Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism

I’ve actually only been to a few GARBC conferences, and this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to be there for the opening evening. Opening Night includes several of the kinds of things the other sessions do, but there is an emphasis on introducing the theme for the week and creating the context for what will follow. More on that later.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Dispensationalism

Conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists actually hold a great deal in common, including the most important things. Nevertheless, they do differ in certain ways. Some of those differences are more important and some less so. Some of them are more characteristic of each group, while others are matters of degree.

One of the differences has to do with dispensationalism and covenant theology. In general, fundamentalists are rather loyal to dispensationalism. Also in general, conservative evangelicals incline toward covenant theology.

This difference does not apply in every instance. Exceptions exist in both camps. Some fundamentalists are (and always have been) covenant theologians, while some conservative evangelicals are dispensationalists.

Actually, at one time many or most conservative evangelicals were also dispensationalists. For example, in his recent history of Dallas Seminary, John D. Hannah argues that Dallas Theological Seminary tried to stake out a middle ground between fundamentalism and neo-evangelicalism. He cites Lewis Sperry Chafer and John Walvoord to show that these leaders disapproved of inclusive evangelism as it was practiced by the new evangelicals, but they also disapproved of the rigid separatism (as they saw it) of many fundamentalists.¹ Yet Dallas Seminary was certainly among the leading voices of dispensationalism.

Coming soon… Aaron Blumer & Brian McCrorie blog from the GARBC conference. (Twitter fans: Brian may do some Tweeting as well. Watch for more info.)

Last night we had the opportunity to hear Pastor Rick Arrowood. Pastor Arrowood is the pastor of Crosspointe Baptist Church in Indianapolis. He preached from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. He used this passage to describe the comfort that believers posess in the rapture. This service was by far the most attended service of the whole conference as it formed the Wednesday service for plenty of the area churches.

Brent Belford reporting from FBF.

This morning started with an exposition of 2 Peter 3:1-12 by Pastor Jim Efaw.

Pastor Efaw is the senior pastor of Beth Eden Baptist Church and he was also a pastor at Cross Lanes Bible Church in Cross Lanes, West Virginia. I also served on staff at CLBC for a time, so I know Pastor Efaw from his frequent visits back to West Virginia. Since I was a young man, I have always appreciated him and this session was no dissapointment. His basic premise was about the blessed hope that we have as believers.

Brent Belford reporting from FBF.

Greetings from Denver! I’m Brent Belford, a Bible professor from Northland International University, reporting on the FBFI Annual Fellowship. This year’s conference is being held at Tri-City Baptist Church in Westminster, Colorado.

I came to the conference at 3 pm for registration and was greeted by many wonderful and helpful workers. The registration process was easy to navigate and there were many staff prepared to help me in any way that they could. There were sessions going on in the auditorium that were designed to help chaplains learn how to better deal with Islam.