Lausanne apologizes for speaker’s comments on Israel, dispensational eschatology
INCHEON, South Korea — The Lausanne Congress apologized Wednesday to the many delegates who were offended by a speaker’s comments rebuking dispensational eschatology and her claim that Israel was holding hostages.
Ruth Padilla DeBorst, an associate professor at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, stirred controversy on the second night of the Fourth Lausanne Global Congress on World Evangelism when she said both Hamas terrorists and Israel were holding hostages.
“There's no room for indifference towards all who are suffering the scourge of war and violence. The world around the uprooted and beleaguered people of Gaza, the hostages held by both Israel and Hamas and their families, the threatened Palestinians in their own territories,” she said near the end of her 16-minute speech to the dismay of some delegates.
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The statement at the global Evangelical gathering comes just days before the first anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in Israel in which nearly 1,200 people were tortured and killed, including some 40 Americans, and over 254 others were taken hostage, many also raped or tortured.
Padilla DeBorst’s comments were viewed by some of the 5,000 delegates in attendance as inappropriate for a non-political event intent on fostering unity among Evangelicals, especially amid escalations between Hezbollah and Israel, and other conflicts worldwide.
In an emailed statement to delegates at Lausanne 4 Wednesday, Congress Director David Bennett apologized to all who were offended by the speech that rebuked dispensational eschatology and equated Israel’s actions with the atrocities committed by Hamas militants.
In the statement, which can be read in its entirety at the end of this article, Bennette said in part:
The speakers we invite to share in our gatherings come from a variety of perspectives. They will sometimes disagree with one another, even though they each affirm the foundational documents. They do not necessarily represent an ‘official’ Lausanne position in their statements.
We ask speakers to submit scripts in advance, for the sake of clearer expression, realistic planning for timing, to help presenters to interact with one another in advance, and to aid in interpretation into other languages. But sometimes we have failed to review carefully enough in advance the precise wording or tone used by a presenter …
As Congress director, I would like to offer an apology for a presentation this week which singled out ‘dispensational eschatology’ in a critical tone, implying that it contributed to violence and injustice, and which failed to note that many theologies have been misused and misapplied as justifications for violence. That same presentation referred to the suffering of the Palestinian people, but did not express comparable empathy for the suffering of Israeli people, nor adequately express concern for many other peoples and nations of the world that are currently in the throes of violent conflict.
Padilla DeBorst released her own public statement Wednesday afternoon, suggesting that “Perhaps, I should never have accepted the invitation!” due to the time constraints.
In her thorough response to the backlash to her speech, Padilla DeBorst apologized for offending some delegates with her comments on dispensational eschatology and explained that it would be impossible to address every issue of injustice globally in a 15-minute speech.
“There are so many expressions of injustice in our world, how could anyone thoroughly and responsibly tackle such a deep and broad ranging theme and the complicated scenarios related to it from a biblical and theological standpoint in only 15 minutes?” she wrote in part.
Addressing her comment that “colonialist theologies […] justify and finance oppression under the guise of some dispensational eschatology,” she sought to clarify that it was “not in any way a blanket dismissal of dispensational theology and, even less, of sisters and brothers who suscribe (sic) to that stance. For the pain my statement might have caused, I am sorry. What I am naming is the troubling theological rationale sustained by some people to perpetrate injustice against certain other people.”
While she did not specifically address the “hostages held by both Israel and Hamas” comment, she explained why she focused on the plight of those living in Gaza.
“I am convinced that this is a current justice issue in relation to which we, as Christians, have a particular responsibility. Let me explain. Truly, the Hamas attack almost a year ago was abhorrent and absolutely reprehensible, and truly people who live in Israel, Jewish, Palestinian and others are being threatened as I write. Their pain is our pain. At the same time, the long standing suffering of Palestinians has been compounded by the attacks on Gaza since October 7 where over 40,000 people have been killed, many of them, children. Additionally, settler attacks have only increased in the West Bank."
She added, “However, far too many evangelicals around the world a-critically “stand with Israel,” and remain oblivious to the suffering Palestinians.”
Some delegates expressed concerns that the apology itself might have been short-sighted as the point of Lausanne is to agree on the fundamentals and allow differences of opinion in other areas.
Read Padilla DeBorst’s statement in full at the end of this article.
In an emailed statement to Christian Daily International on Wednesday, Tim Adams, general secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, said, “In my view, this apology was totally against the ethos of Lausanne.”
“Within the agreed theological framework of previous Lausanne statements, Lausanne has been a place which brings people together to overcome barriers and unite to serve the Great Commission,” he said, adding: “My fear is this apology will do more to divide than to unite.”
Though he didn’t address specific details in Padilla DeBorst’s speech, Adams said, “Lausanne is a place for grown-up Christians who can handle robust debate with fellow Evangelical believers without throwing their toys out of the pram.”
At a Tuesday afternoon press briefing, a spokesman for Lausanne addressed the concerns raised by delegates. He said that while the professor’s comments were an “unfortunate use of words” from the organization’s perspective, it has led to delegates seeking to have a broader conversation on such issues.
“[L]ast night opens a conversation. The speaker was invited to speak, and she spoke, and indeed, we've heard it. And now there's a conversation happening, which is very much in the nature of what Lausanne does: it brings people together and it starts conversations. But the words that we used are indeed unfortunate in that case,” the spokesman said.
One element of concern was that Padilla DeBorst’s comments were not necessarily unexpected, as she had given Lausanne a script of her planned talking points that included her comment about Israel holding hostages.
The spokesman explained, however, that while Lausanne obtained copies of speakers’ scripts beforehand and there was a review and feedback process, it was “not at a fine-tooth comb level.”
“[D]id we have the wording of her talk in advance? We did,” the spokesman added.
“[T]he scripts were received, they have been reviewed, but simply we don't analyze every single word that can be said, and we're more looking for their main talking points and the way in which they are seeking to engage their opportunity at the Congress,” he said.
He reiterated that, in Lausanne’s view, Padilla DeBorst’s words were “unfortunate” and emphasized that each speaker “is coming to the stage with their perspective, with their voice, with the context and framing that they have and the lens through which they see the world.”
Likewise, the words each speaker chooses to use “may not be the words that we, as a broader movement, may have chosen to use. But still, they have the voice and the platform,” he continued, noting that Lausanne has no “official position” on such matters. Nor does the organization plan to address the “technicalities of specific words” and distinctions between hostages, prisoners of war and a prisoner being held against their will, he added.
Padilla DeBorst was among three evening plenary speakers at the Fourth Lausanne Global Congress on World Evangelism on Monday who spoke on the topic of “Lessons from the global church: Recommitment — Calling the Global Church Toward Faithfulness in Word and Deed,” alongside professor Katherine Hayhoe and the Rev. Vaughan Roberts.
During her talk, Padilla DeBorst compared the injustices at the time of the prophet Micah in Judea to those seen in the modern world, specifically looking at wealth inequality, racism, gender inequality, environmental injustice and climate “weirding,” and global powers profiting off wars. She also rebuked what she described as “colonialist theologies that justify and finance oppression under the guise of some dispensational eschatology.”
Micah’s admonishments, she said, “are as applicable today as they were in [his] and Jesus’ times.
“Now, the farming people of Judea in Micah's days were suffering not only the anxiety of the impending invasion of enemy military forces, but especially the oppression of corrupt governing elites. They were being forced to pay taxes and leave their fields to build cities for the wealthy few. Their lands were being expropriated to feed the greed of the rich,” added Padilla DeBorst, who also serves on the networking team of International Fellowship for Mission as Transformation.
She continued: “While they were forcibly displaced, their young men were being recruited for the army and their young women were being taken as sex slaves for the royal court. What made matters worse was that these injustices were being masqueraded by religiosity. Religious practices, rights and sacrifices were covering up social corruption. False prophets were deaf to the cries of the people, while priests cozied up to the wealthy and blessed the weapons of oppression. Does any of this sound familiar, if we like it or not?”
According to Padilla DeBorst, an “honest look at our world today reveals many of the same injustices, blatant gaps that do not reflect God's intent for the world."
“One overarching justice gap that dishonors God is wealth inequality. God created a world of abundance, capable of sustaining the flourishing of life of the entire created order. However, the richest 1 percent of our planet owns half the riches of the entire world,” she added.
As examples, she lamented the disparity in income between the wealthy few and billions who live in poverty, and said waste from wealthy regions of the world is being “dumped” in the global South.
“While the wealth of the world's five richest men has more than doubled since 2020, nearly 5 billion people have been made poorer,” said Padilla DeBorst, who also contributes to the boards of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and the American Society of Missiology.
Poverty, she said, “is the most visible face of injustice,” citing a claim that, in the U.S., “white families have eight times more of the wealth of black families and five times more wealth than Hispanic families.”
Padilla DeBorst also lamented the so-called gender pay gap and limitations placed on women globally, even among Christian communities, ministries and churches where women are denied positions of authority and the full use of their God-given spiritual gifts.
Women, she said, “are far more likely to be victims of sexual harassment or downright abuse in Christian communities.”
“Although women compose the greater number of active members, men overwhelmingly hold the leadership positions. While women are restricted in the use of the gifts the Spirit has granted them solely because we are women.”
Citing Deuteronomy 10, Padilla DeBorst said, “There is no room in this picture for silence when fellow human beings are being robbed of home, land, livelihood, or life itself, not in the Judea of Micah's day, not anywhere.”
She then called on followers of Jesus Christ to “Unmask religious oppression” and to rid themselves of “self-sufficient pride” and the “idolatries that sit at the root of injustice.”
Read the full statement from Lausanne Congress Director David Bennett below:
Dear friends
The Lausanne Movement is a diverse community. Although we share a common biblical and theological foundation in our affirmation of the Lausanne Covenant, the Manila Manifesto and the Cape Town Commitment, we include people from a great variety of cultural, theological, historical and political perspectives. We seek to create space where robust discussions, both theological and strategic, can take place, in pursuit of greater wisdom in the advancement of global mission, and in fulfilment of Jesus’ command to make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey everything he commanded.
The speakers we invite to share in our gatherings come from a variety of perspectives. They will sometimes disagree with one another, even though they each affirm the foundational documents. They do not necessarily represent an ‘official’ Lausanne position in their statements. But we seek to be gracious and respectful listeners in our interactions with one another, in the spirit of Lausanne.
We ask speakers to submit scripts in advance, for the sake of clearer expression, realistic planning for timing, to help presenters to interact with one another in advance, and to aid in interpretation into other languages. But sometimes we have failed to review carefully enough in advance the precise wording or tone used by a presenter, or to anticipate how their words may be received by the diversity of the audience they are addressing.
As Congress Director, I would like to offer an apology for a presentation this week which singled out ‘dispensational eschatology’ in a critical tone, implying that it contributed to violence and injustice, and which failed to note that many theologies have been misused and misapplied as justifications for violence. That same presentation referred to the suffering of the Palestinian people, but did not express comparable empathy for the suffering of Israeli people, nor adequately express concern for many other peoples and nations of the world that are currently in the throes of violent conflict.
We have become aware of significant pain and offense experienced at this Congress from those in dispensational theological contexts, those who are Jews, and those engaged in ministries to Jews and/or in Israel. Our Lausanne team, including me, failed to review the wording of the presentation carefully enough in advance, or to anticipate the hurts and misunderstandings it would cause.
As your brother in Christ, and on behalf of our Lausanne leadership, I ask for your forgiveness.
Kind regards,
David Bennett
Congress Director
Ruth Padilla Padilla DeBorst released an open letter in response to Lausanne’s apology. Read her full statement below:
An open letter to L4
September 25
The Lausanne Program Team asked me to talk in Seoul about a theme that is central to God’s character, to the Good News, and to the calling of God’s people in the world. I was given 15 minutes to speak about justice. Perhaps, I should never have accepted the invitation! There are so many expressions of injustice in our world, how could anyone thoroughly and responsibly tackle such a deep and broad ranging theme and the complicated scenarios related to it from a biblical and theological standpoint in only 15 minutes?
In light of concerns raised, I am here ratifying a few points and clarifying two others. Seeking justice is a marker of God’s people and this requires mourning the pain, naming wrongs, repenting for our complicity, and acting in accordance with God’s character through the work of the Holy Spirit.
God hears the cries of all who suffer injustice. And echoing with God’s compassionate heart, we weep with the poor and marginalized. We weep with the victims of racism, discrimination and abuse of all sorts. We weep with the millions displaced by climate change. We weep with the earth itself and with the disappearing species. We weep with all who suffer war the world round. Their pain is our pain.
We are sent into the world in all its messiness as Jesus was. We do not shy away from reality in spite of its complexity. Instead, we name what we see, recognizing that our perspective is marked by our experience and context, that others have different views, that we can only gain a fuller picture by listening humbly to one another and that, at the same time, we are to actively seek justice, echoing with God’s heart to make all things right.
In that vein, in my talk on justice I stated that
what makes God’s people such are not superficial expressions of religious piety, ‘Christianese’ jargon, worship jingles, or colonialist theologies that justify and finance oppression under the guise of some dispensational eschatology.
This is not in any way a blanket dismissal of dispensational theology and, even less, of sisters and brothers who suscribe (sic) to that stance. For the pain my statement might have caused, I am sorry. What I am naming is the troubling theological rationale sustained by some people to perpetrate injustice against certain other people.
A second clarification has to do with the following statement.
There is no room for indifference toward all who are suffering the scourge of war and violence the world round, the uprooted and beleaguered people of Gaza, the hostages held by both Israel and Hamas and their families, the threatened Palestinians in their own territories, all who are mourning the loss of loved ones. Their pain is our pain if we are God’s people.
Although I did refer to “all who are suffering” and “all who are mourning,” the world round, why would I zero in on Gaza and Palestinians? Why explicitly name only them? I am convinced that this is a current justice issue in relation to which we, as Christians, have a particular responsibility. Let me explain. Truly, the Hamas attack almost a year ago was abhorrent and absolutely reprehensible, and truly people who live in Israel, Jewish, Palestinian and others are being threatened as I write. Their pain is our pain. At the same time, the long standing suffering of Palestinians has been compounded by the attacks on Gaza since October 7 where over 40,000 people have been killed, many of them, children. Additionally, settler attacks have only increased in the West Bank. Their pain is our pain—or it should be. However, far too many evangelicals around the world a-critically “stand with Israel,” and remain oblivious to the suffering Palestinians. This injustice must be named.
It is my prayer that, as the Reverend Dr Anne Zaki so clearly challenged us, we might courageously raise our voices and not be silenced and that we might humbly engage in respectful conversation in the midst of our differences so that, together, we might declare and display Christ in a broken world.
