EFAC-USA Leader sees Good Future for Evangelicals Across the Ecclesiastical Spectrum
An interview with the Rev. Zac Neubauer, President of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion (EFAC-USA), by David W. Virtue, VirtueOnline:
VOL: Anglo-Catholicism has been all but wiped out in TEC. Only the Diocese of Springfield might be considered AC, but they recently let go their bishop early and it is unlikely he will be replaced by an Anglo-Catholic. PB Michael Curry would never approve of a bishop who did not accept homosexual marriage. TEC still has a couple of evangelical dioceses – Central Florida and Dallas – but what hope do you hold that evangelicals can affect the direction of TEC?
ZAC: The first thing one has to understand is that EFAC-USA is a pan-Anglican organization, it’s part of our DNA. We have members from TEC, ACNA, AMiA, REC, and the UECNA. Secondly, today’s EFAC-USA is not a political organization (as it might have been seen in the 1990s and early 2000s,) though individual members may hope to directly influence the direction of their diocese or jurisdiction. But as an organization we are more concerned about encouraging and equipping clergy and laity at the grass-root level. For instance, most of our TEC members are not in evangelical or Communion Partner dioceses.
VOL: Evangelicals have been steadily declining in TEC, most have left and joined the ACNA. What makes you think that at this late stage, EFAC – USA evangelicals can make a difference?
ZAC: Again, EFAC-USA is not trying to “save TEC” or force theological consistency on ACNA. Evangelicals can always make a difference in whatever situation God puts them, because they alone are willing to sound a clear note from the simple, unadorned trumpet of God’s Word. As the late Mark Ashton, long-time rector of St. Andrews the Great in Cambridge used to always say, “The word of God does the work of God in the people of God through the Spirit of God.” Any “difference” that Evangelicals may make within Anglicanism here in the U.S. will be a direct result of our willingness to preach Christ and Him crucified, (folly to those who do not believe) and see where God leads.
VOL: What sort of persuasive powers does EFAC-USA have at a legislative level in TEC that you think you can move the needle in your direction?
ZAC: None, except the power of the gospel.
[Editor’s note: would it be unfair to say that David Virtue has succeeded in showing us a case study of ‘pietism’?]
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