Open Evangelical
Open Evangelical refers to a particular Christian school of thought or Churchmanship, primarily in the United Kingdom (especially in the Church of England). Open evangelicals describe their position as combining a traditional evangelical emphasis on the nature of scriptural authority, the teaching of the ecumenical creeds and other traditional doctrinal teachings, with an approach towards culture and other theological points of view which tends to be more inclusive than that taken by other evangelicals. Some open evangelicals aim to take a middle position between conservative and charismatic evangelicals, while others would combine conservative theological emphases with more liberal social positions.
Open Evangelicalism is particularly represented by the Fulcrum movement in the Church of England, and prominent advocates of the Open Evangelical position include N.T. Wright (Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and previously the Bishop of Durham), Graham Kings, the Bishop of Sherborne and Steve Croft, the Bishop of Sheffield. The main Open Evangelical journal is Anvil.
Among Anglican theological colleges, Open Evangelicalism is particularly strong within Ridley Hall in Cambridge, St John's in Nottingham, and Cranmer Hall in Durham. Prominent Open Evangelical churches include St Mary's Islington (Diocese of London), St Nicholas' Durham, and Holy Trinity, Cambridge, where Charles Simeon was the minister in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
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[edit] External links
- Definition of Open Evangelical from Ridley Hall
- Review of service of St Mary's Islington, London, including discussion of Open Evangelicalism
- Canal, River and Rapids: Contemporary Evangelicalism in the Church of England: Kings, Bishop Graham (September 2003), which contains an outline of Open Evangelicalism in A.2.
