Combines a serious examination of the state of today's church and a powerful solution: reclaiming the gospel of grace found in the confessional truths of the Reformation. Though the Christian church has achieved a worldly sort of success-big numbers, big budgets, big outreaches-these are not good days for evangelicalism. Attendance is down, and it is increasingly difficult to distinguish so-called "believers" from their non-Christian neighbors-all because the gospel of grace has been neglected. In this work, now in paperback, the late James Montgomery Boice identifies what's happened within evangelicalism and suggests how the confessional statements of the Reformation-Scripture alone, Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, and glory to God alone-can ignite full-scale revival. "A church without these convictions has ceased to be a true church, whatever else it may be," he wrote, but "if we hold to these doctrines, our churches and those we influence will grow strong." "Boice was right to point out that to mischaracterize worldliness 'is to trivialize what is a far more serious and far more subtle problem.'" ― Burnside Writer's Collective Burnside Writer's Collective "Boice explains how the five doctrinal truths that transformed the world during the Reformation not only offer the solution but can shape a renewal today among God's people." ― WRGN Network WRGN Network JAMES MONTGOMERY BOICE was senior minister of the historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia for thirty years and a leading spokesman for the Reformed faith until his death in June 2000. Lane T. Dennis (PhD, Northwestern University) is the former president and CEO of Crossway. Before joining Crossway in 1974, he served as a pastor in campus ministry at the University of Michigan (Sault Ste. Marie) and as the managing director of Verlag Grosse Freude in Switzerland. He is the author and/or editor of three books, including the Gold Medallion-award-winning book Letters of Francis A. Schaeffer , and he is the former chairman of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. Dennis serves as the chairman of the ESV (English Standard Version) Bible Translation Oversight Committee and as the executive editor of the ESV Study Bible . Lane and his wife, Ebeth, live in Wheaton, Illinois. Eric J. Alexander is the retired Senior Minister at St. George's-Tron Parish Church in Glasgow, Scotland. Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? Rediscovering the Doctrines that Shook the World By James Montgomery Boice Good News Publishers Copyright © 2001 Linda McNamara Boice All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4335-1129-5 Contents Publisher's Foreword, Foreword by Eric J. Alexander, Preface, Part One: Our Dying Culture, 1 The New Pragmatism, 2 The Pattern of This Age, Part Two: Doctrines That Shook the World, 3 Scripture Alone, 4 Christ Alone, 5 Grace Alone, 6 Faith Alone, 7 Glory to God Alone, Part Three: The Shape of Renewal, 8 Reforming Our Worship, 9 Reforming Our Lives, Notes, CHAPTER 1 The New Pragmatism 'Round the throne in radiant glory All creation loudly sings Praise to God, to God Almighty — Day and night the anthem rings: "Holy, holy, holy, holy Is our God, the King of kings." These are not good days for the evangelical church, and anyone who takes a moment to evaluate the life and outlook of evangelical churches will understand that. In recent years a number of books have been published in an effort to understand what is happening, and they are saying much the same thing even though their authors come from different backgrounds and are doing different work. I was struck by three studies that appeared within a year or two of each other. The first was No Place for Truth, by David F. Wells, professor of historical and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. The second was Power Religion, by Michael Scott Horton, vice president of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The third volume was Ashamed of the Gospel, by John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. Each of these authors was writing about the evangelical church, and one can get an idea of what each is saying just from the titles alone. Yet the subtitles are even more revealing. The subtitle of Wells's book is Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? The subtitle of Horton's book is The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church. The subtitle of MacArthur's work proclaims When the Church Becomes Like the World. When we put them together we realize that these careful observers of the current scene perceive that evangelicalism is seriously off-base today because it has abandoned its evangelical truth-heritage. The thesis of Wells's book is that the evangelical church is either dead or dying as a significant religious force because it has forgotten what it stands for. Instead of trying to do God's work in God's way, it is trying to build a prosperous earthly