Cambridge Declaration

Evangelical churches today are increasingly dominated by the spirit of this age rather than by the Spirit of Christ. As

evangelicals, we call ourselves to repent of this sin and to recover the historic Christian faith.

In the course of history words change. In our day this has happened to the word "evangelical." In the past it served as a

bond of unity between Christians from a wide diversity of church traditions. Historic evangelicalism was confessional. It

embraced the essential truths of Christianity as those were defined by the great ecumenical councils of the church. In

addition, evangelicals also shared a common heritage in the "solas" of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation.

Today the light of the Reformation has been significantly dimmed. The consequence is that the word "evangelical" has

become so inclusive as to have lost its meaning. We face the peril of losing the unity it has taken centuries to achieve.

Because of this crisis and because of our love of Christ, his gospel and his church, we endeavor to assert anew our

commitment to the central truths of the Reformation and of historic evangelicalism. These truths we affirm not because

of their role in our traditions, but because we believe that they are central to the Bible.

Sola Scriptura: The Erosion of Authority

Scripture alone is the inerrant rule of the church's life, but the evangelical church today has separated Scripture from its

authoritative function. In practice, the church is guided, far too often, by the culture. Therapeutic technique, marketing

strategies, and the beat of the entertainment world often have far more to say about what the church wants, how it

functions and what it offers, than does the Word of God. Pastors have neglected their rightful oversight of worship,

including the doctrinal content of the music. As biblical authority has been abandoned in practice, as its truths have

faded from Christian consciousness, and as its doctrines have lost their saliency, the church has been increasingly

emptied of its integrity, moral authority and direction.

Rather than adapting Christian faith to satisfy the felt needs of consumers, we must proclaim the law as the only

measure of true righteousness and the gospel as the only announcement of saving truth. Biblical truth is indispensable

to the church's understanding, nurture and discipline.

Scripture must take us beyond our perceived needs to our real needs and liberate us from seeing ourselves through

the seductive images, cliches, promises and priorities of mass culture. It is only in the light of God's truth that we

understand ourselves aright and see God's provision for our need. The Bible, therefore, must be taught and preached

in the church. Sermons must be expositions of the Bible and its teachings, not expressions of the preacher's opinions

or the ideas of the age. We must settle for nothing less than what God has given.

The work of the Holy Spirit in personal experience cannot be disengaged from Scripture. The Spirit does not speak in

ways that are independent of Scripture. Apart from Scripture we would never have known of God's grace in Christ. The

biblical Word, rather than spiritual experience, is the test of truth.

Thesis One: Sola Scriptura

We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation,which alone can bind the

conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by

which all Christian behavior must be measured.

We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a Christian's conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks

independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever be

a vehicle of revelation.

Solus Christus: The Erosion of Christ-Centered Faith

As evangelical faith becomes secularized, its interests have been blurred with those of the culture. The result is a loss

of absolute values, permissive individualism, and a substitution of wholeness for holiness, recovery for repentance,

intuition for truth, feeling for belief, chance for providence, and immediate gratification for enduring hope. Christ and

his cross have moved from the center of our vision.

Thesis Two: Solus Christus

We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His

sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the

Father.

We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ's substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his

work is not solicited.

Sola Gratia: The Erosion of The Gospel

Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the

evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the

gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as

being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official commitments of

our churches. God's grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess

that human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace.

Thesis Three: Sola Gratia

We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God's wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work

of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual

death to spiritual life.

We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by

themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human

nature.

Sola Fide: The Erosion of The Chief Article

Justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. This is the article by which the church

stands or falls. Today this article is often ignored, distorted or sometimes even denied by leaders, scholars and

pastors who claim to be evangelical. Although fallen human nature has always recoiled from recognizing its need for

Christ's imputed righteousness, modernity greatly fuels the fires of this discontent with the biblical Gospel. We have

allowed this discontent to dictate the nature of our ministry and what it is we are preaching.

Many in the church growth movement believe that sociological understanding of those in the pew is as important to the

success of the gospel as is the biblical truth which is proclaimed. As a result, theological convictions are frequently

divorced from the work of the ministry. The marketing orientation in many churches takes this even further, erasing the

distinction between the biblical Word and the world, robbing Christ's cross of its offense, and reducing Christian faith

to the principles and methods which bring success to secular corporations.

While the theology of the cross may be believed, these movements are actually emptying it of its meaning. There is no

gospel except that of Christ's substitution in our place whereby God imputed to him our sin and imputed to us his

righteousness. Because he bore our judgment, we now walk in his grace as those who are forever pardoned,

accepted and adopted as God's children. There is no basis for our acceptance before God except in Christ's saving

work, not in our patriotism, churchly devotion or moral decency. The gospel declares what God has done for us in

Christ. It is not about what we can do to reach him.

Thesis Four: Sola Fide

We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification

Christ's righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God's perfect justice.

We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ's

righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be

recognized as a legitimate church.

Soli Deo Gloria: The Erosion of God-Centered Worship

Wherever in the church biblical authority has been lost, Christ has been displaced, the gospel has been distorted, or

faith has been perverted, it has always been for one reason: our interests have displaced God's and we are doing his

work in our way. The loss of God's centrality in the life of today's church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that

allows us to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, being

good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible

have come to mean too little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon us.

God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own private spiritual

interests. We must focus on God in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our personal needs. God is sovereign in

worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God's kingdom, not our own empires, popularity or success.

Thesis Five: Soli Deo Gloria

We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God's glory and

that we must glorify him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of

God and for his glory alone.

We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either

Law or Gospel in our preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self-fulfillment are allowed to become

alternatives to the gospel.

A Call To Repentance & Reformation

The faithfulness of the evangelical church in the past contrasts sharply with its unfaithfulness in the present. Earlier in

this century, evangelical churches sustained a remarkable missionary endeavor, and built many religious institutions to

serve the cause of biblical truth and Christ's kingdom. That was a time when Christian behavior and expectations were

markedly different from those in the culture. Today they often are not. The evangelical world today is losing its biblical

fidelity, moral compass and missionary zeal.

We repent of our worldliness. We have been influenced by the "gospels" of our secular culture, which are no gospels.

We have weakened the church by our own lack of serious repentance, our blindness to the sins in ourselves which we

see so clearly in others, and our inexcusable failure to adequately tell others about God's saving work in Jesus Christ.

We also earnestly call back erring professing evangelicals who have deviated from God's Word in the matters

discussed in this Declaration. This includes those who declare that there is hope of eternal life apart from explicit faith

in Jesus Christ, who claim that those who reject Christ in this life will be annihilated rather than endure the just judgment

of God through eternal suffering, or who claim that evangelicals and Roman Catholics are one in Jesus Christ even

where the biblical doctrine of justification is not believed.

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals asks all Christians to give consideration to implementing this Declaration in

the church's worship, ministry, policies, life and evangelism.

For Christ's sake. Amen.

Category

What We Believe

Category

Category