Bixby's take on Northland

Permit me as an IT worker for the past 25 years to use a technology illustration. I’ve worked a significant amount in network security for organizations of many different sizes. Managing the information for a company has been my concern for a number of years. Information is the property of the company, and needs to be protected. Security threats are from the outside (firewalls, etc. are needed for protection), from the inside (corporate IT policies and procedures must be documented and followed), and anyone who has high access to information needs high standards of trustworthiness.

Here we are talking specifically about threats from the outside. How does a firewall, for example, keep threats out? First of all, what is allowed to come in is limited. Only things that match a certain rule set are allowed in and out. This eliminates much extraneous traffic that is blocked. Traffic that is originated from the inside is allowed out within some rule sets, but that traffic is examined for safety from viruses, etc. as it goes in and out. Because you would rather keep a virus out then have to fight it when it gets in. If you think your antivirus program is going to stop it, you are sadly mistaken. Viruses are written to get around them all the time.

I would liken the Bixby approach to opening up and not examining closely what comes in. He is really saying, let all the traffic come in, and we will sort out what we want to keep and what we don’t. The truth is that we all have rule sets that keeps some stuff out. If you let it all in, you don’t know what kind of damage is going to be done, how many hours of “cleaning” are going to be necessary to rid the more virulent strains of error, and how what is unique and proprietary to your “body” is going to be compromised.

Fundamentalism is part of my “firewall” that helps me to calibrate what comes in and goes out. Granted, I don’t have nearly that level of control. Nor do I have the ability to do all the due diligence on all the things that could come in. It seems that there is kind of an “open source” assumption being made about evangelicalism, even that which is conservative. It’s free, but what does it cost you? What unintended and intended consequences are going to come of it?

I can’t agree with the “let it all in, then sort it out” viewpoint. Scripture has plenty of references as to why we shouldn’t let everything in. We do need to have “firewalls” and “filters” in this day and age of error.

Fundamentalism at its heart is a commitment to militancy for Biblical truth which sometimes results in separation.

You illustration brought me back to my physical security days! We called the concept “defense in depth,” which is essentially a layered defense of physical security and electronic security systems to protect an asset. I had a nifty graphic somewhere, but I can’t find it now.

[Don Johnson]

Fundamentalism at its heart is a commitment to militancy for Biblical truth which sometimes results in separation.

Bro. Johnson,

I hate to be a spelling Nazi, but you misspelled “stridency” in your post. It is not spelled “m-i-l-i-t-a-n-c-y”.

But that’s a very common mistake among the fundamentalists after whom I’ve followed most of my life.

Doug

Regarding the various groups of Christians on the right/left spectrum, EVERYONE practices secondary separation whether they admit it or not.

Mmartin (and those who have made similar statements):

That statement means nothing. It is like a Jehovah’s Witness saying “I believe in Jesus, too.” What is meant by “believing in Jesus” and who the Jesus is who is being believed in…well, the devil is in the details.

So, even if it WERE true that all Christians practice secondary separation (and I don’t think it is—separation, yes, but secondary separation, no), there is a world of difference in how various Christians practice that separation. Otherwise fundamentalists wouldn’t get so upset over those evil neo-evangelicals who don’t practice the right kind of separation!

He’s wrong about separation being the primary assertion of fundamentalism.

As I understand it, fundamentalism’s primary assertion is that man’s chief end is the glory of God. Everything else falls into line based on that premise.

Evangelicalism’s primary focus, however, is gospel-centric and missional in philosophy. An article in the Christian Post stated, “Rather than being program-focused, the missional church prides itself on being people-focused.” In other words, evangelicalism is humanistic in its very nature, thereby contributing to its high degree of comfort with pragmatism and compromise.

Just my two cents.

Doug

As I understand it, fundamentalism’s primary assertion is that man’s chief end is the glory of God. Everything else falls into line based on that premise.

Conservative Christians of many theological stripes would agree that God’s will is done for His own glory. It is an error to restrict this Biblical truth to fundamentalists only. On the matter of God’s glory, I came across this during my reading through Ezekiel a few weeks back that is pretty definitive:

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes (Eze 36:22-23)

I agree with Andrew and Tyler. That is not and never has been the distinguishing mark of fundamentalism (even if most fundamentalists would at least give assent to that statement).

Steve,

I too am a computer scientist with 25+ years experience. Your analogy is useful, so let me extend it a bit. Reading your post brought to mind the early part of my career when I worked as an operating system developer. My employer at the time developed a B2 secure version of our operating system (i.e., for the non-computer scientists, think very, very stringent security for “CIA-like” uses). Once developed, the company attempted to go beyond the very narrow government sub-market and this system commercially. It didn’t work. Primary reason? The paranoid nature of the security mechanisms made it so onerous to use that it wasn’t practical.

In the case of virus threat protection, there is a tradeoff between effectiveness and utility in setting the sensitivity of filters: Make the filters too stringent, and the software starts to identify things as “threats” things that are legitimate; not sensitive enough, and you’ll have to deal with some intrusions. The problem many have with Fundamentalism is that often our “filters” have been far too sensitive. What happens too often in fundamentalism is that what passes for “discernment” is really just very rough “pattern matching.” Said another way, many of the “filters” we put up are based more on subjective, cultural, non-descript sensitivities and biases rather than any real biblical discrimination. It is generally fine use that sort of rough “filtering” merely on a personal level when trying to decide whether our conscience allows us individual liberty to engage in a particular practice. (It is fine to be restrictive and severe with ourselves. That’s following Romans 14.) However, if we are going to withdraw fellowship from other Christians, there needs to be much more scrutiny. We are not dealing with inanimate viruses, we are dealing with men and ministries who have reputations, and it is a sin to create visible division between us and other believers just because our highly-granular “pattern matching” filters happened to go off. If we are going to rebuke others we have, minimally, the burden of proof to demonstrate from the Scriptures that their practice is clearly wrong. (That’s also following Romans 14.)

Unfortunately, what has sometimes happened in fundamentalism is analogous to what would happen in the computer world if a single, influential computer had a defective, too-sensitive virus filter which falsely identified wholesome and useful software as a potential threat, then broadcast that information to all the other computers in its network, who then with little scrutiny added it to their potential threat list. (Forgive the run-on sentence.) To take it further, suppose that, after that, the computer that initially identified the “threat” then tried to find all other computers that had loaded that particular software, marked them as “tainted,” then also broadcast that list to all the computers in its network. Then, each of them proceeded to block all communication with any other computers on the “suspected list.” If this continued, eventually, non of the computers would be talking to one another. Someone with discriminating judgment would have to come in, assess the real threat, get the computers to “agree” to get things started back up.

Lesson: We need to be very careful in establishing our “filters” for fellowship, and when something makes our “filters” go off, we need to examine the “potential threat” very carefully before we broadcast warnings. Just because something shares certain characteristics of a legitimate threat doesn’t mean that it is itself a threat. It depends on which characteristics are shared. Pattern matching is not necessarily discernment, and correspondence is not equivalence. Good biblical discernment requires “distinguishing between things that differ” and also distinguishing between different types of differences. Some differences are insignificant, and all significant differences are not of equal significance.

As Mike Harding’s earlier post pointed out (quite usefully), God commanded us to separate from “departing” and willfully “disobedient” brethren. [And, thankfully, God also provides us with due process to follow when we do so.] In addition, we must distinguish between “disobedient” brethren and the third category Mike points out, “disagreeing” brethren. I believe that it is in distinguishing between those last categories that many fundamentalists have created unnecessary division and confusion. “Disagreeing” brethren necessarily have some limitations in their fellowship (see note below), but that is not the same as separation (in the sense of complete disfellowship). In my opinion, in many elements of fundamentalism an over-emphasis on separation has led to many sincere believers so steeped in a “stricter is always better,” “avoid the slippery slope” mentality that they develop a skittishness which causes them to separate instinctively purely as a protection mechanism. In other words they are motivated more by fear than biblical discernment, and that leads to an imbalance. God’s exhortations to brethren to be unified are just as important as His commands to separate, when necessary. And we should be just as cautious about creating unneeded division as we are about neglecting needed separation. To paraphrase one pastor I know: =God’s standard is the pinnacle; the “slippery slope” is on both sides (i.e., both the right and the left).

*Note: By definition, the extent of our fellowship corresponds to the areas in which we agree. Kevin Bauder and others in Fundamentalism have done an excellent job articulating the concept of limitation of fellowship for disagreeing brethren over the last 5+ years or so in a way that I feel has greatly aided the discussion.

[Don Johnson]

Fundamentalism at its heart is a commitment to militancy for Biblical truth which sometimes results in separation.

Albert Mohler’s courageous purge of liberalism from Southern Baptist Theological seminary demonstrated that he has a Christian belief system that, “at its heart is a commitment to militancy for Biblical truth which sometimes results in separation.” (Calling out liberal professors and forcing them to either resign or face a heresy trial is quite militant.) Mohler, however, would not consider himself to be a fundamentalist, and neither would the overwhelming majority of fundamentalists.

I’m not trying to be argumentative. Just pointing out that militancy leading to biblical separation is not exclusive to fundamentalists. More definition is needed. (And I’ve read enough of your correspondence here to know you already know that.)

I suppose Mohler’s purge of liberalism in the SBC could be seen as characteristic of the early fundamentalists, who attempted to purge liberalism from within their Seminaries, denominations and missions boards. I know next to nothing about the SBC or Al Mohler (beyond reading the occasional article) so I cannot comment any further on the parallel.

Tyler: the difference is, Mohler was successful (at great risk to himself and his career).

Phil,

Thanks for extending the analogy and for your input. I’m going to drill down a little more and I think you’ll be with me on this.

You are correct that any firewall needs to have tweaks in order to be effective. In fact, they are deliberately “Gestapo-like” out of the box, because they are erring on the side of caution. There are different ways to “loosen up” the filters in order to allow people to do the work they need to do. There are a number of ways to do this - either by allowing “categories” of things in, or by making “exceptions” for specific needs. Where believers may be having problems is that categories of content is coming in that did not used to get by the filter. For some, they have either not been evaluated or have been evaluated and found wanting. Many would rather make an “exception” (i.e. for Scott Aniol in the SBC) than to roll back a whole category.

Does it mean that it is “paranoia” to have lots of filters? Not necessarily. Talk to someone who has had their identity stolen, or a company whose main salesman left and took all their sales leads to a competitor. Many today are not security conscious at all on their computers. So many today don’t seem to think they need any cyber or spiritual “filters” at all.

I do agree that there are pitfalls on the left and right, but one needs to know the risks in moving one direction or the other.

I guess I’m going to disagree with Bixby, et al as far as their focus to some degree as well. My focus isn’t the Church, it’s the Lord and church I pastor. The Lord is the head of the Church, and it won’t meet together until we meet in the presence of the Lord. The Lord is the head of the church He has allowed me to pastor, and He has given me responsibilities and guidelines there. The responsibilities I have toward all believers are real but vague. Is God’s work supposed to be producing leaders for the Church, or for churches?

Yes, from what very little I know of the SBC, the consensus is that Al Mohler has achieved a remarkable thing.