The director of the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation has issued an apology after a controversial speech by one in all its guest speakers left some participants offended.
Ruth Padilla DeBorst, associate professor of world Christianity at Western Theological Seminary, Michigan, delivered an address on Monday evening that took aim at dispensational eschatology – a theological framework that takes a literal view of Old Testament guarantees and believes that God’s salvation plan includes Israel’s future restoration.
During her 15-minute presentation, Padilla DeBorst said, “God is worshipped not by rights, religious festivities, and even mission activism, all practices that may simply function masks, but by ethical obedience.
“What makes God’s people such should not superficial expressions of non secular piety, Christianese jargon, worship jingles or colonialist theologies that justify and finance oppression under the guise of some dispensational eschatology.”
In an open letter to congress participants, Padilla DeBorst apologised for the “pain” her comments “may need caused”.
“This is just not in any way a blanket dismissal of dispensational theology and, even less, of sisters and brothers who subscribe to that stance,” she said.
“For the pain my statement may need caused, I’m sorry. What I’m naming is the troubling theological rationale sustained by some people to perpetrate injustice against certain other people.”
Concerns were raised about other remarks made by Padilla Deborst in reference to the Israel-Gaza conflict and evangelical support for Israel.
She said during her speech, “There is not any room for indifference toward all who’re suffering the scourge of war and violence the world round, the uprooted and beleaguered people of Gaza, the hostages held by each Israel and Hamas and their families, the threatened Palestinians in their very own territories, all who’re mourning the lack of family members. Their pain is our pain if we’re God’s people.”
Critics questioned the time and place of her comments, coming at a serious congress attended by a breadth of international participants and just days before the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 wherein over a thousand Israelis were killed and greater than 200 taken hostage. Some congress participants took particular issue with the suggestion that Israel was holding hostages.Â
In her letter to congress participants, Padilla DeBorst justified her decision to “zero in on” Gaza and Palestine and “name only them” by suggesting that “far too many” evangelicals are uncritically supportive of Israel.
“I’m convinced that this can be a current justice issue in relation to which we, as Christians, have a selected responsibility,” she said.Â
“Let me explain. Truly, the Hamas attack almost a 12 months ago was abhorrent and absolutely reprehensible, and truly individuals who live in Israel, Jewish, Palestinian and others are being threatened as I write. Their pain is our pain.
“At the identical time, the long standing suffering of Palestinians has been compounded by the attacks on Gaza since October 7 where over 40,000 people have been killed, lots of them, children.
“Additionally, settler attacks have only increased within the West Bank. Their pain is our pain – or it needs to be. However, far too many evangelicals around the globe a-critically ‘stand with Israel,’ and remain oblivious to the suffering Palestinians. This injustice have to be named.”
She didn’t address criticism towards her remarks on hostages.Â
In a written apology emailed to participants, congress director David Bennett said that Lausanne leaders had change into aware of “significant pain and offence experienced at this congress from those in dispensational theological contexts, those that are Jews, and people engaged in ministries to Jews and/or in Israel”.
“As congress director, I would love to supply an apology for a presentation this week which singled out ‘dispensational eschatology’ in a critical tone, implying that it contributed to violence and injustice, and which didn’t note that many theologies have been misused and misapplied as justifications for violence,” he said.
“That same presentation referred to the suffering of the Palestinian people, but didn’t express comparable empathy for the suffering of Israeli people, nor adequately express concern for a lot of other peoples and nations of the world which are currently within the throes of violent conflict.”
He continued, “Our Lausanne team, including me, did not review the wording of the presentation rigorously enough prematurely, or to anticipate the hurts and misunderstandings it might cause.
“As your brother in Christ, and on behalf of our Lausanne leadership, I ask on your forgiveness.”
A spokesperson for Lausanne said that the apology was issued after a frontrunner inside the movement made a proper criticism over Padilla DeBorst’s comments.
The apology itself has not been without controversy, as some Lausanne delegates questioned why the leadership decided to apologise on this instance but not in others which have proved divisive.
The Lausanne spokesperson addressed this sentiment in comments to reporters: “I do know that many individuals want Lausanne to say many things [and] publish statements as different crises or different situations emerge but that actually is on the discretion of the leadership of the movement.”
Other congress participants welcomed the apology. Dr Dan Sered, president of the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism and co-catalyst for the Lausanne Jewish Evangelism Network, said: “I’m grateful and proud to be an element of the Lausanne Movement that doesn’t only speak about humility, repentance and reconciliation but actually lives it out. Dr David Bennett and the Lausanne leadership’s apology are accepted and appreciated.”
Padilla DeBorst is the daughter of Latin American theologian René Padilla, who was one in all the speakers at the primary Lausanne congress in 1974 where he spoke against cultural Christianity in what was dubbed ‘the speech that shook the world’.
