Evangelicalism’s Theological Drift

There was a time when theological error—especially persistent, public, unrepentant error—was not something taken lightly. There was a time when the church, not just individual churches or seminaries, acted as guardians of the truth once delivered to the saints. But those times are not these times. Today, one can deny original sin, redefine justification, reinterpret the resurrection, or quietly set aside biblical ethics, and still receive the warm embrace of the evangelical establishment—so long as one is respected, published, or ‘pastorally sensitive.’ Orthodoxy is no longer the gate; reputation is.

This is not simply the decline of seminaries. It is a crisis of evangelicalism. A sickness of the whole body, not just its training institutions. Once, theological novelty was treated with caution and deviation was measured against Scripture and historic orthodoxy. Now, deviations are dressed up as insights, and novelty is treated as brilliance. Churches have become places where uncertainty is praised as humility, and theological firmness is caricatured as rigidity. We affirm pluralism as a virtue while permitting what Scripture and the church have consistently rejected. Acceptance, ambiguity, and “not being dogmatic” are now the chief virtues of our age, even as they quicken the theological decay.

Take, for instance, the denial of original sin. One prominent voice—respected in many circles—described the doctrine as merely ‘an Augustinian invention.’ But even Augustine himself clearly appealed to prior received tradition and Scripture. The idea that Adam’s guilt is imputed, that human nature is corrupted, and that no one does good—this is not an innovation, but a deeply rooted biblical truth (cf. Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12–19). And it is one that the universal church, from before Augustine to the Reformers to the present, has consistently affirmed. Pelagianism, on the other hand—the denial of inherited guilt and corruption—was roundly condemned by ecumenical councils, and a myriad of orthodox theologians since. We act as if the only theological battlegrounds worth fighting on are Trinitarian. And yes—many today are quick, and rightly so, to appeal to Nicaea and Chalcedon in defence of biblical Christology. But when it comes to biblical anthropology—what it means to be human, how sin has marred our nature, and how Christ restores us—many of the same fall strangely silent.

Or in like manner, consider sexual ethics. We have witnessed scholars and pastors alike insist that the Bible’s moral framework for sexuality applies only within the church, not beyond it. That is, Christians should abstain from sin—perhaps sin that is redefined—but the world should be left to follow its own course without moral objection. But biblical ethics are never optional, nor are they confined to the covenant community. God’s law reflects His holiness. And His commands regarding sexuality—commands reaffirmed in the New Testament (cf. 1 Cor. 6:9–11; Rom. 1:18–32)—are not tribal boundary markers. They are reflections of the Creator’s design and the Judge’s expectations.

Even the very heart of the gospel—the doctrine of justification by faith alone—has been redefined, recast, or removed from its central place. The New Perspective on Paul, for instance, which found enthusiastic advocates in the early 2000s, sought to relocate the gospel from the question of how a sinner is justified before a holy God to the sociological issue of who is in the covenant community. Justification, it was claimed, is about how someone is recognised as a member of God’s family—not how they are declared righteous before Him. But this is not a minor adjustment. It is a fundamental redrawing of Paul’s gospel. It collapses Romans and Galatians into ecclesiology and leaves the sinner asking, “But how may I be saved?” with no clear answer.

No figure represents both the fruit and the fallout of this shift better than N. T. Wright. He has done much good—his work on the resurrection, in particular, has been valuable in affirming its centrality. And yet, Wright is emblematic of the evangelical academy’s tendency to nuance orthodoxy to death, especially when it becomes culturally or institutionally uncomfortable. While insisting he holds to penal substitution, Wright critiques traditional formulations with such vigour that it is hard to know where he ultimately stands. He has called historic presentations of penal substitution ‘pagan,’ ‘sub-biblical,’ and ‘disturbingly unbiblical.’ He endorsed a book that referred to the cross as ‘cosmic child abuse,’ and dismissed a robust evangelical defence of penal substitution—endorsed by scholars such as J. I. Packer, D. A. Carson, and Carl Trueman—as dangerously lacking.^[1]Wright endorsed Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, The Lost Message of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), wheras he panned Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Pierced for Our … Continue reading Wright may affirm substitution, but he requalifies it, recasts it, and reshapes it in ways that leave many wondering whether the historic doctrine remains intact.^[2]Wright’s proposal is that penal substitution must be contextualised within the Christus Victor theme. But while complementary models of the atonement can enrich our understanding, they cannot … Continue reading

This becomes more concerning in light of his more recent remarks on abortion and resurrection. In a now-notorious interview, Wright suggested that abortion, especially in its early stages, may not be clearly definable as ending a human life. He demurred on when life begins, noting he is not a medical professional. But such hesitation undercuts the biblical witness that life begins in the womb (cf. Psalm 139:13–16), and undermines the theological conviction that all human life bears God’s image. For someone who rightly proclaims that the resurrection is the cornerstone of new creation, it is bewildering to hear such uncertainty about the value of the unborn.

Worse still was his unwillingness to clearly repudiate Marcus Borg’s denial of the bodily resurrection. Borg claimed that if he had to bet, he would wager Jesus’ body remained in the tomb. And yet, Wright refused to say whether such a belief would bar someone from salvation. This is not a fringe issue. It is the gospel. Paul writes:

‘Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say, “There is no resurrection of the dead”? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith’ (1 Corinthians 15:12–14).

To waffle on the resurrection is not a minor lapse. It is, in Paul’s words, the very collapse of faith itself. And yet, this is the state of the conversation within what still calls itself ‘evangelical.’

Alister McGrath helpfully defines heresy as ‘a doctrine that ultimately destroys, destabilizes, or distorts a mystery rather than preserving it.'^[3]Alister McGrath, Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2009), 31 And McGrath notes that heresy is not always introduced with malevolent intent—it often arises from within, as a way to make Christianity more palatable to modern sensibilities. That is precisely what we are witnessing today. The slow reshaping of truth in order to remain respectable. The quiet airbrushing of doctrine in order to preserve collegiality. And the end result is a church whose mysteries are neither guarded nor preserved, but made tolerable through dilution.

Academic freedom is not necessarily the enemy. Neither is friendship, pastoral tone, or intellectual curiosity. But when these are untethered from ecclesial accountability and confessional fidelity, they become a license for doctrinal decay. When friendships and reputations begin to matter more than orthodoxy, it is only a matter of time before heterodoxy becomes the norm.

We are not facing mere differences. We are facing deviation—taught, platformed, and perpetuated under the guise of nuance and grace. If we do not recover the courage to guard the gospel, we will find ourselves left with only the shell of a tradition, devoid of its saving power. The church is called to be a pillar and buttress of the truth—not a weather vane responding to academic winds.