Beckly Lecture 2026: Together Towards Life in a World of Division

Roland Fernandes, General Secretary of Global Ministries for the United Methodist Church, delivered the 2026 Beckly Lecture on 29 June at the Methodist Conference in Telford – the 100th anniversary of a series founded in 1926.

Mr Fernandes gifted us an evening of theological honesty and transatlantic partnership, grounded in hope.

Mr Fernandes reminded us that mission is God's, not ours. Drawing on the World Council of Churches' (WCC) report Together Towards Life, he compared God’s mission to narratives that have long conflated Christian mission with Western civilisational expansion.

Against the logic of enforced uniformity, Mr Fernandes argued the importance of Pentecost. Together Towards Life draws the contrast sharply: “Whereas Babel attempted to enforce uniformity, the preaching of the disciples on the day of Pentecost resulted in a unity in which personal particularities and community identities were not lost but respected.” The Spirit did not erase languages – it honoured them.

Mr Fernandes named three overlapping priorities. First, the marginalised: Together Towards Life insists they are “the main partners in God's mission” – primary agents, not recipients. The task, he said, is “not to bring God along but to witness to the God who is already there.”

Second, creation: “Caring for creation is not a cult. It is a covenant.” Drawing on the Hebrew avad – to serve the earth, the same root as worship –  Mr Fernandes argued that tending creation is an act of worship. The ecological crisis falls hardest on those least responsible for it.

Third, the WCC's ‘economy of life’ – a framework for evaluating every policy and programme not by what it does for the prosperous, but for the most vulnerable. “Mission”, he said, “is the overflow of the infinite love of the Triune God.” It overflows national borders and human categories alike.

The Spirit, Mr Fernandes reminded us, blows from margins to centre – “speaking in voices that power has tried to silence”. The Church's task, for such a time as this, remains: to listen, to speak and to journey – together – towards life.