A religion which is all excitement, and has little instruction in it, may serve for transient use; but for permanent life-purposes there must be a knowledge of those great doctrines which are fundamental to the gospel system. I tremble when I hear of a man’s giving up, one by one, the vital principles of the gospel and boasting of his liberality.

The spirit of the Broad School robs us of everything like certainty. I should like to ask some great men of that order whether they believe that anything is taught in the Scriptures which it would be worth while for a person to die for, and whether the martyrs were not great fools for laying down their lives for mere opinions which might be right or might be wrong?

This broad-churchism is a breaking down of stone walls, and it will let in the devil and all his crew, and do infinite harm to the church of God, if it be not stopped. A loose state of belief does great damage to any man’s mind…

Lately we have seen few men with backbone; the most have been of the jelly-fish order. I have lived in times in which I should have said, “Be liberal, and shake off all narrowness ; but now I am obliged to alter my tone and cry, “Be steadfast in the truth.”

The faith once delivered to the saints is now all the more attractive to me, because it is called narrow, for I am weary of that breadth which comes of broken hedges. There are fixed points of truth, and definite certainties of creed, and woe to you if you allow these stone walls to crumble down… (Online source)

Charles Spurgeon (Circa 1888)

See also:

MEET OUTLAW PREACHERS

BRIAN MCLAREN ADDRESSES TRANSFORM EAST COAST CONFERENCE

BRIAN MCLAREN SPREADING DIVISION IN THE CHURCH

BRIAN MCLAREN AND HIS NEW EMERGING PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY

THE EMERGING CHURCH, PHILIP CLAYTON, AND NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY

LIBERALISM 2.0 THE NEW PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

RICHARD ROHR AND THE EMERGING CHURCH AS THE THIRD WAY