Evangelicalism Divided

Today, I test the results of yesterday’s post.

I am too young to have known of the decline of Billy Graham as it happened. I have always been under the impression that his slide into ecumenism and theological liberalism began fairly late in life. Reading Evangelicalism Divided by Iain Murray, I am learning a different story. By the time Graham gained prominence on the word stage, his journey of compromise was already well underway. And while his descent into heterodoxy can be described as a slide, his embrace of ecumenism can only be called an enthusiastic leap — with a decidedly pragmatic motivation.

Murray writes of a time in 1965 when Graham was seeking support for his crusade in London from Anglican Archbishop Michael Ramsey, who

did not hold all Scripture to be the authoritative Word of God, nor did he believe in such doctrines as the penal, substitutionary atonement. . . .
   At first Ramsey opposed Grahams beliefs as heretical but he seems to have been charmed by the American’s amicableness when the two met at the New Delhi Third Assembly of the World Council od Churches. The evangelist has recorded how their friendship began on that occasion when he asked the archbishop, ‘Do we have to part company because we disagree in methods and theology? Isn’t that the purpose of the ecumenical movement, to bring together people of opposing views?’ Thereafter there was no more opposition.

—Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided (Banner of Truth, 2000), 40–41.

When criticizing an evangelical idol like Billy Graham, one is often challenged with the claim that, as so much good is done, faults should be overlooked. Setting aside the seriousness of the faults in question, and the corresponding impossibility of letting them slide, we need to ask, has so much good really been done? Are these methods which we deplore really producing as advertised?

The record says, “No.”

In 1968 the Evangelical Alliance, BGEA’s first sponsor in Britain, published a report on evangelism that included a survey of eighty-five churches which had participated in Graham’s shorter London crusades of 1966–67. Its authors (a large committee) concluded:

On mass evangelism generally, the recurring theme was that the crusade did not make a lasting effect on the complete outsider. Even when they went, they either made no response, or made no lasting response . . . Church members, whether they went forward or not, found blessing and encouragement from the services, but the complete outsider tended to go back outside again. in the words of one comment, ‘If they asked, “What shall we do?” they seem to have been given little answer beyond “to decide for Christ” . . . On inquiry they were unable to give any real answer as to what this meant, other than they desired to live a better life.

—Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided (Banner of Truth, 2000), 56–57.

Now, let’s go back a century and a half and examine the record of one of Graham’s most famous predecessors. Charles Finney preceded Graham in implementing results-oriented methods. Finney claimed that the right use of the right means was guaranteed to produce conversions, and there is no denying that his methods produced massive results. But what results? In Revival and Revivalism, Iain Murray reported that

. . . the permanent results were considerably fewer than had initially been claimed. In the course of time, Finney himself admitted this. Joseph Ives Foot, a Presbyterian minister, wrote in 1838: ‘During ten years, hundreds, perhaps thousands, were annually reported to be converted on all hands; but now it is easily admitted, that his [Finney’s] real converts are comparatively few. It is declared even by himself, that “the great body of them are a disgrace to religion”.’

—Iain Murray, Revival and Revivalism (Banner of Truth, 1994), 288–289.

Evangelical icon worshippers — those who have not already skedaddled, that is — will be relieved to know that this will probably be my last mention of Billy Graham for the present time.

Compromise with people of all theologies was a common thread running through Billy Graham’s ministry. In the effort to garner support for his evangelistic crusades, it seems there was no heresy he was not willing to let slide. As time passed, it was not merely his associations that were unorthodox; as the following account* of his embrace of inclusivism will demonstrate, his thinking was altered as well.

   Achieving common ground with the Roman Catholicism is one of the things for which Mark Noll commends Graham. But agreement with non-evangelicals has gone still further. In 1978 McCall’s magazine quoted Graham as having said, ‘I used to believe that pagans in far countries were lost if they did not have the gospel of Christ preached to them. I no longer believe that.’ That statement alarmed supporters BGEA and Christianity Today was quick to claim that the evangelist had been misquoted. Subsequent disclosures would appear to show that it was Graham’s paper rather than McCall’s which was inaccurate, for a Graham interview with Dr Robert Schuller on 31 May 1997 put the matter beyond doubt. Schuller has attained fame as the promoter of a liberal ‘self-esteem’ gospel which he preaches in his Crystal Cathedral in California. In the course of his discussion with Graham, conducted by means of a television link-up, Schuller asked for the evangelist’s view on the future of Christianity. Graham answered by giving his belief about the final make-up of the body of Christ. That body would be made up, he affirmed,

from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think that everybody that loves or knows Christ, whether they are conscious of it or not, they are members of the body of Christ. And I don’t think that we are going to see a great sweeping revival that will turn the whole world to Christ at one time. I think James answered that — the Apostle James in the first Council in Jerusalem — when he said that God’s purpose for this age is to call out a people for his name. And that is what he is doing today. He is calling people out of the world for his name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they have been called by God. They may not know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something they do not have, and they turn to the only light they have, and I think that they are saved and they are going to be with us in heaven.

   Surprised by this, Schuller was anxious for clarification: ‘What, what I hear you saying, that it’s possible for Jesus Christ to come into human hearts and soul and life, even if they have been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you are saying?’
   ‘Yes, it is’, Graham responded in decided tones. At which point, his television host tripped over his words in his excitement, and exclaimed, ‘I’m so thrilled to hear you say this: “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy”.’ To which Graham added, ‘There is. There definitely is.’

—Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided (Banner of Truth, 2000), 73–74.

* Those who doubt the veracity of this account can easily find video of the Graham-Schuller exchange on YouTube.

Last week, when I wrote about the need to be willing to objectively examine those whom we have admired, I had no problem following that with a few excerpts from Iain Murray’s Evangelicalism Divided on Billy Graham. I have always been in almost total disagreement with Graham’s theology and methods, and extremely dubious of their alleged results.

The experience changes considerably when the spotlight is turned toward those whose work I have appreciated. In that same volume, Murray turns his attention toward evangelicals within the Anglican church, most notably, J. I. Packer and John Stott, and how they, Packer in particular, incrementally sold their evangelical birthright for a mess of unity-pottage. The story is exceedingly disheartening and difficult to summarize in a short space.

The struggle during the 1960s and ’70s within the Church of England was between evangelicals and liberal anglo-catholics. In the beginning, evangelicals wanted to insist that the relatively evangelical Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (the church’s official statement of faith) define who was an Anglican. The anglo-catholics wanted to accept anyone, regardless of profession, who was baptized into the church.

As unity was pursued, compromise led to compromise, until those who had held the evangelical position became willing to call virtually anyone a Christian who wished to be called one. As Murray records, “Those who deny the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of Christ, [Dr Stott] affirmed, do not ‘forfeit the right to be called Christians’” [Evangelicalism Divided, 119.].

How sad that these evangelical Anglicans forgot the words of their own Bishop Ryle:

Divisions and separations are most objectionable in religion. They weaken the cause of true Christianity . . . But before we blame people for them, we must be careful that we lay the blame where it is deserved. False doctrine and heresy are even worse than schism. If people separate themselves from teaching which is positively false and unscriptural, they ought to be praised rather than reproved. In such cases separation is a virtue and not a sin . . . The old saying must never be forgotten, “He is the schismatic who causes the schism’ . . . Controversy in religion is a hateful thing . . . But there is one thing which is even worse than controversy, and that is false doctrine, allowed, and permitted without protest or molestation.

—J. C. Ryle, quoted in Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided (Banner of Truth, 2000), 141.

The twentieth century conflict between evangelicals and anglo-catholics in the Church of England was not the first of its kind. Two hundred years earlier, George Whitefield and John Wesley had preached the necessity of conversion, and defined the word “Christian” in specific terms. It did not go over well with their Anglican colleagues. Iain Murray wrote:

   The clergy immediately complained that such preaching was disturbing the baptized members of the church. As early as May 1742 Wesley and Whitefield were required to present themselves before the Archbishop of Canterbury. Despite their attempts to avoid causing needless offense, this was only the beginning of the trouble. Given the situation, they knew that opposition was inevitable. Whitefield believed: ‘It is every minister’s duty to declare against the corruption of that church to which they belong.’ Thus when the Bishop of London accused him of saying that he preached ‘a new gospel unknown to the generality of ministers and people’, far from modifying his words, Whitefield replied:

’Tis true, My Lord, in one sense, mine is a new gospel, and will always be to the generality of ministers and people, even in a christian country, if your Lordship’s clergy follow your Lordship’s directions.

Whitfield then went on to quote the bishop’s counsel that a preacher should ‘leave no doubt’ in their [sic] hearers ‘whether good works are a necessary condition of your being justified in the sight of God’.

Was the great apostle of the Gentiles now living, what anathemas would he pronounce against such Judaizing doctrine? . . . This is the great fundamental point in which we differ from the church of Rome. This is the grand point of contention between the generality of the established clergy and the Methodist preachers: we plead for free justification in the sight of God, by faith alone, in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, without any regard to works past, present, or to come.

   In Whitefield’s eyes the bishop’s counsel on the need for good works was as needless as it was false, and not surprisingly, for ‘our pulpits ring of nothing more than doing no one any harm, living honestly, loving your neighbor as yourselves, and to do what you can and then Christ is to make up the deficiency.’

—Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided (Banner of Truth, 2000), 159–160.

The Archbishop of York went as far as to quote the Council of Trent against the evangelists: “If any man shall say that justifying faith is nothing else but a confidence in the divine mercy, remitting sins for Christ’s sake, and that this confidence is that alone by which we are justified, let him be accursed. ” The response of Whitefield and Wesley stands in stark contrast to that of Packer and Stott. Rather than enter into dialogue with enemies of the gospel, they stuck by their guns and, with direct confrontation, did not allow the fundamental issues to be obscured.

   Neither Wesley nor Whitefield would be drawn into a general debate on the theology of the sacraments. Nor did they attempt to explain how the teaching of the Articles was consistent with the language of other parts of the Prayer Book. They simply stuck to their witness as evangelists and scorned the idea that baptism was enough to identify a Christian. Wesley writes:

I tell a sinner, ‘You must be born again.’ ‘No,’ says you: ‘He was born again in baptism. Therefore, he cannot be born again now.’ Alas, what trifling this is! What, if he was then a child of God? He is now manifestly a child of the devil; for the works of his father he doeth. Therefore do not play upon words. He must go through an entire change of heart. In one not yet baptized, you yourself would call that change, the new birth. In him, call it what you will; but remember, meantime, that if either he or you will die without it, your baptism will be so far from profiting you, that it will greatly increase your damnation.

—Ibid., 163.

Iain Murray offers one of the reasons he believes evangelicals of the twentieth century have not followed in the footsteps of the Whitefields and Wesleys two centuries prior:

There is a prominent feature in the evangelical history of the eighteenth century which may explain why many evangelicals in Britain and the United States have taken a different course in these last fifty years. As we have seen, evangelical leadership today has been much concerned with a matter about which their predecessors took a very different view, that is, the approval and support of non-evangelical clergy and denominational leaders. Wesley and Whitefield lost any possibility of gaining the good opinion of their peers at the very outset of their work. But far from moderating themselves in an attempt to win it back, they regarded the very idea as a temptation to be resisted. In the midst of a worldly church they saw the bearing of reproach as a necessary part of being a Christian. ‘In our days,’ said Whitefield, ‘to be a true Christian, is really to become a scandal.’
   The church leaders of the eighteenth century did their utmost to hinder other clergy from turning evangelical and one of the principal threats was the certain loss of reputation and preferment. Wesley said the ‘great pains were taken’ to keep the number willing to take a bold stand few in number. Anyone who did so ‘could give up at once all thought of preferment either in Church or State; nay, all hope of even a Fellowship, or a poor scholarship, in either University’.
   For Wesley and Whitefield resistance to such threats was the duty of all who did not live for the approval of man. To clergy who failed to make such a stand a Scripture commands, Wesley said: ‘You dare not: because you have respect of persons. You fear the faces of men. You cannot; because you have not overcome the world. You are not above the desire of earthly things. And it is impossible . . . till you desire nothing more than God.’

—Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided (Banner of Truth, 2000), 169–170.

The following excerpt from Evangelicalism Divided is a good warning to those who abandon scriptural inerrancy and confidence in the actual words of Scripture. It should also be an encouragement to those ministers who remain faithful.

   The ministry of J. C. Ryle, first Bishop of Liverpool (1880–1900), was devoted to teaching what Scripture says, and the result has been the abiding faithfulness and relevance of his writings. By 1897, and estimated twelve million copies of Ryle’s tracts and booklets had been sold and his writings continue to be read world wide-today. Compare this with the work of his son, Herbert Edward Ryle, Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cambridge and ultimately Dean of Westminster. Herbert Ryle, in contrast with his Father, believed that verbal inspiration was ‘irretrievably shattered’. He probably agreed with his biographer that the tendency of the Evangelical Revival was towards ‘bibliolatery’. From the year 1916, Herbert Ryle was at work on a Commentary on the Minor Prophets and much of the work was done by the time of his death in 1924. Yet it was never published. A professor of theology, asked to evaluate it, considered the manuscript, ‘the work of a tired man’. It was probably already out of date. Today no one reads Dean Ryle of Westminister.

—Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided (Banner of Truth, 2000), 205.

The statement above concerning Herbert Ryle’s Commentary on the Minor Prophets — “It was probably already out of date” — deserves attention, as it exposes the dilemma of liberal scholarship. That dilemma is that, in order to be relevant, one must be on the cutting edge of current scholarship. In plain terms, that means the cutting edge of what liberal scholars are saying right now. Keep up, or be relegated to the dustbin of yesterday’s fads.

The scholar who only seeks to be faithful to God’s Word has no such worries. Everything that really matters was written two thousand or more years ago. Everything since then only builds on that foundation. There is no pressure to be novel, only the responsibility to guard and accurately teach the ancient truths of God (1 Timothy 6:20; 2 Timothy 2:15).