The Fundamental Problem in the Evangelical World Today
By Ian Hamilton, Editor
The Banner of Truth
Reprinted from the April 2020 Banner of Truth Magazine
I can remember well the first time I read these words of David Wells:
The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is not inadequate technique, insufficient organization, or antiquated music, and those who want to squander the church’s resources bandaging these scratches will do nothing to staunch the flow of blood that is spilling from its true wounds. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequentially upon the church. His truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common. (God in the Wasteland)
in these few, eloquently written words David Wells put his finger on the spiritual malaise and superficiality that so marks the evangelical church in the West. In a brief paragraph, Wells anatomized the Bible’s recurring judgment on God’s church throughout its history. Again and again, the church majored on minors, preferring to tinker with the elements of its worship than ask the searching questions about the substance of its worship. This is nowhere seen more graphically than in the opening chapter of Isaiah. through his prophet, God excoriated his covenant people:
Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?” says the Lord; “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of the lambs, or of the goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations — I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers. I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.” (Isaiah 1:10-15).
It is hard to imagine a more stinging rebuke to a people who professed to be, and were, the visible community of faith in the world. Instead of acknowledging the heart emptiness of their religion, the people sought to tidy up their perceived deficiencies and apply themselves to the duties of evangelical religion. They were faithful at worship. They did not neglect prayer. And yet, the Lord told them that he hated their worship, that he wearied of their religious practices, that he would not listen to their prayers.
With all their religious evangelical duteousness, God’s covenant people had forgotten the one essential thing that counts with God. Jesus expressed the matter pointedly to the religious leaders of his day, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me'” (Mark 7:6, quoting Isiah 29:13). God looks on the heart. At its heart, true religion is a matter of heart.
This conviction marked the Reformation labours of John Calvin and later the mid-eighteenth century ministry of Jonathan Edwards. Many people, sadly Christians included, think of John Calvin as a cold-hearted dictator of the church in Geneva. Nothing could be further from the truth (read, e.g. the opening chapter of Scot M. Manetch’s book, Calvin’s Company of Pastors, Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536-1609). Consider the following:
For true doctrine is not a matter of the tongue, but of life; neither is Christian doctrine grasped only by the intellect and memory; as truth is grasped in other fields of study. Rather, doctrine is rightly received when it takes possession of the entire soul and finds a dwelling place and shelter in the most intimate affections of the heart. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, III. vi.4)
Religion for Calvin, and indeed for all the major Reformers, was heart delight in God and the gospel of his Son, Jesus Christ. This conviction was echoed in the life and ministry of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). The opening words of his work on The Religious Affections, express Edwards’ understanding of true religion: “True religion in great part consists of holy affections.” In his Personal Narrative, Edwards wrote,
God has appeared glorious to me, on account of the Trinity. It has made me have exalting thoughts of God, that he subsists in three persons; Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced, have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my own good estate; but in a direct view of the glorious things of the gospel. When I enjoy this sweetness, it seems to carry me above the thoughts of my own estate; it seems such times a loss that I cannot bear, to take off my eye from the glorious, pleasant object I behold without me, to turn my eye in upon myself, and my own good estate.
David Wells’ analysis of modern-day evangelicalism is perceptive and challenging. If he is right, what can be done to restore evangelical Christianity to its historic and biblical foundations? The admonition of the risen Saviour to the church in Ephesus points the way forward (see Revelation 2:1-7). This church had much to commend it: it was faithful, duteous, doctrinally on the ball, and self-confident. And yet, Jesus says to this church, “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Revelation 2:4-5).
Second, Jess commanded the church to “repent.” Repentance is humbling, but it is filled with hope. It is not enough to remember, we must repent, turn around and humbly ask the Lord to reorder our priorities. Jesus is not telling the Ephesian church to neglect its hard work, its doctrinal faithfulness, or its exposure of heretics. He is telling this church to put first things first, and the first thing of all is heart-love to the Saviour. Proverbs 4:23 stands sentinel over biblical religion, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”
Let me close as I began, with a “remembrance.” When I was a young theology student at Edinburgh University, Eric J. Alexander came to speak to the Theological Students Fellowship (TSF). In the course of his talk, Eric quoted some words from E. M. Bounds’ classic little work on prayer, Power through Prayer:
What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use— men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men— men of prayer.
Bounds is not decrying the need for organization or strategic planning. He is reminding us that the church’s great need is a felt, prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit. It is this lack that leads to God resting too inconsequentially upon the church, his truth being too distant, his grace too ordinary, his judgment to benign, his gospel too easy, and his Christ too common.
Brothers and sisters, let us commit ourselves and our congregations to pray, to cry out to God for his presence and power to be manifest in a new way in the life of his people. Then might this dark and dying world be constrained to say, “Truly, God is among them” (1 Corinthians 14:25).
FURTHER READING RESOURCES:
E. M. Bounds, The Power of Prayer
E. M. Bounds, Classic Collection on Prayer
E. M. Bounds on Prayer (Hendrickson Christian Classics)
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1541 Edition)
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