Phil Johnson places up a very good post at Pyromaniacs which begins:

[From an article published last year in GraceTrax.]

The defining principle of historic evangelicalism was an unwavering devotion to the gospel. But the broad movement that calls itself “evangelical” today no longer stands for any clear point of view and can’t seem to find consensus on even the most basic of gospel truths. How did that happen?

The word evangelical used to be a good one. The term dates back at least to William Tyndale, and it refers to the belief that the gospel message—the evangel,—is the vital heart of all Christian truth. To a real evangelical, everything that is of primary importance in Christianity is embodied and summarized in the gospel, and any belief system based on an aberrant gospel is not authentically Christian.

Evangelicals’ passion for keeping the gospel at the center explains why historic evangelicalism has always been theologically conservative, biblically based, warm-heartedly evangelistic, and dynamically experiential. But the contemporary evangelical movement has become something completely different…

You can read Johnson’s entire post here.