A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

Liberalism and Neo-Orthodoxy
God and Saviour according to the Scriptures and therefore
seek to fulfil together their common calling to the
glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” 211 Most
Protestant and Orthodox churches have joined it, but the
Roman Catholic Church, most Evangelical churches, and
most Pentecostal churches have not. From the beginning,
the leadership and the agenda have been dominated by
liberal theology of one sort or another. It was too liberal
for Karl Barth, who addressed the opening conference
and sharply criticized it for departing from essentials of
the Christian faith.
Christianity Today, the leading Evangelical
Christian magazine, offered the following critique of the
WCC in 1984: 212
The gospel soon became lost in all sorts of political
and social causes with which the World Council
identified. . . . From 1960 through 1980, this seemed
to be the permanent direction of the council.
Most troubling to biblically oriented evangelicals
were the following: (1) The deity of Christ was left
undefined, though the council’s constitution gave it
lip service. Vastly differing views on the person and
work of Christ flourished equally within the leadership
of the council. (2) The New Testament gospel
became lost—the gospel that Jesus Christ, the divine
Savior and Lord, became incarnate, died on the cross
and rose again bodily from the dead to redeem
mankind from sin through personal faith in himself.
(3) The Bible was an honored book from which proof
texts were selected when they supported views considered
relevant on other grounds, but no attempt
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