IAN H.MURRAY – ‘EVANGELICALISM DIVIDED’ [2]

TROWEL & SWORD

IAN H. MURRAY - ‘EVANGELICALISM DIVIDED’ [1]
‘A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950 to 2000’

Rev. Peter van Dam

In his book, published by The Banner of Truth, the author and those whom he quotes, for instance Dr Martin Lloyd Jones, give a very true and incisive account of the reasons of the decline in evangelicalism during this period of time. The significance of the book for Reformed churches and people is that it could equally well be read of the decline over that same period in conservative biblical confession and practice in general.

For that reason the book is very relevant and constitutes a serious warning to those churches that still are committed to the faith in which they were renewed at the time of the Reformation.

The article below is not a critical review of the book, for which I would not find much ground. It is a brief summary of its 330 pages, largely made up of quotations from the book. In order to do justice to understanding the author and of others to whom he refers, the summary of its 330 pages has become somewhat extensive. But I suggest the extracts are very worthwhile reading. Also indeed for the warnings they contain. May I say: take heed!

Rev Peter G.van Dam

In chapter 1 ‘Setting the Scene’, the author makes two points.

(a) By the end of the 19th century liberalism had entered all mainline denominations. The creeds continued to be professed but liberal teaching had gained acceptance. Evangelicals did not leave their denominations for as long as their constitutions remained unchanged. The World Council of Churches offered membership to all churches which accept our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour, no matter how these words should be interpreted. The Christian faith was understood in the light of the Enlightenment, instead of the Enlightenment in the light of the dogmas of the Christian faith. (The Enlightenment was the development in the 18th Century in Germany of the ‘celebration of the supremacy of the human mind’ over supernatural religion; a celebration which has continued to the present day.)

(b) Contemporary theology was linked with Friedrich Schleiermacher who, rejecting rationalism in favour of romanticism, asserted that religion is not primarily a matter of doctrine, but of feeling, intuition and experience. He barred doctrinal preaching from the pulpit.

In chapter 2 Murray explains how Billy Graham had been a catalyst for change. At first he had a ‘blunt fundamentalist disdain’ of all established denominations. But in 1955 he accepted an invitation of the Protestant Council of the City of New York to hold a crusade. This implied co-operation with a group which was predominantly non-evangelical and included modernists. Billy Graham explained that we should be willing to work with all who are willing to work with us. Graham came to accept and sought the co-operation of all but the most flagrant modernists. The attendance at the crusades was so large that Graham became convinced that many non-evangelical church leaders could be won for the cause of more biblical Christianity if only he could jettison the disastrous image of separatism and anti-intellectualism. With the liberal archbishop Ramsey he agreed that the purpose of the ecumenical movement was to bring people together of opposing views.

The National Evangelical Anglican Congress of 1967 issued a confirmation that as long as anyone confessed Jesus Christ as ‘God and Saviour’ there must be an acceptance of his Christian standing. That decision marked the beginning of the ‘new evangelicalism’, also called ‘open evangelicalism’. John Stott stated that this decision of the NAEC opened a new opportunity for the advance of evangelicalism in the major denominations. The mouthpiece of the ‘new evangelicalism’ was the magazine ‘Christianity Today’. Its editor, Carl Henry, had stressed the need of a wider social responsibility, beyond merely ‘saving souls’. The lone voice of objection came from Lloyd-Jones: ‘We are evangelicals; we put doctrine before fellowship’.

In chapter 3 ‘High Aims, Wrong Priorities’, the author observes that (as a consequence) evangelicalism had lost its way in the USA by the late 1960s, on account of its pragmatism of ‘soul-winning’. Non-evangelicals supported the crusades – using Billy Graham – in the hope of a rise of membership of their own churches. Part of his strategy had become that of gaining a wider hearing for the Gospel, by seeking the ‘maximum impact’ and the ‘largest possible crowds’. He thought that establishing connections with the famous would help the cause (eg. as he did, for instance with Richard Nixon, the Pope). ‘We are all Christians and love each other’. He wanted his brand of evangelism to be popular. But it went together with a diminishing dogmatism.

In chapter 4, ‘The New Anglican Evangelicalism versus the Old’, we read how Lloyd-Jones (Congregationalist) and J.Packer (Anglican) parted ways. They had been united in their thinking that the Puritan spirit is the essence of New Testament Christianity. In his ‘The Thirty-Nine Articles’ Packer observed that they played no part in the then current conception of unity. The Church of England was ‘comprehensive’ while the evangelicals were its ‘constitution’. However, later, the ecumenical language of ‘mutual recognition’ had entered Packer’s vocabulary. To Lloyd-Jones, however, unity only exists where the central doctrines of Paul’s Gospel are believed and confessed (in worship and life). But this confession is not consistent with the ground rule of ecumenism.

The next chapter (5) ‘How the Evangelical Dyke was broken in England’, reiterates how the writings in the Church of England had now been on ‘The Anglican Commitment to Comprehensiveness’. In accepting Anglicanism’s plurality Packer argued that now the evangelicals had to accept something broader than the gospel as the basis of fellowship. Similarly, Alister McGrath considered that evangelicalism was a legitimate option; it could contribute insight but should have the open mind of ecumenism. Evangelicals were capitulating to the ecumenical insistence on ‘church and unity’ as the first priority, a real unity rather than a spiritual unity, an Anglican unity rather than evangelical unity (Michael Green). The hallmark is ‘doctrinal diversity’ for mutual enrichment, without insistence upon theological principle. For evangelicals this meant tolerance of the intolerable. Rather than having influence, they were marginalized. At the same time exposing them to the influence of charismatic movements.

Most of the younger generation of evangelicals were far more interested in ‘evangelism’ than in doctrine and saw the Church of England as the best boat to fish from. They were activists rather than intellectuals, more impressed by practical shrewdness than by theological strength. Lloyd-Jones was concerned and warned about the risk of evangelical clergy becoming ‘ecclesiastical politicians’.

In chapter 6 ‘Retrospect: A different Approach’, Ian Murray reiterates that in England evangelicals had no choice between intellectually archaic and fundamentalist sectarianism on the one hand and absorption within an ecumenical Catholicism on the other. Lest they be accused of undermining, if not openly destroying the church. They were isolated, threatened with loss of reputation and preferment.

Chapter 7 ‘Intellectual Respectability’ and Scripture’, deals with evangelical intellectuals in the academic world where they became willing to repudiate the separatist position and return to theological dialogue. According to McGrath, young activists were grappling with the quest for a ‘respectable theology’, and to counter the image of evangelicals who did not believe in intellectual labour and had held blindly to traditions regardless of scholarship. M.A.Noll, wrote about the scandal of anti-intellectualism of the evangelical mind. In the wider academic world there would be need of a ‘new maturity among evangelicals’. Noll’s rationalistic view of the approach to the doctrine of Scripture is shared by McGrath who argues that we must not identify truth with the prepositional correctness of Christian doctrine for the Enlightenment has forced evangelicalism into adopting approaches to spirituality which resulted into rather cool, rational approaches to Scripture. What matters is not what I have believed but whom.

Questioning or rejecting the doctrine of inspiration leads to the higher-critical method of interpretation according to which the Bible is interpreted from an extra-biblical approach, with extra-biblical standards and with the objective of discovering the Word of God in the process. In solving ‘difficulties’ found in Scripture, the better the interpreter the more ingenious such solutions will be.

E.J.Carnell, of Fuller Seminary, believed that intellectual competence, combined with an effort to work within mainline denominations, could succeed. For this purpose Fuller would need to demonstrate the openness which is axiomatic for academic recognition.

But how could evangelicals gain admission in the academic world with such an outmoded fundamentalist belief in the verbal inspiration and infallibility of the Bible? Via the distinction Karl Barth made between the divine and the human sides of Scripture, evangelicals decided that they could now work with the tools of the liberals when they concentrated on the human aspects of Scripture. But how could this the outcome of such study of a passage of Scripture be squared with its inspiration? These principles are incompatible. The Bible is then treated as bits and pieces of a mosaic. Theology becomes that of liberals, highly rationalistic; it becomes philosophy. Of some of the academic evangelicals F.F.Bruce did not proclaim the doctrine of Scripture, J.Barr attacked the inerrancy of Scripture, and for J.Dunn the text of Scripture was ‘historically relative’. For these men their former position of evangelicalism was gone.

(To be continued next month)

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