a little milestone

This weekend, I resigned my membership of The Evangelical Alliance.  I've been a member for most of the last twenty years, so that seems quite a big deal, somehow.  I did it with a heavy heart, but it's been becoming an inevitable step, for a while now.

The EA often seems to be a force for good.  It has generally avoided narrow sectarian positions, enabling it for a long time to claim to speak for one million UK residents (through personal and church memberships).  They've dropped that line from their promotional material now, but they still seem to have a large following.  In general, the EA promotes the positive things its members have been doing, and frequently undertakes sensible lobbying positions in speaking to government.

There was a time when I thought those approaches were spot-on and just right: I was proud of the EA and proud to be a member.  But somehow the things it does have become increasingly marginal to me - and, I'd suggest, to a lot of other people who might live with a label like emerging or post-evangelical.  I know that I have moved in an inclusive direction - I rather suspect that the EA has moved in the opposite direction.

In thinking about membership, one might start with the basis of faith, since this is the thing that all members must agree on.  It is an unexceptional list - and widely adopted by EA affiliates as their own basis also.  Do I still believe it?  Well, that depends what you mean.  If I wanted to claim that I did, I would need to re-interpret several of the clauses to imply something other than what most would agree upon as their "plain meaning".  But more than that, my problem really is with making such a list the basis of unity: it seems a category mistake.  Where in that list is the teaching of Christ?  Even is command to love our neighbours is relegated to something of an after-thought in clause 11, where the outworking of that command is given largely to the Spirit, not to the believer.  Surrounded by people in need, is it really so important that we unite around the abstract idea of the Virgin Birth?  And so on.  The clause on the authority of Scripture is delightfully vague, but seems to mean something which I don't think I share.

Reaching the conclusion a while ago that the basis of faith was rather irrelevant, I wondered if I could continue membership.  I decided to keep an eye on news, and decide whether I would wish to be publicly associated with the EA's positions.  And so, on Friday, I came across two recent news articles:

• The government should celebrate and protect marriage, not re-define it, and
  
• More of a big mistake than a big bang
  

Gay marriage will have to be the subject of a separate blog, but the linked article not only seems to take an unnecessarily argumentative position, it doesn't even have any evangelical methodology to it. I'm suspicious of evangelical methodology today, but even that would be much better than this statement based on prejudice.  The other article seems to suggest that all points of view be given equal balance in the classroom - a position which would plainly do more to confuse than to educate.

I'm not leaving the EA on the strength of two short articles, but they are the proverbial last straw.  Sorry EA, you don't speak for me.