Evangelicalism is not a slippery slope to theological fluffiness; it is a path of wisdom and proportion. For evangelicals do not claim that the saving essential truths of the gospel are the only truths that matter, but that the gospel alone is our unifying anchor.
We seek to believe and uphold all that Scripture teaches. After all, we are people who believe in the supremacy of Scripture, and it is only consistent that we should seek to have a deeply thought-through Scriptural view of everything. But we do not believe that every truth is equally important or equally salvific. We are not saved by our knowledge of obscure doctrines. We do not find them the source of our unity. Thus, we hold each matter with the weighting Scripture gives, neither diminishing its primary truths nor elevating the others.
But if evangelicals seek a manifested spiritual unity, what should they make of all our denominations? They cannot believe that the unity Jesus desires comes from the organisational uniting of denominations, for true unity is not merely structural. They will surely seek to purify the church by the Word of God, but they will not dream of a single, united evangelical church or denomination.
Evangelicalism is by definition cross-denominational. Iain Murray explains: “Evangelicalism stands for the saving essentials of Christian belief. But it has never claimed that such a minimum of belief is all that is necessary for the full life and organisation of churches. The whole counsel of God contains more than that minimum and how that counsel is to be understood at certain points has been the subject of prolonged disagreement among those who are united in accepting the rule of Scripture.”
It is not that evangelicals do not care about theological matters beyond the saving essentials of Christian belief. Nor does it mean we neglect such issues to adopt a vapid one-size-fits-all identity.
Evangelicals can and should be good and eager confessional members of their local church or denomination, with all its particular doctrinal requirements. Yet to be people of the gospel means putting insistence on the gospel before insistence on any other matter. Thus, Murray could state that, historically, “a characteristic of an Evangelical was that he put his Evangelical commitment before denominational allegiance and, while he was happy to work in evangelism and conventions with Evangelicals of other denominations, he avoided corporate witness and activity with those who were not of like faith.”
Murray captures a number of important points here. First, evangelicals have been and should be unabashed in making “evangelical” (rightly understood) our primary Christian identity, since we are about the gospel before anything else. Second, this does not entail abandoning other doctrines such as those that distinguish denominations; it simply recognises that not all doctrines – even important ones – are foundational, first-level truths. Third, evangelicals do not merely share common beliefs: loving each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, we actively pursue fellowship across denominational lines to make manifest our spiritual unity. Fourth, such fellowship does not require comprehensive agreement on secondary and tertiary issues. Such matters can and should be vigorously and graciously debated by evangelicals in a way that does not question or impair our more fundamental unity in the gospel.
True catholicity does not require a monolithic institution. There will always be denominational differences reflecting differences among evangelicals over matters such as baptism and church polity. But the evangelical spirit seeks to follow the wisdom of J.C. Ryle, who counselled: “Keep the walls of separation as low as possible, and shake hands over them as often as you can.”
Holding firm to the gospel, and holding it supreme, we reject all that opposes or presumes to rival it – and that must include the tribalism that elevates personalities, culture, politics, or any other issue to the level of the gospel. For evangelicals seek, before all things, to be people of the gospel, not people of a sect.
