AP

Review of Iain H. Murray, Evangelicalism Divided, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1982

This is a book I heard recommended by Mark Dever at a Banner of Truth conference at the beginning of the year. When I read the book a few months ago, I immediately recognised the applicability for my own thinking about ecumenical ministry. I have come back to writing a review because I am convinced that this is something deserving of wide readership, particularly among the senior church leadership.

To sum up, Iain Murray provides a discerning glimpse into the heart of what has gone wrong with modern evangelicalism, particularly in the five decades from around the time of Billy Graham. If God is going to “make evangelicalism great again”, then something of a critique of modern evangelicalism is needed.

Murray explores how prominent evangelical leaders worked with non-evangelical groups, such as liberals and Roman Catholics, to pursue Christian mission. Murray’s historical examination demonstrates how very naïve it was to do so, because much of what started out as good intentions soon resulted in evangelicals losing their very distinctiveness about the gospel. When one finds himself unable to publicly criticise positions because he partnered with certain ministries, he can end up undermining the very gospel he is trying to proclaim.

Murray’s style and structure will not suit the average reader, however. His writing is dense. While the points he makes are usually quite pertinent, at times it is not quite clear why he is bringing up the facts that he is. I have found that you need to do some work to try to get on his wavelength. Of course, I think that the effort is worth it.

One of the greatest strengths of Murray’s book is that it is not merely theological (as in, theoretical). He speaks from personal experience having lived through much of that history and having worked closely with Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Lloyd-Jones was one of the few evangelical leaders of the time who made the unpopular decision not to publicly endorse the crusades because of Graham’s refusal to stop sharing the platform with liberals and Catholics. Lloyd-Jones was at times unfairly criticised for being divisive but his reservations have proved prescient over time. Recounting Lloyd-Jones’ thoughts Murray writes: “Stott believed that a new opportunity was occurring both for the advance of evangelicalism … and for a renewal of evangelical influence with the major denominations. Lloyd-Jones believed that both of these objectives could not be achieved at the same time. He saw that for evangelicals to gain ecumenical and denominational acceptance they would have to pay a price which would imperil the very legitimacy of their distinctive beliefs.”

Murray turns also to evangelicalism in the Church of England, and then evangelicalism in America. He finds that evangelicalism lost its distinctiveness in England with the choice to embrace liberals as fellow brothers in the ministry. The 1967 National Evangelical Anglican Assembly at Keele was the watershed moment. Similarly, he finds evangelicalism in America – with Fuller Theological Seminary and Christianity Today being two examples – lost its distinctiveness because of the desire to gain acceptance with a larger audience. Fuller Theological Seminary lost its way by starting to disavow traditional Christian beliefs such as biblical infallibility in the name of intellectual respectability. The latter lost its way because of its refusal to publish orthodox articles likely to attract some controversy, preferring instead to only publish that which would find acceptance from a wider variety of Christian readers.

Many are going to inevitably disagree with Murray’s book. He critiques some of our most beloved evangelicals of the previous generation: John Stott, J. I. Packer, Billy Graham to name just three. Others will disagree because they do not share his personal convictions about what are the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Still others will disagree because they place such a high a value on Christian unity, that virtually every other doctrine is dispensable for its sake.

However, if anyone is genuinely open-minded about the truth, holds to the supremacy and suffiency of God’s word, the centrality of the gospel, and that sound biblical teaching does matter in the building up and maturing of the saints (Ephesians 4:12-14), he or she will undoubtedly come to a view close to Iain Murray’s.

There were many eye-opening moments for me, too many to list them all. But two that come to mind are:

(1)  Murray’s comment: “When churches lose their influence, when the Christian message ceases to arrest the indifferent and the unbelieving, when moral decline is obvious in places which once owned biblical standards – when such symptoms as these are evident, then the first need is not to regroup such professing Christianity as remains. It is rather to ask whether the spiritual decline is not due to a fundamental failure to understand and practise what Christianity really is (p.151).” Murray points to renewals of the church experienced under the likes of the Reformers, and George Whitfield, and John Wesley. It confirmed for me the great necessity of our current age is not ecumenism/inter-church unity where churches can agree to fewer and fewer doctrines, but a more fearless proclamation of full-blooded biblical Christianity.

(2) Murray’s comment: ”No one doubts that the grace of God may enable an individual Anglo-Catholic or Roman Catholic to see beyond a dangerous ritualism and grasp enough of the gospel to be Christian. But it is another thing to say that the catholic system teaches the way of salvation truly, that its priests are colleagues in New Testament ministry, and that its adherents are all entitled to be regarded as Christians (p.123).” This confirmed for me the useful distinction of being able to accept that while there may be Christians present in those churches, it is a different thing altogether to be obliged to endorse their ministries. The way that I now think of the question of whether I can endorse another Christian ministry is to ask myself the serious question: would I give that other “minister” some platform to run a ministry in my own church? Why or why not? If I find myself struggling to see how anyone would progress in maturity under their ministry, then why would I endorse their ministry at all?

It is not that ecumenism is completely unnecessary. On the contrary, I think it is of great importance. But not in a way that aims to lower the bar. Rather, it needs to lift the bar for everyone and looks to cooperate in order to make full-blooded disciples of Jesus.

– Bryan Kim