"Bible-believing Christians would do
well to beware of the New Evangelicalism for four valid reasons.
●
First, it is a movement born of compromise.
●
Second, it is a movement
nurtured in pride of intellect.
●
Third, it is a movement growing on appeasement of evil; and
●
Finally it is a movement doomed by the judgment of God's Holy Word.
Strong language, this? Let us face the
facts." William E. Ashbrook
(John E. Ashbrook's father),
The New Neutralism.
|
Note: Pastor John E. Ashbrook wrote
New Neutralism II long
after his father William E. Ashbrook wrote The New
Neutralism. They stood together on
the authority of God's Word and led two generations of believers forward on
God's narrow and difficult road of uncompromising faith in the unchanging
truth of the gospel. As John Ashbrook tells us in his
Foreword,
God provides strength to persevere:
"My father,
William E. Ashbrook, had a heart for the fundamental church. He came out
of modernism. That step cost him his pulpit and his pension. He loved
the men and movements which shared that step of obedience. On the other
side, he hated apostasy with its opposite set of men and movements.
Apostasy had cut the heart out of Christianity and had stolen the hope
of its hearers. He was never too busy to donate an evening of his time
to any little group of people in our state who were seeking a way out of
an apostate denomination.
"In 1958 my father completed an eight page tract titled,
Evangelicalism: The New Neutralism. He put a stack of them on the
literature table at the back of his church and began to give them to his
friends and enemies. He had witnessed the founding of the National
Association of Evangelicals in 1942 with an official position of
neutrality in the great conflict with apostasy.... He analyzed the
speeches of the founding fathers of Fuller Seminary in 1947 and 1948 and
saw again the danger of neutrality in the great battle between faith and
unbelief....
|
New
Neutralism II, Chapter 2
I
believe that the mainspring of new evangelicalism is found in three
determinations of its founder which may be clearly traced in the state
of things today.
- First, new evangelicalism determined to reject Biblical
separation.
- Secondly, new evangelicalism determined to
find acceptance
by the world.
- Thirdly, new evangelicalism determined to
add the social
gospel to the Scriptural gospel....
Dr.
Harold John Ockenga coined the name "Neo-evangelicalism."
When the National Association of
Evangelicals was born in 1942, its first President was Harold John
Ockenga. As a pastor he occupied the pulpit of Park Street
Congregational Church on the edge of Boston Common. When Fuller
Theological Seminary was founded in 1947, its first President was Dr.
Harold John Ockenga. Christianity Today, the daily racing form of new
evangelicalism, had its birth in 1956 as the brainchild of Billy Graham
and his father-in-law, Dr. L. Nelson Bell. The Chairman of the Board of
the new magazine was Dr. Harold John Ockenga. When the World Congress on
Evangelism convened in 1966, one of the three featured speakers was Dr.
Harold John Ockenga. Just to see if you have been following my train of
thought, I will ask a question: Whom do you suppose was President of
Gordon College and Gordon-Conwell Divinity School at the same time in
the 1970s? If you miss the answer, you have not been paying attention.
In the history of new evangelicalism, there is no more important name
than that of Dr. Harold John Ockenga....
With this bit of background about the
father of the movement, we begin to look at the three determinations
which spawned the movement.
1. REJECTION OF BIBLE SEPARATION
First, new evangelicalism determined to
reject Biblical separation. Dr. Ockenga wrote the foreword to Dr. Harold
Lindsell's book The Battle for the Bible, published in 1976. In
that foreword he said:
"Neo-evangelicalism was born in
1948 in connection with a convocation address which I gave in
the Civil Auditorium in Pasadena. While reaffirming the
theological view of fundamentalism, this address repudiated its
ecclesiology and its social theory. The ringing call for a
repudiation of separatism and the summons to social involvement
received a hearty response from many evangelicals. ... It
differed from fundamentalism in its
repudiation of separatism and its determination to engage itself
in the theological dialogue of the day. It had a new emphasis
upon the application
of the gospel to the sociological, political, and economic areas
of life."
[W]hat new evangelicalism has determined to
repudiate is Biblical separatism. Separation is God's prescription for
treating the disease of apostasy. It is not ours to repudiate, for it is a
divine command, not a human idea....
"Wherefore come out
from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the
unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you,
and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." [
2 Corinthians 6:17,18]
The same doctrine is taught in passages
such as Ephesians 5:11 which says, "And have no fellowship with the
unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." It is the theme
of 2 John, culminating in verses 10 and 11: "If there come any unto you,
and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither
bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his
evil deeds." ...
In a much earlier press release dated
December 8, 1957, Dr. Ockenga made the following statements:
"The New Evangelicalism has
changed its strategy from one of separation to one of
infiltration. Instead of static front battles, the new
theological war is one of movement. Instead of attack upon
error, the New Evangelicals proclaim the great historic
doctrines of Christianity ... The strategy of the New
Evangelicalism is the positive proclamation of truth in
distinction from all errors without delving in personalities
which embrace error."
In a war, generals may change strategy,
but that is not the prerogative of the Christian when God has given a
command. Obviously separation is God's command, and infiltration is
man's idea. The irenic statement above sounds rather noble in man's
eyes.... But how does that square with Jude 3
and 4?
"Beloved, when I gave all
diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was
needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should
earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto
the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who
were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men,
turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying
the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ."
What do you think of the new evangelical
suggestion that we can proclaim truth "without delving in personalities
which embrace error?" Throughout church history, heresies have always
been identified with the men who perpetrated them. Almost every heresy
of the past has been associated with a personality. You cannot erase
nineteen centuries of church history with a cute phrase. Certainly Dr. Ockenga was aware that the battle for the faith in the 1920's was
between a Baptist unbeliever, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, and
Presbyterian believers.... The idea
of preaching positively without contending for the faith is a compromise
of Biblical truth....
SEEKING ACCEPTANCE BY THE WORLD
Secondly, new evangelicalism determined
to find acceptance by the world. I have seen boys and girls feverishly
seek the acceptance of their peers. A new child comes to visit, and they
rush to show him every toy in the effort to be accepted.
[See also Isaiah 39:1-5]This is a note
not to be ignored in the new evangelical profile. It shows itself in the
desire to be accepted in the world of academia, and it also shows in the
desire to make the gospel more palatable to the natural man. Let me
begin by going back to Dr. Ockenga's foreword to The Battle for the
Bible:
"It differed from fundamentalism
in its repudiation of separation and its determination to engage
itself in the theological
dialogue of the day."
Reentering the theological dialogue
with
modernism was an important cause to new evangelicalism. Notice that it
is described as "dialogue," not debate. A
debate is a
conflict which
clarifies a position. A dialogue is a
conversation which compromises a
position. (That may not be correct according to Webster, but it comes
from observing theological dialogue.) Lest you think I am being picky
with this matter, let me go further in the quotation from the foreword
of The Battle for the Bible to show the specific items about
which Dr. Ockenga desired to dialogue:
"Neo-evangelicals emphasized the
restatement of Christian theology in accordance with
the need
of the time, the reengagement in the theological debate, the
recapture of denominational leadership, and the reexamination of
theological problems such as the antiquity of man, the
universality of the flood, God's method of creation, and
others."
I call this Dr. Ockenga's "re" statement.
In my own seminary experience, I was never taught that theology needs to
be restated according to need. If we have a theology stated as the Bible
states it, is it right to restate it to make it more palatable to a
sinful world and an apostate church? New evangelicals have finely tuned
the art of restating theology so that it causes no ripple at the
National Council of Churches, Union Theological Seminary or a
Presidential Prayer Breakfast. I could not state Biblical theology in
any of those places and have it warmly received. Billy Graham does it
all the time. Think about it.
Dr. Ockenga again suggested "the
reengagement in the theological debate." I assume that he meant the
theological debate between modernism and fundamentalism. I would agree
with that, if he meant to show the emptiness of apostasy and why men
should leave it. New evangelicalism did not interpret it that way.
Rather, it chose to return to apostate presbyteries, synods, seminaries
and colleges to try to have an influence while
dialoguing
about the matters discussed there. As Dr. Ockenga said, "The New Evangelicalism
has changed its strategy from one of separation to one of infiltration."
...
Dr. Ockenga's fourth "re" has been the
most destructive compromise of all. It is "the reexamination of
theological problems such as the antiquity of man, the universality of
the Flood, God's method of creation and others."....
Stop to think about the three areas Dr.
Ockenga has identified. These areas are "theological problems" for one
simple reason. The natural man has a problem with God's sovereignty. The
Bible declares that God did these things in a certain way. Man cannot
accept that at face value, because he has never seen creation in seven
days or a universal flood. To reexamine what God has told us He did is
to subject God's Word to the judgment of science. If a man accepts God's
sovereignty he needs no reexamination. On the other hand, if a man
accepts only science he must reexamine, reexamine and reexamine. This
reexamination of Biblical truth by worldly scientists has had a deadly
effect on the biology departments of Christian colleges. Before new
evangelicalism, those departments believed both in creation as taught in
Genesis and in a universal flood. Today, in most of those departments,
science, rather than the Bible, is normative. Consequently, professors
teach some form of evolution and believe in a local flood. I heard Dr.
Charles Woodbridge say that a local flood that covered the mountains
must have been the first egg-shaped flood on record. The compromises of
Dr. Ockenga's four "re's" have had a devastating effect on Christianity....
Let me
quote again from Dr. Ockenga's December 8, 1957, news release:
"The New Evangelicalism differs
from Fundamentalism in its willingness to handle the social
problems which Fundamentalism evaded. ... The New Evangelical is
willing to face the intellectual problems and meet them in the
framework of modern learning. ... The evangelical believes that
Christianity is intellectually defensible, but the Christian
cannot be obscurantist in scientific questions pertaining to the
creation, the age of man, the universality of the flood and
other moot Biblical questions."
It seems to me that as Dr. Ockenga paints
the portrait of the new evangelical with his right hand, he caricatures
the fundamentalist with his left. Do you see the picture? The
fundamentalist is unwilling to handle social problems, unable to face
intellectual problems, not possessing modern learning and obscurantist
in scientific questions. Intellectual pride is peer pressure on a
scholarly level, and it doesn't look any better on scholars than it does
on teenagers. Ho, ye new evangelicals, wisdom has arrived and will die
with us!
From its inception new evangelicalism has
been determined to impress the world with its intellect. It has craved
the respect of academia. It has determined to earn plaudits at the
fountainheads of secular learning. Why should this be a goal for the
Christian? Paul spelled out for the believer the vanity of this world's
wisdom in 1 Cor. 1:20,21: "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where
is the disputer of the world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of
this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew
not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them
that believe."
George Marsden, who wrote the history of
Fuller Seminary under the title Reforming Fundamentalism points
out on page 24 how Ockenga viewed the ministry of Fuller:
"Now he told the Fullers that
what was needed was a true scholarly center to produce serious
books that all the world would have to notice.... Ockenga was,
in effect, proposing a new Princeton: the new west coast
seminary would recapture the glory and academic standing of the
old Princeton."
"...as we have been
approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak,
not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts."
1 Thessalonians 2:4
"...if anyone
preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him
be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to
please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a
bondservant of Christ."
Galatians 1:9-10
|
"New
Evangelicalism, beyond any question, is seeking middle ground with
respect to the theological controversies...In the realms of things moral
and spiritual one must be either right or wrong...the showdown at the
close of the age will come in realms of black and white, not in the fog
of a confused grey. In the great fight of faith there is no middle
ground on which the neutralist can complacently stand for long...There
can be no middle ground for Bible believing Christians....These are
testing times when the dividing line between truth and error becomes
ever more distinct..." William E. Ashbrook stated on page 2 of The New
Neutralism,
New Neutralism II is available from
Here I Stand
Books. The cost is $4.00
postpaid.
536 Greenside Dr., Painesville, OH 44077.
Email:
ashbrook@hereistand.com
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