What is wrong with Evangelicalism?

http://ugleyvicar.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-is-wrong-with-evangelicalism.html

[The Ugley Vicar] 28, 2009--Where we began

In my first talk I suggested that evangelicalism is best understood first from the point of view of practice, rather than theology.

This, I think, reflects the experience of evangelicals and the development of evangelical organizations. We are rather used to seeing such organizations produce ‘statements of faith’ and we therefore fall into the habit of thinking that such statements determine what it is to be an evangelical.

We might think, for example, that because most evangelicals could sign up to the UCCF doctrinal basis, that the doctrinal basis defines what it is to be an evangelical, but that is not the case.

On the one hand, the person newly converted at the UCCF mission may be thoroughly ‘evangelical’, already keen to tell their friends about their new-found faith, and yet that same person may have given no thought at all to the sovereignty of God in redemption, or the nature of biblical infallibility.

On the other hand, and rather more worryingly, there are Christian Unions which technically ‘adhere’ to the doctrinal basis, but which rarely engage in evangelism, and have very little concern for the non-Christians within their institutions.

To be an evangelical is not, first and foremost, about doctrinal correctness, but about a passion for the gospel of salvation from sin through Christ for eternity.

That is evangelicalism’s great strength. It is what, for example, allows evangelicals to recognize and work with one another despite denominational differences —even differences with which they themselves agree.

It is, above all, why evangelicalism tends to grow —why evangelical churches and organizations tend to thrive even when others are struggling —because evangelicalism is, but its nature, self-replicating.

Evangelicalism is a spreading flame, even when it is theologically untidy, incoherent and even incorrect.