What Would Charles Spurgeon Think of Rob Bell?

This is from Dennis Swanson's The Down Grade Controversy and Evangelical Boundaries, originally read as a paper at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (November, 2001)

During the years of the Down Grade Controversy Spurgeon repeatedly warned of six areas of “down grade” in evangelical doctrine.

• The denial of the verbal inspiration (that is, inerrancy) of Scripture.
• The denial of ETERNAL PUNISHMENT and the affirmation of UNIVERSALISM.
• The denial of the Trinity, mainly in terms of the rejection of the personality of the Holy Spirit.
• The movement towards Socinianism or the denial of the deity of Christ and original sin
• The denial of the creation account in Genesis in favor of evolution.
• The unhealthy influence of Higher Criticism on Biblical scholarship, particularly as it related to the Old Testament.

"How much farther could they go?

What doctrine remains to be abandoned?

What other truth to be the object of contempt?

A new religion has been initiated,

which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese"

- C.H. Spurgeon

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