The One Thing that Can Destroy Evangelicalism from Within — and How to Prevent it

“We are already at the stage where many evangelical leaders simply assume the message of the cross, but no longer lay much emphasis on it. Their focus is elsewhere. And a few, it seems to me, are in danger of distancing themselves from major components of the message of the cross, while still operating within the context of evangelicalism. It is at least possible that we are the generation of believers who will destroy much of historic Christianity from within—not, in the first instance, by rancid unbelief, but by raising relatively peripheral questions to the place where, functionally, they displace what is central. And what shall the end of this drift be?

We must come back to the cross, and to God’s plan of redemption that centers on the cross, and make that the point of our self-identification. We must consciously resist all blandishments from movements and philosophies and value systems that tolerate the cross, or even nominally promote it, but in reality displace it. We must recognize that what it means to be wise, what it means to be spiritual, is to embrace, by the help of God’s Spirit, the message of the crucified Messiah.”

–D.A. Carson in The Cross and Christian Ministry: An Exposition of Passages from 1 Corinthians

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Kevin

I serve with Unlocking the Bible. I blog for the glory of God, to nourish the church, and to clarify my mind. A lover of Christ first, people second, and random things like coffee, books, baseball, and road trips. I wrote When Prayer Is Struggle. Soli Deo Gloria