Evangelicals Aim for Year 2000 as Target Date for Spreading Faith

Evangelicals, a growing force in Christianity, open a global conference next week to refine strategies for spreading the faith, some aiming for it to be offered to everyone by AD 2000.

That widely asserted target sometimes is considered more as a stimulus than a potentially accomplishable task. But the fervor for working at it is mounting in many church quarters.

“The Countdown Has Begun” goes the title on a book of interdenominational planning discussions held early this year in Singapore. But the mission’s success was seen to require some course corrections.

“We see afresh that cooperation and partnership are absolute necessities if the Great Commission is going to be fulfilled by the year 2000,” the participants said.

Up to now, they said, “pride, prejudice, competition and disobedience have hindered our generation from effectively working at the task of world evangelization.”

The “Great Commission” refers to biblical instructions attributed to Jesus to present his message to all peoples. Evangelicals have a special passion for proclaiming that message and eliciting belief in it.

Advancing that task beyond any particular time frame is the objective of the International Congress on World Evangelization, which is meeting Tuesday through July 20 in Manila.

Evangelist Billy Graham had been scheduled to give the opening address, but canceled the Manila appearance in favor of extending his “Mission ‘89” in London, his office said.

More than 4,000 evangelical-minded Christians of both mainline, historic churches and smaller evangelically oriented groups in 190 countries are expected to make the Philippines gathering one of the largest of its kind.

It has been dubbed “Lausanne II,” a successor to a similar gathering in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974, which was convened by Graham’s organization and spawned a continuing, interlinked movement.

The Rev. Leighton Ford of Charlotte, N.C., chairman of the Lausanne committee that is sponsoring this year’s congress, says the session will address new, crucial issues that are affecting evangelization.

“Secularism is rampant and we’re suffering from a lack of evangelical cohesion,” he said.

Planners say participants are coming both from major Protestant and Orthodox churches in the World Council of Churches and also those outside it, plus some Roman Catholic evangelization specialists.