Entries Tagged 'Fundamentalism' ↓

In a relatively recent (but undated) press release, Central Baptist Theological Seminary announced that discussions of a proposed merger between Central and Faith Baptist Theological Seminary have ceased. Instead, some kind of cooperation between the two institutions will be pursued “short of a merger”.

Below the press release, links are provided to several ‘ethos statements’, also undated. They provide an interesting glimpse into the state of mind CBTS considers to be its “distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs”. *

In reading these documents, some observations come to mind. First, comparing the “Ethos Statement on Salvation & Sanctification” and the “Ethos Statement on Hermeneutics & Eschatology” with the “Ethos Statement on Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism”, a curious difference is immediately noticeable. The first two documents are full of phrases like this: “Some of us believe that…” contrasted with “while others believe…” or “while others understand…” The third document contains no expressions like this at all. One has to wonder how much these first two documents really distinguish the character or guiding beliefs of the institution. Some believe one thing, others believe another. Doesn’t sound like a statement of certainty to me. It seems that the third document, the “Ethos Statement on Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism” is more definitive than the first two.

Second, regarding the “Ethos Statement on Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism” specifically, my first impression is that it represents something new. It isn’t the way fundamentalists have typically expressed themselves in the last 60 years, but it does seem to be a summary statement of new views of fundamentalism that some have been advocating in recent years. Yet, this statement is perhaps less definitive than it appears because there remain several important unanswered questions.

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The Baptist Church in Horse Fair, Stony Stratford, Bucks, England in the year 1790 covenanted together:

To maintain and hold fast the important and fundamental truths of revelation. These we apprehend to be such as respect the natural and moral character of Jehovah, and the various relations He stands in to His rational creatures; the original purity but present depravity of human nature; the total moral inability and yet absolute inexcusableness of man as a guilty sinner before God; the perpetuity of a divine law, and the equity of its awful sanction; the infinite dignity of the Son of God in His original character as a divine Person, possessed of all the perfections of Deity, and His all-sufficiency for the office of Mediator between God and man, in consequence of the union of the divine and human natures in one person; the acceptance of our persons with, and the enjoyment of all good from God, through His mediation; the proper divinity and blessed agency of the Holy Spirit in our regeneration, sanctification, and consolation; in one word, that our full salvation, from its first cause to its final consummation, is a display of sovereign goodness accomplishing the glorious purposes of Him, who worketh all things according to the Council of His own will, and known unto whom is the end from the beginning.

It is quite interesting to me that this church in 1790 uses the terms "fundamental truths". Also of interest are the specific list of doctrines noted as such. It seems that the ideas of fundamentalism are not such a new thing as some suppose.

* Quoted from Baptist Confessions, Covenants and Catechisms, Timothy and Denise George, eds., p. 188, emphasis mine.

Bob Bixby is at it again. In his article, among other things, he says this:

Go to an FBF meeting and look at their leaders beginning with the president and do a study of their adult children. (The last one I attended in 2009 it was obvious that most of the attendees were old enough to have adult children.) You will find that the second-generation of Fundamentalism results very frequently, if they are graced by God, in abandonment of their fathers’ ideology while retaining true fundamentals (thankfully) or, sadly, a whole-hearted plunge into antinomianism.

To which I responded with this:

Don Johnson, on August 19, 2010 at 12:07 pm Said:

Bob, your shot at fundamentalists and their children is really unkind. Do you think that fundamentalists are the only ones who have problems with their adult children? Do you think adult children is what Jesus meant when he said you can judge a tree by its fruit?

Your ranting once again vents spleen and speaks more about you than about those you attack.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jeremiah 33.3

Immediately afterward, another commenter added this:

Hope said on Legalism is the Slippery Slope

August 19, 2010 at 1:41 pm

In response to Bob Bixby on August 19, 2010 at 10:50 am:

The man who today forbids what God allows, tomorrow will allow what God forbids. ~ R.B. Kuiper I want to push back. A Fundamental Baptist pastor has alerted his people to the dangers of Bob Bixby, saying that I am a New Evangelical and have opened the door to compromise and worldliness. I think a [...]

Amen to what Don said!

You will look in vain for this comment. Apparently Bob doesn’t want you to see it. Bob replied to me:

Bob Bixby, on August 19, 2010 at 2:08 pm Said:

Don, in the interest of Christian civility I deleted my longer response and will stick to this:

You are the one that is inconsiderately derailing the conversation by your ad hominem argument. You know as well as I do that biblically these teachers are open to scrutiny and, yes, it is right to look at a man’s adult children to consider the long-term effect of his teaching. It is not an wild attack to raise the question when some scholars even believe (though I do not think I can fully agree) that a man is potentially disqualified from ministry if his adult children are not believers. My point is that my invitation to check these men out is not outside of the God-given parameters.

Please do not post on my blog again. Your modus operandi with me is never discussion but an immediate attempt to discolor the whole thing so that people miss the point because you actually have no substantive argument in response. This is typical of fundamentalism.

To this comment, I offered these words:

Bob, do you think that Jesus meant adult children when he said, "by their fruit ye shall know them"?

As for your request, you are free to delete anything I write. It does seem somewhat contrary to the spirit of the blogosphere which you have espoused in the past. I am not anonymous, your site is not moderated, and I don’t think I have said anything untrue.

And you haven’t dealt with the heart of my question.

BTW, if it is right to attack a man for his adult children, then you will have a field day with many of your evangelical friends.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jeremiah 33.3

You won’t find this comment either. I don’t know how long it was up, but Bob soon deleted it.

You may make your own conclusions, but my opinion is that it is at best unkind of Bob to make personal attacks in trying to make his point, however dubious. Please note, I am not concerned with Bob’s opinion of me, or anything he has said of me. I am referring to the personal attacks he is making in his post, attempting to demean fundamentalism by mud-slinging against some of those with whom he disagrees.

The fact is, I have often agreed with Bob in the past on various points and have commended him for those points, both on his blog and in private correspondence. I do think Bob is often intemperate in his speech and I don’t mind saying so. He cheapens his own arguments by such intemperance.

Now, is Bob correct about some of the problems that he says are in fundamentalism? Certainly. There are problems of all sorts, including abusive pastors, legalistic churches, shallow preaching and the like. Are there none in fundamentalism addressing these problems, or tying to hold to a higher standard? Of course not. There are a lot of good men who try to model biblical ministry within fundamentalism.

But really, read Bob’s post again. His first paragraph tells you what it is all about. Someone called him a New Evangelical. So Bob reacts with a diatribe against all fundamentalism. Why the vehemence, Bob? Why not the grace to turn the other cheek? What does it matter what others say, are you answerable to them? And why do you so easily and willingly resort to personal attacks in trying to defend yourself?

P.S. In my comments section, a reminder that I won’t tolerate abusive speech or those who simply want to distract with sneers and jibes. You know who you are.

One of the books I read this spring is Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman by John R. Muether. My son gave me this book about a year or more ago and I decided it was high time I read it. This is the first biography of Van Til that I have read. A friend who also read it said that it was a good book to fill in some background that other books missed. He recommended reading some of the other books in addition to this one.

While I will put this post in the ‘book reviews’ category, this article isn’t really a book review. I do recommend this book and think it will be worth your while to read if you are interested in Van Til at all.

One of the things that I learned from this book is that Van Til was definitely a separatist. But he wasn’t your fundamentalist type of separatist. He had his own branch of separatism, making himself distinct from both evangelicalism and fundamentalism.

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One of my correspondents challenged me on this subject after the latest rough and tumble debate at SI. My correspondent said to me

You are not charitable with the CE’s IMHO.  You do hold them to a higher standard than our fellow Fundamentalists.

My correspondent cites some situations where fundamentalists shared platforms with dubious characters and one where a fundamentalist made a judgement in a church discipline situation that appears to have been at least unwise, if current available information is accurate. I have advocated a ‘wait and see’ position in the latter case. In the platform fellowship cases, I have not had a lot to say, although I have said some things.

My correspondent concludes:

Taking a wait and see is fine, but not when you are so hard on the CE’s.  You are not consistent in this area in my opinion.

Until we take out the beams in our eyes, we will not honor and glorify God!

I promised my correspondent a response here at oxgoad, so this is it.

The fact is that I am hard on Conservative Evangelicals. They aren’t conservative enough for me and they still have most of the errors of New Evangelicalism as part of their philosophy and modus operandi. They are very little different from the original New Evangelicals (although some differences can be discerned).

And the fact is that I tend to take a wait and see approach to the errors (real or alleged) of fundamentalists because on the important questions, fundamentalists get the answers right. I might add that I take a wait and see attitude toward fundamentalists of various sorts, including those I criticize most. Some of my other correspondents are ready to virtually tar and feather some of the more leftish fundamentalists. I am not ready to do that yet. These correspondents might think I am too soft.

Why the difference and what does it reveal?

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There is some discussion of the differences between conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists and whether we should maintain those differences and, if so, how rigidly we should maintain them.

At least, their purports to be a discussion, but after four weeks nothing of substance has really been discussed.

In some discussions of the topic over the last few years at various online locations, some have alleged that my opposition to closer ties with conservative evangelicals is theological. In other words, since many prominent conservative evangelicals are Together for Calvinism, my opposition is rooted in my non-Calvinistic theology.

Well…

I ran across something this week that puts the lie to that theory. I thought it would enlighten some for me to share it with you.

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Dave points out some of the difficulties we have in dealing with the doctrine of separation. I agree with him about the complexities we face. Separation decisions aren’t easy.

His ‘case study’ is the recent conference in Powell, TN, the International Baptist Friends Conference. His view is that it is unacceptable to enter into ministry partnership with a church and pastor from Hammond, IN. In the main, I agree with this point.

In discussing the topic, Dave says this:

My guess is that plenty of people in the FBF are prepared to overlook it. It is clear that speaking for the Pastors School in Hammond doesn’t get one excluded from Bible Conferences or have churches refuse to host your music seminars. And that reality raises the point that needs to be discussed and illustrates something that I’ve been saying for at least a couple of years now—what ripple ramifications should this have for my fellowship?

Well, that is a good question. What should our relationship be with those who don’t see Hammond as such a problem as I do (or as Dave does)?

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Gordon at Faith, Theology, & Ministry concludes his series on fundamentalism with part 9. In his concluding paragraphs are these words:

The young men that presently sit in the balance or along the sidelines in all this are sure not to be helped by the silence of the older generation at such a time as this.  I believe that the seasoned men of Fundamentalism need to publically speak to the issues at hand, and in today’s array of media options the far-reaching Internet should be the means of choice.

I and many others do not see Fundamentalism as dead.  Neither do we accept that its foundations were flawed.  Its history is still worth telling and worth knowing.  There are many Baptist churches that make Baptist a poor name to some people, but I still believe that under the Baptist name is the place to be.  There are many rogue independent churches who are precisely independent so as to do wrong without consequence, but I have no desire to change in that respect either.  Yes, there are more than a few Fundamental-labeled churches who have and are hurting not just the cause of Fundamentalism but the cause of Christ.  I have earnestly contended with more than a few prime examples here in the Dakotas and bear ministry scars because of it.  Nevertheless, I see no reason to radically redefine, realign, or redirect Fundamentalism.  I pray that you will be convinced of that as well.

I couldn’t agree more, especially with the call for the erstwhile leaders of fundamentalism to take some leadership with respect to the directions that some are promoting. We need to know if these men are on the right track. My instincts have been against what they seem to be saying. I could be wrong. But I’d like to hear from more men who stand as leaders in fundamentalism.

I ran across a blog that is new to me. On this blog there is an ongoing series of articles with this title:

Considerations Concerning the Proclamation of a Post-Fundamentalism Era and the Foundations for Paleo-Evangelicalism

The author explains his purpose in the first Part:

In this series of posts I shall attempt to give answers concerning the following:

1. Whether Fundamentalism was flawed from its beginning by Scottish Common Sense Realism, sentimentalism, and populism or whether it rests more squarely upon Biblical principles;
2. Whether Fundamentalism was only a “partial and uneducated” return to the Biblical faith because it lacks in its appreciation for the history of theological development in contrast to those who are primarily interested in defending the Reformed faith;
3. Whether Fundamentalism should be broader in its vision and burden and be more culturally concerned as is the amillennialist  because of his kingdom-is-now theology and the post-millennialist because of his establish-the-kingdom theology;
4. Whether Fundamentalism should be actively listening to, dialoguing with, or learning from those outside of itself for the purpose of better spiritual growth and maturity;
5. Whether the historical lines of separation for Fundamentalists should be scrapped in favor of fresh approaches meant to allow fellowship and cooperation with Conservative Evangelicals; and
6. Whether we are actually now in a post-Fundamentalism era and in need of something new namely Paleo-evangelicalism.

This series is a response to Bauder’s recent series of articles trying to tell the history and philosophy of Fundamentalism (and making several errors along the way). I think the whole series is worth your attention and so I am providing links to each article below:

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five
• Part Six
• Part Seven
• Part Eight

There is more to come. You should subscribe to the RSS feed on this blog and catch the rest.

UPDATE: Here is Part Nine (the last)

Related posts on oxgoad:

• should early Fundamentalism have embraced the flappers?

• cart before the horse [2]

Dave said (here and here):

Restore the local assembly to the center where God intended it to be. When your local assembly engages in Great Commission work outside its walls, find some folks you agree with and get busy doing it. Unity is built on agreement about the truth, not by politics. Few things are as political as trying to preserve movements once they have fragmented theologically.

Would that it were so simple. But it is not that simple. In the words of John Donne,

No man is an island entire of itself…

And certainly the pastor and church in question is no island, entire unto themselves. If we were talking about a small church in a small community it might be that simple, but … probably not.

Everyone influences someone else. That’s why our private decisions are important. They have influence on someone.

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