Tag: fundamentalist

A Fundamentalist Self-Critique

~ Bob Hayton ~ 3 Comments

The last few years have seen the world wide web do a number on fundamentalism. I speak particularly of the independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement, and the influence of blogs like Sharper Iron (SI).

Jason Janz, SI’s founder, published his young fundamentalist survey, and soon thereafter Phil Johnson (of Pyromaniac fame), delivered his speech “Dead Right: The Failure of Fundamentalism“. A maelstrom of web action, interaction and reaction ensued which has yet to calm down. The fundamentalist blogosphere has been a place for theological critique and development, and has been the occasion for a slow exodus from the IFB movement.

Some, like myself, left the IFB from other considerations. Others were awoken to errors in extreme fundamentalism (IFBx) through the web. For all, the availability of conservative evangelical materials produced by John Piper and John MacArthur and others, has given a greater intellectual freedom to many as they can see what life outside IFB (or IFBx) halls looks like.

With the winds of change blowing strong, and with the emergent movement and other bleak theological developments on the horizon, many a fundamentalist leader and institution has taken a skeptical view of the web and of Sharper Iron and other fundamentalist blogs. This should not be surprising.

The reactions have not all been so stick-in-the-mud-like, however. Many fundamentalist leaders are jumping into the fray and being honest and open about the problems they see. Leaders like Dr. Dave Doran and Dr. Kevin Bauder and other contributors at Sharper Iron, give hope to fundamentalism as a willingness to change is displayed. The idea and merits of fundamentalism are being clearly put forth, and many a young man stays within the IFB ship hoping to play a part in righting it and seeing fundamentalism play a part in helping wider evangelicalism see the errors of its way (and there are many).

Now that I’ve brought you up to speed, let me encourage you to read this fundamentalist self-critique by Kevin Bauder. He has just started a series that will detail a history and critical examination of fundamentalism. His posts come first as essays in his online publication In the Nick of Time, from Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis. Then they are showcased at Sharper Iron. Andy Naselli tipped me off to the article being available, and I’m sure this week SI will be publishing it there. You can read it now here (pdf). [Update: here’s the link for the article on SI]. Let me add an excerpt or two from it to entice you to read the whole thing. Part 1 is also available here.

…Because they are cut off from the Christian past, fundamentalists have little sense of the extent to which they have truncated the whole counsel of God. While they rightly insist upon the necessity of confessing certain fundamentals, they have little patience for careful doctrinal exploration and articulation, even when the doctrines under consideration are fundamental. They profess to love the Bible as an object, but even in the better neighborhoods of fundamentalism it is not difficult to find people who despise the attempt to understand biblical teaching in any depth.

Fundamentalists are all about defending the faith. Too often, however, all that they are willing to defend is a truncated faith of slogans and clichés. Even the most important areas of doctrine are reduced to rather pat formulae. Non-fundamental areas of the faith may be left completely unexplored.

Comparing Fundamentalist faith and practice to the faith and practice of historic Christianity is like comparing a hamburger to a filet mignon. The two obviously have something in common, but it would be misleading to say that everything in the steak is also in the hamburger.

Kirsopp Lake said that Fundamentalism is the “partial . . . survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians.” To the extent that he is correct, Fundamentalists should probably be a little less enthralled with his description. And I think that he is right.

To Drink, Or Not to Drink

~ Bob Hayton ~ 9 Comments

I was swept away (again), into a fundamentalist feud over alcoholic drink. My ears perked up when I came across a humorous post on teetotaling. I figured that the issue was a current hot button topic at Sharper Iron, and so I went digging.

Turns out, Shelton Smith (The Sword of The Lord) and Robert Sumner (The Biblical Evangelist) rival editors of influential fundamentalist periodicals, have both recently decried a new book from BJU press on the alcohol question. I haven’t read Randy Jaeggli’s book The Christian and Drinking: A Biblical Perspective (he’s a prof at BJU), but from what I am reading at Sharper Iron, he defends an abstentionist position in a biblically defensible way. He is careful with the text and so believes Jesus actually drank alcoholic wine, albeit perhaps with less punch then is available today.

His honest treatment of Scripture is too much for the hard line fndamentalists to swallow. They view his book as only doing lip service to a temperance policy. The alarm must be sounded.

So I’ve had my nose in a few threads over at Sharper Iron, discussing this hot issue. I’m not so much discussing the book, as the merits of a moderationist position. You can find my position outlined in this forum post. And I detail the different discussion thread links, in a forum post over at our own Transformed by Grace forum site.

I’ve had quite a few interesting posts concerning wine on my blog in years past.   Click on the wine cateogory for the full list, but here are a few of my favorites:

Fundamentalists and Music

~ fundyreformed ~ 4 Comments

Will Dudding (the Reforming Baptist) has a great post on music. He challenges fundamentalists regarding their stance on music. I don’t agree 100% with everything he says, but his post is definitely worth a read if you are interested in reforming fundamentalism. I am happy for any who are reforming and growing in relation to the word, whether they are fundamentalist still or not. Will’s posts are always a blessing and often challenging. Here’s an excerpt.

What I see is that we have constructed a culture in fundamentalism that is an extreme opposite of the ever-developing worldly culture within new evangelicalism. It’s an atmosphere of “us vs. them”. We wear suits and ties, they don’t; we use classical style music, they don’t; we use a King James Bible, they use everything else but a KJV; we make our women wear dresses, they don’t care what their women wear; and so on and so forth…

Let me make something clear from the beginning: I am no fan of the modern gimmicks and fads that the weak, luke-warm broader evangelical church has to offer! They must turn to all their new methods (or waves, as Rick Warren puts it) to cover up their inadequate, watered-down gospel which has made them irrelevant in the true sense of the word. On that same note, I am no more a fan of the man-made, manufactured traditions and taboos of fundamentalism that so many feel that they have to defend in order to stay holy and separate from worldliness. Just as the Pharisees were clean on the outside, they neglected the weightier things of the law and we tend to do the same thing….

Music has been another component in the Christian sub-culture of Fundamentalism. You can take the most un-scriptural, theologically bankrupt song and sing it with a piano, organ and an opera singer and the song automatically passes fundamentalist standards.

The post is entitled “Music -Style, Emotion, Instruments and Associations“. Be sure to read the whole thing.

Can Fundamentalists fellowship with Mark Dever?

~ fundyreformed ~ 5 Comments

I’ve been distracted from my current series by some blog discussions regarding Mark Dever and fundamentalism. (I plan to bring my next post in the Land series tomorrow, Lord willing).

Mark Dever recently interviewed Mark Minnick, who teaches at BJU and pastors in Greenville. I haven’t listened to the interview yet, but I did read some various fundamentalist reactions to it. What piqued my interest was Dever’s recent post entitled: “Mark Dever Doesn’t Practice Separation?”

Mark’s post displays some consternation over charges by fundamentalists that he does not practice separation. He details many ways in which he and his church do separate. Dever’s explanation of separation describes my basic position: that separation does not have to look like the standard fundamentalist fare, in order to still be biblical separation.

You may want to read Dever’s post and then go on to read the comments. There are some thoughtful posts and discussions happening there which are helpful to anyone thinking through the issue of ecclesiastical separation and/or secondary separation.

Appreciating and Assessing Fundamentalism

~ fundyreformed ~ 3 Comments

Nine Marks Ministries, a conservative evangelical ministry aiming to strengthen churches by emphasizing Biblical rather than pragmatic approaches to ministry, recently released their March/April 2008 e-journal. This month the topic was unity and separation, with an emphasis on fundamentalism.

The journal was kind to fundamentalism. While it recognized a need to balance separation with unity, it gave fundamentalists like Dr. Dave Doran (pastor of Inter-City Baptist Church in Allen Park, MI and president of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary) and Dr. Mark Minnick (pastor of Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Greenville, SC and NT faculty member of Bob Jones University) an opportunity to defend their fundamentalist viewpoint.

The journal brought together some of the best articles on the issue of Biblically-based separation and unity. I particularly thought that the articles by Mark Dever, Albert Mohler, and Wayne Grudem were excellent. See this link where Justin Taylor provides links to all the articles in the journal. Or download the pdf version of the journal. Also, don’t miss out on the audio lecture by Iain Murray (of Banner of Truth) on “George Whitefield and Catholicity” (catholicity meaning Christian unity with the universal church).

Perhaps the most interesting part of the journal was the “Pastors’ and Theologians’ Forum on Fundamentalism“. It is a round-table discussion of sorts, where 19 different men were asked to answer this question: “What can we learn from the Christian fundamentalists?” For the most part, the answers focused on the positive contributions fundamentalism has made to evangelicalism. And while the faults of fundamentalism were sometimes mentioned, the overall feel of the discussion was one of a great appreciation for fundamentalists.

Ben Wright, a pastoral assistant at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC (home of Nine Marks Ministries), at his blog Paleoevangelical (which I would consider a reforming fundamentalist blog), asked for people to comment on which round-table answer they thought was the best. Ben of course expects his commenters to choose his own answer, as he contributed both to the roundtable and the journal (providing one article). I thought the idea was fun and could encourage some good conversation on these matters.

As I thought about responding, I felt I should just make my response into a post. So here goes….

I think the two best overall answers were Bob Johnson‘s and Carl Trueman‘s. And I appreciated some phrases and thoughts from other answers. I should also note that I learned a new derision of fundamentalism: “No fun, all da**, and not enough mental”. I should say that this was given tongue in cheek, and the 2 contributors who mentioned it were not bitter at the “fightin’ fundies”. I still thought it was funny, even though I recognize it is not true of many good fundamentalists I know.

Besides that line, I thought the following quotes were worthy of consideration:

…What it does is reassert a lost world, a once intact but no-longer-taken-for-granted cultural reality. In doing so, it both romanticizes the past and radicalizes the present with its overlay of psychological defiance and cultural militancy. Herein lies its danger to followers of Jesus: the cultural overlay grows more and more alien to the call of Jesus to his disciples…. (by Os Guinness)

In a day when Protestants seem to be as easily impressed by smooth-talking television preachers, beautiful liturgies administered by women and gays, or smart popes, we could use Fundamentalist suspicion. (by Darryl Hart)

I also was pleased to see someone make the same point I did about the place of the Gospel as it relates to extreme separation.

Sometimes, their practical applications appear to be as important as (or even more important than) the gospel. (by Matthew Hoskinson)

So what are your thoughts on the journal, or the round-table discussion?