The fifth paper was perhaps the most difficult. This was not the fault of the speaker, Daniel Webber, but of the subject - the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910, something about which we knew very little and which was a depressing event from an evangelical point of view.
Led by John Mott, an American Methodist layman, supported by Joseph Oldham, a Brit who had worked in India the conference believed with a naive optimism that the world was on "the threshold of a global expansion of millennial proportions" and could be won for Christ in that generation.
It really was the precursor of the World Council of Churches and only not called ecumenical because at that point there were no Romanists or Orthodox involved, though Anglo-Catholics were and they had a disproportionate influence (such as getting evangelisation of the world changed to evangelisation of the non-christian world). Leaning on Brian Stanley's book Mr Webber took us through the events of the time (1215 delegates with some 6 or 7000 present all told) and then pointed out how the conference was doomed from the start in that it included Anglo-Catholics, was resolute in avoiding doctrinal issues, had no appetite for the fourth self (self-theologising), was not really Protestant and was pre-occupied with unity rather than mission. Instead of being an outward looking missionary conference it was an inward looking group dominated by liberalism.
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| Daniel Webber in the discussion time |
Stephen Clark chaired. Discussion was curtailed by the length of the paper.
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