Are you in the land of the open-hearted?

How do we foster evangelical unity? Where do the boundaries of ‘unity’ fall? And how does the New Testament emphasis on unity apply to evangelicals in the Church of England in its current dire state? Some of these questions are helpfully tackled by Andy Mason (see his article). And one terrific example of healthy evangelical unity is the Keswick Convention, ongoing at the moment.

But how should such unity be manifested organisationally elsewhere the rest of the year? Ongoing discussions about a Gospel Coalition UK are an interesting part of this debate. The role of the Evangelical Alliance is also key.

Notions of unity vary. At one end of the spectrum is the feeble, unbiblical sort of ‘unity’ espoused by the majority of Church of England bishops, a touchy-feely wishy-washy mealy-mouthed ‘let’s all be part of one organisation even if we have fundamentally contradictory and incompatible beliefs’ – though this always tends only to last until a liberal victory comes along, in which case that immediately becomes ‘the settled will of the church’ in a way that somehow 2,000 years of previous church doctrine inexplicably weren’t (see George Crowder's comment article).