The CEEC website is showing preliminary details for the 2008 National Evangelical Anglican Consultation, under the auspices of the Church of England Evangelical Council.

It is to be at All Souls, Langham Place, on Saturday 15 November 2008, 11am-4pm.

Flyers for NEAC were available at the post-GAFCon conference at All Souls on 1 July. Cost is £15.

The conference is entitled:Shaping The Future - Anglican Evangelicalism post Lambeth and GAFCON

Graham, I understand that you are being consulted re this NEAC. Do you feel that open evangelicals are getting an adequate chance to give input, so that it really reflects the whole breadth of "Anglican Evangelicals post Lambeth and Gafcon"?

A better idea would be to explore the extent to which there is agreement and the extent to which there is disagreement, on fundamental questions, amongst those wishing to be known as evangelicals. This can only be properly done by an internet debate to which heavyweight scholars contribute and which is also open to all.

Phil Almond

I do not think, however, that the internet is an adequate forum for such a debate. Maybe it is something that could be tackled at NEAC, I don't know.

The danger of this kind of discussion at the fairly superficial level that the internet and internet fora allow is that instead of a process of growing understanding it simply becomes a process of boundary marking.

There is an agenda on the CEEC site which details the speakers. I would say that three quarters are decidely conservative whilst the reamainder are more moderate. so the question is likely to be how can evangelicals help each other out when their ministry is hampered or compromised by the wider church. Is this the question you want to discuss or the current sate of belief in the church. The later is better addressed by opinion polls. There are just too many issued on which evangelicals disagree. There are already threads on evolution, hell and dispenationalism for example. There are issues on which evangelicals have never agreed  such as bishops, baptism, the eucharist, the nature of saving grace etc.

David

Thanks, David, for drawing attention to the fact that the agenda is now on the CEEC website. I see that the speakers include 3 bishops - the 3 English bishops who did not attend Lambeth. Hardly the best way to consider Anglican evangelicalism post Lambeth and Gafcon! Why on earth have they not got one of the evangelicals who was there, perhaps one who like Nick Baines has been keeping us informed of what has been going on? (I suspect this answers my question earlier on this thread).

A different question about the CEEC website - it is still inviting nominations for an election for council members where nominations are supposed to have closed last December, and still showing council members whose term of service ended in 2006 and in 2007. I have tried drawing this to the attention of the Executive Officer, but this has not been corrected. Perhaps it is simply total website inefficiency, but it is not good, and hardly gives a feeling of a body that is in anyway democratically answereable to its constituency.

There is no reason why discussion and debate on the internet should be ‘fairly superficial’. It could be as profound and searching as debate by other methods. And, as a vehicle for ongoing debate, the internet has the following advantages. It is faster than articles and books. It enables direct interaction, challenge and response. It is slower than verbal debate, allowing time for reflection. Arguments can be withdrawn and improved. It can be directly in the public domain. Very importantly, it allows participation by all serious parties, not just scholars and theologians. I agree that there has long been disagreement among those wishing to be known as evangelicals on certain topics. But now there may be (but until there is an earnest debate we don’t know) fundamental disagreement on who God and Christ are, what they are like, what they have said and done, are saying and doing, will say and do, what humanity needs to be saved from, and in what that salvation consists. I urge Reform, Anglican Mainstream, Fulcrum, North-West Partnership, Forward in Faith, New Wine, Fellowship of Word and Spirit, Church Society, the Theological Colleges etc. to reconsider their positions on this: which are (apparently) not to devote the time to such an earnest open to all internet debate.

Phil Almond

Phil, At risk of taking this thread too far off topic, I would tend to agree with you in principle. I too would like to take part in serious debate and in the age of the Internet this seems possible.

But the problem is that the same openness which allows you and me to take part also allows less serious people in, or people with particular axes to grind rather than a desire to work the issues through or even, dare i say it, people who will post in the wrong threads just to get their opinion read. Debates rarely remain serious because someone superficial will post a facetious comment and reduce it to a slanging match.

Until that problem is overcome we can't get what you and I would want. At least, not on an open forum.

Phil,

I am still not sure what you want. Is this some vision of the big debate which will bring unity? I don't see this working simply because it has never worked in the past. The debates are going on throughout the church. The same issues are raised at theological college as are raised in home groups and are the subjects of seminars at Spring Harvest.  At present the debates seem to progress by a sort of white paper method. An organisation gathers together experts who produce a report and invite comments.In addition to the Winsor Report, the church has porduce for example Issues in Human Sexuality, a report on the inner city and a bishops report on international relations, the EA has a report on church and society etc. But I guess you have more fundamental issues in mind. Until recently evangelical orthodoxity could in practice be defined by the writings a of a few authors whose standing was widely accepted. This has been challenged under such names as post evangelical. Such challenges have been dicussed in Christianity and Renewal and the blogshere. Offical reposes have been made by the E A. There is a range of active theological discussion in Britain. A common forum does not exist which brings this together and would be unworkable. These discussions are all inter connected. They should exert influence uo though the synods and DEFs

David

Further to this, there are more than evangelicals in the Church of England, so I don't understand what would be the product of such a forum of debate assuming you can police its boundaries. The boundaries of the Church of England go far wider than evangelicalism.

About keeping discussion on-topic and serious but also open:  not easy, but possible from what I've seen on another listserv.  One of the most serious and well-qualified contributors on that list left for two years because of the reasons Ken Petrie (I think) mentioned:  people with axes to grind, people who got seriously off-topic, people who didn't really research the topic.  That person just yesterday returned to the list.  Right away a couple of people who had irritated him in the past tried to swing the discussion onto their own topics, but two others immediately supported the returning scholar.  Then a third kindly and tactfully brought the difficult contributors back into the discussion,  two well-qualified ones added materially to the discussion, and the scholar who'd taken the two years off (in the meantime getting a couple of books published) got back in and led us further into the path of real discussion.  I agree with Phil (I think it's Phil, wish I could simply scroll up and see) that the internet is an excellent  opportunity for discussion among people who are deeply concerned about certain issues, although their skills and attitudes may vary.