Is Evangelicalism Dead? On the Troubling Rise of "Pure Doctrine" and the Loss of Theological Triage

The Christian message has a salting effect upon the earth.

—Carl F. H. Henry

It was an audacious thing, and it changed the world. The “neo-evangelical” project launched by theologian Carl F. H. Henry, pastor Harold Ockenga, and evangelist Billy Graham (shaking hands in the above image) attempted nothing less than the repositioning of doctrinally conservative American Christianity. Neither liberals nor legalists, the neo-evangelicals tried in the postwar years to build a new movement anchored in gospel identity and gospel partnership.

In the 1940s, they had no time to waste. In this decade, Henry wrote The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947), a corker of a book that set the agenda for the evangelical approach. Graham toured the world, preaching up a storm, a veritable one-man missions society. From his perch on Boston Common, Ockenga pastored the venerable Park Street Church, even as he served as the first president of both Fuller Theological Seminary (founded in 1947) and the National Association of Evangelicals (founded in 1942).

Neither Liberal Nor Legalistic: The “Neo-Evangelicals”

The neo-evangelicals had energy and vision to burn. But their foremost burden was theological. They cut their teeth in the era when Protestant liberalism overtook many Baptist and Presbyterian churches alike; Ockenga, for example, was personally mentored by J. Gresham Machen, the single most important conservative leader in the epochal fundamentalist-modernist controversy. Ockenga watched as Machen was unjustly marginalized in the PCUSA in the late 1920s, but refused to accept defeat.

With incredible fortitude and perseverance, Machen created a suite of ministries and organizations. These include several that are vibrant today, nearly 100 years later, not least of them Westminster Theological Seminary (founded in 1929). This example was deeply instructive to Ockenga; it showed him that when a denomination and its institutions lost the light of the gospel, one did not throw up a white flag, but created new wineskins for the new wine of the new covenant.

Yet the neo-evangelicals did not only react to the left. They responded to the far right as well. Initially, the term “fundamentalist” was something of a badge of honor, signifying in the 1920s that a given Christian was not ashamed of the “the fundamentals” of biblical Christianity—biblical miracles, penal substitutionary atonement, an authoritative Scripture, and more.

The Fighting Fundamentalists

The fundamentalists initially fought liberalism, to their everlasting credit. In addition, when Billy Graham unwisely included modernist leaders in his evangelistic “crusades” (seeking to draw adherents of more liberal associations), they spoke against this decision. The fundamentalists had orthodox instincts and a desire to honor God’s truth. They brooked no compromise.

Yet the fundamentalists also failed to watch themselves carefully, as we all must do (1 Tim. 4:16). The spirit that led the fundamentalists to separate from unsound doctrine grew—over time—into the sense that the church of Christ was very nearly overtaken by godlessness. Only a few remained, and these few adopted a mindset of separation from the evangelical movement. Once they rightly practiced a responsive posture, engaging falsehood with truth, but in the postwar years, they generally adopted what is best called a reactionary posture.

A reactionary posture is in actuality a program of over-reaction. Here are some examples of such a mindset. Academically, the nascent “fundamentalists” not only disagreed with certain tenets of modernist theological seminaries, but came to distrust advanced academic training altogether. Behaviorally, the fundamentalists not only sought modesty of appearance and purity of conduct, but came to mandate certain holiness codes of dress and rules of decorum (women in skirts, boys in suits).

Domestically, the fundamentalists and their heirs formed “systems” and “methods” for parenting and the family that promised a Christian oasis. There is a “worldly way” to train kids and there is a “Christian way,” and the “Christian way” involved a home driven by many rules and a certain foolproof program of authority and obedience. Organizationally, the fundamentalists developed the model of “second-degree” separation, leaving themselves with precious few allies and peers.

The fundamentalist movement got some things notably right. Children do need to be trained to obey their parents, as one example (from the backdrop of grace). Yet over time, the strength of the fundamentalists became their weakness. Their recalcitrance developed into a hardened negativity as the “fighting fundamentalists” not only battled genuine heretics, but one another. They alone guarded the flame of “pure” Christianity; they alone faithfully protected the church against “impure” Christians.

As the 1950s and 60s wore on, the conservative Christian world increasingly became an inchoate mass of tribes, not unlike the day of judges in the Old Testament. “Fundamentalism” came to represent, justifiably, not simply a body of ideas, but a form of Christianity that—in at least a good number of cases—signaled exclusion, separation, lack of gospel partnership, strict legalism, and a vision of God grounded in anger over widespread disobedience.

The Evangelical Instinct: Carl Henry, R. C. Sproul, and John MacArthur

Back in the 1930s and 40s, the neo-evangelicals desired a better way than this. They desired a cultural theology that did not merely say “no” to what was problematic, but “yes” to what was good, true, and beautiful. They wanted unity and cooperation in the name of Christ. They desired a church that did not merely rail at a fallen world, but that pressed into the darkness as the light of Christ, loving unbelievers through the ministry of gospel truth.

So, as profiled in this book, the neo-evangelicals built. They did so not by front-loading what they disagreed about, but by uniting around common doctrinal confession. They sought partnership, not fracturing. In so doing, the neo-evangelicals laid the groundwork for the future “gospel-centered” explosion of the early 21st-century, as they created something shockingly rare in evangelical history: a framework for cooperation.

Their efforts at Fuller Seminary notably did not pan out. However, though the neo-evangelical project faltered at Fuller and elsewhere, its influence did not disappear. The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (1978-81) was a clear sign of this, as conservative Protestant Christians who did not often mingle came together to formulate the first and second Chicago Statements, important documents that planted a flag in the ground for revelational authority.

Beyond this, in the Reformed world, various networks were built in the 1980s and 90s that came to fruition in the “gospel-centered” ministries of the 2000s. The James Boice-led Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, for example, presaged Together for the Gospel, helmed by influential pastor Mark Dever (2006-22), which did so much to shape me and a generation of young evangelicals.

Though largely forgotten today, Carl F. H. Henry was the godfather of all of this. Henry was the first editor of Christianity Today, taking that role at age 43 (1956-68). Henry was a member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D. C., and helped usher Mark Dever into that church’s pastorate. Henry mentored R. Albert Mohler, Jr., in the decade before Mohler assumed the presidency of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Henry taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for years, crossing paths with many of the key thinkers and leaders of the future “gospel-centered” resurgence.

This last contributor is a very important element of the Reformed Resurgence. Friendship played a big role in it, friendship that was less mere acquaintance and more genuine fellowship borne of the gospel of Christ. No single relationship more symbolized the newness of the Reformed Resurgence than the unlikely camaraderie of R. C. Sproul, dean of the covenant theologians, and John MacArthur, lion of the tribe of dispensationalists.

After working together on the inerrantist cause, Sproul and MacArthur built a brotherly relationship that represented a notable change from the covenant-dispensationalist wars of past days. Instead of lobbing grenades at one another over high fences, these tribal chieftains found ways to unite. They played golf together. They teased one another. In their public interactions, Sproul and MacArthur seemed normal, likeable, and downright funny.

To be sure, each man had sharp elbows and a readiness to show up at doctrinal High Noon. Yet these men also found ways to signal that they alone were not the Last Remaining True Christian on Planet Earth. Even amidst standing disagreement on different matters, they chose to build a friendship grounded in Christ. In this respect, Sproul and MacArthur (and many other Reformed evangelicals, as I call them) have left us a worthwhile example.

Theological Triage: The Silent Partner in the Reformed Resurgence

Such friendships were helped along by a tremendously underappreciated concept: “theological triage.” This brilliant concept was developed and popularized by Al Mohler, who learned its essential elements from Carl Henry. As Mohler codified it, theological triage meant that Christian doctrine was understood in "first-order," "second-order," and "third-order" terms.

This was not a minimization of truth. Instead, it was a recognition (a correct one) that some doctrines in Scripture are especially central to the Christian faith (“first-order” truths dealing with salvific gospel confession), whereas there is room for exegetically-driven disagreement on others. Here is how Mohler lined out “second-order” doctrine in 2005; I will quote him at some length so as to display the depth of deep wisdom here.

In recent years, the issue of women serving as pastors has emerged as another second-order issue. Again, a church or denomination either will ordain women to the pastorate, or it will not. Second-order issues resist easy settlement by those who would prefer an either/or approach. Many of the most heated disagreements among serious believers take place at the second-order level, for these issues frame our understanding of the church and its ordering by the Word of God.

Here, accordingly, is how Mohler conceptualized “third-order” doctrines:

Third-order issues are doctrines over which Christians may disagree and remain in close fellowship, even within local congregations. I would put most of the debates over eschatology, for example, in this category. Christians who affirm the bodily, historical, and victorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ may differ over timetable and sequence without rupturing the fellowship of the church. Christians may find themselves in disagreement over any number of issues related to the interpretation of difficult texts or the understanding of matters of common disagreement. Nevertheless, standing together on issues of more urgent importance, believers are able to accept one another without compromise when third-order issues are in question.

It is not too much to say that “theological triage” as mapped out here (and elsewhere by like-minded believers) helped advance the “Reformed Resurgence” of roughly 2000-2018. Evangelical theology flowered in this era; church planting exploded in America and across the world; Christians who formerly stuck to their tribe now found it possible to regard believers of other groups as genuine members of Christ’s family.

Strange and wonderful things happened in this time. Presbyterians entered into fellowship with Baptists (gasp!); young Anglican priests met with non-denominational church planters for monthly lunches; Reformed continuationists like John Piper joined forces with Bible Church cessationists to call preachers to biblical ministry, not professionalized performance.

This was a harvest, a feast-season, of the gospel. Rooted in gospel identity, gospel partnership flowered in a thousand directions. Theological triage helped make possible unity that previous generations of Reformed Christians sadly had not known. Amazingly, the Reformed evangelicals (my term for the group in question, neither fundamentalist nor anti-confessional) achieved—for a time, at least—what the Protestant Reformers could not.

The Reformers’ Shocking Failure to Unite

This last sentence makes quite a claim. Weren’t the Reformers unified in doctrine and practice? At the level of theology, yes, they were united around what we call “first-order” doctrine. However, beyond this, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and many others tried to unite in the 16th-century, but could not do so. At the Marburg Colloquy, the Reformers famously could not find agreement over the nature of the Lord’s Supper. They came close to gospel partnership, but could not pull it off.

In nuanced historical analysis, the Reformers’ differences were not as great as they might have thought; as proven by expert theologian Bruce Ware in this book, the “memorial” view held by Zwingli, for example, was actually far closer to the “spiritual presence” position of Calvin than some thought. Yet because the Reformers did not have a framework like “theological triage,” they could not link up in a thick way in their day. Their differences—which were not first-order differences—ended up magnified.

This is not an uncommon problem. Across the centuries of Christian history, it is a regular occurrence. Christians have rarely had a defined program by which to handle disagreement well and unite in appropriate ways. The normative experience of Christians is much closer to the fundamentalist approach: it is to think of oneself and one’s tribe as “pure” and uncompromised, and other Christians as “impure” and one step away from heresy itself.

The Troubling Spread of “Pure/Impure” Doctrinal Engagement

This is what has happened in recent years. After the “Reformed Resurgence” lost its momentum for a number of reasons, we have witnessed the rise of what you could call “Doctrinal Fundamentalism.” I’ll call it “Theological Separatism,” and it operates under the banner of the “pure/impure” framework practiced by the fundamentalists.

In the “pure/impure” grid, balance is severely compromised. Instead of keeping doctrinal disagreement in perspective, nearly everything rates as “first-order” doctrine. “Pure” theology makes all theology a purity test. It collapses the gray areas of doctrine and removes all traces of mystery from Christian theology. Humility is out, because any recognition of disagreement is a tacit acceptance of “impure” theology, and thus a sure sign of compromise.

The “pure doctrine” approach unwittingly poisons the entire enterprise of evangelical theology. People who agree about 99.8% of all theology end up like Sicilian warlords, facing off against one another in public streets, their tribe lining up behind them for the latest social-media fracas. If someone on the Internet happens to post something that differs from the “pure” consensus, a dog whistle goes out, and within minutes, the guardians of “pure doctrine” show up, ready to battle.

The “pure doctrine” approach also changes pedagogy. Instead of teaching students biblical truth, but reasoning from Scripture first to do so (with historical theology as a great supporting witness), “pure doctrine” tells students the right theology to hold. It summons them to hold the right view, giving them the “theological grammar” they need to speak in order to land on the right side of the pure/impure divide. It warns students in summary terms about reading voices on the other side; this is not merely a matter of disagreement, but a matter of holding to “pure” doctrine, after all.

Impressionable seminarians are shaped by such a model. They do not learn to reason from the Scriptures, doing so in conversation with Christ’s church over the ages. Nor do they benefit from having their professor work out, with real care, why he arrives at the view he does (even as he scrupulously strives to present the other side in a fair way). Instead, again, they are fed the right view, with the right language and all the right implications spelled out.

Students aren’t so much taught in this system. Given approved reading lists with the the wrong theologians crossed out and the “right” authors highlighted in yellow, they are force-fed. In this system, they are not formed into fellow Christian thinkers and doers of the Word. They become foot-soldiers in the armed movement of “pure” doctrine. They graduate ready to fight, ready to police lines, ready to attack “impure” voices.

They have been trained, in fact, to read fellow conservative evangelicals as more dangerous than outright liberals and heretics, for at least heretics are obviously wrong. “Impure” conservatives are subtly wrong in hard-to-spot ways, so one must war against them with nearly unbridled zeal and unrestrained ferocity. The purity of “pure” doctrine is at hand, after all; every engagement is seemingly a repristination of the Diet of Worms, and the “pure” theologians are squarely on the side of Luther.

In the simplest spiritual terms, the separatistic “pure/impure” framework has wreaked havoc on theological exchange. Like a cavity killing a tooth from the inside, a spirit of pride has taken root in Christian seminaries and colleges. The endless battles of “pure” doctrine that have resulted have left many Christians confused.

Few believers, after all, have a deep background in medieval theology; few pastors have the time to track the internecine squabbles of academic theologians. Most of the time, normal Christians don’t even know what ivory-tower types are fighting over, let alone have a position on the issues in question (and the issues in question are commonly second-order or third-order issues).

This same spirit of pride has spread to the broader ministry world. The shift to “pure ministry” epitomized by one’s tribe has thrown a heavy blanket on evangelical unity and gospel partnership. It has led Christians to disdain unity in Christ as effeminate, to think that only a precious few believers are actually saved, and to fight one another endlessly, duped into thinking that incessant quarrelsomeness is godly.

Recovering a Spirit of Gospel Partnership Today

In sketching all of this, let us be clear about doctrinal essentialism. There are stands that must be taken. There are lines that must be drawn. Theological triage comprehends all this with its "first-order" category. Yet this system helps us all so much, because it refuses to read all issues as equally clearly outlined in the Bible, nor as equally central to the burning heart of regenerated Christianity.

Theological triage (which is really just Christ’s prayer in John 17 for unity among his people applied to doctrinal engagement) does us convictional types a wonderful service. It makes it possible for us to come together in some form of gospel partnership, but not dissolve our beliefs into a soupy, squishy mass. We can be men and women of conviction, but also—and equally—men and women of warm-hearted cooperation.

I thought about all of this harvest of the gospel when I saw the news of the closing of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Several years back, I had the privilege and the joy of doing my PhD in Theology at TEDS. TEDS was a little broader on doctrine than I was, yes, but I nonetheless profited a great deal from the school. The faculty were gracious and gifted people, the classroom experience was invigorating, and I liked the evangelical project the school attempted to carry out.

Fast forward to today. According to reports, TEDS as we have known it is no more. The school dreamed up by Kenneth Kantzer now recedes into evangelical memory, a detail for future book chapters about the 20th-century. (Kantzer is largely unknown today, but was a key neo-evangelical who studied at Harvard like many others of his ilk. I wrote about all when I was a TEDS student, and my research eventually took public form in my monograph Awakening the Evangelical Mind).

The campus that brought Carl Henry out (and housed his papers), that featured the sterling New Testament scholarship of D. A. Carson, that assembled a murderer’s row of a faculty by the 1990s (among them Grudem, Vanhoozer, Bullmore, Ortlund, Ware, Harold O. J. Brown, Moo, and more), and that launched The Gospel Coalition is now a relic of the past.

Is Evangelicalism Dead?

At moments like this, it’s fair to ask a tough question: is evangelicalism dead? I don’t ask this in a cheeky mindset. I ask it in soberness and no small amount of sadness. All these great works, all this momentous efforts, all these seemingly faithful leaders, and here we are in 2025, with no small number of our historic institutions dying. But I don’t merely mean to point to certain works. I mean something much bigger: is the evangelical spirit dead?

Here is my very quick answer: no, evangelicalism is not dead. It is true that many of our key institutions may have gone away or in some form changed, even as many of our notable leaders may have gone home to glory or be on the doorstep of heaven. We feel the loss of these men keenly today. But despite their moving on, I do not believe that the evangelical spirit—the evangelical instinct to find gospel identity and gospel partnership—is dead and buried.

We really can go back to gospel identity and gospel partnership. Here is a major way to come back to the good paths: we can practice theological triage once again. In humility and charity, we can resist a separatist mindset that tempts all of us. Instead of calling our own theology and practice “pure,” and that of those who disagree with us “impure,” we can embrace gospel identity once more.

On this count, when I had Theological Prolegomena with Kevin Vanhoozer at TEDS, by the way, he started his class with several sessions on the “theological virtues,” urging us to choose charity, humility, and carefulness over pride and tribalism and reflexive defensiveness. We’re all a work in progress with regard to this progression, me included. But this sort of model is doable. It’s possible in the Spirit.

It’s possible because the gospel frees us not only from eternal judgment, but from vocational insecurity and defensive competitiveness. When we comprehend just how greatly we are loved by God in Christ (Ephesians 1:3-14; 3:14-21), we are liberated to rejoice when others succeed (Romans 12:15). The thriving of other groups does not rile us; it does not summon us to lash out at others, jealously trying to hack away at their kingdom while making ours bigger.

This is so often what is happening when we operate in a separatist or legalistic mindset. We are operating from a heart that is not truly God-centered. As a result, at the functional level (even if we’re a born-again Christian), we live in insecurity. Our heart is following an idol, and in that pursuit, we treat our cause, our doctrinal system, our camp, our tribe, our behavioral code, or our legalistic program as if it’s the true and rightful focus of our devotion and adoration and zeal and—ultimately—worship.

That’s what we do, in the end: we worship that which is not God. We can do this with most anything, even good gifts of God. We can make a document, a book, a denomination, a local church, a spouse, a child, a bank account, a reputation, or a parachurch ministry an idol. It consumes us; it controls us (at least functionally); it commands our time, our attention, and our passions.

Again, you can easily do all this not merely with bad things but with good things. The idolatry is easy to spot when we’re dealing with physically bowing before a pagan shrine; it is much harder to spot when you’re ostensibly devoted to ministry or your children or your confessional tribe. But mark these words: idolizing good things is no less evil than idolizing bad things. Satan, in fact, specializes in getting Christians to do the latter such that they end up losing everything they have after seemingly (on the surface) devoting themselves to good ends.

Praise God, there is an antidote for this evil alchemy. It is an incredibly powerful antidote, the most powerful force on earth. It is gospel grace. When the gospel truly has hold of you, it does not create in you either a severe spirit or an antinomian slipperiness. The true saving gospel creates in us opposite instincts to these, filling us with charity, humility, and what we call biblical balance.

This is so important with regard to evangelical theology and evangelical ministry. The gospel makes us people who think deeply, converse widely, read broadly, and reason intensely. We form convictions, absolutely, but we do so in love—and both our method and manner should be loving, as loving as possible (Ephesians 4:15; Titus 3:2). In forming these convictions, furthermore, we are not doing so out of insecurity, because we need a group to join so that we have something to worship.

We form convictions so that we can know God better, and thus experience the joy of worshipping him in spirit and truth all the more (John 4:24). Doctrine is not for self; ministry is not for reputation; God’s truth is given us for joy (Hebrews 12:2).

Conclusion: The Massive Opportunity Before Us

Recent years have witnessed serious drift in Reformed and conservative circles. As we reckon with these trends, we do well to study the neo-evangelical instinct. In doing so, we have an opportunity to return to the old ways and the good paths. We can build bridges back to one another, prioritizing gospel doctrine to unite for gospel advancement while never treating second-order or third-order convictions as if they are adiaphora.

We can practice theological triage again, both in the classroom and in the conference hall. We can recover gospel identity in order to enjoy gospel fellowship once more. By the grace of God, we build something richer and deeper together than we would do alone, something beautiful, something living, vividly gospel-oriented. Something we call gospel partnership borne of gospel unity.

As it was in past days, so may it be again.

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Image: Billy Graham in Amsterdam (1954), used with permission of Wikimedia Commons—photo by Joop van Bilsen.

(Author’s note: I wrote this essay the week of May 5, 2025 in a draft form, and with no knowledge of events that came to light in Reformed circles some days later.)