By Oliver Barclay IVP. 154 pages
The author of this book was for a long time the General Secretary of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF), and has lived through the period covered by this history of evangelicalism. Full of the wisdom of years and with an eagle eye, he brings a personal and perceptive insight from the past to understand the present.
The story begins in the 1930s when classical evangelicalism (CE) - committed to a Cross-centred Christianity revealed in a fully-reliable Bible - was enthusiastic, small in numbers and rather defensive and anti-intellectual. Two other movements were making the running at the same time. The first was the liberal evangelicals (LE) leaning away from the Bible towards a more rationalist approach, who insisted that Christian doctrine must be re-stated in harmony with the spirit of the age. The second was the Oxford Group/Moral rearmament, spear-headed by Frank Buchman, emphasising experience and having guidance direct from God without a Bible.
The author's central thesis is that the expansion of evangelicalism over this time did not come from the LE nor the Oxford Group, rather it came from CE roots, where the Bible was central and taken seriously.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …