LETTERS PAGE

ALLIANCE DOES ACKNOWLEDGE US AS A GENUINE CHURCH

Source : 17/11/1988 Daventry Weekly Express

Sir: You rightly stated in last week's article concerning the response of the Evangelical Alliance to your feature on the Jesus Fellowship that we would reply to the remarks of the General Director, the Reverend Clive Calver.

We know Mr Calver well and, in spite of our resignation from the Alliance, we respect him as a Christian friend. Some of our leaders are personal members of the Alliance.

Your readers should understand that our quotations from Mr Calver's remarks in a radio programme were correct. Our apology was not because we had misquoted him but because we should have contacted his to gain his approval and to place his comments in context.

The fact is that he did register his approval of the particular Jesus Army activities in London which were being discussed in the radio programme. Our quoting him was not meant by us to imply that the stance of the Evangelical Alliance to our being a Church in Alliance membership had changed. However, the Alliance has contact with and respect many Christian bodies not in its membership and has always been ready to acknowledge us as a genuine Christian Church. Mrs Calver's other comments, which he tells us were not fully balanced in the quotations you used, should be interpreted in this light.

Those who see cultish dangers in our work through Christian Community houses are very welcome to express them to us and to visit us. We are wanting to be servants of Christ and are very willing to learn from those who have advice.

Of course there are many and various Christian Communities in Britain. The Church of England has over fifty and the Roman Catholics and other groups have many more. Many of them have stronger disciplines that the Jesus Fellowship.

We help thousands of people every year. Most of these do not stay in our houses and only a small number actually join us. The need in this nation is great and we must continue to help people find a Christian faith and rescue them from various kinds of evil so common in our land today.

We need God's help in this difficult work and would ask your readers to pray for us.

Liz Donovan
Secretary
Jesus Fellowship Church