NEW LEADER FOR WORLD EVANGELICAL ASSEMBLY :


When I first heard about  Botrus Mansour being the new Secretary General of the World Evangelical Assembly, I wondered where a person with his background would take the WEA mission of “The Gospel for Everyone by 2033.”

The WEA is a global network of Evangelicals, made up of 165 national alliances, millions of congregations, and untold agencies and ministries throughout the world.

What will Mansour have to say to the non-Christian faiths of today?

And I reflected on the direction my own Christian faith has taken me:

Certainly, Jesus came for ALL. If the world could only believe that Jesus’s Gospel message was one of unconditional love for ALL—one that would indeed bring peace, justice and righteousness! I personally believe that Jesus’s ‘ALL’ included those following the non-Christian faith traditions of today as well.

Will it be possible to help faith traditions of all kinds understand and accept this Jesus? What will it take for non-Christian faiths to accept Jesus as He is portrayed in the Gospel? How can the Jesus who Christians believe in be shown to be an example for ALL faiths? How can those who follow Christ persuade non-Christian faiths of Jesus’s unconditional love?

I don’t think it would be hard at all.

But I find it hard to believe that Jesus would tell anyone to abandon the religious faith they have held for generations – faith that is near and dear to them, in the way the Christian faith is near and dear to Christians. Religious faith is a big part of people’s culture. It has made them who they are.

Did Jesus’s message not encourage us to accept and love all, in the way He showed us to accept and have respect for the ‘Samaritan’ in our midst?

Humbly – from a Christian who loves and accepts the Muslim Rohingya refugees of today. A people who have no country of their own. Like Jesus, with nowhere to lay His head (Luke 9:58; Matthew 8:20). Forgotten by the world.

marja