I am a fundamentalist.
I am NOT a fundamentalist.
So which is it?
It depends on what you mean by “fundamentalist.”
History of Fundamentalism
The term “fundamentalist” was coined back in 1910 when the General Assembly of the Presbyterion Church decided to take a stand against encroaching liberal modernism and listed the “five fundamentals” of the faith:
- The verbal inspiration (and inerrancy) of Scripture
- The divinity of Jesus Christ
- The virgin birth of Jesus Christ
- Substitutionary atonement by Jesus
- The bodily resurrection and future return of Jesus
They published booklets defining and defending these five points from Scripture. If you were in agreement with them on these things, you could call yourself a “Fundamentalist.” So, based on this definition, I suppose I am a fundamentalist. I firmly believe and teach all five of these fundamental truths.
But in the last thirty years or so, fundamentalism has come to include lots of other “non-negotiables.” A “fundamentalist” today must hold to certain views of women in ministry, the end times, abortion, creation vs. evolution, the method of baptism, dress code, drinking alcohol, gettting tattoos, style of music, playing cards, smoking, evangelistic methods, political involvement, etc.
So if this is how “fundamentalists” today are defined, I am not a fundamentalist. Sure, I am quite conservative in many of these areas, but in others, I would be considered “liberal” by some modern fundamentalists. So I am not a fundamentalist.
Encounters of the Fundamentalist Kind
Recently, I have had some personal and online interaction with some of these modern fundamentalists, and have realized that their name is quite descriptive.
First of all, many of them are not much FUN. Sour and dour describes them best. Always frowning. Always criticizing. Always telling you that unless you believe and act the same way they do, you are going to hell. They are not the kind of people who would feel comfortable around Jesus when He goes to parties, drinks, tells potty-humor jokes (yes, Jesus did this! – cf. Mark 7:15), and hangs out with prostitutes and sinners.
A second thing that characterizes modern fundamentalists is their method of argumentation, which is summed up in the word DUH. Modern fundamentalists have already made up their minds about the entire Bible, and when you try to explain that some of their favorite Bible-thumping passages have been ripped out of the cultural and Scriptural context in which they were written, the Fundamentalist acts as if you are the stupidest person on the earth for trying to understand a text this way.
When you ask why your interpretation is wrong, they innundate you with a list of other passages pulled out of context and numerous quotes from authors and pastors who agree with their position. They do not argue from exegesis and proper hermeneutics, but from tradition and citations of other authors.
All of this leads to the conclusion that many of them are MENTAL. They are like people in mental institutions who hold strange beliefs despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Their spittle-spewing rants and tirades are called “holy” because they are “defending God and His Word.” But in reality, they are mindlessly defending their own views and opinions and will not even consider the arguments of any who disagree. No matter how ridiculous their view is, they will not listen to even the most articulate, logical, and gracious arguments.
Are there practices and beliefs in our culture and among Christendom that need to be corrected? Of course, but not with hate, slander, and name-calling, but instead with grace, and speaking the truth in love.
So hold to the fundamentals, but don’t be a fundamentalist.
Thanks goes to ASBO Jesus for this cartoon.
How true, how true. As a church planter myself, I can’t tell you how many times I have run into well-intentioned christians and pastors who are thrilled that I am church planting, until I tell them that I am part of the emergent church. Then, all of a sudden, I am a heretic. I even had one pastor tell me that he was going to pray that I fail in my church planting efforts. Talk about encouragement!
It’s true, of course, that not all emerging churches hold to the five fundamental beliefs that you listed above, or at least, don’t hold them as you would probably define them, but I hold to them, as do many others who are trying to reach out to our culture. Yet becuase we are trying to do things in a new way, we are heretics.
That’s why all you can do is shrug, move on, and continue to reach out.
William
This is spot-on, Jeremy.
To question a Fundie is to question their tradition and those who handed it down to them. They stand on the shoulders of men who actually did a little more than prooftext, even if these men weren’t the most consistent bunch. These modern fundies consider themselves the arbiters of Christian authority, morality, and doctrine. One comment to them, and they are up in arms!
Your comic strip at the bottom was humorous.
Running the race to win,
Antonio
William,
Church planters face some of the toughest criticism (in my opinion) from the fundies. How often do you hear, “You can’t do church that way! It doesn’t count as church if you [fill in the blank with an option below!”?
-don’t sing from hymnals
-don’t go to church on Sunday (which they often mistakenly “the Sabbath”)
-meet in a building that is lit with candles
-preach wearing sandals and shorts
-preach from anything but the KJV
-allow homosexuals and prostitutes and drug addicts to come to church just as they are
-have a pastor with facial hair (yes, I’ve heard this one!)
-etc.
Keep up the good work!
Note: In my preaching class today at Dallas Theological Seminary, a guy showed a video in which the “F word” was used twice. Personally, I cringed a little, but if he were to do that in a fundie church, he would get fired before he made it to his first point.
Antonio,
Great input! I laugh at the double standard of the fundies in question. They lash out and snarl and delete comments when someone posts something negative on their blogs, then cry “foul” when someone else deletes their nasty comments from a different blog.
All you can do is roll your eyes and move on.
BTW, I’m sure you’ve read the comments on your own blog already. I thought it was humorous the objections that were raised that what you criticize LM for is the same thing Chafer, Ryrie, McGee and others taught.
You answered correctly (that it isn’t what they believed), but even if it were, who cares? A favorite tactic of the fundie, as you point out in your comments, is to always rely on tradition.
As I’ve said elsewhere, it like those who say they are “Reformed, but always reforming” but stop at the comma. This is what arguing from tradition does. They think that the writers and teachers of the past cannot be built upon, but we must believe what they say, and not develop or refine in any way the theology we learned from them.
Keep up the good work over at your blogs.
An alert reader, Scott, has raised some good questions about this post and sent me a very gracious and kind e-mail requesting I rethink what I have posted. He has his own blog, over at Created for Him. He has some interesting things to say over there, so go check him out.
His basic concern with this post is that I have misrepresented and slandered the majority of fundamentalists. Most fundamentalists are not the way I have described them here.
He raises a good point. In fact, I almost didn’t publish this post for the very reasons he raises.
So by way of clarification, I should say that I understand not all who consider themselves fundamentalists are the way I have described them here. By a certain definition, I myself am a fundamentalist.
But I guess my basic concern with many (but not all) who call themselves fundamentalist is that the issues they see as important (many of which are important to me as well) are dividing issues for them regarding who is saved and who isn’t, and who can attend their church and who can’t.
Everybody needs to ask themselves this: If a teenager in your church wears a hat into the service, would you say anything to him?
If an unmarried and unsaved couple comes to church, and they hold hands during the music, would you say anything to them about it?
…How about if this unmarried, unsaved couple is two guys?
If a person says they are a believer in Jesus Christ for eternal life, but they admit that they have committed adultery, would you counsel them that maybe they aren’t saved in the first place?
These are just some diagnostic questions to determine how far grace is allowed to permeate your beliefs and standars of living. In my experience, many who call themselves “fundamentalists” don’t let grace in very far.
I ran across this today, and thought it fit (though it is satire):
Mission to Mega-Churches
Check this out…here is the view of fundamentalism from those who have been through it, and have rejected it. I don’t endorse every point, but some of it rings true.
You Might be a Fundy If
Read it with a sense of humor!!!
I hear you, Jeremy. I’m one of those “mainline” folks, and I’ve encountered fundamentalists from the other end of the church spectrum. Those who act like they are allergic to anything orthodox. I’ve had plenty of those kinds of folks ostracize me.
I read a very interesting thing in CS Lewis the other day about liberals and fundamentalists. If I remember correctly, he basically said that both sides of the debate genuinely think that they are doing the best thing for the cause of Christ, and so we should give each other some grace as we both fight for what we think is right.
Wouldn’t THAT be wonderful! 🙂