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.

Discussion

I don’t agree with Carnell on many things, but if he said something 50-60 years ago and people today are saying the exact same thing, I hope I would at least consider the possibility that they might have a point and do some careful introspection.

Carnell did say this:

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.

Now compare this with what Phil Johnson said at the Shepherds’ Conference in 2009:

That one year in a fundamentalist school convinced me that American fundamentalism as a movement was already seriously and perhaps irretrievably off the rails. The movement was in serious trouble doctrinally, spiritually, and morally.

That was thirty years ago, but even then, the fundamentalist movement was dominated by personality cults, easy-believism, man-centered doctrine, an unbiblical pragmatism in their methodology, a carnal kind of superficiality in their worship, petty bickering at the highest levels of leadership, deliberate antiintellectualism even in their so-called institutions of higher learning, and moral rot almost everywhere you looked in the movement. It seemed clear to me that the fundamentalist movement was doomed.

In fact, by the 1970s, American fundamentalism had already ceased to be a theological movement and had morphed into a cultural phenomenon—a bizarre and ingrown subculture all its own, whose public face more often than not seemed overtly hostile to everyone outside its boundaries.

Frankly, I thought that sort of fundamentalism deserved to die. And I knew it eventually would, because the most prominent hallmark of the visible fundamentalist movement was that its leaders loved to fight so much that they would bite and devour one another and proliferate controversies—even among themselves—over issues that no one could ever rationally argue were essential to the truth of the gospel.

We should also consider that Dr. Bauder just finished a whole series describing how the FBFI formed - essentially, it is a splinter group off of another splinter group (NTAIBC) off of yet another splinter group (CBA).

And finally, think about what James says:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

I recently noticed that some people are attracted to Fundamentalism, not because their doctrine guides them to us, but because it attracts people that are pride driven, power hungry, or simply outright abusive. We live in a culture where those sorts of behaviors are rarely discussed and even less rarely dealt with because of our stand on independent polity. It’s long since time we changed that…if people have the stomach for it.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

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.

It’s a LOT easier to write a sermon blasting away at everything that’s wrong than it is to do the hard and tedious work of careful, thoughtful, and disciplined exegesis and then application.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

[TylerR]

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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

First of all, I think that you need to read Carnell with a great deal of scepticism. I also think you need to read more of the history by objective sources. I think you’ve read Reforming Fundamentalism by Marsden. He has a couple of other books on this topic, particularly Marsden’s Fundamentalism & American Culture. You should also read again Dr. Moritz’ books and Ernest Pickerings The Tragedy of Compromise.

I consider Marsden to be objective, he is not a fundamentalist. Obviously Moritz and Pickering are writing from a fundamentalist perspective, but I think they are fair.

Carnell, as I have understood him, was virulently antagonistic to fundamentalism, more so than his contemporary new evangelical cohorts. His personality lent itself to mental instability, which he exhibited later in his life. His evaluations need to be read very cautiously.

My reaction to your comments and those of others here is you think you have found an ally who confirms your desired conclusions regarding fundamentalism. You are welcome to your opinions, but I think you are misreading history and reading your own conclusions into them. That’s not how careful research is done. I think you can do better.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

A friend who never posts here for personal reasons but has been following this discussion asked me to relay a comment he had. “In light of some of the more provocative editorials from the FBFI it would seem that they are more interested in proclaiming and defending fundamentalism than they are in proclaiming and defending the fundamenals.”

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan

I’ve read Moritz, and all of Marsden’s works on fundamentalism, and Pickering and McCune, and Beale and Bauder. I also had Larry Oats when I studied the history of fundamentalism. I also went to Bauder’s lecture in 2014 when he discussed early northern Baptist fundamentalism. I’ve read everything. I think Carnell’s criticisms have some validity. I’m not trying to do careful research, and I don’t represent this excerpt as “careful research.” I’m posting Carnell’s work, and letting people read it.

You disregard Carnell’s criticisms. I understand. I expected many people to dismiss him because of his personal life, and I got what I expected.

I plan to post something contemporary from fundamentalists against evangelicals when I’m done with Carnell, so don’t think this is a crusade. I make my own opinions known, but I’m very fair when I post Theology Thursday articles. When I did the series on NT texts, I gave Bro. Brandenburg’s TR position two weeks of coverage - even though I disagree with it.

The evangelicals will get their turn, Don. I promise. In fact, Don, if you have a good contemporary piece from mid-century about the dangers of neo-evangelicals, please email it to me.

I am surprised you find nothing here that is worth a moment or two of introspection. I’m even planning on re-reading the infamous “convergent” edition from Frontline ​this coming week, to see if I can learn something from the criticisms. Hopefully, some of ya’ll will be willing to do the same with Carnell.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

Tyler

Carnell’s work is an attack on the worst parts of fundamentalism - certainly there were some who were intellectually stagnant. But within the seminaries (once the institutional infrastructure was rebuilt), there were always good, careful, conservative, dispensational scholars who were widely read and well-spoken. I had the privilege of taking two courses my first year at Central Seminary from Dr. Charles Hauser, who had been teaching seminary before my parents were born (in the 50s). Dr. Hoyle Bowman passed away last year, after having taught at Piedmont for 51 years. And there are other faithful men whose names will likely never be remembered, except by a few.

Carnell’s claims can also be a bit softened by the writings of one of the presidents who followed in Carnell’s footsteps as the president of Fuller - Richard Mouw. In his book “The Smell of Sawdust,” as well as his chapter in “Pilgrims on a Sawdust Trail” (Bauder also has a chapter in that book from a conference that Bauder attended and subsequently ruined) demonstrate a different view and understanding of fundamentalism - one that recognizes the weaknesses of fundamentalism’s cultural disengagement, and that acknowledges that fundamentalists aren’t troglodytes, but capable of intellectual conversation and argumentation.

If you are looking for mid-century writings against New Evangelicalism - William Ashbook’s “New Neutralism” (1958) was a solid response against what was occurring within the evangelical world in the 50s. I don’t think it is available online anywhere. I have a copy somewhere (it is a small pamphlet), I would need to find it and scan it for you.

I’m not sure what sort of introspection I’m supposed to do. I’m not a wild-eyed dispensationalist. I believe in Ryrie’s sin qua non of dispensationalism but I would distance myself from Scofield dispensationalism and don’t believe in sensationalistic eschatology or blood moons. I’m pro scholarship. I’m not KJVO. I agree that some of the criticism of the RSV was overblown (although I still would not recommend it – the ESV, which is based on the RSV, is a good corrective in my view). I don’t believe in keeping the people in the pew uninformed of the opposing view. Show the strengths and weaknesses of both positions and explain why you take the position you do.

In addition, I’m willing to critique specific examples of where certain fundamentalists have gone off the rails. For example, I’ve pushed back against an instance of anti-Calvinistic rhetoric that went over the top at an FBF meeting – but I did it in a way that showed my respect for the person involved and the principles of fundamentalism that I strongly agree with. That’s not what Carnell is doing. He is repudiating a Biblical position with his diatribe against Fundamentalism. And he is wrong – fundamentalism is about defending the classical creeds of the church because when you forsake separation from unbelief you undermine the gospel and the fundamentals of the faith.

It is lovely that nothing Carnell wrote applies to you. If you have escaped and avoided the worst excesses and impulses of fundamentalism, then that is wonderful. But, many others in the movement have not.

I’m going to continue to disregard the attempts to brush Carnell aside, as if his perspective is meaningless. His positions and perspective on fundamentalism influenced people, and it still does. Roger Olson recently published a blog piece where he acknowledged his indebtedness to Carnell for shaping his views of fundamentalism so many years ago.

Of course, people could reply with disdain to this news: “Roger Olson! He’s a liberal.​ Nobody cares what Olson thinks!”

Feel free to do that, if you wish. There are many others like Olson out there, who were just as influenced. Protests by those within the movement that Carnell isn’t “objective” are meaningless to me. Besides, we aren’t the most impartial critics either, I believe …

You wrote this about your own disagreements with fundamentalism:

… I did it in a way that showed my respect for the person involved and the principles of fundamentalism that I strongly agree with.

There are two roads to take when it comes to criticizing fundamentalism:

  1. An attitude of soft, gentle, submissive and reverent critique. The tone of the recent “Why I’m Still a Fundamentalist” piece from Frontline ​is a good example. It was a good effort. It will accomplish nothing, because the tone is apologetic, hesitant and not nearly forceful enough. Internal politics and individual temperament combine to make real critique difficult, sometimes.
  2. Brutally direct and honest critique, not caring who is offended. This can include deliberate sarcasm and obvious contempt towards errors that have been pointed out time and time again, but that refuse to be corrected.

Carnell clearly chose option #2. That is not a reason to discount what he wrote. If anything, it probably makes his critique much more honest. There is no filter. You see what he thinks and understand it - immediately. I, too, have employed a mocking and sarcastic tone against some fundamentalist excesses when I find it necessary. For example, in this very thread I mocked the ACCC’s resolution against T4G as “stupid,” and I wondered aloud why the ACCC “and it’s three members” decided to re-publish it’s anti-T4G resolution yesterday.

Fundamentalists may protest that Carnell was unhinged and his perspective is meaningless. As I wrote earlier, fundamentalists have written pieces that are just as “biased” against evangelicals. Meh.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

I found and ordered a used copy of Ashbrook’s pamphlet online. I’ll likely use some excerpts for a two-part series about the dangers of evangelicalism once I finish with Carnell. Thanks.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

An attitude of soft, gentle, submissive and reverent critique. The tone of the recent “Why I’m Still a Fundamentalist” piece from Frontline ​is a good example. It was a good effort. It will accomplish nothing, because the tone is apologetic, hesitant and not nearly forceful enough. Internal politics and individual temperament combine to make real critique difficult, sometimes.

People have been trying this kind of soft-shoe method to push for some self-reflection for years now…like I said on another thread, it was in the 2005 Young Fundamentalist survey at a very minimum. It isn’t working, because there are very few people that are interested in actually hearing the appeals or doing something about it. Should we really be surprised when their critiques becoming far more pointed and abrasive, or that others are picking up the same observations that our enemies have made, and saying that they may have had a point?

Proverbs has a lot to say about people who refuse to listen. None of it is good, so we can do two things - listen to criticism, even if we think it’s bogus, and act on what we need to, or we can double-down on stupid. I’d prefer to do the former.

#thisishowyougetTrump #evenintheology

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

A word of explanation about employing deliberate sarcasm and a derisive tone when critiquing fundamentalism:

  1. When I do this, I don’t seek to persuade older men to change their ways. That is not one of my goals
  2. Instead, I seek to persuade younger men to cast off the rusty fetters of a dead-end and harmful approach, and embrace the philosophy of fundamentalism as it was originally known. Elsewhere I defined fundamentalism as: “a philosophy of ministry characterized by a militant apologetic defense and passionate, unashamed proclamation of the Christian faith from the Scriptures in the face of pagan unbelief, liberal theology and compromise.” And, by “compromise,” I mean real ​compromise …

I want to persuade younger men to do battle against liberal “Christianity,” and secular humanism. I want to persuade men to read Matthew Vines’ book and interact with him, for the sake of our teenagers. I want to persuade younger men to read about rationale for the transgender movement, and refute it. I want our younger men to read about the rationale for abortion, and refute it. I want our younger men to read NT Wright on justification, and write against his views.

In short, I seek to persuade younger men to forsake the errors of the older generation, stop attacking evangelicals, and set their sights on the real enemy. To do this, I’ll relentlessly attack foolish or innane events from the fundamentalist orbit as I see fit. Hence, I call the ACCC’s resolution against T4G “stupid.” I’ll also refer to Chuck Phelp’s warnings against Dever on music as “impotent spitballs from Indiana.”

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

I usually find this type of discussion entirely unhelpful. On one hand we’re saying the fundamentalism is an ideology not a movement on the other hand were saying that we need to look closer at what the group is doing.

I don’t care much what Carnell thought about fundamentalism because I’m not connected with the people he is describing. The fundamentalism that I appreciate and identify with is not the one he describes. Introspection is a great and necessary thing but in my mind criticism from within is way more profitable.

I don’t care what Carnell thinks about his caricature of fundamentalism because I am in neither of their “camps”. I would guess that is true of most of us here. In the words of the great ecclesiastic Mr Incredible, •You’re not affiliated with me!”

I think the idea of fundamentalism, properly understood in it’s original context as a philosophy of ministry characterized by a militant apologetic defense and passionate, unashamed proclamation of the Christian faith from the Scriptures in the face of pagan unbelief, liberal theology and compromise is a good and necessary idea.

I am a passionate advocate for this mindset. i think, under this “big-tent” definition, John MacArthur, James White, Al Mohler, Mark Dever, Michael Kruger and others are fundamentalists, and I regarded them as such. Fundamentalism as an idea is necessary.

What I am opposed to is a sub-set of fundamentalism, typically centered around Baptist ecclesiology and premillenial dispensationalism, that shows an unbalanced and unhealthy obsession with ecclesiastical separation to the exclusion of other worthy topics, and relentlessly attacks conservative evangelicals. That is a fundamentalism that is wrong-headed, misguided, and should die.

I encourage all younger men to embrace a “big-tent” understanding of fundamentalism as a philosophy of ministry; to understand it as good and necessary movement with a worthy goal, purpose and objective. Let’s recalibrate our sights on the real enemy, and it isn’t Mark Dever or Don Carson.

Carnell’s piece shows us that some of the worst impulses and excesses of the movement aren’t new. They’re actually very old.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

Two questions that should concern every fundamentalist are 1) whether the movement’s purpose is still focused on rebutting humanism and liberalism at the local church and broader cooperative level? and 2) if it is not, what has its new purpose become? The criticism being leveled is that it is not, and Carnell has offered reasons why it is not.

I am concerned that so many commenters see little value in discussing the validity of the criticism on its own merits, and furthermore cannot appear to separate the value of Carnell’s argument from whatever personal and doctrinal weaknesses he bore. The great irony here is that this mindset is actually part of the caricature that Carnell pictures, and one that many commenters will not acknolwedge even exists.

Tyler asserts that aberrant fundamentalism detracts from the church addressing theological issues at large. His desire is to see fundamentalism issue more forceful and relevant push backs and rebuttals against doctrinal heresy and acceptance of unbiblical norms.

My interest in the discussion lies in whether aberrant fundamentalism detracts from the spiritual health and growth of the church itself. The assertion I make is that aberrant fundamentalism, in its zeal for ideological purity, produces disciples with very little impact for the Kingdom of Christ. The church is therefore not growing and developing as fully under aberrant fundamentalism as it might have otherwise.

The point is, for a movement that does pride itself on being the best and most pure that is out there, should not its disciples and scholarship also be that much greater salt and light to this world? Can anything be healthier both at the church level and at the interaction with the world at large?

Aberrent fundamentalism has stuck its head in the sand and offers a resounding NO! to that question. I believe it is wrong.

John B. Lee

Ironically, you just (unwittingly?) paraphrased some of what Doug MacLachlan wrote in his book Reclaiming Authentic Fundamentalism.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.