60 Sermon Illustrations on Evangelicalism

Is this evangelicalism’s terminal generation? Without doubt, we are facing an unprecedented set of challenges to evangelical identity. The rise of a postmodern culture has produced an intellectual context in which the very concept of truth is held under suspicion, and claims to revealed truth are simply ruled out of order.

Benjamin Franklin, caught on the street during a break in the Constitutional Convention, is said to have been asked by a passerby to describe the new order to be proposed. “A republic,” he answered, “if you can keep it.” By definition, evangelicals are to be a Gospel people, cherishing, teaching, and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We will remain evangelical only insofar as we maintain the integrity of our Gospel witness -- if we can keep it. We are truly evangelical only if we keep our testimony to the Gospel without confusion or compromise.

We should be very concerned about certain trends in contemporary evangelicalism that threaten this integrity. The first is an ominous confusion about the Gospel itself. The heart of the Gospel is the objective truth that Christ died for sinners, and that salvation is by grace alone through faith in Christ -- alone. The cardinal doctrine of justification by faith is, as Martin Luther warned, “the article by which the church stands or falls.”

If so, the church is falling in many quarters. Much of what is presented in many pulpits -- and marketed by flashy television preachers -- bears little resemblance to this simple message. Instead, sinners are told to seek after riches, material blessings, vibrant health, and earthly rewards. Salvation is packaged as a product to be hawked on the airwaves and sold at a discount. The notion of salvation from sin and judgment is entirely missing from this scenario. Instead, salvation is presented as a gift of self-enhancement.

On the theological left, the Gospel had long ago been transformed into a social and political message of liberation from oppression. Now, among some who consider themselves evangelicals, the Gospel of Christ has been reduced to a form of self-expression or therapy. Salvation is promised as the answer to low self-esteem and emptiness. Gone is any notion of a holy God who offers salvation from sin and its eternal penalty.

The other pressing front in the current battle for the Gospel concerns the exclusivity of the work of Christ. The testimony of the Bible could not be more clear. Salvation comes to all who call upon the name of the Lord. Salvation comes through Jesus Christ -- and through Jesus Christ alone.

In our culture of political correctness and intolerant tolerance, we are told that such a claim is simply unacceptable. There cannot be only one way of salvation. Who is to say that the religions of the world are wrong, and that Christianity alone is true?

Well, that is the non-negotiable criterion of evangelical faithfulness. Jesus identified Himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life -- and “no one comes to the Father, but through Me” [John 14:6]. Without this clear testimony, the Gospel is emptied of its integrity. The Bible allows no misunderstanding. Without conscious faith in Jesus Christ, there is no salvation.

Dean Kelley, a liberal Protestant, once noted that, “Even the most gentle, humble, and loving Christians must divide the world into those who confess Jesus as Lord and those who don’t.” Given the clarity of the Gospel, we have no other choice.

Even so, various forms of compromise erupt on this crucial front in the battle for the Gospel. Some advocate an open universalism, in which all persons are eventually saved. Others promote pluralism, promising that all roads will eventually lead to God, and that no faith has a privileged claim to truth. Closer to home, some have advocated a form of inclusivism in which other religions and faiths are seen to be included in the work of Christ. Still others advocate a form of “anonymous Christianity” or a post-mortem opportunity to confess Christ.

Against these various attempts to evade the simple clarity of the Gospel stands the Word of God. Our evangelical integrity stands or falls on this truth -- salvation is found through faith in Christ alone. This is the logic of the missionary mandate and the sustaining conviction for all evangelism. Nevertheless, the worldview held by many individuals today -- especially those among the educated classes -- flatly rejects such claims as imperialistic and arrogant.

Sociologist James Davison Hunter has long warned that younger evangelicals tend to go soft on this doctrine. Educated in a culture of postmodern relativism and ideological pluralism, this generation has been taught to avoid making any exclusive claim to truth. Speak of your truth, if you must -- but never claim to know the Truth. Unless this course is reversed, there will be no evangelicals in the next generation.

Charles Spurgeon stated it plainly: “We have come to a turning-point in the road. If we turn to the right, mayhap our children and our children’s children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.” Those words ring with prophetic urgency more than a century after they were written. Evangelicals must regain theological courage and conviction, or we must face the tragic reality that this may be evangelicalism’s terminal generation.

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[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #1132]

John Stott’s candid comments on justice, gender, and judgment.

John Stott joins together what most people tear asunder — or at least are incapable of holding together. He is a theologian of depth and breadth, yet he preaches and writes with clarity to a wide audience. He integrates social concerns into the mission of the church without ever minimizing his commitment to evangelism. Since he was ordained in 1945, he has ministered within a mainline denomination (the Church of England), while neither compromising his convictions nor diminishing his role as an evangelical thought leader. Engaged in parish ministry for 50 years at All Souls, Langham Place, in the center of London, where he now holds the title rector emeritus, his influence among evangelicals is of international proportions.

One of Stott’s enduring legacies is as the key framer of the historic Lausanne Covenant (1974), which serves almost as an evangelical apostles’ creed in many Third World settings. His faithful witness to the gospel in his writings and preaching has made him mentor and friend to a global community. The author of 34 books, Stott’s primer on the faith, “Basic Christianity,” has been translated into over 50 languages, and 22 more are in progress.

Speaking of “Authentic Christianity,” an anthology of his writings from the past 50 years (forthcoming from InterVarsity), evangelical historian Mark Noll serves up this accolade: “I consider John Stott the sanest, clearest, and most solidly biblical living writer on theological topics in the English language.” It is difficult to dispute this assessment.

More than his books, documents, or institutions, Stott’s most important legacy to the church has been his wisdom. Thoroughly biblical, disarmingly open, shrewdly discerning, Stott’s thought has helped guide the evangelical movement as it engaged social concerns, the charismatic movement, female clergy, homosexuality, and challenges to core doctrines. In preparation for Stott’s seventy-fifth birthday, Roy McCloughry, associate editor of the British Christian magazine “Third Way,” interviewed this evangelical Solomon on these and many other topics. The discussion can serve as a measure of where we are as a movement — and where we need to go.

YOUR MINISTRY STRETCHES BACK OVER 50 YEARS. HOW HAVE YOU CHANGED OVER THAT TIME?

I was very naive when I was ordained. I was more an activist than a thinker. I saw needs and wanted immediately to meet them, and this crowded out my studies.

It was in the early days of my ministry that I learned the necessity of stepping back, looking where I was going, and having a monthly quiet day to be drawn up into the mind of God and look ahead for the next six or twelve months. That was an enormous benefit to me.

YOU’VE COVERED AN IMMENSE RANGE OF ISSUES IN YOUR MINISTRY — THEOLOGICAL, SOCIAL, DOCTRINAL, AND CULTURAL. HAS THAT BEEN DUE TO CURIOSITY OR TO OBLIGATION AS A MINISTER?

A bit of both. Even before my conversion, I believe that God gave me a social conscience. When I was only 14 years old, I started a society at school whose major purpose was to give baths to tramps. I had a great concern for these homeless, dirty men.

We called it the ABC, because we thought they could understand that; having decided on the letters, we had to look around for words that would fit, and we came up with two: either “Always Be a Christian” or “the Association for the Benefit of the Community.” It only lasted a few years, and we never gave any baths to tramps; but we did some other good works until the treasurer loaned all the subscriptions to his brother, who spent everything.

My father was a doctor and a very high-minded, high-principled person, though not a Christian. He believed in a national health service before it was even dreamed about. My mother, too, was very concerned for the maids in the doctors’ homes who had nothing to do on their afternoons off. She started the Domestic Fellowship. So they both had a social conscience.

EVANGELISM AND SOCIAL ACTION

SOME PEOPLE MIGHT DIVIDE YOUR MINISTRY INTO TWO HALVES, ONE FOCUSED ON PIETISM AND ONE CONCERNED WITH THE VERY BROADEST SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND ECONOMIC ASPIRATIONS OF SOCIETY. WHAT CAUSED THIS CHANGE?

I think it was reading the Bible. As I read and studied and meditated, my vision of God grew and I came to see the obvious things: that God is not just interested in religion but in the whole of life — in justice as well as justification.

I don’t see any dichotomy between the “pietistic” and social realms. To me, they’re two aspects of the same thing: a pursuit of the will of God. I have always been moved by the phrase “to hunger and thirst after righteousness”; righteousness covers both personal holiness and social justice.

SOME PEOPLE MIGHT SAY THAT YOUR COMMITMENT TO THE JUSTICE OF GOD, EXPRESSED IN SOCIAL TERMS, LED TO A WATERING DOWN OF YOUR COMMITMENT TO THE GOSPEL.

I think that’s rubbish, honestly. I remain committed to evangelism. I have had the privilege of leading more than 50 university missions all over the world, and they spanned a period of 25 years until I felt I was a little out of touch with the student generation and too old.

I can honestly say that my social concerns have not diminished my zeal for evangelism. If anything, it’s the other way round. What people could say is that I talk a lot about social action but don’t do much about it. And that is true, because my calling is to be a pastor. Although I disagree with polarization between these two, I’ve often said I do believe in specialization.

Acts 6 is the obvious biblical basis for this specialization of roles: the apostles were not willing to be distracted from the ministry of the Word and prayer. In fact, the seven were appointed to handle the care of the widows. Both those works are called diakonia, “ministry”; both required Spirit-filled people to exercise them. Both were necessary, but one was social, the other pastoral.

DON’T SOME PEOPLE FEAR THAT RENEWED EMPHASIS ON SOCIAL CONCERN MIGHT MUFFLE THE CALL TO EVANGELISM?

There are a number of mission leaders, particularly Americans, who are frightened that we want missionaries to give themselves to social-political work, which is none of their business and would distract them from their primary role in evangelism. I have no wish for missionaries to change their role. There is a real need for evangelists who are not engaged in holistic mission because their calling is evangelism. I don’t criticize Billy Graham because he simply preaches the gospel and doesn’t engage in social-political work — well, he does a bit, but not much — any more than we don’t criticize the Good Samaritan for not preaching the gospel to the man assaulted by robbers.

It’s partly our existential situation that determines what we concentrate on, partly our vocation. Everybody cannot do everything, as I keep saying to myself.

IN “ISSUES FACING CHRISTIANS TODAY” (1984), YOU SAY: “EVANGELISM IS THE MAJOR INSTRUMENT OF SOCIAL CHANGE. FOR THE GOSPEL CHANGES PEOPLE, AND CHANGED PEOPLE CAN CHANGE SOCIETY.” ISN’T THAT REALLY A RUGGEDLY INDIVIDUALISTIC PICTURE OF SOCIAL CHANGE?

I think that quote is from where I list four or five instruments for social change. I put evangelism first because Christian social responsibility depends on socially responsible Christians, and they are the fruit of evangelism.

Having said that, I would also want to make the complementary point that Christians are not the only people who have benefited or reformed society. We evangelicals do have a very naive view. Take marriage: people say, “They have got to be converted and then they’ll have a good marriage.” But there are Christians who don’t have good marriages, and there are plenty of excellent marriages among people who are not Christians. Morality and social conscience are not limited to Christian people.

WHY IS THE CHURCH SO OFTEN THE LAST TO JOIN A PROTEST MOVEMENT? THE CHURCH IN TIME MIGHT TAKE THE LEAD; AND IT MAY SPEAK WITH THE GREATEST INTEGRITY AGAINST JINGOISM OR APARTHEID OR NUCLEAR WEAPONS OR THE ABUSE OF THE ENVIRONMENT. BUT THESE MOVEMENTS ARE OFTEN STARTED BY OTHERS.

Well, that has not always been true. The slave trade is a good example and Shaftesbury’s reforms in relation to mental illness. Nevertheless, by and large what you say is true. Why? First, because we’re busy; we’re busy evangelizing and doing other things, mostly in the church. We don’t always demand our liberty from the church in order to be active in the world.

Second, we have such a strong doctrine of fellowship and are so clear about our responsibility not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers that we have seldom learned that we can be “cobelligerents,” to use Francis Schaeffer’s well-known term, even if we are not in active spiritual fellowship with one another.

SOME PEOPLE MIGHT SAY THAT THE CHURCH IS SIMPLY VERY CONSERVATIVE. IT ONLY JOINS THESE MOVEMENTS FOR CHANGE UNDER PRESSURE FROM SECULAR FORCES IN SOCIETY.

I wish it were always Christians who took the initiative in seeking needed social change. But I am still thankful when others take the initiative and Christians follow, even under secular pressure.

We must not set secular fashion and the Holy Spirit over against each other, as being always and inevitably incompatible. Public opinion isn’t always wrong. What is wrong is to bow down before it uncritically, like reeds shaken by the wind. Why should the Holy Spirit not sometimes use public opinion to bring God’s people into line? The Spirit seems to have done so on a number of occasions in the debate between science and faith.

WHAT IS THE THEOLOGICAL BASIS FOR CHRISTIAN SOCIAL INVOLVEMENT TODAY? IS IT ENOUGH TO SPEAK OF BEING “SALT AND LIGHT”?

Start with the nature of God. God is interested in and concerned about more than religion: God is the Lord of creation and the covenant. God is the lover of justice, one who protects and champions the oppressed: this is God’s nature. If this is the kind of God we have, then clearly God’s people have got to be the same.

Second, there is the doctrine of human beings, of male and female made in the image of God — the unique dignity and worth of human beings. William Temple said, “My worth is what I am worth to God, and that is a marvelous great deal, because Christ died for me.” And I would say that the ministry of Jesus in life and death exhibits the enormous value of human beings.

Then, I would want to back up this biblical theme with examples from history. Take Mother Teresa, for example, who sees a woman on the pavement of Calcutta with awful sores infested by live maggots. Mother Teresa kisses this woman and picks her up. She sees an intrinsic value in her.

That, surely, is what has motivated people. That is why the word humanization, which was first adopted in the World Council of Churches, is something we evangelicals ought to have taken up. Anything that dehumanizes human beings should be an outrage to us, because God has made them in his image. The whole concept of the rehumanization of human beings, and the deliverance of human beings from anything that dehumanizes, ought to inspire people, and has inspired people.

MAINLINE CHURCHES

DO YOU STILL THINK THE ANGLICAN CHURCH MAKES A GOOD HOME FOR EVANGELICALISM?

Yes, I think it’s a good boat to fish from, but that’s not the reason I’m a member of it.

There are three options for evangelicals in mainline denominations. The two extremes are to get out or cave in. The third is to stay in without giving in. The extremes are actually the easy options. Anybody can cave in: that’s the way of the coward, the way of the feeble mind. To cave in is to stay in but to fail to hold on to your distinctive evangelicalism. You just compromise.

To get out is to say, “I can’t bear this constant argument and controversy any longer.” That also is an easy option. I know people have done it and suffered because they have given up a secure job and salary; but it’s an easy option psychologically.

The difficult thing is to stay and refuse to give in, because then you’re always in tension with people with whom you don’t altogether agree, and that is painful.

BUT NO CHRISTIAN CAN GIVE UNQUALIFIED ALLEGIANCE TO ANY INSTITUTION. WHAT, FOR YOU, WOULD BE THE SIGNALS THAT IT IS TIME TO LEAVE THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND?

I’ve always felt that it’s unwise to publish a list of criteria in advance. Nevertheless, I’m quite happy to talk about them. I think one’s final decision to leave would be an exceedingly painful one, a situation that I cannot envisage at the moment.

I would take refuge in the teaching of the New Testament, where the apostles seem to distinguish between major and minor errors. The major doctrinal errors concern the person and work of Christ. It’s clear in 1 John that anyone who denies the divine-human person of Jesus is anti-Christ. So, if the church were officially to deny the Incarnation, it would be an apostate church and one would have to leave.

Then, there’s the work of Christ. In Galatians, if anybody denies the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone, that is anathema: Paul calls down the judgment of God upon that person.

On the major ethical issues: the best example is the incestuous offender in 1 Corinthians 5. Paul called on the church to excommunicate him. If you want me to stick my neck out, I think I would say that if the church were officially to approve homosexual partnerships as a legitimate alternative to heterosexual marriage, this so far diverges from biblical sexual ethics that I would find it exceedingly difficult to stay. I might want to stay on and fight for a few more years, but if they persisted, I would have to leave.

EVANGELICAL FRAGMENTATION

IT SEEMS THAT EVANGELICALISM HAS FRAGMENTED INTO DIFFERENT GROUPS, WITH DIFFERENT HEROES, PUBLISHERS, AND CULTURES. HOW SHOULD WE THINK OF OURSELVES NOW?

I don’t mind plurality as long as it goes hand-in-hand with unity. But I’ve given a great deal of my life to the development and preservation of unity within the evangelical constituency. I have never believed that our differences have been great enough to warrant fragmentation. I don’t mind people founding their own societies and going after their own thing — again, it’s an example of specialization — provided they still recognize that we belong to one another.

(continued in #3722)

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine — ctcurrmrj6T124a612g

EVANGELICALISM STRESSES THE ATTRACTION OF THE GOSPEL

Evangelicalism is committed to evangelism - that is, the proclamation of the gospel in the full confidence that it contains something God-given that will enable it to find a response in the hearts and minds of men and women. Evangelism is natural to evangelicals. “The church,” wrote Emil Brunner, “lives by mission as a fire lives by burning.” Evangelism is something intrinsic to the identity of the church - not an optional extra, but something that is part and parcel of its very being.

To give such an emphasis to evangelism is thus to recognize both the inherent rightness of the gospel and its intrinsic attractiveness. That attraction is supremely the person of Jesus Christ. It is a “pearl of great price,” something that is recognized to be worth seeking and possessing, and whose possession overshadows everything else. Evangelicalism thus fosters an attitude of expectation - an expectation that the gospel will be a delight and joy to others. This is coupled with a systematic endeavor to uncover the ways in which the inherent appeal of the gospel can be best articulated, in the certainty that this appeal rests on a reliable and responsible historical and theological foundation.

It must be stressed that there is no question of altering the gospel to make it more attractive. For evangelicalism, that is the supreme error of liberalism - doing violence to the gospel itself in an attempt to make it more easily acceptable to modern culture. The issue is ensuring that the gospel is preached faithfully for all it is worth, without the misrepresentations that cause offense to so many.

Many secular writers respond to this emphasis on evangelism by reaching for the nearest cliche and writing of “Christian imperialism”; others suggest that the churches have become obsessed with marketing their product, presenting evangelism as some kind of religious public-relations industry.

Both these comments are deeply revealing of the failure of an increasingly secular society to understand the primary motivation for evangelism. The fundamental motivation for evangelism is generosity - the basic human concern to share the good things of life with those we love. It does not reflect a desire to sell or dominate; it arises from love and compassion on the part of those who have found something wonderful and want others to share in its joy. It is, as the old adage has it, like one beggar telling another where to find bread. [paragraph used 8/24/97]

A central task of evangelism is to make Christianity credible in the modern world. The area of Christian thought that has dealt with this matter is apologetics - the “defense of the faith,” to give a rough translation of the Greek word apologia, used in 1 Peter 3:15. A good working definition of apologetics would be “the attempt to create an intellectual climate favorable to Christian faith” or “a concern to enhance the public plausibility of the gospel.” In the past, apologetics has been a significant aspect of the ongoing mission of the church, to which evangelicals have made a contribution. [paragraph used 8/24/97]

Yet the situation in which the Western church finds itself has radically changed, with the dawn of a post-Enlightenment world. The rise of the movement usually called postmodernism is a telling sign of the loss of confidence in reason and “modern” ideas and values in today’s culture. The rise of postmodernism reflects the seriously eroded credibility of a universal rationality once regarded as central to “liberal” theological method. As liberal commentator Eugene Borowitz remarks, “Liberalism lost its cultural hegemony largely because of the demythologization of its allies, universal rationalism and science. At one time we thought them not only our finest sources of truth but our surest means to human ennoblement. Today the sophisticated know that they deal only in possible ‘constructions of reality,’ and the masses sense that they commend ethical relativism more than necessary values and duties.”

Liberalism has thus lost its credibility in the area of apologetics; that mantle has passed to evangelicalism. And evangelicalism is becoming increasingly confident in its presentation of both the truth and the attractiveness of the gospel.

However, for many people, a concern with “truth” has become irrelevant. The first question people tend to ask these days is not “Is this right?” but “What will this do for me?” The rise of what Tom Wolfe called the “Me Generation” has necessarily led to a focusing of apologetics on the relevance of the gospel to the needs of individuals. This person-centered apologetics aims to remain faithful to the gospel while ensuring that it fully addresses the contemporary situation.

But we do not need to throw away Christianity’s claims to truth in light of this cultural development. We just need to realize that it is now bad tactics to major on the truth question. If we are going to get a hearing in today’s culture, we need to be able to show that Christianity has something relevant and attractive to offer. The bonus is that this attraction is securely grounded in God’s self-revelation, not invented yesterday in an effort to get a hearing in the marketplace. Thus we may commend the attractiveness of Christianity while resting securely in the knowledge of its truth.

EVANGELICALISM SHUNS “DENOMINATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY”

One factor that has crippled attempts at collaboration among mainline denominations has been the issue of “denominational sovereignty.” This term was coined by Francis Potter at the 1944 Golden Jubilee of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America to refer to the struggle of various Protestant denominations to dominate any cooperative movements of which they participated. Within both the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches (NCC) in the United States, the institutional interests of the denominations are fought over, often with a ferocity that alarms their constituent members. In addition to its commitment to an outdated liberal theology that nobody seems to want anymore, the NCC has to cope with the strident ecclesiological claims of its constituent churches. It is little wonder that the NCC has seemed to lurch from one crisis to another.

In part, the success and attraction of evangelicalism rests on its relative immunity to such squabbles. Evangelicalism has been no stranger to controversy; yet the fact that it is not a denomination in itself has allowed evangelicals of all kinds to see themselves as committed to something that transcends denominational divisions and rivalries. An evangelical inside a mainline denomination, for example, will feel a far greater sense of affinity with fellow evangelicals outside that denomination than with fellow members of that denomination who deny or challenge central aspects of the Christian faith.

But the real points at issue run much deeper than this and center on the role of charismatic leaders and the necessity of a specific church structure for ensuring salvation of church members. By playing down the importance of denominational allegiance, evangelicalism is able to maximize the use of charismatic gifts among its leaders - gifts that would probably be suppressed within mainline denominations. The importance of this point may be appreciated if we consider the situation in Latin America, where evangelicalism is making huge advances at the expense of the Roman Catholic Church. One of the reasons for this, as David Stoll explains, is the rise of charismatic leaders: “Whereas evangelical structures provide ample room for the power of personal charisma, enabling new leaders to organize their own, equally legitimate churches, the Catholic structure of appointment from above is calculated to keep charisma under strict control, if not stifle it altogether. It is not hard to see which system will prosper at a time in history that ruptures old social bonds and forces personal initiative. Evangelicals can break away and remain evangelical, but Catholics who reject the authority of their clergy may well become evangelicals.”

It is at this point that the second factor noted above comes into the equation. Evangelicalism insists that it is not necessary to be a member of a specific denomination in order to be saved; it is necessary only to repent of one’s sins and believe the true gospel. The Roman Catholic Church, however, generally remains committed to the more restricted idea that it is necessary to be a member of the “true church” - which, historically, it has identified as itself - in order to be saved. Although the Second Vatican Council softened this position significantly, the maxim “Outside the church there is no salvation” continues to have a deep impact on Catholic reflection.

Evangelicalism rejects the idea that “the church” can in any way be equated with one ecclesiastical body. The true church is found wherever the gospel is truly preached and truly received. Denominational allegiance is clearly of less than ultimate significance; the criterion of being saved has nothing to do with which church or fellowship one attends, but with whether one has heard and responded to the gospel. In an age in which social mobility has emerged as a major cultural force, evangelical ecclesiology has proved to be a winner.

Let me stress that I am not for one moment suggesting that this evangelical view of the church was formulated in an opportunistic manner, with an eye to benefiting from this development! I am simply pointing out that this long- standing aspect of evangelicalism happens to meet up exactly with a significant current in the global cultural changes of our times.

FACING THE DARK SIDE

The picture sketched here runs the risk of being too optimistic, perhaps even unrealistic at points. There are a number of serious matters of a more negative nature that need to be addressed. While evangelicalism has considerable attractions and strengths, it also has its darker side. The following areas could be noted:

Borrowed spiritualities. The powerful thrust of major evangelistic campaigns runs the risk of being dissipated unless those who come to faith are kept in faith by every proper means of spiritual nourishment, encouragement, and guidance. My concern is that evangelicals have not paid anything like the necessary attention to this major theme of Christian life and thought. It has depended on the insights of others, while ignoring its own rich resources. It is time to throw off the cult of dependency and move toward the development and rediscovery of spiritualities that will complement the great evangelical emphases on the sufficiency of Scripture, the centrality of the death of Christ, the need for personal conversion, and the evangelistic imperative.

Guilt trips and burnout. A deficient understanding of the Reformation doctrine of “knowledge of sin” has led to defeated Christians who suffer from guilt trips and burnout. There is a real need to develop authentically Christian understandings of self-esteem that challenge the secular view of self-sufficiency and affirm our dependence on God - without destroying a person’s self-worth in the presence of God.

Dogmatism. It is no secret that many people are alienated from some forms of evangelicalism by what they regard as its intensely dogmatic attitudes. Dogmatism is probably best defined as “a refusal to allow disagreement or doubt.” The problem has two aspects: the emphasis it places on certainty, which causes difficulties for those experiencing doubt; and the kinds of things that some evangelicals choose to be dogmatic about, for which, in reality, there are a variety of evangelical options available (for example, how to relate to mainline Protestantism, the precise way the authority of Scripture is stated and defended, the place of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life, the role of women in the church).

Personality cults. Trust in God can easily become muddled with trusting someone who claims to speak, with authority, on his behalf. The problem concerns the personality cults that grow up around leading figures in the evangelical world. There is a real danger of scandal and disillusionment here.

I happen to believe that these weaknesses can be corrected and that the outcome of such a process of correction will be enriching both to evangelicalism and to Christianity as a whole. Yet evangelicalism has been reluctant to acknowledge its darker side, giving the impression that it will listen to none save its friends.

Evangelicalism has now gotten past the stage when it needs to be defensive about everything. Its survival seems assured; its next task is to get itself into shape for expansion and consolidation.

My belief is that evangelicalism will gain the intellectual and spiritual high ground within Western Christianity during the next generation - but it will do so only after a thorough shakeout, in which some of its less desirable and theologically dubious aspects have been purged and the necessary attention paid to its emerging weaknesses. Evangelicalism needs to shed its ghetto mentality and become more involved with the real world as it prepares to expand still further.

The threats to evangelicalism are real - but so are its opportunities and its resources. The challenge is this: can evangelicalism cope with sustained growth, increasing intellectual sophistication, and growing acceptance within the churches? Or will it lose sight of its distinctive ideas and emphases? If we can appreciate the genuine attraction and distinctiveness of our beliefs, we can go some way toward ensuring the future well-being of the movement in particular, and of the Christian faith in general.

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Alister McGrath is research professor of theology at Oxford University and Regent College, Vancouver, Canada, and principal of Wycliffe Hall. He is the author most recently of Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity (IVP), from which this article was adapted.

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine ctjun95mrw5T7018566b

President Clinton shocked many Christians last year when he started quoting from and recommending Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter’s “Culture of Disbelief.” Carter’s much-discussed book protests how secular academics, journalists, activists, and arts people are biased against anyone who takes a public position based on religious convictions, seeing them as “dangerous fanatics” who threaten the wall of separation between church and state.

Whether or not the President’s comments will make it easier for Christians to express religious convictions in the public square, some Christians have been bravely doing just that for some time. But when they try to reflect on this experience and construct a “public theology” (that is, a systematic understanding of how to relate faith to public issues), they run into a problem. The history of American evangelicalism is littered with many theories of private morality but very few plans for public action explicitly and systematically grounded in Christian principles.

As historian Mark Noll has pointed out, American evangelicals have tended to act first and think later. It is no wonder that most of those doing public theology are outside evangelical circles. Yet one forebear of the evangelical tradition thought long and hard about the world outside the church, and his thinking on this subject is a rich resource for those trying to relate their faith to today’s public issues.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) is widely recognized as the greatest theologian this continent has ever produced. As a key figure in the religious life of colonial America, Edwards was a multifaceted thinker whose total catalog of ideas is still being discovered.

Many evangelicals think of Edwards as a stern Puritan preacher of fire and brimstone who portrayed humanity as dangling precariously by a spider’s thread over the flames of hell. And while scholars have long recognized that Edwards possessed one of the most creative and powerful intellects on American soil, most have thought he was happy to let the world go to hell — in both senses of that phrase.

But recent research indicates that Jonathan Edwards carefully observed the social and political currents swirling about him and developed an elaborate theory of what it means to be a Christian citizen in civil community.

Of course, we cannot assume Edwards’s ideas can be adopted without significant adaptation. After all, Edwards was in favor of supporting churches by taxation. And he was writing and preaching in a society where, in the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, “Christianity reigns without obstacles, by universal consent.” But while Edwards cannot give us a political program for the nineties, his reflections can provide a set of theological perspectives that may help evangelicals relate their faith to today’s public arena. The following is a six-point summary of Edwards’s public theology.

1. Christians have a responsibility to society beyond the walls of the church. The election of a president who openly supports social policies repugnant to most evangelicals has prompted some Christians to suggest that the church abandon efforts to change society. “Preach the old-fashioned gospel,” they cry, “and pray for revival. The church has no business doing anything else.”

As a key figure in America’s first Great Awakening, Edwards is well known for his leadership of spiritual revivals. But he also insisted that Christians should care about the material and social well-being of those outside the church. God has made us dependent on our non-Christian neighbors for help, he taught; to fail to acknowledge our interdependence “is more suitable for wolves and other beasts of prey, than for human beings.” Edwards’s convictions on this point stemmed from his belief that we are made in the image of God, who is always reaching out in relationship to others and cares for their bodies as well as their souls. Christians should do the same.

Edwards practiced what he preached. Throughout a seven-year stint on the Massachusetts frontier, for example, the New England theologian fought for the rights of the Native Americans who came to his mission church. He argued that Indian girls should be able to go to school, wrote repeated letters to the Massachusetts Assembly urging the colony to honor its treaty obligations to the Housatonnuks, and spent hours patiently listening to the broken English and sign language of Indian children so he could report accurately to mission officials in Boston and London. He told the officials that his Indian friends did not have enough blankets and food; that some boys had no breeches, and many wore ragged clothes to meetings; and that all the boys were forced to work six days per week. In sermons, he berated New England for having “debauched [the Indians] with strong drink instead of seeking their spiritual welfare.”

2. Christians should not hesitate to join forces with non-Christians in the public square to work toward common moral goals. Edwards had no trouble supporting the Massachusetts colony’s prosecution of war against the French, because the latter threatened religious and political liberties common to Christians and non-Christians alike. Besides, Edwards argued, Christians have much in common with non-Christians: the same basic sense of good and evil, since God has engraved his moral law on every human conscience; similar appreciation of beauty, both material and moral; the same fundamental religious knowledge (that there is a God, and that he is good); and basic human feelings (pity for the unfortunate and love for family).

Using Edwards’s principles, an evangelical could work together with a Muslim to fight pornography in their community. Both see pornography as a moral wrong, threatening the integrity of marriage and family.

An Edwardsian public theology, therefore, must reject the approach of those who, like the historic Anabaptists, choose not to join with those outside the church as equal partners in common work for the community but remain separate from the rest of society in an alternative community intended to stand only as a distant witness to the rest of the culture.

An Edwardsian approach, in contrast, seeks to transform culture from within. Edwards maintained that individual conversion does not produce new human faculties but a new principle by which the old faculties operate. Similarly, his public theology does not call for Christians to create new, separate political communities or shun communities outside the church. Rather, it encourages Christians to work together with like-minded citizens, Christian or not, to transform existing communities according to the God-given principles of conscience.

3. Christians should support their governments but be ready to criticize them publicly when the occasion demands. Edwards believed that government is “a great and important business” that, among other things, prevents “citizens from tearing one another apart.” He preached that a Christian should be “greatly concerned for the good of the public community to which he belongs” and willing to “lay out himself… for the good of his country.” Edwards did his part when the Massachusetts Bay Colony sent two expeditions off to war in 1745 and 1755. Like a military chaplain, he preached sermons that inspired citizens to fight for God and country. During peacetime, he offered his time and resources to help police the frontier against occasional attacks.

But Edwards also warned that political leaders are prone to abuse their power and encouraged citizens to criticize “the management of public affairs, and the duty of the legislature, and those that are at the head of the administration, thought vastly [their] superiors.” More than once he used his pulpit to tell rulers how they ought to behave. One Sunday, when facing local politicians in his congregation who sought his ouster, he boldly advised the congregation that bad politicians seek only “to enrich themselves, or to be great, and to advance themselves on the spoils of others.” The good magistrate, however, is not willing to “grind the faces of the poor, and screw their neighbors [for] filthy lucre.” Little wonder that these pols conspired with others to fire Edwards some months later.

4. Christians should remember that politics is comparatively unimportant in the long run. The key moments of history, Edwards taught, are not important elections or decisive wars but spiritual awakenings. Therefore, the most important thing Christians can do for the good of their country is to pray for revival. Spiritual transformation brings more positive change to the world than political or social revolution. From God’s perspective, “one true Christian, however humble his birth and low his standing; however poor or ignorant or unknown [is more valuable than] many great men of the world, kings and princes, men of great power and policy… that are honored, and make a great fissure… [but] are wicked men and reprobates.” God delights to “choose the foolish things of this world to confound the mighty… and things which are not, to bring to nought things which are” ( 1 Cor. 1 27-28). For this reason, Edwards did not hesitate to use a four-year-old girl’s piety to recommend revival in a public treatise published in an era when children’s and women’s testimonies were widely considered unreliable.

5. Christians should beware of national pride. Edwards commended patriotism as a natural and loving response to the needs of one’s nation. But, in words reminiscent of Samuel Johnson’s remark that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, Edwards warned that patriotism often serves as a mask for self-interest. It is particularly susceptible to self-deception, he argued, because its loyalties extend to a large number of people, making such loyalties appear altruistic. Look at the Romans, he suggested; they considered love for country to be the highest of all virtues, yet they employed their patriotism “for the destruction of the rest of mankind.”

Edwards would be wary of contemporary calls to regard America as a Christian nation needing to return to its lost Christian roots. No nation has ever been Christian, he insisted. There has never been a country where the majority of citizens were born-again or even regular churchgoers. Most citizens of so-called Christian countries are not regenerate, and even the regenerate have an abundance of sin. No people has ever been righteous, least of all the colonial New England to which he preached. Edwards condemned eighteenth century New England for its religious hypocrisy, social strife, lack of compassion for the poor, and exploitation of Native Americans.

Edwards would also be critical of those who assume that America’s future must be bright because God has favored her with so many blessings. This Northampton prophet acknowledged that New England had been the recipient of unprecedented blessings, both spiritual and political. But, in a move missed by nearly all Edwards scholars, he said that such blessings could be a sign of impending judgment. It is a familiar pattern in history, he observed, for God to pour out spiritual revival just before he unleashes terrible judgment. Revival came to the Jews in Jesus’ time, just 40 years before Jerusalem was brutally destroyed. God dealt similarly with Israel’s ten lost tribes, the churches of North Africa and the Middle East after the rise of Islam, and the Protestant churches in France after the Reformation.

Therefore, Edwards warned that it is foolish for a people to think its religious and political freedoms will guarantee a happy future. If a society is morally or spiritually corrupt, it will collapse despite having wonderful civil freedoms. Edwards repeated this warning to colonial New England during the French and Indian Wars.

6. Christians should care for the poor. Edwards was sharply critical of those churchgoers who “pretend a great love to men’s souls [but] are not compassionate and charitable towards their bodies. “When Boston’s liberal preachers Charles Chauncy and Jonathan Mayhew were preaching that the poor were undeserving and their poverty was their own fault, Edwards told his congregation they should not be content until poverty was eliminated from their community.

It was not unusual for Puritan preachers to teach charity to the poor. But Edwards was unusually fearless when confronting those he considered negligent. When Northampton built a new church building that placed the poor in the worst seats, Edwards boldly declared that those with the best seats may have no seats at all in heaven. He charged those who used depreciated currency in public collections for the poor with lying to God, like Ananias and Sapphira, who were struck dead for their dishonesty (Acts 5 :1-11). In the 1740s, Edwards established a deacons’ fund specifically for the poor and regularly called on wealthier Christians to make “frequent and liberal” contributions.

Edwards taught that charity to the poor is at the heart of biblical theology. Preaching from Matthew 25, he said that God is present in the poor, whom he constitutes as his “receivers. “Since we cannot express our love to God by doing anything to profit him, God wants us to do something profitable for our poor neighbors, to whom he has delegated the task of receiving Christian love. It was no accident, Edwards explained, that Christ chose to be poor and despised when he came to this planet.

Edwards supported a state welfare program. Since all human beings, even true Christians, are naturally selfish, he contended, private — even church — charity is unreliable. Hence, government shows its “wisdom” when it administers a welfare program to assist the deserving poor. Those who are poor because of laziness or prodigality, however, do not merit such assistance.

Biographer Samuel Hopkins, who lived in the Edwards home for six months, said Edwards himself was a stellar example of giving to the poor but usually gave secretly. One time, for example, Edwards heard of a family in another town that had fallen into poverty because the father had become sick. Edwards, who rarely had enough to make ends meet, made arrangements to have the man receive a bundle of money without knowing from whom it came. On his deathbed, Edwards ordered that his funeral be conducted “without pomp and costs.” Any money that might have been spent for that purpose was instead to be given to the poor and needy.

One might easily take the legendary “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and other hellfire-and-damnation-tinged sermons by Jonathan Edwards as Christian cases for thoroughly separating oneself from the secular concerns of the culture. But the popular view of Edwards gives us only half the picture. A more careful examination of Edwards’s theology reveals new ways for Christians today to understand how their faith can relate to the public square.

Jonathan Edwards shows us that true faith is deeply private (arising from a transformed heart) but not privatistic (devoid of active concern for society). His public theology is also a reminder that evangelism should never be opposed to social action. Rather, Edwards was convinced that a time of revival is precisely the time when the church needs to show social concern.

**************************

Gerald McDermott is a professor of religion at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. He is the author of “One Holy and Happy Society: The Public Theology of Jonathan Edwards” (Penn State Press).

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine ctjul94mrw4T80325619

[see #4097 for condensed version]

[In the spirit of the Lausanne Covenant, this statement seeks to clarify the Evangelical Christian beliefs about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.]

THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST: AN EVANGELICAL CELEBRATION

======================================================

For God so loved the world

that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him

shall not perish

but have eternal life. -- John 3:16

Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things;

let this be known to all the world. -- Isaiah 12:5

PREAMBLE

========

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is news, good news: the best and most important news that any human being ever hears.

This Gospel declares the only way to know God in peace, love, and joy is through the reconciling death of Jesus Christ the risen Lord.

This Gospel is the central message of the Holy Scriptures, and is the true key to understanding them.

This Gospel identifies Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel, as the Son of God and God the Son, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, whose incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension fulfilled the Father’s saving will. His death for sins and his resurrection from the dead were promised beforehand by the prophets and attested by eyewitnesses. In God’s own time and in God’s own way, Jesus Christ shall return as glorious Lord and Judge of all (1 Thess. 4:13–18; Matt. 25:31–32). He is now giving the Holy Spirit from the Father to all those who are truly his. The three Persons of the Trinity thus combine in the work of saving sinners.

This Gospel sets forth Jesus Christ as the living Savior, Master, Life, and Hope of all who put their trust in him. It tells us that the eternal destiny of all people depends on whether they are savingly related to Jesus Christ.

This Gospel is the only Gospel: there is no other; and to change its substance is to pervert and indeed destroy it. This Gospel is so simple that small children can understand it, and it is so profound that studies by the wisest theologians will never exhaust its riches.

All Christians are called to unity in love and unity in truth. As evangelicals who derive our very name from the Gospel, we celebrate this great good news of God’s saving work in Jesus Christ as the true bond of Christian unity, whether among organized churches and denominations or in the many transdenominational co operative enterprises of Christians together.

The Bible declares that all who truly trust in Christ and his Gospel are sons and daughters of God through grace, and hence are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

All who are justified experience reconciliation with the Father, full remission of sins, transition from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, the reality of being a new creature in Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. They enjoy access to the Father with all the peace and joy that this brings.

The Gospel requires of all believers worship, which means constant praise and giving of thanks to God, submission to all that he has revealed in his written word, prayerful dependence on him, and vigilance lest his truth be even inadvertently compromised or obscured.

To share the joy and hope of this Gospel is a supreme privilege. It is also an abiding obligation, for the Great Commission of Jesus Christ still stands: proclaim the Gospel everywhere, he said, teaching, baptizing, and making disciples.

By embracing the following declaration we affirm our commitment to this task, and with it our allegiance to Christ himself, to the Gospel itself, and to each other as fellow evangelical believers.

THE GOSPEL

==========

This Gospel of Jesus Christ which God sets forth in the infallible Scriptures combines Jesus’ own declaration of the present reality of the kingdom of God with the apostles’ account of the person, place, and work of Christ, and how sinful humans benefit from it. The Patristic Rule of Faith, the historic creeds, the Reformation confessions, and the doctrinal bases of later evangelical bodies all witness to the substance of this biblical message.

The heart of the Gospel is that our holy, loving Creator, confronted with human hostility and rebellion, has chosen in his own freedom and faithfulness to become our holy, loving Redeemer and Restorer. The Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world (1 John 4:14): it is through his one and only Son that God’s one and only plan of salvation is implemented. So Peter announced: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). And Christ himself taught: "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

Through the Gospel we learn that we human beings, who were made for fellowship with God, are by nature -- that is, "in Adam" (1 Cor. 15:22) -- dead in sin, unresponsive to and separated from our Maker. We are constantly twisting his truth, breaking his law, belittling his goals and standards, and offending his holiness by our unholiness, so that we truly are "without hope and without God in the world" (Rom. 1:18–32, 3:9–20; Eph. 2:1–3, 12). Yet God in grace took the initiative to reconcile us to himself through the sinless life and vicarious death of his beloved Son (Eph. 2:4–10; Rom. 3:21–24).

The Father sent the Son to free us from the dominion of sin and Satan, and to make us God’s children and friends. Jesus paid our penalty in our place on his cross, satisfying the retributive demands of divine justice by shedding his blood in sacrifice and so making possible justification for all who trust in him (Rom. 3:25–26). The Bible describes this mighty substitutionary transaction as the achieving of ransom, reconciliation, redemption, propitiation, and conquest of evil powers (Matt. 20:28; 2 Cor. 5:18–21; Rom. 3:23–25; John 12:31; Col. 2:15). It secures for us a restored relationship with God that brings pardon and peace, acceptance and access, and adoption into God’s family (Col. 1:20, 2:13–14; Rom. 5:1–2; Gal. 4:4–7; 1 Pet. 3:18). The faith in God and in Christ to which the Gospel calls us is a trustful outgoing of our hearts to lay hold of these promised and proffered benefits.

This Gospel further proclaims the bodily resurrection, ascension, and enthronement of Jesus as evidence of the efficacy of his once-for-all sacrifice for us, of the reality of his present personal ministry to us, and of the certainty of his future return to glorify us (1 Cor. 15; Heb. 1:1–4, 2:1–18, 4:14–16, 7:1–10:25). In the life of faith as the Gospel presents it, believers are united with their risen Lord, communing with him, and looking to him in repentance and hope for empowering through the Holy Spirit, so that henceforth they may not sin but serve him truly.

God’s justification of those who trust him, according to the Gospel, is a decisive transition, here and now, from a state of condemnation and wrath because of their sins to one of acceptance and favor by virtue of Jesus’ flawless obedience culminating in his voluntary sin-bearing death. God "justifies the wicked" (ungodly: Rom. 4:5) by imputing (reckoning, crediting, counting, accounting) righteousness to them and ceasing to count their sins against them (Rom. 4:1–8). Sinners receive through faith in Christ alone "the gift of righteousness" (Rom. 1:17, 5:17; Phil. 3:9) and thus be come "the righteousness of God" in him who was "made sin" for them (2 Cor. 5:21).

As our sins were reckoned to Christ, so Christ’s righteousness is reckoned to us. This is justification by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. All we bring to the transaction is our need of it. Our faith in the God who bestows it, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is itself the fruit of God’s grace. Faith links us savingly to Jesus, but inasmuch as it involves an acknowledgment that we have no merit of our own, it is confessedly not a meritorious work.

The Gospel assures us that all who have en trusted their lives to Jesus Christ are born-again children of God (John 1:12), indwelt, empowered, and assured of their status and hope by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 7:6, 8:9–17). The moment we truly believe in Christ, the Father declares us righteous in him and begins conforming us to his likeness. Genuine faith acknowledges and depends upon Jesus as Lord and shows itself in growing obedience to the divine commands, though this contributes nothing to the ground of our justification (James 2:14–26; Heb. 6:1–12).

By his sanctifying grace, Christ works within us through faith, renewing our fallen nature and leading us to real maturity, that measure of development which is meant by "the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). The Gospel calls us to live as obedient servants of Christ and as his emissaries in the world, doing justice, loving mercy, and helping all in need, thus seeking to bear witness to the kingdom of Christ. At death, Christ takes the believer to himself (Phil. 1:21) for unimaginable joy in the ceaseless worship of God (Rev. 22:1–5).

Salvation in its full sense is from the guilt of sin in the past, the power of sin in the present, and the presence of sin in the future. Thus, while in foretaste believers enjoy salvation now, they still await its fullness (Mark 14:61–62; Heb. 9:28). Salvation is a Trinitarian reality, initiated by the Father, implemented by the Son, and applied by the Holy Spirit. It has a global dimension, for God’s plan is to save believers out of every tribe and tongue (Rev. 5:9) to be his church, a new humanity, the people of God, the body and bride of Christ, and the community of the Holy Spirit. All the heirs of final salvation are called here and now to serve their Lord and each other in love, to share in the fellowship of Jesus’ sufferings, and to work together to make Christ known to the whole world.

We learn from the Gospel that, as all have sinned, so all who do not receive Christ will be judged according to their just deserts as measured by God’s holy law, and face eternal retributive punishment.

UNITY IN THE GOSPEL

===================

Christians are commanded to love each other despite differences of race, gender, privilege, and social, political, and economic background (John 13:34–35; Gal. 3:28–29), and to be of one mind wherever possible (John 17:20–21; Phil. 2:2; Rom. 14:1–15:13). We know that divisions among Christians hinder our witness in the world, and we desire greater mutual understanding and truth-speaking in love. We know too that as trustees of God’s revealed truth we cannot embrace any form of doctrinal indifferentism, or relativism, or pluralism by which God’s truth is sacrificed for a false peace.

Doctrinal disagreements call for debate. Dialogue for mutual understanding and, if possible, narrowing of the differences is valuable, doubly so when the avowed goal is unity in primary things, with liberty in secondary things, and charity in all things.

In the foregoing paragraphs, an attempt has been made to state what is primary and essential in the Gospel as evangelicals understand it. Useful dialogue, however, requires not only charity in our attitudes, but also clarity in our utterances. Our extended analysis of justification by faith alone through Christ alone reflects our belief that Gospel truth is of crucial importance and is not always well understood and correctly affirmed. For added clarity, out of love for God’s truth and Christ’s church, we now cast the key points of what has been said into specific affirmations and denials regarding the Gospel and our unity in it and in Christ.

AFFIRMATIONS AND DENIALS:

=========================

1. We affirm that the Gospel entrusted to the church is, in the first instance, God’s Gospel (Mark 1:14; Rom. 1:1). God is its author, and he reveals it to us in and by his Word. Its authority and truth rest on him alone.

We deny that the truth or authority of the Gospel derives from any human insight or invention (Gal. 1:1–11). We also deny that the truth or authority of the Gospel rests on the authority of any particular church or human institution.

2. We affirm that the Gospel is the saving power of God in that the Gospel effects salvation to everyone who believes, without distinction (Rom. 1:16). This efficacy of the Gospel is by the power of God himself (1 Cor. 1:18).

We deny that the power of the Gospel rests in the eloquence of the preacher, the technique of the evangelist, or the persuasion of rational argument (1 Cor. 1:21; 2:1–5).

3. We affirm that the Gospel diagnoses the universal human condition as one of sinful rebellion against God, which, if unchanged, will lead each person to eternal loss under God’s condemnation.

We deny any rejection of the fallenness of human nature or any assertion of the natural goodness, or divinity, of the human race.

4. We affirm that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, the only mediator between God and humanity (John 14:6; 1 Tim. 2:5).

We deny that anyone is saved in any other way than by Jesus Christ and his Gospel. The Bible offers no hope that sincere worshipers of other religions will be saved without personal faith in Jesus Christ.

5. We affirm that the church is commanded by God and is therefore under divine obligation to preach the Gospel to every living person (Luke 24:47; Matt. 28:18–19).

We deny that any particular class or group of persons, whatever their ethnic or cultural identity, may be ignored or passed over in the preaching of the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:19–22). God purposes a global church made up from people of every tribe, language, and nation (Rev. 7:9).

6. We affirm that faith in Jesus Christ as the divine Word (or Logos, John 1:1), the second Person of the Trinity, co-eternal and co-essential with the Father and the Holy Spirit (Heb. 1:3), is foundational to faith in the Gospel.

We deny that any view of Jesus Christ which reduces or rejects his full deity is Gospel faith or will avail to salvation.

7. We affirm that Jesus Christ is God incarnate (John 1:14). The virgin-born descendant of David (Rom. 1:3), he had a true human nature, was subject to the Law of God (Gal. 4:5), and was like us at all points, except without sin (Heb. 2:17, 7:26–28). We affirm that faith in the true humanity of Christ is essential to faith in the Gospel.

We deny that anyone who rejects the humanity of Christ, his incarnation, or his sinlessness, or who maintains that these truths are not essential to the Gospel, will be saved (1 John 4:2–3).

8. We affirm that the atonement of Christ by which, in his obedience, he offered a perfect sacrifice, propitiating the Father by paying for our sins and satisfying divine justice on our behalf according to God’s eternal plan, is an essential element of the Gospel.

We deny that any view of the Atonement that rejects the substitutionary satisfaction of divine justice, accomplished vicariously for believers, is compatible with the teaching of the Gospel.

9. We affirm that Christ’s saving work included both his life and his death on our behalf (Gal. 3:13). We declare that faith in the perfect obedience of Christ by which he fulfilled all the demands of the Law of God in our behalf is essential to the Gospel.

We deny that our salvation was achieved merely or exclusively by the death of Christ without reference to his life of perfect righteousness.

10. We affirm that the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead is essential to the biblical Gospel (1 Cor. 15:14).

We deny the validity of any so-called gospel that denies the historical reality of the bodily resurrection of Christ.

11. We affirm that the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone is essential to the Gospel (Rom. 3:28; 4:5; Gal. 2:16).

We deny that any person can believe the biblical Gospel and at the same time reject the apostolic teaching of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. We also deny that there is more than one true Gospel (Gal. 1:6–9).

12. We affirm that the doctrine of the imputation (reckoning or counting) both of our sins to Christ and of his righteousness to us, whereby our sins are fully forgiven and we are fully accepted, is essential to the biblical Gospel (2 Cor. 5:19–21).

We deny that we are justified by the righteousness of Christ infused into us or by any righteousness that is thought to inhere within us.

13. We affirm that the righteousness of Christ by which we are justified is properly his own, which he achieved apart from us, in and by his perfect obedience. This righteousness is counted, reckoned, or imputed to us by the forensic (that is, legal) declaration of God, as the sole ground of our justification.

We deny that any works we perform at any stage of our existence add to the merit of Christ or earn for us any merit that contributes in any way to the ground of our justification (Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8–9; Titus 3:5).

14. We affirm that, while all believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and are in the process of being made holy and conformed to the image of Christ, those consequences of justification are not its ground. God declares us just, remits our sins, and adopts us as his children, by his grace alone, and through faith alone, because of Christ alone, while we are still sinners (Rom. 4:5).

We deny that believers must be inherently righteous by virtue of their cooperation with God’s life-transforming grace before God will declare them justified in Christ. We are justified while we are still sinners.

15. We affirm that saving faith results in sanctification, the transformation of life in growing conformity to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification means ongoing repentance, a life of turning from sin to serve Jesus Christ in grateful reliance on him as one’s Lord and Master (Gal. 5:22–25; Rom. 8:4, 13–14).

We reject any view of justification which divorces it from our sanctifying union with Christ and our increasing conformity to his image through prayer, repentance, cross-bearing, and life in the Spirit.

16. We affirm that saving faith includes mental assent to the content of the Gospel, acknowledgment of our own sin and need, and personal trust and reliance upon Christ and his work.

We deny that saving faith includes only mental acceptance of the Gospel, and that justification is secured by a mere outward profession of faith. We further deny that any element of saving faith is a meritorious work or earns salvation for us.

17. We affirm that, although true doctrine is vital for spiritual health and well-being, we are not saved by doctrine. Doctrine is necessary to inform us how we may be saved by Christ, but it is Christ who saves.

We deny that the doctrines of the Gospel can be rejected without harm. Denial of the Gospel brings spiritual ruin and exposes us to God’s judgment.

18. We affirm that Jesus Christ commands his followers to proclaim the Gospel to all living persons, evangelizing everyone everywhere, and discipling believers within the fellowship of the church. A full and faithful witness to Christ includes the witness of personal testimony, godly living, and acts of mercy and charity to our neighbor, without which the preaching of the Gospel appears barren.

We deny that the witness of personal testimony, godly living, and acts of mercy and charity to our neighbors constitutes evangelism apart from the proclamation of the Gospel.

OUR COMMITMENT

==============

As evangelicals united in the Gospel, we promise to watch over and care for one another, to pray for and forgive one another, and to reach out in love and truth to God’s people everywhere, for we are one family, one in the Holy Spirit, and one in Christ.

Centuries ago it was truly said that in things necessary there must be unity, in things less than necessary there must be liberty, and in all things there must be charity. We see all these Gospel truths as necessary.

Now to God, the Author of the truth and grace of this Gospel, through Jesus Christ, its subject and our Lord, be praise and glory forever and ever. Amen.

_________________________________________________

"THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST: AN EVANGELICAL CELEBRATION" IS COPYRIGHT 1999 BY THE COMMITTEE ON EVANGELICAL UNITY IN THE GOSPEL, P.O. BOX 5551, GLENDALE HEIGHTS, IL 60139-5551

Copyright(c) 1999 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Christianity Today magazine. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or e-mail ctedit@aol.com.

June 14, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 7, Page 49

*

If you were asked what you would call a person who believes in astrology, reincarnation, and the possibility of communicating with the dead, your answer would probably be a "New Ager."

Well, according to a new book, these are just some of the beliefs held by people who call themselves "born again Christians" -- which goes to show that simply calling yourself "born again" doesn't make it so.

In his book, Spiritual Marketplace, sociologist Wade Clark Roof chronicles the shift in religious attitudes in contemporary America. Roof finds that, as a result of the Baby Boomer "quest culture," many Americans understand religious faith as some sort of emotional personal experience, which they describe as "spiritual." And all sorts of strange beliefs can fit under that heading.

By describing themselves as "spiritual" rather than "religious," these people tell us a lot. The word "religion," you see, comes from the Latin word for "to bind." But boomer spirituality distrusts authority and dismisses the importance of belonging to a particular church or denomination.

Their emphasis on being spiritual carries with it a syncretistic approach to belief -- meaning that, instead of adhering to a specific set of doctrines, they feel free to pick-and-choose from all the various belief systems, or to create their own tailor-made religion.

Unfortunately, syncretism has found its way into evangelical circles, as well. Roof says that many people who describe themselves as "born again Christians" actually hold beliefs that are at odds with biblical Christianity.

Some 25 percent of those interviewed in Roof's study believe in the possibility of communicating with the dead. A third of them believe in reincarnation and astrology; and, half say they believe in psychic powers.

Moreover, half said, "the various religions of the world are 'equally good and true.'" This prompted Roof to characterize this brand of so-called born-again Christianity as "markedly different" from earlier varieties. Or as columnist Terry Mattingly puts it "born again ... doesn't mean what it used to mean." It also tells us that polls of born-again voters can be very misleading.

Actually, it's not that born-again Christianity has changed. It's that Roof's subjects, like many of those who claim to be born-again Christians, actually practice an entirely different faith.

The situation described by Roof is analogous to the circumstances confronted in the '20s and '30s by theologian Gresham Machem. Liberal theologians had introduced new doctrines and ideas into the Church, often claiming biblical warrant for these ideas. As a result, many people were confused by these teachings.

In his classic book, "Christianity & Liberalism," Machem showed that while these ideas might be attractive, they weren't Christianity. In the same way, while the mixture of Christianity and other religions may suit the spirit of our age, it simply isn't born-again Christianity.

We need to remind people lovingly that Christianity is more than a spiritual experience. It's a worldview -- a set of beliefs about the God who acted in history, belief that has been revealed through Scripture and transmitted by our 2,000-year-old heritage of Western Civilization.

It is these beliefs, and not our "spiritual" feelings, that define what it means to be a Christian -- no matter what the spirit of the age may tell us.

___________________

Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

We will not believe more than we know, and we will not live higher than our beliefs.

________

While America’s evangelical Christians are rightly concerned about the secular worldview’s rejection of biblical Christianity, we ought to give some urgent attention to a problem much closer to home–biblical illiteracy in the church. This scandalous problem is our own, and it’s up to us to fix it.

Researchers George Gallup and Jim Castelli put the problem squarely: “Americans revere the Bible–but, by and large, they don’t read it. And because they don’t read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates.” How bad is it? Researchers tell us that it’s worse than most could imagine.

Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels. Many Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples. According to data from the Barna Research Group, 60 percent of Americans can’t name even five of the Ten Commandments. “No wonder people break the Ten Commandments all the time. They don’t know what they are,” said George Barna, president of the firm. The bottom line? “Increasingly, America is biblically illiterate.”

Multiple surveys reveal the problem in stark terms. According to 82 percent of Americans, “God helps those who help themselves,” is a Bible verse. Those identified as born-again Christians did better–by one percent. A majority of adults think the Bible teaches that the most important purpose in life is taking care of one’s family.

Some of the statistics are enough to perplex even those aware of the problem. A Barna poll indicated that at least 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. Another survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50 percent thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. A considerable number of respondents to one poll indicated that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham. We are in big trouble.

Secularized Americans should not be expected to be knowledgeable about the Bible. As the nation’s civic conversation is stripped of all biblical references and content, Americans increasingly live in a Scripture-free public space. Confusion and ignorance of the Bible’s content should be assumed in post-Christian America.

The larger scandal is biblical ignorance among Christians. Choose whichever statistic or survey you like, the general pattern is the same. America’s Christians know less and less about the Bible. It shows.

How can a generation be biblically shaped in its understanding of human sexuality when it believes Sodom and Gomorrah to be a married couple? No wonder Christians show a growing tendency to compromise on the issue of homosexuality. Many who identify themselves as Christians are similarly confused about the Gospel itself. An individual who believes that “God helps those who help themselves” will find salvation by grace and justification by faith to be alien concepts.

Christians who lack biblical knowledge are the products of churches that marginalize biblical knowledge. Bible teaching now often accounts for only a diminishing fraction of the local congregation’s time and attention. The move to small group ministry has certainly increased opportunities for fellowship, but many of these groups never get beyond superficial Bible study.

Youth ministries are asked to fix problems, provide entertainment, and keep kids busy. How many local-church youth programs actually produce substantial Bible knowledge in young people?

Even the pulpit has been sidelined in many congregations. Preaching has taken a back seat to other concerns in corporate worship. The centrality of biblical preaching to the formation of disciples is lost, and Christian ignorance leads to Christian indolence and worse.

This really is our problem, and it is up to this generation of Christians to reverse course. Recovery starts at home. Parents are to be the first and most important educators of their own children, diligently teaching them the Word of God. [See Deuteronomy 6:4-9.] Parents cannot franchise their responsibility to the congregation, no matter how faithful and biblical it may be. God assigned parents this non-negotiable responsibility, and children must see their Christian parents as teachers and fellow students of God’s Word.

Churches must recover the centrality and urgency of biblical teaching and preaching, and refuse to sideline the teaching ministry of the preacher. Pastors and churches too busy–or too distracted–to make biblical knowledge a central aim of ministry will produce believers who simply do not know enough to be faithful disciples.

We will not believe more than we know, and we will not live higher than our beliefs. The many fronts of Christian compromise in this generation can be directly traced to biblical illiteracy in the pews and the absence of biblical preaching and teaching in our homes and churches.

This generation must get deadly serious about the problem of biblical illiteracy, or a frighteningly large number of Americans–Christians included–will go on thinking that Sodom and Gomorrah lived happily ever after.

Pollster George Barna discovered the following about American evangelicals:

Only 9% of born again adults have a biblical worldview. Another 6% have the foundation (i.e., believe in absolute moral truth and that the Bible is the source of truth). That means that 85% of all born again adults have neither the foundation nor the theological perspective required for a biblical worldview.

In a typical week, people with a biblical worldview are:

*Nine times more likely to avoid adult-only material on the internet.

*Five times less likely to use tobacco products.

*Three times more likely to boycott products.

*Three times more likely to intentionally not watch a movie due to

its objectionable content.

*Half as likely to personally give cash to a needy person they meet.

People with a biblical worldview are:

Two-and-three quarters times more likely to Strongly Disagree:

the Bible does not specifically condemn homosexuality.

Two-and-two-thirds times more likely to Strongly Agree:

the Bible is totally accurate in all its teachings.

Three out of four Senior Pastors believe they do an excellent job of enabling people to develop a biblical worldview. 59% pastors say that a majority of their congregants possess a biblical worldview. Only 5% of the adults who regularly attend church actually have a biblical worldview.

Two out of three children receive Christ before age 18 the majority do it before age 9. Most kids by the age of 13 feel they know everything that they need to know about the Bible.

*

The greatest danger facing evangelicals are errors that modern leaders often fail to see, New Testament scholar D.A. Carson said.

While liberalism within the evangelical church has largely been defeated, other dangers lurk, said Carson, professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School who has authored scores of books, including “The Gagging of God,” “Exegetical Fallacies” and “The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God.”

“I suspect, right now, that this seminary -- in fact, the SBC as a whole -- is not particularly in danger ... from classic liberalism,” Carson said in a lecture at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Sept. 4. “You fought that one. So what is it that you don’t see?

“It is so easy to go on and on and on and on about yesterday’s errors. But in my view, the dangers facing contemporary evangelicalism at large have very little to do with classic liberalism.”

Whereas evangelicalism once wrestled with liberal theology and practice as its chief enemy, today the church faces others that are more subtle and more insidious, Carson said.

Several potential enemies that might work against the gospel today were listed by Carson, including postmodernism, “knee-jerk” conservatism, mean-spirited triumphalism, movements questioning the atonement of Christ and openness of God theology.

“[These] really don’t come out of classical liberalism,” he said. “They come out of other corners.”

Evangelical leaders must be aware that they see through a glass dimly when it comes to being able to discern error in their midst, Carson said. To avoid these errors, leaders of the contemporary church must be vigilant and live in humble submission to the authority of Scripture, he said.

This also demands careful and rigorous study of the Word of God and the learning of church history as well, Carson said.

“That means we are to walk humbly,” he said. “Most of us think we see much more than we do. We are to look around for mature Christian leaders who are not merely building their empires [but] who are informed, humble [and] godly.

“[We must] read and re-read and think and re-think and learn some church history and study Scripture again and again and again. The devil is not only a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, he goes around as an angel of light, deceiving if it is possible, the very elect.”

The church doesn't exist for Christians. The church is designed for those who are not members.

I recently made that comment and it drew quite a response. The context of the comment was within a discussion about discipleship. I said that Jesus is searching for true disciples in the evangelical church in America but is having difficulty finding many.

Need evidence? Read the headlines. The evangelical church in America is losing ground when it comes to effecting change in our culture. Instead of a trend in our nation toward godliness, the trend is toward secularism devoid of anything godly. Western Christianity has retreated from the battle for the souls of men to the hollow pursuit of self-comfort. True disciples follow Christ into the fray.

God's design for the church is not that it exists for my comfort or for the convenience of its members but He instituted it as an equipping station to thrust us into the harvest for souls.

The church at Ephesus was surrounded by false religions and egocentric philosophies. People were consumed by their sexual appetites and practiced “every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more” (Ephesians 4:19). Did the Apostle Paul tell the Ephesian Christians to get inside their building, close the door and lock out the evil that permeated their society? No, and in fact, he told them to walk worthy of their calling, obey God's commands, stay true to the divine strategy and be Christians right where they were.

We must first realize that the church is a divine institution. It was not an afterthought with God.

We are the strategy God designed to confront the godlessness of our culture. When Christ says we were the light on a hill, He meant that we are to shine in such a way that those struggling with the turbulence of life could safely navigate to the harbor of God's grace. When the light from our churches sweeps across our culture, people see our good works and give glory to God in heaven (Matthew 5:16). It's an intentional effort on our part to understand that church is not about us; it is about God, His Kingdom and making His name known among the nations (Psalm 46:10).

However, we become ineffective when we turn inward and our culture has no visible measure of eternal truth. There is no incarnational witness of the Savior. We rob hope from individuals who are on a collision course with eternal separation from God when we focus our energy on ourselves.

As we project the Gospel outward from our churches, we must follow the leadership of God. God does not overlook people's sin. He extends grace and forgiveness in spite of it. We must be accepting of individuals without condoning their lifestyles.

I like the chorus of the song, “This Must Be the Place,” co-written and sung by Steve Amerson:

This must be a place where a broken heart can mend

This must be a place where the outcast finds a friend

For we cannot lift the fallen if our hand still holds a stone

And their sin that seems so great to us is no greater than our own

There must be a point where shame meets grace

And this must be the place.”

Is your church that place?

Recently a friend visited me in my office and, in the middle of our conversation, surprised me by asking my opinion of the three greatest issues in the world today. Good question. But I had to answer that question without being able to give it any real thought. As I have thought about what I said, however, the more I think about it, my immediate response was right on.

My first answer was radical Islam because it threatens the very existence of Western society. For the first time in history, an enemy has the capacity to bring its weapons into the United States and hit us at home. Then I described to him the dynamics of radical Islam and why it was determined to destroy us because of our decadence, and then, of course, how we are cooperating in the process by allowing ourselves to become so decadent. I also mentioned Samuel Huntington's thesis about a clash of civilizations.

The second answer was truth — not “what's true for me,” but what Francis Schaeffer called “true truth.” If there's no absolute truth, there can be no meaningful moral order in society. The frightening part is that according to George Barna's studies, recently cited in The Wall Street Journal, “only 9 percent of self-described born-again teens believe that moral truth is absolute.” There is a real crisis of truth in America, which leads to a crisis, as Os Guinness often puts it, of cultural authority. This is a crisis as serious as radical Islam because if we lose the capacity to say this is what ought to be the case, that is, the moral law, then we descend to the law of the jungle. The strong dominate the weak.

My third response was what it means to be human. First, the whole biotech revolution raises profound questions about the very nature of what it means to be a human being. We are at a place today where we can not only take life, created in God's image (abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide — that's bad enough), but we can also make life in man's image (cloning and genetic manipulation). This question is very personal to me because I have a 13-year-old autistic grandson. I get chills thinking about how much longer a utilitarian society will decide to keep people around whom some of Darwin's followers have called “useless eaters.” One day we'll decide to dispose of them or manipulate their genetic makeup. But of course, as C. S. Lewis once said, once we conquer nature, nature conquers us.

The issue of what it means to be human also applies to same-sex “marriage.” It raises the whole issue of gender and embodiment. Increasingly gender is not connected to our bodies, sex is not connected with marriage or childbearing, and parenthood is a separate enterprise from a man and a woman getting married. Once that happens, we've entered a brave new world where a biblical understanding of what it means to be human is completely fragmented. The next step is to produce children in an assembly line in a factory. And parents — party A and party B — will have no connection to the process.

These are three huge issues that I believe are at the root of almost everything else we talk about or think about here on BreakPoint. Christians need to be grounded in all three so that we really understand the issues that face us in American life today and so that we can make a credible defense for a biblical worldview.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040415, “Terrorism and War: Facing the Facts of History.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040622, “Decadence and Vulnerability: Same-Sex ‘Marriage' and Terrorism.”

• Jim Tonkowich, “Ten Things We Should Have Learned Since September 11, 2001,” Christianity Today, 10 September 2002. (Reprinted at BreakPoint Online.)

• Samuel Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Simon & Schuster, 1998).

• Dale Buss, “Christian Teens? Not Very.“ Wall Street Journal, 9 July 2004.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040611, “Absolutes without Absolutism: True Truth.”

• Art Lindsley, True Truth: Defending Absolute Truth in a Relativistic World (InterVarsity Press, 2004).

• Alister Bull, “Fear of hell makes us richer, Fed says,” Reuters, 27 July 2004. (Article about a new study that demonstrates the influence of religion on a society.)

• Learn more about bioethics issues at the Council for Biotechnology Policy website: http://www.pfm.org/BiotechTemplate.cfm?section=Biotech_Home

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040701, “Doing the Unfashionable Thing: Governor Romney Takes a Stand.”

• C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943).

• The church and small-group curricula “Playing God?“ and “CounterCultural Christians“ are great teaching resources for Christians.

• Charles Colson and Ellen Vaughn, Being the Body: A New Call for the Church to Be Light in the Darkness (W Publishing, 2003).

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Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

The television ad shows footage of devastating storms, droughts, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As the images flash by, a voice intones, “The good news is that with God's help, we can stop global warming, for our kids, our world, and for our Lord.” That's quite a promise.

The ad is part of a publicity campaign by an organization called the Evangelical Climate Initiative — and it highlights both the controversy over global warming and the eagerness of the secular press to promote supposed divisions among evangelicals.

Last week, to much fanfare in the secular press, the Evangelical Climate Initiative — ECI — issued a report signed by eighty-six evangelical leaders titled, “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action.” Among other things, it called for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

The NEW YORK TIMES, in particular, seemed to delight in the fact that this initiative represented a split in evangelical ranks. The TIMES gleefully reported that prominent evangelicals — including Jim Dobson, Richard Land, and yours truly — did not sign the report. The implication was that more enlightened Christian leaders were now breaking ranks with the Bush administration and conservatives.

What the press left out was the fact that some of us were never invited to sign the statement. Maybe that was because we had earlier signed the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship, in which we argued that there had to be a balancing of interests. In particular, the world's poor could be adversely affected economically by some of the more radical environmental proposals.

Let me be clear: Some of the ECI recommendations — like driving fuel-efficient cars — are sensible. And there is no disagreement about our goals: Everybody is for stopping global warming. But at what cost?

We are not alone in believing that some of the global warming solutions go too far and do too little good. Two days after the TIMES exploited so-called divisions within the evangelical community, John Tierney, an op-ed writer for the TIMES, lampooned the entire debate over global warming. Solutions like the Kyoto treaty, writes Tierney, “amount to expensive hair shirts that appeal to [environmental] penitents,” but with costs that economists say are far too high. He cited four Nobel laureates and their colleagues, who met in Copenhagen in 2004 to study proposals to help the poor, and concluded that programs to slow global warming are “far less worthwhile than programs to immediately combat disease and improve drinking water and sanitation.”

“Saving lives now,” Tierney concludes, “makes more sense than spending large sums to avert biblical punishments that may never come.” Besides which, scientists are still unsure of how much the planet will heat up or how much — if any — damage will be done.

Now, we all have a stewardship responsibility for God's creation, but we also have responsibility for God's creatures. Balancing those interests requires prudence. I'm convinced most evangelicals agree on this — the NEW YORK TIMES notwithstanding — even if we may disagree on how resources are most effectively employed. “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,” as the Scriptures put it. But it takes wisdom to figure out exactly how best to take care of it — and people too.

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Copyright (c) 2006 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

American evangelicals always seem to be going through some sort of identity crisis.

Often it’s projected upon us by outside observers who admire, vilify or study evangelicals as a sociological phenomenon:

• We’re actively engaging the culture, some declare. No, insist others: We’re withdrawing from the culture.

• We’re growing more inclusive. No, we’re more exclusive than ever.

• We remain people of the Book. No, insist others, we’re losing our biblical distinctives as we become too comfortable and socially influential.

• We’re trying to take over the government and force everybody to accept our beliefs. No, we’re losing interest in politics as we struggle to shore up our own families and churches in an age of pluralism and decadence.

After the bitter fall election with its religious overtones, our most rabid detractors took the gloves off -- if the gloves were ever on. Angry secularists on both coasts retreated to their urban strongholds, muttering about how to fight off the barbarian hordes out there in “Jesusland.” If you haven’t heard of “Jesusland,” it’s the worst nightmare of the fevered secular imagination: a vast middle region of red-voting counties, populated by slack-jawed Christian hillbillies who patrol rural highways in armed SUVS -- like the gangs who chased Mel Gibson around a post-nuclear Australian wasteland in “Mad Max.”

Bill Maher, former host of the now-defunct “Politically Incorrect” and current HBO loudmouth, typifies coastal extremists. He loathes religious believers in general, abhors evangelicals in particular and makes no bones about it.

“We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion,” Maher said recently on MSNBC. “I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder.”

Clear enough?

Maher, you may recall, is the same guy who made an interesting observation after the accidental shoot-down and killing of independent Baptist missionary Roni Bowers and her adopted baby by a Peruvian fighter jet in 2001. For Maher, this was an opportunity to compare missionaries with drug dealers -- unfavorably. As his studio audience laughed, he wondered aloud if missionaries were morally inferior to the flying drug runners for whom the Bowers family was mistaken when the small plane carrying them was shot down. Missionary claims to absolute truth, Maher contended, have done far more damage in the world than recreational drug use.

“I am just embarrassed that [America] has been taken over by people like evangelicals, by people who do not believe in science and rationality,” Maher said on MSNBC. “It is the 21st century. And I will tell you, my friend, the future does not belong to the evangelicals. The future does not belong to religion.”

Voltaire, the French Enlightenment philosopher, said essentially the same thing about religion and its future -- with a lot more style and wit. He died in 1778, shortly before the first great age of Protestant missionary expansion began spreading the Christian Gospel around the world, bringing hospitals and schools to a host of poverty-stricken places and helping end all manner of abuses against the downtrodden.

Friendlier observers give today’s evangelicals credit for continuing that noble tradition. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who disagrees with evangelicals on many issues, recently reiterated his praise for their activism abroad.

Conservative evangelicals, says Kristof, “are the new internationalists, increasingly engaged in humanitarian causes abroad” –- from fighting against sex trafficking to fighting for human rights and religious liberty in many places.

TIME magazine, interested in the national impact of evangelical leaders, devoted a recent cover story to the 25 movers and shakers it considers most influential.

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary is sponsoring a series of conferences on public perceptions and misperceptions about evangelicals, including the myths that all evangelical believers are anti-intellectual, that belief in the exclusive divinity of Christ equals intolerance of others, etc.

More important than how others see us, however, is how we identify ourselves -- and act on that identity. Are we cultural warriors or cultural peacemakers? Are our churches family bomb shelters built to keep out the moral chaos around us, or Christian entertainment centers built to pack ‘em in?

Or does the chief end of man, and primary mission of the church, remain what the much-debated word “evangelical” implies: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and to declare His glory and mercy to all nations?

“God created me –- and you -– to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion,” writes John Piper. “Namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying His supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.

“...The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.”

It’s easy to become distracted from our chief purpose by all the other important challenges believers face. But it is who we are, or should be.

Otherwise, we don’t deserve the name evangelical -– or Christian.

“We have figured out your problem. You're the only one here who believes in God.” That statement, addressed to a young seminarian, introduces Dave Shiflett's new book, EXODUS: WHY AMERICANS ARE FLEEING LIBERAL CHURCHES FOR CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANITY. The book is an important contribution, and Shiflett offers compelling evidence that liberal Christianity is fast imploding upon itself.

Shiflett, an established reporter and author, has written for THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WEEKLY STANDARD, NATIONAL REVIEW, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, and INVESTORS' BUSINESS DAILY, among other major media. He is also author of CHRISTIANITY ON TRIAL and is a member of the White House Writers Group.

Shiflett's instincts as a reporter led him to see a big story behind the membership decline in liberal denominations. At the same time, Shiflett detected the bigger picture -- the decline of liberal churches as compared to growth among the conservatives. Like any good reporter, he knew he was onto a big story.

“Americans are vacating progressive pews and flocking to churches that offer more traditional versions of Christianity,” Shiflett asserts. This author is not subtle, and he gets right to the point: “Most people go to church to get something they cannot get elsewhere. This consuming public -- people who already believe, or who are attempting to believe, who want their children to believe -- go to church to learn about the mysterious Truth on which the Christian religion is built. They want the Good News, not the minister's political views or intellectual coaching. The latter creates sprawling vacancies in the pews. Indeed, those empty pews can be considered the earthly reward for abandoning heaven, traditionally understood.”

Taken alone, the statistics tell much of the story. Shiflett takes his reader through some of the most salient statistical trends and wonders aloud why liberal churches and denominations seem steadfastly determined to follow a path that will lead to their own destruction. Shiflett also has a unique eye for comparative statistics, indicating, for example, that “there may now be twice as many lesbians in the United States as Episcopalians.”

Citing a study published in 2000 by the Glenmary Research Center, Shiflett reports that the Presbyterian Church USA declined by 11.6 percent over the previous decade, while the United Methodist Church lost “only” 6.7 percent and the Episcopal Church lost 5.3 percent. The United Church of Christ was abandoned by 14.8 percent of its members, while the American Baptist Churches USA were reduced by 5.7 percent.

On the other side of the theological divide, most conservative denominations are growing. The conservative Presbyterian Church in America [PCA] grew 42.4 percent in the same decade that the more liberal Presbyterian denomination lost 11.6 percent of its members. Other conservative denominations experiencing significant growth included the Christian Missionary Alliance (21.8 percent), the Evangelical Free Church (57.2 percent), the Assemblies of God (18.5 percent), and the Southern Baptist Convention (five percent).

As quoted in EXODUS, Glenmary director Ken Sanchagrin told the NEW YORK TIMES that he was “astounded to see that by and large the growing churches are those that we ordinarily call conservative. And when I looked at those that were declining, most were moderate or liberal churches. And the more liberal the denomination, by most people's definition, the more they were losing.”

Any informed observer of American religious life would know that these trends are not new -- not by a long shot. The more liberal Protestant denominations have been losing members by the thousands since the 1960s, with the Episcopal Church USA having lost fully one half of its members over the period.

In a sense, the travail of the Episcopal Church USA is the leading focus of Shiflett's book. Indeed, Shiflett states his intention to begin “with the train wreck known as the Episcopal Church USA.” As he tells it, “One Tuesday in latter-day Christendom, the sun rose in the east, the sky became a pleasant blue, and the Episcopal Church USA elected a gay man as bishop for a small New Hampshire diocese.” How could this happen? The ordination of a non-celibate homosexual man as a bishop of the Episcopal Church flew directly in the face of the clear teachings of Scripture and the official doctrinal positions of the church. No matter -- the Episcopal Church USA was determined to normalize homosexuality, even as they have normalized divorce and remarriage. As Shiflett explains, “It is commonly understood that the election of the Reverend Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, to be bishop of the diocese of New Hampshire was undertaken in clear opposition to traditional church teaching and Scripture. What is often left unsaid is that this is hardly the first time tradition has been trounced. The Reverend Gene Robinson's sexual life was an issue and was accommodated, just as the Episcopal Church earlier found a way to embrace bishops who believe that Jesus is no more divine, at least in a supernatural sense, than Bette Midler.”

What makes Shiflett's book unique is the personal narratives he has collected and analyzed. EXODUS is not a book of mere statistics and research. To the contrary, Shiflett crossed America, interviewing both conservatives and liberals in order to understand what is happening within American Christianity. Shiflett's interviews reveal fascinating insights into the underlying realities and the personal dimensions of theological conflict. EXODUS is written in a very direct style, with Shiflett providing readers anecdotes and analysis of his personal interaction with those he interviewed.

One of Shiflett's interviewees was the Reverend Bruce Gray, Rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. In an interesting comment, Shiflett recalls that this was the very church where Patrick Henry gave his famous speech in 1775 -- the speech in which Henry cried: “Give me liberty, or give me death!” As Shiflett notes, “The Episcopal Church, by freeing itself from many of its traditional beliefs, sometimes appears to be well on its way to achieving both.” Revered Gray supports the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, and he told Shiflett that the biblical condemnations of homosexuality had been considered by thoughtful people who had decided that the texts do not mean what they appear to mean. He cited his own bishop, who had issued an episcopal letter arguing, “Many people believe any homosexual activity is purely prohibited by Scripture .... But other Christians who take Scripture seriously believe that the Biblical writers were not addressing the realities of people with a permanent homosexual orientation living in faithful, monogamous relationships, and that the relevant scriptural support for those relationships is similar to the expectations of faithfulness Scripture places on marriage.” That is patent nonsense, of course, but this is what passes for theological argument among those pushing the homosexual agenda.

In order to understand why so many Episcopalians are leaving, Shiflett visited Hugo Blankenship, Jr., son of the Reverend Hugo Blankenship, who had served as the church's Bishop of Cuba. Blankenship is a traditionalist, who explained that his father must be “spinning in his grave” in light of developments in his beloved Episcopal Church. As Shiflett sees it, the church that Bishop Hugo Blankenship had served and loved is gone. In its place is a church that preaches a message Shiflett summarizes as this: “God is love, God's love is inclusive, God acts in justice to see that everyone is included, we therefore ought to be co-actors and co-creators with God to make the world over in the way he wishes.”

Shiflett also surveys the growing list of “celebrity heretics” whose accepted presence in liberal denominations serves as proof positive of the fact that these groups will tolerate virtually anything in terms of belief. Shiflett discusses the infamous (and now retired) Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, John Shelby Spong. “When placed in a wider context, Spong is simply another character from what might be called America's religious freak show.” Yet, the most important insight to draw from Spong's heresies is the fact that he has been accepted without censure by his church. As Shiflett explains, Spong's views, “while harshly criticized in some quarters as being far beyond the pale, are present not only throughout the mainline but throughout Protestantism, even in churches that are assumed to maintain traditional theological rigor.”

In Shiflett's turn of a phrase, these liberal theologians believe in a “Wee deity,” a vapid and ineffectual god who is not much of a threat and is largely up for individual interpretation.

On the other side of the divide, Shiflett spent time with conservative Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, Southern Baptists, and the larger evangelical community. In considering Southern Baptists, Shiflett largely drew upon interviews he conducted with me and with Richard Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Shiflett understands recent Southern Baptist history, and he takes his readers through the denomination's “conservative resurgence” that defied the conventional wisdom that denominations can never be pulled back in a more conservative direction.

More importantly, Shiflett understands that doctrinal beliefs are the crucial variable determining whether churches and denominations grow or decline. He deals with the statistical data honestly, even as he points to the larger context and the underlying factors at work.

Shiflett's opening story about the seminarian who was confronted by his peers underlines the importance of theological seminaries as agents for either the perpetuation or the destruction of the faith.

In this case, seminarian Andy Ferguson, who had questioned the anti-supernaturalistic claims of his seminary professors, was confronted by a fellow seminary student who said, “We've been talking about you. We know you're having a rough time, and we've finally figured out what your problem is .... You're the only one here who believes in God.” Andy Ferguson decided that his fellow student was right. “They believed in things like the redemptive power of the universe, but I was the last one there who wanted to defend the biblical God -- the God who makes claims on us, who said we should do some things and not do others, and who put each one of us here for a purpose.”

In the end, Andy Ferguson left the liberal seminary, converted to Catholicism, and went into the business world. He told Dave Shiflett that liberal Protestantism is doomed. “Mainline Protestantism will reach a certain point where it will appeal only to Wiccans, vegetarians, sandal-wearers, and people who play the recorder. No one will feel at home there if they believe in God.”

EXODUS is a book that is simultaneously brave and honest. Refreshingly, he eschews mere sociological analysis and points to the more foundational issue -- TRUTH. No doubt, this book will be appreciated in some quarters and hated in others, but it is not likely to be ignored.

Bob Edgar wants to rescue America from the religious right. In his new book, “Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right,” Edgar intends to reset the nation’s agenda when it comes to matters of Christian concern.

A former six-term Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Edgar now serves as the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. As such, he is one of the primary spokesmen for the religious left in America -- symbolically presiding over the dwindling numbers of mainline Protestants in the nation.

“My purpose in writing this book is to awaken the conscience of average, ordinary common folks within the United States to do above-average, extraordinary, and uncommon things to insure a future for our fragile planet,” Edgar states. “I am especially interested in inspiring and challenging what I call ‘Middle Church,’ ‘Middle Synagogue,’ ‘Middle Mosque’ -- the many millions of faithful people who do not always connect their spiritual values with political issues and whose voices are, as a result, often drowned out by the far religious right.”

As it turns out, one does not have to be very conservative in order to be considered part of the “far religious right” as identified by Bob Edgar. Interestingly for one whose own organization pushes so many political agendas, he claims to speak for those “faithful people” who do not, at least always, “connect their spiritual values with political issues.”

As Edgar sees it, there are two different churches in the United States -- one based on love and the other grounded in fear. As Edgar asserts, “fear, fundamentalism, and the FOX Broadcasting Company must not be allowed to set the agenda for our nation.”

Well then. As children, we are wisely advised by parents to learn the art of compromise. This is good advice for children playing in the sandbox. However, it is disastrous advice when it comes to matters of truth. Compromise works when truth is not at issue. But the very character of the National Council of Churches and the larger ecumenical movement is one of constant compromise at the expense of truth.

As the book begins, Edgar traces his own political involvement to the inspiration he received from the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Inspired by King’s example, Edgar wants to call America’s Christians to a middle way. “It is time for Middle Church -- an umbrella term I use to refer to mainstream people of all faiths -- to stand up to the far religious right and to embrace Christianity no less sincerely. The classic, historical Christianity practiced by Middle Church is far more authentic than the narrow religious expression of most radical right-wing religious leaders. We in Middle Church, Middle Synagogue, and Middle Mosque are not secularists who wish to banish God from the public square. We are people of faith whose traditions lead us to work for peace and care for the poor.”

Conservative Christians are certainly not above criticism. The evangelical movement is certainly capable of political misjudgment, spiritual triumphalism, and a truncated set of moral and theological concerns. Bob Edgar could have written a book offering an intelligent analysis of conservative Christianity and its cultural and political engagement. Unfortunately, this is not that book. It is not an intelligent analysis, and the intelligent reader will find the book absolutely perplexing at many points.

For example, Edgar could have offered a careful, exegetical, historical and theological engagement with moral issues. Instead he offers irresponsible generalizations such as this: “The Bible mentions abortion not once, homosexuality only twice, and poverty or peace more than two thousand times. Yet somehow abortion and homosexuality have become the litmus test of faith in public life today.”

How can an intelligent reader, armed with even the slightest knowledge of the Bible and the Christian tradition, take such a statement seriously? The Bible does not mention abortion only in the sense that it does not make direct reference to the practice of surgical abortion as is common today. The Bible speaks clearly to the sanctity of human life and to the priority of protecting unborn life. Furthermore, to state that the Bible mentions homosexuality “only twice” indicates that Edgar has redefined homosexuality as something other than that which the Bible addresses in numerous passages.

There can be no doubt that the Bible’s consistent judgment is that homosexual acts are inherently immoral and sinful. The Christian church in all of its major branches has understood this for 2,000 years. This has been a true ecumenical consensus until recent years when some more liberal churches in the West have abandoned the Christian tradition in order to endorse homosexual practice.

Thus, it is an act of intellectual dishonesty for Edgar to claim to speak for “classic historical Christianity.”

Just in case we might miss his point, Edgar offers this assessment of Scripture: “The far religious right is fond of condemning homosexuality because they say the Scripture is immutable and its words are literal.” Again, Edgar identifies the scriptural consensus that homosexuality is sinful as an example of the radical nature of the “far religious right.” Once again, one need not be very conservative to end up in Edgar’s category of the far religious right.

As for his view of Scripture, “I do not personally believe God stops talking to us with the final word in the book of Revelation.” Edgar explains that, as a pastor, he had included readings in worship from the Old Testament, the New Testament and what he calls the “Now Testament,” by which he means readings from Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., among others.

When it comes to familiarity with the Bible and the Christian tradition, there is no excuse for Edgar not to be well versed. After all, he is a seminary graduate and was for a decade president of the Claremont School of Theology. Thus, the reader might be surprised when Edgar, criticizing the fact that evangelicals seem too concerned with the Rapture and the end of the world, states this: “The book of Revelation does speak of the Rapture, and the portrait it paints is in fact quite fierce. But it’s equally important to understand that the books of the New Testament are works of human beings.” In the span of two fairly short sentences, Edgar manages to suggest that the New Testament is to be read as a merely human book while moving the Bible’s text concerning the Rapture from 1 Thessalonians 4 to the book of Revelation. Continuing to define his understanding of Scripture, Edgar suggests that “not every single word can be taken as literal historical fact.”

When it comes to global warming, however, Edgar is quite certain that the problem is real and can be resolved by human beings. Furthermore, he offers his conclusion that dealing with global warming would not “cause economic problems.” Edgar is quite certain that the Bible does not reveal an explicit command by God against homosexuality, but he is confident that God has a position on global warming.

Now, there is an urgent need at present for a truly thoughtful and comprehensive analysis of global warming and its theological significance. It would be fair to suggest that many evangelicals are simply dismissive of ecological concerns. Nevertheless, Edgar never makes his case for why we should, on his authority, assume that global warming should take priority over other concerns -- especially those related to the sanctity of human life and the ordering of human sexuality.

Edgar dismisses the theory of Intelligent Design and the claim by “biblical literalists” that the earth is less than 6,000 years old. “Let me just say here that I believe God is an ‘intelligent designer,’ and that’s why God ‘intelligently designed’ the theory of evolution.” That statement is cute, but it cannot be taken seriously. Readers with the slightest familiarity with the dominant theory of evolution held in the scientific community today will know that the very idea of an external design is incompatible with that theory. Cute statements are no substitute for serious thought.

The same is true when Edgar turns to moral issues -- after all, the central concern of his book is to replace the agenda of conservative Christians with a different public agenda for Christianity. The “Middle Church” Edgar affirms must be absolutely certain about issues like peace, justice, poverty, racism and ecology, but “must be prepared to agree to disagree about homosexuality, abortion and stem cell research.”

In an amazing passage, Edgar asserts: “People of faith must be able to conduct a respectful and open conversation about all aspects of sexuality including homosexuality. God has a lot to say on all these topics, and if we skip the listening and rush straight to the judging -- an enterprise in which we’re not supposed to be involved anyway -- we can’t hope to make serious progress in our discussion.”

Statements like this must leave us wondering if this author actually means to be taken seriously. His book is filled with moral judgments -- judgments about ecology, justice, racism and a host of other issues. But when it comes to sexuality, Edgar offers the facile suggestion that moral judgment is “an enterprise in which we’re not supposed to be involved anyway.”

In other words, when Edgar makes moral judgments, he’s not being judgmental. But when others make moral judgments, they are being judgmental. The Bible does not say that we are not to make moral judgments, or that we are not to judge moral behavior. Indeed, the Bible makes absolutely no sense if that is the case. The Bible -- in both Old and New Testaments -- is filled with moral judgment and with advisement on how we are to make such judgments. Of course, the judgments we are to make concern behavior, not the heart. We are expressly forbidden to judge another’s heart. That distinction is missing from Edgar’s analysis.

As is always the case, the major issues of moral consequence are rooted in issues of more fundamental importance. When it comes to theology, Edgar demonstrates himself to be on the far left of the ecumenical movement. Consider this: “My God hopes for positive outcomes. My God does not play tricks or determine outcomes. My God has enough self-confidence to be less concerned with the language in which people pray than with the fullness with which people love one another. Most important, my God does not withhold love or acceptance from a Hindu child in India, a Buddhist child in Thailand, a Jewish child in Jerusalem, or a Muslim child in Ramallah.” All that is said with absolutely no reference to Jesus Christ, or the Gospel.

Just in case we missed his point, Edgar argues that, in his personal opinion, God does not “even ask us to convert those who espouse other faiths.” Why? “I believe God reveals his love to different people in different ways and through different vehicles.” This from the general secretary of an organization known as the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA.

Bob Edgar -- and the movement he leads -- has replaced the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a platform of political involvement. “I admit that I do not give much thought to the afterlife personally,” Edgar explains, “but it’s only because I am keeping plenty busy here on Earth and I trust God to sort out eternity.” On that last part we can all agree. God will “sort out eternity.” What separates Bob Edgar and biblical Christianity is the fact that God has told us how He is going to judge humanity -- and the crucial issue in that judgment is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

When it comes to matters of public policy, evangelicals surely do not have all the answers. Furthermore, evangelicals are well served by a reminder that our moral agenda needs to be broader than the issues of the daily headlines.

Nevertheless, conservative Christians did not decide to make abortion, homosexuality and embryonic stem cell research front-line issues. It is nothing less than intellectual dishonesty to suggest that evangelicals prompted the national debate on those issues. On all of these fronts, evangelicals are simply calling on the Christian church to stand by its historic convictions and moral wisdom.

We must always be willing and ready to read what our own critics have to say. Unfortunately, Bob Edgar’s book appears to be nothing less than a parody of mainline Protestantism -- a cartoon reflection of what the ecumenical movement really represents. Middle Church is a roadmap to nowhere except further decline in influence and relevance for liberal Protestantism.

________

This column was adapted from R. Albert Mohler Jr.’s website at www.albertmohler.com.

Are American evangelicals charting a new path into theological liberalism? That is the serious question posed by Wayne A. Grudem in EVANGELICAL FEMINISM: A NEW PATH TO LIBERALISM? This new book is one of the most urgently needed resources for evangelical Christianity, and it represents one of the most insightful and courageous theological works of our times.

Wayne Grudem is no stranger to controversy. Currently Research Professor of Bible and Theology at Phoenix Seminary in Arizona, Grudem is the author of several important volumes on a range of theological issues. Most importantly, he is the author of his own SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY and EVANGELICAL FEMINISM AND BIBLICAL TRUTH. He also co-edited the landmark volume, RECOVERING BIBLICAL MANHOOD AND WOMANHOOD, with John Piper.

In EVANGELICAL FEMINISM, published by Crossway Books, Grudem argues that evangelical feminism now represents one of the greatest dangers to the continued orthodoxy of the evangelical movement. “I am concerned that evangelical feminism (also known as “egalitarianism”) has become a new path by which evangelicals are being drawn into theological liberalism,” he explains.

In this new book, Grudem considers twenty-five different patterns of argument put forth by evangelical feminists, and demonstrates that every single one of them either contradicts or compromises the authority of Scripture.

In considering the arguments put forth by evangelical feminists, Grudem is careful to avoid AD HOMINEM attacks on egalitarian scholars and spokespersons. Instead, he considers each of their arguments with considerable scholarly care and attention, drawing the logical conclusions from the methodological assumptions the egalitarian scholars embrace.

At the same time, Grudem is careful to specify and name the scholars whose proposals he considers, and the book is carefully footnoted and documented so that readers can follow the arguments for themselves. Grudem’s use of the term “theological liberalism” is certain to be controversial. After all, the very genesis of the evangelical movement in North America was grounded in an effort to avoid the errors of theological modernism and liberalism that had already, by the midpoint of the last century, overtaken the mainline Protestant denominations. Grudem defines theological liberalism as “a system of thinking that denies the complete truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God and denies the unique and absolute authority of the Bible in our lives.” In defining evangelicalism over against theological liberalism in this way, Grudem returns to the Scripture Principle that stood as foundational to the evangelical movement.

Grudem is equally careful in defining evangelical feminism as “a movement that claims there are no unique leadership roles for men in marriage or in the church.”

A work like EVANGELICAL FEMINISM has been desperately needed, and Grudem’s new book arrives just in time. A new generation of younger evangelicals is facing the challenge of evangelical feminism just as the current and the larger culture are moving even more swiftly against biblical authority. Grudem understands that the temptation toward evangelical feminism is the same as that which has attracted so many theologians, pastors, and denominations in recent decades. As a matter of fact, he correctly observes that “evangelical feminists today have adopted many of the arguments earlier used by theological liberals to advocate the ordination of women and to reject male headship in marriage.” Interestingly, Grudem provides an historical overview which traces the emergence of evangelical feminism and egalitarian theory to 1974, when Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty published their work, ALL WE’RE MEANT TO BE and Paul Jewett of Fuller Theological Seminary published MAN AS MALE AND FEMALE. As Grudem observes, “While egalitarian positions have been evocated since the 1950s by theologically LIBERAL Protestant writers, no EVANGELICAL books took such a position until 1974.”

The mainline Protestant denominations began to ordain women in the mid-1950s, and it took some evangelicals less than twenty years to move in the same direction. Grudem’s concern is to demonstrate that the hermeneutical moves necessary to justify the ordination of women to the pastorate subvert biblical authority. Furthermore, these same interpretive maneuvers open the door for a complete reshaping of Christianity.

In a brief historical analysis, Grudem demonstrates that denominations move through “a predictable sequence” of theological liberalism. First, biblical inerrancy is abandoned. Then, in turn, the denomination endorses the ordination of women, rejects biblical teaching on male leadership in marriage, sidelines pastors who are opposed to the ordination of women, approves homosexual conduct as morally valid in at least some cases, ordains homosexuals, and elects homosexuals to “high leadership positions in the denomination.”

As Grudem observes, the Episcopal Church USA has, to this point, been alone in taking this sequential progression to its ultimate conclusion with the election of an openly gay bishop. Nevertheless, virtually all of the mainline Protestant denominations are embroiled in deep conflict over these very same questions. Indeed, these denominations have already moved so far along this line of progression that stopping at any point short of the ordination of homosexuals to ministry appears purely arbitrary.

The heart of EVANGELICAL FEMINISM is a consideration of the patterns of argument put forth by advocates of egalitarianism. Some evangelical feminists simply deny the authority of the Genesis account of creation, at least as this account deals with the creation of man and woman. Some, like Rebecca Groothuis argue that the Genesis account tells us “nothing about God’s view of gender” because the gender issues are simply rooted in the “patriarchal” nature of the Hebrew language. Of course, this means that biblical inerrancy is now compromised by the assertion that we cannot actually trust the language accurately to convey what God intended. Similarly, other figures argue that Genesis 1-3 can be relativized on the issue of gender relations by arguing that parts of the Genesis account are nothing more that literary devices.

Egalitarian theorists must deal with the Apostle Paul, and Grudem traces the move of Jewett and others in claiming that Paul must be understood as limited in his understanding of gender relations due to his own rabbinical training and the fact that he had not carefully resolved these issue by the time he wrote his epistles. Grudem documents how some figures make this argument by suggesting, for example, that Paul incorrectly understood Genesis 2-3, or that he willingly presented what he knew to be a false argument in order to reach his audience. As Grudem explains, if the Bible is the Word of God, then Paul’s interpretations of the Old Testament are also God’s interpretations “of his own Word.”

Again and again, Grudem allows the advocates of egalitarianism to reveal their own efforts to get around the clear teachings of Scripture on the different roles assigned to men and women. Gordon Fee, for example, argues that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 are “certainly not binding for Christians” because these verses, he argues, were not actually written by Paul, but were additions of a later scribe. As Grudem demonstrates, not one single ancient manuscript has ever omitted these verses.

One of the most important sections in EVANGELICAL FEMINISM is Grudem’s consideration of the so-called “trajectory hermeneutics” now gaining favor in many evangelical circles. Grudem traces this hermeneutic to Krister Stendahl, a former dean at Harvard Divinity School. As far back as 1958, Stendahl was arguing that the church must not be trapped in a first century understanding of gender issues, but must press forward to a new reality, even as the New Testament pressed beyond the Old. Thus, evangelical figures such as R.T. France have argued for the ordination of women on the basis of a “historical trajectory” traced from the Old Testament through the New Testament and pointing beyond to the present age.

This approach is made clear by David Thompson in a 1996 article: “Sensing the direction of the canonical dialogue and prayerfully struggling with it, God’s people conclude that they will most faithfully honor his Word by accepting the target already anticipated in Scripture and toward which the Scriptural trajectory was heading rather than the last entry in the biblical conversation.”

As Grudem observes, “This means that the teachings of the New Testament are no longer our final authority. Our authority now becomes OUR OWN IDEAS OF THE DIRECTION THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS HEADING but never quite reached.”

At this point, a crucial question arises. If this hermeneutical method is legitimate, how can we stop at the ordination of women? This is the very argument made by proponents of normalizing homosexuality and ordaining homosexuals to the ministry. If the New Testament is to be superseded by a later reality based in a more modern understanding, how can the church justify relativizing some texts without relativizing others?

Grudem also offers a careful critique of William Webb’s “redemptive-movement” approach, which, as he observes, casts the entire ethical structure of the New Testament into doubt. Grudem goes to some length to demonstrate that Webb’s approach undermines the church’s ability even to understand the New Testament text. Webb’s cumbersome and elaborate criteriology for deciding these issues puts the question outside the reach of all but a tiny priesthood of scholars. Even more importantly, it points to something outside the New Testament as our authority. As Grudem notes, this is “a huge step down the path toward liberalism.” In other chapters, Grudem considers the fact that many evangelical feminists claim the right to prioritize certain biblical texts, while relativizing others. Others attempt to dismiss certain passages as “disputed” in order to eliminate their functional authority in today’s church. Grudem effectively undermines these arguments, showing once again that the acceptance of these arguments requires the subversion or outright rejection of biblical authority. These maneuvers are absolutely incompatible with an affirmation of biblical inerrancy.

In a series of capable considerations, Grudems looks to a host of alternative arguments made on behalf of the ordination of women, ranging from those who claim an authority of experience or “calling” above Scripture to others who claim that women can teach and preach in the church so long as they do so under a male pastor’s authority.

Finally, Grudem returns to the issue of homosexuality, arguing that the hermeneutic employed to advocate egalitarianism leads, if pressed consistently, to the normalization of homosexuality as well. “The approval of homosexuality,” he notes, “is the final step along the path to liberalism.”

The great value of Wayne Grudem’s new book is its combination of cogent argument and fair presentation. Grudem is careful to acknowledge that many, if not most, evangelical feminists have not moved completely along the trajectory toward the full embrace of theological liberalism. Nevertheless, his surgical approach to their theological arguments and hermeneutical proposals reveals the clear and present danger to evangelical orthodoxy posed by egalitarian theory and practice. EVANGELICAL FEMINISM is truly a tract for the times -- a manifesto that should serve to awaken complacent evangelicals to the true nature of the egalitarian challenge. Furthermore, the book serves as an arsenal of arguments to use in revealing the crucial weaknesses of the egalitarian proposal.

Nothing less than the future of the Christian church in North America is at stake in this controversy. Evangelicals no longer have the luxury of believing that this controversy is nothing more than a dispute among scholars. EVANGELICAL FEMINISM: A NEW PATH TO LIBERALISM? has arrived just in time.

Cal Thomas, a conservative evangelical columnist, is someone I really admire. But shortly after Barack Obama’s historic election victory, he wrote a column called “Religious Right, R.I.P.,” which I strongly disagree with. In it, Thomas asserts that evangelicals should abandon their efforts to impact culture through political involvement.

He says, “Evangelicals are at a junction. They can take the path that will lead them to more futility and ineffective attempts to reform culture through government, or they can embrace the far more powerful methods outlined by the One they claim to follow.”

By following the example of Christ, Thomas continues, “they will get much of what they hope for, but can never achieve, in and through politics.”

Well, Thomas, in my opinion, is both dead right and dead wrong. He is right in the sense that all of the followers of Jesus should indeed emulate Christ’s life. Thomas is also right that some of those who have led the evangelical movement in the political culture have been strident in tone and hungry for power.

But Thomas is wrong in setting up an either-or proposition. Either you are involved in politics seeking change — or you live like Jesus and effect change merely by your exemplary life. Unfortunately, neither Jesus nor the whole of Scripture gives us that choice. Instead, we are called to work and live in all areas of life, living like Jesus in the process. We cannot withdraw from any area — especially not politics.

Thomas’s conclusion seems to be based on a sense of failure. Looking back on the last 30 years of evangelical political involvement, he observes that evangelicals have little to show for their efforts. Abortion remains the law of the land, society grows coarser, and the homosexual culture is widely entrenched.

I wonder, however, what our country would look like today if believers had been absent from the public square for the last 30 years. I understand his frustration, but to despair after 30 years is shortsighted.

Os Guinness gives us a reminder of how dangerous withdrawing can be. Such an imbalanced emphasis on the “sphere of inwardness, personal bliss, and private salvation” characterized the church in Germany in the first half of the last century. In such a fog, Guinness says, they “could raise no altar strong enough to resist the challenge of Adolf Hitler.”

Likewise, Carl Henry, one of the great theologians of the 20th century, writes, “The Christian populace fails its contemporaries if it postpones all protest until a state becomes so corrupt that revolution seems the only course of action.”

We Christians simply cannot afford to fail our contemporaries by withdrawing. Especially now, when so many have an agenda that devalues life and weakens families.

The tension to retreat into religious isolation is not new. After Jesus’ ascension, some in the early church were ready to withdraw from the affairs of men and simply wait for Jesus to return. Paul repeatedly and sternly had to remind them to go back to work, to do good to their fellow man, and to regularly meet together. They could not check out early, and neither can we.

________

Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler cuts to the chase: For one of the leading theologically conservative voices among evangelicals, new survey findings from Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life add up to a “crisis.”

The survey shows nearly four in 10 white evangelical Protestants -- people who, by evangelical definition, believe that Christ is mankind’s only hope for salvation -- either don’t know or disregard this teaching.

They not only think non-Christians can be saved but they also name groups, such as Jews and even atheists, who also have access to eternal life. That a third of weekly churchgoers held such views is “a very troubling development” says Mohler.

It indicates that evangelical churches are failing at presenting

the Gospel in a straightforward, clear manner. It’s an

indictment of evangelicalism and evangelical preaching. Our

first responsibility is to present what the Gospel really is, to

call people to faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ.

This new Pew survey also touches on another sensitive topic for Christians. Are people saved by belief in Jesus or God or through good works or a combination of both? The survey release reports,

While white evangelicals look mainly to faith as the key to

salvation, white Catholics tend to look to actions.

• Among white evangelical Protestants 64% stressed belief is key,

11% name actions and 10% say both are essential.

• Among Catholics, 61% “explicitly cite actions or works as

integral to attaining eternal life.”

• Among white Mainline Protestants, 33% cite actions, 25% site

belief and 10% cite both while 18% are “unsure.”

Of course, the unknown factor that can make some of these numbers unravel is that these labels -- evangelical, mainline, even Catholic -- are self-identifications. These may be people who wear the team shirt but haven’t played the game in decades. That could explain why they’re outside the doctrinal lines.

Citing widespread confusion about what it means to be an “evangelical,” a group of Christian leaders issued a manifesto proposing to define the identity and commitments of evangelical Christians.

Appearing at a Washington, D.C., news conference May 7, the group unveiled “An Evangelical Manifesto” and invited other Christians and people of other faiths to engage in dialogue about what it means to follow Christ.

Evangelicals’ primary identity “by definition is theological, not political, social or cultural,” said John Huffman Jr., pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport News, Calif. “Yet we are quite concerned that, because some of the more strident voices in our midst, we are increasingly perceived as people whose primary agenda is political. That simply is not the case.”

In its broadest sense, evangelicals are “men and women who endeavor to live our lives under the lordship of Jesus Christ, our Savior, a Christ who is above culture, is not subservient to any culture, and who desires to transform and serve in positive ways those cultures in which His people live,” Huffman said.

While some voices in society and the media identify evangelical Christianity with a specific moral or political agenda, evangelicals are at heart “Christians who define themselves, their faith and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus Christ,” the statement declares. “To be evangelical is to be faithful to the freedom, justice, peace and well-being that are at the heart of the Good News of Jesus.”

The declaration asserts the group’s desire to distance themselves from two sets of extreme attitudes toward Christian faith:

• “Privatized faith,” which “falsely divorces the spiritual from the secular and causes faith to lose its integrity,” and “politicized faith,” which makes Christian beliefs “the weapons of political factions,” whether conservative, liberal, moderate or progressive.

• The “sacred public square,” which would give one religion a preferred place in public life, and the “naked public square,” which would ban religious expression from pubic life.

“We are committed to a civil public square -- a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths as well,” the statement says. “Every right we assert for ourselves as Christians is a right we defend for all others.”

Rejecting both “liberal revisionism” and “conservative fundamentalism,” the document calls for evangelical Christians to “part company with reactionaries by being both reforming and innovative” but also “part company with modern progressives by challenging the ideal of the-newer-the-truer and the-latest-is-greatest and by conserving what is true and good.”

The manifesto also calls for a reformation of behavior among evangelical Christians:

“We confess that we Evangelicals have betrayed our beliefs by our

behavior. All too often we have trumpeted the gospel of Jesus,

but we have replaced biblical truths with therapeutic techniques,

worship with entertainment, discipleship with growth in human

potential, church growth with business entrepreneurialism,

concern for the church and for the local congregation with

expressions of the faith that are churchless and little better

than a vapid spirituality, meeting real needs with pandering to

felt needs, and mission principles with marketing precepts. ...

“All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of

others, such as the killing of the unborn, as well as the

heresies and apostasies of theological liberals whose views have

developed into another gospel, while we have condoned our own

sins, turned a blind eye to our own vices, and lived captive to

forces such as materialism and consumerism in ways that

contradict our faith.”

Evangelical Christianity should be automatically identified in people’s minds with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ out of which flows a life of service to His claims over all of life, not with a specific ideological agenda, Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, said during the news conference.

“Evangelical Christians have had this pattern of either giving up on the culture or we try to take it over,” Mouw said. “It is not up to us to win all the victories. It is not given unto us to try and impose our will on a whole society, but rather to witness to the kind of justice, peace and righteousness that is part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, working alongside people of other faiths and of no faith for the common good.”

The document was released with the endorsements of 75 “charter signatories” that included a wide range of evangelical notables, such as Kay Arthur of Precept Ministries, Darrell Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary, Ergun Caner of Liberty Theological Seminary, John Ortberg of Menlo Park (California) Presbyterian Church, Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, Rich Stearns of World Vision and Jim Wallis of Sojourners.

Interested in avoiding the next financial bubble? Then evangelical Christianity could be for you.

A new study by Christopher W. Crowe, an economist for the International Monetary Fund, found that during the last two housing booms in the United States, regions with high concentrations of evangelicals saw lower gains in home prices and less volatility than similar regions with fewer evangelical residents.

The reason to consider this more than just a statistical quirk, Mr. Crowe says, is that conservative Christianity teaches followers that God owns all worldly possessions. In practice, that means that unchecked greed and speculative frenzy are seen as undesirable in the evangelical community.

Many evangelicals, who make up 7 to 25 percent of the United States population, depending on whom you ask, also believe that the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ will be marked by great calamity. Putting these two views together, Mr. Crowe proposes that evangelicals are more likely to spend money when times are bad for nonbelievers. If you’re with Mr. Crowe, then it’s not a great leap to think that evangelicals interpret bad-news events as good news.

To test this theory, Mr. Crowe looked at home prices before and after 9/11 and found that they fell sharply in non-evangelical areas but actually rose in evangelical ones. He next turned to the Rapture Index, which purports to track how close the end of the world could be. Mr. Crowe investigated how changes in the index matched up with home prices and found that up to 90 percent of the difference in price changes between evangelical and non-evangelical areas could be correlated with the Rapture index.

Expectations of the end of times can also affect how much wealth evangelicals accumulate over their lifetime. Using a survey of religious beliefs and household assets, Mr. Crowe found that people who believed in Armageddon were worth about 33 percent less than the average respondent. (Mr. Crowe is not the first to show this.) If you see belief in the after-life as a type of insurance against bad events, then this outcome makes sense.

It’s important to note that the results here show correlation and don’t establish causation. But still, they do point at two things: First, that group psychology can move markets to reach unsustainable levels, which is an assertion many economists are still not comfortable with. (The dominant view, at least pre-Lehman bankruptcy, was that markets with a large number of buyers and sellers worked to filter irrationality.)

And second, that the evangelicals’ role in the market may have prevented home prices from getting even more out of whack.

________

Addendum: Some readers wrote in about some alternate explanations for this correlation, namely the fact that evangelicals may be more likely to live in more rural areas with lower population density (where there was less demand for housing) and that they might be lower-income (so they couldn’t afford to speculate on houses). To address these two issues:

• Mr. Crowe did control for whether the area was urban, commute time and population, which I believe should capture the effects of population density. Other relevant controls: Land use regulations, income, income growth and unemployment in the region.

• But as for the claim that having a low income meant you couldn’t participate in the housing bubble, we shouldn’t forget (so quickly!) that the current bust started partly because of the exact opposite: Lower income people made purchases, on credit, that they really couldn’t afford. And there’s evidence that home prices grew faster in areas where you’re more likely to find low-income residents: This paper by two University of Chicago economists finds that, on average, home prices grew faster in sub-prime areas than in prime ones.

Evangelical Christians in the United States now face an inevitable moment of decision. While Christians in other movements and in other nations face similar questions, the question of homosexuality now presents evangelicals in the United States with a decision that cannot be avoided. Within a very short time, we will know where everyone stands on this question. There will be no place to hide, and there will be no way to remain silent. To be silent will answer the question.

The question is whether evangelicals will remain true to the teachings of Scripture and the unbroken teaching of the Christian church for over two thousand years on the morality of same-sex acts and the institution of marriage.

The world is pressing this question upon us, but so are a number of voices from within the larger evangelical circle — voices that are calling for a radical revision of the church’s understanding of the Bible, sexual morality, and the meaning of marriage. We are living in the midst of a massive revolution in morality, and sexual morality is at the center of this revolution. But the question of same-sex relationships and sexuality is at the very center of the debate over sexual morality, and our answer to this question will both determine or reveal what we understand about everything the Bible reveals and everything the church teaches — even the gospel itself.

Others are watching, and they see the moment of decision at hand. Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann of Stanford University has remarked that “it is clear to an observer like me that evangelical Christianity is at a crossroad.” What is that crossroad? “The question of whether gay Christians should be married within the church.” Journalist Terry Mattingly sees the same issue looming on the evangelical horizon — “There is no way to avoid the showdown that is coming.”

Into this context now comes God and the Gay Christian, a book by Matthew Vines. Just a couple of years ago Vines made waves with the video of a lecture in which he attempted to argue that being a gay Christian in a committed same-sex relationship (and eventual marriage) is compatible with biblical Christianity. His video went viral. Even though Matthew Vines did not make new arguments, the young Harvard student synthesized arguments made by revisionist Bible scholars and presented a very winsome case for overthrowing the church’s moral teachings on same-sex relationships.

His new book flows from that startling ambition — to overthrow two millennia of Christian moral wisdom and biblical understanding.

Given the audacity of that ambition, why does this book deserve close attention? The most important reason lies outside the book itself. There are a great host of people, considered to be within the larger evangelical movement, who are desperately seeking a way to make peace with the moral revolution and endorse the acceptance of openly-gay individuals and couples within the life of the church. Given the excruciating pressures now exerted on evangelical Christianity, many people — including some high-profile leaders — are desperately seeking an argument they can claim as both persuasive and biblical. The seams in the evangelical fabric are beginning to break and Matthew Vines now comes along with a book that he claims will make the argument so many have been seeking.

In God and the Gay Christian Vines argues that “Christians who affirm the full authority of Scripture can also affirm committed, monogamous same-sex relationships.” He announces that, once his argument is accepted: “The fiercest objections to LGBT equality — those based on religious beliefs — can begin to fall away. The tremendous pain endured by LGBT youth in many Christian homes can become a relic of the past. Christianity’s reputation in much of the Western world can begin to rebound. Together we can reclaim our light” (3).

That promise drives Vines’s work from beginning to end. He identifies himself as both gay and Christian and claims to hold to a “high view” of the Bible. “That means,” he says, “I believe all of Scripture is inspired by God and authoritative for my life” (2).

Well, that is exactly what we would hope for a Christian believer to say about the Bible. And who could fault the ambition of any young and thoughtful Christian who seeks to recover the reputation of Christianity in the Western world. If Matthew Vines were to be truly successful in simultaneously making his case and remaining true to the Scriptures, we would indeed have to overturn two thousand years of the church’s teaching on sex and marriage and apologize for the horrible embarrassment of being wrong for so long.

Readers of his book who are looking for an off-ramp from the current cultural predicament will no doubt try to accept his argument. But the real question is whether what Vines claims is true and faithful to the Bible as the Word of God. But his argument is neither true nor faithful to Scripture. It is, nonetheless, a prototype of the kind of argument we can now expect.

What Does the Bible Really Say?

The most important sections of Vines’s book deal with the Bible itself and with what he identifies as the six passages in the Bible that “have stood in the way of countless gay people who long for acceptance from their Christian parents, friends, and churches” (11). Those six passages (Genesis 19:5; Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; and 1 Timothy 1:10) are indeed key and crucial passages for understanding God’s expressed and revealed message on the question of same-sex acts, desires, and relationships, but they are hardly the whole story.

The most radical proposal Vines actually makes is to sever each of these passages from the flow of the biblical narrative and the Bible’s most fundamental revelation about what it means to be human, both male and female. He does not do this merely by omission, but by the explicit argument that the church has misunderstood the doctrine of creation as much as the question of human sexuality. He specifically seeks to argue that the basic sexual complementarity of the human male and the female — each made in God’s image — is neither essential to Genesis chapters 1 and 2 or to any biblical text that follows.

In other words, he argues that same-sex sexuality can be part of the goodness of God’s original creation, and that when God declared that it is not good for man to be alone, the answer to man’s isolation could be a sexual relationship with someone of either sex. But that massive misrepresentation of Genesis 1 and 2 — a misinterpretation with virtually unlimited theological consequences — actually becomes Vines’s way of relativizing the meaning of the six passages he primarily considers.

His main argument is that the Bible simply has no category of sexual orientation. Thus, when the Bible condemns same-sex acts, it is actually condemning “sexual excess,” hierarchy, oppression, or abuse — not the possibility of permanent, monogamous, same-sex unions.

In addressing the passages in Genesis and Leviticus, Vines argues that the sin of Sodom was primarily inhospitality, not same-sex love or sexuality. The law of Moses condemns same-sex acts in so far as they violate social status or a holiness code, not in and of themselves, he asserts. His argument with regard to Leviticus is especially contorted, since he has to argue that the text’s explicit condemnation of male-male intercourse as an abomination is neither categorical or related to sinfulness. He allows that “abomination is a negative word,” but insists that “it doesn’t necessarily correspond to Christian views of sin” (85).

Finally, he argues that, even if the Levitical condemnations are categorical, this would not mean that the law remains binding on believers today.

In dealing with the most significant single passage in the Bible on same-sex acts and desire, Romans 1:26-27, Vines actually argues that the passage “is not of central importance to Paul’s message in Romans.” Instead, Vines argues that the passage is used by Paul only as “a brief example to drive home a point he was making about idolatry.” Nevertheless, Paul’s words on same-sex acts are, he admits, “starkly negative” (96).

“There is no question that Romans 1:26-27 is the most significant biblical passage in this debate,” Vines acknowledges (96). In order to relativize it, he makes this case: “Paul’s description of same-sex behavior in this passage is indisputably negative. But he also explicitly described the behavior he condemned as lustful. He made no mention of love, fidelity, monogamy, or commitment. So how should we understand Paul’s words? Do they apply to all same-sex relationships? Or only to lustful, fleeting ones?” (99).

In asking these questions, Vines makes his case that Paul is merely ignorant of the reality of sexual orientation. He had no idea that some people are naturally attracted to people of the same sex. Therefore, Paul misunderstands what today would be considered culturally normative in many highly-developed nations — that some persons are naturally attracted to others of the same sex and it would be therefore “unnatural” for them to be attracted sexually to anyone else.

Astonishingly, Vines then argues that the very notion of “against nature” as used by Paul in Romans 1 is tied to patriarchy, not sexual complementarity. Same-sex relationships, Vines argues, “disrupted a social order that required a strict hierarchy between the sexes” (109).

But to get anywhere near to Vines’s argument one has to sever Romans 1 from any natural reading of the text, from the flow of the Bible’s message from Genesis 1 forward, from the basic structure of sexual complementarity, and from the church’s faithful reading of the Bible for two millennia. Furthermore, his argument provides direct evidence of that Paul warns of in this very chapter, “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).

Finally, the actual language of Romans 1, specifically dealing with male same-sex desire, speaks of “men consumed with passion for one another” (Romans 1:27). This directly contradicts Vines’s claim that only oppressive, pederastic, or socially mixed same-sex acts are condemned. Paul describes men consumed with passion for one another — not merely the abuse of the powerless by the powerful. In other words, in Romans 1:26-27 Paul condemns same-sex acts by both men and women, and he condemns the sexual desires described as unnatural passions as well.

In his attempt to relativize 1 Corinthians 6: 9, Vines actually undermines more of his argument. Paul’s careful use of language (perhaps even inventing a term by combining two words from Leviticus 18) is specifically intended to deny what Vines proposes — that the text really does not condemn consensual same-sex acts by individuals with a same-sex sexual orientation. Paul so carefully argues his case that he makes the point that both the active and the passive participants in male intercourse will not inherit the kingdom of God. Desperate to argue his case nonetheless, Vines asserts that, once again, it is exploitative sex that Paul condemns. But this requires that Paul be severed from his Jewish identify and from his own obedience to Scripture. Vines must attempt to marshal evidence that the primary background issue is the Greco-Roman cultural context rather than Paul’s Jewish context — but that would make Paul incomprehensible.

One other aspect of Vines’s consideration of the Bible should be noted. He acknowledges that he is “not a biblical scholar,” but he claims to “have relied on the work of scholars whose expertise is far greater than my own.” But the scholars upon whom he relies do not operate on the assumption that “all of Scripture is inspired by God and authoritative for my life.” To the contrary, most of his cited scholars are from the far left of modern biblical scholarship or on the fringes of the evangelical world. He does not reveal their deeper understandings of Scripture and its authority.

The Authority of Scripture and the Question of Sexual Orientation

Again and again, Vines comes back to sexual orientation as the key issue. ‘“The Bible doesn’t directly address the issue of same-sex orientation,” he insists. The concept of sexual orientation “didn’t exist in the ancient world.” Amazingly, he then concedes that the Bible’s “six references to same-sex behavior are negative,” but insists, again, that “the concept of same-sex behavior in the Bible is sexual excess, not sexual orientation.”

Here we face the most tragic aspect of Matthew Vines’s argument. If the modern concept of sexual orientation is to be taken as a brute fact, then the Bible simply cannot be trusted to understand what it means to be human, to reveal what God intends for us sexually, or to define sin in any coherent manner. The modern notion of sexual orientation is, as a matter of fact, exceedingly modern. it is also a concept without any definitive meaning. Effectively, it is used now both culturally and morally to argue about sexual attraction and desire. As a matter of fact, attraction and desire are the only indicators upon which the modern notion of sexual orientation are premised.

When he begins his book, Matthew Vines argues that experience should not drive our interpretation of the Bible. But it is his experience of what he calls a gay sexual orientation that drives every word of this book. It is this experiential issue that drives him to relativize text after text and to argue that the Bible really doesn’t speak directly to his sexual identity at all, since the inspired human authors of Scripture were ignorant of the modern gay experience.

Of what else were they ignorant? Vines claims to hold to a “high view” of the Bible and to believe that “all of Scripture is inspired by God and authoritative for my life,” but the modern concept of sexual orientation functions as a much higher authority in his thinking and in his argument.

This leads to a haunting question. What else does the Bible not know about what it means to be human? If the Bible cannot be trusted to reveal the truth about us in every respect, how can we trust it to reveal our salvation?

This points to the greater issue at stake here — the Gospel. Matthew Vines’s argument does not merely relativize the Bible’s authority, it leaves us without any authoritative revelation of what sin is. And without an authoritative (and clearly understandable) revelation of human sin, we cannot know why we need a Savior, or why Christ died. Furthermore, to tell someone that what the Bible reveals as sin is not sin, we tell them that they do not need Christ for that. Is that not exactly what Paul was determined not to do when he wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11? Could the stakes be any higher than that? This controversy is not merely about sex, it is about salvation.

Matthew Vines’s Wedge Argument — Gender and the Bible

There is another really interesting and revealing aspect of Matthew Vine’s argument yet to come. In terms of how his argument is likely to be received within the evangelical world, Vines clearly has a strategy, and that strategy is to persuade those who have rejected gender complementarity to take the next logical step and deny sexual complementarity as well.

Gender complementarity is the belief that the Bible’s teachings on gender and gender roles is to be understood in terms of the fact that men and women are equally made in God’s image (status) but different in terms of assignment (roles). This has been the belief and conviction of virtually all Christians throughout the centuries, and it is the view held by the vast majority of those identified as Christians in the world even today. But a denial of this conviction, hand in hand with the argument that sameness of role is necessary to affirm equality of status, has led some to argue that difference in gender roles must be rejected. The first impediment to making this argument is the fact that the Bible insists on a difference in roles. In order to overcome this impediment, biblical scholars and theologians committed to egalitarianism have made arguments that are hauntingly similar to those now made by Matthew Vines in favor of relativizing the Bible’s texts on same-sex behaviors.

Matthew Vines knows this. He also knows that, at least until recently, most of those who have rejected gender complementarity have maintained an affirmation of sexual complementarity — the belief that sexual behavior is to be limited to marriage as the union of a man and a woman. He sees this as his opening. At several points in the book, he makes this argument straightforwardly, even as he calls both “gender complementarity” and denies that the Bible requires or reveals it.

But we have to give Matthew Vines credit for seeing this wedge issue better than most egalitarians have seen it. He knows that the denial of gender complementarity is a huge step toward denying sexual complementarity. The evangelicals who have committed themselves to an egalitarian understanding of gender roles as revealed in the Bible are those who are most vulnerable to his argument. In effect, they must resist his argument more by force of will than by force of logic.

Same-Sex Marriage, Celibacy, and the Gospel

Matthew Vines writes with personal passion and he tells us much of his own story. Raised in an evangelical Presbyterian church by Christian parents, he came relatively late to understand his own sexual desires and pattern of attraction. He wants to be acknowledged as a faithful Christian, and he wants to be married ... to a man. He argues that the Bible simply has no concept of sexual orientation and that to deny him access to marriage is to deny him justice and happiness. He argues that celibacy cannot be mandated for same-sex individuals within the church, for this would be unjust and wrong. He argues that same-sex unions can fulfill the “one-flesh” promise of Genesis 2:24.

Thus, he argues that the Christian church should accept and celebrate same-sex marriage. He also argues, just like the Protestant liberals of the early twentieth century, that Christianity must revise its beliefs or face the massive loss of reputation before the watching world (meaning, we should note, the watching world of the secular West).

But the believing church is left with no option but to deny the revisionist and relativizing proposals Vines brings to the evangelical argument. The consequences of accepting his argument would include misleading people about their sin and about their need for Christ, about what obedience to Christ requires and what faithfulness to Christ demands.

Matthew Vines demands that we love him enough to give him what he desperately wants, and that would certainly be the path of least cultural resistance. If we accept his argument we can simply remove this controversy from our midst, apologize to the world, and move on. But we cannot do that without counting the cost, and that cost includes the loss of all confidence in the Bible, in the Church’s ability to understand and obey the Scriptures, and in the Gospel as good news to all sinners.

Biblical Christianity cannot endorse same-sex marriage nor accept the claim that a believer can be obedient to Christ and remain or persist in same-sex behaviors. The church is the assembly of the redeemed, saved from our sins and learning obedience in the School of Christ. Every single one of us is a sexual sinner in need of redemption, but we are called to holiness, to obedience, and to honoring marriage as one of God’s most precious gifts and as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church.

God and the Gay Christian demands an answer, but Christ demands our obedience. We can only pray — with fervent urgency — that this moment of decision for evangelical Christianity will be answered with a firm assertion of biblical authority, respect for marriage as the union of a man and a woman, passion for the Gospel of Christ, and prayer for the faithfulness and health of Christ’s church.

I do not write this response as Matthew Vines’s moral superior, but as one who must be obedient to Scripture. And so, I must counter his argument with conviction and urgency. I am concerned for him, and for the thousands who struggle as he does. The church has often failed people with same-sex attractions, and failed them horribly. We must not fail them now by forfeiting the only message that leads to salvation, holiness, and faithfulness. That is the real question before us.

________

God and the Gay Christian? A Response to Matthew Vines, is a free e-book, and is the first in the Conversant series I am editing. In this e-book I am joined by colleagues James Hamilton, Denny Burk, Owen Strachan, and Heath Lambert, and we address the biblical, theological, historical, and pastoral issues raised by Vines’s book. To download a copy, go to sbts.me/ebook. The book will be available in formats for Kindle, Nook, and iBook.

Matthew Vines, God and the Gay Christian (New York: Convergent Books, 2014).

Tanya Luhrmann, foreword to Ken Wilson, A Letter to My Congregation: An Evangelical Pastor’s Path to Embracing People Who Are Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender in the Company of Jesus ([Version 1.0)] (Amazon.com, 2014).

Terry Mattingly, “About Those Evangelical Whispers on Same-Sex Marriage,” Patheos.com, Thursday, April 17, 2014.

Evangelical Christians face a choice on who will we most resemble — Saul or Paul.

Both have a bearing on how effectively we fulfill our Great Commission responsibility. We need to decide quickly because the secular world increasingly perceives us as Saul rather than Paul.

Why should we care what the world thinks? Because it is deeply misguided to expect people we alienate to also be open to the Gospel message we proclaim.

Various studies from Barna Group, Pew Research Center and Public Religion Research Institute find that conservative evangelical Christians are viewed as too stridently political, judgmental on cultural issues, and morally hypocritical. The studies also indicate that the issue is not with our theology as much as with the disconnect the world sees between what we say we believe and how we exercise those beliefs.

Americans have generally lost the capacity to hear, think, process and delineate ideas. Rather than being challenged by perspectives we do not agree with, we bypass thoughtfulness and get defensive when criticized. Discussion — if you can even call it that — on virtually every issue is now divisive rather than unifying.

Research published last year found that only 10 percent of American friendships cross party lines. One political scientist observed, “Part of what is destroying our social fabric is that we have set an expectation that to be a good Democrat or Republican, you have to unconditionally hate the other party.”

We cannot simultaneously hate spiritually lost people with whom we disagree on virtually every issue and love them to Christ. Jesus will not become the object of their affection through the legalistic rantings of a Saul.

From biblical accounts, an unregenerate Saul was a rigidly legalistic religious zealot fueled by a determination to punish and eradicate those who did not conform to Judaism. This is sometimes how conservative Christians are perceived. We expect spiritually lost people to convert to Christianity through our strident efforts to “morally correct” their perspectives on politics, human sexuality, immigration, abortion, gun rights, religious liberty and a host of other issues.

The apostle Paul did not — and would not — do that. Paul did not condone sin, but throughout 1 Corinthians 9:22, Paul set aside his rights, not his theology, to “become all things to all people, so that [he] may by every possible means save some.” He chose the greater purpose.

So where is the balance? Christians must engage the marketplace, political and cultural arenas and be a voice for righteousness. However, we must guard against weaponizing moral truth or exchanging evangelism for activism. Like Paul, we must build bridges and earn the right to be heard. Here are four ways Christians can live with biblical conviction while being effective witnesses in a divided culture:

1. Prioritize relationships over cultural combat. Pew Research shows that personal familiarity reduces stereotypes and builds understanding. Relationships defuse the intensity of disagreements and create space for dialogue. Trust grows when people do not feel like projects.

2. Listen to learn, not to correct. People rarely change their views because of an argument, especially those online through social media. However, psychology research demonstrates there is greater openness when people believe they have been heard and feel respected.

3. Service opens the door to engagement. Actions truly do speak louder than words. We live among broken people who need mercy. People see alignment between our theology and our actions when we go from shouting to serving. Thousands of gospel conversations have happened through the years through volunteer ministries that build relationships and earn trust.

4. Be the church people expect. Sociologists estimate that about 66 million Americans — one-fifth of the population — struggle with feeling isolated and lonely. They long for a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, connection and shared experience. Healthy churches offer an impactful witness to their communities.

To rephrase Mark 8:36, what does it profit us as Christians if we win all the cultural and political arguments but forfeit our opportunity to “save some”? The most persuasive witness in a divided culture is not louder conviction; it is embodied conviction with relational warmth.

In a world full of Sauls, strive to be a Paul.

The church doesn't exist for Christians. The church is designed for those who are not members.

I recently made that comment and it drew quite a response. The context of the comment was within a discussion about discipleship. I said that Jesus is searching for true disciples in the evangelical church in America but is having difficulty finding many.

Need evidence? Read the headlines. The evangelical church in America is losing ground when it comes to effecting change in our culture. Instead of a trend in our nation toward godliness, the trend is toward secularism devoid of anything godly. Western Christianity has retreated from the battle for the souls of men to the hollow pursuit of self-comfort. True disciples follow Christ into the fray.

God's design for the church is not that it exists for my comfort or for the convenience of its members but He instituted it as an equipping station to thrust us into the harvest for souls.

The church at Ephesus was surrounded by false religions and egocentric philosophies. People were consumed by their sexual appetites and practiced “every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more” (Ephesians 4:19). Did the Apostle Paul tell the Ephesian Christians to get inside their building, close the door and lock out the evil that permeated their society? No, and in fact, he told them to walk worthy of their calling, obey God's commands, stay true to the divine strategy and be Christians right where they were.

We must first realize that the church is a divine institution. It was not an afterthought with God.

We are the strategy God designed to confront the godlessness of our culture. When Christ says we were the light on a hill, He meant that we are to shine in such a way that those struggling with the turbulence of life could safely navigate to the harbor of God's grace. When the light from our churches sweeps across our culture, people see our good works and give glory to God in heaven (Matthew 5:16). It's an intentional effort on our part to understand that church is not about us; it is about God, His Kingdom and making His name known among the nations (Psalm 46:10).

However, we become ineffective when we turn inward and our culture has no visible measure of eternal truth. There is no incarnational witness of the Savior. We rob hope from individuals who are on a collision course with eternal separation from God when we focus our energy on ourselves.

As we project the Gospel outward from our churches, we must follow the leadership of God. God does not overlook people's sin. He extends grace and forgiveness in spite of it. We must be accepting of individuals without condoning their lifestyles.

I like the chorus of the song, “This Must Be the Place,” co-written and sung by Steve Amerson:

This must be a place where a broken heart can mend

This must be a place where the outcast finds a friend

For we cannot lift the fallen if our hand still holds a stone

And their sin that seems so great to us is no greater than our own

There must be a point where shame meets grace

And this must be the place.”

Is your church that place?

The release in 1992 of celebrity literary critic Harold Bloom's "The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation" received a lot of attention. Bloom argues that whatever trappings of faith most Americans claim to possess, they are actually practicing a new form of the Christian heresy called gnosticism.

In its ancient, more élite, form, gnosticism held that:

(a) the world and almost everything in it was created by an evil demiurge — often associated with the evil “Jewish god”;

(b) Christ's crucifixion, therefore, was both illusory and beside the point, the body being evil;

(c) there is a part of all of us — a divine spark — which antedates the demiurgical creation;

(d) the sum total of these sparks is really a fragmented god;

(e) through a gift of knowledge — basically code words — a mass of believers can ascend the various levels of heaven, and eventually reunite the sparks to re-form this shattered god, who will then destroy the evil demiurge and his counterfeit creation.

At first glance, the connections between this ancient heresy and Willow Creek or the Southern Baptist Convention, say, seem pretty tenuous. Not so, according to Bloom. The essence of the American Religion is “experiential.” Few concessions are made to ancient ecclesial authority or tradition, and then only grudgingly. Such structures, in the minds of American believers, can only serve as impediments to the real point of religious experience, to wit, “being alone with God or with Jesus.”

Moreover, this Jesus is different from the historical Jesus or the Christ of the Creeds. Rather, American Religionists yearn for that gnostic spark — that part of their soul that is older than creation itself — to be utterly alone with and to know a less challenging figure than the Jesus of the Gospels: “the American God or the American Christ.” In this radically personalized vision, certain distinctive Protestant impulses — a distrust of works-righteousness and anti-sacramentalism, for example — are assigned such weight that they warp and bend the historic Christian faith until it becomes something else.

Nor is this a late-20th-century development. Bloom traced the particles of our putative national faith back to borrowings from African religions imported along with the slaves — particularly the idea of the “little me” or “self within the self” which talks to God without the need of any mediation — and saw the first flowerings of it in the Cane Ridge revivals around the turn of the 19th century. It was this religion, argued Bloom, that led Joseph Smith to create the Mormons and the Southern Baptists to work out their creedless faith.

Claims like the last one seem preposterous, and Bloom did himself no favors by often substituting invective for argument. The conservative majority in the Southern Baptist Convention he called “Texas Know Nothings” only because people would misunderstand his designation of them as Fascists. Jehovah's Witnesses reminded him “of why very small children cannot be left alone with wounded and suffering household pets.” I joined many other readers in blowing off The American Religion after first sampling it in 1997.

And yet, in the intervening years, I have not been alone in rethinking that dismissal. In a recent installment of his series on religion in America, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus seized on Bloom's book to argue that conservatives “should nurture a measure of skepticism” about the possible benefits of a massive religious revival. Though Bloom's portrait of the American Religion was “intended to be provocative ... it should not be lightly dismissed.” Much of what passes for Christianity today, argued Neuhaus, is indeed a kind of “sub-Christian gnosticism” incapable of “sustain[ing] a normative moral tradition.”2

Lutheran theologian Carl E. Braaten has issued a more full-throated endorsement of The American Religion's analysis — although, unlike Bloom, he is horrified by it. In a recent book Braaten excoriated “this American neopagan religion that is becoming increasingly more dominant in the pulpits, pews, and bureaus of the Protestant denominations”:

Gallup-style findings show that the American believers are religious in a general sense with scarcely no correlation to the specific beliefs of historic Christianity. They become church members without believing in the biblical sense. It is no wonder that every year as much human traffic goes out the back door as comes in through the front.3

Clearly some of Bloom's book is overwrought or just plain wrong. But if thinkers of the stature of Neuhaus and Braaten are suggesting that we ought not dismiss it outright — indeed, that we might learn something from it — we'd be well advised to pay attention. If gnosticism isn't as pervasive as Bloom proclaims, and if orthodox Christian faith is much healthier than he allows, nevertheless American Christians of every stripe, from the seminary to the Barbecue Bible Study, certainly flirt with this heresy often enough. For evangelicals in particular, the book should serve as cautionary tale and barbed warning.

Particularly valuable is Bloom's insight that this American gnosticism carries with it strong antinomian impulses that can effectively set the adherent beyond good and evil. Once one has been “alone with Jesus” or “saved,” petty moral considerations can fall away with distressing regularity. Philip Yancey offered a case study in these pages when he wrote of a friend of his named Susan, a Christian who told Yancey “that her husband did not measure up and she was actively looking for other men to meet her needs for intimacy”:

When Susan mentioned that she rose early each day to “spend an hour with the Father,” I asked, “In your meetings with the Father, do any moral issues come up that might influence this pending decision about leaving your husband?”

Susan bristled: “That sounds like the response of a white Anglo-Saxon male. The Father and I are into relationship, not morality. Relationship means being wholly supportive and standing alongside me, not judging.”4

Early in the book, Bloom refers to a remark by Spinoza, that “whoever loved God truly should not expect to be loved by God in return,” and proposes this to be the antithesis of the American Religion. Bloom is right that the American sense of entitlement often extends even to God: he owes us. But Bloom appears not to grasp the difference between such monumental hubris and joyful gratitude for God's grace.

Is the distinction observed in America's churches? Some soul-searching may be in order. There are worse places to start than The American Religion.

________

Jeremy Lott recently graduated with a degree in biblical studies from Trinity Western University. This past summer, he was the 2002 Burton C. Gray Memorial Intern for Reason magazine.

1. John J. Reilly, “Getting Over the End of the World,” First Things (February 1997), pp. 43–47.

2. Richard John Neuhaus, “The End of Abortion and the Meaning of 'Christian America,'“ First Things (June/July 2001), pp. 67–74.

3. Carl E. Braaten, Mother Church: Ecclesiology and Ecumenism (Fortress, 1998).

4. Philip Yancey, “Nietzsche Was Right,” Books & Culture (January/February 1998), pp. 14–17.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/BOOKS & CULTURE magazine.

November/December 2002, Vol. 8, No. 6, Page 36

*

July 28, 2014, marked the centennial of the beginning of the First World War (1914-1918). As indicated by the name for the conflict, the war touched nearly everyone in the world at the time.

Perhaps as many as 16 million soldiers and civilians died in the conflict, and more than 50 million people died from the 1918 influenza pandemic spawned by abysmal wartime conditions. Postwar famines in Eastern Europe and Asia also stemmed from the conflict. Four empires -- the Ottoman, German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian -- were toppled and replaced by a collection of smaller states. The British government gave legal recognition to the small Jewish community in Palestine with the Balfour Declaration, clearing the way for the eventual establishment of modern Israel.

In addition, postwar instability spawned a series of smaller conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The Armenian and Greek genocides began during the war. Finally, 20th century Fascism, Nazism, state Communism and Japanese militarism had roots in World War I and its immediate aftermath.

While nearly the entire world was touched by the conflict, the First World War greatly impacted the Christian community. The war made its mark on at least four aspects of the Christian experience with lasting effects.

1. The war triggered a paradigm shift in the Christian worldview and “end of time prophecy.”

For hundreds of years Christians had read the book of Revelation with its frightening images of the Apocalypse. World War I provided a firsthand look at a real-life apocalyptic world. While many Christian theologians believed the Apocalypse was more allegorical than literal, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse seemed to come alive during the conflict and its aftermath. War, famine, disease and death occurred on a worldwide stage and on a scale that truly was unprecedented. The war and its destruction marked the beginning of a fundamental shift in the Christian worldview. After the war and over time, Christians felt less positive about their standing in the world and began to express some pessimism about world affairs. The war launched a new interest in “end of time prophecy” that peaked in the latter half of the 20th century as the new millennium neared.

2. Postmillennialism waned among western Protestants.

In the years before World War I, western Protestants largely promoted a view of eschatology called postmillennialism. Postmillennialists believed that Christian teaching and societal reforms would foster a time of increased Gospel success called the millennium prior to Christ’s return. The triumph of the Gospel would usher in responsible human governments promoting peace and prosperity. Human society, postmillennialists believed, was going to improve. Postmillennialists dominated the 19th century abolition and social reform movements popular among many Christians of that century (and into the 20th century as well). Although they viewed many of the social reform movements as incomplete since they had no Gospel element, even prominent Southern Baptists like B.H. Carroll endorsed postmillennialism.

As the horrors of World War I unfolded and uncertainty set in after the conflict, many Christians began to question the idea that human society would get better. Therefore, the First World War marked the beginning of postmillennialism’s decline. Some still adhered to it after the conflict, but a Second World War, the holocaust and a Cold War with the threat of nuclear destruction led most Western Christians to abandon postmillennialism. Human reform had not stemmed the collective evils of the 20th century.

3. Premillennialism started to become popular.

While the First World War began to discredit postmillennialism, the war gave new impetus to a premillennial view of the end times popularized earlier by John Nelson Darby and C.I. Scofield. Premillennialists rejected the belief that the world would get better before Christ returned. They saw in the war proof that human society without Christ was in fact getting worse. Pessimistic about human affairs, they believed that Christ would return soon to redeem the elect from an evil world. Like postmillennialists and amillennialists, premillennialists did not speak with one voice. Some premillennialists held that Christ would collect His own in a rapture before His second coming while others thought believers would have to endure a period of tribulation before Christ’s return. Yet all premillennialists believed the world’s slide into anarchy and evil would not be fully or finally reversed before Christ’s second coming. World War I seemed to offer a contemporary glimpse into the future trauma awaiting the world.

4. Evangelism to a “lost generation” increased.

According to Ernest Hemingway, the American author Gertrude Stein coined the phrase “the lost generation” to reference those who came of age during World War I. Hemingway used the term in three of his works. It proved to be an appropriate label. The war produced disillusionment and experimentation with alcohol, drugs and immorality for many young men and women. In the United States, even in an era of prohibition, the public seemed powerless to prevent the excesses of the war years and the “Jazz Age” that followed.

As Christians had done for previous generations, they reached out to the “lost generation” during and after the war. Believers rallied to support the troops with gifts and charitable donations during the conflict and fed the world’s starving masses afterward. Military chaplains addressed the spiritual needs of the troops both at home and abroad. In the United States evangelists like Billy Sunday and Mordecai Ham (a noted Southern Baptist) led “urban campaigns” to reach both servicemen and civilians for Christ. These campaigns were not new to Christian culture (D.L. Moody pioneered them in the late 1800s), but the war years stimulated their development. Evangelists continued their efforts to reach the “lost generation” well after the war. Sgt. Alvin York, who later became the most decorated American soldier of WWI, became a Christian shortly after the war’s outbreak and remained a lifelong witness to those around him.

Alongside their concern and compassion for the “lost generation,” many Christians championed social reforms to curb the temptations young men were experiencing during the war years. A popular song included the refrain, “How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm once they’ve seen Paree?” Prohibition (the 18th Amendment), sought by many Christians in the United States and passed during the war (but implemented afterward), sought to end the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcohol. Josephus Daniels, the secretary of the Navy during the war, closed down all houses of prostitution within five miles of a military base, including the famed New Orleans “red light” district of Storyville and other centers of urban vice. While these moves admittedly did little to curb the excesses of the “Jazz Age,” the urban revivals of Sunday, Ham and other evangelists during the 1920s led tens of thousands of the “lost generation” to saving faith in Christ. The urban campaigns proved to be forerunners of the mid-20th century evangelistic “crusades.”

The First World War and its aftermath have influenced Christians right up to the present time. A renewed interest in end of time prophecy, the decline of postmillennialism, the rise of premillennialism, the rise of evangelistic crusades and some of the Christian social reform movements either began, peaked or surged during the war era. What started on July 28, 1914, impacted Christians for the next 100 years.