Theology Thursday - Carnell on the "Perils" of Fundamentalism (Part 1)
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Edward J. Carnell was a major figure in the evangelical world in the 1950s. He became President of Fuller Theological Seminary in 1957, and wrote a little book entitled The Case for Orthodox Theology two years later. At only 168 pages, this was a short, introductory book intended for an interested, but general audience. In a chapter from this book, which he ominously entitled “Perils,” Carnell unleashed a pitiless broadside against fundamentalism.
In this article and the next, I’ve included nearly his entire chapter. It provides a fascinating look into what a conservative evangelical thought about fundamentalism at mid-century. Carnell writes with passion; indeed, at some points his passion gives way to scornful contempt. Some of his critiques still sting today.1
Orthodoxy is plagued by perils as well as difficulties, and the perils are even more disturbing than the difficulties. When orthodoxy slights its difficulties, it elicits criticism; but when it slights its perils, it elicits scorn. The perils are of two sorts; general and specific. The general perils include ideological thinking, a highly censorious spirit, and a curious tendency to separate from the life of the church. The specific peril is the with which orthodoxy converts to fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is orthodoxy gone cultic.
Fundamentalism
When we speak of fundamentalism, however, we must distinguish between the movement and the mentality. The fundamentalist movement was organized shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. When the tidal wave of German higher criticism engulfed the church, a large company of orthodox scholars rose to the occasion. They sought to prove that modernism and Biblical Christianity were incompatible. In this way, the fundamentalist movement preserved the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Its “rugged bursts of individualism” were among the finest fruits of the Reformation.
But the fundamentalist movement made at least one capital mistake, and this is why it converted from a movement to a mentality. Unlike the Continental Reformers and the English Dissenters, the fundamentalists failed to connect their convictions with the classical creeds of the church. Therefore, when modernism collapsed, the fundamentalist movement became an army without a cause. Nothing was left but the mentality of fundamentalism, and this mentality Is orthodoxy’s gravest peril.
The mentality of fundamentalism is dominated by ideological thinking. Ideological thinking is rigid, intolerant and doctrinaire; it sees principles everywhere, and all principles come in clear tones of black and white. It exempts itself from the limits that original sin places on history; it wages holy wars without acknowledging the elements of pride and personal interest that prompt the call to battle; it creates new evils while trying to correct old one.
The fundamentalists’ crusade against the Revised Standard Version illustrates the point. The fury did not stem from a scholarly conviction that the version offends Hebrew and Greek Idioms, for ideological thinking operates on far simpler criteria. First, there were modernists on the translation committee, and modernists corrupt whatever they touch. It does not occur to fundamentalism that translation requires only personal honesty and competent scholarship. Secondly, the Revised Standard Version’s copyright is held by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ. If a fundamentalist used the new version, he might give aid and comfort to the National Council; and that, on his principles, would be sin. By the same token, of course, a fundamentalist could not even buy groceries from a modernist. But ideological thinking is never celebrated for its consistency.
Dispensationalism
Having drifted from the classical creeds of the church, the separatist is prey to theological novelty. Most of Machen’s immediate disciples were shielded from this threat by their orientation in Calvinism, but fundamentalism in general did not fare so well. Dispensationalism filled the vacuum created by the loss of the historic creeds.
Dispensationalism was formulated by one of the nineteenth-century separatist movements, the Plymouth Brethren. Hitherto, all Christians had believed that the church fulfills the prophecies of the Old Testament, and that the future of saved Jews falls within the general life of the church.
Dispensationalism overturned this time-tested confession by contending that the church is only an interim period between two Jewish economies, the Old Testament and the millennium. While dispensationalism sincerely tries to honor the distinctives of Christianity, in practice it often honors the distinctives of Judaism. This is an ironic reversal …
Having withdrawn from the general theological dialogue, the dispensationalist has few active checks against the pretense of ideological pride. As a result, he imagines that the distinctives of dispensationalism are more firmly established than they really are. This illusion prompts him to fight major battles over minor issues. If it comes to it, he is not unwilling to divide the church on whether the rapture occurs before or after the tribulation. This is straight-line cultic conduct, for a cursory examination of Philip Schaff’s “Creeds of Christendom” will show that the church has never made the details of eschatology a test of Christian fellowship.
The dispensationalist is willing to go it alone because he is prompted by the counsels of ideological thinking. He compares Biblical doctrines to a line of standing dominoes: topple any one domino and the entire line falls. On such a scheme the time of the rapture is as crucial to faith as the substitutionary atonement, for any one doctrine analytically includes all other doctrines.
This argument, of course, is a tissue of fallacies. It violates the most elementary canons of Biblical hermeneutics. When separatists flee from the tyranny of the church, they end up with a new tyranny all their own; for there is always a demagogue on hand to decide who is virtuous and who is not. His strategies are pathetically familiar: “Things are in terrible shape; errorists are everywhere. The true faith is being threatened; my own life is in danger. Something must be done; some courageous person must volunteer. I’m free; I’m ready; I’m willing … Oh, yes, you may subscribe to my paper and keep up with the real truth. Three dollars will enroll you in my movement, and for $5.00 you may have a copy of my latest book.”
Intellectual Stagnation
When orthodoxy says that the Bible is the only rule of faith and practice, the fundamentalist promptly concludes that everything worth knowing is in the Bible. The result is a withdrawal from the dialogue of man as man. Nothing can be learned from general wisdom, says the fundamentalist, for the natural man is wrong in starting point, method, and conclusion. When the natural man says, “This is a rose,” he means “This is a not-made-by-the-triune-God rose.” Everything he says is blasphemy.
It is non-sequitur reasoning of this sort which places fundamentalism at the extreme right in the theological spectrum. Classical orthodoxy says that God is revealed in general as well as in special revelation. The Bible completes the witness of God in nature; it does not negate it.
Since the fundamentalist belittles the value of general wisdom, he is often content with an educational system that substitutes piety for scholarship. High standards of education might tempt the students to trust in the arm of flesh. Moreover, if the students are exposed to damaging as well as to supporting evidences, their faith might be threatened. As a result, the students do not earn their right to believe, and they are filled with pride because they do not sense their deficiency.
The intellectual stagnation of fundamentalism can easily be illustrated. Knowing little about the canons of lower criticism, and less about the relation between language and culture, the fundamentalist has no norm by which to classify the relative merits of Biblical translations. As a result, he identifies the Word of God with the seventeenth-century language forms of the King James Version. Since other versions sound unfamiliar to him, he concludes that someone is tampering with the Word of God.
This stagnation explains why the fundamentalist is not disturbed by the difficulties in orthodoxy. Faithful to ideological thinking, he simply denies that there are any difficulties. To admit a difficulty would imply a lack of faith, and a lack of faith is sin.
… to be continued
Notes
1 Edward J. Carnell, The Case for Orthodox Theology (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1959), 114-119.
Tyler Robbins 2016 v2
Tyler Robbins is a bi-vocational pastor at Sleater Kinney Road Baptist Church, in Olympia WA. He also works in State government. He blogs as the Eccentric Fundamentalist.
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Thank you, Tyler, for this informative insight. There is much here to think about and some important lessons to learn.
G. N. Barkman
Note: I edited this comment to remove some of the more unfortunate, caustic comments I originally included. They weren’t constructure, or fair to the men who labor at the ACCC and I apologize. I still firmly believe a myopic focus against conservative evangelicals (typified by this resolution) is wrongheaded and misguided. I apologize for the tone of my previous comments, not the substance of my objections.
Today, the ACCC (for reasons known only to itself) decided to re-publish it’s “resolution” on T4G. They warned:
The appeal of Together for the Gospel is undeniable. The 2010 conference attracted an attendance that numbered in the thousands. The potential for harm, however, is just as real.
Indeed. My eyebrows are appropriately raised, and I lean forward in my chair, anxious to see what my brethren have to warn me about. What nefarious plot has been hatched by these agents of evil now? The resolution continued:
This new movement, then, follows previous error in neglecting the Biblical doctrine of separation that has always marked Fundamentalism. Sadly, some fundamentalist institutions have begun to welcome as co-laborers some conservative evangelicals associated with efforts like Together for the Gospel. If such trends continue, what has been known as historic Fundamentalism, with its emphasis on Biblical separation, personally and ecclesiastically, will be seriously eroded if not rendered irrelevant.
I … see …
Therefore, the delegates to the 69th annual convention of the American Council of Christian Churches, meeting October 19–21, 2010 in Hope Baptist Church, Hanover, PA resolve to remind God’s people that Biblical separatism is a watershed doctrine that has its source in the attribute of God’s holiness and determines what kind of legacy we will leave to the generations that follow our own. Undermining separatism for the purposes of cooperation with those who either define the doctrine more loosely or do not hold it at all has proven costly in the past, and it will do so again. Faithfulness from generation to generation requires that we do not surrender the ground that has been defended by those who have gone before us lest those who come after us have no ground left to defend.
Please note this “resolution” was issued during an annual meeting which took place at a local church. Oh, how the mighty have fallen … I’d say, for the ACCC, the irrelevance is not future. It is now.
This resolution encapsulates some of the worst elements of the fundamentalist mentality. Read what Carnell wrote, above:
But the fundamentalist movement made at least one capital mistake, and this is why it converted from a movement to a mentality. Unlike the Continental Reformers and the English Dissenters, the fundamentalists failed to connect their convictions with the classical creeds of the church. Therefore, when modernism collapsed, the fundamentalist movement became an army without a cause. Nothing was left but the mentality of fundamentalism, and this mentality Is orthodoxy’s gravest peril.
Honest introspection is a rare thing, and the fundamentalist movement generally avoids it. Those who boldly suggest a better way forward, like MacLachlan or Bauder, are often immediately set upon by the angry hordes. Most formal attempts to speak reason to foolishness (e.g. the recent Frontline edition from younger fundamentalists) are often characterized by tip-toeing, apologetic and hesitant criticism. I say the situation calls for more firepower than that. I leave it to Bro. Linscott to be diplomatic. If I can persuade somebody, anybody, to view secular humanism and compromising liberalism as the real enemy, then I will be happy.
Younger men - let’s look at the ACCC’s resolution, and use it as an example of how not to be.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
one of these two realities is true.
1) That fundamentalism, of its own accord, withdrew volitionally but unintentionally into the caricature pre-painted by Carnell, or
2) That fundamentalism elected to be what it is prior to the characterization observed by Carnell.
John B. Lee
Modernism never collapsed. Fundamentalism needed to sound the alarm regarding Carnell and his cohorts at Fuller, not to mention Graham. They were giving Christian recognition to these modernist unbelievers. That deserves censure and separation.
Carnell is clearly contemptuous of the worst elements of fundamentalism. I understand, because I am, too. But, given your options, I’d say that your option #1 is correct. I think some elements of fundamentalism took a terrible turn, and began to see it’s major enemies as conservative evangelicals and those who weren’t as hard line as themselves (see Bauder’s recent survey at Nick of Time). This trend continues today, with the ACCC’s stupid resolution (see my contempt?) on T4G (linked above), which they elected to repost this morning.
Like rabid dogs, many fundamentalists decided to attack and hate each other. For some reason (Carnell supposed modernism was defeated by mid-century, but he was wrong), many fundamentalists retreated behind the ramparts of vindictive self-righteousness and began sniping at their “compromising” friends who eschewed the monastic fortress mentality. Thus, we have the ACCC’s impotent missive from this morning and the FBFI’s amusing warnings against Dever on music. Meanwhile, the march of secular totalitarianism and modern “modernism” continues apace.
This is the distinction between the fundamentalist mentality and the fundamentalist movement ( I prefer fundamentalist philosophy of ministry, but I think Carnell and I are talking about the same thing). Those with a fundamentalist mentality cheer at the ACCC’s increasingly desperate and pathetic resolutions, and snipe at Dever with spitballs from Indiana. Those who agree with the original ethos of the fundamentalist movement shake their heads, run for the wastebasket, and mourn a sad misallocation of effort, energy and resources. .
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
I hardly think Fuller (both of them), Ockenga, Henry, Carnell and Smith were giving platforms to “modernist unbelievers,” at least in the beginning! To suggest that would be to claim they gave platforms to men with views similar to Fosdick’s. I don’t think Charles Fuller, Henry, Smith or Ockenga, to name a few, would have tolerated that …
I think Marsden’s book Reforming Fundamentalism is worth everybody’s time.
But, we’re merely tilting at windmills so far. The real crux of the matter is whether Carnell is right about the fundamentalist mentality being a peril for orthodoxy?
- Do we often attack one another and conservative evangelicals, instead of focusing our attention and energies on more appropriate targets?
- Are we intellectually stagnant, as a movement?
- Is dispensationalism often made an inappropriate litmus test for orthodoxy?
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
pvawter:
It fits the kind of fundamentalism I’ve seen. There are different flavors of fundamentalism. Bauder, in his lecture series at Central back in 2014, gave four varieties. I thought he encapsulated the spectrum pretty well.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Sigh. More charges, counter-charges, attacks, counter-attacks - It seems to never end on this site. Carnell is hardly a good example of ethical integrity and legitimate criticism, considering elements of his personal life. He was a bitter man. Pardon me if I laugh at his self-righteousness.
Wally Morris
Huntington, IN
Come now, Wally. Carnell had his sins found out, of course (something that doesn’t happen too often) - but this doesn’t necessarily invalidate what he says. You don’t have to agree or disagree with Carnell; but his was an important voice in the debate from mid-century. It tells us what a conservative evangelical thought about fundamentalism, and what his criticisms were. They’re important. I think introspection is a good thing. Is there really nothing Carnell wrote about fundamentalism that strikes a bit close to home? Nothing?
The general perils include ideological thinking, a highly censorious spirit, and a curious tendency to separate from the life of the church. The specific peril is the with which orthodoxy converts to fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is orthodoxy gone cultic.
Referencing his personal life does nothing to touch his criticisms.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
I wouldn’t call him a conservative evangelical. His personal life, mental condition can’t be separated from aspects of his thinking. He was a strange man.
Wally Morris
Huntington, IN
Tyler, I’m completely flabbergasted by your comment regarding the founders of New Evangelicalism. First, there were no conservative evangelicals back then. You had Fundamentalists who espoused separation from unbelief and then this group of New Evangelicals who repudiated that strategy. The very ethos of New Evangelicalism was giving Christian recognition to unbelief via their koinonia with modernists.
Was there intellectual stagnation within some segments of fundamentalism? Sure but not in all segments and you have to remember that Carnell wasn’t contrasting the intellectualism of fundamentalism with other evangelicals (there were basically one in the same back then); he was contrasting it with liberalism. His critique of KJVO doesn’t represent any segment of fundamentalism that I’ve ever been a part of.
Nothing Carnell says here resonates with me at all. I see his writing more as a sophisticated rant to justify New Evangelicalism’s general disobedience to God’s Word.
I understand your position. I think you’re wrong. I also agree that Carnell sounds a bit unhinged here. Perhaps he felt free, in this general little book which wouldn’t be read in scholarly circles, to let loose and vent a little. But, we have two options:
- We can believe Carnell was imagining things, and that what he wrote about didn’t reflect reality in the slightest. Because he was there, and we weren’t, I think this is a bad option.
- We can be introspective, think about what he wrote, and consider whether any of these criticisms have merit. I think they did, and still do
For some context, here is Unger’s review of the RSV. It is laughable and ridiculous. I’ve been using the RSV for one year. It’s a good translation. This is the kind of melodramatic hysteria Carnell was referring to with new bible versions. On Sunday, an older man asked me what bible version I use. I told him I used the RSV. “The RSV!” he exclaimed, eyebrows raised into the stratosphere. “Isn’t that a liberal translation!?” Lies die hard.
On dispensationalism, I believe he’s mocking the mania with prophesy and eschatology - and the rigid dogmaticism which so often accompanies some prophecy specialists. Hagee isn’t a fundamentalist, but I read in his silly book about blood moons that people who didn’t believe in the rapture weren’t saved. This is an example of the unbalanced lunacy which can often result. Our dear brethren at Dispensational Publishing House have a 38 part series (and counting) on the temples in the Bible, with an emphasis on Ezekiel’s temple. Wow. I love those guys, but that’s a long series on an odd topic …
Intellectual stagnation? There are two things going on in Carnell’s critique there, I think. First, he seems to have a snobby disdain for people who simply believe the Bible, and have no use for engagement with higher criticism. Carnell and the others desperately wanted to be invited to a seat at the scholarly table. Second, is frustration with a fortress mentality, the desire to “shield” people from real engagement with real issues, for fear they’ll be “harmed.” That is a valid criticism, in my opinion.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
I’ve been in fundamentalism for nearly 50 years. One thing I’ve noticed is that fundamentalism always had to have an enemy to keep them unified. There was liberalism/ apostasy, the RSV, Billy Graham, the charismatic movement, and New Evangelicalism. Now it’s convergents and conservative fundamentalism. Secondary enemies were cultural: movies, clothing styles, TV, dancing, and music. (one of the notable old timers used to say that you had to be against something, even if it was buttermilk.)
I would often ask, “What are we for?” The answer was always the fundamentals of the faith. We all knew that but it wasn’t what we were seeing and hearing. If you were preaching in a Bible conference you could get more amens by attacking the “evan jelly cals” and Billy Graham that you could by preaching something doctrinal.
Today the enemy are evangelicals/convergents/conservative evangelicals who are treated with the same attitude that we used to reserve for modernists even if they are, in fact, brother in Christ.
As Bauder said, “Cooperation against common dangers tends to drive us together more quickly than cooperation to achieve common goals.”
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
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