 The Coming Evangelical Crisis A Review by William Dicks Buy your own copy of The Coming Evangelical Crisis: Current Challenges to the Authority of Scripture and the Gospel
[Italic comments in brackets are my own comments.] The blurp on the back cover asks two questions: "What will evangelism look like if it continues on the course it has followed in the past twenty-five years? Will the term evangelical even have significance?" The chapters of the book are divided into
five parts as follows: Other questions answered by this book are: "How can the church recapture the potency and effectiveness it had in bygone days? Are the practices and principles that emerged centuries ago still relevant for the church today? Does God speak today apart from the Bible? Does theology really influence the way we practice our faith? Is all the talk about a coming revival justified? If so, why is our society still in a moral free fall?" In my humble opinion, everybody who dares call themselves evangelical, and this term is used widely today, should read this book and take its warnings and suggestions to heart. So many churches would call themselves evangelical today, but would not be able to give a proper definition for the term, or the history behind it. Read this book and you will get to see what it means to be evangelical! In the Introduction John Armstrong sets forth the two vital truths of evangelicalism. He sets forth what was called the formal principle of the Reformation--sola scriptura. The truth of Scripture Alone meant that the church should not preach, teach, command or practise anything that was contrary to the written Scriptures contained in the Biblical canon. Armstrong also shows that "Scripture is the only source and norm for all distinctly Christian knowledge." (p.19) Many modern evangelicals will agree that the Bible is a rule of faith and will even go so far as defending its inerrancy and authority for the Christian church. However, practically, they do not treat Scripture "as if it is the sole, authoritative rule of faith and practice." (p.20) Armstrong gives four
things that sola scriptura has meant to evangelicals
who remained faithful to the proper principle of sola scriptura: So called evangelicals today only give relative authority to Scripture and rather treat experience as its final authority. The second truth Armstrong points out is sola fide. This truth, centred in the gospel itself, stemmed from the commitment of the Reformers to what was called the material principle of the Reformation. The Reformers and the resultant evangelical movement had a firm grasp on the related truths of sola fide (faith alone), sola gratia (grace alone) and solus Christus (Christ alone). All the Reformers stood together concerning the doctrine of sola fide as "the article by which the church stands or falls." (p. 23) It was insisted that for a sinner to find right standing with God, he must trust Christ alone, through grace alone. Our basis for acceptance with God are by Christ's doing and dying alone. "[T]he Holy Spirit gave the gift of faith and repentance to sinners solely through the hearing of the gospel as it is revealed in the Scriptures." (p. 23) Wihtout the preaching of the cross being central on every subject we preach on (marriage, famiy, finance, etc), the result will be an ever-growing crisis threatening to drown evangelicalism in a sea of subjectivism filled with relativism and pragmatism. This book is essentially a call back to sola scriptura. It shows how so-called evangelicalism has drifted away from the Scriptures alone to the Scriptures plus a plethora of other ingredients, such as additional revelations, mysticism, gnosticism, heresies and many more. In chapter one, R. Albert Mohler, Jr, gives us a little backround on what the word evangelical means. He goes into great depth as to how many today think that they are evangelical, but in the real sense of the word are not. Mohler covers crises in four areas of evangelical life. He shows, first, how there is a crisis in evangelical identity. Who can rightfully call themselves evangelical. Next, he shows that there is a crisis in evangelical theology. Many that claim the title evangelical have in actuality moved away from the theology that defined the belief of evangelicalism. Thirdly, he points to the crisis in evangelical truth. Many who call themselves evangelical have started to embrace modern ideologies. Postmodern ideas have infiltrated evangelicalism and objective truth is at stake. Lastly, he shows us the crisis in evangelical ecclesiology. There is no more a search for the knowledge of God, but rather a search to discover the self. Self-fulfillment and personal autonomy is at an all time high. The vocabulary of the therapeutic has replaced the language of theology. The culture of western entertainment has supplanted Biblical ideas of worship. W. Robert Godfrey, in chapter two, gives us some background on Martin Luther as the original evangelical. The progress of Luther's thought is also highlighted. Godfrey also shows us a bit about Luther's thoughts on the authority of Scripture. In my estimation, the pivotal chapter of this book is chapter three by Gary L. W. Johnson, "Does Theology Still Matter?" In my mind, this is where all the problems of evangelicalism lie! Johnson writes that a "healthy Christianity cannot survive without theology" (p. 57), and in fact, theology still matters today in a mindless and irrational culture. "Yes, theology matters! Whether we are speaking of how theology is done according to its various disciplines--exegetical, biblical, systematic, historical, or practical--or how theology speaks to popular culture directly, theology matters! It matters, as a typical Puritan theologian argued, because it is that which enables us to live well unto God." (p. 57) Johnson gives us an appraisal of present-day evangelicalism, in which he shows us the "astounding degree of theological illiteracy" and the "growing bias against theology," which he addresses in this chapter. [Those who have a growing bias against theology have simply set that very bias up as their theology. Even those who are against theology in the church have a theology. Since all of us have a theology, why not rather ensure that we have good and correct theology.] Every individual who claims to be evangelical, but especially those who claim to be shepherds of God's flock, should read this chapter and reread it. This is one of the wakeup calls for evangelicals. Beyond this chapter, the rest of the chapters are more practical outworkings of how theology matters when we approach subjects such as whether God is still speaking today apart from the Bible. It further shows how theology matters when it concerns the gospel and how bad theology influences the very message of the gospel. Since so many evangelicals have abandoned proper theology even the very atonement of Christ has been attacked in modern pop-psychological theology. Further, the importance of theology matters when the very character and attributes of God are assasinated by men such as Clark Pinnock with their "openness of God" theology, where God can simply make guesses as to what man will get up to next. Theology also matters when we approach the subject of worship and the songs we sing in church. We have been so influenced by modern entertainment that we cannot even approach worship and the songs we sing in church outside of that framework. The glory of God is no longer at stake for us in worship, but rather the feelings and goose bumps it produces in us. Theology further matters when we approach the subjects of counselling and spiritual warfare. In counselling there has been too much of an assimilation of psychology with an abandonment of the Biblical principles of the sufficiency of the Scriptures for all of life. When it comes to spiritual warfare, again, the principle of sola scriptura has been jettisoned for all kinds of experiential modes of spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is seen as predominantly in the word deliverance. Much of what is called spiritual warfare, in fact, cannot be found in Scripture. There is no Biblical evidence to support this new model of spiritual warfare. Michael S. Horton ends the book with his chapter on Recovering the Plumb Line. In this chapter he calls for the restoration of sola scriptura as our only authority. Horton laments the low view of Scripture found in so many evangelical churches. Even those who claim to be evangelical should rather weigh themselves against the evidence before claiming to be evangelical. In much of today, what is called church, the sufficiency of the Scriptures has been cast on the wayside and replaced with methods, marketing strategies and other worldly enterprises. Further, a low view of Scripture can be seen in the sermons preached at most so-called evangelical churches of today. Most of the sermons sound like self-help articles from magazines like Oprah, and indeed sound more like Oprah herself. Horton continues by saying that experience has overtaken the truth claims of Christianity as a valid way of expressing Christianity. He writes, "Christianity does not rest on our testimonies of changed lives, for the Mormons, drug treatment centers, and psychotherapists can offer such examples. Nor is Christianity to be trusted because of a personal experience. How many times have we had personal experiences that turned out to be misunderstood? The Christian faith rests on the claim of its Founder that He was the Messiah, God incarnate, the Savior of the world, and the calim of its apostles that they were eyewitnesses to His resurrection." (p.257-8) The fact is, if "theology is not guiding the church, then the Bible is not guiding the church, for theology is the systematic study of the Bible and its relation to our beliefs." (p. 258) Horton closes this final chapter by answering the question, "How can we recover the sufficiency of Scripture?" The Coming Evangelical Crisis is indeed a book that must be read by anyone who seriously claims to be a Christian. By ignoring this book, not only will your foundations as a Christian be ignored, but also your future as a Christian. Ignore this book, and you will only become part of the crisis and not the solution to the crisis. Copyright ©
2003-2007 [ Sovereign
Truth ]. All rights reserved. Revised: January 19, 2007 .
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