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Promise Unfulfilled: The Failed Strategy of Modern Evangelicalism
The New Evangelicalism was conceived, if not born, with the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942. This new group was in the main led by younger professing fundamentalist scholars and leaders who had become dissatisfied with their heritage and wanted to carve out some evangelical middle ground between fundamentalism and neo-orthodoxy. Promise Unfulfilled is an analysis of the break-away movement in terms of the issues ideas, and practices that led to its beginning, its expansion to an apogee in the 1970s, its subsequent loss of biblical and doctrinal stability, and its slide toward virtual irrelevancy in a postmodern world culture of the 21st century.
The twenty-five chapters are grouped under nine main Historical Antecedents; the Formation of the New Evangelicalism; Ecumenism; Ecclesiastical Separation; The Bible and Authority; Apologetics; Social Involvement; Doctrinal Storms; and Evaluations and Prospects.
It will be a valuable addition to the pastor’s library and a strategic resource for theological education in Bible colleges and seminaries.
The twenty-five chapters are grouped under nine main Historical Antecedents; the Formation of the New Evangelicalism; Ecumenism; Ecclesiastical Separation; The Bible and Authority; Apologetics; Social Involvement; Doctrinal Storms; and Evaluations and Prospects.
It will be a valuable addition to the pastor’s library and a strategic resource for theological education in Bible colleges and seminaries.
418 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2004
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August 21, 2026
2 on weight. 2 on research. 1 on style. 2 on logic. 2 on affections. 4.5 stars.
McCune’s book in one sentence could be: the doctrine of ecclesiastical separation, not only from liberal and apostates, but also from true believers who refuse to separate from liberals and apostates, has led to much of the confusion, weakness, and apostasy in the American church. He had eight parts (nine if you include his conclusion). This seems to be the best defense of fundamentalism as opposed to ecumenism or new evangelicalism that I have read, though I had some significant disagreements.
Part 1: The Historical Antecedents
In this section, he uncovered the beginning of the controversy, how it first arose institutionally in mainline denominations, and how, initially, orthodox believers who fought compromise in every denomination became known as fundamentalists. His explanations of how postmillennialism and the social gospel hastened the apostasy in many circles is undoubtedly true. Once the focus turns from remaining faithful until the coming of the Lord, and turns to making the earth a better place, the church enters great danger. He also documents in this section the ascension of various fundamental associations.
Part 2: The Rise of New Evangelicalism
He next explored the rise of a movement called evangelicalism. Evangelical by the old definition simply meant the important elements of the faith—what we could define as the fundamentals. However, over time it morphed into something different—something which Billy Graham defined on page 63 of this book as “within every visible church there is a group of regenerated, dedicated disciples of Christ.”
Evangelicalism was pioneered as argumentatively distinct from fundamentalism by Carl Henry in the 1940s. Henry argued that fundamentalism had been overly militant, that it had been anti-intellectual, and that it separated from believers unnecessarily. Fundamentalism was further criticized because it underplayed the so-called importance of social involvement by the universal church. New evangelicalism thus arose as the antithesis to much of what fundamentalism stood for, while simultaneously trying to maintain all its personally orthodox doctrine.
Part 3: The Rise of Ecumenism
Ecumenism simply bears the idea of being universal, worldwide, or catholic. The core idea behind ecumenism is that conservative Christians should strive for unity with everyone else who claims to be Christian, even if theological disunity is present. It is not necessarily a movement in and of itself but is rather a facet of new evangelical thinking. As McCune demonstrates, very little scriptural support can be given to Ecumenism. However, pragmatically, it proved to be persuasive to many. The idea behind ecumenism is that through unifying with those with whom there is disagreement, a much larger platform can be adopted, and a more effective presentation of the Gospel be presented. However, some positive things coming from a union scarcely prove it to be scriptural. From Balaam, to Jehoshaphat, to Peter, association does bear great weight in the Lord’s assessment of an idea. Ecumenical evangelism, which occupies much of this section, must refrain from giving much needed warnings against apostasy, false doctrine, or foolish practices within the churches it fellowships.
Beyond the fact that ecumenical evangelism, while claiming that it does not attach any strings to its message, is bound not to pass judgment on a variety of issues, it also has not been as successful as hoped at leading people to be disciples of Christ. The Graham crusades, which McCune covers extensively, primarily filled compromised, failing, liberal, neo-orthodox, and modernist churches, rather than churches that held to the doctrines that Graham supposedly believed as integral.
Probably the most dangerous area of ecumenism came from the Charismatic movement. Up until the late 1950s, Charismaticism had remained chiefly in the Pentecostal and Assemblies of God Denominations. However, starting with some like Donald Greyhouse, and expanding to faculty in Fuller Theological Seminary, Evangelicals began to adopt an increasingly optimistic approach to the continuation of the gifts. Even Jerry Falwell, known in some fundamentalist circles, became linked with Pentecostalism when, as leader of the PTL organization, he placed Pentecostals and new evangelicals together on the board.
The most obvious compromise in contrast with historic Protestantism came from the Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) movement. Billy Graham was one of the first to pioneer it, with his crusades often adopting various denominational sponsors, formed partly by Catholic leaders. Groups like Falwell’s the Moral Majority attempted some union as well, but only at a social and societal level. The movement did not gain significant popularity from evangelicals until the 1990s. In 1994, an ECT coalition was formed, with an attempt to establish unity between all believers, as they thought. J. I. Packer and John Stott became influential in trying to promote the ECT movement. Later documents recommended the sharing of the Gospel from Evangelicals to Catholics, and vice versa, but they left open vital questions, like whether righteousness is imputed or infused, as well as the validity of sacramental thinking regarding certain works instituted by the Catholic Church.
Part 4: Ecclesiastical Separation
Ecclesiastical Separation, as defined on p.125, is the “withdrawal from a working relationship with an organization or religious leader that deviates from the standards of Scripture.” Evangelical avoidance of separation on an organizational level generally stems from the following three reasons: pragmatism, a failure to define apostasy, and the foolish notion of the impossibility of a pure church. All three of these are based on failed or sloppy exegesis. The clearest example is the misinterpretation of the parable of the wheat and the tares. Simply because the church will never remove all the tares does not mean it should tolerate known wolves! Repeatedly, the New Testament emphasis is on the purity, rather than the continually flawed nature of the church. McCune’s section on this passage properly analyzed the fallacies adopted by the New Evangelical approach in this regard.
He well defined the biblical support for ecclesiastical separation, as well as the categories of doctrines over which we should separate: heresy, alliances with apostates, organizational apostasy, and disobedient Christians. While his principles were generally correct, I disagree with some of his examples, most notably calling out John MacArthur. MacArthur waged war on the Charismatic movement, something virtually all new evangelical leaders ignored or shied away from addressing. He was one of the few mainline Christian leaders willing to take a strong stand against matters of social justice in 2021. He attacked vehemently from the outset the ECT movement. He has been a tiger against revivalism, open theism, theistic evolution, and even covenantal theology and its accompanying eschatological frameworks. He furthermore critiqued and separated from evangelicals like Tim Keller and J. I. Packer over such matters. To call him apathetic and lethargic (as McCune did) over separation because he won’t cut off John Piper for his quasi-charismaticism or because he associated with some Southern Baptists is exactly the hyper-separatism that got fundamentalism branded as extreme in the first place. I do not know of anyone who MacArthur had fellowship with during his life who denied a core historic doctrine of the faith, and many of those whom he did not fellowship with may have been born again, but because they held some serious error were not in his circles of close fellowship.
My view of ecclesiastical separation makes the Gospel like the border to a yard. Those who are outside the fence the church should have no fellowship with, because they deny something integral to salvation. Inside the fence, it can have varying degrees of fellowship. The more closely associated with an error or false teacher another believer has become, the more the church should distance fellowship with them. The looser the connection between them and doctrinal error or the false teacher, the closer fellowship they can have with them. I have always appreciated MacArthur’s discernment on this matter and was disappointed to read such strong statements from McCune. It seems that McCune makes the topic of separation far too black and white, when it would better be pictured as a strand of gradients towards error and away from it than a switch on or off.
Part 5: The Bible and Authority
His section on biblical revelation seemed helpful overall. One of the defining characteristics, both of historically Baptist and historically dispensational theology, has been the sufficiency, inerrancy, perspicuity, and preservation of scripture. Firstly, inspiration began to be redefined as varying in degree based on the extent to which the writer’s mind found his motivation and content from the divine mind. Inerrancy subsequently was abandoned as a litmus test of orthodoxy in evangelical circles. It became popular in among evangelicals to argue that the writers of scripture could have copied an errant source or that details (especially in narrative sections) could potentially be erroneous. Some argued that inerrancy is not possible because of the nature of human language, a position which does not seem to follow either logically or scripturally. Attempts at differentiating inerrancy from inspiration, furthermore, have become increasingly popular among new evangelicals, some arguing that inspiration could be maintained while inerrancy should be abandoned.
Part 6: Apologetics
This seemed to be the weakest section in the book, where he tried to call out Gordon Clark for leading to “all the deviations from Scripture that cursed new evangelical thought.” (p.223) Having read much about Clark, and analyzed his thought, there seem to be some weaknesses in this thinking, which McCune discussed at length. However, Van Til’s reaction to him (by calling him a heretic and removing him from Westminster Seminary) in the 1940s, and McCune’s brutal treatment of an otherwise orthodox view of apologetics are foolish at best. Few philosophical scholars of Clark’s weight can be listed who have defended scripture with such ardor, and Clark’s presuppositional thinking has been a major contribution to apologetics, which he seemed to pioneer even before Van Til. Time fails me to address all the weaknesses and fallacies, logically, scripturally, and in addressing quotes from Clark and Carnell that McCune makes in his analysis of Clark’s thought, but he simply was too strong, and should have spent time dealing with other compromises, and left his apologetic treatment for another work.
His conclusion, nonetheless, was helpful. He summarized much of the error with modern evangelical approaches to apologetics in the following sentence (p.228): “the vacuity of evangelical theology today can rightfully be traced to the loss of biblical inerrancy.”
Part 7: Social Involvement
This section was excellent and addressed the main weakness of New Evangelical thought as relates to the world in general. They have turned from preaching the Gospel and have instead begun preaching a Gospel of social involvement. While there are commands like Matt. 5:13-16 to allow our good deeds to shine and Jer. 29:7 to seek the welfare of the people among whom believers live, the overwhelming weight of New Testament revelation is on leading men to Christ, and abiding in the calling in which one was called, rather than political change, cultural redemption, or social involvement. Furthermore, the church is only obligated to take care of fellow believers, not the world in general and its concerns. McCune cites with much validity many passages that teach this.
I disagreed, however, with McCune’s wariness of progressive dispensationalism. How one can adopt with any kind of commitment that every reference to the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is a reference to the future millennial kingdom of Christ seems to stretch the meanings of certain passages. For example, when Christ says that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, was that merely a millennial offer? When he says prostitutes would enter the kingdom of heaven before the Pharisees, or that it would be taken and given to a people bearing fruit, can it be maintained that this is a reference only to the future millennial kingdom? In fact, it seems like some form of Progressive dispensationalism (MacArthur would call it leaky dispensationalism) is needed to avoid pedantic interpretations that could marginalize the meanings of these passages.
Part 8: Doctrinal Storms
Finally, McCune analyzed some severe doctrinal deviations that have overtaken modern evangelicalism. The eternal status of the unevangelized, the eternal status of the unregenerate, and modern deviations from the historic view of God’s omniscience into open theism are all examples of the slippery slope to which evangelicals can become susceptible when separation is not maintained. There are many erroneous views, from annihilationism, to universalism, to the second chance theory, to conditional immortality that McCune addresses decisively.
The clear stand that McCune took on human depravity and divine sovereignty was commendable. Total depravity, while not historically one of the fundamentals, is close to it, and those who deny it lend themselves to a great many dangers. In his section on Open Theism, he explains how it can only result from the notion of a spontaneously self-determining free will (and some would argue is a necessary consequence). This foolish view is dealt a decisive blow in Edwards’s treatise on the subject where he shows it to be illogical, and in Luther’s, where he shows it to be unscriptural, and finally now McCune has now shown it to be dangerous theologically. I would add that Middle Knowledge (which seems to be the only philosophical alternative to Open Theism in a Pelagian framework for God’s foreknowledge and predestination) is almost equally dangerous and should be avoided by evangelicals.
Conclusion
While nuance exists on these matters, and individual church should avoid a blazing separation from everyone they disagree with (I would be surprised if one in ten thousand theologians could agree with everything as written in this book), this book is a helpful wake-up call to the compromise of modern evangelicalism. McCune did not even address what seems to be the greater danger of evangelicalism, which it an ongoing infatuation with the world, not only in its thinking but in its lifestyle and conduct. The church needs another trumpet blast from godly pastors, shepherds, and leaders who will both separate from unbiblical practice and doctrine and call out fellow brothers who refuse full separation from apostates, heretics, and those who ultimately love this world.
McCune’s book in one sentence could be: the doctrine of ecclesiastical separation, not only from liberal and apostates, but also from true believers who refuse to separate from liberals and apostates, has led to much of the confusion, weakness, and apostasy in the American church. He had eight parts (nine if you include his conclusion). This seems to be the best defense of fundamentalism as opposed to ecumenism or new evangelicalism that I have read, though I had some significant disagreements.
Part 1: The Historical Antecedents
In this section, he uncovered the beginning of the controversy, how it first arose institutionally in mainline denominations, and how, initially, orthodox believers who fought compromise in every denomination became known as fundamentalists. His explanations of how postmillennialism and the social gospel hastened the apostasy in many circles is undoubtedly true. Once the focus turns from remaining faithful until the coming of the Lord, and turns to making the earth a better place, the church enters great danger. He also documents in this section the ascension of various fundamental associations.
Part 2: The Rise of New Evangelicalism
He next explored the rise of a movement called evangelicalism. Evangelical by the old definition simply meant the important elements of the faith—what we could define as the fundamentals. However, over time it morphed into something different—something which Billy Graham defined on page 63 of this book as “within every visible church there is a group of regenerated, dedicated disciples of Christ.”
Evangelicalism was pioneered as argumentatively distinct from fundamentalism by Carl Henry in the 1940s. Henry argued that fundamentalism had been overly militant, that it had been anti-intellectual, and that it separated from believers unnecessarily. Fundamentalism was further criticized because it underplayed the so-called importance of social involvement by the universal church. New evangelicalism thus arose as the antithesis to much of what fundamentalism stood for, while simultaneously trying to maintain all its personally orthodox doctrine.
Part 3: The Rise of Ecumenism
Ecumenism simply bears the idea of being universal, worldwide, or catholic. The core idea behind ecumenism is that conservative Christians should strive for unity with everyone else who claims to be Christian, even if theological disunity is present. It is not necessarily a movement in and of itself but is rather a facet of new evangelical thinking. As McCune demonstrates, very little scriptural support can be given to Ecumenism. However, pragmatically, it proved to be persuasive to many. The idea behind ecumenism is that through unifying with those with whom there is disagreement, a much larger platform can be adopted, and a more effective presentation of the Gospel be presented. However, some positive things coming from a union scarcely prove it to be scriptural. From Balaam, to Jehoshaphat, to Peter, association does bear great weight in the Lord’s assessment of an idea. Ecumenical evangelism, which occupies much of this section, must refrain from giving much needed warnings against apostasy, false doctrine, or foolish practices within the churches it fellowships.
Beyond the fact that ecumenical evangelism, while claiming that it does not attach any strings to its message, is bound not to pass judgment on a variety of issues, it also has not been as successful as hoped at leading people to be disciples of Christ. The Graham crusades, which McCune covers extensively, primarily filled compromised, failing, liberal, neo-orthodox, and modernist churches, rather than churches that held to the doctrines that Graham supposedly believed as integral.
Probably the most dangerous area of ecumenism came from the Charismatic movement. Up until the late 1950s, Charismaticism had remained chiefly in the Pentecostal and Assemblies of God Denominations. However, starting with some like Donald Greyhouse, and expanding to faculty in Fuller Theological Seminary, Evangelicals began to adopt an increasingly optimistic approach to the continuation of the gifts. Even Jerry Falwell, known in some fundamentalist circles, became linked with Pentecostalism when, as leader of the PTL organization, he placed Pentecostals and new evangelicals together on the board.
The most obvious compromise in contrast with historic Protestantism came from the Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) movement. Billy Graham was one of the first to pioneer it, with his crusades often adopting various denominational sponsors, formed partly by Catholic leaders. Groups like Falwell’s the Moral Majority attempted some union as well, but only at a social and societal level. The movement did not gain significant popularity from evangelicals until the 1990s. In 1994, an ECT coalition was formed, with an attempt to establish unity between all believers, as they thought. J. I. Packer and John Stott became influential in trying to promote the ECT movement. Later documents recommended the sharing of the Gospel from Evangelicals to Catholics, and vice versa, but they left open vital questions, like whether righteousness is imputed or infused, as well as the validity of sacramental thinking regarding certain works instituted by the Catholic Church.
Part 4: Ecclesiastical Separation
Ecclesiastical Separation, as defined on p.125, is the “withdrawal from a working relationship with an organization or religious leader that deviates from the standards of Scripture.” Evangelical avoidance of separation on an organizational level generally stems from the following three reasons: pragmatism, a failure to define apostasy, and the foolish notion of the impossibility of a pure church. All three of these are based on failed or sloppy exegesis. The clearest example is the misinterpretation of the parable of the wheat and the tares. Simply because the church will never remove all the tares does not mean it should tolerate known wolves! Repeatedly, the New Testament emphasis is on the purity, rather than the continually flawed nature of the church. McCune’s section on this passage properly analyzed the fallacies adopted by the New Evangelical approach in this regard.
He well defined the biblical support for ecclesiastical separation, as well as the categories of doctrines over which we should separate: heresy, alliances with apostates, organizational apostasy, and disobedient Christians. While his principles were generally correct, I disagree with some of his examples, most notably calling out John MacArthur. MacArthur waged war on the Charismatic movement, something virtually all new evangelical leaders ignored or shied away from addressing. He was one of the few mainline Christian leaders willing to take a strong stand against matters of social justice in 2021. He attacked vehemently from the outset the ECT movement. He has been a tiger against revivalism, open theism, theistic evolution, and even covenantal theology and its accompanying eschatological frameworks. He furthermore critiqued and separated from evangelicals like Tim Keller and J. I. Packer over such matters. To call him apathetic and lethargic (as McCune did) over separation because he won’t cut off John Piper for his quasi-charismaticism or because he associated with some Southern Baptists is exactly the hyper-separatism that got fundamentalism branded as extreme in the first place. I do not know of anyone who MacArthur had fellowship with during his life who denied a core historic doctrine of the faith, and many of those whom he did not fellowship with may have been born again, but because they held some serious error were not in his circles of close fellowship.
My view of ecclesiastical separation makes the Gospel like the border to a yard. Those who are outside the fence the church should have no fellowship with, because they deny something integral to salvation. Inside the fence, it can have varying degrees of fellowship. The more closely associated with an error or false teacher another believer has become, the more the church should distance fellowship with them. The looser the connection between them and doctrinal error or the false teacher, the closer fellowship they can have with them. I have always appreciated MacArthur’s discernment on this matter and was disappointed to read such strong statements from McCune. It seems that McCune makes the topic of separation far too black and white, when it would better be pictured as a strand of gradients towards error and away from it than a switch on or off.
Part 5: The Bible and Authority
His section on biblical revelation seemed helpful overall. One of the defining characteristics, both of historically Baptist and historically dispensational theology, has been the sufficiency, inerrancy, perspicuity, and preservation of scripture. Firstly, inspiration began to be redefined as varying in degree based on the extent to which the writer’s mind found his motivation and content from the divine mind. Inerrancy subsequently was abandoned as a litmus test of orthodoxy in evangelical circles. It became popular in among evangelicals to argue that the writers of scripture could have copied an errant source or that details (especially in narrative sections) could potentially be erroneous. Some argued that inerrancy is not possible because of the nature of human language, a position which does not seem to follow either logically or scripturally. Attempts at differentiating inerrancy from inspiration, furthermore, have become increasingly popular among new evangelicals, some arguing that inspiration could be maintained while inerrancy should be abandoned.
Part 6: Apologetics
This seemed to be the weakest section in the book, where he tried to call out Gordon Clark for leading to “all the deviations from Scripture that cursed new evangelical thought.” (p.223) Having read much about Clark, and analyzed his thought, there seem to be some weaknesses in this thinking, which McCune discussed at length. However, Van Til’s reaction to him (by calling him a heretic and removing him from Westminster Seminary) in the 1940s, and McCune’s brutal treatment of an otherwise orthodox view of apologetics are foolish at best. Few philosophical scholars of Clark’s weight can be listed who have defended scripture with such ardor, and Clark’s presuppositional thinking has been a major contribution to apologetics, which he seemed to pioneer even before Van Til. Time fails me to address all the weaknesses and fallacies, logically, scripturally, and in addressing quotes from Clark and Carnell that McCune makes in his analysis of Clark’s thought, but he simply was too strong, and should have spent time dealing with other compromises, and left his apologetic treatment for another work.
His conclusion, nonetheless, was helpful. He summarized much of the error with modern evangelical approaches to apologetics in the following sentence (p.228): “the vacuity of evangelical theology today can rightfully be traced to the loss of biblical inerrancy.”
Part 7: Social Involvement
This section was excellent and addressed the main weakness of New Evangelical thought as relates to the world in general. They have turned from preaching the Gospel and have instead begun preaching a Gospel of social involvement. While there are commands like Matt. 5:13-16 to allow our good deeds to shine and Jer. 29:7 to seek the welfare of the people among whom believers live, the overwhelming weight of New Testament revelation is on leading men to Christ, and abiding in the calling in which one was called, rather than political change, cultural redemption, or social involvement. Furthermore, the church is only obligated to take care of fellow believers, not the world in general and its concerns. McCune cites with much validity many passages that teach this.
I disagreed, however, with McCune’s wariness of progressive dispensationalism. How one can adopt with any kind of commitment that every reference to the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is a reference to the future millennial kingdom of Christ seems to stretch the meanings of certain passages. For example, when Christ says that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, was that merely a millennial offer? When he says prostitutes would enter the kingdom of heaven before the Pharisees, or that it would be taken and given to a people bearing fruit, can it be maintained that this is a reference only to the future millennial kingdom? In fact, it seems like some form of Progressive dispensationalism (MacArthur would call it leaky dispensationalism) is needed to avoid pedantic interpretations that could marginalize the meanings of these passages.
Part 8: Doctrinal Storms
Finally, McCune analyzed some severe doctrinal deviations that have overtaken modern evangelicalism. The eternal status of the unevangelized, the eternal status of the unregenerate, and modern deviations from the historic view of God’s omniscience into open theism are all examples of the slippery slope to which evangelicals can become susceptible when separation is not maintained. There are many erroneous views, from annihilationism, to universalism, to the second chance theory, to conditional immortality that McCune addresses decisively.
The clear stand that McCune took on human depravity and divine sovereignty was commendable. Total depravity, while not historically one of the fundamentals, is close to it, and those who deny it lend themselves to a great many dangers. In his section on Open Theism, he explains how it can only result from the notion of a spontaneously self-determining free will (and some would argue is a necessary consequence). This foolish view is dealt a decisive blow in Edwards’s treatise on the subject where he shows it to be illogical, and in Luther’s, where he shows it to be unscriptural, and finally now McCune has now shown it to be dangerous theologically. I would add that Middle Knowledge (which seems to be the only philosophical alternative to Open Theism in a Pelagian framework for God’s foreknowledge and predestination) is almost equally dangerous and should be avoided by evangelicals.
Conclusion
While nuance exists on these matters, and individual church should avoid a blazing separation from everyone they disagree with (I would be surprised if one in ten thousand theologians could agree with everything as written in this book), this book is a helpful wake-up call to the compromise of modern evangelicalism. McCune did not even address what seems to be the greater danger of evangelicalism, which it an ongoing infatuation with the world, not only in its thinking but in its lifestyle and conduct. The church needs another trumpet blast from godly pastors, shepherds, and leaders who will both separate from unbiblical practice and doctrine and call out fellow brothers who refuse full separation from apostates, heretics, and those who ultimately love this world.
August 24, 2018
I appreciate that McCune was willing to take on the compromise and downgrade of New Evangelicalism (which bled over into what is often called “New Calvinism”, as well, though it has little in common with the historic confessional Reformed Faith). He highlights a number of places where some of the evangelical heroes—Barnhouse, Stott, and Graham—so badly led other last astray.
This is not a dour book, despite its depressing subject matter. In places, McCune tends to wander a bit, and is not as clear as one would like. Overall, however, this is an important book to read in understanding part of why the present church is still feeling the terrible effects of embracing worldly philosophies, pragmatism, and ecumenism. For a more Reformed view, “Evangelicalism Divided” by Murray would be an excellent pick.
This is not a dour book, despite its depressing subject matter. In places, McCune tends to wander a bit, and is not as clear as one would like. Overall, however, this is an important book to read in understanding part of why the present church is still feeling the terrible effects of embracing worldly philosophies, pragmatism, and ecumenism. For a more Reformed view, “Evangelicalism Divided” by Murray would be an excellent pick.
September 28, 2018
This book is a significant analysis of the downgrade of New Evangelicalism. Dr. McCune looks at a number of places where some of the evangelical heroes—Barnhouse, Stott, and Graham—so badly led the evangelical movement astray. Dr. McCune also helps us reappreciate the importance of the fundamentalist movement as a repository for Biblical truth. If you want to understand why the wider evangelical churches have suffered under the consequences of abandoning the authority of scripture, worldliness, pragmatism, and ecumenism, this is the book for you. It could be read very profitably alongside Iain Murray's “Evangelicalism Divided” and John MacArthur's "Ashamed of the Gospel."
October 14, 2018
Read for ministry residency at Stanley Heights Baptist Church.
April 19, 2020
Sectarian hostility and vague posturing stains this otherwise excellent piece of historiographical research. McCune excellently dismantles how Evangelicalism is perceived versus what Evangelicalism actually is and was historically. His clear writing and criticism will help clear the fog of Evangelicalism, which often feels like it's lost in a cloud of unknowing. McCune however, as an outsider, seems to be unable to distinguish personalities like John MacArthur from Carl F. Henry from one another. For that reason, it is perhaps best to think of this book as a book of "wisdom" or "movement analysis" than strictly history. The book would have greatly benefitted had McCune made it clear that Neo-Evangelicalism has strengths as well as weaknesses. The lack of (often important) historical nuances, however, does not change the value of McCune's critical analysis of Neo-Evangelicalism. You'll walk away with a much clearer understanding that much of the Neo-Evangelical world is a severely diluted successor to historical Evangelicalism.
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March 8, 20020155
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