What should we make of the Evangelical Baptist Network in the UK?
Question 09110
The Evangelical Baptist Network is not an old institution. It grew out of a very specific crisis within Baptists Together (the Baptist Union of Great Britain) over the question of same-sex marriage for ministers, emerging from what was initially called Baptist Ministers for Orthodox Marriage before rebranding under its current name. Understanding what it is requires understanding both the context that produced it and the broader questions about whether it represents a coherent and consistently evangelical alternative within an increasingly theologically diverse denomination.
Why It Exists: The Baptist Union Context
The Baptist Union of Great Britain has been moving steadily in a liberal direction for some years. The denomination officially endorsed the ordained ministry of women over a century ago, in 1922, which makes it clearly egalitarian though there are some congregations that are complementarian. Individual churches have been permitted to conduct same-sex blessings since 2014, with the Union declining to intervene on the grounds of local church autonomy. In 2020, seventy accredited ministers and church members petitioned the Union’s Ministerial Recognition Committee to change the rules so that ministers in same-sex marriages would no longer be guilty of gross misconduct. The request triggered a lengthy process of national consultation that ran through 2022 and 2023, with the Baptist Union Council finally voting in March 2024 by 49 votes to 27 to leave the ministerial rules unchanged: an accredited minister cannot be in a same-sex marriage.
That vote was a genuine victory for orthodox conviction within the Union, and the Evangelical Baptist network played a significant role in mobilising it. More than 220 orthodox evangelical Baptists attended an in-person meeting in January 2023 to coordinate the response to the proposed rule change. Their engagement mattered. The outcome, for now, preserves the principle that Christian marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman at the level of accredited ministry, even as individual churches retain the liberty to conduct same-sex blessings. That holding of the line on marriage deserves acknowledgement.
What It Actually Stands For
The Evangelical Baptist website states its aim clearly: it wishes to act as a resource for evangelical renewal within the Baptist family, returning to Baptist roots as “radical believers,” and is explicit that it does not wish to be separatist. The stated conviction is that genuine Baptist identity is inherently evangelical identity, and that the denomination has drifted from that foundation rather than superseded it. The appeal is to historical Baptist confessionalism rather than to novelty, which is a reasonable instinct. The site covers church growth and planting, theological exploration, prayer, and ministry leadership resources, and the tone is generally warm and collaborative rather than polemical.
The core team listed on the website as providing oversight includes Yinka Oyekan, Nigel Coles, Dr Louise Hearn, Gareth Owens, Alex Afriyie, and Vicky Thompson. That the leadership team includes women in oversight roles is itself significant and reflects the broader Baptist Union culture in which the network operates. It is also clearly egalitarian (like the Union) though individuals of the organisation can hold a complementarian position.
The Charismatic and NAR Entanglements
The Evangelical Baptist network’s leadership includes figures with documented connections to NAR-adjacent theology and ministry structures. Oyekan’s Barnabas Fellowship of Churches entered formal partnership with NAR-connected organisations, his presidency gave significant platform to The Turning’s revival claims, and the network’s content on healing and deliverance sits within a charismatic framework that, at its edges, connects to streams requiring careful discernment. The website carries a content category specifically titled “Healing and Deliverance,” which is not inherently problematic but which, in the NAR-influenced world these leaders inhabit, can carry more theological freight than a straightforward biblical category might suggest.
Nigel Coles, another key figure in the network, has been a consistent and courageous voice for biblical marriage within the Baptist Union, and his public statements on the matter are clear and principled. His regional leadership work within the Baptist Union appears genuinely motivated by the kind of evangelical renewal the network claims to seek. The concern is not with any individual’s personal sincerity but with the cumulative theological environment that the network’s leadership profile creates.
The Strategic Question: Renewal or Departure?
The deepest question the Evangelical Baptist Network raises is not about any particular position it holds but about the strategy it has chosen. The network has deliberately positioned itself as a renewal movement within the Baptist Union rather than as a separatist alternative to it. This is a genuine and defensible choice, and there are historical precedents for faithful evangelical minorities maintaining a witness within denominations that have drifted. The question is whether the conditions for that strategy to be fruitful actually exist in the current Baptist Union.
Amos 3:3 asks whether two can walk together unless they are agreed. The Baptist Union’s Declaration of Principle, which is the only doctrinal basis on which its member churches gather, does not mention the gospel, the atonement, the resurrection, or the necessity of personal faith. It describes Jesus as “the sole and absolute authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures,” which is broad enough to contain a considerable range of theological conviction. The 2024 vote on ministerial marriage rules was won by 49 to 27 — a comfortable majority, but not a rout — and the 27 who voted to change the rules remain within the Union’s structures, some in positions of influence. The denomination officially and enthusiastically endorses women in ordained pastoral ministry at every level. Its colleges and associations operate within that framework as a settled assumption.
The honest question for an evangelical Baptist watching the Evangelical Baptist Network is whether staying within a denominational structure that cannot agree on the authority of Scripture, that has formally endorsed practices contradicting the pastoral epistles, and that is held together by a Declaration of Principle with no binding doctrinal content is a strategy for renewal or a strategy for managed coexistence. Those are genuinely different things. The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, the Association of Grace Baptist Churches, and various other networks outside the Baptist Union offer fellowship to churches that have concluded the conditions for meaningful evangelical renewal within Baptists Together no longer obtain. That is not a charge against the motives of those within the Evangelical Baptist network; it is an honest account of the strategic alternatives.
A Fair Summary
The Evangelical Baptist Network is doing something genuinely necessary in holding the line on biblical marriage within the Baptist Union and providing a network of fellowship and resource for evangelical ministers who are increasingly a minority within their own denomination. The courage required to occupy that position in the current British church culture is real, and it should not be dismissed. The concerns are structural rather than personal: the absence of a complementarian commitment, the charismatic and NAR-adjacent connections within the leadership team, and the fundamental question of whether a renewal strategy within a post-confessional denomination can produce the evangelical Baptist Christianity it is seeking to recover. These are questions the network’s own leaders would benefit from engaging with more directly than they presently appear to.
“Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?”Amos 3:3
Bibliography
- Evangelical Baptist Network. Official website: www.evangelicalbaptist.uk
- Baptists Together (Baptist Union of Great Britain). Baptist Union Council Statement, March 2024: www.baptist.org.uk
- Wikipedia: “Baptists Together.” Available at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptists_Together
- Evangelicals Now: “And now Baptists face same-sex marriage battle too,” March 2023: www.e-n.org.uk
- Evangelical Focus: “British Baptists not open to same-sex married pastors,” March 2024: evangelicalfocus.com
- The Christian Institute: “Baptist Union holds to one man, one woman marriage for ministers,” March 2024: www.christian.org.uk
