ecumenism" "
Five new Evangelical Churches including the Seventh Day Adventists have become effective members of the Protestant Federation of France (FPF). It was the general assembly of the FPF (11-12 March) that voted to accept their final membership after a process begun in 2000. The last church to join the Federation was in 2003: the Community of African Churches. In his speech to the Assembly, the President of the Federation, Jean-Arnold de Clermont, said: “Our main concern is to respond to the challenge of giving common witness to a strongly secularised French society”. De Clermont does not disguise the “unreconciled differences” that still exist between the member churches of the Federation and that raise questions of a theological nature, such as age of baptism, or of an ethical order (homosexuality and abortion), on which the Churches have different positions. Yet, added De Clermont, “we are all evangelical” and the forming part of the same Federation “has enabled us to deepen our relations” and facilitate “the participation of the Churches in the public life of the country”. De Clermont then reminded all the members of the Federation of the need for unity to be able to respond in a compact way also to the “suspicious glances with which a part of the French population regards the evangelical movement”. With five new Churches, the Federation which will be called to elect a new President in a year’s time now comprises 22 churches and 81 communities, institutions, charities and movements. It represents a total of 900,000 French people.
