Thank you! Why can’t people remember history? There wasn’t a division because the “New Evangelicals” were out there denying the Trinity. They were unwilling to be militant against error choosing dialogue instead of what God calls for: separation. Today’s “Conservative Evangelicals” walk in the same error.

No, Keith, you are missing the point.

First, TGC is not a fundamentalist group because they are willing to make coalitions with people who are compromising the gospel in some ways. They are unwilling to separate themselves from them or admonish them. It would be wonderful if they would. And of course, they would deny that they were fundamentalists.

Fundamentalist doesn’t mean simply orthodoxy. It means orthodoxy plus militancy.

As far as Bob’s arguments, he has none. It is just mere rhetoric. He writes because someone called him a name. He doesn’t defend himself, he attacks a whole group of people because, he says, this incident is typical of that whole group of people. Then he attacks some individuals personally in an exceedingly egregious way – individuals that had nothing at all to do with the original issue. He doesn’t defend himself against the name he objects to, he doesn’t give us any reasons why he objects to the specific incident. He just uses the incident to spew his antagonism to fundamentalism in general and the FBF in particular. That isn’t an argument.

So I reject the notion that I am just parsing words. I am objecting to his unwarranted personal attack against men who had nothing to do with his alleged original offense.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

It appears that you are missing Bob’s point. Groups like TGC are closer to what a term like “fundamentalist” denotes than those groups who insist they hold the copyright on the term. Those groups are attached to various conotations and subcultural trappings that are no where near fundamental Christian doctrine.

Bob’s relinquished the term to the alleged copyright holders, but he’s not willing to be bullied by scare words.

This doesn’t mean that everything Bob has said is perfect. It doesn’t mean he has no responsibility for hiw words. It just means that some of you really ought to engage the argument instead of parsing words.

If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, in all likelihood it is a duck. If Bixby interacts with the Evangelicals, blasts Fundamentalists like an Evangelical, then he should go ahead and accept the name.

It would be nice if those who are so disaffected with Fundamentalism would just move on. They are not interested in correcting the problems, perceived or real.

It is a fine line to walk, moderating comments. I try to allow all I can, unless the comments are degenerating into meaningless insults or the writer is heading off on his own direction and taking over the direction of the thread. But of course it is a judgement call and we don’t like to be told no.

But as I have said, it isn’t the deletions that bother me most in this squabble.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

IMO, *that* sort of comment deletion is only slightly less reprehensible than the blog owner who *edits* others’ comments. If a blog author is only going to allow comments that say what he wants, then pretending to allow comments is a sham — he’s lying to his readers and using his commenters’ credibility to mask the fact that the “discussion” is all from his own mind.

Bixby clearly appears to have crossed the line.

So? He is justified in attacking others, who weren’t a party to the alleged insult? How does that work? As Straub said, his “push back” was just empty rhetoric. He wasn’t defending himself from the charge, he was angry about it and lashing out at ‘fundamentalism’.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

The point is that someone was attacking Bob’s church using a scare word.

I guess that I have not been clear. The only thing that I would add to what you do (in fact it is what I add) is that I make it clear when someone in our own ranks does wrong I call them on it. In my almost 11 years as a senior pastor in Fundamentalism, I have learned that the good ole boy network is alive and well within Fundamentalism (I am sure it is on CE land as well, but they are not my concern, my movement is). I always thought it was only in the extreme parts of fundamentalism. I was wrong. We need to call out sin on our side, if we do not, we will loose the movement.

Lou,
I know it seemed extreme to lump Dr Vaughn and Jack Schaap in the same sentence. But they did share the same conference platform a few months ago. Maybe that is why Bob did that.