Proto-Fundamentalism, Part 4

NickOfTime

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Missions and Education

Proto-fundamentalism, the parent movement out of which Fundamentalism emerged around 1920, was characterized by an interest in evangelism. This interest led to massive evangelistic campaigns that were spearheaded by celebrity evangelists. It led to pastors who emphasized evangelism in their congregations. It led to the establishment of rescue missions and other forms of social programs as mechanisms to gain a hearing for the gospel.

The interest in evangelism also resulted in a fresh outpouring of involvement in worldwide missions. Among the early proto-fundamentalists were many who had heard Adoniram Judson during the 1840s. Judson had communicated a burden for missions that had never entirely gone away. This enthusiasm had been suppressed during the years surrounding the Civil War. It had also become institutionalized under the denominational mission boards. During the 1870s, however, interest in missions began to grow again.

The renewed vision for world evangelism gained urgency from the new premillennialism. The version of premillennialism that dominated proto-fundamentalism was one that stressed an imminent rapture. Many American evangelicals developed a sense that the time of the Lord’s return could be near and that the opportunity to evangelize the world might be drawing to a close. The sense of urgency seems to have been infectious, and in the long run it was shared even by Christians who rejected the new eschatology.

An example of missionary enthusiasm is Oliver W. Van Osdel. Van Osdel was a veteran of the Union army who entered ministry during the 1870s. A postmillennialist, he did not adopt premillennial views until some time in the 1890s (he credited W. B. Riley with persuading him). By that time, however, he had already become widely known as an organizer of missionary work among the Baptists of Illinois and Kansas. In later life, he appealed to the imminence of Jesus’ return as a motivation for missions, but his own commitment to missions antedated his acceptance of premillennialism and pretribulationism.

Christian young people began turning to missions as never before. An important event occurred in 1886 when, at Moody’s Northfield Conference grounds, 100 young people dedicated their lives to missions. Out of this event emerged the Student Volunteer Movement. By the 1920s, the movement had become institutionalized and was plagued with liberal theology. Nevertheless, it was responsible for sending some 20,000 young people to the mission field.

Somehow the work of all these missionaries had to be coordinated. Denominational missions at the time were either poorly equipped or otherwise unable to handle the task. Therefore, new missions had to be formed. A model had already been provided by J. Hudson Taylor, who had started the China Inland Mission in 1865. In 1887, A. B. Simpson oversaw the establishment of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. C. I. Scofield organized the Central American Mission in 1890. Other similar organizations sprang up around the country.

These missions together developed into what became known as the Faith Missions Movement. Where the older denominational missions tended to rely upon budgeted support from their parent bodies, faith missions were structured to remain dependent upon deliberate giving from individual churches and Christians. Where some older denominational missions seemed more interested in transmitting civilization, education, and culture, the faith missions were most interested in communicating the gospel. They had no illusions about winning the world, but they longed to preach the gospel around the entire earth.

The faith missions also had a different set of criteria for missionary candidates. The older, denominational missions wanted candidates that were liberally educated and then seminary trained. For the faith missions, however, complete college and seminary training was unnecessary. A candidate only needed to have a pretty good grasp of the English Bible, a fairly sound knowledge of Bible doctrine, and some practical experience in Christian work.

What the faith missions required was really a different kind of training. Traditionally, preparation for ministers and missionaries had begun with a four-year liberal arts degree. By the time he graduated from college, a future minister would have mastered the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic). He would also have his Greek and his Latin. When he reached seminary, he would spend an additional three years learning Hebrew, exegesis, theology, and critical issues. Most seminaries offered little by way of practical training, so a graduate might apprentice himself to a senior minister for some years after commencement. In sum, it was not unusual for a minister to spend the better part of a decade in preparation.

This process was ill-matched to the temper of proto-fundamentalists. Their sense of urgency militated against seven years of formal preparation, and their populism militated against intellectual attainment. What they wanted was a course of preparation that would emphasize the English Bible, the basic doctrines of the Christian faith, and that would above all be short.

The result was the Bible institute. Students entered Bible institutes directly out of high school (if they went to high school). The curriculum emphasized personal piety, ministry skills, teaching the English Bible, and immersion in the system of dispensationalism. Best of all, it took only three years, after which the graduate was ready to serve under the auspices of a faith mission.

For many proto-fundamentalists, the Bible institutes became an alternative educational universe. These schools completely took over the place of colleges and seminaries in preparing Christian leaders. They also provided training for average Christian workers in churches. As time progressed, they became centers of pastoral placement. They also served a very practical purpose by offering propinquity for young, single Christians.

As denominational schools began to succumb to liberal theology, the Bible institutes became extremely important centers of proto-fundamentalism. Noteworthy institutions included the Missionary Training Institute, founded by A. B. Simpson in 1882 (Later Nyack College); Moody Bible Institute (1886); Practical Bible Training School (1900); Northwestern Bible Institute (1902); and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (1908). These were joined by a host of lesser-known institutes. These schools together constituted the foundation upon which Fundamentalists rebuilt their educational enterprise after losing the battle for their denominations.

The success of the Bible institute movement was that it put a large number of enthusiastic workers into ministry within a very short period of time. These workers were well prepared to preach the plan of salvation, to teach basic English Bible, and to lead souls to Christ. Secondarily, the movement provided an important option when the denominational colleges and seminaries were subverted. They also became important hubs around which much of the infrastructure of Fundamentalism revolved.

Their success, however, came at a price. Driven by a sense of urgency, the Bible institutes provided only a truncated version of ministerial training. When the rapture did not occur as expected, Fundamentalism ended up with a generation or more of leaders who were poorly prepared for reflection and critical thinking, whose exegetical skills were often marginal, and whose theological acumen was restricted to those areas (mainly dispensationalism) that were emphasized in Bible school training.

These deficiencies became most marked at the very period when American civilization was passing through significant cultural change. Fundamentalist leaders were often unprepared to meet and evaluate this change or to articulate a thoughtful response. The damage has never been repaired.

Fundamentalists themselves evidently felt the need for something more than the Bible institutes could offer. By the middle of the Twentieth Century, many of the old Bible institutes had been transformed into colleges. Fundamentalists had also opened a number of baccalaureate institutions devoted to liberal arts. By 1960, Fundamentalists were operating seminaries, signaling a return to the more traditional pattern of training for pastors and missionaries.

The creation of these institutions was not entirely a return to the status quo ante, however. By opting for the Bible institute movement rather than traditional higher education, Fundamentalists cut themselves off from the academic world. As they began to create their own institutions, they attempted to maintain an entirely separate and distinct intellectual world. Since few of their leaders had been trained in bona fide institutions of higher learning, they tended to make up their own rules as they went. To this day, most (though not all) Fundamentalist institutions resist being held to the same academic standards by which other institutions are measured.

The Second Hymn for Advent; or Christs coming to Jerusalem in triumph.

Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)

Lord come away,
Why dost thou stay?
Thy rode is ready; and thy paths made strait
With longing expectation wait
The Consecration of thy beauteous feet.
Ride on triumphantly, behold we lay
Our lusts and proud wills in thy way.
Hosanna! welcome to our hearts.


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

To me, it comes down to vocation. I believe I agree w/the spirit of what Charlie’s saying: that there is a often a false sense of urgency mixed with a false sense that whether you are a pastor/teacher/missionary/etc. or not just depends on your spiritual maturity. Real devotion = vocation? But I think that idea has mostly died now. It’s definitely declined a good bit from fifty years or so ago.

And I think I see a point of agree w/Joseph as well that if one’s calling is into scholarship—which I certainly believe some are called into—you have a different route to take from the “ministry emphasis” one (though I would say that ultimately, it’s all got to be “ministry” if it’s Christian at all, but be use “ministry” as shorthand for particular vocations.. probably we should stop doing that).

Alex… I’m not sure where this elitism is you refer to. I’m not denying it exists, but I don’t recall seeing or hearing anyone ever communicate ‘how dare you attempt exegesis if you don’t have a PhD.’ From where I sit, I much more often see populism along the lines of “All of our opinions are equally valid and we are all just as likely to know what we’re talking about as anyone else.” Which is a pretty absurd idea we’d never apply to hobbies, workplace skills, or anything else. So… on that point, I think we get into trouble when we start lumping: either saying that “credentials automatically equals superior skill in handling Scripture” or “lack of credentials automatically means inferiority in skill,” when in reality we’re talking about correlations. People are more likely to be good at what they’ve spent more time working on. But “more likely” leaves a certain openness for exceptions and slowness to write folks off.

Anyway, getting back to the vocation idea, it speaks to the urgency as well. I think we cannot rule out that God calls some to get out there and get to work very quickly and they need a short track to their ministry. But in general, Scripture calls us to take the long view of things, surely, doesn’t it? So absent of a special “call” to hurry up, thorough preparation should be the norm. But even then, how thorough? It has to be individual. I can’t tell anyone in particular that God wants him/her to earn a PhD/ThD or two… nor can anyone tell me that my MDiv isn’t good enough because “good enough” depends on vocation.

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.

[Charlie] My root complaint is simple: I believe it is misguided and dangerous for institutions to accept as ministerial candidates people who are nowhere near the qualifications for eldership. I believe the source of this phenomenon is a crypto-Romanist spirituality (the clerical life is of a higher spiritual caliber than lay life, so if you really love God you’ll be a pastor/missionary/etc.) and a defective theology of calling (after a rousing sermon on “the fields are white unto harvest,” 15-year-old Johnny feels led to preach the gospel, so it must be God’s will). In my view, then, the Bible college is the symptom of deeper theological and strategic woes.
Amen! Today, anyone with a High School diploma and some money can go to a Christian College or university. Anyone with the grades can get a degree. Anyone with the degree can get ordained. And anyone with the ordination certificate can get a pastorate. But where are Scriptural qualifications in this?

There is a two-fold defect in our pastoral training. The one under discussion here, academic rigor, is important. But the other defect is the involvement of the church itself. Future elders and pastors should be nurtured from within the church, discipled there, and evaluated based on a longer track record than preaching to a church while candidating. We have to find some way to meld a thoroughly scholarly education for ministry with something like pastors educating future pastors by a “socratic method”.

Joseph,

In posts numbers 6 and 15, you speak about requirements for entrance to college and seminary. (Mike also alludes to this in post number 17.) This is a very critical point.

Making college entrance requirements stricter is basically an untouchable subject. It is now perceived as our birthright as Americans that we can go to any college we want, and then graduate and own a home. It is exactly the thinking that led to the current economic crisis, but it is deeply engrainged in our psyche.

I think it is fair to say that our colleges (including Bible colleges) are filled with people who probably would not have been able to go to college 60-plus years ago — for reasons BOTH economic and academic. A high percentage of them would not have been eligible to study for the ministry in any denominational setting, on academic grounds alone.

The reasons for the change are highly complex both inside and outside of fundamentalism, I am sure. One thing that has poisoned the well, however, is easy money from the federal government — including loans which keep people in bondage for many years to come.

Have you ever seen an old black-and-white movie where the stodgy old professor has to tell the student that he is just not “college material”? That would never happen today. As long as the gravy is pouring in from the government, the school can use the money, and the gravy train rolls on.

I would be all for MUCH stricter entrance requirements, especially for Christian colleges. (Seminary is somewhat self-discriminating. No one is going to be there unless they really want to be.) But where is the money going to come from?

(BTW — It was once explained to me that Bible colleges were not intended to operate that way — their purpose is not to train the best of the best for ministry, but to teach the Bible to anyone who wants to learn. Perhaps we should re-examine whether that is [a] Biblical and effective.)

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

[Paul J. Scharf] Making college entrance requirements stricter is basically an untouchable subject. It is now perceived as our birthright as Americans that we can go to any college we want, and then graduate and own a home. It is exactly the thinking that led to the current economic crisis, but it is deeply engrainged in our psyche.

I think it is fair to say that our colleges (including Bible colleges) are filled with people who probably would not have been able to go to college 60-plus years ago — for reasons BOTH economic and academic. A high percentage of them would not have been eligible to study for the ministry in any denominational setting, on academic grounds alone.
Paul,

The GI Bill after WWII changed the face of American college education. On the whole, that was a positive change, but today’s students are not at all like yesterday’s.

The book to read on the feeling of entitlement for all to attend college is “Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back To Reality” by Charles Murray. Great read.

Mike Durning

You are correct, to be sure.

There are still exceptions, however, and I believe the key to the whole operation is found in exempting oneself from the federal funding process.

Of course, the giant example of the alternative model is Hillsdale College, www.hillsdale.edu.

I would be very excited to see our schools move that direction somehow. Of course, the transition would take a bazillion dollars.

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

My root complaint is simple: I believe it is misguided and dangerous for institutions to accept as ministerial candidates people who are nowhere near the qualifications for eldership. I believe the source of this phenomenon is a crypto-Romanist spirituality (the clerical life is of a higher spiritual caliber than lay life, so if you really love God you’ll be a pastor/missionary/etc.) and a defective theology of calling (after a rousing sermon on “the fields are white unto harvest,” 15-year-old Johnny feels led to preach the gospel, so it must be God’s will).
I very much agree with Charlie. In general, ministers should be called up (from within a particular congregation), instead of called out. For example, the idea of a kid from the Northeast going to Bible College in the South and then fresh out of Bible College taking a pastorate in the Mountain West or whatever has always struck me as purely artificial and an accident of modernity. And people scratch their heads and wonder why he doesn’t “get it” and has a hard time being accepted. Vs. Billy Bob who grew up in the community and eventually takes over the local church. Vocational ministry (among most Protestants) is an artifact (a luxury really) of modern mass mobility and economic specialization, but it is not necessarily the Biblical model. It is not necessarily bad in every respect. It is good that we live in a society with enough abundance to allow vocational ministry, but we must be very careful not to theologize what is really a social phenomenon. I think we have done this with our theology of “calling.”

Paul and Mike, the idea that everyone can and should go to college is the product of our modern commitment to ideological egalitarianism. According to which everyone is “college material” if given sufficient opportunity. The low entry barrier does have a way of weeding people out, but not before a lot of people have wasted significant time and money. Few really buy this egalitarian myth, but they are unwilling to say so. So they pretend. All our educational reforms are based on this myth. (No Child Left Behind). And if you acknowledge inequality you should also have an economy that accommodates that. Meaning a living wage for the leftward portion of the bell curve (that aren’t just sorry and victims of their own vices) and not platitudinous foolishness that everyone can grow up and become a computer programmer if they just put their minds to it.

Spinning off of Aaron’s idea (#16), I would suggest that vocation, location, and motivation matter greatly when considering different models of education. I have seen a seminary graduate in Botswana reduced to trembling tears when, after several years learning an African language and tribal dialect and absorbing the culture, he realised that he had forgotten much of his Greek and Hebrew from seminary and would likely never discuss toledoths, chiastic structure, or Wellhausen’s theories with his new converts. But if he was a missionary in Luxembourg, he would need all of that fine training, and then some.

Much depends on the man. “Degrees are keys” allowing you to enter certain doors otherwise closed to you. Whether they truly prepare a person as intended is debatable. A person with a heart for life-long learning will catch up and not let education interfere with his learning.

I would have to argue that going from Bible college straight into pastoral ministry in your early 20s seems to violate the nature and requirements of eldership. The man hasn’t stood out from under authority for long enough to try his character, and his marriage (if any) is also untested. It would be even worse if he showed up here in South Africa intending to train pastors.

This brings me to my other misgiving – that seminary professors are the best creators of pastors or missionaries. In law school, we said that “those who make A’s make good professors, those who make B’s make good judges, and those who make C’s make good money.” There is a core difference between the theoretical and practical. My observation in recent years is that seminary grads want to be expository preachers, profs in the pulpit. They love to be alone with their computers and books, and teach their seminary notes to befuddled believers. I had one new seminary graduate tell me that he believed God had prepared him to pastor a church of at least 600. I suggested that this was likely because he didn’t know how to do anything but expository preaching. A few minutes later, he agreed.

We need real pastors to train and mentor new pastors. Does it not seem strange that to teach someone church ministry you would send them away from the local church into a somewhat sterile environment to learn from academics, only a few of whom are involved in ministry? Oh, colleges try to get their students involved with extensions on weekends, but many of those experiences are obligatory, are not supervised to give the student feedback, and are not integrated with what students are learning on campus.

Here in Johannesburg, we have tried something different, and we have a long way to go. We train first-world and third-world men for ministry in a church-based leadership development program that is run in several local churches around our province. Our students receive 1) academic training that is tailored for the demands of where they and their teachers see them heading (lay leadership, pastor, missionary, or professor) using text-based Socratic discussion, 2) ongoing personal mentoring by someone in ministry to challenge their hearts and deal with personal issues in their lives, and 3) continual hands-on experiences in ministry every week in the life of the church with feedback. We call it a balance of “head, heart, and hands.” Jesus mentored the twelve in much the same fashion. Most Bible colleges and seminaries simply can’t reproduce model this due to the teacher-student ratio. Amazingly, our program was recognized a decade ago by a local European-style university for full credit toward a Bachelor of Theology in Biblical Studies, and we praise the Lord for this unexpected blessing.

In a dusty African village, a Bible institute graduate could work for years just giving out from his current knowledge base. Third-world missions in the era of proto-fundamentalism required so much repetition of the basics (gospel, moral teaching, and basic doctrine) that only a Bible institute education was necessary. It is still that way in rural areas. Such a young man would not make it pastoring in the theologically savvy churches of America, but he could serve the Lord in the two-thirds of the world that is the third world.

This debate hits home with me. I have a son who is a Northland graduate, and has an invitation from the national pastors here to come help teach. He thinks he should go to seminary first. :-)

[Red Phillips] I very much agree with Charlie. In general, ministers should be called up (from within a particular congregation), instead of called out. For example, the idea of a kid from the Northeast going to Bible College in the South and then fresh out of Bible College taking a pastorate in the Mountain West or whatever has always struck me as purely artificial and an accident of modernity.
I’ll back that scenario as the ideal, but there are lots of small churches where you may have a couple of generations with no one called or gifted for pastoral ministry. This problem has worsened because of society’s mobility. So now we not only are looking at a small pool to begin with (in a small rural church for example), but that pool shrinks even more over time when you factor in folks coming in and out of the for employment, etc. If you have a long stretch where more are going than coming… well, you get the picture.

But I’m all for home grown pastors whenever possible.

I’m not so keen on the idea some of have educating them entirely under the unbrella of one local church, though. Tends to result in overly narrow exposure to things a guy needs to think through. Too easy to be isolated from the community of students of the word, though this is less a problem than it used to be due to technology (and of course, if the “one church” is huge and diverse that evens things out a good bit as well)

Edit: I do think mentoring is important and that there is no substitute for the real world and real church life for training pastors (as ‘BrownRSA’ and others have indicated). There is really no reason why seminaries and churches working together can’t do this. See Stephen Davey’s series on that. Part two posts tomorrow. Part three probably next week.

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.

Dave,

I agree with CMI’s focus and methodology (I ought to, since we run it in our church, too!). However, I think that the complexities of ministering today are growing. The level of sophistication required to navigate cultural issues today is probably far greater than when the Bible Institute movement took off. I’d agree with your examples of seminary grads here in SA, and can add some of my own. However, the other side of the coin is pastors here who’ve been trained with the truncated American Bible Institute model and tend to minister in the same fashion: giving abbreviated answers to complex problems, proof texting, and feeding people stock answers. Witness the popularity of Hovind science, the typical answers given on the music issue, and even the way KJV-Onlyism spread here in the 90s. There are some very smart men here, but one wishes for some middle ground between the CMI model, and interaction with men like Bauder, Carson, and the like. Perhaps the model that [URL=http://theexpositorsseminary.org/ The Expositor’s Seminary [/URL] is using may eventually be a way of connecting leaders in the thick of ministry with those who give themselves full-time to parsing cultural and theological issues.

David

Bible colleges would be able to do better work if they had students who weren’t acting as though they were still junior highers, and the problem of immature college students may be directly traced to Christian families. Our culture expects young adults to act like children long into their twenties. Christian families have bought into that perception. Churches are expected to have youth groups and youth activities led by a not-much-older-than-the-teens who is pressured to be certain that the kids have ‘clean fun’ (whatever that means) with a ‘challenge’ thrown in. Churches have embraced all this and have wandered far from the equipping model explained in Eph 4. So we have pastors who don’t equip parents well; parents who don’t grow in wisdom (often willfully); and children who grow up physically but not spiritually or in maturity.

Parents, churches, and schools must work together, but parents have the final responsibility for their children. Parents must expect more and better of and for their children. Funny thing is that many young people embrace high expectations; look at the response to the Harris twins. Pastors need to return to equipping and building Christians focusing on the adults who may then train their children. The church needs to match wise older men and women with younger parents to mentor them through the stages of child training. Schools must be a partner for parents, with colleges perhaps being at the finishing/polishing stage.

David,

I think you are hitting on something key here. This is getting a little afield from Dr. Bauder’s original piece, but it is important stuff for us to think about.

In accord with previous discussion about the need for stiffer entrance requirements for college and seminary and a young person’s expectation of being able to go to college, you provide another significant piece of the puzzle: the lenghthening of adolescence and the postponement of adulthood. I do believe that society has changed significantly in this regard in the last 20 years.

There is more than a little truth, in more than one way, to the idea that “college is the new high school.”

You offer some starter solutions to this. I do think, again, that one of the main keys is economic. Young people are growing accustomed to living this way — primarily because they can.

Think of two 35-year-olds: one is living like a teenager in his parents’ basement; another has an established family of his own and has to care for aged parents. Two very different scenarios…

Short of another Great Depression or World War, I am not sure what will change that societally. For any given individual who is in need of maturity, I would prescribe lots of Bible intake and a healthy dose of Dave Ramsey :)

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

Serious discussions aside, I thought this line from Bauder’s post was especially good:
They also served a very practical purpose by offering propinquity for young, single Christians.
I got to learn a new word, but it also sums up much of my college experience. Our college was largely a glorified version of a Bible Institute and there wasn’t much education to be had, unfortunately. There was some, but mostly it was about propinquity — being near those of the same kin and kind. We were molded and shaped into what we already were, but just a little bit more strongly molded.

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.