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Chapter 51 339

The New Macedonia:A Revolutionary New Era in Mission Begins

Ralph D. Winter

I

Donald McGavran commented, “At the International Congresson World Evangelization, Dr. Ralph Winter proved beyond anyreasonable doubt that in the world today 2,700,000,000 men andwomen cannot hear the gospel by ‘near neighbor evangelism.’ Theycan hear it only by E-2 and E-3 evangelists who cross cultural,linguistic and geographical barriers, patiently learn that other cul-ture and language, across the decades preach the gospel by wordand deed, and multiply reproductive and responsible Christianchurches.” The following article is the text of this address, given atthe July 1974 Lausanne Congress. McGavran added, “Nothing saidat Lausanne had more meaning for the expansion of Christianitybetween now and the year 2000.”

n recent years, a serious misunderstanding has crept intothe thinking of many evangelicals. Curiously, it is basedon a number of wonderful facts: the gospel has now

gone to the ends of the earth. Christians have now fulfilledthe Great Commission in at least a geographical sense. Atthis moment of history we can acknowledge with great re-spect and pride those evangelists of every nation who havegone before us and whose sacrificial efforts and heroic ac-complishments have made Christianity by far the world’slargest and most widespread religion, with a Christianchurch on every continent and in practically every country.This is no hollow victory. Now more than at any time sinceJesus walked the shores of Galilee, we know with completeconfidence that the gospel is for all men, that it makes sensein any language and that it is not merely a religion of theMediterranean or of the West.

This is all true. On the other hand, many Christians as aresult have the impression that the job is now nearly doneand that to finish it we need only to forge ahead in localevangelism on the part of the now worldwide churchreaching out wherever it has already been planted. ManyChristian organizations ranging widely from the WorldCouncil of Churches to many U.S. denominations, evensome evangelical groups, have rushed to the conclusionthat we may now abandon traditional missionary strategyand count on local Christians everywhere to finish the job.

After serving ten

years as a mis-

sionary among

Mayan Indians

in the highlands

of Guatemala, Ralph D. Winter was

called to be a Professor of Missions

at the School of World Mission at

Fuller Theological Seminary. Ten

years later he and his wife, Roberta,

founded a mission society called

the Frontier Mission Fellowship

(FMF) in Pasadena, California. This

in turn spawned the U.S. Center for

World Mission and the William

Carey International University,

both of which serve other missions

working at the frontiers of mission.

He is the General Director of the

Frontier Mission Fellowship. See

expanded biographical sketch at

the end of the book.

Chapter 51 THE NEW MACEDONIA341

This is why evangelism is the one greatpassword to evangelical unity today. Not ev-eryone can agree on foreign mission strate-gies, but more people than ever agree onevangelism because that seems to be the oneobvious job that remains to be done. Allright! There is nothing wrong with evange-lism. Most conversions must inevitably takeplace as the result of some Christian witness-ing to a near neighbor and that is evangelism.

The awesome problem is the additional truththat most non-Christians in the world today arenot culturally near neighbors of any Christiansand that it will take a special kind of “cross-cul-tural” evangelism to reach them.

CROSS-CULTURAL EVANGELISM:

THE CRUCIAL NEED

Examples of the NeedLet us approach this subject with somegraphic illustrations. I am thinking, for ex-ample, of the hundreds of thousands ofChristians in Pakistan. Almost all of them arepeople who have never been Muslims and donot have the kind of relationship with theMuslim community that encourages witness-ing. Yet they live in a country that is 97 percent Muslim! The Muslims, on their part,have bad attitudes toward the stratum of so-ciety represented by the Christians. Onegroup of Christians has boldly called itselfThe Church of Pakistan. Another group ofChristians goes by the name The PresbyterianChurch of Pakistan. While these are “national”churches in the sense that they are part oftheir countries, they can hardly be called na-tional churches if this phrase implies thatthey are culturally related to that vast bloc ofpeople who constitute the other 97 per cent ofthe country, namely, the Muslims. Thus, al-though the Muslims are geographically nearneighbors of these Christians they are not cul-tural near-neighbors and thus normal evange-lism will not do the job.

Or take the Church of South India, a largechurch which has brought together the sig-nificant missionary efforts of many churchesover the last century. But while it is called TheChurch of South India, 95 per cent of its mem-bers come from only five out of the more

than 100 social classes (castes) in South India.Ordinary evangelism on the part of existingChristians will readily persuade men andwomen of those same five social classes.However, it would be much more difficult—it is in fact another kind of evangelism—for thischurch to make great gains within the 95other social classes which make up the vastbulk of the population.

Or take the great Batak church in North-ern Sumatra. Here is one of the famouschurches of Indonesia. Its members havebeen doing a great deal of evangelismamong fellow Bataks of whom there are stillmany thousands whom they can reach with-out learning a foreign language, and amongwhom they can work with the maximum ef-ficiency of direct contact and understanding.But at the same time, the vast majority of allthe people in Indonesia speak other lan-guages and are of other ethnic units. For theBatak Christians of Northern Sumatra towin people to Christ from other parts of In-donesia will be a distinctly different kind oftask. It is another kind of evangelism.

Or take the great church of Nagaland inNortheast India. Years ago, American mis-sionaries from the plains of Assam reached upinto the Naga hills and won some of the AoNagas. Then these Ao Nagas won practicallytheir whole tribe to Christ. Next thing, AoNagas won members of the nearby SantdamNaga tribe that spoke a sister language. Thesenew Santdam Naga Christians then pro-ceeded to win almost the whole of their tribe.This process went on until the majority of allfourteen Naga tribes became Christian. Nowthat most of Nagaland is Christian—even theofficials of the state government are Chris-tian—there is the desire to witness elsewherein India. But for these Nagaland Christians towin other people in India is as much a foreignmission task as it is for Englishmen, Koreansor Brazilians to evangelize in India. This isone reason why it is such a new and unprec-edented task for the Nagas to evangelize therest of India. Indian citizenship is one advan-tage the Naga Christians have as compared topeople from other countries, but citizenshipdoes not make it easier for them to learn anyof the hundreds of totally foreign languagesin the rest of India.

RALPH D. WINTER 341

In Japan, as in

India, social

differences

often turn out

to be more

important in

evangelism than

language

differences.

In other words, for Nagas to evangelizeother peoples in India, they will need to em-ploy a radically different kind of evangelism.The easiest kind of evangelism, when theyused their own language to win their ownpeople, is now mainly in the past. The secondkind of evangelism was not a great deal moredifficult—where they won people of neigh-boring Naga tribes, whose languages weresister languages. The third kind of evange-lism, needed to win people in far-off parts ofIndia, will be much more difficult.

Different Kinds of EvangelismLet’s give labels to these different kinds ofevangelism. Where an Ao Naga won anotherAo, let us call that E-1 evangelism. Where anAo went across a tribal language boundary toa sister language and won the Santdam, we’llcall it E-2 evangelism. (the E-2 task is not aseasy and requires different techniques.) Butthen if an Ao Naga goes to another region ofIndia, to a totally strange language, for ex-ample, Telegu, Korhu or Bhili, his task will beconsiderably more difficult than E-l or evenE-2 evangelism. We will call it E-3 evangelism.

Let us try out this terminology in anothercountry. Take Taiwan. There, also, there aredifferent kinds of people. The majority areMinnans, who were there before a flood ofMandarin-speaking people came across fromthe mainland. Then there is the huge bloc ofHakka-speaking people who came from themainland much earlier. Up in the mountains,however, a few hundred thousand aboriginalpeoples speak Malayo-Polynesian dialectsentirely different from Chinese. Now if aMainlander Chinese Christian wins othersfrom the mainland, that’s E-l evangelism. Ifhe wins a Minnan Taiwanese or a Hakka,that’s E-2 evangelism. If he wins someonefrom the hill tribes, that’s E-3 evangelism,and remember, E-3 is a much more complextask, performed at a greater cultural distance.

Thus far we have only referred to lan-guage differences, but for the purpose of de-fining evangelistic strategy, any kind of ob-stacle, any kind of communication barrieraffecting evangelism is significant. In Japanfor example, practically everybody speaksJapanese, and there aren’t radically differentdialects of Japanese comparable to the differ-

ent dialects of Chinese. But there are socialdifferences which make it very difficult forpeople from one group to win others of a dif-ferent social class. In Japan, as in India, socialdifferences often turn out to be more impor-tant in evangelism than language differ-ences. Japanese Christians thus have notonly an E-l sphere of contact, but also E-2spheres that are harder to reach. Missionariesgoing from Japan to other parts of the worldto work with non-Japanese with totally dif-ferent languages are doing an evangelistictask on the E-3 basis.

Lastly, let me give an example from myown experience. I speak English as a nativelanguage. For ten years, I lived and workedin Central America, for most of the time inGuatemala, where Spanish is the official lan-guage, but where a majority of the peoplespeak some dialect of the Mayan family ofaboriginal languages. I had two languages tolearn. Spanish has a60 per cent overlapin vocabulary withEnglish, so I had notrouble learning thatlanguage. Alongwith the learning ofSpanish, I becamefamiliar with the ex-tension of Europeanculture into the NewWorld, and it wasnot particularly dif-ficult to understandthe lifeways of thekind of people whospoke Spanish. However, because Spanishwas so easy by comparison, learning theMayan language in our area was, I found,enormously more difficult. In our daily work,switching from English to Spanish to aMayan language made me quite aware of thethree different “cultural distances.” When Ispoke of Christ to a Peace Corpsman in En-glish, I was doing E-l evangelism. When Ispoke to a Guatemalan in Spanish, it was E-2evangelism. When I spoke to an Indian in theMayan language, it was the much more diffi-cult E-3 evangelism.

Now where I live in Southern California,most of my contacts are in the E-1 sphere,


but if I evangelize among the million whospeak Spanish, I must use E-2 evangelism.Were I to learn the Navajo language andspeak of Christ to some of the 30,000 NavajoIndians who live in Los Angeles, I would bedoing E-3 evangelism. Reaching Cantonese-speaking refugees from Hong Kong with theGood News of Christ would also be, for me,an E-3 task. Note, however, that what for meis E-3 could be only E-2 for someone else.American-born Chinese, who have signifi-cant exposure to the Cantonese-speakingsubculture, would find Hong Kong refugeesonly an E-2 task.

Everyone who is here in this Congress hashis own E-l sphere in which he speaks hisown language and builds on all the intuitionwhich derives from his experience within hisown culture. Then perhaps for almost all ofus there is an E-2 sphere—groups of peoplewho speak languages that are a little differ-ent, or who are involved in culture patternssufficiently in contrast with our own as tomake communication more difficult. Suchpeople can be reached with a little extratrouble and with sincere attempts, but it willtake us out of our way to reach them. Moreimportant, they are people who, once con-verted, will not feel at home in the churchwhich we attend. In fact, they may growfaster spiritually if they can find Christianfellowship among people of their own kind.More significant to evangelism, it is quitepossible that with their own fellowship, theyare more likely to win others of their own so-cial grouping. Finally, each of us here inLausanne has an E-3 sphere: Most languagesand cultures of the world are totally strangeto us; they are at the maximum cultural dis-tance. If we attempt to evangelize at this E-3distance, we have a long uphill climb in or-der to be able to make sense to anyone.

In summary, the master pattern of the expan-sion of the Christian movement is first for specialE-2 and E-3 efforts to cross cultural barriers intonew communities and to establish strong, on go-ing, vigorously evangelizing denominations, andthen for that national church to carry the workforward on the really high-powered E-l level. Weare thus forced to believe that until every tribeand tongue has a strong, powerfully evangelizingchurch in it, and thus, an E-l witness within it,

E-2 and E-3 efforts coming from outside are stillessential and highly urgent.


THE BIBLICAL MANDATE

At this point, let us ask what the Bible saysabout all this. Are these cultural differencessomething the Bible takes note of? Is thissomething which ought to occupy our timeand attention? Is this matter of cultural dis-tance something which is so important that itfits into a Congress like this? Let us turn tothe Bible and see what it has to say.

Acts 1:8: An Emphasison Cultural DistanceLet us go to that vital passage in the firstchapter of Acts, so central to this whole Con-gress, where Jesus refers his disciples to theworldwide scope of God’s concern—“inJerusalem, in all Judea, and in Samaria andunto the uttermost part of the earth.” If itwere not for this passage (and all the otherpassages in the Bible which support it), wewould not even be gathered here today. With-out this biblical mandate, there could nothave been a Congress on World Evangeliza-tion. It is precisely this task—the task ofdiscipling all the nations—which includes allof us and unifies all of us in a single, com-mon endeavor. Notice, however, that Jesusdoes not merely include the whole world. Hedistinguishes between different parts of thatworld and does so according to the relativedistance of those people from his hearers. Onanother occasion he simply said, “Go ye intoall the world,” but in this passage he has di-vided that task into significant components.

At first glance you might think that he ismerely speaking geographically, but with morecareful study, it seems clear that he is not talk-ing merely about geographical distance, butabout cultural distance. The clue is the appear-ance of the word Samaria in this sequence. For-tunately, we have special insight into whatJesus meant by Samaria, since the New Testa-ment records in an extended passage the pre-cise nature of the evangelistic problem Jewsfaced in trying to reach the Samaritans. I speakof the well-known story of Jesus and the

RALPH D. WINTER 343

woman at the well. Samaria was not far awayin the geographical sense. Jesus had to passthere whenever he went from Galilee to Jerusa-lem. Yet when Jesus spoke to this Samaritanwoman, it was immediately obvious that hefaced a special cultural obstacle. While she wasapparently close enough linguistically for himto be able to understand her speech, her veryfirst reply focused on the significant differencebetween the Jews and the Samaritans—theyworshipped in different places. Jesus did notdeny this profound difference, but accepted itand transcended it by pointing out the humancultural limitations of both the Jewish and theSamaritan modes of worship. He spoke to herheart and by passed the cultural differences.

Meanwhile, the disciples looking onwere mystified and troubled. Even had theyunderstood that God was interested in Sa-maritans, they probably would have haddifficulty grappling with the cultural differ-ences. Even if they had tried to do so, theymight not have been sensitive enough to bypass certain differences and go directly tothe heart of the matter—which was theheart of the woman.

Paul acted on the same principle when hesought to evangelize the Greeks, who were atan even greater cultural distance. Just imag-ine how shocked some of the faithful JewishChristians were when they heard rumors thatPaul by passed circumcision, one of the mostimportant cultural differences to the Jews,even Christian Jews, and went to the heart ofthe matter. He was reported to them as say-ing, “Neither circumcision nor uncircum-cision is worth anything in comparison tobeing in Christ, believing in him, being bap-tized in his name, being filled with his Spirit,belonging to his body.”

At this point we must pause long enoughto distinguish between cultural distance andwalls of prejudice. There may have been highwalls of prejudice involved where Jews en-countered Samaritans, but it is obvious thatthe Greeks, who did not even worship thesame God, were at a far greater cultural dis-tance from the Jews than were the Samari-tans, who were close cousins by comparison.It is curious to note that sometimes thosewho are closest to us are hardest to reach.For example, a Jewish Christian trying to

evangelize would understand a Samaritanmore easily than he would understand aGreek, but he would be more likely to behated or detested by a Samaritan than by aGreek. In Belfast today, for example, theproblem is not so much cultural distance asprejudice. Suppose a Protestant who hasgrown up in Belfast were to witness forChrist to a nominal Belfast Catholic and anEast Indian. He would more easily under-stand his Catholic compatriot, but mightface less prejudice from the East Indian.Generally speaking, then, cultural distanceis more readily traversed than high walls ofprejudice are climbed.

But, returning to our central passage, it isclear that Jesus is referring primarily neitherto geography nor walls of prejudice when helists Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.Had he been talking about prejudice, Samariawould have come last. He would have said,“in Judea, in all the world, and even inSamaria.” It seems likely he is taking into ac-count cultural distance as the primary factor.Thus, as we today endeavor to fulfill Jesus’ancient command, we do well to be sensitiveto cultural distance. His distinctions must un-derlie our strategic thinking about the evan-gelization of the whole world.

Evangelism in the Jerusalem and Judeasphere would seem to be what we havecalled E-l evangelism, where the only barrierhis listeners had to cross in their proposedevangelistic efforts was the boundary be-tween the Christian community and theworld immediately outside, involving thesame language and culture. This is “nearneighbor” evangelism. Whoever we are,wherever we live in the world, we all havesome near neighbors to whom we can wit-ness without learning any foreign languageor taking into account any special culturaldifferences. This is the kind of evangelism weusually talk about. This is the kind of evange-lism most meetings on evangelism talkabout. One of the great differences betweenthis Congress and all previous congresses onevangelism is its determined stress on cross-ing cultural frontiers where necessary in order toevangelize the whole earth. The mandate ofthis Congress does not allow us to focusmerely on Jerusalem and Judea.


One Christian’s Judea might be

another Christian’s Samaria.

The second sphere to which Jesus re-ferred is that of the Samaritan. The Bible ac-count shows that although it was relativelyeasy for Jesus and his disciples to makethemselves understood to the Samaritans,the Jew and the Samaritan were dividedfrom each other by afrontier consisting ofdialectal distinctionsand some other verysignificant culturaldifferences. This was E-2 evangelism, becauseit involved crossing a second frontier. First, itinvolved crossing the frontier we have re-ferred to in describing E-l evangelism, thefrontier between the church and the world.Secondly, it involved crossing a frontier con-stituted by significant (but not monumental)differences of language and culture. Thuswe call it E-2 evangelism.

E-3 evangelism, as we have used thephrase, involves even greater cultural dis-tance. This is the kind of evangelism that isnecessary in the third sphere of Jesus’ state-ment, “to the uttermost part of the earth.”The people needing to be reached in thisthird sphere live, work, talk, and think in lan-guages and cultural patterns utterly differentfrom those native to the evangelist. The aver-age Jewish Christian, for example, wouldhave had no head start at all in dealing withpeople beyond Samaria. If reaching Samari-tans seemed like crossing two frontiers (thuscalled E-2 evangelism), reaching totally dif-ferent people must have seemed like crossingthree, and it is reasonable to call such a taskE-3 evangelism.

One Christian’s Judea isAnother Christian’s SamariaIt is very important to understand the fullsignificance of the distinctions Jesus is mak-ing. Since he was not talking about geo-graphical, but cultural distance, the generalvalue of what he said has striking strategicapplication today. Jesus did not mean that alldown through history Samaria specificallywould be an object of special attention. OneChristian’s Judea might be anotherChristian’s Samaria. Take Paul, for example.Although he was basically a Jew, he no doubtfound it much easier to traverse the cultural

distance to the Greeks than did Peter, becauseunlike Peter, Paul was much better ac-quainted with the Greek world. Using theterminology we have employed, where an E-ltask is near, E-2 is close, and E-3 is far (in cul-tural, not geographical distance), we can say

that reaching Greeksmeant working at anE-2 distance for Paul;but for Peter it meantworking at an E-3 dis-

tance. For Luke, who was himself a Greek,reaching Greeks was to work only at an E-ldistance. Thus, what was distant for Peterwas near for Luke. And vice versa: reachingJews would have been E-l for Peter, but morelikely E-3 for Luke. It may well be that Godsent Paul rather than Peter to the Gentilespartially because Paul was closer culturally.By the same token, Paul, working among theGreeks at an E-2 distance, was handicappedby comparison with E-l “nationals” likeLuke, Titus, and Epaphroditus; and, as a mat-ter of evangelistic strategy, he wisely turnedthings over to “national” workers as soon ashe possibly could. Paul himself, being a Jew,often began his work in a new city in the Jew-ish synagogue where he himself was on an E-1 basis and where, with the maximum powerof E-l communication, he was able to speakforcefully without any non-Jewish accent.

Let us straightforwardly concede right herethat, all other things being equal, the nationalleader always has a communication advantageover the foreigner. When the evangelists wentfrom the plains of Assam up into the Nagahills, it must have been very much harder forthem to win Ao Nagas than it was for Ao NagaChristians to do so, once a start had beenmade. When the first German missionariespreached to the Bataks, they must have had afar greater problem than when the faith, onceplanted, was transmitted from Batak to Batak.E-l evangelism—where a person communi-cates to his own people—is obviously the mostpotent kind of evangelism. People need to hearthe gospel in their own language. Can we be-lieve God intends for them to hear it frompeople who speak without a trace of accent?The foreign missionary communicator may begood, but he is not good enough. If it is so im-portant for Americans to have thirty transla-

RALPH D. WINTER 345

tions of the New Testament to choose from,and even a “Living Bible,” which allows theBible to speak in colloquial English, then whymust many peoples around the world sufferalong with a Bible that was translated for themby a foreigner, and thus almost inevitablyspeaks to them in halting phrases?

This is why the easiest, most obvious surgeforward in evangelism in the world today willcome if Christian believers in every part of theworld are moved to reach outside theirchurches and win their cultural near neighborsto Christ. They are better able to do that thanany foreign missionary. It is a tragic perversionof Jesus’ strategy if we continue to send mis-sionaries to do the job that local Christians cando better. There is no excuse for a missionaryin the pulpit when a national can do the jobbetter. There is no excuse for a missionary to bedoing evangelism on an E-3 basis, at an E-3distance from people, when there are localChristians who are effectively winning thesame people as part of their E-l sphere.

In view of the profound truth that (otherthings being equal) E-l evangelism is morepowerful than E-2 or E-3 evangelism, it is easyto see how some people have erroneously con-cluded that E-3 evangelism is therefore out-of-date, due to the wonderful fact that there arenow Christians throughout the whole world. Itis with this perspective that major denomina-tions in the U.S. have at some points acted onthe premise that there is no more need for mis-sionaries of the kind who leave home to go to aforeign country and struggle with a totallystrange language and culture. Their premise isthat “there are Christians over there already.”With the drastic fall-off in the value of the U.S.dollar and the tragic shrinking of U.S. churchbudgets, some U.S. denominations have had tocurtail their missionary activity to an unbeliev-able extent, and they have in part tried to con-sole themselves by saying that it is time for thenational church to take over. In our response tothis situation, we must happily agree thatwherever there are local Christians effectivelyevangelizing, there is nothing more potentthan E-l evangelism.

However, the truth about the superiorpower of E-l evangelism must not obscurethe obvious fact that E-l evangelism is liter-ally impossible where there are no witnesses

within a given language or cultural group.Jesus, as a Jew, would not have had to wit-ness directly to that Samaritan woman hadthere been a local Samaritan Christian whohad already reached her. In the case of theEthiopian eunuch, we can conjecture that itmight have been better for an EthiopianChristian than for Philip to do the witness-ing, but there had to be an initial contact by anon-Ethiopian in order for the E-l process tobe set in motion. This kind of initial, multi-plying work is the primary task of the mis-sionary when he rightly understands his job.He must decrease and the national leadermust increase. Hopefully Jesus’ E-2 witnessset in motion E-l witnessing in that Samaritantown. Hopefully Philip’s E-2 witness to theEthiopian set in motion E-l witnessing backin Ethiopia. If that Ethiopian was an Ethio-pian Jew, the E-l community back in Ethiopiamight not have been very large, and mightnot have effectively reached the non-JewishEthiopians. As a matter of fact, scholars be-lieve that the Ethiopian church today is theresult of a much later missionary thrust thatreached, by E-3 evangelism, clear through tothe ethnic Ethiopians.

Thus, in the Bible, as in our earlier illustra-tions from modern mission history, we arriveat the same summary:

E-1 Powerful, but E-3 EssentialThe master pattern of the expansion of the Christianmovement is first for special E-2 and E-3 efforts tocross cultural barriers into new communities and toestablish strong, on-going, vigorously evangelizingdenominations, and then for that national church tocarry the work forward on the really high-poweredE-1 level. We are thus forced to believe that until ev-ery tribe and tongue has a strong, powerfully evan-gelizing church in it, and thus an E-1 witnesswithin it, E-2 and E-3 efforts coming from outsideare still essential and highly urgent. From this per-spective, how big is the remaining task?


THE IMMENSITY OF THE TASK

Unfortunately, most Christians have only avery foggy idea of just how many peoplesthere are in the world among whom there is


no E-l witness. But fortunately, preparatorystudies for this Congress have seriouslyraised this question: Are there any tribaltongues and linguistic units which have notyet been penetrated by the gospel? If so,where? How many? Who can reach them?Even these preliminary studies indicate thatcross-cultural evangelism must still be thehighest priority. Far from being a task that isnow out-of-date, the shattering truth is thatat least four out of five non-Christians in theworld today are beyond the reach of anyChristian’s E-l evangelism.

“People Blindness”Why is this fact not more widely known? I’mafraid that all our exultation about the factthat every country of the world has been pen-etrated has allowed many to suppose that ev-ery culture has by now been penetrated. Thismisunderstanding is a malady so widespreadthat it deserves a special name. Let us call it“people blindness”—that is, blindness to theexistence of separate peoples within coun-tries—a blindness, I might add, which seemsmore prevalent in the U.S. and among U.S.missionaries than anywhere else. The Biblerightly translated could have made this plainto us. The “nations” to which Jesus often re-ferred were mainly ethnic groups within thesingle political structure of the Roman gov-ernment. The various nations represented onthe day of Pentecost were for the most partnot countries but peoples. In the Great Com-mission as it is found in Matthew, the phrase“make disciples of all ethne (peoples)” doesnot let us off the hook once we have a churchin every country—God wants a strongchurch within every people!

“People blindness” is what prevents usfrom noticing the sub-groups within a coun-try which are significant to development ofeffective evangelistic strategy. Society will beseen as a complex mosaic, to use McGavran’sphrase, once we recover from “people blind-ness.” But until we all recover from this kindof blindness, we may confuse the legitimatedesire for church or national unity with theillegitimate goal of uniformity. God appar-ently loves diversity of certain kinds. But inany case this diversity means evangelistshave to work harder. The little ethnic and cul-

tural pieces of the complex mosaic which ishuman society are the very subdivisionswhich isolate four out of five non-Christiansin the world today from an E-l contact by ex-isting Christians. The immensity of the cross-cultural task is thus seen in the fact that inAfrica and Asia alone, one calculation has itthat there are 1,993 million people virtuallywithout a witness. The immensity of the task,however, lies not only in its bigness.

Need for E-2 Evangelism in theUnited States

The problem is more serious than re-translating the Great Commission in such away that the peoples, not the countries, be-come the targets for evangelism. The im-mensity of the task is further underscoredby the far greater complexity of the E-2 andE-3 task. Are we in America, for example,prepared for the fact that most non-Chris-tians yet to be won to Christ (even in ourcountry) will not fit readily into the kinds ofchurches we now have? The bulk of Ameri-can churches in the North are middle-class,and the blue-collar worker won’t go nearthem. Evangelistic crusades may attractthousands to big auditoriums and winpeople in their homes through television,but a large proportion of the newly con-verted, unless already familiar with thechurch, may drift away simply becausethere is no church where they will feel athome. Present-day American Christians canwait forever in their cozy, middle-classpews for the world to come to Christ andjoin them. But unless they adopt E-2 meth-ods and both go out after these people and helpthem found their own churches, evangelism inAmerica will face, and is already facing,steadily diminishing returns. You may saythat there are still plenty of people whodon’t go to church who are of the same cul-tural background as those in church. This istrue. But there are many, many more peopleof differing cultural bacgrounds who, evenif they were to become fervent Christians,would not feel comfortable in existingchurches.

If the U.S.—where you can drive 3,000miles and still speak the same language—isnevertheless a veritable cultural mosaic

RALPH D. WINTER 347

The phrase “make

disciples of all ethne

(peoples)” does not

let us off the hook

once we have a

church in every

country—God wants

a strong church

within every people!

viewed evangelistically, then surely mostother countries face similar problems. Even inthe U.S., local radio stations employ more thanforty different languages. In addition to theselanguage differences, there are many equallysignificant social and cultural differences. Lan-guage differences are by no means the highestbarriers to communication.

The need, in E-2 evangelism, for wholenew worshiping groups is underscored bythe phenomenon of the Jesus People, whohave founded hundreds of new congrega-tions. The vast Jesus People Movement inthe U.S. does not speak a different languageso much as it involves a very different life-style and thus a different style of worship.Many American churches have attemptedto employ the guitar music and many ofthe informal characteristics of the JesusMovement, but there is a limit to which asingle congregation can go with regard tospeaking many languages and employingmany life-styles. Who knows what has hap-

pened tomany of the“mods” and“rockers”who werewon as a re-sult of BillyGraham’sLondon Cru-sades? Onthe onehand, the ex-istingchurcheswere under-standably

culturally distant from such people, and onthe other hand, there may not have beenadequate E-2 methods employed so as toform those converts into whole new con-gregations. It is this aspect of E-2 evange-lism which makes the cross-cultural taskimmensely harder. Yet it is essential. Let ustake one more well-known example.

When John Wesley evangelized the minersof England, the results were conserved inwhole new worshiping congregations. Thereprobably would never have been a Methodistmovement had he not encouraged these

lower-class people to meet in their ownChristian gatherings, sing their own kind ofsongs, and associate with their own kind ofpeople. Furthermore, apart from this E-2technique, such people would not have beenable to win others and expand the Christianmovement in this new level of society at suchan astonishing rate of speed. The resultsrocked and permanently changed England. Itrocked the existing churches, too. Not verymany people favored Wesley’s contact withthe miners. Fewer still agreed that minersshould have separate churches!

A Clear Procedural DistinctionAt this point we may do well to make a clearprocedural distinction between E-l and E-2evangelism. We have observed that the E-2sphere begins where the people you havereached are of sufficiently different back-grounds from those of people in existingchurches that they need to form their ownworshiping congregations in order best towin others of their own kind. John, chapterfour, tells us that “many Samaritans from thatcity believed in him (Jesus) because of thewoman’s testimony.” Jesus evangelized thewoman by working with great sensitivity asan E-2 witness; she turned around andreached others in her town by efficient E-lcommunication. Suppose Jesus had told hershe had to go and worship with the Jews.Even if she had obeyed him and gone to wor-ship with the Jews, she would on that basishave been terribly handicapped in winningothers in her city. Jesus may actually haveavoided the issue of where to worship andwith what distant Christians to associate.That would come up later. Thus the Samari-tans who believed the woman’s testimonythen made the additional step of inviting aJew to be with them for two days. He still didnot try to make them into Jews. He knew hewas working at an E-2 distance, and that thefruits could best be conserved (and addi-tional people best be won) if they were al-lowed to build their own fellowship of faith.

A further distinction might be drawn be-tween the kind of cultural differences Jesuswas working with in Samaria and the kindof differences resulting from the so-called“generation gap.” But it really does not


matter, in evangelism, whether the distanceis cultural, linguistic, or an age difference.No matter what the reason for the differ-ence or the permanence of the difference, orthe perceived rightness or the wrongness ofthe difference, the procedural dynamics ofE-2 evangelism techniques are quite similar.The E-2 sphere begins whenever it is neces-sary to found a new congregation. In thePhilippines we hear of youth foundingchurches. In Singapore we know of ten re-cently established youth break-away con-gregations. Hopefully, eventually, age-fo-cused congregations will draw closer toexisting churches, but as long as there is ageneration gap of serious proportions, suchspecialized fellowships are able to winmany more alienated youth by being al-lowed to function considerably on theirown. It is a good place to begin.

Whatever we may decide about the kindof E-2 evangelism that allows people tomeet separately who are different due totemporary age differences, the chief factors inthe immensity of the cross-cultural task arethe much more profound and possibly per-manent cultural differences. Here, too, somewill always say that true cross-culturalevangelism is going too far. At this pointwe must risk being misunderstood in orderto be absolutely honest. All around theworld, special evangelistic efforts continueto be made which often break across cul-ture barriers. People from these other cul-tures are won, sometimes only one at atime, sometimes in small groups. The prob-lem is not in winning them; it is in the cul-tural obstacles to proper follow-up. Exist-ing churches may cooperate up to a pointwith evangelistic campaigns, but they donot contemplate allowing the evangelisticorganizations to stay long enough to gatherthese people together in churches of theirown. They mistakenly think that beingjoined to Christ ought to include joining ex-isting churches. Yet if proper E-2 methodswere employed, these few converts, whowould merely be considered somewhat oddadditions to existing congregations, couldbe infusions of new life into whole newpockets of society where the church doesnot now exist at all!

The Muslim and Hindu SpheresA discussion of the best ways to organize forcross-cultural evangelism is beyond the scopeof this paper. It would entail a great deal ofspace to chart the successes and failures of dif-ferent approaches by churches and by para-church organizations. It may well be that E-2and E-3 methods are best launched by special-ized agencies and societies working loyallyand harmoniously with the churches. Here wemust focus on the nature of cross-culturalevangelism and its high priority in the face ofthe immensity of the task. Aside from the Chi-nese mainland sector, the two greatest spheresin which there is a tragic paucity of effectivecross-cultural evangelism are the Muslim andthe Hindu. Our concluding words will centerin these two groups, which, in aggregate,number well over one billion people.

As we have earlier mentioned, a convertedMuslim will not feel welcome in the usualPresbyterian Church in Pakistan. Centuries-old suspicions on both sides of the Muslim-Hindu fence make it almost impossible forMuslims, even converted Muslims, to be wel-comed into the churches of former Hindupeoples. The present Christians of Pakistan(almost all formerly Hindu) have not been atall successful in integrating converted Mus-lims into their congregations. Furthermore, itis not likely even to occur to them that Mus-lims can be converted and form their ownseparate congregations. The enormous trag-edy is that this kind of impasse postpones se-rious evangelism along E-2 lines wherever inthe world there are any of the 664 millionMuslims. Far to the east of Mecca, in certainparts of Indonesia, enough Muslims have be-come Christians that they have not beenforced one by one to join Christian congrega-tions of another culture. Far to the west ofMecca, in the middle of Africa on some of theislands of Lake Chad, we have reports that afew former Muslims, now Christians, stillpray to Christ five times a day and worshipin Christian churches on Friday, the Muslimday of worship. These two isolated examplessuggest that Muslims can become Christianswithout necessarily undergoing serious andarbitrary cultural dislocation. There may be awide, new, open door to the Muslims if wewill be as cross-culturally alert as Paul was,

RALPH D. WINTER 349

who did not require the Greeks to becomeJews in order to become acceptable to God.

Vast new realms of opportunity may existin India, too, where local prejudice in manycases may forestall effective “near-neighbor”evangelism. Indians coming from a greaterdistance might by E-2 or E-3 methods be ableto escape the local stigmas and establishchurches within the 100 or so social classes asyet untouched. It is folly for evangelists to ig-nore such factors of prejudices, and their ex-istence greatly increases the immensity of ourtask. Prejudice of this kind adds to culturaldistance such obstacles that E-2 evangelism,where prejudice is deep, is often more diffi-cult than E-3 evangelism. In other words,scholarly, well-educated Christians fromNagaland or Kerala might possibly be moresuccessful in reaching middle-class Hindus inSouth India with the gospel than Christiansfrom humble classes who have grown up inthat area and speak the same language, butare stigmatized in local relationships. Butwho dares to point this out? It is ironic thatnational Christians all over the non-Westernworld are increasingly aware that they do notneed to be Westernized to be Christian, yetthey may in some cases be slow to sense thatthe challenge of cross-cultural evangelism re-quires them to allow other people in theirown areas to have the same liberty of self-de-termination in establishing culturally diver-gent churches of their own.

In any case, the opportunities are just asimmense as the task. If 600 million Muslimsawait a more enlightened evangelism, thereare also 500 million Hindus who today facemonumental obstacles to becoming Christiansother than the profound spiritual factors in-herent in the gospel. One keen observer is con-vinced that 100 million middle-class Hindusawait the opportunity to become Christians—but there are no churches for them to joinwhich respect their dietary habits and cus-toms. Is the kingdom of God meat and drink?To go to the special efforts required by E-2 andE-3 evangelism is not to let down the stan-dards and make the gospel easy—it is to dis-entangle the irrelevant elements and to makethe gospel clear. Perhaps everyone is not ableto do this special kind of work. True, manymore E-l evangelists will eventually be neces-

sary to finish the task. But the highest priorityin evangelism today is to develop the cross-cultural knowledge and sensitivities involvedin E-2 and E-3 evangelism. Where necessary,evangelists from a distance must be called intothe task. Nothing must blind us to the im-mensely important fact that at least four-fifthsof the non-Christians in the world today willnever have any straightforward opportunityto become Christians unless the Christiansthemselves go more than halfway in the spe-cialized tasks of cross-cultural evangelism.Here is our highest priority.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE

THEOLOGICAL NATURE

OF THE TASK

The main theological question, raised more of-ten than any other, is so profound that I feel Imust devote my remaining time to it. Thequestion was stated in many ways in your re-sponse papers, but is basically this: “Will notour unity in Christ be destroyed if we follow aconcept of cross-cultural evangelization whichis willing to set up separate churches for dif-ferent cultural groups within the same geo-graphical area?” It is only with humble depen-dence upon the Holy Spirit to honor the Wordof God above the secular influences to whichwe all are subject, that I dare to proceed with aperspective which I myself could not under-stand nor accept until several years ago. I wasbrought up in the United States, where formany people integration is almost like a civilreligion, where such people almost automati-cally assume that eventually everyone willspeak English and really shouldn’t speak anyother language. To me cultural diversity be-tween countries was a nuisance, but culturaldiversity within a country was simply an evilto be overcome. I had no thought of excludinganyone from any church (and I still do not),but I did unconsciously assume that the bestthing that could happen to Black, White,Chicano, etc., was that they all would eventu-ally come to the White, Anglo-Saxon, Protes-tant church and learn to do things the waythat I felt was most proper.

Following this kind of American culture-Christianity, many missionaries have assumed


Let us glory in the

fact that God has

allowed different life-

styles to exist in

different forms, and

that this flexibility has

been exercised

throughout history.

that there ought to be just one national churchin a country—even if this means none at all forcertain sub-groups. Such missionaries, in all

earnestness,have assumedthat the de-nominationalpluralism intheir ownhome countryis simply a sinto be avoided.They have as-sumed thatSouthern Bap-tists aren’tnecessary in

Northern India, even though, as a matter of fact,in Boston today most of the Anglo churcheshave been sitting around waiting for the Arabsand the Japanese to come to their churches, andit has taken Southern Baptists to go into North-ern United States and plant Arab churches andJapanese churches, and Portuguese churches,and Greek churches, and Polish churches, rightunder the nose of hundreds of good-willedAnglo churches which have been patientlywaiting for these people to assimilate to theAnglo way of life. With one or two fine excep-tions, the Anglo churches, with all their evan-gelistic zeal, simply did not have the insight todo this kind of E-2 and E-3 evangelism.

Christian Unityand Christian LibertyFor my own part, after many years of strug-gling with this question, I am now no lessconcerned than before about the unity andfellowship of the Christian movement acrossall ethnic and cultural lines, but I realize nowthat Christian unity cannot be healthy if it in-fringes upon Christian liberty. In terms ofevangelism, we must ask whether the at-tempt to extend, for example in Pakistan, anexternal form into the Muslim culture is moreimportant than making the gospel clear tosuch peoples within their own culture. Canwe not condition our desire for uniformity byan even greater desire for effective preachingof the gospel? I personally have come to be-lieve that unity does not have to require uni-formity, and I believe that there must be such

a thing as healthy diversity in human societyand in the Christian world Church. I see theworld Church as the gathering together of agreat symphony orchestra where we don’tmake every new person coming in play a vio-lin in order to fit in with the rest. We invitethe people to come in to play the samescore—the Word of God—but to play theirown instruments, and in this way there willissue forth a heavenly sound that will growin the splendor and glory of God as each newinstrument is added.

The Example of the Apostle PaulBut some of you have said, “OK, if that is

what you mean, what about the ApostlePaul? Did he set up separate congregationsfor masters and slaves?” I really don’t know. Idon’t think so. But that does not mean thatdidn’t happen. In a recent monograph byPaul Minear entitled The Obedience of Faith,the author suggests that in Rome there wereprobably five separate congregations ofChristians, who numbered a total 3000, andthat Paul’s letter to the Romans was writtenactually to a cluster of churches in the city ofRome. He also suggests that these churcheswere very different from each other, some be-ing composed almost entirely of JewishChristians, and others (the majority) almostentirely of Gentile Christians. “Instead of vi-sualizing a single Christian congregation,therefore, we should constantly reckon withthe probability that within the urban areawere to be found forms of Christian commu-nity which were as diverse, and probablyalso as alien, as the churches of Galatia andthose of Judea.” But whatever the case inRome, Paul in his travels was usually dealingwith the phenomenon of house churches,where whole households, masters and slaves,quite likely worshiped together. We cannotbelieve he ever separated people. However,we do know that he was willing to adopt indifferent places a radically different ap-proach, as he put it, “for those under the lawand for those not under the law.” When, forexample, he established an apparently non-Jewish congregation among the Galatians, itwas obviously different, perhaps radicallydifferent from that of the Jewish congrega-tions elsewhere. We know this because Jew-

RALPH D. WINTER 351

ish Christians followed Paul to the Galatiansand tried to make them conform to the Jew-ish Christian pattern. Galatia is a clear casewhere it was impossible for Paul to submit si-multaneously both to the provisions of theJewish Christian way of life and at the sametime to the patterns of an evidently Greek (orperhaps Celtic) congregation.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians, furthermore,shows us how determined he was to allow theGalatian Christians to follow a different Chris-tian life-style. Thus, while we do not have anyrecord of his forcing people to meet separately,we do encounter all of Paul’s holy boldness setin opposition to anyone who would try to pre-serve a single normative pattern of Christian lifethrough a cultural imperialism that would pre-vent people from employing their own lan-guage and culture as a vehicle for worship andwitness. Here, then, is a clear case of a manwith cross-cultural evangelistic perspective do-ing everything within his power to guaranteeliberty in Christ to converts who were differentfrom his own social background.

This same thing is seen when Paul opposedPeter in Antioch. Peter was a Galilean Jewwho was perhaps to some extent bi-cultural.He could have at least been able to under-stand the predominantly Greek life-style ofthe Antioch church. Indeed, he did seem to fitin until the moment other Jewish Christianscame to the door. At this point Peter also dis-covered that in a given situation he had tochoose between following Jewish or Greekcustoms. At this point he wavered. Did he lackthe Spirit of God? Did he lack the love of God?Or did he fail to understand the way of God’slove? Peter did not question the validity of aGreek congregation. Peter had already ac-knowledged this before his Jewish compatri-ots walked in the door. The point was that Pe-ter was pained for others to know him as onewho could shift from one community to theother. What this means to us today is quiteclear. There were in fact in the New Testamentperiod two significantly different communitiesof believers. Peter was regarded the apostle tothe circumcision and Paul to the uncircum-cision. Peter identified more easily with theJews, and no doubt had a hard time explain-ing to Jews his experience at Cornelius’ house-hold, namely his discovery that Greek congre-

gations were to be considered legitimate. Paul,on the other hand, was able to identify moreclosely with the Greek congregations. Theywere perhaps eventually his primary mission-ary target, even though in a given locality healways began with the Jews.

The Equality of DiversityOne clue for today is the fact that where

Paul found some Christians to be overly scru-pulous about certain foods, he counseledpeople in those situations to abide by thestricter sensibilities of the majority. However,it is always difficult to make exact parallels toa modern situation. The New Testament situ-ation would compare more easily to modernIndia today were it the case that the onlyChristians in India were Brahmins (and othermembers of the middle castes) with theirhighly restrictive diet. Then we would envi-sion Brahmin Christians finding it hard to al-low the less restrictive meat-eating groups tobecome Christian; but the actual situation isvery nearly the reverse. In India today it isthose who eat meat who are Christians, andthe problem is how to apply Paul’s mission-ary strategy to this situation. In regard tofood restrictions, it is as though the Brahminsare “under the law,” not the present Chris-tians. In this situation can we imagine Paulsaying, “To those under the law I will go asunder the law if by all means I may winsome”? Can we hear him say as an E-2 or E-3evangelist, “If meat makes my brother of-fended, I will eat no meat”? Can we hear himdefending worshiping groups among theBrahmins against the suggestion or expecta-tion that they should change their diet or joincongregations of very different life-style inorder to be accepted as Christians? Againstthe accusation that he was dividing thechurch of Christ, can we hear Paul insist that“in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, lowcaste nor high caste”? Is this not the actualforce of his oft repeated statement that thesedifferent kinds of people, following their dif-ferent cultural patterns, are all equally ac-ceptable to God? Was he really announcing apolicy of local integration, or was he insistingon the equality of diversity?

Note very carefully that this perspectivedoes not enforce (nor even allow) a policy of


Christian unity cannot be healthy if

it infringes upon Christian liberty.

segregation, nor any kind of ranking ofChristians in first- and second-class catego-ries. It rather guarantees equal acceptabilityof different traditions. It is a clear-cut apos-tolic policy against forcing Christians of onelife-style to be proselytized to the culturalpatterns of another. This is not a peripheralmatter in the New Testament. True circumci-sion is of the heart. True baptism is of theheart. It is a matter of faith, not works, or cus-toms, or rites. In Christ there is freedom andliberty in this regard—people must be free ei-ther to retain or abandon their native lan-guage and life-style. Paul would not allowanyone to glory either in circumcision or inuncircumcision. He was absolutely impartial.He was also widely misunderstood. Paul’sproblem ultimately was in gaining accep-tance by the Jews, and it was Asian Jews,possibly Christians, who pointed him out inthe temple and thus finally caused his mar-tyrdom for his belief in the separate liberty ofthe Greek Christian tradition. Let no one whoseeks to be a missionary in the tradition ofthe Apostle Paul expect that working be-tween two cultures will be easy to do. Buthe can take heart in the fact that the haz-ards of the profession are more than justi-fied by the urgent missionary purposes of thecross-cultural evangelist.

If, for example, a cross-cultural evange-list encourages members of a Brahmin fam-ily to begin worship services in their ownhome, does he insist that they invite peoplefrom across town to their very first meet-ing? On the other hand, any Brahmin whobecomes a Christian and who begins to un-derstand the Bible will soon realize,whether it was entirely clear before or not,that he now belongs to a world familywithin which there are many tribes andtongues—indeed, according to the Book ofRevelation (Rev 7:9), this kind of diversitywill continue right down to the end of time.When the cross-cultural evangelist allowsthe development of a Brahmin congrega-tion, he is not thereby proposing Brahminsegregation from the world church. He isnot suggesting that the Brahmin Christiansshun other Christians, but that Brahmins beincluded within the world church. He ismerely affirming their liberty in Christ to

retain those elements of their life-style thatare not inimical to the gospel of Christ. Heis not increasing their alienation. He is giv-ing them the Word of God which is thepasskey to the ultimate elimination of allmanner of prejudices, and is already sign-ing them into a world Christian familywhich embraces all peoples, tribes andtongues as equals.

Unity and UniformityNow, I regret that this subject is so delicate,and I would not embark upon it if it were notso urgently significant for the practical evan-gelistic strategies which we must have if weare going to win the world for Christ. Iwould not even bring it up. Yet I must say Ibelieve this issue is the most important singleissue in evangelism today.

Many people asked me what I meant bythe strategic value of the establishment ofyouth churches. It is important to realize theyouth situation is highly parallel to the situa-

tion we have just discussed. It is by no meansa case where we are suggesting that youngpeople not be allowed in adult services. Weare not suggesting segregation of the youth.Youth churches are not ends, but means. Weare not abandoning the thought that youngpeople and older people should often be inthe same service together. We are merely in-sisting, with what I pray is apostolic intu-ition, that young people have the freedom inChrist to meet together by themselves if theychoose to, and especially if this allows them toattract other young people who would likely notcome to Christ in an age-integrated service.

It is a curious fact that the kind of cultur-ally sensitive evangelism I have been talk-ing about has always been acceptable wher-ever people are geographically isolated. Noone minds if Japanese Christians gather bythemselves in Tokyo, or Spanish-speakingChristians gather by themselves in Mexico,or Chinese-speaking Christians gather bythemselves in Hong Kong. But there is con-siderable confusion in many people’s

RALPH D. WINTER 353

Study Questions1. Explain the difference between E-l, E-2, and E-3 evangelism. Which of the three does Winter con-

sider most powerful? Why? Which does he consider most urgent? Why?

2. “Christian unity cannot be healthy if it infringes upon Christian liberty.” Do you agree? What sig-nificance does this issue have for “practical evangelistic strategies”?

minds as to whether Japanese, Spanish andChinese Christians should be allowed orencouraged to gather by themselves in LosAngeles. Very specifically, is it good evan-gelistic strategy to found separate congre-gations in Los Angeles in order to attractsuch people? Do Cantonese-speaking non-Christians need a Cantonese-speaking con-gregation to attract them to Christian faithand fellowship? If you talk to differentpeople, you will get different answers. Inmy opinion, this question about evangelis-tic strategy in the forming of separate con-gregations must be considered an area ofChristian liberty, and is to be decidedpurely on the basis of whether or not it al-lows the gospel to be presented effectivelyto more people—that is, whether it is evan-gelistically strategic. Some go as far asgranting separate language congregations,but hesitate when the differences betweenpeople are social and non-linguistic. Some-how they feel that people may be excusedfor meeting separately if their language isdifferent, but that the gospel urges us to ig-nore all other cultural differences. Manypeople are literally outraged at the thoughtthat a local congregation would deliber-ately seek to attract people of a certain so-cial level. And yet, while no one should beexcluded from any church under any cir-cumstances, it is a fact that where peoplecan choose their church associations volun-tarily, they tend to sort themselves out ac-cording to their own way of life pretty con-sistently. But this absolutely must be theirown free choice. We are never suggestingan enforced segregation. Granting that wehave this rich diversity, let us foster unityand fellowship between congregations just

as we now do between families rather thanto teach everyone to worship like Anglo-Americans. Let us glory in the fact that theworld Christian family now already in-cludes representatives of more differentlanguages and cultures than any other or-ganization or movement in human history.Americans may be baffled and perplexedby world diversity. God is not. Let us gloryin the fact that God has allowed differentlife-styles to exist in different forms, andthat this flexibility has been exercisedthroughout history. Let us never be contentwith mere isolation, but let us everlastinglyemphasize that the great richness of ourChristian tradition can only be realized asthese differing life ways maintain creativecontact. But let us be cautious about hasten-ing to uniformity. If the whole worldchurch could be gathered into a single con-gregation, Sunday after Sunday, therewould eventually and inevitably be a lossof a great deal of the rich diversity of thepresent Christian traditions. Does Godwant this? Do we want this?

Jesus died for these people around theworld. He did not die to preserve our Westernway of life. He did not die to make Muslimsstop praying five times a day. He did not dieto make Brahmins eat meat. Can’t you hearPaul the Evangelist saying we must go tothese people within the systems in which theyoperate? True, this is the cry of a cross-culturalevangelist, not a pastor. We can’t make everylocal church fit the pattern of every other localchurch. But we must have radically new ef-forts of cross-cultural evangelism in order toeffectively witness to 2387 million people, andwe cannot believe that we can continue virtu-ally to ignore this highest priority.

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