Downgrade Controversy

The Metropolitan Tabernacle was the largest church in the Baptist Union, but Spurgeon withdrew it from this association. This followed the doctrinal ‘downgrade’ which he believed had permeated the Union. Spurgeon wrote, ‘The Atonement is scouted, the inspiration of Scripture is derided, the Holy Spirit is degraded into an influence, the punishment of sin is turned into fiction, and the resurrection into a myth, and yet these enemies of our faith expect us to call them brethren, and maintain a confederacy with them!’