An old proverb says, “A ship in the sea is alright. The sea in a ship is all wrong.” In the same way, “the church in the world is alright. The world in the church is all wrong.”

Broadly speaking, the last several decades have not been good for the church in America. In the final years of the twentieth century, Dr. James Montgomery Boice wrote about the on-going crisis:

“What is wrong with evangelicals? The answer is that we have become worldly. We have abandoned the truths of the Bible and the historic theology of the church, which expresses those truths and are trying to do the work of God by means of the world’s theology, wisdom, methods and agenda instead. This does not mean that evangelicals have denied the Bible or have officially turned their backs on classic Christian doctrine necessarily. It is more the case that the Bible just does not have meaningful bearing on what we think and do – when we do understand it, and most of the time we do not.

The polls tell us that the gospel most contemporary evangelicals believe in is essentially God helping us to help ourselves. It has a lot to do with self-esteem, good mental attitudes and worldly success. There is not much preaching about sin, hell, judgment or the wrath of God, not to mention the great salvation doctrines such as reconciliation, redemption, propitiation, justification, the atonement, grace and even faith.

Lacking a sound, biblical and well understood theology, evangelicals have fallen prey to the pragmatism and consumerism of our times. Instead of calling God’s people to worship and serve God, and teaching them how to do it, we treat parishioners as buyers and think of marketing the gospel. A therapeutic worldview has replaced classical Christian categories such as sin and repentance, and many leaders have identified the gospel with such modern idols as a political philosophy, psychological views of man and sociology. To the extent that the doctrines of the Bible no longer guide preaching, teaching, publishing, evangelism, worship and the daily life of the people of God, evangelicalism has declined to become a movement that is shaped only by popular whim and sentimentality. To stand in awe of God once again, evangelicals must recognize these idols as idols and confess how much we have been taken captive by them…. Paramount among the truths evangelicals need to recover are the great Reformation doctrines summarized by the well-known solas (Latin for “only”): sola Scriptura, solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide and soli Deo Gloria.”

– Here We Stand – A Call from Confessing Evangelicals, 1998