Geoff Tunnicliffe, international director of the World Evangelical Alliance, spoke to The Christian Post this week while in Washington, D.C., to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, among other events. During the interview, Tunnicliffe addressed the controversy surrounding the WEA’s recent visit to China, the group’s role in the upcoming Lausanne conference, and what its members are doing to help Haiti.
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The following are excerpts from the interview.
CP: WEA leaders met with the TSPM/CCC (Three-Self Patriotic Movement/China Christian Council) church leaders in November. Did you also meet with house church leaders? If not, why not?
Tunnicliffe: WEA is one of the three global church bodies: the Vatican, the World Council of Churches and WEA. This is recognized in many countries, including China. So the invitation was extended to us by the TSPM and CCC. They were our host so we chose on this occasion to meet with just our host. Our goal as a world body was to build relationships with the official structures within China.
CP: Would you like to respond to ChinaAid Association’s criticism of WEA regarding its neglect to mention the house church Christians in its report on the visit? WEA only spoke positively about the official state churches in China but did not speak about the more than 80 million Christians who worship in house churches. How do you respond to the house churches’ concern that you neglected to stand up for them?
Tunnicliffe: I think it is important to look at what happened in context. WEA, out of any evangelical organization, has the longest history, over 150 years, of promoting religious liberty and freedom. And that is a core principle for us and we’re committed to that. It is part of who we are and we believe that religious freedom and human rights are tied together. We are not going to step away from that kind of commitment. In fact, we will continue to be a strong advocate for that.
I think the reality of different contexts and as the world changes we need to look for a variety of mechanisms for promoting religious liberty and freedom. There are some examples in the Bible that I think can help us in our understanding of how we engage. I think of the two prophets: Elijah and Obadiah.
Elijah is fiery, in your face, outspoken, a prophet speaking out for social justice in the public. Obadiah worked inside the palace and he worked quietly behind the scenes, but again, very committed to justice. And sometimes you can think the job of Obadiah, because he was connected to the structure of power, was an easier job. But in reality it is a more difficult job I think.
WEA is a signer of the Zurich Statement on religious freedom in China. That statement said one – there have been significant improvements within religious liberty within China within the last 30 years. This is a document signed by a number of religious liberty advocates. I think sometimes we failed to give credit to where improvements have been made. I think that is an important principle.
The second thing the document said was more needs to be done. So I think that’s important too. The third thing the document said is we believe there are different approaches to working for human rights within China. Some are public and some are private.
