HAS THE FIEC CHANGED ITS STANCE?
by Peter MastersFROM SWORD & TROWEL 2000 No 2
The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches and the British
Evangelical Council are significant organisations in the ranks of independent churches in
Britain. They were founded as vehicles of fellowship for churches that keep decidedly
apart from apostasy. Sadly, however, the old clarity and rugged determination to maintain
biblical separation is now being undermined by ministers who have turned away from the
founding principles.
On every hand ‘old-timers’ are expressing dismay at the new attitude of
those who want close fellowship ties with evangelicals who remain in their apostate
denominations, many of which support ecumenism and recognise Catholics as true
Christians (not to mention their accommodation of homosexuals in ministry, and other
evils).
The Council of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches
recently asked the Rev Jonathan Stephen of Reading to write a booklet to clarify their
position on unity with others. It is entitled - Bible Churches Together - a Plea for
True Ecumenism.
If this booklet really does reflect the position of the Fellowship, then there
has certainly been a break with the founding principles, because Pastor Stephen calls for
unity with evangelicals in compromised denominations through the new association
named ‘Essentially Evangelical’.
To support his plea, the author insists that this association and its mission
to unite with denominational evangelicals would have met with the approval of C H
Spurgeon, E J Poole-Connor (the founder of the FIEC) and Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
To borrow the delightful style of Poole-Connor, when we read this claim,
‘we were astonished. We rubbed our eyes. We even changed our spectacles. Was this the
same Poole-Connor we had known and heard and read, or was there another?’
We suffered the same reaction on reading the claim that Dr Lloyd-Jones
would also have favoured fellowship with avidly denominational evangelicals,
inextricably associated with rampant liberalism and Catholicism.
As for C H Spurgeon, did he not write at the time of the Downgrade
Controversy -
That I might not stultify my testimony I have cut myself clear of those
who err from the faith, and even from those who associate with them.[1]
Mr Stephen is alarmingly mistaken in his ‘historical revisionism’. He
greatly misunderstands the deeply held convictions of these spiritual leaders. All three
withdrew from compromised denominations. All upheld the absolute necessity of
remonstrating with denominational evangelicals to ‘come out from among them’. All
condemned any form or level of co-operation with errorists.
Dr Lloyd-Jones famously crossed swords with Anglicans J R W Stott and
J I Packer, separating himself from the latter in bringing to a close the Puritan Studies
Conference which the latter served as a committee member. The Doctor’s Westminster
Fraternal was very noticeably reduced in the 1960s because the remonstrations directed
towards Anglican attenders became too strong for them to endure, and they stopped
attending. (Historical revisionism cannot yet erase these events, for too many of us who
were there are still alive.)
Dr Lloyd-Jones wanted to see a degree of evangelical unity which few
thought feasible, but his vision had firm limits. Organised ties with members of
compromised and apostate denominations were beyond those limits. Cordial fellowship at
a personal level with ‘innocent’ or ‘persuadable’ denominationalists was clearly different,
but organised ties were out of the question.
As far as E J Poole-Connor is concerned, his biographer - David Fountain
- has provided in the adjoining article a succinct response to Jonathan Stephen’s ideas.
The overwhelming majority of Anglican evangelicals are signed up to the
views expressed in The Nottingham Statement, namely unity with Rome, and
the recognition of Catholic conversion. Dr Lloyd-Jones rightly said that to deny the
exclusive efficacy of the Gospel (evangelically interpreted) is to deny the Gospel.
If it was plainly wrong to remain in apostate denominations in the time of
Poole-Connor and Lloyd-Jones, how much more is this true today, when anti-biblical,
sinful trends have multiplied within them.
If the FIEC (and the BEC) really do endorse the new policy of
rapprochement as promoted in the booklet of Jonathan Stephen, then the duty
of biblical separation so passionately held and urged by C H Spurgeon, Dr Lloyd-Jones
and E J Poole-Connor no longer commands their respect. By no stretch of the imagination
can these three great preachers be claimed as supporters of the new stance.
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