How evangelicals took over the Church of England
by Sam Hailes, Premier Christianity.
From Justin Welby to the HTB effect, evangelical influence on the Church of England has grown dramatically. But not everyone is pleased, and sexuality still threatens to split the denomination
In 1966 two of the most well-loved and respected church leaders of their day faced off against one another. Speaking at an Evangelical Alliance event in Westminster, famed preacher Martin Lloyd-Jones publicly criticised evangelicals for remaining inside the Church of England, thereby aligning themselves with leaders in the denomination who promoted liberalism. He said evangelicals “scattered about in various major denominations” were “weak and ineffective”. The Welsh minister of Westminster Chapel suggested evangelicals should instead form their own association of churches.
As chair of the event, John Stott was expected to offer his polite thanks to Lloyd-Jones. Instead the rector of All Souls Church issued an impassioned spontaneous rebuttal, arguing that evangelicals should remain inside the Church of England and fight for truth from within. Thankfully the two men were later reconciled after their very public falling out.
Fifty years later there’s good reason for evangelicals to believe Stott’s argument ultimately won the day. For instance, unlike his more liberal predecessor, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is a charismatic evangelical (and a member of Holy Trinity Brompton before he was ordained), and his counterpart in York, John Sentamu, comes from an evangelical background too. As Rev Dr Ian Paul, who sits on the Archbishops’ Council notes, while previous generations of evangelicals ignored senior establishment posts, today’s evangelicals are taking them on, so when it comes to its senior leadership, “the Church of England is more evangelical than it’s ever been”.
[Editor’s note: this article is lengthier than ones we normally post, but definitely worth reading, with fascinating quotes from Ian Paul, Linda Woodhead, Andrea Williams, Alan Wilson and others. It gives what we would say is an over-optimistic survey of the C of E in late 2017, because it treats evangelicalism as a style and identity, without getting to grips with the fundamental differences in belief systems held by people within the church (including between ‘evangelicals’), and between biblical Christianity and other ideologies.]
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