Now, About Those Differences, Part Six

NickOfTimeRead Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Standards of Conduct

When evangelicals think about fundamentalists (which is not often), they typically consider them to be rather legalistic. When fundamentalists think about other evangelicals (which is nearly constantly), they usually consider them to be quite worldly. The purpose of the present investigation is not to endorse either indictment but to identify what each party has in mind when it levels its accusation against the other.

What do fundamentalists perceive about evangelicals that seems worldly to them? What do evangelicals see in fundamentalists that seems legalistic? The answer to these questions primarily revolves around two areas: (1) standards of conduct, and (2) methods of ministry. Each of these areas is significant enough to warrant at least one essay of its own.

By “standards of conduct,” I do not mean to suggest that one party possesses standards while the other does not. Both parties agree that the Bible says something about how people should live. Both parties recognize that biblical commands and principles, rightly applied, require or prohibit particular activities. Both parties will, at some point, use some external standards of conduct as mechanisms by which to gauge spiritual wellbeing.

Making such evaluations is not necessarily legalism. Legalists believe that their external conduct actually secures some measure of standing with God. That is a different matter than recognizing that external conduct often reflects one’s relationship with God.

Suppose we hear about a professing believer who has been sticking up gas stations and liquor stores in order to support a meth habit. Most evangelicals would be as quick as fundamentalists to recognize that something is awry in this person’s spiritual life. The external conduct yields evidence of an internal deficiency of some sort.

In fact, evangelicals may be quicker and more decisive than some fundamentalists in making moral judgments based upon external conduct. In one instance of which I have personal knowledge, an evangelical leader had been caught in adultery. He went to another evangelical leader to confess his sin and ask forgiveness. The response he received was, “You have betrayed our Lord and our cause. Don’t come to me for absolution.”

Whether or not this was the correct response, it was certainly a strong one. I suspect that most fundamentalist leaders would have been milder. Of particular importance is the fact that it was a response to external conduct.

So what is it about standards of conduct that sets fundamentalists apart from other evangelicals? That question has three answers: revivalistic taboos, rejection of contemporary counterculture, and the use of second-premise arguments. In these matters, fundamentalists do differ from other evangelicals, including conservative evangelicals, to varying degrees.

By revivalistic taboos, I mean standards against activities such as theater, dancing, card-playing, drinking alcohol, and smoking, among others. These taboos are labeled “revivalistic” because they were preached and promoted by the revivalists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Other Christians often disagreed with them. For example, J. Gresham Machen was a fan of Charlie Chaplin and went to see his movies. The Princeton theologian Charles Hodge wrote vigorously against the demand for total abstinence from alcohol. Some early American Baptist preachers actually received part of their compensation in whisky!

Throughout the 20th century, most fundamentalists tended to see these activities as intrinsically worldly, and many still do (I am not at this point expressing my own opinion about the taboos). Therefore, such fundamentalists necessarily see a person who indulges in these activities as worldly. They reason about revivalistic taboos in much the same way that they reason about larceny and adultery.

In general, evangelicals abandoned the revivalistic taboos more quickly than fundamentalists did. This created a situation in which many evangelicals were playing cards, smoking pipes, drinking beer, going to the theater, and waltzing or twisting while most fundamentalists still viewed these activities as worldly. The fundamentalist conclusion, of course, was simply that evangelicals were worldly. The evangelical reaction to that conclusion was that fundamentalists were judgmental, focused on externals, and probably legalistic.

This judgment was aggravated by the fact that some fundamentalists went well beyond the traditional taboos in their denunciation of worldly activities. These fundamentalists made up prohibitions that can most charitably be described as “idiosyncratic.” Not infrequently, fundamentalists became so closely identified with these external demands that it seemed as if they thought of “the standards” as the most important aspect of Christianity.

The situation was further complicated by the massive cultural shift that began during the 1960s. Often called the “counterculture,” this shift changed the way that people viewed politics, economics, entertainment, race relations, authority, sexuality, religion, and substance abuse. At each stage of its development (from hippies to punks to Goths to hip-hop), the purveyors of the counterculture have invented or adopted their own emblems of identification and modes of expression.

To paraphrase H. Richard Niebuhr’s typology, fundamentalists have tended to position themselves as “Christ against counterculture,” while evangelicals (at least from the early 1970s onward) have tended to practice “Christ of counterculture” (to be fair, they would probably have seen themselves as “Christ redeeming counterculture,” but the distinction was not often evident in practice). Evangelicals have been more focused on relevance and on supposedly redeeming the (counter) culture, while fundamentalists have seen various countercultural expressions as a rejection of authority, including divine authority, and an exaltation of sensuality through illicit sexuality or inebriation.

In other words, evangelicals have tended to embrace the latest manifestations of popular culture. Fundamentalists, however, have seen the counterculture as particularly worldly, and they have tended to resist the expressions of the counterculture even after those expressions have become mainstream. To evangelicals, fundamentalists have seemed unnecessarily restrictive, overly occupied with externals, and probably legalistic. To fundamentalists, evangelicals have appeared unwarrantably concessive and, therefore, worldly.

Over time, what was the counterculture has become the mainstream popular culture. The only thing that sells better than a bad-boy image is sex, and the counterculture offered plenty of both. Each succeeding wave of the counterculture is first brandished as obnoxiously cutting-edge but then gradually accepted across American civilization. What begins as extreme becomes mainstream.

Of course, once a phenomenon becomes mainstream, it is much harder to reject. In fact, it may completely lose its countercultural significance. Flared pants and wire-framed glasses were tokens of rebellion in the 1960s, and I can remember hearing sermons preached against the wickedness of “bell-bottoms.” During the 1970s they became mainstream and lost their significance, which meant that they were now safe for most fundamentalists to wear. By the 1980s they were out of style and no longer an issue, even for fundamentalists.

This left fundamentalists in the unenviable position of adopting some of the very trends that they had earlier denounced. This was confusing both to evangelicals and to younger fundamentalists. Their confusion was not helped by the fact that fundamentalists were selective in what they chose to adopt. Flared pants and granny glasses were accepted in the 1970s. Moustaches were not accepted until the 1980s, and beards were outlawed on most fundamentalist campuses until the 1990s. The rock music of the counterculture (even the Beatles and the Rolling Stones) has still not gained wide acceptance within fundamentalism. These choices must appear arbitrary to the critics of fundamentalism.

As we have seen, fundamentalists and other evangelicals first disagreed about the revivalistic taboos. This disagreement was exacerbated by their rather different reactions to the counterculture that emerged in the 1960s. The third difference, however, is the most serious. It is a difference over the use of second-premise arguments. That difference merits an essay of its own.

Epiphany
Reginald Heber (1783-1826)

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us Thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

Cold on His cradle the dewdrops are shining;
Low lies His head with the beasts of the stall;
Angels adore Him in slumber reclining,
Maker and Monarch and Savior of all!

Say, shall we yield Him, in costly devotion,
Odors of Edom and offerings divine?
Gems of the mountain and pearls of the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine?

Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
Vainly with gifts would His favor secure;
Richer by far is the heart’s adoration,
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.


This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Discussion

Don,

Maybe you should not have quoted a source that PROVES MY POINT :p

OK - pants on women were an issue before the mid-1800s. Then, jump ahead 100 years and fundamentalists made it an issue again. My mom went to high school in the late 40s/early 50s, and girls wore jeans for sports, recess, etc. She also grew up wearing jeans on the farm. (BTW, she was brought up in a very staunch evangelical church back then.)

Yes, people dressed up more in general back then (i.e., the high school kids on Leave It To Beaver), but I would be willing to wage the debate that women wore dresses because they were dressy — not because wearing pants had an immoral component to it.

Sorry, but this is one of the DUMBEST issues anybody ever thought of picking up; I don’t think you are going to convince me otherwise. The first time I heard a fundamentalist talking about no pants on women, I thought it was some kind of a weird joke.

My point is simply how tragic it is that fundamentalists allowed themselves to be derailed from teaching Biblical truth into this kind of nonsense.

I don’t think I am over-reaching. To this hour there are people in “our circles” who are driven to keep these kinds of “standards” — even if it means causing someone who is truly weak in the faith to actually stumble — standing Rom. 14:1 on its head. :cry:

Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry

Please explain how the Wikipedia article proves your point. I don’t see how it does. The whole idea of women wearing pants was a departure from the norm. Initially it was shocking to people who weren’t fundamentalists. That seems to demolish your point, not make it.

Or perhaps I am missing your point. You seem to be saying that no one else in the world ever thought of this as an issue, implying that fundamentalists basically made it up. Your words again: “there never was a time when (modest) pants on women in the appropriate setting were an issue — until fundamentalists made it one”… I just can’t see how you can say this is an accurate statement.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

[Don Johnson] I just can’t see how you can say this is an accurate statement.
That is my point — I am saying that is an accurate statement. At least in modern history (since WWII), this was an issue artificially created by fundamentalists — causing much strife and division — which cannot be tied to any Biblical moorings — unless you also want the men to go back to Biblical days and gird up their loins. 8-)

Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry

Well, I guess we are at an impasse then. I think your view is totally incorrect.

Not sure what else can be said. Even if you attempt to narrow history down to just ‘modern history’, i.e., since WW2, you are actually still wrong. I am a bit younger than your mom, but the introduction of pants was controversial among more than fundamentalists… I didn’t grow up among fundamentalists. I went to public school. Believe me, it was controversial.

But I guess we can move on, this is a very small point in the overall question. I’ll leave it to the rest of the commenters to see what we have been up to late at night. West Coast blogging allows us to carry on and really surprise them in the morning.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

[Paul J. Scharf]
[Don Johnson] I just can’t see how you can say this is an accurate statement.
That is my point — I am saying that is an accurate statement. At least in modern history (since WWII), this was an issue artificially created by fundamentalists — causing much strife and division — which cannot be tied to any Biblical moorings — unless you also want the men to go back to Biblical days and gird up their loins. 8-)
I’m not “skirts only” but not sure, Paul, that your point is accurate. It depends on what you mean by “modern”. My girls, who are trivia buffs, told me that with the Dick Van Dyke show, Laura could only be seen in one scene/setting in each show in pants, because it was too radical. But that may not be considered modern—we’re talking black and white tv!

But it has been since WW2.

Kevin, I think you need better nomenclature here. Preachers and religious historians identify certain behaviors that have been preached against as “Revivalist” because that is about as far back as their history takes them. Take one “taboo” mentioned: dancing. John Calvin was an ardent opponent of it. Most of the Puritians in England were of the same persuasion. On the continent of Europe, the Roman Catholic group, the Jansenists (Calvinists) were opposed to dancing. In North America, Increase Mather wrote a long treatise against dancing in the late 1600s. His son, Cotton Mather was just as outspoken against it. In the early 18th century of Philadelphia dancing was frowned upon. This is primarily because the quakers were against it. George Whitefield preached repeatedly against dancing. In the late 18th Century, Francis Asbury was one of its firmest opponents in North America. These all preceded anything resembling a fundamentalist movement. And opposition to dancing preceded the revivalists Whitefield and Asbury. When Evangelicals opposed dancing, which most of them did before 1960, they were merely continuing a centuries-old conviction that was strong within the Calvinist and/or free-church heritage.

Jeff Brown

[Don Johnson]…we are interested in trying to preserve the purity of the church not just of the gospel. But be that as it may, I think we can do the things you say without being arrogant, but we can’t do them without dealing with specific names and current events. When current names, trends, events are likely to impact our people negatively in some way, we have to be aware and deal with it appropriately.
Understood Brother Johnson.

Thanks

[Becky Petersen]
[Paul J. Scharf]
[Don Johnson] I just can’t see how you can say this is an accurate statement.
That is my point — I am saying that is an accurate statement. At least in modern history (since WWII), this was an issue artificially created by fundamentalists — causing much strife and division — which cannot be tied to any Biblical moorings — unless you also want the men to go back to Biblical days and gird up their loins. 8-)
I’m not “skirts only” but not sure, Paul, that your point is accurate. It depends on what you mean by “modern”. My girls, who are trivia buffs, told me that with the Dick Van Dyke show, Laura could only be seen in one scene/setting in each show in pants, because it was too radical. But that may not be considered modern—we’re talking black and white tv!

But it has been since WW2.
My daughter was listening to an Enola Holmes mystery on audiobook while we were cleaning the kitchen, and Enola (the little sister of Sherlock Holmes) comments on the shocking appearance of a female character in pants. There was something in the storyline about women who dressed like men, and Enola hopes that she does not have to lower herself to that point in order to solve the mystery. Nancy Springer is not a Christian author either.

Fundies may have been guilty of bringing up an ‘old’ subject, but they certainly didn’t invent it. I think the furor over pants did detract from the legitimate issue of modesty though. Modesty is as much about one’s heart attitude as about the length of the skirt or the fit of the blouse. What I saw growing up Fundy was alot of behavior modification instead of discipling and mentoring. If you got the look right, no one paid much attention to what you did. The problem is with the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction- supposedly now if your heart is right, your appearance doesn’t matter. It’s another cliff on the other side of the bluff, but a cliff is a cliff, and don’t people ever get tired of climbing up and jumping off?

I was thinking when reading this article about the prohibitions against movie theatres and the advent of the VCR. Back in the day, it was ‘worldly’ to go to theatres or have HBO piped into your house, but around the time Betamax bit the dust, more and more conservative Christians had VCRs and were hanging out at Blockbuster. Nowadays it seems everyone has a DVD player, and with a [URL=http://www.clearplay.com/ ClearPlay[/URL] you can watch ANYTHING because it filters out all the ooky stuff. So- what was the premise for labeling movies as ‘worldly’? The lifestyles and worldviews of the people who create them? The actual content? Paying $7 for a bowl of popcorn? The big flip-flop on that score is an illustration of how Fundies who don’t really know why they oppose something end up looking hypocritical.

In the late 1980s (or was it even the early 1990s), my dad wouldn’t let my brother and I get wire-rimmed glasses, because he wasn’t sure they were accepted by the leadership of the school we attended (and at which my Mom was a teacher).

Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.

[Brian Ernsberger] Some of you are missing a point on the 60’s counterculture hippies and some of that, I would say, is because you only know about it as history apart from your own experience (in other words you are too young to have seen it first hand or remember it). While I am not old enough to have been a hippie, I am old enough to remember. Every one of you have glossed over what it was all about. It was not about “seeking love” as one suggested. It was a rejection, almost across the board, of everything the American culture saw as right. They were disestablishmentarianists. Whatever was the established, accepted norm they countered it, they were against it. Police officers became “pigs,” or “fuzz” or other derogatory names. The institution of marriage was attacked with their “free love.” I witnessed this not as a believer but an unbeliever and continue to see the damaging effects that that counterculture did and continues to do to the American culture. Even as a young unbeliever I recognized the wrongness that was and is inherent with that counterculture. I thank God that even though I had been brought up in an unbelieving home through that time, my parents sought to instill in a proper respect for those in authority, and what we have come to call traditional American values.
I appreciate this for filling out the counter-culture part of things.

It’s interesting that Bauder’s view of culture in America today is that it is basically a continuation of the counter-culture. If he’s right, that has pretty big implications.

Anyway, to Brian’s point: I think the observation that the hippies were looking for love is not at odds w/the fact that it was about [URL=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/disestablishmentarianism] disestablishmentarianism[/URL]

Both are true. Part of the philosophy was that love is what life is all about and “the establishment” is the enemy of love. So the rebellion against all norms was widely viewed as a pursuit of the ideals of love and peace (let’s not forget about the peace part!)

But I think Bauder’s point there is that the counterculture was about rejecting Christian roots as well. It was a fork in the road for our culture after which everything moves further and further from efforts to “be Christian” in our culture. Though what came before it was only “Christian” in varying degrees, Christian ideas (and ideals) were the biggest single influence, I’d suggest. Modernism unraveled much of that in the 40s and 50s, but with the counterculture, fleeing from Christian roots became official. Traditional Christian ways were part of “the establishment.”

I think fundamentalism was right to be antidisestablishmentarian (I’ve been waiting for years for an excuse to use that word! :D ). But yeah, there was much ill-conceived reaction and overreaction, etc. And wasted opportunity, too… probably because we had an exaggerated view of the Christianness of our culture at that point in time. “Christianity” and “American traditions” have never been synonymous… but before the 60’s they were at least mostly friends.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

[Becky Petersen]
[Paul J. Scharf]
[Don Johnson] I just can’t see how you can say this is an accurate statement.
That is my point — I am saying that is an accurate statement. At least in modern history (since WWII), this was an issue artificially created by fundamentalists — causing much strife and division — which cannot be tied to any Biblical moorings — unless you also want the men to go back to Biblical days and gird up their loins. 8-)
I’m not “skirts only” but not sure, Paul, that your point is accurate. It depends on what you mean by “modern”. My girls, who are trivia buffs, told me that with the Dick Van Dyke show, Laura could only be seen in one scene/setting in each show in pants, because it was too radical. But that may not be considered modern—we’re talking black and white tv!

But it has been since WW2.
Thanks Becky!

There is no doubt that the culture has changed on dress issues over the last 40 to 70 years. My point is that the issue of pants on women was never a Biblical issue (Deut. 22:5 notwithstanding), and further, it could be argued that it was never truly even the cultural issue which some fundamentalists made it out to be. It was, at best, a cul-de-sac that fundamentalists drove into when they turned off their GPS (Global Providential System — read Bible).

The first time I heard someone make the argument about no pants on women from Deut. 22:5, my jaw dropped. Did they really want to go back under the Old Testament Law (Acts 15:10)?? I grew up in a traditional, conservative home, and my mom and grandma (who were not feminists in any sense of the word) almost always wore pants through my whole lifetime. My mom wore pantsuits to church because she played the organ, and she always wondered why it would be more modest for women to have their legs uncovered with a dress.

I was told 20+ years ago that “no pants on women” was a conviction or a testimony issue, but now it has conveniently disappeared from most people’s consciences with no explanation. Why?? Now many of these same people are promoting Sarah Palin and her “Momma Grizzlies” (pro-life feminists-?) as the next great hope for America. What is wrong with this picture?? :tired:

Again, my main point is how tragic it is that fundamentalists allowed themselves to be derailed from teaching Biblical truth into this kind of of malaise. So many in my generation (late 30s, early 40s) who have left the movement have been burnt over by these oddities of fundamentalism. If they are now in church on Sunday morning, it is likely in an emergent or seeker-sensitive setting because they are sick of carrying all the baggage. Many of those still looking at/for something deeper have gone off the other side of the road into Reformed Theology.

The way of Christ is “easy” and “light” compared to the rigors of Old Testament lawkeeping, which is not our means of sanctification (Matt. 11:28, 29; cf. Rom. 6:14).

Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry

Aaron, you are missing the point somewhat. The rhetoric of the hippies was “love” and “peace” but not in any traditional, normal way of defining those terms. Their love was lust and their peace was that which an eastern mysticism was expected to produce, especially if coupled with what drugs would induce. Those today who look back at the hippies and somehow think that we should be lauding them are looking at them through rose-colored glasses. An honest look at the hippies blasphemous portrayal of our Lord Jesus Christ in “Jesus Christ Superstar” should dispel any notion of any kind of sympathy for the counterculture that was the hippies.

I would agree with Bauder on his assessment that much of what has been counterculture is now mainstream. I would say that the time it takes to go from counterculture to mainstream is getting shorter and shorter. What was taking a decade or two to become acceptable is now taking just a couple of years.

Well, we’re not talking about sympathy really. Just looking for what’s useful. There’s no question that the hippie ideology mixed all sorts of stuff together to form a very, well, intoxicating brew (or vapor, perhaps)… ideologically as well as chemically. Though the sort of love and peace they were looking for were befouled and twisted, it’s not like there was nothing of the real thing in it. These are universal human longings. But let’s remember, too, that the majority did not join the hippie movement. Rather, they pulled stuff they liked—such the ideals of love and peace, some music, some clothing, some lingo” but kept on working their establishment jobs, attending their establishment schools, and much of their establishment morality, etc.

Like most movements, you have a philosophical few behind it that embrace the “real ideology,” and then millions who hold to some kind of diluted form of it.

It’s a moot point now anyway. But I agree with the analysis that responding to the counterculture with “Get a haircut and a job!” rather than “Let me tell you what love and peace are really all about” was not the right response for the most part (not that I think most would have listened to the latter either, but some would have).

There were some who did take that tack and they didn’t see what looks now like enduring success. But it’s not ultimately about success.

I agree that counterculture is mostly mainstream. It’s only “counter” now in a historical sense. It’s the counterculture road, but further down it to the point that the fork in the road is really no longer visible.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Brian,

I don’t think that is completely the point made. I will let Aaron speak for himself, but I have a thought. There was much in the hippy culture that was wrong and sinful, no doubt. But the thing I think is being missed is that we fundamentalists tend to dismiss bassed on silly things (wire rimmed glasses for instance). I always thought the unwritten ban by us on facial hair was silly and maybe even sinful if we tied it to being spiritual. When I grew my mustache about 4 years ago, a fundamentalist full-time christian servant felt they were wrong because they made men look like scoundrals. I said they made men look like men. If I weren’t a firefighter, I would have a beard too, but breathing is not overrated. :) I think what we should try to do with counterculture people is cease on where they “think” they are doing something good and turn it to a gospel opportunity. I don’t think overall we do a good job with that in our movement.

Roger Carlson, Pastor Berean Baptist Church

Just have to mention that I remember some folks arguing passionately in my presence (long before I had a beard) that Jesus never had a beard. They had some complicated way of getting around the reference to plucking in Isaiah 50:6.

But nobody thought Jesus having a beard was a problem in, say, 1860.

[img=200x250] http://www.q-aconsulting.com/snodgrass/IMG/GeorgeB%20Snodgrass.jpg

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.