As has been commented recently in EN, there are ‘a whole cluster of fault lines which run through broad evangelicalism’, not to mention the wider church scene.
Evangelical Christians are finding themselves ever more stretched in having to accommodate views and pronouncements at odds with historically held evangelical doctrines. However, the New Testament suggests that such stretching needs to have a limit — there comes a stage when a breaking point must be faced.
No decisive actions
Our church culture, however, leans strongly away from taking decisive actions when it comes to doctrinal matters. We are heavily influenced by the wider culture of relativism and worry that to assert one set of views over another will be regarded as arrogant — the ultimate taboo! The result is that even very significant deviations from historic evangelical beliefs rarely result in any concrete sanctions or lead to any consequence beyond expressions of gentle disapproval. Certainly the notion of breaking fellowship with the proponents of such views is increasingly regarded as the kind of decision we can no longer be confident in making.
