Christians end missionary summit in Scotland

EDINBURGH, Scotland (RNS/ENInews) Christians from around the world closed a missions conference here on Sunday (June 6) with reminders from church leaders that their faith is essentially about giving and sharing. More than 1,000 people gathered to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1910 World Missionary Conference in a colorful service attended by Anglicans, evangelicals, […]

EDINBURGH, Scotland (RNS/ENInews) Christians from around the world closed a missions conference here on Sunday (June 6) with reminders from church leaders that their faith is essentially about giving and sharing.

More than 1,000 people gathered to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1910 World Missionary Conference in a colorful service attended by Anglicans, evangelicals, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostals, Protestants and Roman Catholics.

The Anglican archbishop of York, John Sentamu, preached about “the crucial importance of Christian witness” as he referred to the biblical account of Peter’s denial of Jesus three times.


“Jesus today is on trial in the court of the world by our lips and lives,” said Sentamu, the No. 2 official in the Church of England. “Jesus and his gospel are being judged.”

He said, “Where in heaven’s name is the Church going? Some would say, `nowhere’. Others would say, `All over the place’. And others, `backwards’ … So we have lost our nerve and changed it into a human enterprise.”

Brian Stanley, the conference historian, said that at the first conference in 1910, participants had to sit and listen to 300 addresses, one after the other.

“What would have impressed them would have been the impressive range of Christians in this audience,” he said. “They would have been equally impressed to see the Catholic and Orthodox Christians. They might have been perplexed by Pentecostals as they were only coming around at that time.”

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