Carl Trueman states as tidily as anyone could ask one of the intractable problems of American conservative evangelicalism which set me looking for a Church that could actually claim to be the heir to the promise that “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it”–the problem of evangelicalism’s utter incoherence when it came to institutionalizing the faith:
This points to a wider problem which evangelicalism looks set to face in the very near future. It implicitly assumes too much and explicitly states too little. Roman Catholics have their Catechism, confessional Lutherans have their Book of Concord and Presbyterians have the Westminster Confession of Faith. Evangelicals often have at best very minimal doctrinal statements and a range of other, often confessionally unstated, cultural concerns which guide policy. These brief statements of faith and ‘shadow confessions’ are wholly inadequate to handle the coming cultural storm or indeed to guide day-to-day catechesis within the churches themselves. They also mean that the ‘gospel’ can tend to operate as a useful means for justifying any distinctive stand which evangelicals care to take.
This problem is both theological and cultural. Theologically, it will not be solved by the simple addition of a clause on marriage to such statements. The Christian understanding of marriage rests upon a whole complex of other doctrines, from creation to Christology to anthropology to eschatology. For a confessional statement on marriage to be coherent, the confession must also address all of these other topics.
(source: The Problem of Evangelicalism’s Unstated Confessions–First Things)
Evangelicalism can remain true to its critique of the Church’s historical institutionalization and continue to form “associations” and schools which by their very nature resist correction from doctrinal or ecclesial authority; or it can try to re-invent the Catholic Church piecemeal.
I tired of trying to re-invent the Catholic Church within American conservative evangelicalism, and decided to join the one Jesus founded, instead.
Whatever my brothers and sisters in evangelicalism choose, I wish them well.
And I look forward to the day when the whole Church praises God as One, the way Jesus intended.