A Call to Separation and Unity: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and “Evangelical Unity” -- By: Mark Sidwell

Journal: Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
Volume: DBSJ 03:1 (Fall 1998)
Article: A Call to Separation and Unity: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and “Evangelical Unity”
Author: Mark Sidwell


A Call to Separation and Unity:
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and “Evangelical Unity”

Mark Sidwell*

Mark Sidwell*

* Dr. Sidwell is a member of the staff of the Fundamentalism File, an archives and religious resource center housed in J. S. Mack Library at Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC.

Fundamentalism has been predominantly an American phenomenon. In one sense, this statement is simply a historical fact. In another sense, however, there is a suggestion of limitation, that is, that fundamentalism is simply the culmination of certain cultural and ideological forces in a certain time and place. One cannot deny that fundamentalism has characteristics deriving from its historical circumstances in North America. But if it is indeed a movement adhering to truths transcendent of all ages, as it claims, there should logically be some parallel movements reflecting at least a similar approach to the Bible and to Christian practice. Are there indeed situations in which qualities characteristic of fundamentalism are displayed in different cultural settings? To answer this question, one must first decide what these characteristic qualities are.

Unquestionably, a central concern of fundamentalism has been its steadfast opposition to theological liberalism. After vain attempts to purge the major denominations of liberalism in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, American fundamentalists began a pattern of withdrawal and independence from liberalism. This question became particularly pointed in the 1950s when the new evangelicalism expressly challenged the tendency toward separatism. The result of that controversy was an even greater stress on separation from all ties with liberalism.1 Since opposition to liberalism and some form of separation from liberalism are major concerns of fundamentalism, it would be instructive to study other people and movements who are not connected to the American fundamentalist movement but who came to the same or similar conclusions about the practice of separation; doing so would lend

weight to the contention that separation is not just a culturally derived tenet of fundamentalism. One such parallel is found in the career of British minister D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. His criticism both of liberalism and of cooperation with liberalism climaxed with a controversial separatist call when he gave his address “Evangelical Unity” to the Evangelical Alliance’s National Assembly of Evangelicals on October 18, 1966. That address, its background, and its results provide a study of the question of separation in a British context.

Militant Orthodoxy In Britain

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