Roger Nicole and Iain Murray and Evangelicalism Divided

The Founders Journal is a quarterly Magazine committed to historic Southern Baptist principles and indispensable for ascertaining the reformation going on in that Convention. It is edited by Dr Tom Ascol of the Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida.

In the current edition the Baptist Dr Roger Nicole, the Visiting Professor of Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida and a contributing editor of this Journal review Iain Murray‘s Evangelicalism Divided. Dr Nicole, as his custom is, sent a copy of his review to Iain Murray and he has responded to it. This is their exchange published here by permission:–

Book Review

Iain H. Murray, Evangelicalism Divided, A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950 to 2000. Edinburgh and Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2000. X, 342 pp. $21.99 Reviewed by Dr. Roger Nicole

Surely Rev. lain Murray does not need an introduction to the readers of the Founders Journal, for they presumably know him as the author of The Forgotten Spurgeon, Spurgeon V. Hyper-Calvinism, as well as biographies of Jonathan Edwards, Arthur W. Pink, John Murray and Martyn Lloyd-Jones (2 volumes). In the present work Rev. Murray has undertaken to describe and document some serious weakening in the evangelical front in the British Isles and in the United States of America during the period of 1950 to 2000.

Rev. Murray views Billy Graham and Harold J. Ockenga as having been at the root of this weakening in America, while J. I. Packer and John R. W. Stott as well as Billy Graham have had a comparable influence in England. Billy Graham is named because of his broad policy of permitting a wide range of personalities of very diverse convictions, including some Roman Catholics and some liberal Protestants, to support his evangelical crusades and to appear with him on the platform. This, Rev. Murray avers, has blurred the line of distinction between evangelicals and non-evangelicals. Furthermore the evangelistic approach dubbed ‘invitation’ system, has encouraged a certain superficiality in the call of the gospel, neglecting the importance of repentance and leading many who were not truly regenerate to view themselves as ‘saved’ because they had ‘come forward’ in a crusade.

Harold John Ockenga is blamed for a shift in the character of Fuller Theological Seminary, an institution founded on strictly evangelical premises and supported by funds of evangelical origin. In the desire to prepare ministers that would be acceptable in the ‘mainline denomination’, Rev. Murray contends, undue emphasis was placed on academic accreditation and professional earned doctorates rather than spiritual qualifications and experience in ministry. Thus the desire for ‘intellectual respectability’ led many who had started as clear-cut evangelicals to make concessions to Biblical criticism and thus to permit the erosion of the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. Ockenga’s failure to operate as resident president is blamed for the beginning of this shift under the presidency of E. J. Carnell, which accelerated under President David A. Hubbard with the departure of several of the staunchest conservative members of the Faculty.

On the English scene, J. I. Packer and John R. W. Stott are singled out because of their unwillingness to accept Martyn Lloyd-Jones challenge in 1966 that evangelicals should give up the Anglican Church to its own doldrums and concentrate on an effort by all evangelicals to unite in a common fellowship and action. This was understood as an appeal to leave the Church of England which Packer and Stott refused to do. The result, Rev. Murray holds, was a splintering of the evangelical force and, as a result of the marginalizing of Packer and Stott’s leadership, a precipitous decline of the clear-cut evangelical movement within Anglicanism.

The gradual estrangement of many in the Church of England who had been considered as evangelicals is then carefully documented by Rev. Murray. This includes the complete alienation of Dr James Barr and the damaging shift away from verbal inspiration of Dr J. D. G. Dunn. Some leaders who had formerly been strongly associated with the evangelical movement came to endorse the view that ‘baptism is the visible sign of a Christian’ and we must practice unity with all the baptized. (p.99). This evidenced a drift toward Anglo-Catholicism and even toward Roman Catholicism to the great detriment of the recognition of the Reformation as a return to New Testament Christianity singularly blessed by God himself.

This last weakness, Rev. Murray avers, has a parallel in the American movement call ECT (Evangelicals and Catholics Together) which aroused fiery opposition on the part of some evangelical leaders, while others, no less evangelical, addressed the matter by correcting some flaws in the original document, which the original evangelicals signers acknowledged, without, however, renouncing the principle of evangelical co-belligerency with the Roman Catholic Church against the grievous deterioration or even abandonment of Judeo-Christian morality in the United States. As one who has been during the whole period wholeheartedly committed to the evangelical cause, inclusive of the inerrancy of Scripture and the centrality of the substitutionary penal nature of the death of Christ, I must confess that the reading of this book was a very melancholy task, particularly in areas in which the book points to real weakenings that I am constrained to acknowledge.

There are certain demurrals that I am eager to present, lest the book be considered to document a massive defection of evangelicalism.

1. The situation in 1950 was not ideal. Some of the defects mentioned for the period 1950-2000 were already in evidence in 1950, in 1930, in the 1920’s, in 1900, in 1880, in 1850, throughout the 18th century, at several points in the 1600’s as well as during the life-time of our great Reformers. Knowledge of church history will readily prove that no period was free of defection. The constant need to reorganize monastic orders, where separation from the world should have promoted lasting faith and purity, certainly manifests that constant vigilance is imperative. The sin-stained human heart is naturally Pelagian, and thus there is a natural slippage toward a man-centered direction that must be continually resisted. 1950-2000 is no exception.

2. The people on whom Rev. Murray centers the blame happen to have been, and to be still, if now alive, firm believers in the evangelical faith:

Billy Graham, Harold J. Ockenga, J. I. Packer, John R. W. Stott were through this period and are wholly committed to the infallible authority of scripture and to salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Certainly not one of them has given an example of deviation from the faith they held in 1950.

Of course, people of sound faith may at times favor policies that turn out to be damaging in the event. Perhaps if Billy Graham had adopted another approach to co-operation with non-evangelical churches some loosening of the faith might have been avoided. Perhaps if Dr Ockenga had moved to Pasadena in 1947, or at least in 1955, he could have prevented a change in the statement of faith of Fuller Seminary, a loss of some of the staunchly conservative faculty members, and a certain slippage in its evangelical stance. Perhaps J. I. Packer and John Stott might have maintained a strong leadership among Anglican evangelicals that would have warded off the defection documented by Rev. Murray. To say this is to posit that their churchmanship may not have been totally impeccable, but it should not ever degenerate into thinking that their faith was in any way deficient. Rev. Murray would be the first to acknowledge this, but his blame may tend to mislead at this point. Let him whose churchmanship is always beyond criticism cast the first stone.

Perhaps if Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones had been careful in 1966 to prepare some of his collaborators like Packer and Stott so as to make sure that they understood his outlook and were ready to support him, instead of springing his challenge when they were wholly unaware of his plan, the Anglican group might not have foundered as it did.

3. While my acquaintance with the British Isles is not such as to permit me to challenge Rev. Murray’s portrayal, I believe that I have a sufficient contact with the situation in the United States to warrant my suggestion that the picture he presents here is not complete. In Christianity Today for 9/6/96 I wrote an article entitled ‘What Evangelicalism Has Accomplished’ (pp. 31-34) in reaction to the rather pessimistic assessment of David Wells and Marc Noll. Here is some of the data adduced.

Seminaries. Although some conservative seminaries have toned down their original evangelical stance, yet at this turn of the century out of 125 accredited Protestant seminaries, 55 are clearly evangelical. Furthermore in some seminaries that had embraced the Biblical critical position some thoroughly evangelical professors have been added to the faculty. Even Harvard Divinity School has now a chair of evangelical theology!

Students. Almost half of those studying theology at the seminary level are enrolled in these 55 seminaries. Moreover many are studying in evangelical seminaries not yet in the accredited list and many evangelical students are found in denominational seminaries that are not evangelical, but are not losing their faith on this account. Since the pastoral ministry does not greatly attract more liberal students, it would appear that there would be soon a strong preponderance of evangelical pastors serving in the pulpit. Seminary Professors in evangelical schools have received fuller academic training than was the case in 1950, many of them holding doctorates from high-rated schools. More adequate salaries and a lesser load of class work combined with judicious sabbatical programs have enabled them to pursue their studies and to publish.

The Evangelical Theological Society inaugurated in 1949 and requiring a Master’s degree or its equivalent for full membership, had 112 charter members by mid-1950. At this point it numbers more than 3,132 members, all of whom have declared and sign each year the following statement of faith:

The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written, hence inerrant in the autographs.

Libraries. In 1950 the theological libraries of evangelical institutions were often very inadequate. By 2000 this defect has been very remarkably overcome.

Publications. In 1950 many were chiding evangelicals for being satisfied with reprints of older works. In the latter half of the century, however, a great production has taken place in the Biblical department (Introduction, Dictionaries, Commentaries, Biblical Theology, Archaeology); Historical department (Denominational Studies, Biographies, Monographs); Theological department (Systematics, Ethics, Apologetics), and Practical department (Homiletics, Evangelism, Counseling, Sermons, Edification). Evangelical publishing houses have prospered and produce every year impressive catalogs. The NIV prepared entirely by evangelicals is now the best-seller of the world!

Periodicals. More than 30 quarterlies are now issued under evangelical auspices.

Evangelism and Mission have continued to flourish among evangelicals, while these activities have tended to wane when an unsound pluralism prevailed in many churches.

Social Consciousness, that was sometimes flagging in 1950, has been revitalized in many evangelical churches and para church movements.

All of these things and still others lead me to think that God has placed us evangelicals in a time of unparalleled opportunity that we should be eager to seize for the blessing of His people and for His glory. Rev. Murray’s book should alert us to the dangers that are ever threatening. One of these is surely the temptation to dilute the truth in order to accommodate the greatest number possible. But another danger is to permit ‘Evangelicalism’ to be divided and thus to blunt the force of our united witness. It is my prayer that we may by God’s grace avoid both of these.

A Response to Dr. Nicole

Dear Dr Nicole,

I appreciate your kindness in letting me see your projected review of Evangelicalism Divided and the time and thought which you have given to this. I agree with your reason for the summary you gave towards the end on evangelical growth. If people thought my book was intended to be a history of evangelicalism as a whole in the last fifty years it would leave them with a wrong negative impression. Another positive fact that could be mentioned is the enormous sale of sound evangelical books in the US, Jim Packer’s Knowing God, for instance, selling upwards of quarter of a million copies. I also agree entirely with your point. All generations are flawed and fallible, ‘in many things we offend all’. There is much for which we can be thankful in the change since 1950.

I see the main point of my book differently from yourself. I think that someone simply reading your review could think, ‘Oh, this is just the old fundamentalist attack on people, and the same old targets.’ I tried, you may think unsuccessfully, to be assessing policies, not people and I took care, in places, to speak for the people whose thinking at other points I criticise (e.g. I disagree with Archbishop Fisher on the results of Harringay, p. 56). Over against critics of Ockenga and Carnell, I documented that their evangelical convictions did not change (in passing, I don’t recall I offering any opinion on how Ockenga’s non-residence affected things at Fuller). My main point is the historic evangelical understanding of what it means to be a Christian and how that was challenged (chapter 1) by the liberal contention that it is not essential to believe any set of doctrines to be a Christian. Granting the excesses of fundamentalism, on that issue they were clear. The new evangelicalism (for want of a better term, I don’t use it in the book as a smear label) came to believe that the older lines of division were too narrowly drawn and that, with more ‘openness’ and a better spirit, Christians in the major denominations could be helped and the whole position strengthened. This thinking happened to coincide with the ecumenical movement and thus to an atmosphere which evangelicals believed to be conducive to a wider unity while they could still maintain the biblical essentials. But ecumenism, as liberalism, for the most part assumed a different definition of a Christian from that of evangelicals, and the issue of division, as I have tried to relate it, became whether or not evangelical convictions are necessary to be a Christian. On that issue Graham, Stott, and Packer have quite clearly taken a position which none of them took in 1950 and which would have been opposed generally throughout evangelicalism at that date. I think the documentation on that point is unanswerable (see, for instance, pp. 73-4, 119). My use of Fuller Seminary is to show that in trying to advance evangelical belief they quickly ran into tension with non-evangelicals and that there was no way to gain wider acceptance without a toning down of distinctives (pp. 188-9), the very problem Ockenga and Carnell discussed. On a much larger scale Graham encountered the same problem and the solution to which he moved was to accept that his earlier idea of Christian was much too narrow. Now he professes to have no problem with either Robert Schuller or the Church of Rome.

It was this tension that Dr Lloyd-Jones was addressing, not issues of churchmanship. He argued that evangelicals could only be a part of ecumenism if they accepted the ecumenical axiom that ‘we are all Christians’ and that by so doing, sooner or later, the importance of what is distinctive and essential to evangelical belief would be seriously weakened and undermined. I believe he was right. It is not the jettisoning of evangelical belief by the leaders which I claim has happened (readers of your review could think I do) but their changed stance on how that belief relates to forms of religious thought which are inimical to it. In the end do the differences really matter? They clearly don’t matter much if men can deny the resurrection of Christ and still be Christians (p. 119 again). (You would notice I said nothing on Dr Stott’s views on eternal punishment; I was trying to keep to the big issue which is at the center of the division).

My point in chapter 6, which I think is very relevant, is that the kind of evangelism so blessed of God in history, depends on the conviction that men must believe the truth or perish. Lloyd-Jones’ great point was that the primary issue is, What is a Christian? and that the ecumenical involvement would necessarily involve a playing down of that issue (Similarly, the quest for intellectual respectability involved a playing down of the antithesis between the regenerate and unregenerate mind).

Following are a few points of detail, on which I simply give my opinion.

• Stott’s leadership was not marginalized, not in the 1970s surely. Packer’s position was different.
• Regarding ‘baptism the visible sign’, you quote from p. 99 but on p. 101 I show this was the position now formally adopted by the Anglican evangelical leadership.
• Schaeffer and others have long allowed social and moral action with Roman Catholics; what was new in ECT was the commitment with respect to evangelism.
• Concerning your speculation that Lloyd-Jones did not speak with Packer and Stott enough about his thinking which he made public at the 1966 meeting, I think here you are wrong. ML-J had plenty of contact with Packer and Stott before the critical meeting of 1966, including discussion on the subject in question.

May I add a final thought. We have to contend for the faith but we would both agree that something more than right beliefs are needed. The power of godliness is not widely in evidence in many churches today–prayer meetings and powerful evangelistic preaching are not common. Certain correct tenets of belief can appear to exist in people who see no conflict in accepting views seriously at variance with those beliefs (I mentioned Inter-Varsity men on this side of the Atlantic and on your side you have such people as Clark Pinnock in the Evangelical Theological Society). Among ‘our ranks’ pragmatism is probably more widespread than wrong beliefs. Your final warning on ‘the greatest number’ is surely right but that kind of thinking would appear to have eaten into evangelicalism on both sides of the Atlantic. ‘Is it successful?’ becomes a primary question. If the main case of my book is true, the prevalence of expediency is not unconnected with the policy of going for influence at the expense of a clear-cut biblical stand.

Thank you again for this discussion.

Iain Murray.