What is the Whole Gospel? Insights from the Seoul Statement
Reflections on L4: Part One
By Dr. Allen Yeh, Dean and VP of Academic Affairs at International Theological Seminary.
I just returned from eight days (September 21-28, 2024) at the fourth Lausanne Congress in Incheon/Seoul, South Korea. This is my first in a series of three articles, focusing on theology, unity, and strategy, respectively.
Just to provide a bit of background: the Lausanne movement began in 1974 when Billy Graham of the US and John Stott of the UK brought together 2473 missional leaders from 150 nations to collaborate and theologize together in Lausanne, Switzerland (from whence the movement derives its name). Time magazine called it “a formidable forum, possibly the widest-ranging meeting of Christians ever held.” Out of this historic gathering came a theological statement, The Lausanne Covenant, which has since become a landmark document for theologically uniting evangelicals from all over the world. In effect, it functions like a modern-day creed, not unlike the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed, just as the Lausanne Congresses became like modern-day ecumenical councils for evangelicals, not unlike Nicaea and Chalcedon. So many missionary organizations today require their missionaries to sign the Lausanne Covenant in order to serve with them. Still, despite its unifying effect, the Lausanne movement is not without its controversies.
From the start, even the founders clashed. Graham insisted on “prioritism,” namely putting evangelism primary (or even evangelism only) in mission. Stott, listening to leaders from the Majority World (Latin America, Africa, and Asia), like René Padilla and Samuel Escobar, had a broader perspective, seeing missions as holistic: he famously said that evangelism and social justice were “like two wings of a bird or two blades of a pair of scissors.” They are not the same thing, but they are equally important, and they must work together. In the end, Stott’s vision of “holistic mission” (aka “integral mission”) was the one which was set forth in the Lausanne Covenant. This holistic theme continued at the Lausanne II Congress in Manila, The Philippines, in 1989 (with The Manila Manifesto), and also at the Lausanne III Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2010 (with The Cape Town Commitment, crafted by Stott’s protégé, Christopher Wright). However, despite the fact that the Lausanne 4 Congress (switching from Roman to Arabic numerals which is less Western) just happened, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the movement with 5394 delegates from 204 countries, the debate still continues, even though the theme of the fourth Congress was “Let the Church Declare [evangelism] and Display [social justice or physical/visual witness] Together.”
The Seoul Statement, in fact, ironically garnered the most controversy of the four documents, even though its crafting by the 33-member Lausanne Theology Working Group was led by two Majority World Scholars, Ivor Poobalan of Sri Lanka and Victor Nakah of Zimbabwe. Why would it be controversial, given that Lausanne has been in operation for 50 years and people generally know what to expect, given such a long foundation? Some voices, like prioritists Ed Stetzer of Biola University and Trevin Wax of The Gospel Coalition, protested that there was not enough evangelism in the Statement. Others, like the Korean Evangelicals Embracing Integral Mission group, led by Sam Cho and Jongho Kim, said that there was too much emphasis on evangelism, and instead decried the lack of a number of holistic issues, even going so far as to draft a protest document (which was circulated widely in a Google doc and collected numerous signatures) during the Congress demanding revision. Michael du Toit, Lausanne’s director of communications, responded saying that there would be no revision and that the Seoul Statement would stand as-is because many of the issues were already covered by the accompanying State of the Great Commission Report. (On a side note, it is notable—and a major flaw in my opinion—that unlike the Cape Town Commitment which took into account input from the Lausanne III delegates in its final crafting, the Seoul Statement did not and was released in final form on the first full day of the Congress). In many people’s opinions—in both the priorist and holistic mission camps—nobody will really remember the State of the Great Commission Report as much as The Seoul Statement, so the latter really should do more heavy lifting.
In the end, while the Lausanne Covenant stands the test of time as the most memorable and affirmed, the Manila Manifesto as the most forgotten, the Cape Town Commitment as the most theologically robust, it seems that the Seoul Statement might end up being the most vilified. Only time will tell.
This does beg the question, however: what is the point of theological documents/creeds? I wrote in the book Still Evangelical? edited by Mark Labberton, the former President of Fuller Seminary, a chapter in which I said that the definition of a creed is “a summary of what the authors deem to be the most essential points of Scripture.” It is not Scripture itself (although it is drawn from Scripture), and it is always contextual. For example, the Nicene Creed was contending with the heresy of Arius, which is why it was written the way it was. The Lausanne Covenant was contending with a bifurcated mission stemming from the 20th-century Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy, which is why it was written the way it was. What is the Seoul Statement contending with? There are new world issues such as justice within global political conflicts, the lack of discipleship, and the question of “what does it mean to be human?” in the age of virtual screens and AI and various sexualities. But the Korean integral mission group still said that that was not enough, as they perceived the Seoul Statement as largely leaving out climate change and racism and Gen Z, focusing too much on the local church, overemphasizing the LGBTQ issue, and not having enough about technology.
It is not for me to sort out these issues. As I said, only time will tell. However, I want to go back to something most fundamental: the nature of the Gospel. Creeds do not just update our global contextual realities, they also further our understanding of the Gospel. “But,” you may protest, “isn’t the Gospel eternal, never-changing, Truth with a capital T?” Yes, it is—but only God sees the complete Truth. We humans are always uncovering it bit by bit, and “we see as through a glass dimly, but one day we shall see in full” (1 Cor. 13:12). I commend the Seoul Statement in that the first part of it did seem to reflect an advancement in our understanding of the Gospel in a holistic way. I think we in the West have envisioned a truncated Gospel for far too long. I am glad the Seoul Statement did not just parrot this truncated understanding. Yes, it was Majority World-led but this does not necessarily mean anything (I’ve observed that too many global Christians continue to mimic the West—such as the Koreans leading worship at L4 who basically sang 95% Western songs). Lausanne’s motto is “The Whole Church Taking the Whole Gospel into the Whole World.” So what is “The Whole Gospel?”
This past summer, I was tasked by the director of the triennial Urbana student missions conference, Mark Matlock, to assemble a team of nine missiologists to draft three “white papers” on: 1) Articulate the Gospel and Mission for Today’s World; 2) Reframe Missions Beyond Colonial Legacies; 3) Redefine Missionary Sending in a Connected Era. I was surprised when Mark told me that Urbana has never had its own theology of mission, and one needed to be established to ground it in the past and move it into the future. I was honored and daunted to accept this great responsibility. We all met for a three-day writing retreat in Southern California and broke up into three teams of three to write these, and I was greatly satisfied with the results. I intentionally assembled a team that was diverse in race, age, geography, gender, and culture. And yet we all had great synergy together as we unified over a common vision.
A bit of background behind Urbana: it has been in existence since 1948 (a quarter century older than Lausanne!), and is sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship which held the conference’s longtime location at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (from whence it derives its name). Throughout the decades, Urbana has also been held in places like Toronto, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and the next one in December 2025 will be held for the first time in a warm-weather location: Phoenix! Urbana—even though it is mainly for North Americans—has affinity with Lausanne like relatives or kindred spirits, as both can trace their roots back to the Edinburgh 1910 World Missionary Conference. In fact, L4 used the long-time Urbana emcee, Greg Jao, as their VX emcee, and used the Urbana drama team as the L4 drama team!
I worked on the first “white paper” mentioned above, The Gospel and Mission. Here are some bullet points summarizing what we determined the Gospel to be, based on Scripture:
The basic definition of the Gospel is: God’s good news for the world.
What is the “good news”? It is not simply “Jesus died on the cross for your sins so you can go to heaven.” That is the narrow understanding of the Gospel (it is not untrue) but does not take into account the whole Gospel. So what is the fuller understanding of the Gospel?
Actually, the word “Gospel” (in Greek, euangelion) was originally a pagan word used in the Roman empire to connote the announcement of the birth of a King (namely, Caesar). So, the Gospel is not the individualistic consumeristic “for-me” kind of message as we so often understand it today. After this word was appropriated by Christians in the ancient world, it would have been understood that it is: 1) mostly about Jesus and his coming, and 2) it is for the entire nation/world, not just for our individual selves. We have too often flipped the script today.
The Gospel has a synonym in Scripture: The Kingdom of God (Mark 1:15). This was the #1 thing that Jesus preached on: more than love, more than faith, more than the cross, more than the church, more than anything else. What is the Kingdom of God? Namely, the Lordship of Christ over everything. That is the fuller definition of the Gospel: that Jesus brings his rule and reign (shalom) into all things and everything submits to him and he transforms everything. It is about all of creation, not just anthropocentrism.
The story of the Bible is: 1) creation; 2) fall; 3) redemption; 4) eschaton. The narrow definition of the Gospel only looks at #2 and #3, which is mainly just about us humans. The fuller definition of the Gospel looks at all four and starts and ends with God.
In the Old Testament, the Gospel is first foreshadowed with the Protoevangelium (“first Gospel”) in Gen. 3:15, but when Adam & Eve failed, God turned his attention to Abraham and the Chosen people to carry out the Gospel in Gen. 12:1-3 (cf. Gal. 3:6-8) with the Abrahamic Covenant, that they would be a blessing to all nations/peoples.
In the New Testament, Jesus picks up the Gospel (the first time the word euangelion is used chronologically in Jesus’s life) in Luke 4 with the “Nazareth Manifesto”: a holistic mission of proclamation paired with social justice (helping the poor, freeing the prisoners, giving sight to the blind, and releasing debts and emancipating the slaves with the year of Jubilee). Paul continues defining the Gospel with Rom. 1:1-6, leading from Jesus’s resurrection and extending to the obedience of the nations.
The Gospel is today seen as an outworking of at least three dimensions: not just giving innocence over guilt, but also power over fear (e.g. 2 Tim. 1:7), and honor over shame (e.g. 1 Pet. 2:6-7). In fact, one could argue that there is more of the latter two than the first one in Scripture, as the more primal reactions of Adam & Eve after they sinned were actually fear and shame (look at their actions in Gen. 3:10). And the Majority World (not to mention Gen Z today) responds more to a Gospel which takes away their fear and shame more than their guilt. This 3-D Gospel really addresses people holistically, not just as walking brains or disembodied spirits, which is an unfortunate legacy of Platonic dualism (in the ancient world this was a heresy known as Gnosticism which the biblical authors often take to task).
Proof-texting Rom. 10:9-10 does not make the Gospel simply about proclamation evangelism and soul salvation and imputed righteousness and forensic justification and apologetics. The whole counsel of Scripture is needed as seen above. In fact, if one were to continue reading with Rom. 10:11, it says that the Gospel addresses our shame. And in Matt. 7:21, Jesus makes clear that verbal confession is not enough to save, if the faith does not exhibit follow-through with fruit.
We wrote the three Urbana white papers prior to the Seoul Statement being released. I am gratified to see so much alignment. While the prioritists don’t like the Statement (I personally think the evangelism in it is fine), nor do some of the integral mission folks (could the modern-day issues have been more robust? Perhaps—but they did touch on some of those issues, they were not wholly absent), I am largely satisfied with the Seoul Statement’s understanding of the Gospel (although I wish it were a bit more 3-D rather than 2-D, but at least it’s not 1-D!). It is not beholden to Western lenses of individualism, consumerism, triumphalism, anthropocentrism, or dichotomism. It is expressed in a very biblical manner, as this is all-important. Because how can we do mission if we ourselves do not fully understand what we are preaching? I hope that the Seoul Statement will not be a vilified document in the future. But again, only time will tell. All I know is, Lausanne is keeping the Gospel holistic and for that I am grateful. I think John Stott would be pleased, as his words are still prophetic 50 years on:
“The kind of evangelicalism which concentrates exclusively on saving individual souls is not true evangelicalism. It is not evangelical because it is not biblical. It forgets that God did not create souls but body-souls called human beings, who are also social beings, and that He cares about their bodies and their society as well as about their relationship with Himself and their eternal destiny. So true Christian love will care for people as people, and will seek to serve them, neglecting neither the soul for the body nor the body for the soul.”
Dr. Allen Yeh is Dean and VP of Academic Affairs at International Theological Seminary located near Los Angeles. He earned his B.A. from Yale, M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell, M.Th. from Edinburgh, and D.Phil. from Oxford. Allen has been to over 60 countries on every continent, to study, speak at conferences, do missions work, and experience the culture. He is also the author of Polycentric Missiology: 21st Century Mission from Everyone to Everywhere (IVP, 2016), and co-editor (along with Tite Tienou, former Dean of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) of Majority World Theologies: Theologizing from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Ends of the Earth (William Carey, 2018).
Very well said. Thank you for this good work.
So well-said. THANKS for your thoughtful recap, analysis, and clarity of expression, Allen! Grateful for what you do to synthesize what's going on and disseminate the good word to the rest of us!