In Part I we traced the beginnings of the ecumenical movement between the various branches of Christianity and within those churches embroiled in the liberal-fundamentalist controversies of the early 20th century. In Part II we examined the conflicts and controversies in the 1950s and 1960s surrounding ecumenicalism’s push into evangelicalism in an effort to achieve reconciliation and unity among evangelical, non-evangelical, and liberal churches in America and England. As was stated in the conclusion of Part II, the 1950s and 1960s were a major turning point for evangelical churches as they embraced ecumenicalism which determined their course for decades to follow.

The evangelical church’s pursuit of ecumenicalism over the last half century has blurred the once sharp line that distinguished the Christian from the non-Christian. When that line was sharp and clear, the church the church was holy, powerful, and effective in its mission of impacting culture and winning the lost to Christ. When the line between what is Christian and non-Christian became blurred, the meaning of Christianity and evangelicalism also became blurred. Iain Murray described what form this blurring took.

“…liberalism was ‘Christianity’ harmonized with the moral aspirations of all men. It was truth modified to give offence to none…it assumed the goodness of human nature and portrayed Christianity in terms of doing rather than of believing. In so far as it spoke of hope after death, it was with a promise of universal comfort—heaven not as the exclusive home of the redeemed but as the ultimate destination for all who pass through this world. It denied (along with the false prophets) that “wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it.”[1] [Matthew 7:13, 15] [emphasis added]

Remember the words of Michael Ramsey in Part II when he spoke to the evangelicals in England who wanted acceptance within the larger body. He warned them that they must accept those confessing Jesus Christ as “God and Saviour” as Christians in good standing. Therefore, evangelicals had to “turn their back on their old exclusiveness.” That is what has happened in America. A large part of Evangelicalism has turned its back on its old exclusiveness.

Following the 1950s and 1960s, the ecumenical movement was effectively advanced by incorporation into the church’s message the themes of the humanistic spirit of the world: relativism, tolerance, and inclusion. This compromise and accommodation led to ignoring, changing, abandoning, or adding doctrines, beliefs, and activities in ways that conflicted with two hundred and fifty years of evangelical thought, belief, and practice that mirrored first-century New Testament Christianity.

The great fault of fundamentalism’s past was its periodic failure to consider the weak and inconsistent Christian. This occurred because they left the straight and narrow path resting on a fervent adherence to the uncompromised truth found in the Bible and fell into the ditch of legalism. But in the modern age which has encompassed the church for most of a century, the great danger has been compromise and accommodation rather than legalism. Ecumenicalism’s compromise and accommodation has brought multitudes into the church membership and leadership who have not repented of their sin and bowed in submission to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Iain Murray called it a “popularized definition of Christian with no biblical authority at all.”[2]

But Satan is not content with a just a popularized definition of Christian and a Christianity that only demands a hollow confession of Jesus Christ as “God and Saviour” devoid of the meat of doctrine. The outworking of Satan’s Trojan Horse of ecumenicalism requires that the church recognize the priority of unity without limit. The acceptance of this further apostasy within the church has become the norm rather than the exception, and this limitless ecumenicalism is promoted at the highest levels of leadership in the both evangelical and non-evangelical churches. If one doubts this last statement, five examples will confirm the truth that ecumenicalism now reaches far beyond the borders of the church however one may define Christianity.

• On July 4, 2009, Rick Warren spoke to a crowd of 8000 Muslims at the nation’s capital during the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America. His message was that Muslims and Christians can work together for the common good without compromising their respective convictions.[3]

• Reverend Canon Gina Campbell, pastor of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., permitted the Episcopal Church to host a Muslim prayer service at the Cathedral on November 14, 2014.[4]

• On August 11-12, 2016, Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Church broadcast his annual Global Leadership Summit by live telecast to over three hundred thousand participants worldwide. He recruited Melinda Gates as one of the main speakers for the event.[5] Gates is co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has contributed tens of millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood of America and other organizations around the world that have aborted millions of babies.[6]

• In 2007, Leith Anderson signed the infamous Yale Covenant. Anderson was President of the National Association of Evangelicals which represented more than 45,000 local churches from nearly forty denominations with a constituency of millions.[7] The Yale Covenant was the signors’ agreement in response Muslim religious leaders’ call for unity and understanding between Christianity and Islam that would serve as a basis for dialogue and reconciliation. The Yale Covenant was signed by over three hundred prominent Christian ministers, professors, and leaders from various organizations including Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Robert Schuller, David Yonggi Cho, and NAE’s Anderson.[8]

• In May 2013, Pope Francis stated that all people who do good works, including atheists, are going to heaven. The pope stated that the Lord has redeemed all of us with the Blood of Christ. Not just Catholics but everyone including atheists. The Pope said that all have a duty to do good, and if we “…do good, we will meet one another there.”[9] Pope Francis is preaching universalism which is a hyper-ecumenicalism in which all roads lead to God whether it is humanism’s Nature, a host of pantheistic Gods, Allah of the Koran, or the Christian God of the Bible.

In 2 Corinthians 6:14-16a, the Apostle Paul cautions that Christians should not be mismatched with unbelievers.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? [2 Corinthians 6:14-16a. NIV]

In his commentary, Donald Stamps explained Paul’s use of being unequally yoked as a word picture for describing human relationships. In God’s accounting, there are only two types of people—Christians and non-Christian.

…those that know Christ must not be in voluntary close partnership or association with unbelievers because such relationships can compromise and corrupt their relationship with Christ. Paul was likely attempting to discourage the Corinthians from cooperating with the false teachers who had infiltrated the church and gained influence with their persuasive words. But this principle certainly applies to dating, marriage, business partnerships, secret orders (lodges) and close friendships. A Christian’s relationships with unbelievers should center on what is necessary and appropriate for the social and economic purpose of daily life and to show people the way to spiritual salvation, and a personal relationship with Christ. But a Christian’s closest relationships should be with other followers of Christ with whom they can relate on a spiritual level.[10]

Given the plain words of Paul to the Corinthians, should the rise of ecumenicalism and the subsequent decay of evangelicalism in Western civilization come as a surprise to Christians? It should not for the Apostle Paul also told us that this must come. In his letter to Timothy he wrote of the coming apostasy in the last days in which men and women who once knew Christ would reject or abandon their faith. Paul described these Christians-in-name-only of the last days as “holding the form of religion but denying the power of it…” [2 Timothy 3:5. RSV]
______

Without a doubt there is occurring a rapid cultural decline in America caused by the abandonment of the biblical foundations upon which the nation was built, the ascendance of humanistic and secularized influence over the institutions of American life, and the general decline of morality within Western cultures. At the same time the church has entered the time of the Great Apostasy which is engulfing many of the once faithful.

The inevitability of the trials facing the true church and the culture within which it resides does not release the church from Christ’s mandate to speak the truth in spite of cultural opposition and to share the gospel until the end of the age when He shall return. Those that remain true to the faith should not be shaken in mind, distraught, or troubled in heart. The consolation for the suffering of the faithful is found in the words of James.

Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. [James 1:2-4. RSV]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Iain H. Murray, Evangelicalism Divided – A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950-2000, (Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), p. 295.
[2] Ibid., p. 297.
[3] Michelle A. Vu, “Rick Warren to Muslims: Talk is Cheap, Let’s Work Together,” The Christian Post, July 5, 2009. http://www.christianpost.com/news/rick-warren-to-muslims-talk-is-cheap-let-s-work-together-39543/ (accessed December 5, 2014).
[4] John Blosser, “Franklin Graham slams Muslim service at National Cathedral,” Newsmax, November 17, 2014. http://www.newsmax.com/US/Franklin-Graham-Billy-Graham-Muslims-Washington-National-Cathedral/2014/11/17/id/607906/ (accessed December 25, 2014).
[5] “Faculty,” The Global Leadership Summit, https://www.willowcreek.com/events/leadership/#about (accessed September 16, 2016).
[6] Susan Berry, “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations says it will no longer fund abortion,” Brietbart, June 12, 2014. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/06/12/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-says-it-will-no-longer-fund-abortion/ (accessed September 16, 2016).
[7] “About NAE,” National Association of Evangelicals, http://nae.net/about-nae/ (accessed May 2, 2016).
[8]“‘A Common Word’ Christian Response,” Yale Center for Faith and Culture,
http://faith.yale.edu/common-word/common-word-christian-response (accessed April 27, 2016).
[9] “Pope at Mass: Culture of encounter is the foundation of peace,” Vatican Radio, May 22, 2013. http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2013/05/22/pope_at_mass_culture_of_ encounter_is_the_foundation_of_peace/en1-694445 (accessed September 14, 2016).
[10]Donald Stamps, Commentary, Fire Bible: Global Study Edition, New International Version, Gen. Ed. Donald Stamps, (Published by Hendrickson Publishers Marketing, LLC, Peabody, Massachusetts; Copyright 2009 by Life Publishers International, Springfield, Missouri), p. 2207.

In Part I we traced the beginnings of the ecumenical movement among the various branches of Christianity and within those churches embroiled in the liberal-fundamentalist controversies of the early 20th century. It was noted that the great difficulty in achieving ecumenicalism was the result of differences between the fundamental beliefs between Roman Catholicism and Protestant churches and also the doctrinal differences between the evangelical and liberal wings of the Protestant churches themselves. Part II will primarily address the efforts to achieve reconciliation and unity between the liberal churches and neo-evangelical churches which were mostly from denominations oriented toward the fundamentals of the Christian faith as found in the Bible.

By the mid-1930s, the intra-church doctrinal differences that roiled over the previous three decades had subsided as churches had taken on the character and beliefs of the victorious wing in the liberal-fundamentalist conflict. Generally, the losing parties were the conservatives who usually left to form new denominations. By the mid-1940s there was a clear line of demarcation that separated liberal churches from the more conservative evangelical churches, both in matters of doctrine and cultural engagement.

Following the end of World War II in 1945, evangelical Protestantism emerged from the shadow of their fundamentalist forebears, and these neo-evangelicals became a substantial force in American life. As a result of this new cultural engagement, the period from 1945 to the early to mid-1960s was an era of great promise for the evangelical churches. Even Catholic writer Ross Douthat, a severe critic of much of Protestantism, called evangelical Protestantism a “…postwar revival of American Christianity, which ushered in a kind of Indian summer for orthodox belief.”[1] Nancy Pearcey in her book Total Truth stated that these neo-evangelicals still held to fundamentalist views of the Bible but sought to escape form their separatism and engage the culture with a “redemptive vision that would not only embrace individuals but also social structures and institutions.”[2]

Rise of ecumenicalism in Protestant America

There were several key players that led the revival of American Christianity during this period, but the most important of all was Billy Graham. Launched by an eight-week tent meeting revival in Los Angeles in 1949 that attracted 350,000, Graham’s meteoric rise in the nation’s consciousness had begun. By the time he conducted his now famous 1957 New York City crusade that reached millions, Graham had become the most celebrated evangelist in America, a title he would retain through most of the remainder of the 20th century.[3] Douthat described the magnitude of Graham’s accomplishment.

…by the early 1940s revivalism itself seemed to be on the verge of dying out…But Graham almost singlehandedly revitalized the form, using it to carry an Evangelical message from the backwoods tent meetings to the nation’s biggest cities and arenas—and then overseas as well, to Europe and the Third World and even behind the Iron Curtain…Billy Graham had done the near-impossible; he had carried Evangelical Christianity from the margins to the mainstream, making Evangelical faith seem respectable as well as fervent, not only relevant but modern.[4]

By 1957 there had been a marked change in Graham’s fundamentalist thinking. Graham accepted an invitation to hold a Manhattan crusade, but the invitation was from the Protestant Council of New York City which meant “cooperation with a group that was predominantly non-evangelical and even included out-and-out modernists. It also meant sending them back to their local churches, no matter how liberal these churches might be.”[5]

On the surface, Graham’s decision to accept the invitation appears to have followed the example of C. S. Lewis who also engaged the culture of the unchurched world through his World War II radio broadcasts later published as Mere Christianity.

The reader should be warned that I offer no help to anyone who is hesitating between two Christian ‘denominations’…I hope no reader will suppose that ‘mere’ Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions—as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted (in writing Mere Christianity). But it is in the room, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in…

You must keep on praying for light; and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and paneling. In plain language, the question should never be: ‘Do I like that kind of service?’ but ‘Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?’[6]

As I wrote in Evangelical Winter, “Like Lewis, Graham was engaging the culture and bringing them into the hall…His mission was to win the hearts of his audience to Christ and deliver them to the door of a local church.”[7] But upon further reflection, this conclusion appears to be at odds with one point of C. S. Lewis’ stated purpose which was to get them into the hall but not to the door of a particular church. It is understood that Graham’s methods of mass evangelism were different than Lewis’ model because Graham’s crusades had been working with fellow evangelical laborers in the vineyard. However, in the New York City crusade and thereafter Graham wrongly departed from Lewis’ model at one key point—the agreement with his hosts required Graham to deliver respondents to Graham’s truthful presentation of the gospel back to the doors of their local churches which included many whose fidelity to biblical truth did not exist.

The answer to the seeming paradox of “be ye separate” and “go unto all the world” is often not easy to decipher. As we consider the seeming conflict in Graham’s actions and fidelity to biblical truth, we see the larger conflict between the demands of ecumenicalism and evangelicalism’s faithfulness and loyalty to biblical truth. The answers are not always clear and simple. But there are answers, and on occasion Christians must use an exceedingly fine scalpel to rightly divide the Word while their hands are guided by the steadying influence of the Holy Spirit. Given the advantage of hindsight over six decades since the 1957 Manhattan crusade, Graham’s inclusion of non-evangelicals and liberals in the Manhattan crusade promoted ecumenicalism in America and lessened the resistance of evangelicals to its corrupting influence.

The rise of ecumenicalism in the Church of England

The larger conflict between ecumenicalism and evangelicalism was also occurring in England in the Anglican Church and other mainline churches. Although Graham had not had crusade alliances with non-evangelical and liberal churches in North America until 1957, he had done so in 1954 when he held the hugely successful London crusade. The division among evangelicals over ecumenicalism that developed after the 1957 Manhattan crusade had already developed in the United Kingdom following the 1954 London crusade.[8]

Graham’s greater London crusade received large support from the Church of England. Many in the small evangelical faction within the Church of England were shocked that evangelical Graham could join with the leadership of the liberal Anglican Church in conducting the crusade. The evangelicals’ smallness of influence and comparative isolation within the church caused them to re-examine their opposition to ecumenical influences. These men had long felt it necessary to remain apart from the larger denominational influences and fellowship only with like-mined evangelicals within and without the Anglican Church.[9] Thirteen years after the 1954 London crusade, the Anglican evangelicals were ready to abandon their aloofness at the first National Evangelical Anglican Congress which met at Keele in April 1967. Prior to the Congress, this change of tactics was expressed by John Stott, chairman of the Congress.

It is a tragic thing, however, that Evangelicals have a very poor image in the Church as a whole. We have acquired a reputation for narrow partisanship and obstructionism. We have to acknowledge this, and for the most part we have no one but ourselves to blame. We need to repent and change.[10]

Anglican Archbishop Michael Ramsey was invited to give the opening address to the Congress. Murray wrote that in Ramsey’s address, he “…reminded his hearers that ‘experience’ goes before ‘theology’, and he made it clear to the congress that if evangelicals were really prepared to play a full part in the life of the Church of England they must turn their back on their old exclusiveness…” Effectively, the head of the Church of England was laying down the marching orders for evangelicals, and the essence of those orders was that unity must come before truth. The evangelicals at the Keele Congress went on to affirm Ramsey’s ground rules for ecumenical dialogue which in essence was that those confessing Jesus Christ as “God and Saviour” must be accepted as Christians in good standing. In other words, all who were engaged in ecumenism “have a right to be treated as Christians.”[11]

Looking back on what he considered was the main cause of the change of mind among the English evangelicals, ecumenism advocate John Lawrence wrote that, “…the Conservative Evangelical movement in Britain crossed the ecumenical watershed at Dr. Billy Graham’s Crusade at Harringay in 1954” [the London Crusade].[12] Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was an opponent of ecumenism but agreed with Lawrence that Graham’s London Crusade was the pivotal moment when England’s evangelicals succumbed to ecumenism.[13]

Dr. Lloyd-Jones was the only senior evangelical voice that sounded the alarm with regard to the dangers of ecumenism. Speaking at the National Assembly of Evangelicals in October 1966 (only months before the Keele Congress), Lloyd Jones warned of the consequences of ecumenism on evangelicalism. Iain Murray summarized the heart of Lloyd-Jones arguments.

…for evangelicals to gain ecumenical and denominational acceptance they would have to pay a price which would imperil the very legitimacy of their distinctive beliefs. If evangelical belief is, in essence, gospel belief, how can Christian fellowship exist independently of any common commitment to such belief? How can a right belief on fundamentals retain the primary importance which Scripture gives to it if, after all, it is not necessary to salvation? How can evangelicalism be said to represent biblical essentials if one regards as Christians and works alongside those who actually deny these essentials?…for evangelicals to be consistent with their doctrine, they should give higher priority to the unity which that doctrine entailed than to denominational relationships which required no such allegiance to Scripture.[14] [emphasis in original]

Also in 1966, Francis Schaeffer was a main speaker at the World Congress on Evangelism held in Berlin. Like Lloyd-Jones was to do in October of that year, Schaeffer warned of the dangers of ecumenism.

Let us never forget that we who stand in the historic stream of Christianity really believe that false doctrine, at those crucial points where false doctrine is heresy, is not a small thing. If we do not make clear by word and practice our position for truth as truth and against false doctrine, we are building a wall between the next generation and the gospel. And twenty years from now, men will point their finger back at us and say of us, this is the result of the flow of history…[15]

The 1950s and 1960s were crucial points in history in which much of the evangelical church embraced a false doctrine that gave priority to ecumenicalism over the truth of the Scriptures. As a result, efforts to achieve reconciliation through ecumenicalism continued unabated in the great majority of evangelical denominations and organizations through the remainder of the twentieth century and to the present day. Schaffer’s prophetic warning has come to pass. A wall has been built between succeeding generations and the gospel of Jesus Christ. The evidence is all around us and will be examined in Part III.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Ross Douthat, Bad Religion – How We Became a Nation of Heretics, (New York: Free Press, 2012), p. 21.
[2] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth – Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2004, 2005), p. 18.
[3] Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1997), p. 839.
[4] Douthat, Bad Religion, pp. 35, 37.
[5] Iain H. Murray, Evangelicalism Divided – A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950-2000, (Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), pp. 28-29.
[6] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity from The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, (New York: Harper One, 1952, 2002), pp. 5, 11.
[7] Larry G. Johnson, Evangelical Winter – Restoring New Testament Christianity, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2016), p. 107.
[8] Murray, Evangelicalism Divided, p. 40.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., p. 42.
[11] Ibid., pp. 42-43.
[12] Ibid., p. 43.
[13] Ibid., footnote 4, p. 43.
[14] Ibid., p. 45.
[15] Ibid., pp. 79-79.

Most modern American evangelicals have never heard of Iain H. Murray. And if by chance they had heard of him, it is just as doubtful that they will have read any of this Scottish pastor’s writings. But they should. Murray’s writings provide valuable insights into both theological reasons and historical events of the last half of the twentieth century that account for the abysmal conditions in the evangelical church in both America and the United Kingdom.

Murray was born in Lancashire, England, in 1931 and educated at King William’s College in the Isle of Mann. He later read Philosophy and History at the University of Durham in preparation for ministry in the Presbyterian Church. Following a year of private study, he became an assistant to Sidney Norton at St John’s Free Church, Oxford in 1955–56. While at Oxford, Murray established The Banner of Truth magazine and became its first editor. During the years 1956-1959, Murray became the assistant to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones who pastored Westminster Chapel in London for thirty years. While at Westminster Chapel, Murray and the late Jack Cullum founded the Banner of Truth Trust in 1957. Like Dr. Lloyd-Jones, Murray was strongly opposed to liberal Christianity. During his career, Murray pastored churches in England and Australia as well as managing the worldwide ministry of the Banner of Truth Trust.[1]

In 2000, Murray published Evangelicalism Divided – A Record of Crucial Change in the years 1950 to 2000. In his book Murray explores the reasons why Christian unity has become such a divisive topic in church of Jesus Christ. Over the course of events in the last half of the twentieth century, Murray chronicles the decline of evangelicalism during its long flirtation with ecumenism. [Ecumenicalism and ecumenism are generally considered as having the same meaning and are used interchangeably in this article.]

In the 1950s two movements – evangelicalism and ecumenism – offered differing paths to unity in the church. But as the decades have passed, the influence of ecumenism has exposed a fault line in evangelicalism. Questions of critical importance have been brought to the surface: Is the gospel broader than evangelicals have historically insisted? Can there be unity with non-evangelicals in evangelism and church leadership? Does the gospel have priority over denominational loyalty?[2]

We begin by defining ecumenicalism and identifying the prominent players in the struggle for church unity. Ecumenical is defined as being “…of, relating to, or representing the whole of a body of churches. Promoting or tending toward worldwide Christian unity or cooperation.”[3] The difficulty in achieving ecumenicalism is found in the differences between the fundamental beliefs of the evangelical and liberal wings of the Protestant churches that have sought to achieve unity within and between their churches. Liberal churches generally embrace many if not all of the following beliefs:

• The Bible has errors.
• The virgin birth of Christ is myth.
• Jesus did not rise again in bodily form after his crucifixion.
• Although Jesus was a good moral teacher, the gospels do not accurately depict his life on the earth (such as miracles he was supposed to have performed).
• Most of the authors of the Old and New Testaments are not who they are presented to be because the events written about in the Bible were written many years after the generation present during the events described.
• Hell is a myth.
• Man is not fallen and does not need redemption. Therefore, Christ’s death on the cross was not needed to provide redemption for mankind. Love is all that is needed.
• Liberals reject the doctrine of premillennialism – second coming of Christ that will take place before the establishment upon earth of Christ’s thousand year reign (the millennium).

These liberal beliefs had been growing for centuries and had been aided by the Renaissance (1300s-1500s) and Enlightenment philosophies (late 1600s and all of the 1700s). During the nineteenth century, a significant number in the church abandoned many long held doctrinal understandings of the Bible because of the growth of higher criticism (the Bible is flawed) and the rise of a humanistic worldview propelled by the writings of Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, John Dewey, and others.

The evangelical arm of the church had its beginnings in the late 1600s and early 1700s. The beliefs of evangelicals held since their beginnings were published in 1910 during the early turmoil between the liberal and conservative camps within the various Protestant denominations. These essential doctrines were published in twelve small volumes titled The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. The books listed the five fundamental doctrines that were vital to being an evangelical:

• The Bible is free from error in every respect.
• The virgin birth of Christ.
• The substitutionary work of Christ on the cross (Christ suffered and died as a substitute for man to satisfy God’s wrath against sin).
• The physical resurrection of Christ following His crucifixion.
• The physical second coming of Christ.

By 1916, the publication and circulation of 2.5 million copies of The Fundamentals had led to sharp controversies between the modernists and the evangelicals in many mainline churches.[4]

Ecumenical movement to 1950

The movement toward worldwide unity among the Christian churches in modern times had its beginnings in the latter part of the nineteenth century. For the first time in four hundred years since the Protestant Reformation and its separation from the Roman Catholic Church that began in 1517, there was talk of a “reunion of Christendom.”[5]

A second push toward unity and cooperation was also occurring within the Protestant realm in latter part of the nineteenth century. This was brought on by the substantial widening of the gap between the theological liberalism of those dominating the mainline churches and the more conservative elements who still wanted to stay in their denominations. Leaders on both sides of the riff sought to preserve denominational unity. The more conservative evangelicals saw this as being possible if there was agreement that the formal constitutions of their respective churches were not changed.[6] Therefore, unity was very much on the minds of the Protestants, perhaps more so than their Catholic counterparts.

The World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh, Scotland, held in 1910 is thought to be the beginning of the ecumenical movement. But from the very beginning, the price of admission to this supposedly wonderful world of Christian unity and cooperation was the abandonment of separate church structures and doctrinal distinctives. For evangelicals, this was a monumental problem, the insoluble Gordian knot that could not be untied through the give and take of conversation and negotiation. It must be cut, and the cutting would require loss of doctrinal purity that made them evangelical.

In 1948, the World Council of Churches was formed, and at its first assembly the WCC invited into membership all “churches which accept our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour.”[7] In 1962, the WCC amended its constitution to describe their organization as “…a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” The WCC goes on to say that, “Since the WCC is not itself a church, it passes no judgment upon the sincerity or firmness with which member churches accept the basis or upon the seriousness with which they take their membership.”[8] Verbal acceptance was all that was necessary, and there was to be no judgement or creedal test to determine what the applicant organization meant by acceptance of Jesus as God and Savior. In effect, what the denominational leaders of member churches in the WCC are declaring is that they want to be part of an organization whose members’ beliefs do not matter so long they affirm Jesus as God and Savior regardless of what that means.

But Murray states that this departure from fidelity to the Bible and long-held doctrinal understandings is not of recent origin but has direct links with the dogmas from the age of unbelief, better known as the Enlightenment. As an example, Murray points to Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), the son of a German Reformed Church minister. Schleiermacher studied at the Moravian centers where piety, faith in the Bible, and its divine revelation were taught. However, Schleiermacher eventually abandoned the Moravians’ teachings and adopted the rationalism of Enlightenment philosophers. Eventually, he came to believe that religion is primarily a matter of feeling, intuition, and experience rather than doctrine.[9]

Summarizing the beginning of Schleiermacher’s first book, Murray wrote that “…true religion belongs essentially to the realm of experience—religion is a matter of a well-disposed heart and devout feelings…It matters not what we believe so long as our hearts our right…”[10] [emphasis added]

Murray stated that this teaching that unbelief does not exclude anyone from heaven was welcome news in a country where the great men of culture had no pretense of being orthodox.[11] This same attitude that beliefs are not vital to a relationship with God had become pandemic in Protestant evangelical churches during the course of the last half of the twentieth century. Many leaders of these Protestant churches will deny this and self-righteously point to their doctrinal statements. But again, it is not what they say or what their doctrinal statements proclaim, it is the outworking of this attitude that dictates what actually is occurring within those churches.

In the modern evangelical world this attitude that one’s doctrinal beliefs are not vital to a relationship with God fits extremely well with the prevailing humanistic relativism of the culture and the Church Growth movement’s seeker-sensitive prescriptions for doing church in which the most important aspect of one’s Christianity is to have a “well-disposed heart and devout feelings.”

As the church lost cultural power and authority during the six decades of 1870 to 1930, the growth and eventual dominance of its liberal beliefs led to a corresponding loss of fidelity to the Bible and long-held doctrinal beliefs of the church. Because of the liberal church’s indifference to doctrine, opposition to the unity movement became less difficult which allowed it to gain momentum. In Part II we shall examine the history of the ecumenical movement between 1950 and 2000 and the consequences of the evangelical church’s devastating loss of faithfulness to the Bible and its doctrines.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Iain H. Murray, Banner of Truth, https://banneroftruth.org/us/about/banner-authors/iain-h-murray/ (accessed February 3, 2017).
[2] Iain H. Murray, Evangelicalism Divided – A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950-2000, (Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), Book Jacket.
[3] “ecumenical,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, 1963), p. 263.
[4] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: CSI Publications, 1951, 1964), p. 388.
[5] Murray, Evangelicalism Divided, p. 2.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid, p. 3.
[8] “The basis of the WCC,” World Council of Churches, https://www.oikoumene.org/en/about-us/self-understanding-vision/basis (accessed February 3, 2017).
[9] Murray, Evangelicalism Divided, pp. 3-5.
[10] Ibid., p. 7.
[11] Ibid., p. 9.

Down through the ages these words have been the almost universal advice given to those attempting to make decisions and find direction for one’s life. Borrowing from the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, William Shakespeare wrote, “This above all, to thine own self be true.”[1] More recently Steve Jobs wrote, “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”[2]

Follow your dream, listen to your inner voice, get in touch with your inner self, and follow your intuition or hunches are various ways of expressing the more universal exhortation to “follow your heart.” The reason for the attractiveness and eager acceptance of this phrase is that it is an appeal to self. After all is said and done, following one’s heart is really doing what one really loves and wants to do anyway. This sentiment is expressed by the words of Jalaluddin Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic, “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”[3] But will following your heart lead you in to making right decisions in life? In other words, can we trust the pull and direction to which our heart leads when seeking the best answers and direction for our lives?

The prophet Jeremiah writing in the sixth century B.C. condemned the nation of Israel for its extreme wickedness because their hearts were turned away from God.

This is what the Lord says, “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord…The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17: 5, 9. KJV]

Jeremiah is telling us that the self-centered wisdom of man often fails because of his unregenerate heart which is deceitful above all things and can’t be fixed apart from God. What is this heart of which Jeremiah speaks?

The heart

The heart contains one’s desires, feelings, and thoughts which are a person’s inner being, but let’s be more specific in our examination of the three parts of man’s heart. The intellect (thoughts) involves the mind. Emotions (feelings) are expressed in a wide range from feelings of love, anger, anguish, delight, grief, humility, excitement, and passion to name just a few. The third compartment of the heart is the human will (desires) which contains a person’s motivation, purpose, and determination, all operating at the command of man’s freewill (his ability to choose which was implanted by God at the time of man’s creation).[4]

Alien philosophies and worldviews are contrary to biblical truth and the nature and character of God in whose image man was created. These false worldviews and philosophies appeal to the sinful, selfish nature of man through his heart (i.e., desires, feelings, and thoughts).[5] Therefore, the unregenerate heart of man is corrupt and cannot give truthful answers to life’s fundamental questions. If a person’s heart is corrupted which means that it is not rightly ordered or oriented toward God, how can that heart provide guidance and direction in obtaining truthful answers to all other questions in his or her life? It cannot.

The heart of man is the battleground for the ages-old conflict between the God of Creation and Satan and his followers. Every man is born with a corrupt heart and wears the sin-stained badge of Satan’s dominion. Man’s allegiance to Satan determines the condition of his heart and all that flows from it. Mark’s gospel describes contents of the hearts of men because of the inheritance of sin from their original ancestor.

And he said, “What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.” [Mark 7:20-23. RSV]

Said another way, the heart of a defiled man continually spews forth corrupted thoughts, feelings, and desires. Can we trust and follow such a heart to guide us through life? If not, where do we find guidance?

The Bible, God’s revealed word, provides the prescription for the redeeming the unregenerate heart. Regeneration occurs when man truly repents, turns to God, and accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. They are spiritually born again and in the process receive a new spiritual heart which comes with a desire to love and obey God. Spiritual rebirth results in a complete transition from the old sinful life in which man rebels again God and goes his own way to a new life evidenced by love and obedience to Jesus Christ. Attitudes and lifestyles are changed because man has been freed from the bondage of sin which allows him to fulfill God’s purposes for his life. Love replaces the vile things that once flowed out of an unregenerate heart.[6]

A purified heart allows man to come into an eternal relationship with his Creator. Because of the spiritual rebirth, man is empowered to pursue God’s purposes through the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Donald Stamps gives an excellent insight to one facet of the role and work of the Holy Spirit in a Christian’s life.

When Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to his disciples on the day he rose from the dead, he was not “baptizing” them in the Spirit as they would later experience at Pentecost (Acts 1:5; 2-4). Rather, it was the first time the disciples actually received the spiritually renewing presence of the Holy Spirit…The Spirit now lived within them. The inner presence of the Holy Spirit is part of the new life that all Christ’s followers now receive at the time they accept Christ’s forgiveness and surrender their lives to him…This “receiving” of new life from the Spirit was a prerequisite to their receiving the authority of Jesus and their baptism in the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost…All believers receive the Holy Spirit at the time of their spiritual birth…when they first accept God’s gift of forgiveness and eternal life through faith in Christ. After this, they can and should experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit for supernatural power to be Jesus’ witnesses and to spread his message.[7] [emphasis added]

Can a Christian follow his heart?

To answer this question we must examine how God directs and guides His followers. First, it must be said that God’s speaks to and guides all of His followers through His revealed word (the Bible) and the inner-workings of the Holy Spirit. When a Christian willfully or in a moment’s weakness disobeys God (sin), it is the power of God’s word and the convicting power of the Holy Spirit that speaks to the Christian by convicting him of sin through his conscience (i.e., man’s innate sense of right and wrong which exposes sin and calls for repentance and correction). If this convicting power is not heeded and repentance made, at some point the Christian returns to a life of sin and is once again separated from God.

God has a unique purpose and plan for every believer’s life. However, only His followers can fully achieve those plans and purposes which have their wellspring in a right relationship with the Creator. But there are many questions, decisions, and uncertainties in the lives of individual Christians which are not matters of overt sin or disobedience and which are not specifically addressed by God’s word. Here we turn again to the third member of the Trinity – The Holy Spirit.

Many excellent books have been written to explain and give understanding to the work and character of the Holy Spirit. But they reveal only a fleeting glimpse of the vastness of His divine nature and character. But for our purposes, we can turn to the Bible to glean an understanding of the many roles assigned to the Holy Spirit at the time of Christ’s resurrection. The Holy Spirit indwells the believer at the time of his spiritual renewal and sanctifies him. When the Holy Spirit sanctifies a believer, it is meant that He blesses, consecrates, purifies, approves, dedicates, and makes him holy. Although sanctification is immediate, it is also an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer as he lives and grows in his Christian walk. In summary, the Holy Spirit cleanses, helps, leads, guides, and motivates the believer to a holy life; delivers him from the bondage of sin; teaches and guides him to all truth; and gives him comfort, joy, and help in all matters.[8]
______

We now return to our question, “Can a Christian follow his heart?” The answer must contain an “if-then” clause. If a man is born again, obeys God’s Word, lives a Godly life, and seeks guidance through prayer, God will speak to and direct that man through all three chambers of his regenerate heart – his mind, emotions, and will. Then, and only then, may a Christian trust and follow his heart.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] “To thine own self be true,” eNotes. https://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/thine-own-self-true (accessed January 9, 2017).
[2] Steve Jobs, “Quotation #38353- Quotation Details,” The Quotation Page. http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/38353.html”Steve Jobs (accessed January 9, 2017).
[3] Jalaluddin Rumi “Quotes about follow your heart,” Goodreads. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/follow-your-heart (accessed January9, 2017).
[4] Donald Stamps, Commentary-Jeremiah 17:9, Fire Bible: Global Study Edition, New International Version, Gen. Ed. Donald Stamps, (Published by Hendrickson Publishers Marketing, LLC, Peabody, Massachusetts; Copyright 2009 by Life Publishers International, Springfield, Missouri), pp. 1062-1063.
[5] Stamps, Commentary-Jeremiah 17:9, Fire Bible: Global Study Edition, pp. 1306-1307. pp. 1306-1307.
[6] Stamps, Study Notes -“Regeneration: Spiritual Birth and Renewal,” Fire Bible: Global Study Edition, pp. 1915-1916.
[7] Stamps, Study Notes-“The Spiritual Rebirth of the Disciples,” Fire Bible: Global Study Edition, pp. 1966-1967.
[8] Stamps, Study Notes-“The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit,” Fire Bible: Global Study Edition, pp. 210-212.