Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?

"...I have watched with growing disbelief as the evangelical Church has cheerfully plunged into astounding theological illiteracy. Many taking the plunge seem to imagine that they are simply following a path to success, but the effects of this great change in the evangelical soul are evident inevery incoming class in the seminaries, in most publications, in the great majority of churches, and in most of their pastors.

"It is a change so large and so encompassing that those who dissent from what is happening are easily dismissed as individuals who cannot get along, who want to scruple over what is inconsequential, who are not loyal, and who are, in any case, quite irrelevant.

"Despite this, the changes that are now afoot are so pregnant with consequences that it becomes, for me, a matter of conscience to address them. Conscience, I have learned, is a hard taskmaster, and I have not the slightest doubt that my attempt at doing this will appear quite ridiculous. I will look to some like the foolish dog that sits on the front lawn and, to everyone's displeasure, bays at the moon. But bay I must."

-- David Wells, "No Place for Truth: or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?" pp.4-5 (Eerdmans 1993)

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