Cambridge Declaration

The Cambridge Declaration is a statement of faith written in 1996 by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, a group of Reformed and Lutheran Evangelicals who were concerned with the state of the Evangelical movement in America, and throughout the world.

Both the conference and the eventual declaration came about as a result of David F. Wells' 1993 book No Place for Truth or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? (). This book was highly critical of the Evangelical church in America for abandoning its historical and theological roots, and instead embracing the philosophies and pragmatism of the world.

While not a best seller, the book was critically acclaimed by a number of important Evangelical leaders. In 1994 a number of these leaders formed the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Since much of Wells' thesis stemmed from the modern church's abandonment of historical confessions of faith (such as The Westminster Confession and the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith), the Alliance was based upon Evangelicals who not only adhered to these Reformed confessions of faith, but were able to direct their ministries accordingly.

The two principal players involved in spearheading the conference from which the Cambridge Declaration emerged were James Montgomery Boice of Evangelical Ministries (Philadelphia, PA), and Dr. Michael S. Horton of Christians United for Reformation (Anaheim, CA). Like Wells, Horton and Boice were both strong critics of the shallow nature of contemporary Evangelicalism, and had published a book to that effect [see: "Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church" (1993) edited by Horton, and featuring Boice as a contributing author]. Later in 1996, these men joined forces by merging their respective organizations into The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Eventually a conference was held between April 17-20 1996 in the town of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The choice of location was deliberate, since Cambridge was the seat of Harvard and thus the center of ecclesiastical and intellectual life in 17th century America. Cambridge was also the location of The Cambridge Platform, a declaration of church polity made in 1648 by New England Puritans.

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