The Frankfurt Declaration

“Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16, RSV).

Amost heartening missionary document has recently come out of Germany. The Frankfurt Declaration addresses itself to the fundamental crisis in Christian missions and on a clear biblical basis calls Christians, churches, and missionary societies back to their God-given task. Dr. Donald McGavran, dean of the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary, describes the background of the declaration and urges American readers to respond:

Dr. Peter Beyerhaus, author with Henry Lefever of The Responsible Church and the Foreign Mission and director of the Institute of the Discipline of Missions and Ecumenical Theology of the University of Tübingen in Germany, has been greatly disturbed at the humanistic turn that World Council of Churches missions have taken. Feeling that the Uppsala statement on missions was no mere surface ripple but signaled a profound change of direction, he wrote Humanisierung—Einzige Hoffnung Der Welt? (“humanization—the only hope of the world?”). As soon as I read it, I wrote Dr. Beyerhaus about publication of the work in English. I also urged him to gather together German theologians of like precious faith and issue a declaration calling Christians and churches to a thoroughly sound and Christian concept of mission. Dr. Beyerhaus replied:

You will be interested to hear that in German churches and missionary societies a deep unrest caused by the present departure from what we believe to be the genuine motives and goals of missions has developed. It is similar to the unrest which led to the appearance of the Wheaton Declaration. I was asked by an association of confession-minded theologians, “The Theological Convention,” to write a first draft for such a declaration. This paper was discussed thoroughly at our meeting on 4 March 1970 in Frankfurt and at the end unanimously accepted after slight revisions. It is now being printed in several German publications, and invitations for signatures have been sent to persons in key positions. Many have already responded positively.

Knowing your vital concern for the upholding of a clear biblical motivation and practice of mission, I am sure you will rejoice in this venture. We have now prepared an English translation which will serve as a basis for deliberations with missionary leaders on an international level. Perhaps American theologians will be interested to join our German adventure.

Among the first signers of the Frankfurt Declaration are:

Professor P. Beyerhaus, Th.D., Tübingen

Professor W. Böld, Th.D., Saarbrücken

Professor H. Engelland, Th.D., Kiel

Professor H. Frey, Th.D., Bethel

Professor J. Heubach, Th.D., Lauenburg

Herr Dr. A. Kimme, Th.D., Leipzig

Professor W. Künneth, Th.D., Ph.D., D.D., Erlangen

Professor O. Michel, Th.D., Tübingen

Professor W. Mundle, Th.D., Marburg

Professor H. Rohrbach, Ph.D., Mainz

Professor G. Stählin, Th.D., Mainz

Professor G. Vicedom, Th.D., D.D., Neuendettelsau

Professor U. Wickert, Th.D., Tübingen

Professor J. W. Winterhager, Th.D., Berlin

Signatures are pouring in to Dr. Beyerhaus. On May 11 he wrote me again, saying, “The declaration has stirred up commotion in the whole German-speaking missionary world. The reaction differs between enthusiastic support and passionate rejection! But the supporters seem to be in the majority.”

The official English translation has just reached me, and I make haste to share it with Christians in North America. Although it arose quite independently, like the Wheaton Declaration (published in The Church’s Worldwide Mission, edited by Harold Lindsell, Word, 1966) it speaks to “a fundamental crisis” in missions. It is a tremendous pronouncement issued to “clarify the true missionary motives and goals of the Church of Jesus Christ.” It rings true to the Bible. It rings true to historic missions. It will cheer all those engaged in world evangelization and confound the enemies of the Gospel.

In Germany most missionary societies are aligned with the World Council of Churches. In the Frankfurt Declaration, the conservative elements in the churches appeal to Geneva to reverse its stand that horizontal reconciliation is the only suitable mission strategy for our day. How far Geneva will yield remains to be seen.

In North America many churches are similarly aligned with the WCC. Indeed, since they are also aligned with the NCC, they are somewhat to the left of Europe’s churches. The Frankfurt Declaration gives the conservative elements in each church (the silent majority?) a chance to appoint someone to receive signatures and to flood denominational headquarters with them, demanding emphasis on vertical reconciliation.

However, in North America many churches and many congregations and hundreds of thousands of individuals are unaligned with the WCC and the NCC. They are already sending abroad more than twenty thousand missionaries through societies holding substantially the position of the Frankfurt Declaration. They may deal with the statement in one of two ways:

1. Watch what happens within the WCC-NCC aligned bodies.

2. Declare themselves in favor of the biblical position taken by these confession-minded German theologians and missiologists. I would like to see every missionary society of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association and the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association plus independent missionary societies by the score promptly signing the declaration and making it known that “this defines our unshakable position on mission. If you want to do this kind of missions, do it through us.”

In view of the multiform nature of the missionary societies of North America—their many denominational affiliations, alliances, shades of theological opinion, sources of income, and types of work—I cannot suggest that readers send signatures to any common address. But those who agree with the statement should joyfully stand up and be counted. This is a time to act, a widespread signing of the Frankfurt Declaration by theologians and missionary-minded Christians is in order. Readers will know where to send signatures—probably to missionary societies or to denominational headquarters. Let each tell his or her missionary society or church that he believes in this kind of mission and will support it.

Let us keep pace with our fellow Christians in Germany. Two months from now, may we, like Professor Beyerhaus, be able to say: “The reaction differs between enthusiastic support and passionate rejection, but the supporters seem to be in the majority.”

Text Of The Declaration

The Church of Jesus Christ has the sacred privilege and irrevocable obligation to participate in the mission of the triune God, a mission which must extend into all the world. Through the Church’s outreach, his name shall be glorified among all people, mankind shall be saved from his future wrath and led to a new life, and the lordship of his son Jesus Christ shall be established in the expectation of his second coming.

This is the way that Christianity has always understood the Great Commission of Christ, though, we must confess, not always with the same degree of fidelity and clarity. The recognition of the task and the total missionary obligation of the Church led to the endeavor to integrate missions into the German Protestant churches and the World Council of Churches, whose Commission and Division of World Mission and Evangelism was established in 1961. It is the goal of this division, by the terms of its constitution, to insure “the proclamation to the whole world of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to the end that all men may believe in him and be saved.” It is our conviction that this definition reflects the basic apostolic concern of the New Testament and restores the understanding of mission held by the fathers of the Protestant missionary movement.

Today, however, organized Christian world missions is shaken by a fundamental crisis. Outer opposition and the weakening spiritual power of our churches and missionary societies are not solely to blame. More dangerous is the displacement of their primary tasks by means of an insidious falsification of their motives and goals.

Deeply concerned because of this inner decay, we feel called upon to make the following declaration.

We address ourselves to all Christians who know themselves through the belief in salvation through Jesus Christ to be responsible for the continuation of his saving work among nonchristian people. We address ourselves further to the leaders of churches and congregations, to whom the worldwide perspective of their spiritual commission has been revealed. We address ourselves finally to all missionary societies and their coordinating agencies, which are especially called, according to their spiritual tradition, to oversee the true goals of missionary activity.

We urgently and sincerely request you to test the following theses on the basis of their biblical foundations, and to determine the accuracy of this description of the current situation with respect to the errors and modes of operation which are increasingly evident in churches, missions, and the ecumenical movement. In the event of your concurrence, we request that you declare this by your signature and join with us in your own sphere of influence, both repentant and resolved to insist upon these guiding principles.

Seven Indispensable Basic Elements Of Mission

1 Full authority in heaven and on earth has been committed to me. Go forth therefore and make all nations my disciples; baptize men everywhere in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. And be assured, I am with you always, to the end of time [Matt. 28:18–20; this Scripture quotation and those that follow are from the New English Bible].

We recognize and declare:

Christian mission discovers its foundation, goals, tasks, and the content of its proclamation solely in the commission of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ and his saving acts as they are reported by the witness of the apostles and early Christianity in the New Testament. Mission is grounded in the nature of the Gospel.

We therefore oppose the current tendency to determine the nature and task of mission by socio-political analyses of our time and from the demands of the nonchristian world. We deny that what the Gospel has to say to people today at the deepest level is not evident before its encounter with them. Rather, according to the apostolic witness, the Gospel is normative and given once for all. The situation of encounter contributes only new aspects in the application of the gospel. The surrender of the Bible as our primary frame of reference leads to the shapelessness of mission and a confusion of the task of mission with a general idea of responsibility for the world.

2 Thus will I prove myself great and holy and make myself known to many nations; they shall know that I am the Lord [Ezek. 38:23].

Therefore, Lord, I will praise thee among the nations and sing psalms to thy name [Ps. 18:49 and Rom. 15:9].

We recognize and declare:

The first and supreme goal of mission is the glorification of the name of the one God throughout the entire world and the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ, his Son.

We therefore oppose the assertion that mission today is no longer so concerned with the disclosure of God as with the manifestation of a new man and the extension of a new humanity into all social realms. Humanization is not the primary goal of mission. It is rather a product of our new birth through God’s saving activity in Christ within us, or an indirect result of the Christian proclamation in its power to perform a leavening activity in the course of world history.

A one-sided outreach of missionary interest toward man and his society leads to atheism.

3 There is no salvation in anyone else at all, for there is no other name under heaven granted to men, by which we may receive salvation [Acts 4:12].

We recognize and declare:

Jesus Christ our Saviour, true God and true man, as the Bible proclaims him in his personal mystery and his saving work, is the basis, content, and authority of our mission. It is the goal of this mission to make known to all people in all walks of life the gift of his salvation.

We therefore challenge all nonchristians, who belong to God on the basis of creation, to believe in him and to be baptized in his name, for in him alone is eternal salvation promised to them.

We therefore oppose the false teaching (which is circulated in the ecumenical movement since the Third General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi) that Christ himself is anonymously so evident in world religions, historical changes, and revolutions that man can encounter him and find salvation in him without the direct news of the Gospel.

We likewise reject the unbiblical limitation of the person and work of Jesus to his humanity and ethical example. In such an idea the uniqueness of Christ and the Gospel is abandoned in favor of a humanitarian principle which others might also find in other religions and ideologies.

4 God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, that everyone who has faith in him may not die but have eternal life [John 3:16].

In Christ’s name, we implore you, be reconciled to God [2 Cor 5:20].

We recognize and declare:

Mission is the witness and presentation of eternal salvation performed in the name of Jesus Christ by his church and fully authorized messengers by means of preaching, the sacraments, and service. This salvation is due to the sacrificial crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which occurred once for all and for all mankind.

The appropriation of this salvation to individuals takes place first, however, through proclamation, which calls for decision, and through baptism, which places the believer in the service of love. Just as belief leads through repentance and baptism to eternal life, so unbelief leads through its rejection of the offer of salvation to damnation.

We therefore oppose the universalistic idea that in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ all men of all times are already born again and already have peace with him, irrespective of their knowledge of the historical saving activity of God or belief in it. Through such a misconception the evangelizing commission loses both its full, authoritative power and its urgency. Unconverted men are thereby lulled into a fateful sense of security about their eternal destiny.

5 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, and a people claimed by God for his own, to proclaim the triumphs of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light [1 Pet. 2:9].

Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world [Rom. 12:2].

We recognize and declare:

The primary visible task of mission is to call out the messianic, saved community from among all people.

Missionary proclamation should lead everywhere to the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ, which exhibits a new, defined reality as salt and light in its social environment.

Through the Gospel and the sacraments, the Holy Spirit gives the members of the congregation a new life and an eternal, spiritual fellowship with each other and with God, who is real and present with them. It is the task of the congregation through its witness to move the lost—especially those who live outside its community—to a saving membership in the body of Christ. Only by being this new kind of fellowship does the Church present the Gospel convincingly.

We therefore oppose the view that the Church, as the fellowship of Jesus, is simply a part of the world. The contrast between the Church and the world is not merely a distinction in function and in knowledge of salvation; rather, it is an essential difference in nature. We deny that the Church has no advantage over the world except the knowledge of the alleged future salvation of all men.

We further oppose the one-sided emphasis on salvation which stresses only this world, according to which the Church and the world together share in a future, purely social, reconciliation of all mankind. That would lead to the self-dissolution of the Church.

6 Remember then your former condition: … you were at that time separate from Christ, strangers to the community of Israel, outside God’s covenants and the promise that goes with them. Your world was a world without hope and without God [Eph. 2:11, 12].

We recognize and declare:

The offer of salvation in Christ is directed without exception to all men who are not yet bound to him in conscious faith. The adherents to the nonchristian religions and world views can receive this salvation only through participation in faith. They must let themselves be freed from their former ties and false hopes in order to be admitted by belief and baptism into the body of Christ. Israel, too, will find salvation in turning to Jesus Christ.

We therefore reject the false teaching that the nonchristian religions and world views are also ways of salvation similar to belief in Christ.

We refute the idea that “Christian presence” among the adherents to the world religions and a give-and-take dialogue with them are substitutes for a proclamation of the Gospel which aims at conversion. Such dialogues simply establish good points of contact for missionary communication.

We also refute the claim that the borrowing of Christian ideas, hopes, and social procedures—even if they are separated from their exclusive relationship to the person of Jesus—can make the world religion and ideologies substitutes for the Church of Jesus Christ. In reality they give them a syncretistic and therefore antichristian direction.

7 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the earth as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come [Matt. 24:14].

We recognize and declare:

The Christian world mission is the decisive, continuous saving activity of God among men between the time of the resurrection and second coming of Jesus Christ. Through the proclamation of the Gospel, new nations and people will progressively be called to decision for or against Christ.

When all people have heard the witness about him and have given their answer to it, the conflict between the Church of Jesus and the world, led by the Antichrist, will reach its climax. Then Christ himself will return and break into time, disarming the demonic power of Satan and establishing his own visible, boundless messianic kingdom.

We refute the unfounded idea that the eschatological expectation of the New Testament has been falsified by Christ’s delay in returning and is therefore to be given up.

We refute at the same time the enthusiastic and utopian ideology that either under the influence of the Gospel or by the anonymous working of Christ in history, all of mankind is already moving toward a position of general peace and justice and will finally—before the return of Christ—be united under him in a great world fellowship.

We refute the identification of messianic salvation with progress, development, and social change. The fatal consequence of this is that efforts to aid development and revolutionary involvement in the places of tension in society are seen as the contemporary forms of Christian mission. But such an identification would be a self-deliverance to the utopian movements of our time in the direction of their ultimate destination.

We do, however, affirm the determined advocacy of justice and peace by all churches, and we affirm that “assistance in development” is a timely realization of the divine demand for mercy and justice as well as of the command of Jesus: “Love thy neighbor.”

We see therein an important accompaniment and verification of mission. We also affirm the humanizing results of conversion as signs of the coming messianic peace.

We stress, however, that unlike the eternally valid reconciliation with God through faith in the Gospel, all of our social achievements and partial successes in politics are bound by the eschatological “not yet” of the coming kingdom and the not yet annihilated power of sin, death, and the devil, who still is the “prince of this world.”

This establishes the priorities of our missionary service and causes us to extend ourselves in the expectation of Him who promises, “Behold! I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5, RSV).

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