Christian Religion 1966 Essay

3.2.2. Christian Social Responsibility, Geneva 1966
Following the Wheaton congress of Evangelicals, after two months, the WCC’s Church and Society world conference was held from July 12-26, 1966 in Geneva under the theme “Christians in the Technical and Social Revolutions of our Time” that clearly emphasized the social concern of the church’s mission in a changing world context. The conference took world as locus of mission as it sought to analyze and reflect upon the social, economic and political involvement in shaping world. In the context of technological changes and inadequacy of Church’s ministry to the present needs of humanity and the conference focused: first, world as the locus for mission; second, provide deeper insights into

There was a gradual change from their earlier position of “the evangelistic paralysis of the ecumenical movement,” and moved away from a narrow approach to an inclusiveness of evangelism and recognized the importance of relationship between evangelism and social concerns which later became the centre of discussion among Evangelicals. However the Congress’ basic concern was to establish evangelism as the supreme mission of the church, therefore on matters of universalism, syncretism and with respect to other religions it called for “a deeper and sympathetic understanding of world religions” in order to improve the effectiveness of evangelism. In line with ecumenical progress, at Berlin Congress, Carl Henry argued

The relation of evangelism to social concern-to cite the major example-was a recurring theme, and many delegates felt there should have been more of an attempt to crystallize thinking on it.
Despite the critical issues still facing the Evangelicals to relate to evangelistic, social, theological and ecumenical crises, indeed the Congress trawled for worldwide evangelical identity and mature responsibility towards other Christians.

3.2.4. Reversal or Renewal in Mission of Ecumenicals, Uppsala 1968
After 1961 the full pledged WCC assembly was held from July 4-19, 1968 at Uppsala in Sweden under the theme “Behold, I make all things new,” with six topics. The debate on mission and evangelism continued to hound Ecumenicals as they struggled to state clearly where they stand. Since Amsterdam among ecumenicals the terms ‘mission,’ ‘witness,’ and ‘evangelism’ were used interchangeably, but at Uppsala all three were seen in one, mission of God as social renewal. The draft document “Renewal in Mission” that pointed to “new humanity,” focused on the development of new mission insights in religious, social and political areas as “new instruments of mission,” and stressed on the participation through dialogue with secular movements for change in the world and flexibility in mission structure to involve laity at