The Birth of NEAC

This article appeared in the Conference edition of the Church of England Newspaper on 20 September 2003 and is reproduced here with their permission.

"The NEAC animal has now been born. On the wet and windy campus of Keele University it showed itself to be a warm, friendly animal." so wrote the Editor of the Church of England Newspaper in April 1967 after the first National Evangelical Anglican Congress.

He continued: "It is now safe to say that whatever repercussions there may or may nor be throughout the ecclesiastical jungle, evangelicalism can never be quite the same again."

And after 36 years, it seems clear that at the time of the fourth National Congress the evangelical movement in The Church of England is once again poised on the cusp of something new. As has often been said, with the ball at their feet will evangelical Anglicans once again kick it away?

Signs of division among evangelicals should not be entirely off-putting for today. The first and second Congresses also saw overshadowing divides. In 1967, it had been the spectre of secession, and in 1977 the dispute over the charismatic gifts. In 2003, are differences among evangelicals insuperable, or in retrospect might they look back at these, as perhaps, less important than first thought?

The vast majority of evangelicals, for example, at least pay lip service to holistic mission - rejecting both a narrow evangelism which cares nothing for social justice, and social justice which has no concern for faith. They are for the most part agreed upon the ethical issues of the day that divide the Church.

In fact, the differences there are among us seem to draw us back to the Bible. Are the differences on hermeneutics among us as important as we think they are? Will those disagreements draw us during this Congress into a zealous listening to Scripture, as well as to the perspectives of each other. And if the talking point of the 2003 National Evangelical Anglican Congress is the Bible is that really a bad thing?

When the fourth NEAC animal is born this weekend perhaps it will remain warm and friendly, but with added teeth and claws to challenge the imperviousness which we find in society to the Gospel. It may become a Gospel creature born of suffering and hope.