Tag: cooperation

John Dickerson on the Fragmentation of Evangelicalism

~ Bob Hayton ~ 2 Comments

The Great Evangelical Recession by John S DickersonIn my recent review of John Dickerson’s new book The Great Evangelical Recession, I was not able to spend as much time as I would have liked on Dickerson’s thoughts regarding the “fragmentation of evangelicalism.” This dis-unity of evangelicalism is indeed a problem, but there are a host of competing views as to what is the exact nature of this problem!

In his book, I found Dickerson’s emphasis on this point to be superb. He boldly calls the church to draw a clear line as to who is in and who is out of the evangelical movement, particularly with regard to the abandonment of penal substitution and inerrancy (p. 157). With regard to these positions, Dickerson says, “I believe it’s time we graciously call such revisions what they are: non-evangelical” (p. 157). Yet at the same time, he labors to point out how we need to be less divisive on the non-essential matters such as politics and some of our doctrinal differences. He lauds Billy Graham, Harold Ockenga and Carl F.H. Henry as men who “parsed a difficult trail between theological liberalism on the left and belligerent reactionism on the right” (p. 219). “True evangelicalism,” he says, “is uncompromising on the essentials and unconditionally gracious on the non-essentials” (p. 161).

In a recent interview of the author by Trevin Wax, Dickerson elaborates again on his vision for evangelical unity. The exchange below is reflective very much of my own views, at this point. I guess I could consider myself a “true evangelical” (if we want another label to be thrown around)! I remain conservative in theology but see the need to be welcoming and gracious (to a point) in how I hold to my various theological and cultural positions. I am interested in my readers’ thoughts on this topic and their assessment of Dickerson’s view as well. So read the excerpt below and let me know what you think.

Trevin Wax: What role does the fragmentation of evangelicalism into distinct tribes and camps play in the “recession” you believe is on the horizon? What can Christians do to combat this tendency toward fragmentation?

John Dickerson: In the book I get to spend two chapters – Dividing and Uniting – on these questions. This is one of my favorite topics, because Jesus spoke so often of the unity of His true believers (see John 17:20-23 in particular).

The power of diverse churches working together was, in my estimate, the greatest strength of American evangelicalism during the 20th Century. And yes, the “fragmentation” of the “movement” plays a huge role in the present decline of American evangelicalism.

Humanly speaking, it will take a miracle to combat fragmentation in the 21st Century. Presently, I see evangelicals falling into the same three positions they took during the early 20th Century, in the Fundamentalists vs. Liberalism debates.

I see more evangelicals separating and defining themselves by who they oppose. This is really a new manifestation of Fundamentalism. Simultaneously, other so-called “evangelicals” are getting soft on Scripture and atonement. They are essentially reincarnations of the old theological liberals who sabotaged the mainline denominations. History demonstrates that those extreme oppositional and capitulating views both fail Christ and the Church over time.

Back in the 1940′s and 50′s, Billy Graham, Harold Ockenga and Carl F.H. Henry, cut an intentional path between Fundamentalism and Liberalism. They avoided the militant negativity on one hand, and they avoided the spongy pluralism on the other. These men cast vision for an evangelical movement truly defined by both grace and truth. My heart, my real passion is for a new generation to step in where Graham, Ockenga and Henry once did, to rally evangelical believers around Christ again.

I pray regularly that God will lift up a new generation of Spirit-led 21st Century Evangelical leaders who will clean that old path between the two extremes—the path that is uncompromising on doctrine and Scripture, but also gracious, loving and ultimately focused outward, toward the world we are called to reach.

This was my driving passion in writing this book, to perhaps be a small voice in a bigger conversation toward evangelical unity in the 21st Century. It is a passionate prayer of mine that God raises up leaders like this for our generation – to lead souls and organizations down this road of uncompromising Grace and Truth. Biblical unity is more important than ever—but it’s also more challenging than ever.

Trevin Wax: What can Christians do to combat this tendency toward fragmentation?

John Dickerson: The book really digs into this, but here are a few passing thoughts.

  • We have to stop tearing each other down, period.
  • We have to actually believe Jesus’ words in John 17:23, when He prayed “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:23). According to Jesus, unity is a guaranteed apologetic for His followers. Because Jesus took this seriously, we’d better start taking it seriously.
  • We do have to graciously clarify non-evangelical departures from the atonement and the infallibility of Scripture, and part company when non-evangelical doctrines are held.
  • We have to start local—by praying with and caring for other pastors and leaders in our proximity.
  • We have to start praying for the Kingdom, beyond our own congregation and brand. At Cornerstone in Prescott, we often pray—by name—for other evangelical congregations in our city. We do this during our Sunday worship, as we pray that God’s Kingdom would truly come and His will would be done in our community.
  • We must unite around Christ Himself as the Head of the Church—and around His simple Gospel message of salvation by faith alone in His work on the cross alone.
  • We must maintain Scriptural authority as an essential in the unifying creeds. As the nursery song says, we only know how much Jesus loves me, because “the Bible tells me so.”

Pick up a copy of this book at Christianbook.com, Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, or direct from Baker.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Baker Books. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.

A Third Option for Separation: Tetreau on Type A, B & C Fundamentalism Again

~ Bob Hayton ~ 1 Comment

Back in 2006, Pastor Joel Tetreau posted a three part series at SharperIron.org called “Three Lines in the Sand”. In it, he explained the landscape of fundamentalism in terms of Type A, Type B and Type C fundamentalists. You can still read that original series of posts at Sharper Iron: part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Type A is the traditional, hard-line fundamentalist who won’t budge on music or other cultural issues and doesn’t see any need to fellowship with those who disagree with him. Type B were those like Tetreau who didn’t mind moving beyond the boundaries of the fundamentalist movement for fellowship and cooperation, but nevertheless self-identified as fundamentalists — holding to the fundamentals and a practice of separation. Type C fundamentalists were the conservative evangelicals who shared ideals with fundamentalists but not the name and had no organic connection with the movement.

This week, Tetreau has revisited this topic and gives some more observations about where we are now, five years removed from his original series. His post is well worth the read and has already attracted a lot of interaction in the comments at Sharper Iron.

I wanted to excerpt his description of the fundamentalist types as well as his view of a “third option” for separation. Then I have a few comments on his taxonomy.

Joel’s Taxonomy

Type A fundamentalists are those fundamentalists who emphasize a first and second degree separation with militancy. Typically with these brothers, fellowship or separation is an “all or nothing” proposition. Another common characteristic with this group is a kind of sub-culture identity that not only separates them from the secular world but from the rest of evangelical Christianity. There is very much an “us vs. them” identity. Type A men would in the main not view Type C men as fundamentalists. This is probably the chief difference between Type A and Type B fundamentalists. Type A fundamentalism holds that it needs to not only protect the gospel but a specific set of sub-Christian ecclesiastical practices and forms that are especially clear in the typical Type A congregation’s corporate choice of music.

Type B fundamentalists like myself, while growing up under and holding on to much of the heritage found in Type A fundamentalism, do not believe the Scriptures teach an “all or nothing” approach to separation and unity. Type A’s generally feel that there simply is really no arena where they could have any kind of real ecclesiastical co-work with a conservative evangelical. Type B’s disagree. We believe there a variety of occasions where fundamentalists can and should have co-ministry with those that self-identify as conservative evangelicals. This is especially true of those evangelicals who are militant and even separastistic. The recent flap over the Elephant Room “second edition” demonstrates that many conservative evangelicals know how to be both militant and even separatistic from other evangelicals when the gospel or orthodoxy is blurred!

Type C fundamentalists are evangelicals who, while not participating in the more Type A or Type B fellowships and not calling themselves fundamentalists (mainly because of the way many in Type A and Type A+ fundamentalism believe and behave), are in fact part of the fundamentalist heritage because of their gospel militancy, their clear commitments to the fundamentals of the faith and the veracity of Scripture, and their willingness to do “battle royal” against an ecumenical agenda. Examples of this approach include men such as John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Mark Dever and a host of younger men who are clear on the gospel, clear on truth and willing to stand especially against evangelicals who are spineless—or clueless—on theological veracity.

Joel’s “Third Option”

Over the last few decades of ministry I have become convinced that the Type A fundamentalist’s aim to separate from all evangelicals or evangelicalism carte blanche is at best, biblically unhealthy and, at worst, sinfully schismatic to the body of the Christ. Not only have they thrown the poor baby out with the bathwater; but they’ve also condemned the whole nursery as if it was contaminated with some kind of an ecclesiastical leprosy! You slapped the initials “NE” (New Evangelical) on the poor baby’s forehead just knowing that eventually he’d be the next Billy Graham!

Some Type A’s might object that this means I must be for ecumenicalism, because they have been trained to think in the “us vs. you” mentality. They demonstrate the fallacy of the excluded middle. There is a third option that is better than “we separate from everybody or we separate from nobody.” That third option is we cooperate with brothers who love the gospel and are walking in obedience to the teachings of Scripture, even if they aren’t in our “camp” or “group.” You would think this reality would be near the Christianity 101 level.

[headings and the bolded emphasis in the last paragraph, are mine.]

I don’t want to excerpt more than this because you’re really going to want to read his whole piece. One area of difference I have with Joel (besides being a Type C fundamentalist — Joel is a Type B), is that he limits fellowship to just the Type C’s rather than those who are perhaps a Type D.  I’m referring to those who are further removed from the mindset of militancy, but who nevertheless respect the fundamentals and are confessionally based. I notice John Piper, D.A. Carson, Tim Keller and the like, are not listed as Type C fundamentalists – yet I would argue each in his own way does much to stand for the fundamentals of the faith against the inroads of modernism and liberalism (and a whole host of other -isms). They may not have that “edge” or sharpness about them in their critique of other movements in Christianity. They may not be as shrill as fundamentalists typically would like. They may not have pronounced as many anathemas over the Elephant Room 2 as some would like, perhaps, but they nevertheless are leaders who represent a mindset that Type B and C fundamentalists should respect and cooperate with.

Still, Joel’s explanation of Type A, B, and C has really helped me in my thinking through the tangled reality of fundamentalism and evangelicalism over the years. And I’m happy he is continuing to expound on his simple matrix for processing how we can “cooperate with brothers who love the gospel and are walking in obedience to the teachings of Scripture, even if they aren’t in our ‘camp’ or ‘group’.” That is the spirit I see exemplified in Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels, and embodied in his call for unity in John 17. May such a spirit of cooperation and unity continue to spread among fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals everywhere.

Central Baptist Theological Seminary Statement on Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism

~ Bob Hayton ~ 3 Comments

Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Minneapolis, MN recently posted a statement which helps define where they think fundamentalism is or should be going. It makes some careful delineation of terms and goes out of its way to repudiate some of the more extreme versions of fundamentalism.

I appreciate the desire this statement has for working with conservative evangelicals, as much as fundamentalist ideas and principles can allow. I’m going to excerpt a few key statements in this and recommend you go read it for yourself.

Ethos Statement on Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism

To be an evangelical is to be centered upon the gospel. To be a Fundamentalist is, first, to believe that fundamental doctrines are definitive for Christian fellowship, second, to refuse Christian fellowship with all who deny fundamental doctrines (e.g., doctrines that are essential to the gospel), and third, to reject the leadership of Christians who form bonds of cooperation and fellowship with those who deny essential doctrines. We are both evangelicals and Fundamentalists according to these definitions. We all believe that, as ecclesial movements, both evangelicalism and Fundamentalism have drifted badly from their core commitments. In the case of evangelicalism, the drift began when self-identified neo-evangelicals began to extend Christian fellowship to those who clearly rejected fundamental doctrines. This extension of fellowship represented a dethroning of the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship. It was a grievous error, and it has led to the rapid erosion of evangelical theology within the evangelical movement. At the present moment, some versions of professing evangelicalism actually harbor denials of the gospel such as Open Theism or the New Perspective on Paul. We deny that the advocates of such positions can rightly be called evangelical.

On the other hand, we also believe that some Fundamentalists have attempted to add requirements to the canons of Christian fellowship. Sometimes these requirements have involved institutional or personal loyalties, resulting in abusive patterns of leadership. Other times they have involved organizational agendas. They have sometimes involved the elevation of relatively minor doctrines to a position of major importance. In some instances, they have involved the creation of doctrines nowhere taught in Scripture, such as the doctrine that salvation could not be secured until Jesus presented His material blood in the heavenly tabernacle. During recent years, the most notorious manifestation of this aberrant version of Fundamentalism is embodied in a movement that insists that only the King James version of the Bible (or, in some cases, its underlying Greek or Hebrew texts) ought be recognized as the perfectly preserved Word of God.

We regard both of these extremes as equally dangerous. The evangelicalism of the far Left removes the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship. The Fundamentalism of the far Right adds to the gospel as the boundary of Christian fellowship. Neither extreme is acceptable to us, but because we encounter the far Right more frequently, and because it claims the name of Fundamentalism, we regard it as a more immediate and insidious threat….

We wish to be used to restate, refine, and strengthen biblical Fundamentalism. The process of restatement includes not only defining what a thing is, but also saying what it is not. We find that we must point to many versions of professing Fundamentalism and say, “That is not biblical Christianity.” We do not believe that the process of refinement and definition can occur without such denials. The only way to strengthen Fundamentalism is to speak out against some self-identified Fundamentalists.

We also see a need to speak out against the abandonment of the gospel by the evangelical Left, the reducing of the gospel’s importance by the heirs of the New Evangelicalism, and the huckstering of the gospel by pragmatists, whether evangelicals or Fundamentalists. On the other hand, while we may express disagreement with aspects of conservative evangelicalism (just as we may express disagreement with one another), we wish to affirm and to strengthen the activity of conservative evangelicals in restoring the gospel to its rightful place.

The marks of a strong Fundamentalism will include the following:

1. A recommitment to the primacy and proclamation of the gospel.
2. An understanding that the fundamentals of the gospel are the boundary of Christian fellowship.
3. A focus on the importance of preaching as biblical exposition.
4. An emphasis upon progressive sanctification understood as incremental spiritual growth.
5. An elevation of the importance of ordinate Christian affections, expressed partly by sober worship that is concerned with the exaltation and magnification of God.
6. An understanding of Christian leadership primarily as teaching and serving.
7. A commitment to teaching and transmitting the whole system of faith and practice.
8. An exaltation of the centrality of the local congregation in God’s work.

These are features of an authentic Fundamentalism that we all feel is worth saving. These features describe the kind of Fundamentalism that we wish to build. Their absence in either Fundamentalism or other branches of evangelicalism constitutes a debasing of Christianity that we intend to oppose. (emphasis mine)

Be sure to read the whole thing. (The link takes you to the statement as published by Sharper Iron, where additional discussion follows.)

Personally, as I read the entire statement, it still comes across as, well, quite Fundamentalist. At least this is consistent! I still don’t see how their 5th point regarding a strong Fundamentalism is not also adding “requirements to the canons of Christian fellowship”, however.