A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

A History of Christian Doctrine
was made to deal seriously with scriptural teaching.
(4) Universalism—the view that all will be saved
regardless of faith, religion, or moral condition,
became standard doctrine. (5) World history was
interpreted in Marxist terms, superficially glossed
with traditional Christian vocabulary. (6) Left-wing
offenses against human rights and human freedom
were seldom noted, and rarely rebuked. By contrast,
right-wing oppression was made a cause célèbre;
and the council actively opposed efforts to further
human rights and political democracy in the Marxist
countries.
In 1984, at its sixth assembly at Vancouver, the WCC
attempted to woo Evangelicals. Christianity Today
reassessed the council at that time and concluded that its
theology still fell far short of biblical truth in five major
areas: 213
192
1. Its equivocal stand on the deity of Christ. . . .
2. Its failure to diagnose the predicament of
mankind [human sinfulness]. . . .
3. Its wrong diagnosis surely leads to a wrong
remedy. . . . In the WCC study volume prepared for
the Vancouver assembly, John Paulton lists as one
unlikely option, that “only those calling upon Jesus
as their personal savior, can be saved.”. . .
4. Its almost exclusive concern for the horizontal
dimension of salvation . . . communal salvation,
one that leads to a new humanity and a restoration of
society rather than to personal faith in Jesus Christ, a
right relationship to God, and the new birth. . . .