Journal: Southeastern Theological Review
Volume: STR 03:2 (Winter 2012)
Article: The Gospel Crisis and American Evangelicals
Author: Harry Lee Poe

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STR 3:2 (Winter 2012) p. 161

The Gospel Crisis and American Evangelicals

Harry Lee Poe

Union University

Introduction

For almost two thousand years, Christians everywhere agreed about the content of the gospel message. The great rift between the Eastern Church and the Western Church occurred when the West dared to alter the Apostles’ Creed without consulting the churches of the East. Catholics and Protestants disagreed over many things, but not the content of the gospel. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, American pragmatism began to take hold of Evangelicals who identified only five fundamentals of the faith. By the end of the twentieth century, Evangelicals had reduced the gospel to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This essay will explore how the gospel has been understood in the Christian tradition and then how it has been truncated in the twentieth century. I suggest that a “full” gospel, in accordance with Scripture and in continuity with orthodox Christian doctrine, needs to be recovered in the twenty-first century and beyond.

Scripture and Christian Tradition on the Gospel: A Brief Survey

The gospel is the good news of Jesus, the good news of who God is, what God has done to save us, and what difference it makes (Rom 1:1–4, 16; 1 Cor. 1:21b). The gospel reveals the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:17). By faith in Jesus as revealed in the message of the gospel, people are saved by God (Gal.3:2). The gospel is the message we believe about Jesus by which we are saved (1 Cor. 15:1–2). Though the New Testament does not present a systematic exposition of the message of the gospel, the same basic faith affirmations appear in paragraph after paragraph of the apostolic teaching:

There is only one God, the Creator.

God spoke to past generations and we know his word is true because his promises have been fulfilled.

Jesus is both Lord and Christ, God and man.

Jesus died for our sins.

Jesus rose from the dead.

Jesus is exalted as God.

The Holy Spirit of God takes possession of each believer.

Jesus will come again to judge the world.

STR 3:2 (Winter 2012) p. 162

While it will be explored further below, at this point it is worth noting that during the twentieth century it was not unusual to see a confusion of the gospel message with some other aspect of ...

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