ARTICLE 3246 - by A. Scott Moreau, Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, 2000-11-15. Category: Analysis: Conferences.

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Congress on the Church's Worldwide Mission (Wheaton Congress, 1966). With the merger of the International Missionary Council into the World Council of Churches in 1961, conservative American mission executives, missionaries, and missiologists perceived a need for a distinctly evangelical congress to address ongoing issues of theological and practical concern.

Jointly sponsored by the EFMA and IFMA, the congress was held in Wheaton, Illinois, in April of 1966. The seven-day congress comprised five missionsoriented biblical expositions, ten major study papers (on topics like syncretism, universalism, evangelical unity, proselytism, changes in the Catholic Church), and area reports. The 938 registered delegates represented some 258 mission boards and agencies, interest groups, and educational institutions from 71 countries in every part of the world.

The conference was framed to respond to the challenges of the conciliar movement by reaffirming fundamental convictions in an atmosphere of evangelical ecumenicity. The precongress statement noted that there was greater missionary strength in the IFMA-EFMA affiliation than in the WCC. Thus it was felt that the time had come for this segment of the total mission force to clearly state its own convictions.

Among the papers that emerged from the congress was the Wheaton Declaration. Initially drafted by Arthur Glasser, it was revised in several committees and finally adopted by the delegates. The declaration begins by affirming the need for certainty, commitment, discernment, hope, and confidence in the midst of the hardening social, religious, and political climates of the times. It confesses the failures of evangelical missions in the light of scriptural standards, and presents an evangelical consensus on the authority of the Bible and the central concern of evangelism in mission. Finally, it addresses selected crucial issues of the day (the issues studied in the major papers).

The Wheaton Congress garnered enough attention to merit the publication of the declaration in IRM, though there was relatively little impact in ecumenical circles. Even so, the Wheaton Congress stands as an important evangelical milestone in that it was one of the definitive steps that eventually resulted in the Lausanne Movement. Bibliography. H. Lindsell, ed., The Church's Worldwide Mission.

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