{"id":1317,"date":"2009-05-26T22:33:57","date_gmt":"2009-05-27T06:33:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2009\/05\/26\/more-on-the-exodus\/"},"modified":"2009-05-26T22:33:57","modified_gmt":"2009-05-27T06:33:57","slug":"more-on-the-exodus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2009\/05\/26\/more-on-the-exodus\/","title":{"rendered":"more on the ‘exodus’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent post<\/a>, all five of my readers (plus a few others!) discussed reasons why it appears that many younger people are departing from fundamentalism. I was struck by the excellence of the answers. Some of the reasons given were surprising to me.<\/p>\n

Today, Ellis Murphree posts a blog<\/a> with his take on the subject. His answers are similar to what was posted in the comments section to my post.<\/p>\n

I attempted to summarize the reasons my commenters gave in an excel spreadsheet. My categories are pretty subjective, but help me to think through what was said.<\/p>\n

The reasons some might be leaving that didn\u2019t surprise me are these:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Personality issues: these are what flow from the \u2018pastor as dictator\u2019 big BaBtist model of church leadership<\/li>\n
  2. Standards issues: these are reasons that flow from the complaints over alleged legalism and Pharisaism<\/li>\n
  3. Versions issues: clearly this battle has soured some on fundamentalism in general (unnecessarily so IMO)<\/li>\n
  4. Calvinism\/Puritanism: while I earlier agreed with the notion that this isn\u2019t the<\/em> issue, it is a factor, but perhaps not exactly as one might expect<\/li>\n
  5. Lack of innovation\/deadness: This may be a true charge to some extent, but seems more of an excuse than a reason \u2013 if there is a lack of innovation\u2026 innovate!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Now, two reasons in particular really surprised me:<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    First, Poverty of Preaching<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

    This category is expressed as the \u201clack of expository preaching\u201d. I recognize that there are widely varied approaches to preaching and a significant number of preachers couldn\u2019t be called \u2018expository\u2019 by any stretch of the imagination. But\u2026 there is no one way to preach the Bible\u2026 and from my experience, our fundamentalist schools have been emphasizing careful exegesis and expository preaching for well over thirty years. I can\u2019t imagine that our pulpits are so bereft of expository preaching as all that.<\/p>\n

    [Granted, if you move primarily in some circles, you may find less expository preaching than others.]<\/p>\n

    It seems, however, that this complaint is often made based on a very small sample size. When folks are looking for a church, how many do they typically visit in a given area? And depending on the philosophy \/ background \/ \u2018camp\u2019, etc. of the preachers and churches, it is possible that in some areas it is hard to find a solid Bible preaching church.<\/p>\n

    But I am surprised if this is really as wide spread a problem as some are indicating.<\/p>\n

    Furthermore, it might be the result of unfair judgement on the part of the complainants. (BTW, I am not calling my commenters complainants, I asked for observations, not for personal complaints. I think my commenters were giving their observations, not necessarily their own opinions.)<\/p>\n

    How could these complaints be \u2018unfair\u2019? Well, some expositors are better than others, quite frankly. My preaching mentor and former homiletics professor is, in my mind, the finest living expositor in the world today. (I  am biased.) If I were to judge others by his standard, they would all fall short. I think I fall short, though I try. (When I began to preach through the Gospel of John a few years ago, I noted to a friend that Minnick was doing the same thing\u2026 I said, \u201cAfter he is done it, what else is there left to say.\u201d)<\/p>\n

    So one reason the complaint could be unfair is because the complainants are judging unfairly.<\/p>\n

    Another reason is that the complainants don\u2019t like the applications<\/em> being given by the preachers they listen to. There seems to be an appetite today for detailed Bible teaching, but not such an appetite for comprehensive Bible living. (This could tie this objection in with the \u2018standards\u2019 objection.)<\/p>\n

    So the first reason that surprised me is the complaint about preaching.<\/p>\n

    The second surprising reason I summarized as Leadership failure<\/strong>. I\u2019ll quote some of my commenters to give the sense of what I mean (perhaps it will help me be more concise).<\/p>\n

    Here\u2019s Tracy:<\/p>\n

    \n

    Second, I don\u2019t think our schools are doing a very good job in capturing the hearts, minds, and imaginations of our young people. They\u2019re failing to articulate a robust, interactive vision of fundamentalism. Something is dreadfully wrong when our young men, for instance, can come up through our Christian schools, complete their undergraduate (and often postgraduate) work at our fundamentalist colleges, and then walk out the door into the waiting arms of J-Mac or J-Piper. There needs to be some real soul-searching on the part of our training institutions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    On a similar vein is Kent:<\/p>\n

    \n

    1. Not enough scriptural defense for why the young men need to stay. The FBF leadership seems to be afraid to point out the problems of evangelicalism and they too have a lot of good things to say about the CE.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    In a related, but with a slightly different focus, Tracy adds:<\/p>\n

    \n

    Sixth, I think another area that has hurt fundamentalism, not only with fundamentalists themselves but with others as well, is the absence of published materials. If we don\u2019t define ourselves, others will. If we don\u2019t feed our own, others will. If we don\u2019t defend ourselves, others certainly won\u2019t. And if we don\u2019t articulate a convincing apologetic for fundamentalism, then why should we complain about defections? True, there\u2019s been some recent movement to fill this need, but it may be too little too late. It\u2019s not surprising, is it, that if we don\u2019t give substance to our faith that we\u2019ll soon lose the earnest and serious among us?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Perhaps \u2018surprising\u2019 is the wrong word for my reaction to this. I suppose I shouldn\u2019t have been surprised, but this area is one that I didn\u2019t expect to see addressed when I posed the question.<\/p>\n

    Nevertheless, I think this is perhaps the most critical reason of all, and the reason that I am so concerned about the future of fundamentalism and our current fundamentalist schools. When I was in school, we were constantly taught the fundamentalist philosophy, both by positive precept and negative example. Today, we seem to be very busy appreciating all the good done by men who will not take a fundamentalist view of worldliness or ecclesiastical purity. The imbalance here leads the youngsters to think there is no reason for the distance that exists between Fundamentalism and Conservative Evangelicalism. Result? If you criticise the CEs, you are thought strange.<\/p>\n

    Tracy\u2019s additional comment about not defining ourselves is also telling. I have argued that we don\u2019t have the resources to publish much. Maybe not. But we do have brains in our camp, they should be used and we should be articulating our point of view as much as possible. Perhaps if we were a little more innovative, we could find ways to publish our writing more cost-effectively. It is a critical need of our times.<\/p>\n

    \"don_sig2\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In a recent post, all five of my readers (plus a few others!) discussed reasons why it appears that many younger people are departing from fundamentalism. I was struck by the excellence of the answers. Some of the reasons given were surprising to me. Today, Ellis Murphree posts a blog with his take on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[37,71],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-lf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}