The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) is a national parachurch association of over 160 affiliated church denominations, ministry organizations, and educational institutions, plus 1,000 local church congregations. All affiliated groups identify themselves as part of the evangelical movement in Canada.
The EFC was founded in 1964 as a means of promoting cooperative participation in the Canadian political and social arenas. The organization promotes public awareness of issues that are of concern to the evangelical community, facilitates cooperation among various ministries, and advocates on public policy issues. It has made many submissions to government on controversial legislation regarding issues such as religious freedoms, defining marriage, child pornography, and abortion/fetal rights. In 1982 a coalition of groups including the EFC successfully campaigned to have "the supremacy of God" recognized in the preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The EFC publishes Faith Today magazine, the major evangelical publication in Canada, founded in 1983 under the leadership of Brian Stiller.
The EFC is a member of the World Evangelical Alliance. The WEA has been directed since 2005 by Geoff Tunnicliffe, a Canadian who also serves as the EFC's director of global initiatives.
The EFC has occasionally collaborated with the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops on certain matters of moral theology, such as abortion, gay marriage and euthanasia.
Famous quotes containing the words evangelical, fellowship and/or canada:
“Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“Science with its retorts would have put me to sleep; it was the opportunity to be ignorant that I improved. It suggested to me that there was something to be seen if one had eyes. It made a believer of me more than before. I believed that the woods were not tenantless, but choke-full of honest spirits as good as myself any day,—not an empty chamber, in which chemistry was left to work alone, but an inhabited house,—and for a few moments I enjoyed fellowship with them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Though the words Canada East on the map stretch over many rivers and lakes and unexplored wildernesses, the actual Canada, which might be the colored portion of the map, is but a little clearing on the banks of the river, which one of those syllables would more than cover.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)