Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Carl Trueman on evangelicalism

Brilliant. Again. The key section:

I refuse the binary opposition which makes me either an evangelical first, last and only; or a denominationalist who sits in his study taking supercilious potshots at those who do their best to share the gospel with those who need to hear it. Bog standard evangelicalism: I love it; I owe almost everything to it; and I am saddened at the way it has slowly but surely been evacuated of all of its basic and beautiful theology by those who are interested in drawing pay checks and power from its institutions, and performing on its stages, while at the same time dripping spittle on its theological heritage, from the doctrine of the Trinity to justification by grace through faith as understood by the Protestant confessional consensus to basic biblical teaching on homosexuality. And, of course, the problem with these charlatans is not simply a lack of theology; it is a lack of integrity.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sean, do you have any idea who these denominationalists that criticize evangelicals might be? In my own experience I haven't encountered too many conservative Presbyterians who don't think of themselves as evangelical most of the time. Either Carl is tilting at windmills or he has someone in mind. Doesn't he know that evangelicals are supposed to be the nice conservatives?

Anonymous said...

The comment above was not supposed to be anonymous even if Carl didn't name the denominationalist in question.