A dossier published in the French paper “Le Nouvel Observateur” with the title “The Evangelicals: a sect that wants to conquer the world” has triggered an immediate reaction from Evangelicals and Protestants in France. In a letter to the authors of the article, the secretary of the French Evangelical Alliance, pastor Stéphan Lauzet, denies the title of “sect” given to the Evangelicals: it’s a label that gives us he says “a pejorative connotation” which “in no way corresponds to the reality”. A proof of this writes the pastor is “the dialogue that exists between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Evangelical Alliance”. Lauzet also stresses that French Evangelicals in no way identify with the “political messianism” put into practice by Bush in the USA and that if “it is true that Evangelicals are expanding everywhere in the world” they are doing so only “for the good of our contemporaries”. Jean-Arnold de Clermont has also come to the defence of Evangelicals. With regard to the term “sect” used in the dossier, he speaks of a “shameful confusion”. “The Federations, Evangelical or Protestant, in France he adds have always denounced the consequences of certain American religious movements that have confused the ways of God with the warmongering adventures of Bush”. “We have never imposed on anyone adds the national Union of Assemblies of God the content of our faith and the teaching of the Bible. The Gospel is always presented as a gift. It is offered to everyone, without exceptions, but each is free to accept it or not”.
