Whither Evangelicalism?

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/08/whither-evangelicalism.html

[Pyromaniacs] 10 Aug 2009--Evangelicalism regularly comes under attack from all sides, and let's face it: a lot of the criticism leveled against evangelicals is well deserved. Although I hold firmly to historic evangelical doctrine, I thoroughly despise what the contemporary evangelical movement has become.

That's an important distinction. Evangelical doctrine and the evangelical movement are not the same thing. Nowadays they often look like polar opposites. The movement we usually label "evangelical" abandoned its own doctrinal foundation long ago. The average evangelical today couldn't even tell you what the original doctrinal distinctives of classic evangelicalism were.

In fact, post-modern evangelicals don't really have any clear doctrinal identity. No less than Christianity Today has suggested that diversity is what now defines the movement. That's close, but I'd be inclined to say that the singular characteristic that stands out most among contemporary evangelicals is their distaste for drawing any clear lines between truth and error. They don't like to handle doctrine in a polemical fashion. They especially don't want to be thought "negative" when it comes to declaring their doctrinal convictions. They don't want anyone to think they are "against" what someone else teaches. (What a gauche, fundamentalist attitude that would be!) Almost everything is negotiable within the broad evangelical movement of today.