Editorial Matters: after the Congress

The first National Evangelical Anglican Congress in fifteen years gathered a large crowd in Blackpool, and the weeks since have given time to ask what it achieved. The organisers held their nerve through a year of criticism, and the gathering itself was marked by warmth, serious listening and a real appetite for the Bible.

Bible, cross and mission

The congress settled on three words to hold its programme together: Bible, cross and mission. The first two were never in doubt. The third changed the character of the event, turning an inward conversation into a look outward at a needy world. Read as three strands rather than one slogan, they offer the broadest common ground evangelicals have had for many years.

Who we are

The sociology of the gathering troubled some. The platform was largely white, male and middle aged, and younger leaders and ordained women were thinly represented. That is not a small matter in a movement that wants to speak to a changing country. A network to support ordained evangelical women emerged during those days, and the honesty with which the gap was named was itself a hopeful sign.

Where next

No statement was issued, partly because agreement would have been bland and partly because the organisers judged that talking was more valuable than drafting. The test now lies at the local level, in diocesan fellowships and ordinary parishes, and in whether the national bodies that claim to represent evangelicals can be reformed to do so more credibly.

In this issue

The articles gathered here take up several of these threads. A careful reading of Rowan Williams on sexuality sits alongside a global statement on mission and two studies of conflict, one biblical and one painfully close to home.