A Less Noticable Down Grade

Arnold Dallimore, in his work, Spurgeon: A New Biography, described the deadly effects of liberal theology of the late 19th and early 20th Century among English Baptists:

Many thought Spurgeon’s concept of the harmful effects of the New Theology was quite wrong, but with the passing of the years he has been proven entirely correct. As he foretold, with the denial of the Scriptures church attendances began to fall off, prayer meetings became places of a mere few till they dropped off altogether, and the miracle of a life transformed by the grace of God was witnessed less and less, if at all. Church after church, in city, town, and hamlet, gradually died out. Throughout England one could see what had once been a church now used as a shop or a garage, or could see where one had formerly stood, but it since had been torn down.
All manner of reasons were given for this sad condition, but the prime cause was the lack of the gospel in the pulpit. All the attempted substitutes failed to attract the people. Where there is no acceptance of the Bible as inerrant and a belief in the great fundamentals of the faith, there is no true Christianity, the preaching is powerless, and what Spurgeon declared to his generation a hundred years ago is the outcome. – p. 214

As I reflected on this assessment by Dallimore I realized that times have truly changed. In our day, “attempted substitutes” have not “failed to attract the people.” In fact substitutes thrive in the place of strong, biblical-based, God-centered preaching. The Bible is given lip-service as inerrant and the fundamental doctrines are not rejected, instead they are set off to the side. The Bible is forced into a man-centered worldview that ignores the grand, majestic truth of God-glorifying grace in Christ that is the unifying theme of God’s Word.

I don’t know about your area of the country, but we have all kinds of churches that are booming in attendance with a man-centered gospel.