Affinity (Christian organisation)

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Affinity describes itself as "a growing network of many hundreds of Bible-centred churches and Christian agencies throughout Britain and Ireland". It was formerly known as the British Evangelical Council, which was formed in the 1950s, but stagnated in the 1980s following the death of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The rebranding and relaunch happened in 2004. Affinity provides networking and support to conservative evangelical churches in the United Kingdom and Ireland. There are currently about 1200 church congregations linked to Affinity. The organisation's subtitle is "Church-centred Partnership for Bible-centred Christianity".

Many churches linked with Affinity would consider "Bible-centred Christianity" to be reformed, Calvinist, and non-charismatic, although some in the affiliation would disagree. Thus, many member churches are defined by a rigorous theology, adopting a separatistic outlook. They regard churches with differing viewpoints as being in error and refuse to associate with them. For this reason they rarely join the Evangelical Alliance, a similar but larger organisation with a broader membership.

Groups of churches linked to Affinity include the Apostolic Church, the Association of Grace Baptist Churches, the Evangelical Movement of Wales, the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, the Free Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales and Ireland. At least two congregations of the Evangelical Connexion of the Free Church of England are also members.

The current director of Affinity is Jonathan Stephen, who is also principal of the Wales Evangelical School of Theology.