The Legacy of an Evangelical Milestone
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john stonestreet
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roberto rivera |
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Forty
years ago, a group of evangelical leaders and scholars took a clear and
unapologetic stand on a fundamental tenet of the faith.
This
month marks the fortieth anniversary of the Chicago Statement on
Biblical Inerrancy, which was signed in October of 1978 by more than 200
evangelical leaders, including R.C. Sproul, J.I. Packer, and Francis
Schaeffer.
The
Chicago Statement was not only a landmark document in evangelical
history, it played an important role in the work of the late Chuck
Colson and our ongoing work at the Colson Center.
Here’s
a bit of history to set the stage. If there was one phrase that summed
up the ethos of the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was “Question
Authority.” The phrase emerged out of opposition to the Vietnam War and
Watergate, but then it spread well beyond the world of politics into
various arenas of culture, even into the church.
We
know, for example, the story of how liberal “mainline” churches doubted
the Bible and its claims of supernatural miracles. But the culture-wide
distrust of authority crept into Evangelicalism, as well, which
has—given its diversity and independent congregations—kind of always
struggled with ecclesial authority.
Phrases
such as “Christianity isn’t a religion; it’s a relationship” entered
the lexicon and became an excuse for some to radically privatize the
faith, to reject historical teaching, and even embrace new ways of
reading and interpreting the Bible.
For instance, a survey of students at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
in the mid-70s found that the longer a student attended the seminary,
the less likely he was to agree with the statement “Jesus is the Divine
Son of God and I have no doubts about it.”
In 1971,
messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting passed a
resolution that supported abortion, not only in cases of rape and
incest, but also in cases where there is “clear evidence of severe fetal
deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of
damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.”
This was just two years before Roe v. Wade.
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