Review: Evangelicalism Divided, by Iain Murray

The term “evangelical” is in a questionable position these days, at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Many Reformed Protestants, Emergent Church folks, and others are reluctant to use the term to describe themselves, despite coming from ecclesiastical traditions that have historically had that label. Others take pride in using the term, finding it useful to locate themselves in the Protestant world, identifying themselves with supporters of a number of political, social, and cultural causes. Nonetheless, many (if not most) of those who use the term have a hard time defining just what an evangelical is. One case in point is a recent forum on evangelical involvement in foreign affairs where a panelist, head of a Texas evangelical association, was unable to provide any useful or satisfactory definition of evangelicalism.

Part of this inability to pin down what an evangelical is stems from the movement’s convoluted history over the last half-century, as its leading figures in Britain and the United States came to be deeply divided over what evangelicals are about and how they relate to other groups within professing Christianity. It is this history that Iain Murray chronicles in Evangelicalism Divided: A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950 to 2000.

Murray begins by “Setting the Scene” as he describes the development of liberal Protestant theology in the nineteenth century under the influence of Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the response in the latter part of that century and the first half of the twentieth of Protestants who retained traditional Protestant belief in doctrines such as the authority and inspiration of the Bible, the deity of Christ, the substitutionary Atonement, and the like. Chapters two and three describe how Billy Graham, the most prominent evangelical in the 1950s, acted as a catalyst for change within evangelicalism by seeking greater unity and cooperation in his crusades with liberal churches and clergymen, minimizing doctrinal differences for the sake of working together in evangelistic efforts. Graham also progressively became less and less dedicated to distinctive evangelical doctrine as he became a greater public figure and began to have dialogue with presidents and other public figures.
Chapters four and five describe how evangelical Anglicans like John Stott and Jim Packer, in the fifties through the seventies, sought greater unity with non-evangelical Anglicans, again at the expense of doctrinal distinctives that are evangelicals’ heritage of the Reformation. Chapter six outlines Murray’s opinion of the Gospel- and doctrine-preserving tack that evangelicals ought to have taken, neither withdrawing from interaction with other Christians nor giving away the biblical faith. In chapter seven, he describes how evangelical academics, seeking greater intellectual respectability by taking a new approach to biblical studies, ended up traveling the same path as liberals and softening their stand on the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture. Chapter eight describes evangelical attempts at dialogue with Roman Catholics, including the controversial Evangelicals and Catholics Together statements of the 1990s. Chapter nine is Murray’s warning that evangelicals need to be wary of the danger of the devil’s schemes against the Church and the true faith. Chapter ten describes evangelicals’ need for a robust, Biblically faithful ecclesiology. In chapter eleven, Murray ends with several conclusions from the preceding material, warnings for evangelicals in the twenty-first century.

Murray does a good job in these pages of hitting the high points of evangelicalism’s foibles and mistakes in the last half-century, as he provides both the historical account of how a large segment of the evangelical world failed to remain a robust witness to the true faith and, at the same time, substantial theological analysis of the problems with various stances that evangelical leaders have taken. One slight frustration I have with the book, however (and it is about the only negative), has to do with the organization of the material. As one progresses from chapter to chapter through the book, it seems to have little internal coherence and gives the impression that the several chapters could nearly as well stand alone as separate essays. It is all relevant material, it just seems to transition abruptly from topic to topic.

That said, this is a tremendously valuable resource for any evangelical scholar, pastor, or elder. Murray’s theological analysis is penetrating, and it does a good job of explaining recent evangelical mistakes in a way that should help us be on guard against reproducing them in our churches and para-church relationships. There are a number of instructive things to take from this reading, a couple of which I’ll mention here.

Murray quotes a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, who “believed that there was a continuing absence of any ‘developed evangelical ecclesiology.’” Unfortunately, Runcie’s analysis all too accurately describes most evangelicals today. Most don’t give appropriate consideration to the doctrine of the church, and it greatly hurts the work of the Kingdom. If evangelicals are to be faithful to the biblical vision of the church, they will need to give more considered thought to ecclesiology, and let their practice be shaped by the Biblical vision of the church. 9Marks and other like-minded ministries are a great step in the right direction in this area.

Pastors should also take from this saga the importance of teaching and preaching sound doctrine in our churches. From churches that gone liberal to the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement to the growth of praise’n’worship-centric services to the Emergent Church, the idea that the essence of Christianity is about feeling and experience rather than a message to be believed is common throughout the evangelical and post-evangelical world. It was heretical and antithetic to the essence of Biblical Christianity when Schleiermacher articulated it in the eighteenth century, and it is dangerous and antichristian today. Only if evangelicals recover the proper place of sound doctrine will their churches be biblically faithful and healthy.

One point that I particularly appreciated was Murray’s insistence that we must be aware of and on guard against the machinations of the devil against true biblical Christianity. He says that evangelicals have too often fell prey to the misconception that materialism, secular philosophy, or pagan religions are the greatest threats to the church. According to Scripture, he says, the greatest enemies of God’s people are those within and those who are the agents of Satan. Like those Murray describes, I am not naturally prone to seeing demons lurking around corners and Piercing the Darkness-esque spiritual warfare behind every conflict. If it were not for my simple faith in the Bible’s testimony about the Devil and his plan to destroy the church, I wouldn’t even believe he exists.

Finally, I understand more than I did before reading this book the importance of making clear the difference between the church and the world in my preaching. Perhaps the greatest problem with evangelicals’ accommodations of liberalism and Romanism is their failure to answer the question “What is a Christian?” Preaching what it means to really and truly follow Jesus as He commanded us is one of the most important themes that, if preached consistently, will serve the salvation of souls and the health of the church. If evangelicals begin to understand and then preach what it means to be a believer in Jesus, perhaps the damage that has been done in the last half-century will begin to be reversed.