Large scale evangelising ‘ineffective’

Press, 19 July 1989, Page 10

Large scale evangelising ‘ineffective’

NZPA-AP Manila Large-scale crusades are ineffective in spreading Christianity to members of other large religions. Instead the focus should be on low-profile dialogue, delegates to a world-wide evangelical conference were told yesterday. The call for dialogue was made by the Rev. Martin Alphonse, a Methodist minister from Madras, India, and' Colin Chapman, a lecturer in religion at Trinity University in Bristol, England, in yesterday’s session of the Lausanne II conference. The conference has brought together about 4200 evangelical Christians from more than 160 countries to devise ways to spread the Christian religion world wide by the end of the century. Mr Alphonse told the delegates that they faced a seemingly insurmountable task in reaching 900 million Muslims, 690 million Hindus, 320 million Buddhists and

others by the year 2000. “We are not thinking about organised conventions and evangelistic crusades for thousands of them exclusively in one place,” he said. “Such strategy may not simply work.” Mr Alphonse, who lives in a predominantly Hindu city, said low-profile dialogue “will not be seen as a threat to or an open assault on other faiths.” “By playing a low key, it will still be able to permeate the various spheres of peoples of other faiths in a quiet but firm way.” In his remarks, Mr Chapman said such quiet dialogue paralleled the style of preaching used by Jesus and the apostles when dealing with Jews and members of other religions in the Roman Empire. Mr Chapman said it was important for evangelicals to avoid insulting other faiths even though they may find them erroneous and incomplete.