A new Secretary General at the World Evangelical Alliance

He’s from Nazareth.

In recent months, while the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) sought a new secretary general, I bothered the search committee with a suggestion: “Go down to Bethlehem and find a David, someone no one knows, but one the Spirit has appointed.” Smiles greeted my metaphorical reference to the Old Testament story. 

Well, surprise. They didn’t go to Bethlehem but to Nazareth, where they found an Evangelical who is a Palestinian lawyer with an Israeli passport. His name is Botrus Mansour.

His induction as secretary-general took place at a massive Presbyterian church in Seoul in late October. While leaders from scores of countries looked on, this unknown lawyer calmly and bravely shouldered the task of leading the largest global network of Evangelicals, made up of 165 national alliances, millions of congregations, and untold agencies and ministries.

Evangelicals are a curious lot. We have nothing equivalent to the Vatican; instead, our organizational structures are horizontal. We have many denominations, but most authority is located in churches, congregations, agencies, and ministries. When someone decides that something needs to be done, or that a church needs to be planted, up pops a ministry, an agency, or an NGO, (non-governmental organization) on its own initiative.

It is fair to say we are entrepreneurial. People don’t wait for instruction to plant a church or create a ministry; they do it, often mixing church styles to fit their community, theology, or the younger generation’s style or musical preference. Thus, you might attend a Presbyterian church service, and it sounds as if you’re in a Pentecostal church.

Changes of style and reshaping of organizational and worship patterns are taking place as the Evangelical movement grows. In Western countries, the widespread assumption is that Christian affiliation and church attendance are dropping like a stone worldwide; however, the opposite is true. Today, of the world’s 2.5 billion Christians, a quarter are evangelicals. In 1960, there were an estimated 90 million evangelicals worldwide; today that number is closer to 650 million. In the midst of this rapid growth, independent, self-generating ministries and the multiplying of smaller denominations and organizations keep moving forward.

Recall that the evangelical alliance in the 1800s began in the wake of an uprising to dismantle slavery as a pillar of Western society. This movement had a very prominent leader in the Parliament, William Wilberforce. Church leaders wanted to set aside denominational identity, find fellowship around a biblical theology, press governments to respond to persecution of Christians, and undo child labour with a vision rooted in a conscious presence of the Spirit, fostering unity in Christ.

Today, evangelicals tend to be driven outward by a centrifugal force of ideas; personalities drive agendas, churches are planted, and agencies are created independently, leading to a growing sense of disunity. WEA’s motto commits it to offset this outward push, with the hope that a centripetal counterforce, underscored by prayer and strategic initiatives, will generate growing unity. 

Which brings me back to Nazareth. As we celebrate the 2,000th year since the death and resurrection of Jesus, I suggest we ask ourselves again how we might respond to Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that we be one, this at a time we’ve elected a Nazareth-born Palestinian Christian with Israeli citizenship to lead. May we listen to Botrus Mansour, this chosen leader from Nazareth, as he leads us in both celebration and commitment to a unity that was born and bred in his backyard.