{"id":1543,"date":"2009-11-10T22:21:05","date_gmt":"2009-11-11T06:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2009\/11\/10\/the-fundamentalist-phenomenon\/"},"modified":"2009-11-10T22:21:36","modified_gmt":"2009-11-11T06:21:36","slug":"the-fundamentalist-phenomenon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2009\/11\/10\/the-fundamentalist-phenomenon\/","title":{"rendered":"the fundamentalist phenomenon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2026 to steal a phrase.<\/p>\n

I ran across an article about the Reformed Church in America at the Christian news site, Christian Post. Entitled \u201cReformed Church in America Is Imploding, Professor Says<\/a>\u201d, the article describes turmoil in a denomination I don\u2019t know a lot about.<\/p>\n

Several things struck me about the way the conflict was described however. Note these key paragraphs:<\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now before anyone shrieks, \u2018none of these people are fundamentalists\u2019, 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.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s note the nature of the participants and the focus of the struggle. There are three groups mentioned here:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Liberals<\/li>\n
  2. Conservatives<\/li>\n
  3. Loyalists<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Note in particular what the issues are: civil-rights, women ordination, social action (social gospel?). These are all left-right issues. They are perhaps not \u2018gospel issues\u2019, but they are probably at least tangentially related to the gospel and are promoted by the liberals on the basis of a more or less gospel-denying philosophy (I am assuming here).<\/p>\n

    Initially the conflict is between liberals and conservatives, presumably brought on when some conservatives decided to raise a stink about liberal teaching or programs. A period of conflict ensued, but a third force arose, the loyalists, who want denominational peace at any cost. These would be akin to the famous \u2018moderates\u2019 whose traitorous compromises did the fundamentalists in during the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy.<\/p>\n

    Isn\u2019t this the way the fundamentalist phenomenon started?<\/p>\n

    In this particular case, the end game may be less dramatic than the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy. Note this paragraph from the article:<\/p>\n

    \n

    The glue that once held the RCA together may have eroded, but Lewis suggests that new glue is already forming. Lewis sees hope in some of the new developments including: the new array of options for training ministers in Word and sacrament, coached clergy networks that offer support and encourage accountability, general synods that have given greater voice to delegates, greater dialogue between conservatives and liberals on what they’ve learned from visiting Christians in other countries, and foreign churches seeking partnerships with the RCA.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    In this case, it appears the conservatives are being co-opted and are staying in.<\/p>\n

    What would have happened to fundamentalism if all the fundamentalists in the thirties had decided that unity was more important and had decided to just shut up, stay in, and work for \u2018renewal\u2019 from within?<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Would there have been a fundamentalism at all<\/em><\/strong>?<\/li>\n
    2. Would there have been an evangelicalism at all<\/em><\/strong>?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      We know how the story ended \u2013 the fundamentalists came out of the mainline and started over. Thirty years later, they received a broadside, seemingly from within, when the evangelicals decided they had enough of the contention and withdrew to form closer ties with the modernists from whom their forefathers had withdrawn a generation before.<\/p>\n

      If the fundamentalists hadn\u2019t been separatists, would there even have been an evangelicalism today?<\/p>\n

      I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

      So today, on many levels, we are being told to rethink fundamentalism. We are being told that fundamentalism is the problem.<\/p>\n

      Is it really?<\/p>\n

      Of the three groups in the RCA, mentioned above, which ones are the biggest problem, the liberals, conservatives, or loyalists?<\/p>\n

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

      \u2026 to steal a phrase. I ran across an article about the Reformed Church in America at the Christian news site, Christian Post. Entitled \u201cReformed Church in America Is Imploding, Professor Says\u201d, the article describes turmoil in a denomination I don\u2019t know a lot about. Several things struck me about the way the conflict was […]<\/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,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[105,37,71],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-oT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543"}],"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=1543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1544,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions\/1544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}