I stumbled across this article by Sinclair Ferguson, where he warns about certain tendencies in the modern evangelical church that are remarkably reminiscent to the Medieval Roman Catholic Church. He writes:
…[W]e face the alarming possibility that there may already be a medieval darkness encroaching upon evangelicalism. Can we not detect, at least as a tendency, dynamics within evangelicalism which bear resemblances to the life of the medieval church? The possibility of a new Babylonian or (more accurately, following Luther) the Pagan Captivity of the Church looms nearer than we may be able to believe.
Dr. Ferguson then lists five reasons for this comparison:
- Repentance — “Repentance has increasingly been seen as a single act, severed from a life-long restoration of godliness.”
- Mysticism — “The canon for Christian living has increasingly been sought in a ‘Spirit-inspired’ living voice within the church rather than in the Spirit’s voice heard in Scripture.”
- Sacred Powers — “Special sanctity is no longer confirmed by the beauty of the fruit of the Spirit, but with signs which are predominantly physical. What we ought to find alarming about contemporary evangelicalism is the extent to which we are impressed by performance rather than piety.”
- Spectators — “The worship of God is increasingly presented as a spectator event of visual and sensory power, rather than a verbal event in which we engage in a deep soul dialogue with the Triune God. The mood of contemporary evangelicalism is to focus on the centrality of what ‘happens’ in the spectacle of worship rather than on what is heard in worship.”
- Bigger Means Better — “The success of ministry is measured by crowds and cathedrals rather than by the preaching of the cross and the quality of Christians’ lives.”
Ferguson goes into greater detail in the article. It is short and well worth the time to read. We should all be wary and heed the warning.
Excellent post!
Great stuff from our ARP brother. I have long contended than broad evangelicalism is Roman Catholicism without the history and the Pope.
Tim – A great post. Thanks for posting the synopsis which is right on!
Very astute observations.
Another ARP pastor posted this comment on Facebook (I linked this post there):
“Tim, James White in his book, Protestant Worship and Church Architecture, notes this same parallel between Gothic Revival (neo-Catholicism advocated by church design) and the architecture of Revivalism in that both are consumed with emotive and not biblical worship. The theology of revivalism is subject to the same fundamental experience based errors as medieval Catholicism.”
Religious discourse requires subjectivity acknowledging itself as such, rather than as something more. I recommend the following post: http://deligentia.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/objective-vs-subjective-a-matter-of-biblical-hyperbole/
Hypo, I do not see what this has to do with the OP. Could you explain?