The church, the whole church, and nothing but the church

PURE CHURCH:
Recovering God’s plan for local churches
Edited by David Skull, Andrew King
and Jim Sayers
Grace Publications. 221 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 912 154 159

Let me ask you a question: because you know you will never be sinless in this life, is there any point talking about holiness in the Christian life?

Of course there is, you say, indeed it is vitally important. Yet there is a surprisingly widespread cynicism among confessing evangelicals which says that there is little point talking about a ‘pure church’ because you will never achieve a completely ‘pure church’ this side of Heaven.