THE
PILGRIMS:
We have named our newsletter “The Pilgrim.” It was not idly named. We admire
the Pilgrims. They represent one of the high water marks in history of men who
were motivated by love of God and loyalty to truth. They knew only one
way—God’s way. As George Bancroft stated in his magnificent History of the
United Slates, which so beautifully describes the foundations that the Pilgrims
laid for our Christian Republic, “to them compromise was itself apostasy.”
Would we had men of such stature, courage, and conviction. Would that compromise
and its resultant apostasy was dealt with now as it was dealt with then. Much
has been written of the fortitude and faith and other positive virtues of these
men, but we admire them most for their fearless rejection of all that was not in
perfect harmony with the will of God as revealed in Scripture.
With that introduction we intend to devote the rest of this issue to a particularly insidious manifestation of current religious apostasy known as the NEW EVANGELICALISM.
THE
NEW EVANGELICALISM:
What is the New Evangelicalism? Well, for the main part it is an ideology. An
ideology that we shall momentarily examine. An ideology that transcends
denominational and organizational lines. Organizationally, it is probably best
represented by the National Association of Evangelicals; its architect is Harold
John Ockenga, its mouthpiece Billy Graham, and its magazine Christianity Today.
However, if the above be true, the honour of fathering the New Evangelicalism,
although Satan is the ultimate author, undeniably goes to E. Stanley Jones.
Jones was a modernist Methodist missionary to India. He was a prolific writer
and in his writings we find the soul and spirit of the New Evangelicalism.
On page 128 of his book
“The Christ of Every Road” Jones tells us:
“At the recent
Jerusalem Conference we found certain questions becoming acute. We could feel
the tingle of the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy in the air as we neared
Jerusalem…When the conference was nearing its close we found we hadn't settled
the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy-we had simply transcended it…Christ
held us both!”
Now imagine if you will for
a moment, Elijah, that fiery prophet of God, fellowshipping with Ahab and
conveniently transcending the differences between Jehovah and Baal. Of what
value would Christianity be today if Christ had transcended His differences with
the Pharisees or had made his peace with Satan when he was tempted in the
wilderness? Yet the whole thrust of the New Evangelicalism is that it requires
us to transcend the difference between apostate Christ-denying modernists and
those who cling to the historic Christian faith.
In his book “The Christ of
the Indian Road” Dr. Jones says:
“Standing amid the
shadows of Western civilization India has seen a Figure which has attracted her.
She has hesitated in regard to any allegiance to him, for India has thought that
if she took one she would have to take both—Christ and Western Civilization
went together. Now it is dawning upon the mind of India that she can have one
without the other‑Christ without Western Civilization. That dawning is of
tremendous significance to them‑and to us.”
The radical implications of
this statement are made clear throughout the remainder of the book. For
instance, chapter four is a eulogy of Mahatma Ghandi, that apostle of
civil‑disobedience, the Martin Luther King, Jr. of India. Or read this
quote from chapter ten.
“When Mohammedanism
confronted Hinduism the demand was of absolute surrender‑a complete wiping
of the slate of the past and the dictates of the prophet written in its
stead....Does Jesus take that same attitude? Are His demands upon India the same
as Mohammed?…It must be confessed that this has often been the attitude and
demand of the Christian missionary…But if our message be Christ, and Christ
alone, then this does not necessarily follow. He may turn to India…and say,
"I came not to destroy but to fulfill."
What Jones is saying is that
the same Christianity, the same Bible, the same Christ that produced Christian
civilization in the West, with free enterprise, constitutional government, and a
society ruled by God's moral law need not do the same thing in India. Instead
the "Christ of the Indian Road" may well lead them into the paths of
socialism, Marxism, and revolution. India can have Christ and Marx, too. How
barbaric of our missionaries to demand that India give up its paganism,
heathenism, and idolatry! How arrogant of us to tell the Indian people that they
must forsake all to follow Christ! Why, we're as bad as those infidel
Mohammedans! This incredible missionary, who refused to defend the faith in
Jerusalem, is now willing to defend Hinduism from the just and righteous claims
of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, to total surrender to the Creator of the
ends of the earth. Christ is to be added to the anti‑Christ culture of
heathen Hindu India and this "whited sepulchre" is to be passed off as
India's expression of Christianity. Whatever motivated Jones' ministry in India
it was obviously not delivering them from the spiritual darkness, bondage, and
idolatry that plagues that land. Again, with unerring genius, Jones has touched
on the heart and soul of the New Evangelicalism. Exposing not only its refusal
to contend for the faith, but also its contradictory emphasis on Christ and
Christ only to the exclusion of the "full counsel of God." Preach
Christ, but don't talk about communism. Preach Christ but don't touch on
politics or economics, etc. is the cry of the New Evangelicals. So the
foundations of Christian civilization are left undefended as the assaults of the
forces of anti‑Christ destroy all the fruits of the Protestant
Reformation.
This same missionary who
refuses to defend the logical conclusions of and applications of Christianity
concludes by endorsing every known work and program of anti-Christ.
Everything, from "Women's Lib" through the Marxist dictum of
"from each according to his ability to each according to his need"
meets with Dr. Jones' approval to say nothing of some tears over the "class
struggle," an attack on private property, an appeal for pacifism and a call
for a " World Church" and a "World Government" (under the
"beast" of course, if you still believe the Revelation!).
Here again, with unfailing
consistency, we find the New Evangelicals following in the train of E. Stanley
Jones. The editorials of Christianity Today have consistently apologized for
these same things and only lack of space prevents from giving a complete
documentation of that tragic fact.
However, let it suffice just to give one example as an illustration, which will only represent the tip of the iceberg.
THE
U.S. CONGRESS ON EVANGELISM:
In September of 1969 an event took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota known as the
U.S. Congress on Evangelism. Dr. Billy Graham was the honorary co-chairman. It
constitutes an excellent example of the New Evangelicalism in action. Now when
Christians have a congress on evangelism it would be commonplace to assume that
it would feature great stalwarts of the pulpit, veteran missionaries, and
renowned church builders. However, the agenda of the New Evangelicals read
somewhat differently. Now when Dr. Graham decides to express his
"zeal" for "evangelism" who does he turn to for help? Would
you believe Senator George McGovern! Rev. Ralph David Abernathy! Evangelist Tom
Skinner! Night Club Entertainer Pat Boone! Why, the apostle Paul wouldn't even
settle for John Mark!
SENATOR
McGOVERN:
Now Senator McGovern's leftwing, pro-Hanoi proclivities are so notorious that
even an old-time liberal like George Meany was forced to denounce the Democratic
candidate as "an apologist for communism." However, despite his
notoriety in politics McGovern's ties with the World Council of Churches are
less well known. For instance, earlier in 1969 Senator McGovern was chairman of
the W.C.C. Conference on Racism held in London, England. Under McGovern's
leadership the conference's report stated “The Church must in certain
circumstances, support resistance movements, including revolutions, which are
aimed at the elimination of political or economic tyranny that makes racism
possible.” McGovern's advice was taken and a little over a year later
Sept. 1970 the W.C.C. allotted $200,000 for revolutionary terrorists in southern
Africa to fight "racism" Mao-Tse-Tung style. The money went to outfits
like Roberto Holden's which is currently conducting another Marxist "War of
National Liberation" in Portuguese Angola. Holden, who once toured this nation as the guest of Martin
Luther King, Jr., is best known for his notorious March 15 raid when he spread a
wave of terror by bestial atrocity over a portion of northern Angola, resulting
in hundreds of the most horrible and mutilating deaths ever documented. Another
first for Roberta Holden, George McGovern, and now it seems for Dr. Graham and
the "Evangelicals," too!
RALPH
ABERNATHY:
Or let's take a look at Rev. (?) Ralph
David Abernathy whose police record includes sex perversion and statutory rape.
Abernathy who inherited the mantle of the late Martin King, Jr. as head of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a long exposed communist front in the
South, also happens to be an honorary citizen of the German Democratic Republic
better known as communist East Germany, where he is a welcome speaker when he is
not tied up as a keynoter at Evangelical Congresses. However, the Evangelicals'
infatuation for Rev. Abernathy seems to be a one way street. Last year when the
SCLC needed a keynoter for its annual banquet in Dallas, Abernathy running true
to form picked Angela Davis for the honour. The communist "Daily
World" already in the habit of heaping editorial praise on this pair made
much of the event.
TOM
SKINNER:
Last but not least and certainly not to be outdone by the rest of this unholy
triumvirate we find Evangelist Tom Skinner whose contributions to the congress
included statements such as "I'm not afraid of the so-called rebels that
some of my conservative evangelical friends are afraid of—S.D.S., Black
Militants, and this sort of thing, because I believe that to great extent these
forces are corrective measures at times, and that God can use them." A
more thorough going examination of the gospel according to Skinner may be found
by perusing one of his several books, such as “Words of Revolution”.
Skinner's commitment to
revolution seems to run pretty deep. In the preface to this book we hear, "We
got to do away with the system"; “revolution in America is
inevitable” and "Yes, I am a radical. I am committed to revolution.”
Then, to justify his defense of the ungodly gravediggers of Christendom, Skinner
appeals to that age old cry and parrot the accusation of the Jews to Pilate that
“Jesus was a Revolutionary.” We hear that “Jesus Christ is,
rather, a gutsy, contemporary, a radical revolutionary,” and “that if
you are looking for a revolutionary leader, Jesus Christ is where it at.”
Lest there be any confusion, lest any might spiritualize away Skinner's
revolutionary thrusts, he drives his point home with unmistakable precision.
We read, "Now if you
go back through history you will discover that there have been some great
revolutionaries. People like Plato and Socrates were revolutionaries in the
philosophical world. There were military and political revolutionaries like Karl
Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Julius Caesar, Mussolini. If you look in the social realm,
there have been revolutionaries—Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or
Bobby Seale…Of all the historical research I have done…of all the
revolutions I have read about…of all the revolutionary leaders have
studied—I am convinced that the greatest revolutionary of all time is Jesus
Christ.”
Now let us
examine all this carefully. Skinner has casT Christ in the same mold as Marx,
Lenin, and Hitler. Now all revolutionaries are lawless men; they destroy law.
Christ came to fulfill the law. He fulfilled the law for us. Unless by grace
through faith, Christ's perfect obedience and righteousness is imputed to us,
God's justice demands that we expiate our sins for all eternity in hell. The
sinless, spotless Lamb of God presents and represents the only hope, the only
way, the only salvation available whereby men might be saved. Now if Jesus is a
revolutionary then we don't have a savior. Furthermore, in that case Pilate
justifiably condemned Christ for sedition Christ was suffering for his own sins,
and our sins are yet to be dealt with. What this blasphemer has done in one
ungodly stroke is to destroy the foundation of the Christian faith which rests
on the blood of the sinless Lamb of God, and to justify the crucifixion of the
Holy Son of God. AND THIS IS WHAT THE EVANGELICALS CONSIDER EVANGELISM!!!
Now one of the great
tragedies in history is that God's people, Israel, rejected Messiah. They chose
Barabbas. The apostle Paul in Romans 9:3 feels this tragedy so deeply that he
offers up his own salvation if it would effect the salvation of Israel. Contrast
that with Skinner's view of the situation. “Jesus Christ would not have
taken issue with Barabbas at the point of the problem. Barabbas said, 'Look, the
Roman system stinks. It's militaristic, it's racist, it's oppressive. It doesn't
work for all the people . . . that system has got to go.' I am certain Jesus
Christ would have agreed with him. He would have said, 'Barabbas you are
absolutely right.’” Apparently, Skinner feels that the Jews didn't make
such a bad choice after all. Then who can really blame them? They had to choose
between two "radical, gutsy, contemporary revolutionaries"
obviously a difficult task. This is the man that Dr. Graham turns to, to
instruct 4500 delegates in the fine points of evangelism and leading people to
Christ!
Speaking of the gospel,
Skinner, hardly a Calvinist, seems to have his own five points Total depravity
and sin are repealed by statements such as, "You're always condemning
people to hell, trying to scare people. Well, God wasn't condemning anyone. He
was simply saying, 'Look I'm life. I'm it; if you want to live, get plugged into
me. Let Me do My thing in you" Skinner goes on to explain that all of
us are like perfect refrigerators, nothing wrong with us, except that we aren't
plugged in. Salvation is merely us plugging ourselves into God.
Having disposed of a perfect
Savior, Skinner with marvelous consistency has now gone on to dispose of sin and
the need for that Savior. Let us examine what is left. Speaking of his alleged
conversion experience, Skinner relates, "But I learned something new that
night as I listened to the radio...I learned that Jesus Christ was a
"gutsy," radical, contemporary revolutionary with hair on his chest
and dirt under his fingernails."No sin; no Savior; no salvation: Skinner
accepted Christ when and only when Christ was presented as a revolutionary!
Skinner accepted Christianity when and only when it was presented as REVOLUTION!
That night Skinner accepted an invitation, a call to revolution. The same
invitation that he himself now preaches when he calls for "...men and women
who will go out in the name of Jesus to radicalize a system that needs to be
brought down." Skinner's altar call in the final phrases of his book is
"Let the revolution begin with me."
Now at the beginning of this
newsletter we warned you that we were going to deal with the worst order of
compromise. However, this is no longer even in the realm of compromise. This is
another gospel; a gospel of revolutionary regeneration. Now like the apostle
Paul we marvel, that the Evangelicals "are so soon removed...unto another
gospel." Neither would we deign to improve on his advice. The apostle warns
emphatically "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other
gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be
ACCURSED."
HIRELINGS:
Now the next obvious question is how can the McGoverns, Abernathys, the Skinners
and indeed the Grahams get away with it. Is no one holding the fort? What makes
the New Evangelicalism so susceptible to this type of penetration and
subversion. The obvious answer is their narrow "positivism" expressed
in their shibboleth of "Preach Christ, only, period, to the exclusion of
everything and anything else."
Christ exposed the falseness
of that position in John 10:12. We read "But he that is a hireling, and not
the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth
the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the
sheep." Now the thrust of this passage is that Christ is teaching his
followers how to distinguish between between the "hirelings" and the
true shepherds. You see anyone will get in the pulpit, preach John 3:16, and
collect the salary. At that stage the difference is not so readily discernible.
But Christ says the phony, the "hireling" is effectively exposed the
minute the wolf appears on the scene. The "hireling," who is willing
to "feed the sheep," considers defending the flock, perhaps at his own
peril, quite another thing. When the "wolf cometh" the "hireling
fleeth." He has no stomach for Christian warfare or Christian battle.
Unlike David he cannot pray "Blessed be the Lord my strength, which
teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight" Now it seems clear
to me that the McGoverns, the Abemathys, the Skinners represent the wolves The
New Evangelicals are those "hirelings" who let them get away with it;
Those "pastors" who allow rampant heresy, radicalism, and every form
and wind of unsound doctrine to subvert their flocks and tear them asunder.
Those "pastors" who are still gently stuffing the little lambs with
the best of grass right up to the moment that the wolf devours them: HIRELINGS!
This is the very essence of the New Evangelicalism!
THUS
SAITH THE LORD:
Now so far the entire thrust of this article has been on the offensive and that
is as it should be. Christians should be on the offensive. Christ was always on
the offensive. Whenever His enemies sought to entangle and entrap Christ in
questions that were snares, Christ confounded them with His replies and His
penetrating questions threw them back on the defensive. Now many, undeniably,
will resist the truth and some will undoubtedly bring in accusations against
this type of ministry. We trust that a solid scriptural defense will equally
confound them as it did the Pharisees. Christianity is a "full-orbed"
faith. It requires a full defense. A last ditch stand around a few cardinal
doctrines must inevitably end in defeat. The above has been written with a clear
conscience; moreover, in the writing we declare and clear our conscience. With
Paul we declare "wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure
from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the
counsel of God" (Acts 20:281. To those who accuse us of hate, bigotry,
divisiveness, those who challenge our very right to even raise these issues we
reply "Let God be true and every man a liar." Our appeal is to
the Word of God. By the grace of God we intend to be shepherds not hirelings The
demands of scripture allow us to do no less than we have done. Elijah confronted
the cult of Baal; Christ rebuked the Pharisees; Paul delivered Hymenaeus and
Alexander unto Satan. Can we do less! The exhortations of Scripture are replete
with warnings of apostasy, heresy, and deception. Paul speaks of "grievous
wolves…sparing not the flock" of "false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ." Peter
warns us "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as
there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable
heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them…and many shall follow their
pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of."
These men were shepherds! Paul even goes so far as to make this trait the mark
of a good preacher. In I Timothy 4 Paul warns of the great apostasy preceding
the end of the age, saying, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the
latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits,
and doctrines of devils." Paul then exhorts Timothy saying, "If thou
put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister
of Jesus Christ." As far as the apostle Paul was concerned a "good
minister of Jesus Christ" was one who defended the faith, shielded the
flock, and kept the brethren in remembrance of the dangers of spiritual
subversion by false teachers. Paul exposed them and called them by name. He
rebuked them "that others also may fear . . . ." He exhorted the
Ephesian Christians to "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, rather reprove them."
Finally, though some may condemn us for condemning, the condemnation and judgment of God must be the final judge. We trust that in that great and glorious day of the Lord, God shall vindicate his Word and scatter his enemies. God's wrath is sure on those who have stored up wrath against that
day. "Shall not the
judge of all the Earth do right." And Christ who shall be that Judge
speaks prophetically in Matthew 7:21: "Not every one that saith unto me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; brat he that doeth the will
of my father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,
have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy
name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew
you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
I can think of no more
fitting judgment on the NEW EVANGELICALISM than these sobering and awful words
of Christ. What a terrible thing it will be to be undeceived in that day. Yet
this is the inevitable and unholy fruit of the NEW EVANGELICALISM. Evangelism,
true evangelism, scriptural evangelism, saves souls; it doesn't deceive them.
Let all who bear the name "Christian," let all who have genuine love
and loyalty to Jesus the Christ depart from this ungodly compromise and take
their stand on the everlasting Word of God. God has, and does, and will bless
obedience. Only rooted in his Word can we find power, victory, and assurance
against that great day of the Lord. Then, and then only can we joyfully repeat
with the apostle Paul, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded, that
He is able, to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day."
