The Downgrade Controversy

Charles Spurgeon was known as the "prince of preachers." But did you know that the last 4 years of his life were embroiled with what has been called the Downgrade Controversy. It seems that Spurgeon got a bee in his bonnet so to speak about three specific areas of the church. They were:
1. The evangelical church was not able to defend doctrinal issues precisely. Refer to my previous blog on Doctrine-Doctrine-Doctrine and why this is so important.
2. The bible was no longer the rule of faith and practice. Trust me on this the evangelical church talks as though they are orthodox and they live like they are neo-orthodox. Just a clarification of these terms, orthodox means that one thinks the Bible is the word of God whereas a neo-orthodox person would say that the Bible becomes the word of God. The basic difference is huge. In the case of the orthodox believer we are constantly trying to understand what the author meant by what he wrote. The neo-orthodox person is trying to understand what the Bible means to them through their belief system.
3. The evangelical pastors settled for pragmatism rather than preaching the truth.

Keep in mind this controversy was going on in 1887 but as a pastor this information from Spurgeon is so relevant to our church problems today.

You can read more on this in detail in John MacArthur's book "Ashamed of the Gospel."