ESSENTIALLY EVANGELICAL
by Pastor Geoff ThomasFROM SWORD & TROWEL 1999 No
4
‘Essentially Evangelical’ is the name adopted by a group of evangelical ministers for a
proposed organisation of pastors, and perhaps of churches, sharing biblical convictions. The
envisaged movement would not be like a denomination, but would be a voluntary means of
promoting cooperation. However, similar groups already exist in British evangelicalism, and it is not
clear how this new grouping would differ.
Among those who were invited to the second preparatory conference organised by the
pioneers was Pastor Geoff Thomas of Aberystwyth. What follows is the edited text of a letter by him
to the organisers expressing three major objections to the idea. These objections also present the only credible basis for association and cooperation
between reformed congregations. (All names and courteous personal references have been omitted.)
I am a local pastor, and when I began my ministry my goal was obviously to establish a
congregation which would love the whole counsel of God, and enjoy its comforts and strength.
This would naturally lead us to support, according to our own light and God’s providence, any
group which would endorse such Puritanism or experiential Calvinism. I believe that there can be
reformation only where there is such living theology. Its comparative rarity, thirty-three years later, is a
barometer which indicates the abiding weakness of British Christianity.
1. COMMITMENT TO PURITANISM LACKING
My first objection to the new organisation is that the men in leadership are not committed to
Puritanism.
I need to define what I mean by Puritanism, and for this I have to go back in time. I would begin
with the great ‘alones’ of the Reformation - salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone,
from the Scripture alone, and to the glory of God alone. The implications of grasping these are enormous.
Or take the familiar three motifs of biblical revelation - creation, Fall and redemption. The
creation of the world and of man in the opening two chapters of Genesis and the Fall of man
in the third chapter are essential historic events, which become the backcloth to all the history of
redemption in the remainder of the Bible.
Reformation theology developed and was given a pastoral and evangelistic focus as it became
enriched by the Puritans of the next century. There were the five points of Calvinism, a summary of crucial
themes of the Gospel - man’s total depravity, God’s unconditional election, an atonement limited to saving
all the vast numbers of the people of God, God’s irresistible grace delivering those He would redeem, and
the perseverance of those people.
But there was much more than these doctrines - an entire vision of the Christian life. There was a
God-centredness about everything in Puritanism. Permeating the thinking of those preachers was the vision
of God given in Isaiah 6. As this holy, mighty One was perceived - God’s ministers declared,
‘Behold your God.’
Such men preached the law of God to bring their hearers to see themselves as sinners in need of
mercy. Alongside the law they proclaimed the immensity of the love of Jesus Christ, so that Christians
were motivated to keep His commandments.
Again, Puritans presented the whole Christ to the whole man - the fact that He is a Prophet, a
Priest, and a King - and they would not separate these offices, so that the significance of professing to be a
disciple of the Lord was known, and men counted the cost.
There are other characteristics of Puritanism -
- The blessings of assurance tested and strengthened by the promises of God, and made real by the Spirit;
- The evidence of a transformed life and the inner witness of the Spirit;
- God’s preserving of His people, indicated by their persevering in holy and loving obedience;
- Reverence, humility and godly fear in worship;
- Preaching as the climactic aspect of worship;
- Hymns of praise which reflect their theology and give all glory to God, and none to the engineering of man.
Puritanism is consistent supernaturalism, especially at the point of God dealing with men’s
souls. There is an intimate confrontation, the naked soul meeting the living God, and an awed sense of that
spreading through all that is said and done in church. We are fascinated by such workings of grace.
In the conflict with Rome the essence of the struggle was (and remains) that word ‘alone’. Rome
believes in salvation by grace and accepts the Apostles’ Creed, but Rome sees grace coming by way of the
church through all the paraphernalia of its many sacraments.
Puritanism goes a different way from Lutheranism and from Anglicanism, abandoning church
rites and believing in the direct work of the Holy Spirit. This is why we believe in the special calling and
gift of the preacher, and the simplicity of worship, and why we reject all pragmatic forms of evangelism.
This is why we see modern worship-songs and drama groups as a hindrance to understanding grace. The
implications of a Puritan vision of the Christian life and the local church are enormous.
Those are the kind of convictions I believe to comprehend full-orbed biblical Christianity. As a
young preacher my ambition was to spend my life working for an awakening of experiential Calvinism. I
have tried to do this for more than thirty years and will carry on while God gives me strength. Whatever the
organisation, if it was sympathetic to Puritanism I gave it my support.
I attend their conferences and have subscribed to their magazines. My church became a member
of the British Evangelical Council, and the Associating Evangelical Churches of Wales, and the Grace
Baptist Assembly. I have written up these conferences, and reported back to the congregation in
Aberystwyth on what was said, and we have felt part of a movement which was promoting true piety,
worship and evangelism everywhere in the British Isles. As a church we do not feel at all disaffiliated or
lacking in cooperation with other Christians.
There are 11 signatories to your letter. Apart from three, not one of those men, including
yourself, are part of any of those gatherings which have been such a part of my life and my annual calendar
for more than three decades. I never meet with any of you, although some of the 11 men actually live in the
towns where familiar conferences take place, and all live far, far nearer than I do.
Little wonder you are all feeling some sense of responsibility about your failure to work closely
with your brothers. But now you have decided that the way out of this neglect is to start another para-
church agency. To get this going you are inviting men like myself to give up two days and spend Ł50 plus
the costs of travel to talk about how we may ‘work more closely together’.
But this projected work is obviously not going to be focused upon the sphere of experiential
Calvinism, because most of you do not feel that it is sufficiently significant to attend its principal
conferences.
I have the same complaint with this mentality and its attraction to a nation-wide picture as I have
with the publicity of the Proclamation Trust. The men in charge plan their own conferences - which is fine.
Helpful things are frequently said - which is good. But attendance is promoted as somehow indicating that
one is a true proponent of Christian unity, and that it brings one to the ‘centre ground’ of evangelicalism,
rather than remaining on the fringes.
From the sort of gathering to which you are inviting men like me there may, we are tantalisingly
told, ‘be launched something significant’. The invitation expresses, I fear, that side of the English
evangelical character that is so easily seduced by vague, universal, good intentions that get nowhere.
To be encouraging a revived Puritanism would certainly be an immensely attractive ideal. But it
is questionable whether we need another agency or conference to do what is already served by others. I
doubt if I shall see the day when a group of young men within Anglicanism look in despair at their own
denomination and turn to those true riches.
But my further complaint is that even the majority of you who know about Puritanism are not
focused upon its motivating energies. Some of you have even lost that vision you once had. Without that
commitment why should your future actions achieve anything theologically and ecclesiastically credible?
Presbyterians who truly hold to the Westminster Confession, and Congregationalists
who accept the Savoy Confession, and Baptists who receive the 1689 Confession
have a rich base of agreement not only on worship, evangelism and pastoring but about God Himself. They
share such a sound foundation that they may cooperate in ministry and mission. I doubt whether what will
come out of ‘Essentially Evangelical’ will make a better contribution to Christians ‘working together’ than
all our existing committee work, travels, conferences and speaking engagements. We are already very
involved in cross-denominational structures with a Puritan base.
2. EMBRACING THOSE WHO FELLOWSHIP WITH DENIERS OF THE GOSPEL
The proposed new grouping has chosen to embrace those who remain in church fellowship with
those who deny the Gospel. There are a couple of Anglicans amongst you eleven organisers. What can one
say about the Church of England and its evangelicals? A myth has been circulated which suggests that the
good Martyn Lloyd-Jones was manipulated by a coterie of lesser individuals who pushed his separatist
Welsh tendencies to an extreme, so that there developed a nasty and unnecessary split between Free Church
and Anglican evangelicals.
It is said that the time has come for bygones to be bygones, and for that unnecessary division to
be healed. Have you read the views of the Anglican Gerald Bray in his recent review in The
Churchman of McGrath’s biography of J I Packer? He says that the Packer-Stott line about staying
in and influencing the Established Church might have had a good deal to commend it if only Anglican
evangelicalism had been united around a coherent reformed theology. He continues in these words:
‘Those who wanted to "go into" the Church of England, as they put it, were often quite happy to
ditch whatever theology they possessed, especially if it could get them a bishopric. Whether Dr Lloyd-
Jones realised this or not, subsequent events have showed that his was a prophetic voice.
‘At the Evangelical Anglican Leaders’ Conference in January 1995, for example, all the main
speakers were bishops, but not all of them could be clearly identified with the evangelical wing of the
church. A purple shirt was obviously more important than a committed soul, which is exactly what the
Doctor could see coming twenty-five years before.
‘There have always been Puritan-minded Anglicans, but their position in the church (and their
attitude towards it) has been complex. In attempting to bring an Anglican neo-Puritanism into being, Dr
Packer was heading for trouble, as this book makes perfectly clear.
‘This is basically because modern Anglican evangelicalism is thoroughly "Arminian" in
character, and is deeply marked by an amateurish do-it-yourself outlook which is its true uniting character.
Bash-campers ("Christ for the upper crust"), charismatics and neo-evangelical liberals all have this in
common - they do not believe in the total depravity of the human race, they most certainly do not believe
in unconditional election (you have a much better chance of being saved if you have gone to the right
school, for example), and despite what they may claim, they have little conception of atonement, limited or
otherwise.’
Gerald Bray compliments McGrath for his relatively guarded exposure of ‘the wickedness and
deep-seated hypocrisy of the so-called evangelicals’ who made such a mess of things at Clifton Theological
College when Packer and Motyer were teaching there. In spilling the beans on that story McGrath has
shown ‘the moral void at the heart of so much Anglican evangelicalism, and unfortunately what he says
can be supported by similar events elsewhere’.
Bray adds: ‘Anglican evangelicalism will not shake itself free from this evil unless enough people are
prepared to stand up and expose it, but public accountability goes so much against the grain in evangelical
circles that the chances of this are remote.’
Those are the judgements of someone who has worked within Anglicanism, teaching at Oak Hill
College for years. Is it not true that evangelicals in the Church of England have virtually given up the
attempt to reform it? Reg Burrows’ Dare to Contend seems to indicate this. Were there more
than just one or two evangelicals who took a stand against the ordination of women? There was no one for
men like myself to admire and pray for. Were not the non-sacramentalist conservatives put to shame by the
sacrificial actions of many Anglo-Catholics? Evangelical Anglicans were mute.
There are in existence groups which allow for men in modernist-dominated denominations to
work with those who are outside them. But have any been set up deliberately with that narrow aim in
mind? Is it moral to make it easier to channel the attention and costly reforming energy of Anglican
evangelicals away from the unpleasant realities of the Established Church? Is our turning a blind eye to any
possible compromises the action of faithful friends? Does it help them? Are we not providing another
sticking-plaster when in fact crucial surgery is needed?
The concern of the evangelical Anglican today is to hang on to morality. He is protesting about
ordaining homosexual men and women - think of it! But to win ethical battles our brethren have to be
successful in theological ones, and we are back to Puritanism, which is not on the Anglican evangelical
agenda. Reformation must mean becoming reformed in theology, not only in morality.
We have never found working with non-reformed Anglicans to be in the remotest way beneficial.
The feeling is mutual. There was just one solitary Anglican who attended the Banner of Truth conference
last year. That is average. Yet Dick Lucas has been invited to speak at Leicester.
3. A LACK OF STIRRING GOALS
The Evangelical Alliance is in the hands of the charismatics - and how much are Anglican
evangelicals responsible for that? Spring Harvest is totally charismatic. What about the British Evangelical
Council? Clearly this new proposed agency is cool towards the BEC.
The latter is not charismatic in practice, even with the awkward membership of the Apostolic
Church. Its members are a pretty broad spectrum of British conservative evangelicalism. The Free Church
of Scotland, the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, the Evangelical Movement of Wales and
the Federation of Evangelical Congregational Churches are all members. In spite of that, you men want to
establish another organisation. You must be indifferent to the BEC. What is wrong with it?
Perhaps it is that it does not seem to be doing much? Maybe so. But perhaps it is too reformed in
its leadership, and so too stodgy to your taste? Maybe so. But is it, most of all, the absence of Anglicans
from the BEC that estranges you? You badly want to be in an organisation with members of the Church of
England?
Are not the Anglicans, though there are only two on your committee, having a great deal to do
with the formation of this new organisation? Is there, in fact, no rationale for this new organisation without
the Episcopalian presence?
So you want to establish something which will include Anglicans and Baptist Union men who
are in agreement with the 9-point doctrinal basis. You are not Puritan, but nevertheless, somehow, are
going to be ‘committed to the absolute authority of Scripture’. Under that umbrella those evangelicals who
are in the modernist-dominated denominations and those who are independent evangelicals will both be
able to do certain things together (all of you being unhappy with the charismatic religion you keep running
into, which you refer to as ‘a form of Christianity driven by experience and loose theology’).
The ethos of the new movement sounds rather familiar, like Evangelicals Now, and
Proclamation Trust, and Word Alive, and the IVF some forty years ago. One can envisage the coming
conferences with familiar speakers - including some of you 11 men - and the best of 1990s music. But is
establishing this sort of organisation the way to capture the United Kingdom for God, when Puritanism is
not at the centre?
The Crieff Conference of evangelical ministers in the Church of Scotland has always been
impotent to influence that denomination. Consider theological training for the Church of Scotland today -
it is a disaster! There are fine speakers and great messages at Crieff, but every cause that the conservative
men have raised they have lost at that conference itself. The battles never reached the floor of the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and the reason ultimately has been that ‘Crieff’ does not meet under
the umbrella of Puritanism, though it has some Puritan speakers.
The sad reality is that Crieff men will acknowledge as ‘brethren’ ministers and elders within the
Church of Scotland who would actually deny key statements of faith. Yet these evangelicals want Crieff-
type para-church evangelical organisations to which they can voluntarily belong. ‘Essentially Evangelical’
is going to provide another such agency.
You yourselves know that it is not enough to have unity in fellowship; there must also be unity in
Truth, but Truth which steadfastly opposes error. Men have to make that same painful choice with which
the apostle confronted the Galatian Christians - the necessity of a church which debars fellowship with
those who preach another gospel. The coming conference is simply going to erect another of those
structures which welcomes men who remain in church fellowship with the enemies of the Gospel. This is
inescapable, and this is not how the FIEC or the IVF started.
What a difference there is between what you propose and the movement to reform the Southern
Baptists in the USA! Already two large seminaries which once were centres of liberalism have been
captured for the Truth. Modernists have been dismissed. Those who endorse women preachers have been
removed from office. What unites those brave young men? It is Puritanism.
The Founders Movement of the Southern Baptists is unashamedly Spurgeonic. It actually
endorses the maligned five points of Calvinism, and the results for the Southern Baptists have been
extraordinary. What hope there is for the future!
If any of you are really committed to Christian unity then you need to show the reality of this
commitment within present structures of local Christian unity by attending existing gatherings of brethren
theologically near to your heart.
My heat helps you to feel my coolness in not coming to this two-day conference. First, it is not
organised by those who love and are committed to the service of Puritanism. Secondly, it fails to deal
faithfully and according to Christ’s rule toward those who want to stay in fellowship within denominations
dominated by those who preach another gospel. Thirdly, its goals fail to excite one’s affections.
For these reasons I cannot attend your gathering. I would feel like the wicked witch at the
christening awaiting my turn to gatecrash. I know that turning down your invitation brings upon me the
obloquy of an Ian Paisley absent from the Peace Talks. But your agenda is loaded against my views. I insist
that I am the one who is the mainstream Christian.
It is for you and your committee to give their reasons for their absence from gatherings of men
who have joyfully cooperated and supported one another for years, and who cannot comprehend your
words about a ‘greater degree of cooperation’, and your soon-to-be-announced ‘plan’ for some structural
unity.
This scheme is one of the lesser priorities of British Christianity. My counsels as a non-leader are
- ‘Don’t inhale. Extinguish the thing now. Let the conference, which I guess must take place, be an
exercise in damage limitation.’
See also article "The Maginot Line for churches getting together" Sword & Trowel 1999 Issue 4
|
