EVANGELICALISM
New Testament
evangelists make it easy to get into the church "that very hour," but
they also make it mean something to stay in. We, in contrast, make it hard to
get in, but once in the body a member usually is secure for life regardless of
his beliefs or lifestyle. It is easier to remain a member of the average church
today than it is to continue one's membership in a lodge! If we exercised biblical
care and discipline, we would have little or no difficulty in adopting and
following the biblical pattern.
Preaching With Purpose, Zondervan, 1982, p.
76.
Within
evangelicalism is a distressing drift toward accepting a Christianity that does
not demand a life-changing walk with God. Many evangelicals (today) do not
realize that the church has always been an island of righteousness in a sea of
paganism, but as a result they turned the world upside-down.
Erwin Lutzer
Worship is
the lost chord of evangelicalism.
Howard Hendricks
The problem
with conservative churches is not that they lack members. The problem is that
many of those members are not converted. Millions of members of evangelical
churches are absent from worship services each Sunday and are equally absent
from Christian living during the rest of the week. Biblical illiteracy and
unethical conduct by Christians seem to be on the rise. Many people who attend
are indifferent to the truths of Christianity, and others are divisive, even
mean-spirited.
Paul House
Who Will Be Saved? Edited
by: House, Paul and Thornbury, Gregory, Crossway,
2000, p. 164.
How deeply
has the tendency to deny hell penetrated evangelicalism? One survey of
evangelical seminary students revealed that nearly half – 46 percent – felt
preaching about hell to unbelievers is in “poor taste.” Worse, three out of
every ten self-professed “born again” people surveyed believe “good” people will
go to heaven when they die – even if they’ve never trusted Christ. One in every
ten evangelicals say they believe the concept of sin
is outmoded.
John MacArthur
Ashamed of the Gospel, Crossway, 1993,
p. 65.
If I see aright, the cross of popular evangelicalism is not the
cross of the New Testament. It is, rather, a new bright ornament upon the bosom
of a self-assured and carnal Christianity. The old cross slew men, the new
cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old
cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it.
A.W. Tozer
To call a man
evangelical who is not evangelistic is an utter contradiction.
G. Campbell Morgan
The new
evangelicalism is not driven by the same passion for truth as the older form,
and that is why it is often empty of theological interest. We now have less
biblical fidelity, less interest in the truth, less seriousness, less depth and
less capacity to speak the Word of God to our own generation in a way that
offers an alternative to what it already thinks.
David Wells
The
fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequentially
upon the church. His truth is too distant, His grace is too ordinary, His
judgment is too benign, His gospel is too easy, and His Christ is too common.
David Wells
“Schism” –
People who were agreed about the centralities of the faith dividing and
separating from one another over matters that were not
essential to salvation, not absolutely vital. This is always one of the
dangers afflicting us as evangelicals… We can be so rigid, so over-strict, and
so narrow that we become guilty of schism.
D.M. Lloyd Jones
What is an Evangelical? The Banner of Truth Trust, 1992, p. 20-21.
First of all,
the evangelical is one who is entirely subservient to the Bible… This is true
of every evangelical. He is a man of one
book; he starts with it; he submits himself to it; this is his authority.
D.M. Lloyd Jones
What is an Evangelical? The Banner of Truth Trust, 1992, p. 42.
There are
other people who are prepared to argue and discuss and even change their
opinion, but they do not do anything about it. The evangelical, however, is a man
who acts on his convictions. There would never have been Protestantism if this
were not true.
D.M. Lloyd Jones
What is an Evangelical? The Banner of Truth Trust, 1992, p. 53.
The only
people who are ever interested in revival are evangelicals, and a good way of
testing the quality of a man’s evangelicalism is his interest in revival. The
institutional people do not often talk about revival. They try sometimes to pay
lip-service to it but they do not believe in it… The true evangelical, on the
other hand, is always longing for an outpouring of the Spirit, and the great
evangelical reawakenings have always been a result of
an effusion of the Holy Spirit. The evangelical by nature is tremendously
interested in revival.
D.M. Lloyd Jones
What is an Evangelical? The Banner of Truth Trust, 1992, p. 59.
The
evangelical always gives primacy to preaching. When people cease to be
interested in preaching, they cease to be evangelical. If you put discussions
before preaching you are beginning to deny your evangelicalism. The church
starts with preaching. Revivals, reformations, have always been great
restorations of preaching. To the evangelical, nothing compares with
preaching. ven
reading is very secondary to preaching – “truth medicated through personality,”
the impact of a man filled with the Spirit proclaiming the message of God!
D.M. Lloyd Jones
What is an Evangelical? The Banner of Truth Trust, 1992, p. 60.
The fact is
that a sound and lively truth-basis has been ejected from the premises of
modern evangelicalism. Evangelicalism has been dispossessed of truth to such an
extent that it is becoming frightening. In its place experience and mysticism
are house-sitting the church or, if not these, then church growth pragmatism or
an unhealthy preoccupation with the psychological. But the necessary doctrines
of the holiness of God and His just wrath, justification by faith alone, the
transforming nature of regeneration, the sovereignty of God over all of
creation and in salvation itself, the nature and extent of grace in justification
and in sanctification – doctrines upon which the earlier revivals thrived –
have been considered unimportant and useful only for wizened old theologs holed up in ivory towers who do not relate to the
church’s future.
Jim Elliff
Reformation or Revival? Christian
Communicators Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org. Used by
Permission.