- Lausanne Covenant
The Lausanne Covenant is a
1974 Christian religiousmanifesto promoting active world-wide Christianevangelism . One of the most influential documents in modern Evangelical Christianity, it was written and adopted by 2,300 evangelicals at the International Congress on World Evangelization inLausanne ,Switzerland , from which it takes its name.The original Lausanne conference brought together 150 Christian religious leaders from around the world and was called by a committee headed by
Billy Graham of theUnited States . The drafting committee for the document was chaired byJohn Stott ofEngland . In addition to the signing of the covenant, the conference also created theLausanne Committee for World Evangelization . The covenant is in the form of anecumenical confession , in which the signatories profess their shame at having failed to spread theGospel ofJesus . The covenant specifically affirms the beliefs in theNicene Creed . The signatories express their intention to be more committed to spreading Christianity throughout the world. It lists fifteen specific beliefs to which the signatories testify their faith.The original document is in English and has been translated into at least twenty different languages. In
1989 , fifteen years after the original Lausanne conference, theSecond International Congress on World Evangelization (sometimes called "Lausanne II") convened inManila ,Philippines , and adopted theManila Manifesto , an elaboration of the Lausanne Covenant.The introduction of the covenant is::"We, members of the Church of Jesus Christ, from more than 150 nations, participants in the International Congress on World Evangelization at Lausanne, praise
God for his great salvation and rejoice in the fellowship he has given us with himself and with each other. We are deeply stirred by what God is doing in our day, moved to penitence by our failures and challenged by the unfinished task of evangelization. We believe the Gospel is God's good news for the whole world, and we are determined by his grace to obey Christ's commission to proclaim it to all mankind and to make disciples of every nation. We desire, therefore, to affirm our faith and our resolve, and to make public our covenant."External links
* [http://www.lausanne.org/lausanne-1974/lausanne-covenant.html Text of the Lausanne Covenant in English] with drop-down menu to access translations
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