The Fundamentals<\/em>. Other examples could be cited.<\/p>\nHowever, how coordinated were these efforts? What connection did they have with each other? Was there ever some kind of over-arching fundamentalist cabal, plotting the various moves of their minions and orchestrating the fundamentalist side of the controversy? Hardly.<\/p>\n
Second: the New Evangelical challenge<\/h4>\n
I am not sure how fundamentalism was exactly organized in its response to New Evangelicalism. By this time Fundamentalism was much more independent than in its first decades. To be sure, the leaders of Fundamentalism had some communication with one another and they all read each others writings and heard each other\u2019s sermons. But what structure and organization existed? There were also famous falling outs between leaders in this phase of fundamentalism \u2013 John R. Rice vs. Bob Jones is an example. So how organized was the Fundamentalist response? I submit not very, although Dave does acknowledge that we could describe the fundamentalism of that day as a \u2018movement\u2019.<\/p>\n
Third: Dispensationalism<\/h4>\n
Dave rightly sees that there is little or no movement to dispensationalism \u2013 that is, it is a philosophy of Bible interpretation but it is not characterized by organized efforts to promote it. The days of the prophecy conferences are by and large a thing of the past. There are, however, some who spend some time and effort trying to promote dispensationalism. This is led largely by schools characterized by it, by theologians committed to it, by a few evangelists who still preach prophecy conferences. But as a movement with a groundswell of support, it has had its day.<\/p>\n
Fourth: Home Schooling<\/h4>\n
Just how organized is the home schooling movement? No one denies that such a movement exists, but after having had seventeen years of direct experience with home schooling, I can assure you that there is no over-arching organization directing the movement. There are all kinds of conferences, publishers, advocates, groups, etc, promoting home schooling. Many of them are rivals of one another, some of them think the others are nuts and won\u2019t have anything to do with them. There is no one-size-fits all organization, it is incredibly diverse and independent (much like present day fundamentalism). So\u2026 Movement, Yes. Organization? Not much.<\/p>\n
Fifth: the Civil Rights movement<\/h4>\n
This comes as the example used in the Merriam-Webster definition. The civil rights movement involves a whole lot of different people, events, directions, organizations, and efforts. I don\u2019t think it can be said that there was some kind of unified organization. All in the movement were pushing for the same goal and some of them organized themselves into various different groups, promoted different events and different rallies, etc. One could argue that the NAACP is one such organization, a part of the civil rights movement, but would you argue that it is the only<\/em> part of the civil rights movement, everything else is outside the movement? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\nFinally, organized efforts in Fundamentalism today<\/h4>\n
For better or for worse, there is quite a bit of diversity in the fundamentalist movement. That diversity is expressed in a variety of organizations, led by differing groups of leaders in some cases. (I submit that they are pursuing an identifiable fundamentalist goal, but that is a matter for my second post of response.) Organizations like the Fundamentalist Baptist Fellowship, the American Council of Christian Churches, the Canadian Protestant League (admittedly small, mostly Free Presbyterian) and others are promoting the ends of Fundamentalism. There are some conferences from the Bob Jones University Bible Conference to Clarence Sexton\u2019s \u201cBaptist Friends International\u201d and others. All of this involves loosely organized efforts with some links and ties between different groups, but no overall organization.<\/p>\n
I ask, in order to fit the Webster definition:<\/p>\n
How Organized do You Need to Be?<\/h3>\n
I answer, Not Very.<\/p>\n
About as much as Fundamentalism is currently organized. About as much as the New Calvinist movement is currently organized. That is, Not Very.<\/p>\n
So this part of Dave\u2019s critique I simply disagree with. There is enough organization within the Fundamentalist movement today to qualify it as a movement in my opinion. I would suggest that there is about as much organization as there ever has been. Which isn\u2019t a lot\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This will be the first part of my response to Dave\u2019s critique of my last post. This part of my response will deal with an aspect of his critique that I think is incorrect. He does make a valid criticism that I will address in a subsequent post. The first thing I would like to […]<\/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":[91,37,71],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-s8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744"}],"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=1744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}