Preface
In May, 1989, The National Association of Evangelicals and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School co-sponsored a consultation on Evangelical Affirmations. To this consultation they invited representative leaders from among evangelical scholars, pastors and outstanding lay leaders. The four-day gathering saw over six hundred fifty registered participants representing a broad range of denominations and theological viewpoints within the stream of evangelical Christianity.
The purpose of this working consultation of theologically concerned leaders was to unite evangelicals in their commitment to the great biblical truths of our faith by calling the church to vigorous evangelism and discipleship, responsible social action, and sacrificial service to a needy world.
The event focused on the crucial issues facing evangelicals today. Participants met in a series of ten plenary sessions; in each of these sessions, one or more distinguished scholars presented a paper followed immediately by a respondent. Participants then met in a sequence of round-table discussions with a chairman and a recorder who reported the action of the discussion group and any suggestions the group directed to the writing committee. Early in the conference the writing committee presented a rough draft of affirmations to the participants. As a result of directions growing out of the round-table discussions, the rough draft was completely rewritten several times. A final draft was presented to the participants in a plenary session at the end of the consultation. After numerous changes approved by the participants, the body voted overwhelmingly to approve the document subject to final wording
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by the writing committee. Over two thousand additional pages of suggestions were received by the writing committee. These were all carefully read; and, insofar as there was agreement among them, the writing committee revised and edited the final draft to represent the views of the conference participants.
Although the writing committee must take final responsibility for these Evangelical Affirmations, their content and form represent, in an unusual way, the real convictions and work of the delegates.
Of course, this is not a perfect document. It was done too hastily, and we are imperfect people. Let us pray that it will prove to be a useful document that our Lord can use in a humble way. The final document, together with all the main presentations and the responses to them, as well as the names of the round-table leaders, the theologians who sat with them, supporting pastors, administrators and lay leaders are listed in the appendix of this publication.
These affirmations do not represent requirements for membership in the church or for ordination to the Christian ministry. They are not intended to be a confession of faith for any body of Christians — least of all for the participants working together at this consultation. They would never have agreed that this document is appropriate for either purpose. It certainly was never intended to set forth a short creed for the church or to be a short confession of faith. Many of the participants do not think short creeds are desirable or useful and would still less have agreed as to what the content of a creed should be.
We intend this, rather, to be a confession of what it means to be an evangelical. In a day when this term is used loosely to cover
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a broad variety of belief and unbelief, we trust that a clear statement of those common convictions that constitute our evangelical heritage will prove useful to the church. Now let us pray that God will take our humble effort and use these evangelical affirmations to clarify what we stand for and lead us to a better understanding of the truth of Scripture and bring great glory to our God through the furtherance of the Gospel.
Unlike the document Evangelical Affirmations, the individual presentations including both the main papers and those of the respondents, in each case represent the position of each individual thinker and are not necessarily to be considered as the view of the participants. Since each author wrote as an evangelical, however, their papers present an evangelical viewpoint and, on all essential points, reflect generally the viewpoint of the consultation set forth in the Evangelical Affirmations approved by the participants.
