Evangelicalism has fractured. The past decade has led to a parting of the ways among many who once labored side by side to steward and promote the gospel.
Michael Graham puts numbers to the fracturing. His schema outlines several broad groups:
1. Neo-fundamentalists, often most concerned about whatever is perceived as drift from the theological or political right
2. Mainstream evangelicals, generally conservative, denominationally rooted, more attuned to external opposition to the church than internal rot
3. Neo-evangelicals, focused on both external and internal troubles, often with an eye to the global church with sensibilities aligned with small “c” catholicity
4. Post-evangelicals, who move left in their doctrinal views in tandem with political affiliations, often out of evangelical churches into mainline denominations (or out of the church altogether)
Christians Divided
It wasn’t long ago that you could find men and women, primarily 2s and 3s, sharing fellowship and celebrating the centrality of Jesus and his gospel despite their differences. Today, some no longer walk together. A few are no longer on speaking terms. In certain cases, theological divergence drove them apart. In others, the division was over the best and most prudential way forward in the political realm. Some dividing lines are drawn by personality.
Recently, I pointed out how some divisions resemble Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15:39)—a sorrowful separation between brothers who love the Lord yet no longer see eye to eye on ministry strategy. Other splits resemble Paul and Demas (2 Tim. 4:10), where one deserts not only his brother but the gospel itself. Still others echo the tragic story of Simon the Sorcerer (Acts 8:18–23), a grifter who sought to leverage God’s power for personal gain, like a parasite feeding off the Spirit’s work. And then there are the everyday conflicts—quarrels over words, pugnacious tempers, and divisive spirits—against which Paul repeatedly warned (Titus 3:9–11).
Whatever the cause, many former allies now labor in separate fields, and as the tribal lines widen, their followers side with one leader against another, in contradiction to Paul’s warnings to the church in Corinth. What’s worse, often a Paul/Barnabas type of split gets misrepresented—critics go beyond good-faith differences in ministry strategy and tar “Barnabas” with the apostasy of Demas or the opportunism of Simon.
Nearly every leader of significant influence comes under fire these days from one side or another. Social media has ushered in new voices, and while many people may cheer the democratization that diminishes evangelical gatekeeping via institutions, our online overexposure often exacerbates divisions in ways that threaten the long-term health of institutions that are themselves vital to the church’s overall health.
In this climate, new gatekeepers constantly appear and then fade, drawing boundaries and policing theological or ideological borders. The smaller these tribes become, the louder they get, and the more their anathemas proliferate. The result? A cacophony of confusion, amplified by “conflict entrepreneurs”—figures whose platforms are built on a steady stream of outrage regarding the latest development in whatever narrative they’ve sought to establish (often with selective evidence).
A Time to Grieve
All this is discouraging. The New Testament is full of commands to preserve unity—so many, in fact, that we often overlook them. It’s striking how much energy we devote to parsing certain parts of Paul’s letters while skimming past his relentless appeals for believers to be “knit together in love” (Col. 2:2) and to make “every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).
Love for one another is Christianity’s defining mark (John 13:35). Lovelessness destroys orthodoxy. At the first Lausanne Congress, Francis Schaeffer warned, “If we do not show beauty in the way we treat each other, then in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of our own children, we are destroying the truth we proclaim.” He urged evangelicals to ask God for forgiveness for “the ugliness with which we have often treated each other when we are in different camps.”
It’s appropriate to grieve sinful separations, the normalization of slander, and the abundance of misrepresentation. These fractures aren’t merely unfortunate—they’re wounds in the body of Christ. And if Jesus, in his high priestly prayer, longed for his people to be one (17:20–23), then surely our divisions grieve him. Before rushing to strategies or solutions, we must first let our hearts be broken by what breaks his.
Find a Place on the Wall
Some people hope for a reunion of the old evangelical consensus, as if we could piece together the coalitions of 15 years ago. But I don’t believe that’s our task. Nor do I think it’s possible. The Humpty-Dumpty of evangelical alignment will not be put back together again.
I don’t say this because I lack faith in God to do wonderful things. He can do whatever he wants whenever he pleases. But it’s wrongheaded to think that fixing all the fractures is our responsibility, or that such mending is possible through our own efforts.
Rather than trying to repair a fractured movement, we should focus on reinforcing what remains, especially at the center—we need a dogged commitment to the gospel’s centrality and the church’s enduring vitality. We should labor to keep people in categories 2 and 3 from drifting away from the center. And the only way for 2s and 3s to stick together—for something of a cross-denominational witness to the gospel’s beauty and centrality to hold firm—is for the center to be rock solid, for the steel beam in between the 2s and 3s to be reinforced, with all kinds of institutional support then directed that way.
We must reinforce the core so the church remains anchored in Christ rather than swept into the 1s and 4s (where constant bickering leads to more fracturing—where even within the same tribe, people devour each other). We must also return to the gospel so we resist the temptation to baptize any political agenda that shaves off Christianity’s rough edges or downplays the elements of Jesus’s moral vision that don’t fit neatly into today’s political coalitions.
So here’s my challenge for pastors and leaders who want to reinforce the gospel’s centrality and renew the center: Outbuild the critics.
Yes, it may be tempting to expend energy responding to every attack, every misrepresentation, every act of tone-policing from one side or another. But the best response to those whose work is marked by tearing down is to build something lasting. To construct a body of work so substantive and edifying that, even when your missteps come (and they will), the overall weight of your work speaks for itself. Your body of work demonstrates your commitment to King Jesus and your love for his Bride.
The only way for denominations and church families to make it through the next generation intact is to keep an eye on what’s most central and then just keep building. “I am doing important work and cannot come down” (Neh. 6:3). That was Nehemiah’s response when his opponents tried to distract and derail him. It should be ours as well.
You’ll Always Have Critics
I’ve written publicly for nearly two decades now, long enough to recognize a pattern. Every few years, a new wave of critics arises, some from the right, others from the left. The critics aim for the soft spots in whatever you’re building, or they chastise you for locking arms with like-minded people. The names change, but the personalities and tendencies remain the same: breathless coverage of every controversy, the stacking of evidences intended to create and sustain some kind of narrative—an anti-vision where there’s nothing constructive on offer but only cursing the flaws in other people’s projects, the wielding of untruths and misrepresentations that cause chaos or sow confusion.
I hate to tell you this, but it’s always going to be this way. It always has been! Consider evangelicalism’s leaders in the past century—John Stott, Billy Graham, Carl Henry. None of them escaped fierce criticism. They were attacked from the left for being too traditional, from the right for being too accommodating. Some critiques were justified; no movement is flawless, after all. But in the end, their legacy wasn’t the criticism they endured but the construction they erected. We stand in houses they built.
Keep Your Hand to the Plow
I want to see the church renewed and restored, to see God’s people provide a shining testimony that unmasks the powers and principalities of this world with the power of the Spirit. I want to see the church offer a demonstration of the power of truth in a world of lies, of the gospel in an age of counterfeits, of love over contempt. I want to see the church embrace the cross in a culture prone to interpret everything through the lens of power grabs, or the empty promises of identity politics, or the frenzied nature of materialistic striving or political machinations.
Renewal will not come through endless skirmishes but through faithful, patient, constructive work. So let me say it again: Do not come down from the wall. Yes, be discerning. Defend yourself when necessary. Heed good-faith criticism from those who share your love for Jesus and his Bride. Stay alert to dangers that come from multiple sides. But don’t be thwarted by the Sanballats and Tobiahs who sneer and shake their fists and shout their mockery and insults. Remember—they’re not building anything.
So, continue on. Keep contributing to a body of work that will redound to the glory of God and the good of his people. Stay rooted in the Word. Strengthen institutions. Pour into the next generation. Give young people stones for building a cathedral of faithfulness, not stones to throw at everyone else. Give them a house to live in, not another grenade to throw at the house of our grandparents. Outbuild the critics, and trust the Lord who sees.
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