Tag: fundamental

An Accurate Assessment of Christian Fundamentalism

~ Bob Hayton ~ 15 Comments

I came across an excellent article written by Steve Whigham, a graduate of BJU (apparently) and former administrater/faculty member of Northland International University, now working for World Magazine. [HT: Sharper Iron] His thoughts come with the recent controversy at Northland where the university board fired and then subsequently re-hired Matt Olson as president. Steve points out what others have mentioned, that the controversy was precipitated primarily by Northland’s change in its music. Whether or not that charge (that music is what the controversy at Northland is most about) is correct, Whigham’s rehashing of the history of fundamentalism is worth reading. I have excerpted some of the good parts here, but encourage you to read the whole thing.

This brouhaha about Northland has served to remind me of my reasons for not being a part of the fundamentalist movement. As Whigham points out, the original fundamentalists, historic fundamentalism if you will, prized certain fundamental points of doctrine as worth unifying around and defending. The fundamentalist movement today is prizing doctrines that are not truly fundamental — such as one musical style over another, and unifying around and defending these sub-fundamental doctrines. This is something I don’t see as healthy or helpful. Some of the sub-fundamentals that are being prized may well be good and grand in themselves. But the essence of what fundamentalism entails — prioritizing and defending cardinal truths of the gospel — this essence is lost when something less than the gospel becomes the main thing. I tried to say something to this effect years ago in my post, “Minimizing the Gospel through Excessive Separation.”

Here is the except from Whigham’s article, which you should bookmark as a helpful summary of the history and problem of today’s Christian fundamentalism.

In the late 1960’s and following, Fundamentalism mobilized its arsenal to a new battle front: sheltering the Christian faith from the worldly influences of an American culture run amok. Drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll were the targets… As it relates to practical Christian living, for many fundamentalists the mantra became, “It’s better to be safe than sorry.” So, many preachers began to wage campaigns against certain “worldly” behaviors and drew bold lines between the world and the fundamentalist norm. Women’s dress (skirts only, and must cover the knee) must be modest, “mixed” bathing (allowing girls and boys to swim together at the beach or pool) should not be allowed in order to protect each other from youthful lusts, men’s hair length (shouldn’t be over the ear), listening to rock music, smoking, holding hands for unmarried couples, and a host more, became not only expected behaviors within Fundamentalism, but was also touted as clear biblical mandates….

By the end of the 1980’s, the fight against modernism and German higher
criticism appeared to be over, but the fighting spirit of the movement continued… The battle lines were no longer being fought over the core doctrines of the faith (as was true in the early years) but rather over acceptable behaviors for a fundamentalist. The battles were no longer waged over theology, but over practical Christian living.

Today, there’s a new generation rising up within Fundamentalism which has little to no connection to the historical roots of the movement. These young millennials see a community led by perpetually angry leaders obsessed and divided over issues that have little to do with the more important expressions of Christian doctrine. What they perceive instead is a movement that is more about arbitrary command and control tactics to subdue behavior than about Christ’s core intentions for mankind. It’s a battle that appears to them as having shifted away from morals to mores. Many younger members of fundamentalist communities are no longer seeing “the Fundamentalist Cause” as worth fighting for and are choosing to leave the community for less rancorous pastures. What Fundamentalism is currently experiencing is, with a few exceptions, a decline in church attendance, a drop in fundamentalist school enrollment, and even a sharp reduction in the number of fundamentalist pastors and missionaries being sent out.

Fundamentalism is shrinking quickly and losing its next generation. As Fundamentalism shrinks, the remaining voices in the movement are becoming more shrill. In their sermons and blogposts you can sense the desperation….

In the beginning, the issues Fundamentalism chose to rally around united a community. They united because: (1) the issues were authentic fundamentals and (2) unity was still valued as a vital doctrine of the faith. By today’s use of slash-and-burn rhetoric against anyone with a different take on a point of Christian liberty, unity has been devalued. In order to protect the enclave, Christ’s call for unity has been stripped of all its moral weight. Currently, the issues most “surviving fundamentalists” are now opting to rally around divide rather than unite. And as long as their current fields of battle remain the same, I cannot see the end of the shrinking anytime soon….

Matt Olson and “What Matters Most” with Separation

~ Bob Hayton ~ 5 Comments

Matt Olson, the president of Northland Baptist Bible College (now called Northland International University), has been writing a blog recently and saying some really important, and risky things. He’s taking a stand against institutional legalsim and is making his constituents a little uneasy.

Recently he started a multi-part series on “What Matters Most.” He is thinking through separation in light of how the fundamentals of the faith are what truly matter most. I have made a similar point in a post entitled: “Minimizing the Gospel through Excessive Separation.” Olson also is open about the positive influence on his thinking from Al Mohler’s “Theological Triage” illustration, which is quite helpful in my view as well.

Here is how Olson distills the three levels of his view on separation:

The first/top tier is orthodoxy. What doctrines are necessary for a person to truly be “Christian?” Sometimes we have referred to these as “the fundamentals of the faith.” While five of these were distinguished in the early part of the last century, I do think there are more. These would be beliefs that are necessary to have a true gospel, an orthodox faith, and an authentic Christianity. I believe it is very clear that Paul draws a hard line here with orthodoxy when we read Galatians. If we don’t get this right, we don’t get anything right.

The second tier is one of functional distinctives. These teachings are necessary for a local church to function effectively—such as mode of baptism and church polity. We may have great fellowship with a Presbyterian and even have him preach for us in our church, but we probably won’t be members of the same church. We differ because we interpret certain texts differently. I see this as a “dotted line.” We can both be Christians who love the Lord and seek to please Him in all we do and we can enjoy times together in and out of the contexts of our local churches.

The third tier is personal convictions. These are matters of conscience or preference. These are important, but believers should be able to differ and still enjoy fellowship within the context of the same local church. Love and respect will “give people space.” It is a Romans 14 spirit within the body and does not prohibit a healthy functioning of the local assembly of believers. In fact, the differences can be a strengthening characteristic. [from part 1 of his series]

Olson seems to differ from the fundamentalist party line in his last post in this series, where he makes the following observations:

I believe that the same lines that I draw for an orthodox Christian faith are the same lines that I should draw for Christian fellowship. I believe that every true born again Christian is a brother or sister in Christ and that not only can I have fellowship with him or her, it is what Christ has intended, and it is what brings him great delight (Romans 1:1; Philippians 2:1-11). For me to draw dividing lines that He has not drawn grieves Him, hurts the body of Christ, and hinders the work of the Great Commission.

The mode of baptism, timing of the rapture, cessationist or non-cessationist positions, dispensational or covenant positions, church polity, style of music, philosophy of ministry—are NOT fundamentals of the faith. They never have been. When we get to heaven I think there are going to be a lot of people feeling ashamed about how they fought over these things and neglected what matters most.

Every local church or ministry will have its functional distinctives, and we need these. Every believer will have his own personal convictions, beliefs, and opinions. We need these as well. They are not unimportant and they may even affect the degree of practical cooperation in certain ministry contexts. But, these are not matters of separation and those who don’t agree with someone else’s opinions are not simply disobedient brothers.

A disobedient brother is someone who is in clear violation of biblical teaching and one who after repeated confrontation continues in his sin. The Bible gives plenty of instruction on how to work through these situations in love and toward restoration (Galatians 6:1-5). [from part 3]

I wholeheartedly affirm what he is saying above, and can agree with the gist of his conclusion:

What do we separate over?

  1. The Christian should expose and separate from a false Gospel (Galatians 1:8,9).
  2. The Christian should expose and separate from another Christian who continues to walk in disobedience (after following a biblical process for restoration, I Corinthians 5:9-13).
  3. The Christian should separate from the world (This is another discussion that I would like to take up in the future because I find many people have a wrong view of ”the world” I John 2:15-17).

[from part 3]

While I applaud Olson’s conclusions on this matter, I’m curious as to what degree this will impact his decisions at the helm of a large fundamentalist institution. I’m hoping he continues to make positive changes, such as his controversial tack on the use of demerits at the university and his changing stance on music (see his open letter for more on both). I wonder if it is too much to hope that he would steer a course for Type B fundamentalists to come into greater fellowship and interaction with the Type Cs who don’t hold to the name fundamentalist but are nevertheless similar in their beliefs. (I’m using Joel Tetreau’s ABCs here.) Apparently others are taking note about Olson’s practice, as the FBFI blog recently put his feet to the fire over an endorsement of a church that belongs to the Sovereign Grace Ministries group of churches. I’m curious to see how Olson answers the very specific questions that have been raised.

These questions are why I am not a part of the fundamentalist movement, because there is such a to-do made about institutions and structures. If you have a fundamentalist institution committed to the movement, then you can’t endorse churches connected to a non-fundamentalist movement. But following Scripture would move you to endorse such churches in the spirit of all Olson has stated above. This is the quandary in store for other fundamentalist leaders who see the deficiencies of an “us four, no more” mentality and really get the Gospel-centered focus of today’s conservative evangelicals. To truly follow their conscience and lead their institutions, they’ll have to invite Mark Dever to their conferences and will inevitably say and do things the fundamentalist base will see as a betrayal of their “cause.”

Here’s hoping that this next generation of fundamentalist leaders are the genesis of a sweeping change within fundamentalism as a whole, and that the wider Church is blessed because of their willingness to follow Christ at all costs.

Hephzibah House Horrors

~ Bob Hayton ~ 29 Comments

Following my post from yesterday, I wanted to share the video clip of CNN reporting on Hephzibah House, an IFB reform house for girls.

If that isn’t enough, you can hear a detailed documentary of eight former HH students detailing what life was like for them at Hephzibah. The documentary is chilling and scary and reinforces how serious this problem is. And somehow the house has kept on running for nearly 40 years…

Why is it that some think brute force, spanking harder and more determinedly, can somehow produce spiritual results? Where do they come up with the idea that surrogate parenting will work, and is condoned by God? And why is it that using military school and extreme psychological tactics will be able to turn out women who fear the Lord and bask in His love?? These are human-centered, pragmatic tactics NEVER MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. And they abuse these poor girls. The results aren’t even worth talking about, as numerous former HH girls run away from Christianity with all their might.

There are a lot of man-centered, Arminian assumptions behind these reform schools and their methods, and I hope to explore this in more detail over the coming weeks. For now, be ashamed of this wing of fundamentalism, be alarmed, and think about what God would have you do.

More IFB Abuse in the News

~ Bob Hayton ~ 13 Comments

This April, some of you know that ABC News’ 20/20 program did an hour long special on the Independent Fundamental Baptist church movement and repeated allegations of sexual abuse — focusing in on a case that happened in Concord, New Hampshire at a church pastored at the time by Chuck Phelps. You can read the posts I did as a follow up to that report, here.

Well, I just learned that CNN’s 360 program with Anderson Cooper has been running a series entitled “Ungodly Discipline”. In their first hour long show on Thursday 9/1, they boomeranged off the sad case of a couple who beat their seven year old daughter to death following the principles from Michael and Debi Pearl’s book To Train Up a Child (a book I was encouraged to purchase at my fundamentalist college). This couple literally spanked the child for seven hours with small breaks for bathroom and prayer. Then the show interviewed the Pearls about their book and their take on spanking. The president of the Bible College I attended was then quoted in a sermon of his on spanking, and Jocelyn Zichterman (who was instrumental in the ABC News program) was interviewed. Next, there was a segment on the alleged abuse cases at Hephzibah House, a home for troubled girls in Indiana. Finally, a closing segment interviewed Bruce Feiler (author of several books explaining evangelical culture) and Jeffrey Toobin (the legal consultant for the show) on how much leeway parents have in spanking their children, legally today.

I wanted to share the videos here and begin discussing the tragedy of such physical abuse perpetrated in the name of the Lord among hyper-fundamentalist Christians. I want to look further at the topic of spanking, and what we are supposed to do about these kinds of cases. I think the time for hiding behind a desire not to spread misinformation and stretched-truths is behind me. Enough has been said and shared that the stories are quite believable. And at the very least those who are alleged to be promoting this kind of physical abuse need to stand up and face the music. They should defend what they are doing by the Bible and distance themselves from this pattern of abuse. And if they don’t, we’ll have the confirmation we need of the many stories we’ve heard. People need to be warned, and enough is enough.

So watch the four segments below (we’ll treat the Hephzibah House segment on its own post). I have learned that another episode is planned that focuses in directly on my alma mater, Fairhaven Baptist College. That show is to air Thursday, 9/22. I’ll be following it closely, but from some of the stories I have read over the last few months, I’m not surprised. In fact, I hope the truth comes out, and that the many who are being misled and harmed by the leadership (whether intentionally or not), will be awakened to evil that has been allowed to flourish.

UPDATE: since this was hard to load for some people, I have just included links to the individual video segments that you can watch on CNN.

part 1

part 2

part 3

Concluding interview.

After watching these videos you may want to check out Mike Durning’s helpful summary and description of the show along with his take on it, posted at Sharper Iron.

Kevin Bauder’s Eight Characteristics of Hyper-Fundamentalism

~ Bob Hayton ~ 72 Comments

A new book forthcoming from Zondervan includes a chapter from Dr. Kevin Bauder of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis. I won’t talk about the book other than to mention its title, and that it is worth getting! The book is Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, edited by Collin Hansen and Andrew Naselli.

I’m still only about half-way through a galley copy of this book, but my eyes lit up when I came across Bauder’s characteristics of hyper-fundamentalism. I think he has captured lightning in a bottle with this list of descriptors, since for a very long time I’ve struggled to pinpoint the cross-over line from reasonable fundamentalism to fundamentalism run wild.

I just have to share Bauder’s eight characteristics of hyper-fundamentalism with you, but I strongly encourage you to get the book and read his entire essay. This quotation is from a pre-published version of the book so it may diverge in part from the final published product.

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First, hyper-fundamentalists often understand fundamentalism in terms of loyalty to an organization, movement, or even leader. They equate the defense of the faith with the prosperity of their organization or its leader. Someone who criticizes or contradicts it is subjected to censure or separation.

Second, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes adopt a militant stance regarding some extrabiblical or even antibiblical teaching. [He sites KJV-onlyism as an example.] …When individuals become militant over such nonbiblical teachings, they cross the line into hyper-fundamentalism.

Third, hyper-fundamentlists understand separation in terms of guilt by association. To associate with someone who holds any error constitutes an endorsement of that error….

Fourth, hyper-fundamentalists are marked by an inability to receive criticism. For them, questioning implies weakness or compromise. Any criticism — especially if it is offered publicly — constitutes an attack….

A fifth characteristic of hyper-fundamentalism is anti-intellectualism. Some hyper-fundamentalists view education as detrimental to spiritual well-being…. Colleges, when they exist, are strictly for the purpose of practical training.

Sixth, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes turn nonessentials into tests of fundamentalism. For example, some hyper-fundamentalists assume that only Baptists should be recognized as fundamentalists…. One’s fundamentalist standing may be judged by such criteria as hair length, musical preferences, and whether one allows women to wear trousers.

Seventh, hyper-fundamentalists occasionally treat militant political involvement as a criterion for fundamentalist standing. During the 1960s and 1970s, anticommunism was a definitive factor for some fundamentalists. Its place has now been taken by antiabortion and antihomosexual activism. Most fundamentalists do agree about these issues, but hyper-fundamentalists make militant activism a necessary obligation of the Christian faith.

Eight and last, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes hold a double standard for personal ethics. They see themselves engaged in an ecclesiastical war, and they reason that some things are permissible in a warfare that would not be permissible in ordinary life. They may employ name-calling, half-truths, and innuendo as legitimate weapons. They may excuse broken promises and political backstabbing.

Hyper-fundamentalism takes many forms, including some that I have not listed. Nevertheless, these are the forms that are most frequently encountered. When a version of fundamentalism bears one or more of these marks, it should be viewed as hyper-fundamentalist…

Hyper-fundamentalism is not fundamentalism. It is as a parasite on the fundamentalist movement. For many years it was simply a nuisance, largely ignored by mainstream fundamentalists. Ignoring the problem, however, permitted it to grow. While statistics are not available, hyper-fundamentalists now constitute a significant percentage of self-identified fundamentalists, perhaps even a majority. They have become the noisiest and often the most visible representatives of fundamentalism. They may be the only version of fundamentalism that many people ever see.

–Excerpted from Kevin Bauder’s chapter on Fundamentalism, in Four Views of the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Zondervan, 2011).

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Let me know what you think. Doesn’t Bauder nail it with this description? I think so.