Evangelicalism Divided  
By Iain H. Murray  
Published by Banner Of Truth

This book gives a thorough and documented history of the divergent paths of evangelicals in England over the past fifty years.  In is essentially a history of the English New Evangelical movement, paralleling the one characterized in America by the ministries of Harold Ockenga and Billy Graham.  This is contrasted with the Old Evangelicals in Great Britain and the pertinent differences are thoroughly explored.   

Particularly he contrasts the viewpoints taken by two representative men on opposing sides the New Evangelical John Stott (and James Packer as well) and the Old Evangelical Martyn Lloyd Jones.  He consistently points out the positions taken by the former and where it progressively led the Evangelical movement in England.  This is constantly compared with the statements and warnings of such men as Martyn Lloyd Jones.   

He shows that the New Evangelical involvement in the ecumenical movement has been a spiritual disaster for the churches.  He documents the compromises of evangelical fundamentals in the altar of co-operation, a pretended unity, and acceptance by the world in the hope of better hearing for the gospel.  A gospel that they profess to proclaim but compromise in the name of a wider proclamation.   

He shows that there very successes have been failures.  Having accepted cooperation with unbelieving scholarship in the hope of having the academic world come to really study the “gospel” they have gained prestigious positions in major universities.  However, once there, their testimony was so muted or compromised, or outright liberal that their success was one of the enemies of the gospel and not a victory for truth.  Similarly, all involvement in the ecumenical movement came at the expense of the foundational truths of Christianity that set real evangelicals apart from theological liberals.   

Murray spends  a lot of time on the issue of “Who is a Christian?”  He sees this as a fundamental Scripture truth that has been consistently “waffled”, compromised or ignored by evangelicals involved in the ecumenical movement.  He notes that any unity of “Christians” without an Biblical definition of a “Christian” is meaningless. He also notes that all the successes of the ecumenical movement have consistently been based on avoiding clarity on that specific issue.   

Murray has done a commendable job of studying the history of the “new Evangelicalism” as it has worked out in Great Britain.  His documentation of the personalities and events that have shaped the movement there for the past half-century is thorough and irrefutable.  To this he adds insightful analysis and points us to pertinent Scriptural principles by appropriate quotations from the Scriptures.  In all this he has does an excellent job in pointing out the consequences of this movement’s success and the disarray it has left the churches in. In all this he has done the churches of Great Britain, and everywhere for that matter for this is a global issue, a inestimable service. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to drawing and hard, fast, and concrete conclusions from all this, when it comes to applying Biblical solutions to this problem he is extremely weak. At this critical juncture of the book Murray’s trumpet gives a most uncertain sound.  There are no clarion calls for the Lord’s people to separate from apostasy and unbelief.  There are no injunctions, reinforced by appropriate Scripture commands, for the Lord’s people to cease sitting under infidel preachers and for evangelical pastors to cease being under the discipline and leadership of infidel and apostate bishops and denominational leaders.  This is never an issue in the book.  The issue always is about having remained in apostate ecclesiastical organizations how to maintain a credible testimony to the truth.  

In his conclusions he sees the entire problem as an overreaction to the “separatism” practiced by American Fundamentalists.  In a way, therefore, he blames those who have heeded the Scriptural commands for separation from apostasy and unbelief as causing the drive of evangelicals into the ecumenical movement.  He sees separatism as unloving and does not seem to allow for any separation from erring brothers other than is generally practiced by denominations upholding their doctrinal distinctives.  The notion of separating from those (i.e. professing evangelicals) who are involved in the ecumenical movement seems totally foreign to him and one gains the conviction that if he were to discus it he would do so only to condemn it.  

Finally, one is led to conviction that Christianity must be in a very weakened and dying condition in England.  If after such a mountain of alarming and well documented evidence of what the New Evangelicalism is doing to the churches no stronger antidotes are called for the patient must be very weak.  A militant defense of the faith seems to be out of the question.  A clarion call to defend the faith and confront the compromisers and apostates is sorely missing.  In the words of T.S. Eliot, he seems to accept the fact, that British Christianity should die, “not with a bang but a whimper.”    

The most discouraging part of the book, therefore, is not the grim history that it records.  That is a story that we are all too familiar with already.  The most discouraging part is the response.  If that is all British Christianity can muster it truly seems to be both dead and buried.  If you want to academically study some British church history you should read this book.  Otherwise you ought to save your money.  If you want to read something on this subject that will challenge you to defend the faith and stir you up to a more militant faithfulness to Scripture and the Lord Jesus Christ I would heartily recommend Ashbrook’s book, “The New Neutralism II.”