Lausanne World Pulse – WORLD EVANGELISM & MISSIONS REPORTS – A Contribution from the Latin American Evangelical Churches

By Norberto Saracco

“You are part of the same Church,if you follow the Calvary path,if your heart is like mine,

give me your hand and my brother you are.”

For decades the lyrics of this song have been sung by millions of Evangelicals all over Latin America. It has been something like a motto hymn in gatherings and activities where brothers and sisters from different denominations participated. Its ecumenical theology is simple: if you follow the Calvary path, you belong to the same Church that I do; if your heart beats together with mine, you are my brother.

The simplicity of this statement reduces centuries of ecumenical discussions to the minimum. But it has also hidden the reality of our divisions.

Diversity and plurality, those values we rescue from our Protestant inheritance, derived in fragmentation and polarizations. These have been the characteristics of Evangelical churches and, for Pentecostals, almost a sign of spirituality.

Nevertheless, the present is different. In later years, Evangelical churches and especially Pentecostal churches have been the ones who have worked the most in search of the visible unity of the Church. The strengthening of alliances, or of national federations of churches, the formation of pastoral councils in thousands of cities or the shared mission and evangelization projects are merely some examples of this fact. We know that not all contexts are the same and there is still a lot to be done. But not recognizing this truth would not be fair.

For Evangelical churches, unity takes place in faithfulness to the word of God and in mission. This is expressed in The Lausanne Covenant: “We affirm the Church’s visible unity in truth is God’s purpose. Evangelism also summons us to unity, because our oneness strengthens our witness, just as our disunity undermines our gospel of reconciliation.”

For Evangelical churches, unity is not based on the recognition of a hierarchical authority, on dogmas, on theological agreements or in institutional covenants. We have to recognize that this ecumenism path has reached its limit. We know each other more than ever before, we have told each other everything we had to say and we fully understand the roots of our divisions.

What is the next step? The ecumenical agenda will need to stop being tied to the past and has to be open to the ecumenism of the future. In a living and dynamic Church, like that of Latin America, there is an ecumenism of the people of God which says, like the song at the beginning, “If you and I follow the cross, we belong to the same Church. Then, give me your hand; let’s walk together; you are my brother.” I am aware that this ecumenical simplicity may be disturbing, but it has no purpose other than breaking the inertia of a stagnant ecumenism.

Why do we not open up to the reality of millions of Christians who do not understand our divisions? In fact, in the last decades we have witnessed the weakening of confessional structures. There has been a globalization of the religious experience. The lines of authority, faithfulness and spirituality go across the different confessions. We do not ignore the dangers of this new situation, but we also wonder: Is it not, maybe, a blow of the Spirit? Is it not that God is creating something new and we have not been aware?

People ask us: How can you be related to churches like those integrating the World Council of Churches? Thus stated, the question is impossible to answer due to the diversity of Evangelical churches and to the diversity of the churches within the Council.

Dr. J. Norberto Saracco is international deputy director for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, www.lausanne.org. He is also founder and director of Argentina’s International Faculty of Theological Studies and co-founder of the Council of Pastors of Buenos Aires. He serves as pastor at Good News Church in Buenos Aires and is vice-president of the National Council of Evangelical Churches in Argentina.