Our Distinctives

Coram Deo is born out of the Reformation of the 16th Century.  The Reformation reclaimed

some very important truths that, over the previous centuries, had been obscured or lost completely.

We believe that these same issues, now after nearly 500 years since the Reformation, need to

be reclaimed for our day.  Sharing the conviction of faithful preachers and theologians who wrote 

The Cambridge Declaration of 1996, we labor for a modern reformation.  Sponsored by the Alliance

of Confessing Evangelicals, The Cambridge Declaration is included here in its entirety.  Along with

all who are desirous for a modern reformation in our day, "we endeavor to assert anew our

commitment to the central truths of the Reformation and of historic evangelicalism."

 

THE CAMBRIDGE DECLARATION of Confessing Evangelicals     April 20, 1996

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, cliche's, 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 preachers 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.

Call To Repentance And 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 adequately to 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.