More on the Decline of Classical Evangelicalism

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David Wells continues his explanation of the demise of classical evangelicalism.

The capacity to think doctrinally was being lost as new leaders emerged, as the leadership of the evangelical world shifted from the older pastor-theologians to the new entrepreneurial organization builders, and as churches began to reflect this change in their attitudes and worship.

The erosion in biblical ways of thinking at first passed almost unnoticed... Campus organizations were undoubtedly reducing Christian faith to its most minimal form. And as serious biblical preaching in the churches diminished, ignorance of biblical truth became commonplace. But the largest factor in this internal change, I think, was that evangelicalism began to be infested by the culture in which it was living. And then Christianity became increasingly reduced simply to private, internal, therapeutic experience. Its doctrinal form atrophied and then crumbled.

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