tual heart out of Christianity is a burning question, but it was not dealt with. Dr. Henry replied to a query about this with the observation that the Congress was on evangelism, not theology.
No doubt many delegates left the Congress with some basic questions about the connections between theology, the churches, and evangelism still hanging in the air. Interestingly, impassioned pleas by American delegates to make race relations a primary topic for discussion were not supported by Africans or Asians to any great extent. No formal statement of faith was issued to make it clear just what was the basis for the cooperation between the emperor, the faithhealer, and the priest. Despite all these lacunae, in the eyes of almost all the participants the Congress was a great success. It was a broadly-based and enthusiastic reaffirmation of faith in the historic Christian message and in the simplest, directest, and most straightforward approach to presenting it. It brought together men who are witnessing for Christ among non-Christian religious majorities, and those who are struggling to defend the faith in the midst of “post-Christian” Western secularism. The encounter did much to shake the fascination of some Western Christians with the indications of their own decadence. As one Indian bishop said, “Too much is being said about the world in the post-Christian age. For three-quarters of it, it is still the pre-Christian age.” The evident truth of this statement, and the urgency of presenting the message of the divine Redeemer to the world before it activates one of its many possibilities for self-immolation, brought the most diverse leaders to a real experience of unity in diversity. It was a practical demonstration of the motto of Cardinal Suenens: “The walls of separation do not reach to heaven.”
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