The restructuring of the Church of England Evangelical Council
Church of England Newspaper, February 5
CEEC was restructured and relaunched in January 2015 around an annual residential gathering of Anglican evangelical leaders. It aims constitutionally to represent evangelicals from both Provinces and the main ‘tribes’ and networks in order to coordinate authentic evangelical thinking and engagement in the Established Church.
The new President is the Rt Rev Julian Henderson, Bishop of Blackburn, and the new Chairman is Hugh Palmer, the Rector of AllSouls, Langham Place. Its membership is comprised of Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship representatives, four Bishops, and representatives from EGGS, Theological Colleges, Anglican Mainstream, JAEC, AMiE, AWESOME, CMS, CPAS, Church Society, Crosslinks, FWS, Fulcrum, Latimer Trust, New Wine and Reform.
The coming together of these networks would have indeed warmed the heart of CEEC’s midwife John Stott.
At its recent meeting the CEEC welcomed Steve Clifford, the General Director of the Evangelical Alliance, as an observer. He had visited CEEC once before but his impression was that CEEC was unrecognisable from four years ago. He summed it up as having “a new purposefulness and vitality, and a noticeable good spirit of unity and debate”. However, listening to the debates, he did add that he had forgotten how Anglican Anglican evangelicals were!
The ‘new’ model for CEEC is to hold a streamlined annual meeting that identifies and gives an initial steer to the coming year’s issues and priorities, which a Working Group can then pursue and instigate across the constituency.
Four key areas of work were clarified in 2015 –
‘In order for mission and evangelism to flourish,
CEEC will:
a) encourage and equip evangelicals in the CofE to keep mission and evangelism as a permanent priority,
b) facilitate Bible teaching and equipping,
c) advocate the presence and engagement of evangelicals in the structures and the life of the CofE,
d) promote and pursue unity among evangelicals.
At the heart of these 24 hours, as should be expected in an Anglican and evangelical gathering, were prayer (for the Anglican Primates meeting at Canterbury and for CEEC) and the ministry of the Word. The ‘holy ground’ of John 17 and the Lord Jesus’ High Priestly and Prophetic Prayer was covered by notable expositions from Hugh Palmer, Emma Ineson (Principal of Trinity College, Bristol) and Julian Henderson.
A paper on ‘Adiaphora, Second Order and First Order issues’ from Martin Davie, former theological consultant to the House of Bishops, was an early lightning bolt for our later discussions. These were wide-ranging and frank, but built on the earlier re-affirmation of the foundational definition of Christian marriage as between a man and a woman and adoption of the EA’s ‘Ten Affirmations’.
This ‘network of networks’ appears to be more at ease with itself and effective than for many years, as our ‘critical friend’ from EA observed and sensed.
Let’s take heart that CEEC is better suited and equipped in its new way of working to make a healthy and positive and biblical contribution to the ongoing life of the Church of England, an encouraging 12 months indeed.
The Rev Canon David Banting is a Trustee of Reform and member of both CEEC and the Evangelical Alliance Council
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