Entries Tagged 'Fundamentalism' ↓

I’d like to comment on myself this time. In my post on ‘the vision thing’, I made this comment:

Another complicating factor in making these comparisons is that the ‘competing’ ministries are represented by ministries strongly identified with a popular individual on the conservative evangelical side as opposed to more institutional or group oriented ministries/organizations on the fundamentalist side.

Others have noticed this difference also. The Conservative Evangelical brand is largely led by ministries centered around prominent individuals. The Fundamentalist brand, these days, really has no star power in its leaders and it tends to find whatever leadership it has in collective efforts, rather than in individual ministries.

That is a generalization, of course. There are, I suppose, some exceptions to the rule, but I think the generalization holds.

For example, when you think Conservative Evangelical, you think of a list of names: Dever, Piper, Mahaney, Mohler, MacArthur, etc. Some of these men represent institutions and work closely with a number of other men, but there is a sense that they are the focal point of the brand.

On the other hand, when you think Fundamentalism, what comes to mind? Bob Jones University, the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship, Maranatha, Detroit, Central, the Wilds, etc. Of course, individuals lead these ministries and fill up their staffs, but I would suggest that even fairly well informed observers would have to think a bit to get the individual leaders of ALL of these ministries. On the CE side, if we simply named 9Marks, Desiring God, Sovereign Grace, Southern Seminary, Grace to You… most observers – regular readers of this blog – would be able to put the names to those ministries without any effort.

Isn’t that a curious difference? It wasn’t always so in Fundamentalism. And that involves both an irony and a sign of generational change.

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I’ve been involved in one of our interminable discussions of the state of fundamentalism on another blog. The topic of conversation shifted from the original post somewhat and one comment from a pastor in California brought up the idea of ‘vision’.

He suggests that it is easy to summarize in a few short words or a phrases the essential vision of various evangelical ministries, but questions whether that is true of fundamentalist ministries or institutions. I don’t happen to think that he is right, but he seems to think that the ‘visions’ of the evangelicals are more compelling than the lack of vision of fundamentalists.

Another complicating factor in making these comparisons is that the ‘competing’ ministries are represented by ministries strongly identified with a popular individual on the conservative evangelical side as opposed to more institutional or group oriented ministries/organizations on the fundamentalist side. In some ways we aren’t really comparing apples to apples here.

Having said that, the idea of ‘vision’ (or ‘mission statements’) leaves me cold. Too much corporate psycho-babble for me.

I wonder, however, if a few readers would like to chime in on the subject by giving us their brief ‘vision statements’ for the various ministries mentioned. Here is the list:

• 9Marks
• Ligonier
• Grace To You
• Desiring God
• BJU
• FBFI
• Sword of the Lord

I am going to post the complete post I am reacting to after the jump, so I would suggest that it would be best if you write out your vision/mission statements first, without looking at the post or other comments. Then click through to my comments section and post your reaction.

We can discuss various other aspects of this post as well, but let’s start with how well we can define these ministries without looking up their mission statements on their web-sites or doing any research about them. If you aren’t that familiar with a ministry, ‘I don’t know’ is an acceptable response.

More below…

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A few days ago I was incapacitated while comments on an earlier post piled up. I’d like to respond to each one individually in the order in which they were received, so I thought I would do it in a post. I’ll close the comments on the original post and all subsequent comments (if any) can be posted here.

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I’ve observed a phenomenon in the erstwhile fundamentalist blogosphere. It’s called the game of pin the tail on the fundamentalist. It’s played this way:

1. Everybody plays with their eyes open (the better to seem sincere and disingenuous).
2. The root philosophy of fundamentalism is described as having been taught to the player at some point in his training (whether accurately stated or no, it makes no difference).
3. An error of some fundamentalist(s) is shown to contradict the root philosophy of fundamentalism, as described.
4. Fundamentalists and fundamentalism is branded as being hypocritical and inconsistent.
5. A cacophony of ‘Amens’ and ‘Spot Ons’ follow in the blogosphere, the voices of an aggrieved multitude, citing this cause as being responsible for turning off and turning away a cast of thousands.
6. A comparison is sometimes made of evangelicals who don’t share that particular error, sung to the sound of the background chorus, ‘O, to be like thee’.
7. All thus ‘pinned’ fundamentalists are expected to hang their heads in collective shame, resolving to be henceforward more like the sainted evangelicals whose errors are few and heights of God-centeredness are sublime.

The game is on right now at a blog post near you.

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Consider the word ‘conservative’. What does it mean?

Let’s try Dictionary.com

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A recent series of articles deals with the problem of error creeping into the church. First, an overview of ancient heresies is offered. Second, a modern error by an other-wise well-respected Bible teacher, Henry Morris, is highlighted. And third, an error by M. R. DeHaan with respect to the nature of Christ’s blood is exposed, with this comment:

Sadly, DeHaan’s views have had wide circulation among fundamentalists for the past five decades. Whatever one may believe about the present location of the blood of Christ, there can be no biblical retreat from the fact that Jesus’ blood was human blood.

One might suspect that the series of articles was written so that this statement could be uttered, but that might be seen as too cynical.

In any case, it is true that it seems very easy to slip into error when it comes to the person of Christ. These errors seem to come when, in our zeal to defend one area of biblical truth, we overstate the case and make an error in another area of biblical truth. And sometimes such errors come when, in our zeal for rhetorical flourish, we indulge too much in the speculative nature of things about which the Bible is silent. It seems that we would be safest by simply affirming ONLY what the Bible affirms and leaving speculation entirely aside.

For example, consider the following statement from the articles pointing out errors. Do you see anything wrong with it? Do any aspects of it make you a little uncomfortable?

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I’m a little late to the party, but it seems to me that so far one point is missing from all the discussion of the manhattan declaration.

The fundamentalist reaction, all over the place, is to note that the declaration is a serious compromise of the gospel by its declaration that all signers are Christians. I’ll not repeat all of the analysis on this point, you can find that elsewhere.

The evangelical reaction is mixed. Some fairly conservative names have signed the document while others have notably and publicly made their opposition clear. Al Mohler is a prominent conservative signatory while John MacArthur is a prominent non-signatory.

Dave Doran comments in one of his blogs on the subject:

Thankfully, to this point Dr. Mohler has kept a theological edge that has prevented him from fully embracing the ecumenical path of men like Timothy George and Chuck Colson. I hope he never loses that edge. Well, truth be told, I really hope he slides closer to John MacArthur’s position.

This quotation contains all the elements of the one point I’d like to highlight and poses a serious question for the rising neo-fundamentalists who seem to want closer ties to the conservative camp.

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I am in my home town, assisting my parents in a move out to the coast so that our family can more directly care for them in their old age. Today I went to church with my dad. It was in this church that I grew up and had my first preaching opportunities. It is a church almost 100 years old. It has had a significant impact on many lives during its existence, including at least 5 men in the ministry from its young people just in my generation.

The style of service and many doctrinal issues make this a church I could no longer have close fellowship with, even if the Lord had brought me back to my home province for my ministry. I rarely attend here, not usually visiting my parents over a Sunday. In the last 27 years, I have probably been in the church for one of its services less than 5 times.

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… to steal a phrase.

I ran across an article about the Reformed Church in America at the Christian news site, Christian Post. Entitled “Reformed Church in America Is Imploding, Professor Says”, the article describes turmoil in a denomination I don’t know a lot about.

Several things struck me about the way the conflict was described however. Note these key paragraphs:

Amid years of contention between liberals and conservatives over issues such as the civil-rights movement, women’s ordination and evangelism with regard to social witness, Luidens says "loyalists" emerged to keep the denomination together. They were more dedicated to denominational survival than to ideological purity, he notes.

Though the two extremes were held together then, today many liberals have left the RCA in significant numbers and conservatives have shifted their target to the loyalists and continue to "rail against ‘liberalism,’" he says.

Now before anyone shrieks, ‘none of these people are fundamentalists’, let me say I am quite aware of that. But the conflict illustrates exactly what fundamentalism is all about, how it came into existence, and why a need for it still exists.

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The analogy of map and compass is a useful one for considering our navigation the ‘wilderness of this world’ and especially useful for navigating the ecclesiastical wilderness.

For a good understanding of the analogy, though, one must have some understanding of how maps and compasses work. A much more full description can be found from a chapter of a book, The Backpacker’s Field Manual, excerpted here on the Princeton University site, but I’ll attempt a bit in this post.

I suppose when we think of ‘mapping’ the locations on the ecclesiastical landscape, we probably envision a political map, with nation-states and their boundaries. Such maps seem fairly objective and definite in allocating the bounds of various domains, but they are of limited value for navigation.

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