A lot of the discussion swirling about our fundie blogosphere lately contains talk of “staying in”, “going out”, or other prepositional relationships to “Fundamentalism.”
It is unclear to me exactly how we are “in, out, under, behind” and so on with respect to a ‘movement’. We can be in an organization like the FBFI by paying our annual fee. You may or may not think it is worth it to be in the FBFI, but that is how it is done. You can be in the GARB by being a member or pastor of a GARB church. You can be in the OBF the same way.
But how are you “in” Fundamentalism?
It seems to me that this is the wrong way of looking at the question. The question really is, “Are you a Fundamentalist?”
In other words, it is a state of being question. To be a fundamentalist is to adopt a fundamentalist philosophy. I might argue later what I think that philosophy is. I think we have argued it before in many places, but for this post, I’d like to argue instead something of what it means to be a fundamentalist as a pastor of a local, independent Baptist church.
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