Proud Fundamentalist
Lots of people claim to be fundamentalists. Far more are labeled “fundamentalist” by media outlets or Christian leaders who wish to distance themselves from more traditional—or just more feisty—brethren. Those who want to use “fundamentalist” in a historic sense can only avoid confusion by using the term with qualifiers and explanations—in other words, by including context.
So when I say, “I am a proud fundamentalist,” I mean “fundamentalist” in the historic sense. Two statements from one of SharperIron’s “About” pages sum up the concept:
In a religious sense, the term “fundamentalist” was first used in 1922 in reference to a group of Baptists who were seeking to establish doctrinal limits in the Northern Baptist Convention. Their goal was to uphold the Bible and rid the convention of the philosophy of Modernism, which denied the infallibility of Scripture, rejected miracles, and gutted the Christian faith of defining principles such as the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. In short, the fundamentalists thought the Northern Baptist Convention ought to at least be genuinely Christian.
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At SharperIron we’re still clinging to the term in its historic sense. Here, a fundamentalist is someone who believes in the foundational principles of the Christian faith and also believes in separation from apostasy. Opinions vary as to the degree of separation, the process and the methods. But we are committed to the principle.
Proud?
The term “proud” needs clarifying as well. If your initial reaction to “proud fundamentalist” is something akin to “Last time I checked, pride was sin,” your response is a healthy one. But our view of pride needs some nuance. In English, we use the term “pride” in a positive sense as well as a negative sense. Negatively, we use the word for various forms of thinking of ourselves “more highly than [we] ought to think” (Rom. 12:3). In this sense, pride is the opposite of humility.
But we also use “pride” to refer to a kind of moral confidence and eagerness to identify, as in “I’m proud to be a part of this team,” or “I’m proud of what I did,” or “the proud parents of beautiful baby girl.” In this sense, pride is the opposite of shame. Paul’s “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ” might well be paraphrased as, “I am proud of the gospel of Christ.”
With that as context, I am proud to be a fundamentalist.
Another clarification
At the risk of giving the statement the “death of a thousand qualifications,” one more is needful. It isn’t really a qualification, though. It’s a bit of heightened precision by way of careful reasoning.
In most of everyday life we understand how groups work. We understand that if two entities are in the same group, each is not necessarily in all the same groups as the other. In a bowl of apples, all are in the group “apples,” but only some are in the group “green apples” or “rotten apples.” The red and ripe apple is not less of an apple for failing to be green or rotten. Greeness and rottenness are not components of appleness.
My dog, Sweetheart, is in a group called dogs. To her chagrin (don’t ask how I know) she shares that group with the strays that wander the neighborhood. But Sweetheart behaves differently from the strays. She doesn’t produce patches of dead grass in people’s front yards or raid the garbage cans in strangers’ garages or breed at random. (Whether she would do all of these if she could is beside the point!) It would be silly to reason, “Sweetheart is a dog; strays are dogs; therefore Sweetheart is a stray.” It would be even more absurd to surmise, “Sweetheart is a dog; strays are dogs; being a dog means being a stray.”
It’s absurd because strayness is a distinct quality from dogness. She is no less of a dog for staying home, raiding only her own trash cans and never breeding at all. Would anyone suggest she is only 75% dog?
But when we talk about the group “fundamentalists,” many seem to slip into a group logic fog of some sort—a strange world in which apples should become oranges because so many apples are rotten, and dogs should become cats because so many dogs are strays. Some enter an even weirder world where appleness is the same thing as rottenness and dogness is the same thing as strayness.
In the world I live in, even if every dog but Sweetheart became a stray, she should hold her head high and be proud to be a dog.
With that as context, I’ll say it again: I am a proud fundamentalist.
Some loose ends
The accusation occasionally surfaces on the Web (and perhaps in the real world) that SharperIron is always critical of fundamentalism and never publishes anything completely positive about it.
To these—and any inclined to believe them—please note that this essay is 100% positive about fundamentalism (as are this one and this one). I could post links to literally hundreds of others that are 0% critical of fundamentalism.
On the whole, I hope SharperIron is down on rotten apples and strays. On the whole, we are certainly not critical of apples and dogs. The truth of this is not hard to see. If the reasoning involved was rocket science, you wouldn’t be hearing it from me! But this isn’t even junior chemistry.
I am a proud fundamentalist.
Aaron Blumer Bio
Aaron Blumer, SharperIron’s second publisher, is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in a small town in western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored Grace Baptist Church for thirteen years. He is employed in customer service for UnitedHealth Group and teaches high school rhetoric (and sometimes logic and government) at Baldwin Christian School.
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1 Kings 8:60 - so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other.
More importantly, we have to distinguish between “fundamentalism” as an attribute indicating one’s attitude toward certain doctrines and as a primary identifying term. To change the term, let’s consider trichotomy, the belief that man is composed of three distinct ontological “parts”: body, soul, and spirit. Many people in church history have been trichotomists. However, let’s say a new group arises, the Trichotomist Church. They build Trichotomist schools where young people won’t have to encounter dichotomy. They write Trichotomist hymnals and start Trichotomist mission boards. Trichotomist intellectuals write Trichotomist Systematic Theologies and histories of Trichotomy, insisting that certain church fathers and sundry theologians were Trichotomists. They refuse to hold fellowship with dichotomists.
This Trichotomist Church is a unique socio-cultural phenomenon that can’t simply be identified with the belief in trichotomy. In fact, an early-church father who believed in trichotomy may have much more in common with other contemporary dichotomist churches than with the Trichotomist Church. In fact, other contemporary churches that believe in trichotomy may move to distance themselves from the Trichotomist Church.
Fundamentalism is the same sort of phenomenon. In the twentieth century, there were Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and others who embraced certain ideas and attitudes that were called fundamentalism. But, as the story progressed, a new socio-cultural group emerged, one that defined itself (and everyone else) primarily in terms of that Fundamentalism. Other identifiers remained, but receded. So, it won’t do to reduce this group to an ideology. You can’t de-historicize in the name of an abstraction.
When people critique “fundamentalism,” in many cases it’s the socio-cultural manifestation of Fundamentalism that they’re critiquing. That’s completely legitimate. You can’t defend the idea when the idea isn’t what’s being attacked. That’s like a spokesperson from the Roman Catholic Church dealing with child abuse by saying, “That’s not real Roman Catholicism.”
My Blog: http://dearreaderblog.com
Cor meum tibi offero Domine prompte et sincere. ~ John Calvin
As for dehistorizing, I’m not recommending that or practicing that. The term has lost usefulness in society at large as others have dehistorized it.
I’m also not faulting people for criticizing the “socio-cultural manifestation.” Some of that would be the rottenness or strayness in the analogies I used.
At root, I’m arguing from definition here…. when people expand or change the definition then find fault with the newly defined term, their criticisms may be quite accurate but they are no longer talking about the same thing.
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.
Who is the real fundamentalist?
- Jack Schaap?
- Bob Jones?
- Bob Jones and Jack Schaap? http://emmanuelbaptisttemple.org/media/bcflyer2011.pdf (the inconsistent separatist)
- http://sharperiron.org/filings/3-24-10/14345] Jack Schaap & John Vaughn ? (another inconsistent separatist (but I really like him (Vaughn)))
- The host of I-won’t-name-them ANGRY fundamentalists?
- The KJVOers?
- The shallow read-a-verse-tell-many-stories fundamentalists (See Stuff Fundies Like)
- The misrepresent-then-thrash-the-straw-man anti-calvinist fundamentalist? (think Ron Comfort or Dan Sweatt)
- The what I would call “reasonable fundamentalists” (eg Kevin Bauder)?
Of the above many consider # 9 to be a FINO (fundamentalist in name only) or pseudo-F.
Thus I have chosen to reject the label altogether. It has become (the label) an antimorphic mutation, non-monolithic blob
Then there is the fundamentalist that will think that because I have posted the following that I am worldly (but I am just keying off “the blog” above)
Anyone who says SI is down on Fundamentalism probably defines the term by a more sectarian definition. That is the problem with terminology, as you duly noted. Jim Peet has a good argument, namely, that the term has been hijacked and so discolored that we need a new one. I agree. I also agree that Dr. Bauder represents a healthy strain of what is now labelled fundamentalism. When I look at some of Dr. Bauder’s articles, I find a well thought out and balanced view of fundamentalism.
On this site, sarcasm and mockery is a bad way to argue a point, as it should be. I do not find a lot of that here. I do not find a lot of straw men, personal attacks, etc. Part of being ethical is arguing fairly, reasonably, and objectively. Some of the fundamental legacy is based upon arguing emotionally — it doesn’t matter HOW you persuade, as long as you reinforce the party line. And that is sad.
SI is an amazing site with some amazing contributors. R. Ptimann put it well:
Aaron, you are essentially correct in what you say but we cannot turn back the clock and reclaim the Fundamentalism of 1922. After all, we’re talking about different times, different people, different circumstances, etc. We do not share the same common ground as the Fundamentalists of 1922. The common enemy of Modernism-Liberalism is not the looming threat to unite us and our differences have proliferated to separate us. We can’t just go back home again.But I also agree with Jim Peet that we need a new name to distinguish ourselves from those who hold a party line and really are not first and foremost concerned with objectively and fairly interpreting and applying the Word.
"The Midrash Detective"
The separatistic fundamentalists became watchdogs, quick to call all others new evangelicals if they strayed from the party line. But there was and is a large number of fundamentalists who never entered into that fray. These “historic fundamentalists” may not be called fundamentalists anymore for several reasons. They were labeled new evangelicals by the “fundamentalists” and kicked out of the movement. They left on their own to fellowship with other historic fundamentalists (conservative evangelicals). They found a home in denominations that virtually bypassed the fundamentalist/modernist controversy (Evangelical Free Church). They simply stopped using the name because it came to represent only one strand of fundamentalism. They stopped using the term because it became incomprehensible and worthless as an identifier.
If one looks at all of the institutions that developed out of the fundamentalist/modernist controversy, most of them would take the label “conservative evangelical” while still claiming that they hold to the fundamentals of the faith. This is the group that has the right to the label “historic fundamentalism.” But because of the socio-cultural baggage mentioned by Charlie, they don’t want the label anymore. The term fundamentalism has come to mean mean-spirited along with all of the other things Charlie has identified.
What is somewhat sad is when schools like NIU claim that they aren’t changing when they ought to be trumpeting their change from the rafters. It is a good thing that NIU is expanding its borders and seeking fellowship with other historic fundamentalists like MacArthur. NIU should publicly decry their association, if by name only, with fundamentalists who are divisive (BJU) or heretical (PCC). NIU should state in no uncertain terms that those schools do not represent who we are. NIU should reclaim the true history of the family that started the college instead of holding on to the false revisionist story that the BJU leadership at the school crafted.
So let’s raise our voices for historic fundamentalism, and let’s remove ourselves from the heresy that is much of separatistic fundamentalism (KJVO, false divisions, man pleasers, etc.).
[RPittman] There’s evolution here, my friend! :bigsmile:Some say devolution or mutation
[RPittman]Understood, my friend![Don P] One will never understand fundamentalism without taking into account that separation from apostasy was not a fundamental. Only in the 1920s and later did some fundamentalists trumpet separation from apostasy and then separation from those who would not “come out.” Even among those who did come out from their denominations and started new ones, there were those who would continue to fellowship with their fundamentalist brethren who stayed in.Although there seems to be the intimation of a superior understanding here, one cannot explain or comprehend the Fundamentalist phenomenon by arbitrarily choosing a fixed point in time and bench-marking Fundamentalism to that point without factoring in the diversity and progression of the movement. To do so is only to view a minute detail of Fundamentalism attached to a single point in its varied history. It is not as if the tenets of Fundamentalism were delivered to the saints at a single time and place. There’s evolution here, my friend! :bigsmile:
But the point is that those who have commandeered the term fundamentalism have isolated one branch of fundamentalism to the exclusion of all others. They claim that they alone have the right to the term. The truth is that a much larger, quieter branch has more of a claim (or at least an equal claim) to the term than they do. Today, this branch is known as conservative evangelicals.
Blessings!
[Don P] One will never understand fundamentalism without taking into account that separation from apostasy was not a fundamental. Only in the 1920s and later did some fundamentalists trumpet separation from apostasy and then separation from those who would not “come out.”Fundamentalism was born in the 1920s… I would argue that it was born pretty much at the moment believers in the fundamentals of the faith realized it was time to separate from apostasy in that place and time.
Curtis Laws used the term to refer to those who believed they needed to “do battle royal” against unbelief.
The merits of continuing to use the term are interesting, but not really what the essay is about. That is, you could replace every occurrence of “fundamentalist” in it with, say, “W” and the argument still works:
- whatever a “W” is, the existence of persons in that group who are also in other groups cannot, in itself, change what the “W” group is.
- whatever a “W” is, the existence of persons in that group who are also in other groups (say, X, Y and Z) does not mean that any other person in the “W” group is in any of those other groups.
I agree that the term itself is only useful when you use it in the hearing/reading of those who know what it means… but this is pretty much the case with all terms. And you can sort of control whether those hearing/reading you understand the term by defining it before you claim it.
It ultimately makes no difference to me if the word is “fundamentlist” or “metadorsalist.” We know this group exists, and I’m proud to be in it, though I really hope I’m not in several of the other groups others in it also happen to be in (sorry that last sentence is so tangled…. language can be so ball-of-yarn, post-cat).
Maybe this touches on one of Charlie’s points earlier, too. I don’t think it especially matters if the definition I’m using is even the “correct” one. It’s just shorthand for a group we all know exists. So when I say “I’m a proud fundamentalist”—at least in this discussion—I’m saying nothing more than “I am not ashamed to be among those who embrace the fundamentals of the faith and believe in separation from apostasy.”
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.
I humbly reject hyper-fundamentalsm - where there is devotion to the fundamentals of the faith and a willingness to separate over them as well as a willingness to separate from and even shoot other fundamentalists over secondary issues.
[Aaron Blumer]Fundamentalism was born in the late 1800s.[Don P] One will never understand fundamentalism without taking into account that separation from apostasy was not a fundamental. Only in the 1920s and later did some fundamentalists trumpet separation from apostasy and then separation from those who would not “come out.”Fundamentalism was born in the 1920s… I would argue that it was born pretty much at the moment believers in the fundamentals of the faith realized it was time to separate from apostasy in that place and time.
Curtis Laws used the term to refer to those who believed they needed to “do battle royal” against unbelief.
The merits of continuing to use the term are interesting, but not really what the essay is about. That is, you could replace every occurrence of “fundamentalist” in it with, say, “W” and the argument still works:So the group that is defined as “people who believe in the fundamentals and separation from apostasy” is only that group and is distinct from other groups such as “people who are arrogant, power-hungry, nasty or poorly-educated.”
- whatever a “W” is, the existence of persons in that group who are also in other groups cannot, in itself, change what the “W” group is.
- whatever a “W” is, the existence of persons in that group who are also in other groups (say, X, Y and Z) does not mean that any other person in the “W” group is in any of those other groups.
I agree that the term itself is only useful when you use it in the hearing/reading of those who know what it means… but this is pretty much the case with all terms. And you can sort of control whether those hearing/reading you understand the term by defining it before you claim it.
It ultimately makes no difference to me if the word is “fundamentlist” or “metadorsalist.” We know this group exists, and I’m proud to be in it, though I really hope I’m not in several of the other groups others in it also happen to be in (sorry that last sentence is so tangled…. language can be so ball-of-yarn, post-cat).
Maybe this touches on one of Charlie’s points earlier, too. I don’t think it especially matters if the definition I’m using is even the “correct” one. It’s just shorthand for a group we all know exists. So when I say “I’m a proud fundamentalist”—at least in this discussion—I’m saying nothing more than “I am not ashamed to be among those who embrace the fundamentals of the faith and believe in separation from apostasy.”
[RPittman]Conservative evangelicals are that branch of fundamentalism that didn’t separate over separation. Conservative evangelicals also consist of those who weren’t directly involved in the fundamentalist/modernist controversy such as the Baptist General Conference, Evangelical Free Church of America, Grace Brethren Church, etc.[Don P] But the point is that those who have commandeered the term fundamentalism have isolated one branch of fundamentalism to the exclusion of all others. They claim that they alone have the right to the term. The truth is that a much larger, quieter branch has more of a claim (or at least an equal claim) to the term than they do. Today, this branch is known as conservative evangelicals.I don’t see how the present day Conservative Evangelicals lie in the historical lineage of Fundamentalism. Their roots are in the camps maintaining orthodox theology, although not separation, in face of Liberalism-Modernism such as the Old Evangelicalism, Neo-evangelicalism, the Reformed community, or the SBC. The SBC was never in the Fundamentalist camp although the rank and file were fundamental in doctrine. They were simply apart from the movement. Only within the past decade or so have we seen significant migration into the Conservative Evangelical camp from Fundamentalism.
Blessings!
Conservative evangelicals are young fundamentalists who aren’t buying the separation from other believers because older fundamentalists claimed that these “other” believers were new evangelicals, etc.
Direct lineage of fundamentalism:
Northwestern College
Cedarville University
Biola University
Westmont College
Trinity International University and TEDS
Bethel University
Grace College and Seminary
Word of Life
Liberty University
Tennessee Temple University
Bryan College
and on and on.
The number of fundamentalist institutions that are identified as “conservative evangelical” is numerous. The broad swath of historic fundamentalism resides in conservative evangelical institutions, not in BJU, NBBC, MBBC, etc.
Think Conservative Baptists, IFCA, John MacArthur, etc. These and the above mentioned groups are all conservative evangelicals and direct descendants of fundamentalists. They are, in fact, historic fundamentalists of the 1880s to 1930s stripe. They separate from apostasy but not from each other. They band together for the gospel.
[RPittman] I don’t see how the present day Conservative Evangelicals lie in the historical lineage of Fundamentalism. Their roots are in the camps maintaining orthodox theology, although not separation, in face of Liberalism-Modernism such as the Old Evangelicalism, Neo-evangelicalism, the Reformed community, or the SBC. The SBC was never in the Fundamentalist camp although the rank and file were fundamental in doctrine. They were simply apart from the movement. Only within the past decade or so have we seen significant migration into the Conservative Evangelical camp from Fundamentalism.Roland,
I’m in agreement, I think, with your premise that CE’s do not descend from ‘movement Fundamentalism’ as we commonly use the term. What I’d like to know is why, and how, ‘movement Fundamentalism’ should be defined, and especially how those who have “left” Fundamentalism actually did so. There are a couple of distinguishing characteristics that I can think of, but I’m still not seeing a clear line of distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’, let alone any clear reason to avoid the proverbial ‘them’.
I live in NY state. In the roughly five nearby counties, I know of approximately seven churches that hold to any semblance of historic Christian belief (I’m using that term in place of the ‘Fundamentals’, since we all have been spectacularly unable to define those famous beliefs). So I’m far more concerned about the Gospel and in proclaiming it or fellowshipping with other historic Christians than I am in abitrary distinctions between those ‘within’ and those ‘without’ my particular theological realm.
Why, in your opinion, does it matter if a church in the next town is run by CE’s, and why should I not be thankful that there is another (hypothetical) brother there who is conerned with sound doctrine, solid preaching, and disciplemaking?
I guess what I’m trying to say is why should I even care about this seemingly abitrary distinction that exists in the mind of some? If you and I were on the front lines at Omaha’s Fox Green sector on June 6, 1944, my biggest concern would be fighting the Nazis, not where you grew up or who you were friends with.
"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
If the first 50 years of fundamentalism is characterized by banding together (1880s to 1930s) and the next 20 years is characterized by separating and arguing about who the true fundamentalists are, which stage of the movement defines the term?
A small but vocal minority claimed that those who didn’t separate from other believers who didn’t separate from disobedient brothers were not true fundamentalists. So the separating fundamentalists claimed the term for themselves while the rest of the fundamentalists went about their business of reaching the lost. They no longer used the term because of the demeanor of those who did.
So who are the true fundamentalists? Those who claim the term and fight for separation, or those who continued to preach the gospel but emphasized unity of the brethren? Which branch is in the lineage of 1880s to 1930s fundamentalism?
I would suggest that it is the conservative evangelicals! Where do you think they came from? They didn’t materialize out of thin air. They are the direct descendants of fundamentalists.
Hoping to shed more light than heat..
Discussion