An Evangelical Response to Fulcrum

At the invitation of Dr. Lesley Crawley, the Coalition’s moderator, the Rev. Mark Bennet offered this brief analysis of Fulcrum’s incredible endorsement of the Covenant. We reprint it here with permission. We are posting it without comments because it needs none.

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It is disappointing that an evangelical justification of the document nowhere cites scripture to justify the use of the word Covenant to describe a refashioning of the structures of human power and authority within the Church. In fact it doesn’t seem to mention scripture at all and describes the “Covenant” as a political document, not a theological one. The defence also makes ecclesiological assumptions and assertions which are inadequately justified—in particular putting process before relationship. It is like having a pre-nup: it assumes that the relationship is insufficient. God’s answer is the incarnation deepening the relationship in spite of the pain, because that is the only route to healing. The use of the word “only” in point 8 is almost a denial of the Gospel.