Lausanne Global Analysis 10, 2 (March 2021)

The latest issue of Lausanne Global Analysis, from The Lausanne Movement, is available online from here, including pdfs of individual articles as below.

Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson

Is Christianity Shrinking or Shifting?

Since November 2012 when our first LGA issue was published, Christianity has become even more truly global. The center of the church has shifted from the North to the South, and there’s a growing influence of non-western Christianity. Todd Johnson and Gina Zurlo, editors of the World Christian Encyclopedia, 3^rd edition, have written about what a truly global Christian family means in our first article, ‘Is Christianity Shrinking or Shifting?’

Steve Sang-Cheol Moon

Reaching Generation Z with the Gospel

There’s another demographic trend in recent years, and this is the rise of Generation Z. This is the youngest – and perhaps final – generation in our world to have distinctive characteristics. But who are the Gen Z-ers – and how can they be reached with the gospel? Steve Moon, Founder and CEO of Charis Institute for Intercultural Studies, suggests three concrete steps to help us progress from knowledge to action in his article, ‘Reaching Generation Z with the Gospel’.

CJ Davison & Richard Coleman

Racism and the Great Commission

Our next article, ‘Racism and the Great Commission’, is part one of two articles from the Lausanne YLGen Empower team. This article brings together a wide range of voices from across the world on the globally pressing topic of racism, and especially how it relates to the Great Commission.

Jenny James Taylor

The Holy Responsibility of Journalism

Unconscious biases, whether generational, racial, or vocational, impact the practice of journalism. But as a Christian journalist, Jenny Taylor uncovers the roots of journalism in the Christian values of freedom, justice, and truth in her article, ‘The Holy Responsibility of Journalism’. What would it look like to restore journalism ‘as a sacrament of all that we value’?

Dave Deuel

A Workplace for Mephibosheth

The final article in this 50^th issue of LGA is by Dave Deuel, Lausanne Catalyst for Disability Concerns and Academic Dean Emeritus for The Master’s Academy International. In ‘A Workplace for Mephibosheth’, he shows how only a small fraction of persons with disabilities globally are employed. How can we transform workplace culture – and the world – by employing those with disabilities?

Collin Hansen on the Challenge of Christian Journalism

Having posted a piece last week on journalism, I thought I’d link to this short piece by Collin Hansen on ‘The Challenge of Christian Journalism’.

Here’s how he concludes:

‘Journalists that would serve the church will fulfill a catechetical calling. We are teachers who help other Christians understand a world created by God but corrupted by sin. Our investigative work reflects the biblical reality that we live in the “not yet” of the coming kingdom, a time when our “adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). We expose the sin that imperils believers so that they might be prepared to defend themselves in the power of the Holy Spirit.

‘Yet, we also live in the “already” time, when the Father is working in glorious ways to spread the saving knowledge of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is good news, and journalists have been called to tell it. With a little help from preachers, we just might be able to encourage the church with a new, more edifying approach to media.’

Don’t Stop the Press

[I contributed this week’s ‘Connecting with Culture’ from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. There were a number of possible topics to write about this week, including the London mayoral and local elections, and the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, but I opted to reflect on World Press Freedom Day.]

World Press Freedom Day, observed annually on 3 May, was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1993. It provides an opportunity to celebrate the principle of press freedom, draw attention to those areas of the world where such freedom continues to be repressed, and pay tribute to journalists who have faced harassment, imprisonment, or even death to bring news to the global public.

Proceedings surrounding this year’s World Press Freedom Day are considering the power of media freedom to ‘transform societies’. That might sound somewhat grandiose were it not for recent events in North Africa and the Middle East. News of the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, a vegetable peddler in Tunisia – following the confiscation of his cart by the authorities – went viral through a convergence of mobile technology, social media and satellite TV, lighting the touch paper of unrest, arguably giving birth to what became known as the Arab Spring.

Back in the UK, somewhat ironically, the Leveson Inquiry into ‘the culture, practice and ethics of the press’ rumbles on. The full report is still to come, but the process has already reminded us that freedom can be abused, that there is a line between careful investigative journalism and callous invasion of privacy. Perhaps we have also seen something of our own complicity in sustaining a culture which expects access to news of the scandals and tragedies of others.

At the same time, it would be unhelpful if the Leveson Inquiry demonised journalists and discredited their profession. Those whose understanding of the world is nurtured by Scripture know that journalism (like sex, money and politics) is not inherently evil in itself, but can directed in beneficial ways and misdirected in harmful ways. And those whose lives are shaped by the good news of God’s work of restoration begun in Christ can be confident that in this arena (as with sex, money and politics), redemption is possible.

Indeed, signs of God’s grace can be seen in every instance of truth-telling, of professional integrity, of communicative skill, of honest reporting which treats people with dignity and serves the welfare of others. And we can pray for and support those who work hard to do this, often in difficult circumstances, confident that in God’s grand design ‘there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open’ (Luke 8:17).

Links

UNESCO, World Press Freedom Day 2012.

The Leveson Inquiry.

Christians in Journalism.

The Church and Media Network.

David Aikman, ‘Three Callings of a Christian in Journalism’ (2002).

Arne H. Fjeldstad, ‘Challenges and Opportunities for Christians in Journalism’.