An Outline of the Development of Evangelical Social Teaching: The Study of the Lausanne Movement’s Core Documents

Piotr Kopiec

doi:10.31261/EaL.2025.13.1.04

Published: 2025-06-30

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2025)

An Outline of the Development of Evangelical Social Teaching: The Study of the Lausanne Movement’s Core Documents

Piotr Kopiec

Section: Part One: Ecumenical Theological Thought

https://doi.org/10.31261/EaL.2025.13.1.04

Abstract

The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelisation (the Lausanne Movement), representing global Evangelicalism, is becoming an increasingly important place for the conceptualisation of Christian social teaching. An analysis of the movement’s four international conferences, held in 1971, 1989, 2010, and 2024, shows a clear development in the scope and significance of systematic social thought within Evangelical theology. It is important because, until recently, Evangelicalism did not develop systematic social teaching, concentrating rather on evangelisation. In answering the question about the reasons for this development, it can be assumed that it is the result of the Christian mission encountering the social, cultural, political, and economic conditions of the places to which it is directed. Evangelical theologians are increasingly mindful that evangelisation also requires solid instruments to shape the social environment. One such instrument is systematic social teaching, which links the Christian mission with the quest for a more just and peaceful society that opposes poverty and exclusion.

The article aims to present the social teaching of the Evangelical Churches as formulated by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelisation, with special emphasis on the four core documents of the movement: the Lausanne Covenant, the Manila Manifesto, the Cape Town Commitment, and the Seoul Statement. Literary analysis is the primary method employed in this article.

Keywords:

Lausanne Committee for World Evangelisation , Lausanne Movement , Evangelicalism , ecumenism , social thought , Christian mission

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