The French Response to the Actions of the International Missionary Council and the World Council of Churches Commission on World Mission and Evangelism

Abstract

AbstractSince 1822, French Protestantism has been engaged in world mission through the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society (SMEP). In 1971, this mission society was succeeded by two organizations – the Community of Churches in Mission (CEVAA) and the French Evangelical Department of Apostolic Action (DEFAP), created by the French Lutheran and Reformed Churches. French delegates of SMEP or DEFAP were present at the six missionary conferences organized by the International Missionary Council (IMC) and the seven held by WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) since 1910. This article offers a short description of each conference and the French delegation, analyzes the communication around the conferences in the French Protestant press, and reflects on the influence these conferences had on the practice of SMEP and then DEFAP. The authors show that it was during the 1960s, the transition period between SMEP and CEVAA, that the work of IMC/CWME had the biggest impact on the way French churches conceived of and practised mission work. Prominent church leaders played a key role in passing missionary ideas between French Protestantism and the IMC/CWME. But the difficulty of fully integrating world mission issues into the mindset of French churches prevented a deeper reception of the main mission concepts developed by the missionary conferences, especially in the last decades, in which the very significance of the French mission service DEFAP has been questioned.