Dear Editor,
In the January issue of en we wrote an article supporting a call for clarity from the Lausanne Movement on the Christian motivations for creation care. Our particular concern was the sentence “Creation care is thus a gospel issue within the Lordship of Christ,” within the movement’s Cape Town Commitment, which might appear to add works to grace in the gospel.
We are grateful that two senior figures in the Lausanne Movement responded to us in March’s en: the editor of the Cape Town Commitment, Chris Wright, and Dave Bookless, a Lausanne Catalyst for Creation Care. We are reassured by their affirmation that they have no intention to undermine the gospel of grace.
We heartily agree with Wright and Bookless that “nobody is saved by caring for creation” and that “a non-negotiable aspect of responding to the gospel is choosing to submit to Jesus as Lord”. We are grateful they agree with us that: “We need to be clear that creation care is a fruit of the gospel, but it is not a part of the gospel”.
We note that Wright and Bookless explain that they view “gospel issues” as everything mandated, governed, shaped or defined by the gospel. Thus “everything in life is a gospel issue for a Christian”. We are glad that they admit that this is not how the term “gospel issue” has previously been commonly understood and that they share our understanding that “within evangelicalism the term ‘gospel issue’ has long been understood to refer to something that is essential for personal salvation.” They therefore share our concern that “the phraseology of the Cape Town Commitment might be mistakenly interpreted”.
Although they do not say so explicitly, we infer that they would therefore agree with us that the Lausanne Movement needs to issue a formal clarification of this term in the Cape Town Commitment. In October 2024, Andrew Ter Ern Loke (Hong Kong Baptist University), Wilson Jeremiah (Southeast Asia Bible Seminary, Malang, Indonesia) Kevin Muriithi Ndereba (St Paul’s University, Kenya, Africa) and Christian Maureira (Martin Bucer Seminary, Chile) wrote to the Lausanne Movement requesting such a clarification (their open letter can be found on https://churchleaders.com/). At the time of our writing, in July 2025, these theologians have yet to receive a response.
In their letter, Loke et al. point out that the phraseology of the Cape Town Commitment has already been mistakenly interpreted. For example, an article on the Lausanne website titled “How Creation Care Became a Gospel Issue” quotes the relevant part of the Cape Town Commitment, then quotes former Lausanne Catalyst for Creation Care, Ed Brown: “The important phrase here, Brown points out, is ‘creation care is a gospel issue’. This had never been said before. It was the global evangelical church saying to itself, we are the people of the gospel and we believe that creation care is a part of that gospel.”
It seems to us that this statement is clearly at odds with the en article by Wright and Bookless. We very much hope therefore, that the helpful clarification written by Wright and Bookless for the readers of en will also be issued and explained through the formal global channels of the Lausanne Movement.
Yours sincerely,
John Samuel and Richard Buggs, Southampton and London
