The Church and Evangelical Unity

Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. EPHESIANS 4:3

This chapter concerns the most painful episode of Lloyd-Jones’s public life, and it must be told with care. On the evening of the eighteenth of October, 1966, at the National Assembly of Evangelicals convened by the Evangelical Alliance in Westminster Central Hall, he made an appeal that has been argued over ever since. What he said, how it was answered, and what followed divided British evangelicals for a generation. Good men stood on both sides. The aim here is not to settle the dispute but to explain what he believed and why, and to set beside it the convictions of those who could not follow him.

The setting

The 1960s were the high noon of the ecumenical movement. The World Council of Churches had been founded in 1948, and in Britain there was serious talk of the major denominations coming together into a single national church within a generation. Many churches, at the same time, openly tolerated ministers and teachers who denied doctrines evangelicals regarded as essential: the deity of Christ, His atoning death, His bodily resurrection, the authority of Scripture.

Evangelicals were scattered through all these denominations — Anglican, Baptist, Congregational, Methodist, Presbyterian — usually as minorities. They cooperated across denominational lines in bodies such as the Inter-Varsity Fellowship and the Evangelical Alliance. But their primary loyalty, in church terms, was to their own denominations.

What he believed

Lloyd-Jones had been thinking about the doctrine of the church for years, and he had come to firm convictions. The church, he believed, is defined by the gospel. Unity in the New Testament is not an organisational matter but a unity of those who share the same life and the same faith. It follows that there can be no true unity with those who deny the gospel, however large and venerable the institution that holds them together.

Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. JUDE 1:3

He thought that evangelicals had got things the wrong way round. They were in close institutional fellowship with people who denied the faith, and in only loose, occasional fellowship with each other. The ecumenical movement was pressing the churches towards a larger union on a doctrinally minimal basis, and he feared that evangelicals would be swept along. The time had come, he believed, for them to put the gospel before denominational loyalty.

The appeal

On that October evening he called on evangelicals to consider seriously whether they should remain in mixed denominations, and to come together in a fellowship of evangelical churches. Exactly what he intended has been debated ever since — whether a new denomination, a looser association, or simply a readiness to act together when conscience required. His admirers and his critics have read the address differently, and his biographer Iain Murray reads him more narrowly than many did at the time. What is not in doubt is that the appeal was heard by many as a call to leave their churches.

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. 2 CORINTHIANS 6:17

The reply

John Stott, the rector of All Souls, Langham Place, was in the chair. At the end of the address, he rose and, departing from the ordinary role of a chairman, publicly disagreed. He said that in his judgment history and Scripture were against the view that had been expressed, and urged his hearers not to make hasty decisions. It was widely understood as a direct rebuttal. Stott later acknowledged that he had misused his position as chairman, and went to Lloyd-Jones to apologise for that, though not for his convictions. The following year, at the National Evangelical Anglican Congress at Keele, Anglican evangelicals committed themselves to remaining in the Church of England and playing a fuller part in its life.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! PSALM 133:1

What followed

The consequences were lasting. Evangelicals in Britain were divided, broadly, into those who stayed within the mixed denominations and those who left or aligned themselves with independent evangelical groups. Old friendships were strained. Lloyd-Jones and Stott, who had admired one another, drew apart. A few years later, when J. I. Packer co-authored a book with Anglo-Catholic writers on the future of the Church of England, Lloyd-Jones felt he could no longer work with him, and the Puritan Conference that the two had led for some twenty years was brought to an end, to be succeeded by a new conference without Packer. It was, on any reckoning, a costly outcome.

Weighing it

It is tempting to make one man the hero and the other the villain, and it would be wrong. Both were godly. Both believed they were being faithful to Scripture. Both paid a price. Lloyd-Jones was surely right that doctrinal indifference is fatal to the church, and that unity without truth is no unity at all. His critics were surely right that the New Testament also calls believers to patience, to remain where they can bear faithful witness, and to be very slow to divide. Many who stayed in their denominations did so from conviction, not compromise, and saw real gains. Some who left found themselves in small and struggling fellowships. Readers of this book will belong to many different churches and will weigh the matter differently.

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. JOHN 17:21

What can be received from Lloyd-Jones here, whatever one’s view of 1966, is his insistence that the church is defined by the gospel, and that the unity Christ prayed for is a unity in the truth. And what must be learned from the whole episode is how easily such convictions, even rightly held, can be expressed in ways that wound brothers.

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. PHILIPPIANS 2:3

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask what you believe defines a true church. Write it down, and test it against Scripture.

2. Consider your own church. Where is the gospel clearly held, and where might it be compromised?

3. If you have strong views on the question of separation, read a careful statement of the other side this month.

4. Think of a fellow believer with whom you have differed sharply. Pray for him or her by name, and consider whether you owe an apology for the manner, if not the substance, of your disagreement.

5. Pray for the unity of all who truly love Christ in your town or city.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You prayed that Your people might be one, and You are the truth. Keep me from a unity that sacrifices the gospel, and from a zeal for truth that forgets love.

Give wisdom to Your church in every land, to know when to stay and when to go, and grace to respect those who judge differently.

Heal the wounds that have come between Your servants, and forgive us where we have spoken in pride.

Make us one in You, that the world may believe. Amen.