeks to address gaps in our understanding and fulfillment of the Great Commission. In many ways it has succeeded in this declaration. Nevertheless, there are some significant gaps within these gap statements that need some attention. I hope the authors of this document make good on their invitation to those within the Lausanne Movement to bring greater clarity in this statement.