Evangelicalism Divided and Destitute

A follow-up to Influential Evangelicals: The Enemies List

updated 6 January 2018

Labeling leading Evangelicals as enemies seems a bit extreme to some, even if they will grant that most of the names on the Newsmax list are problematic.

And yet as I've mentioned on numerous occasions, Iain Murray all but did the same back in 2000. And yet he did it in such a way that few seemed to grasp the full import of what he was saying.

In 'Evangelicalism Divided' Murray traces the growth of the Evangelical movement in the 1950's. He traces its pathway out of Fundamentalism though such personages as Billy Graham and the rise of publications like Christianity Today. He talks about the Evangelical presence in academia and the many compromises that resulted. Additionally he spends a good deal of time wrestling with the Evangelical wing of the Anglican Church.

This was personal for him as he spent time under Martyn Lloyd-Jones who famously split with JI Packer and John Stott over whether or not one could stay within Anglicanism and remain a faithful Christian. Packer and Stott ultimately remained within the Church of England and tried to maintain an Evangelical witness in the face of continued theological liberalisation and ecumenicism.

Packer eventually pulled out in 2008 and now belongs to a dissident Anglican group. Stott remained within the Church of England and by many accounts continued to move further away from traditional Evangelicalism. He died in 2011.

Murray traces the growth of Evangelicalism, its goals and compromises. This culminates in ECT, the 1994 movement to bring Evangelicals and Catholics Together. Most Confessionalists were opposed to this document and formal cooperation with Rome and yet at the same time most of them were hardly opposed to its social and cultural goals. ECT sought to set aside doctrinal differences, acknowledge a common Christian heritage and ally to combat secularism.

Murray who firmly supports the goals and narratives of the Magisterial Reformation and laments the waning of the 'Christian' British Empire nevertheless viewed this agenda as highly problematic. It indicated the core problem of Evangelicalism from the beginning. It was worldly in its goals. Seeking fame, fortune, power and influence Evangelicalism fell into a series of endless compromises and eventually compromised its own fundamental and foundational beliefs. It misunderstood the nature of the Church in the world. It wrongly identified secular humanism as the great enemy to Christianity. Murray rightly argued the New Testament doesn't teach that. It warns against doctrinal error, false teaching and worldliness. The Church in order to advance its position in society effectively sold out and lost its distinct and particular identity.

He then exposes the real root of false teaching. There are supernatural forces at work, demonic forces working through 'angels of light' and 'false prophets' who lead the Church down this road. This is the teaching of the New Testament and what it warns against.

It was some of the most refreshing and startling stuff I had read in many a year. Murray is hardly on board with my view of things regarding the Kingdom or eschatology. He believes in Christendom. He's a Postmillennialist, however his is of the Revivalist stripe, not the Dominionist-Theonomic variety that dominates the American scene. He sees the transformation of society not through legislation or even the arts but through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit will (he believes) work and transform Christendom into a Holy Society. Murray's vision of this would be more in keeping with sombre and godly austerity of Puritan England... not the flamboyant and consumerist media-driven culture of American Evangelicalism.

But when I talked to others in the wake of the book's publishing I noticed a lot of people didn't seem to put it together. They didn't (at least to me) seem to grasp the weight and profundity of the charge he was making.

Murray had just traced the history of Evangelicalism from the 1950's to the 1990's. Virtually all the prominent names are mentioned and many others connected to academia. He laments their defections and their capitulations to liberal scholarship and worldly accolade. He decries the leadership of Billy Graham.

But then he launches into this long discussion on false teachers and demonic influence.

I guess a lot of people didn't get it. Murray was calling out these Evangelical leaders. They are the false teachers. They are the agents of demons. He was subtle about it in one sense. He didn't list them and say, "There, you see!" Rather if one follows the flow of the book it's very clear as to what he's saying.

It should have made more waves and yet I think a lot of people didn't want to hear it... and still don't.

I heard through the grapevine that Murray was rather depressed after writing the book. No wonder. And while the Calvinism he loves and espouses has experienced rather robust growth since 2000, I wonder what he thinks of the New Calvinism? Its flavour is decidedly Evangelical. The New Calvinism is really Evangelicalism plus the so-called Five Points. Clearly it's not going to produce a Puritan-style Christendom.

The New Calvinism is rightly labeled thus because it's not really historic Calvinism at all. I'm hardly alone in pointing this out. Murray has apparently gone through his own trials of faith. I hear that he's now abandoned his Presbyterianism and has become a Reformed Baptist but I  haven't been able to verify that.* When I met him some twenty years ago it was at a Free Church of Scotland service in Edinburgh. That seems like a long time ago.

Murray is an old man now and while I once revered him and still have a fondness for him, we've gone our separate ways say to speak. His writings greatly affected and shaped me as a young Christian in the 1990's. He planted seeds that bore fruit... fruit he wouldn't be too pleased with. And yet I am thankful for many of his writings. I re-read them now and then but my response is somewhat different and in some cases I find myself disappointed with his somewhat sanitised reporting of history and biography.

In recent years he has (perhaps ironically) been pushing the thought of JC Ryle. I say ironic because Ryle was a 19^th century Anglican Bishop. Ryle was a Calvinist and friends with CH Spurgeon and he was dismayed over some of the changes beginning to take place at the end of the Victorian Era. He seemed to have some inkling of the fact that Christian Britain was something of a veneer and soon to be in trouble.

And yet his remedy was little more than a programme of societal transformation, legislation and thus coercion. I have no doubt Murray who is now well into his eighties is profoundly disturbed over the state of the West and perhaps Britain in particular. Like the Netherlands, like Massachusetts and Geneva, sometimes the 'most Christian' places become the most profoundly anti-Christian when the backlash comes. Britain is like that. Many British people who visit America, even while put off by many aspects of this society find a certain solace in its still Christian influenced culture. More than once I've heard visitors remark that it reminds them of how Britain was a generation ago.

As for myself I have deliberately chosen to live outside the so-called Bible Belt, supposedly the most 'Christian' part of the nation. Apart from detesting its hot climate, I find its culture toxic to the Christian faith and I did not enjoy living there. That said, as one who has traveled and lived overseas and would happily leave the United States (if I could afford the move)... the 21^st century UK would not be my choice... at least not yet.

The UK is in a very sad state indeed when it comes to Christianity and I don't doubt Murray feels a sense of desperation if not despair. If I live into my eighties I'm sure I will also feel a sense of despair but for different reasons and with different motivations.

I did not mean to dwell so long on Iain Murray but I think about him often and his books stare down at me from different points of my office. 'Evangelicalism Divided' occupies a prime piece of shelf real estate and will for the foreseeable future. I re-read it almost every year and after writing this will be tempted to do so once more.

Iain Murray didn't draft an 'enemies list' and maybe he would think it a bad idea. Maybe he wouldn't be so confident as to what names to put on it, a position I can resonate with. As I said previously people are complicated and we may be surprised as to who is in heaven... and who isn't. I didn't draft the list... I merely borrowed it and used it to make a point.

Ultimately I am not that concerned with which people on the list are true Christians and which ones are not. That is for God to decide.

But what I do know is that where these people stand at present... they need to be opposed and denounced. They are misleading the Body of Christ. They may mean well and may change their minds at some point, fully or in part. That's not my concern. Right now I restrict the battle to the Visible. The Invisible reality is there but I cannot discern the particulars of it. All I have to go on is the Visible in time and space. And it is in that realm and sense that I continue to contend that Evangelicalism and thus its leaders are a force for ill and in many cases it (speaking of the movement in general terms) has succumbed to evil.

It represents the same kind of apostasy that overshadowed Europe in the Middle Ages. Rome retained a proper stance on many fundamental doctrines. It maintained a high view of Scripture.

And yet these doctrines were overshadowed and even negated by its other stands and doctrinal positions. It reached a point in which the gospel could be heard but it was obfuscated and buried under heaps of man-made dung and other doctrinal filth. It had blended itself with the world and in baptising the world it fell prey to heresies and false gospels by the dozen.

Western Evangelicalism is cut from the same cloth. The cultural context is different and so the errors (even though they are the same) manifest themselves in different ways. The gospel is obscured and increasingly is being misrepresented. Decisional Regeneration and Cheap Grace are just as poisonous as the shallow superstitious faith of the pilgrim trekking to Compostella. Sadly in many cases Medieval Catholic faith was probably more vigorous and devout than the sensual fleshly consumerist faith and worship of modern Evangelicals. Neither system is able to grasp the Biblical concepts of grace, faith, reverence or the idea of a holy calling. Both movements have reworked these concepts into a philosophical grid that accommodates cultural norms and values and in many cases produces rotten fruit and results in something almost opposite what the Scriptures intended.

Some would praise Murray for not 'naming names' even though he names plenty of people in the book. He mentions them, discusses the concept of demonic influence and then just leaves it. He lets the reader put the pieces together and yet clearly (in my experience) many failed to understand the implications.

Even though I believe Sarah Palin is not a Christian and were she to die today I don't believe she will be in heaven, perhaps that kind of direct speech is less than helpful. Perhaps it's the sort of thing that one may think but should keep to himself. Again ultimately it's in God's hands.

And yet when I see a list of 'Influential Evangelicals' and when I go through the list it's difficult not to proclaim what the list really and actually represents. I speak of it as a whole and that's why (in part) I did not want to go through the list name by name. That defeats the concept of what I'm trying to call attention to.

*There are other indications that Murray was already on the road to the craedobaptistic position. In The Forgotten Spurgeon in addition to treating Spurgeon's controversies with regard to Calvinism and the Down-Grade, he also touches on the Baptismal Regeneration controversy which racked Victorian society. Spurgeon criticised the nature of the Anglican Church and the way in which paedobaptism functioned in light of Ecclesiastical Establishment. While I would agree that infant baptism wedded to an Establishment or Sacralist context is always highly problematic I cannot agree with Spurgeon's viewpoint either. Whenever I read that chapter I am struck by how much I disagree with both sides of the issue. Murray clearly sides with Spurgeon and though at that time remained a Presbyterian (and thus paedobaptist) he clearly had embraced a theological framework that more or less accorded with Baptistic theology. He is by no means alone in this. I have long contended that most Presbyterians are in fact Baptists who happen to apply water to their infant offspring. They raise them as Baptists, view Baptism (and Communion) through an essentially baptistic lens, and poignantly demonstrate this in their approaches to teenage 'conversion' and the fictitious Latin rite of Confirmation.

Additionally Murray espouses an essentially Baptist viewpoint in Evangelicalism Divided. While many of his critiques of Canterbury (and Evangelical Anglicanism) are quite valid, there are other points in which he muddies the waters and not only muddles the issues, but appears muddled himself. Looking back I am not all that surprised to learn he has shifted camps.

Finally as mentioned previously not every name on the 'enemies list' is equally dubious. John MacArthur was someone I mentioned before. There are many points on which I can say MacArthur is solid and I would endorse him. That said, it is not difficult for me to come up with a list of issues in which I think he's worthy of sharp rebuke and promotes serious error. Hardly in the same category (or universe) as someone like Osteen I still maintain he's part of a larger Evangelical 'corruption', even if he's on the fringe of it, so to speak.

Murray would clearly disagree with me having fairly recently written a very positive biography of MacArthur. This surprised me as Murray has been quite critical of the Dispensational theology espoused by MacArthur. This coupled with MacArthur being a Baptist, I was surprised that Murray would want to invest the time in writing a biography of him. One must grant that MacArthur is somewhat unique in those circles because he identifies as a Calvinist.

I don't think Murray will ever move any closer to Dispensational theology, though much of it has moved a bit closer (on a practical level) to Murray's Postmillennialism. That said, one wonders if Murray's switch to the craedobaptistic position has influenced the degree of regard he holds for someone like MacArthur? I just don't know but it's something that crossed my mind.