For many years independent evangelicals kept apart from churches in denominations affiliated to the apostate World Council of Churches, such as Anglican, Baptist Union and Methodist churches. The British Evangelical Council (whose members included the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC), Grace Baptist Churches and the Free Church of Scotland) did not admit churches that belonged to those ecumenical denominations. But in 2004 the British Evangelical Council changed its name to Affinity and appointed Jonathan Stephen as Director, who encouraged the membership of Anglican and Baptist Union churches, terminating the policy of biblical separation.
       In 2006, Jonathan Stephen became Principal of WEST, or Wales Evangelical School of Theology, introducing his hostility to biblical separation to this institution.
       The outcome, within six years, has been the merger of WEST with the international mission of a Korean church, SaRang Community Church, in Seoul, a mega-church with mystical, occult, charismatic and ecumenical ties.
        The collapse of this college into the arms of such a confusion of errors is a major calamity, the facts of which are set out here by R E Palgrave. (A longer version of this article appears in the current edition of the Bible League Quarterly).

WEST’s Alliance with the SaRang Community Church

Jonathan Stephen reported in Evangelicals Now[1] that links were first established in 2007 between WEST and the SaRang Community Church through one of WEST’s Korean students. The SaRang megachurch was eager to extend its mission to Europe and had an interest in Wales due to the fact that the Welshman Robert Jermain Thomas (1839-1866) was one of the early Christian missionaries to Korea. Furthermore, the WEST Council saw that the Korean megachurch could provide the financial help they required. Jonathan Stephen wrote:

'They realised that they themselves were not in a position to project the School to the next level — to build the internationally recognised centre for theological learning and training for ministry they were praying for. They saw that SaRang were prepared to invest substantially in the School and could secure its development. They understood that good stewardship on SaRang’s part demanded that they should acquire a large stake in the formation of a new Board. They agreed that the baton needed to be passed on.'[2]

When a church or Christian organisation contemplates a possible future partnership with other churches or groups, it is vital that they thoroughly examine the theology and practice of potential partners to ensure that they are Biblically sound and are not involved in any sort of spiritual compromise.

SaRang Community Church is a Presbyterian Church with about 80,000 members.[3]

It was founded in 1978, and is now pastored by Pastor Jung-Hyun Oh.[4]
As we shall see, long before 2007 the SaRang Community Church had links with both the Charismatic/mystical occult teacher Paul (David) Yonggi Cho and Rick Warren, author of the  famous bestselling book The Purpose Driven Life. Tragically, however, the partnership went ahead. In October 2008 Jonathan Stephen and Peter Milsom, the WEST Council Chairman,[5] attended the 30th anniversary celebrations of SaRang. Further negotiations then took place. Jonathan Stephen reported that at the end of February 2011:

'Peter [Milsom]…and I returned to Seoul…for the formal signing of the papers that would seal our gospel partnership.'[6]

Pastor Oh then took over as the new Chancellor of WEST, replacing Peter Milsom.[7] The new WEST board includes five Korean trustees, and also the International Director of the Lausanne Movement.  (It is surprising that the College should wish to associate with the Lausanne Movement as it is so ecumenically compromised.)