Love Calls for Solidarity

At the 2012 International Council for Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE) triennial meeting, I was asked to lead a session on the implications of an aspect of the Cape Town Commitment for theological education (www.lausanne.org). I took the opportunity to reflect on the theme of how theological education can promote solidarity in the body of Christ. I also asked nearly a dozen members of the Scholar Leaders fellowship to offer their insights on the topic. The following reflection incorporates their responses as to how we might help form Christian leaders around the world to stand in solidarity. Now, 14 years later, I have revisited these thoughts in a moment of crisis for the Church in the U.S.

Understanding Solidarity: 

Scholar Leaders who shared their perspectives resoundingly echoed the Cape Town Commitment’s statement that solidarity is not pity. Rather, biblical solidarity honors the other – whether the oppressed, the persecuted, the powerless, or the poor. Solidarity chooses to seek to understand and stand with those whose reality is different from our own. Most fundamentally, solidarity means choosing to share in the sufferings of the global body of Christ. Solidarity is an intentional, costly love that takes seriously the realities faced by the global Church. It is at the heart of the Church’s unity. And, as one Palestinian Christian has shared, “Solidarity is critical to our witness in the world.”

Expanding our Theological and Biblical reading: 

A Brazilian leader explained that the location of our theological study matters. Residential theological education, especially in Western settings, is usually removed from realties of suffering. The problems that this fact creates for the Church in our hurting world are only becoming more intense. Since 2022, our friends in Ukraine have expressed just how far short peacetime theologies fall of helping Christians deal with war and atrocity. So many of the Scholar Leader respondents in 2012 stressed the importance of theological study that engages the world from multiple perspectives. 

Theological considerations: 

A quick study of my own bookshelf illustrates this dynamic. I have two of the Systematic Theology textbooks most commonly used at U.S. evangelical seminaries. Neither includes the word “solidarity.” Further, the themes of suffering, persecution, martyrdom, poverty, and oppression receive brief treatment in each, with little reflection on how one lives in these realities. One Scholar Leader from India was shocked at how little attention his seminary in the U.S. gave to issues of suffering and persecution, describing the omission as “either blissful ignorance or willful negligence.” Scott Moreau writes in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions that “almost no missiological training in the West offered today will help future missionaries in training to face persecution” (2000, 747). Although, he adds, some Chinese house church seminaries cover this topic thoroughly. Serving on the Board of a prominent seminary in the Middle East, I have also noted that their curriculum includes a practical theology course on “Preparing for Persecution.” My seminary training did not have a similar course, nor do my shelves have a book from my seminary days covering such topics.

In contrast with these Western texts, the Global Dictionary of Theology (2008) has dozens of pages on poverty, oppression, and suffering. Leaders from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East face these challenges daily. Their theology reflects this. If U.S. Christians are to stand in necessary solidarity with our sisters and brothers around the world, our Western textbooks must change to do the same. For the Church to grow in solidarity, we need to expand our theological understanding to include global perspectives.

Biblical perspectives: 

Our reading of the Biblical text shapes such theological differences. In places where suffering is encountered daily, greater attention is often given to Mosaic laws on justice, the Prophets, and the book of Lamentations. Another Brazilian leader shared that in Latin America, the Exodus account receives considerable attention as the ultimate story of God’s action on behalf of the poor. In North American contexts, we rightly teach that narrative as a story of God’s deliverance, a precursor of salvation. However, throughout the Old Testament, the Exodus and Egyptian captivity ground many of Israel’s social laws regarding the treatment of the widow, orphan, alien, and marginalized. In their readings of Exodus as a demonstration of divine deliverance and commitment to the poor, Latin Americans give a more complete perspective on the Scripture.

These differences in theological perspectives demonstrate a need to seek input beyond our own traditions. Liberation theology often points out that from the context of poverty, the world looks different. In the same way, the Church looks different where it faces persecution or operates as a minority. Even how we read the scriptures differs. We must learn from the Church in difficult contexts as it seeks to apply the truth to the realities of persecution and oppression.

Prayer and Action:  

In prayer we find the beginning of solidarity with the global body of Christ. The Church – and its institutions – must pray for the whole body of Christ. Prayer reminds us that we are united through the cross as children of our heavenly Father who loves us. The poor, the oppressed, and the suffering often provide the richest examples of fervency in prayer. However, as another Brazilian leader stated, prayer without action is hypocrisy. Those who pray fervently for deliverance ought also to look for those who will take action – which may be ourselves. 

As we pray and act, we must also listen. Another Palestinian leader, speaking about the church under persecution, shared, “We don’t always need people to speak for us, but we do need people to listen to us.” In addition, leaders in Ethiopia and Egypt cautioned about praying that persecution should stop. In Ethiopia, the Church grew tenfold under communism. Rather than prayers for persecution to end, Ethiopian leaders suggested prayers for the courage to accomplish God’s purposes in the midst of persecution. Another leader from Egypt said, “Do not pray for more freedoms for us; rather, that we will have courage to make the most of the freedoms we currently have for the sake of the Kingdom.”

As a practical step, theological institutions can benefit from global partnerships with other schools. In this way, they can listen to and pray for one another. They can benefit from expanded theological perspectives through exchange of faculty or joint classes. Solidarity affirms that all theology is contextual; by taking such practical steps, we can learn from and stand with others. 

Likening global Christianity to a rich, multi-colored fabric, with each thread chosen by the Creator, Lammin Sanneh states, “In this pattern of faith affirmation we should stress the importance of interwoven solidarity with fellow believers, past, present and future” (2003, 56).

Theological institutions can help train leaders to affirm the richness of the global body of Christ through listening, understanding, advocacy, prayer, and the pursuit of justice. At Scholar Leaders, we see these same opportunities not only as the calling of theological institutions but also the calling of the global Church to which we all belong.  

Works Cited:

Dyrness, William and Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. 2008. Global Dictionary of Theology. Downers Grove, IL:IVP Academic.

Moreau, Scott. 2000. “Persecution”. The Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. 

Sanneh, Lammin. 2003. Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.