Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism

Fundamentalism Common Sense

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

By definition, Fundamentalism does not concern itself with the whole counsel of God. As the name implies, it concerns itself with fundamentals, i.e., with those matters that are essential to the bare existence of Christianity. Fundamentalists may, and many Fundamentalists actually do, go beyond this limited concern. When they do so, however, they are no longer acting merely as Fundamentalists, but as Fundamentalists who also happen to be something else.

On one hand, as an actual, historical movement, Fundamentalism has often tended to settle for an abbreviated form of Christianity. Though clear exceptions exist, it has often sacrificed doctrinal breadth and detail. On the other hand, Fundamentalism has also tended to add elements that are not necessary to any form of biblical Christianity. Over the next few essays, I wish to explore three of these additions: Common Sense Realism, populism, and sentimentalism.

Common Sense Realism was a reaction to and development of Enlightenment philosophy. It was articulated by Thomas Reid of Aberdeen (later Glasgow) and sold to the philosophical world by Dugald Stewart of Edinburgh. A relatively late development, Common Sense Realism represented an attempt to circumvent several philosophical impasses. Continental rationalism had never been able to move convincingly beyond solipsism. British empiricism had led to the subjective idealism of Berkeley and the skepticism of Hume.

Reid hoped to get past these problems by grounding knowledge in a core of self-evident common sense. Where earlier thinkers had distinguished appearance from reality, Reid posited that people perceive reality directly. Normally, perceptions can be relied upon as accurate and trustworthy. For Common Sense Realism, reality is transparently available to the perceiving subject.

Fundamentalism and History

Read Part 1

It is a mistake, often made by educated persons who happen to have but little knowledge of historical theology, to suppose that Fundamentalism is a new and strange form of thought. It is nothing of the kind: it is the partial and uneducated survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians. How many were there, for instance, in Christian churches in the eighteenth century who doubted the infallible inspiration of all Scripture? A few, perhaps, but very few. No, the Fundamentalist may be wrong. I think that he is. But it is we who have departed from the tradition, not he, and I am sorry for the fate of anyone who tries to argue with a Fundamentalist on the basis of authority. The Bible and the corpus theologicum of the Church is [sic] on the Fundamentalist side.
—Kirsopp Lake¹

The above words were not written by a Fundamentalist or even a friend of Fundamentalism. The quotation comes from a theological liberal who was writing at the height of the Fundamentalist controversy. As such, it represents rather a startling admission. Not many liberals were willing to concede as much.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the quotation has become a favorite of those who have identified with Fundamentalism. David Beale appeals to it in his attempt to define Fundamentalism. Both Fred Moritz and Mark Sidwell refer to it in their defenses of separatism. Robert Reymond (a systematic theologian who was trained at Bob Jones University) includes it in his discussion of divine revelation. It even shows up in a sermon by Wayne Bley on the website of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International.²

Fundamentalists are flattered to think of themselves as neither more nor less than representatives of historic Christian doctrine. They take comfort and courage in believing that they have neither added to nor subtracted from the deposit of faith, but that they simply proclaim and defend exactly the same message as the apostles did. This kind of reassurance feeds a craving for identity and significance.

Things Have Changed

The last sustained history of fundamentalism to be published by a fundamentalist was David Beale’s In Pursuit of Purity¹. Nearly a generation has passed since Beale finished writing his book. During that time the landscape of fundamentalism has altered significantly.

The period when Beale was writing was a time of intense struggle within fundamentalism. Segments of the movement were denouncing other segments as “neo” this or “pseudo” that. One wing of fundamentalism (led by Jerry Falwell, Ed Dobson, Ed Hindson, and Jack Van Impe) was attempting to forge links with mainstream evangelicalism. From the opposite wing, Bob Jones Jr. was attacking John MacArthur’s views on the blood of Christ and declaring that “MacArthur’s position is heresy.”² The King James Only movement, pioneered by David Otis Fuller and D. A. Waite, was in its infancy, barely a cloud the size of a man’s hand.

Many of the events that define present-day fundamentalism were yet future. Robert Sumner had not yet published his exposé of Jack Hyles’s (alleged) affair, and Hyles himself was regarded as a prominent leader within mainstream fundamentalism. Cornerstone College was still Grand Rapids Baptist College, an approved agency of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, and the GARBC was still approving agencies. Bob Jones University, smarting from its recent rebuff by the United States Supreme Court, continued to defend its ban on interracial dating and marriage as “based on its understanding of the Bible.”³ Perhaps most significantly, the conservative resurgence within the Southern Baptist Convention was still in its infancy. Conservatives controlled no Southern Baptist institutions yet, and most fundamentalists doubted that they ever would.

In 1986, neither Dave Doran nor Tim Jordan held the pastorates that have come to be associated with their names. Dan Davey and Mark Minnick were associate pastors in Virginia Beach and Greenville, respectively. Matt Olson was just a few years into the planting of Tri-City Baptist Church near Denver. John Hartog III was a college student, and Stephen Jones was still in high school.

Most fundamentalists are familiar with the “Five Fundamentals of the Faith” upon which early twentieth-century Fundamentalism was founded. The inspiration of Scripture, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, His substitutionary atonement, and His resurrection and physical return to earth are the absolute basics of an orthodox framework of Christian faith. What the last thirty years has revealed, however, is that these five fundamentals are not enough to safeguard orthodoxy by themselves, and are no longer sufficient as a test for orthodoxy.

A case in point is the issue of inspiration. Some of the most lethal attacks against the Scriptures in recent years have affirmed inspiration (and even inerrancy). At the same time, they have rejected the veracity and authority of Scripture (for example, see the recent book [amazon 0801027012] by Kenton Sparks; Baker, 2008).

The reason the historic five fundamentals are no longer a sufficient test for orthodoxy is the fact that they rest on a more basic metaphysical foundation that has been quietly undermined by philosophy. (In this essay, the term “foundation” has nothing to do with foundationalist epistemology.) Philosophers, and theologians who have been heavily influenced by philosophy, have ceded key aspects of the doctrine of God that seem to conflict with philosophy’s demands. Rather than keeping philosophy in its proper place as the handmaid of theology, some have allowed the servant to become master. In doing so, the foundation of our theology has been subtly undermined. If we do not take heed to the foundations of our beliefs, we will not know that the framework has been undermined until it is too late. We will be like front line soldiers resisting the visible enemy encamped across the field, while a stronger force tunnels underneath our lines preparing to attack from the rear.