Whatever happened to EFAC?

Yesterday I posted a link to an article by Dr Michael Poon published on the Fulcrum website, which sought to look at the present state of play in the Anglican Communion.

Dr Poon is one of the voices of the so-called ‘Global South’ grouping, which actually finds its centre of gravity in the far East and adopts something of a middle position between the ‘revisionist’ North and the GAFCON movement, whose focus is more in sub-Saharan Africa.

From the perspective of an outsider like myself, the Global South seems to be still undecided on the best approach to the theological conflicts which have deeply affected the Anglican churches of North America and now threaten in the UK. In their own eyes, they are the ‘evangelical moderates’ in a dispute which typically recreates the historical pattern of such conflicts (see James Whisenant, A Fragile Unity: Anti-ritualism and the Division of Anglican Evangelicalism inthe Nineteenth Century [Milton Keynes: Paternoster Press] 2004).

Thus Poon is critical of GAFCON almost as much as he is of the initiators of the conflict. In a telling paragraph, he asks,

Is GAFCON the only valid expression of Anglican evangelicalism, especially the only way to keep faith to John Stott’s legacy in today’s world? Arguably, John Stott created evangelical structures and helped to shape most of the present leadership in the southern continents. The formation of many top Anglican leaders worldwide can be traced to EFAC, Langham Trust and related networks. GAFCON organisers Chris Sugden, Michael Nazir-Ali and Vinay Samuel merely inherited the infrastructures that John Stott left behind. At the same time, does not John Stott offer a more generous ecclesial vision, and a more charitable way to speak the truth in love, than what GAFCON offers?

In short, EFAC, the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion, is the ‘John Stott’ way of addressing the problems in the Communion — the way of Anglican moderation and unity.

Today, however, I received an e-mail which basically asks what has happened to EFAC. “If EFAC had been doing its job,” my correspondent suggests, “[we] might never have needed a GAFCON.” And they add,

The question is properly, in the light of GAFCON, is there a need for EFAC? What could it achieve that is not already being done?

Naturally, the place to look these days is the internet. But try as I might, I can find very little about EFAC. It is alive and well in Australia, where its president is a certain Peter Jensen. However, the last time it seems to have been in action on these shores regarding the Communion’s crisis is in 2008, when it issued a statement which “heartily” endorsed* the GAFCON Jerusalem Declaration (ironic, in the light of Poon’s remarks):

We heartily endorse the fourteen points of the Jerusalem Declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) and, like those at GAFCON, are fully committed to remaining within the Anglican Communion, and to bearing joyful witness to evangelical distinctives.

Beyond that, and the Australian presence, however, there seems to be very little information available. According to the 2008 statement, EFAC meets “every five years” and it issued a statement (.pdf file) after its previous gathering at Limuru in 2003, so it will be due to gather in 2013.

The current chair of EFAC is George Kovoor, the Principal of Trinity Theological College, Bristol, who has also recently endorsed GAFCON. However, I am unable to find any website for EFAC as an international body, or very much indication of what it is doing (nor anything about a 2013 gathering).

And this highlights a constant problem in Anglican Evangelicalism — one which, as I’ve indicated, is an endemic issue. As Whisenant describes, and as I have said in my new book on AStrategy that Changes the Denomination, faced with conflict in the denomination, Anglican Evangelicals have typically dissipated their energies by dividing amongst themselves over the best approach. The ‘moderates’ want moderation, the ‘stalwarts’ want confrontation. The outcome is division and the beneficiary is the opposition!

Poon is right in this: there are faults on both sides, but not perhaps the ones he identifies. The error of the stalwarts, specifically here in England is, as Dr Jensen pointed out just this week, a decade-long lack of any coherent action which might have addressed the issues. Sabres have been repeatedly rattled, but opportunities for institutional change have been almost entirely ignored.

Meanwhile, the moderates cry, “Peace, peace,” where there is not only no peace, but no institutional commitment to the conversion of the nation — the only proper goal, surely, of a national church?

All this is not helped, however, by the mutual lack of trust. Yet trust must be earned, and it is earned by actions. We may not be exactly sure ‘who is on the Lord’s side’, but it is human nature to want to be sure who is on our own when push comes to shove.

John Richardson
29 October 2011

* However, the extent of this endorsement, and indeed the membership of the EFAC gathering that produced it, has been questioned by Fulcrum Theological Secretary and now bishop, Graham Kings.

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