Fundamentalism

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Inside the Boundary

Fellowship is by definition that which is held in common. Unity is a function of that which unites. The quality of unity is always defined by the thing that unites, and the quality of fellowship is always defined by the nature of the thing that is held in common.

To speak of Christian fellowship and unity is to say that Christians hold something in common and that they are united by something. Christian unity and fellowship are not primarily experiential, but positional. All legitimate experiences and expressions of Christian unity and fellowship grow out of the real unity that exists among them.

The most basic form of Christian fellowship and unity is defined by the gospel. However else they may differ, Christians hold the gospel in common. Christian fellowship and unity are like a circle, and the boundary of the circle is the gospel.

Those who deny the gospel—whether explicitly by flat rejection or implicitly by denying some fundamental doctrine—are outside of the circle. No Christian unity or fellowship exists with someone who denies the gospel. Where no actual unity exists, any pretense of unity is the merest hypocrisy. Therefore, to profess unity or fellowship with someone who denies a fundamental of the gospel is always sinful.

Outside the Boundary

A few months ago I wrote an essay entitled “Let’s Get Clear on This.” That essay argued the following: (1) conservative evangelicals are not neo-evangelicals; (2) conservative evangelicals are making a substantial contribution to the defense and exposition of the Christian faith; (3) substantial differences continue to distinguish conservative evangelicals from fundamentalists; but (4) fundamentalists must not treat conservative evangelicals as enemies or even opponents. These points are, I think, as clear in reality as they were presented to be in the essay.

What “Let’s Get Clear on This” did not do was to explore the differences between conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists. Such an exploration would have been beside the point in that essay. Nevertheless, those differences remain important. What I have proposed to do is to examine the ways in which fundamentalism differs from conservative evangelicalism.

Partly, this is an empirical evaluation based upon an examination of the two movements as they actually exist at this point in time. But only partly. In my examination of the differences, I am deliberately opting for an a priori definition that excludes some self-identified fundamentalists.

My reason for this decision is simple: words refer to ideas, and ideas are anterior to things. This discussion will recognize as fundamentalists only those who approximate the idea of fundamentalism. Of course, none of us perfectly implements the idea. Whenever ideas are incarnated in human institutions, movements, and persons, they display the effects of human finiteness and fallenness. No ideal fundamentalist (or conservative, or Baptist, or even Christian, for that matter) has ever existed, and none ever will. We judge ourselves by the idea. In the present discussion, I shall consider only those versions of fundamentalism that are closer to the idea.

Why This Discussion?

Some weeks ago I wrote a piece expressing appreciation and even admiration for the contributions that conservative evangelicals are making to the Christian faith. Many people have replied, both publicly and privately, both agreeably and disagreeably. Leaving aside the most hysterical evaluations, responses have generally fallen into four categories.

First, some have questioned whether particular individuals or institutions should have been listed as conservative evangelical. According to this response, some of the evangelicals whom I listed are not so conservative after all. To this criticism I reply that my direct knowledge of some individuals and organizations is less complete than my knowledge of others. It is entirely possible that a few of these people may be less conservative than I had understood them to be.

Since my main concern was with conservative evangelicalism as a movement, however, the inclusion or exclusion of a few names does not fundamentally alter my conclusions. In other words, the first criticism is not directed against the argument itself. The remaining criticisms, however, go to the heart of the matter. Let me put them on the table, and then I can evaluate them together.

Second, some have praised my essay for what they took to be its blanket endorsement of conservative evangelicalism. These respondents seem to believe that no appreciable difference exists between conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists. In my article they read agreement. They welcomed my observations as a legitimization for abolishing whatever barriers inhibit fundamentalists from fully cooperating with conservative evangelicals.

What follows should not be seen as any kind of “answer” to the essay by Dr. Kevin Bauder we posted here last week (what minor points I differed with him on are already expressed in the comments there).

But it is a reaction of sorts.

Many have been announcing the death of the “Fundamentalist Movement” for some time. And these death knells are coming increasingly from those still inside whatever Fundamentalism now is. I don’t care to argue the question of the movement’s deceased status one way or the other here. But even contemplating its passing stirs me, because Fundamentalism (both the “movement” and the “idea”) has been a source of great blessing to me as God has used it my life.

1. Fundamentalism taught me expository preaching.

From early childhood, I was exposed to a broad spectrum of Fundamentalist preaching. At school, I heard the preaching of passionate evangelists who knew how to penetrate the apathy of hardened Christian school kids’ hearts and move us to walk aisles by the dozens. Sometimes (only God knows how often) the Holy Spirit was at work in these efforts as well and produced His fruit in lives.

A variety of electronic periodicals reach my inbox regularly. One that arrives nearly every day is published by a retired seminary professor. Most days I derive a great deal of pleasure and often profit from glancing through his cogitations.

Today’s number, however, evoked a bit of concern. The dear fellow was reprinting some criticisms that he had received. Here is what they said.

The oft-repeated mantra coming out of Dr. Piper and Dr. Storms is that it is impossible for human beings to enjoy too much pleasure. We are made for pleasure, but it’s the pleasure of enjoying God. These guys are full-bore new evangelicals and Piper is a hard line Calvinist…. Why are you promoting this sort of thing?

While I can appreciate many things coming out of Dr. Piper’s ministry, are you endorsing such a leading New Evangelical with no disclaimer?…I am sure you do not endorse the New Evangelicalism that is Dr. Piper’s ministry, but when we simply laud a New Evangelical by attending his conference and praising it, that is the result at the practical level.

These responses are typical of the way that some Fundamentalists view conservative evangelicals in general. These men apparently divide all American Christians into only two categories: Fundamentalists and neo-evangelicals. If a Christian leader is not recognized as a Fundamentalist, then he is considered to be a new evangelical, with all the opprobrium that follows.

This binary system of classification is far too simplistic. American Christianity never has been neatly divided between new evangelicals and Fundamentalists. Other groups have always existed, and one of them is the group that we now designate as conservative evangelicals.

Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com.

Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956), “the sage of Baltimore,” was a lifelong cynic and skeptic who regularly and maliciously assailed and ridiculed conservative, fundamentalist Christianity (see Part 1). However, one Fundamentalist Christian whom he greatly respected was Presbyterian scholar J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937). We were recently made aware of two articles by Mencken in which he lauds Machen for his scholarship, integrity and the internal consistency of his conservative theological views, in contrast to the insipid theology of Modernism. This is the second of the two (copied, with obvious typos corrected, from entrewave.com). While dissenting strongly from some of Mencken’s remarks, his perspective may prove informative to our readers.

H. L. Mencken’s Obituary of Machen

Baltimore Evening Sun (January 18, 1937), 2nd Section, p. 15.

“Dr. Fundamentalis”

The Rev. J. Gresham Machen, D. D., who died out in North Dakota on New Year’s Day, got, on the whole, a bad press while he lived, and even his obituaries did much less than justice to him. To newspaper reporters, as to other antinomians, a combat between Christians over a matter of dogma is essentially a comic affair, and in consequence Dr. Machen’s heroic struggles to save Calvinism in the Republic were usually depicted in ribald, or, at all events, in somewhat skeptical terms. The generality of readers, I suppose, gathered thereby the notion that he was simply another Fundamentalist on the order of William Jennings Bryan and the simian faithful of Appalachia. But he was actually a man of great learning, and, what is more, of sharp intelligence.

The year was 1986. I was about a year into my first senior pastorate, preaching to a church with a membership that was pushing 200. After a year in this ministry, I was experiencing frustration from two sources.

First, I was wondering why my college and seminary had not taught me more about what the real pastorate would be like. I felt that I had been poorly trained to face many of the actual situations that present themselves in ministry. Second, while I had grown up in one of the more balanced versions of fundamentalism, I had reason to question the model of leadership that I saw employed by many Fundamentalists. On the one hand, these leaders could be authoritarian to the point of brutality. On the other hand, they seemed preoccupied with trivial questions to which they gave answers that were either irrelevant or simply silly.

For instance, one of my earliest written pieces was a response to someone who was trying to impose the “no pants on women” theory on our church. I regarded Fundamentalist speculations about music as simply pathetic. In fact, the typical answers to the whole orbit of “cultural taboos” (as they were sometimes called) struck me as vacuous. The case that some Fundamentalists made for their version of separation was utterly unimpressive.

To be sure, there were still Fundamentalist figures whom I admired both for their leadership and for their thoughtfulness. The number of these, however, was declining. I had begun to look for other answers than I had been given and other models than I had received. In short, I was on the brink of a crisis.

Reprinted with permission from As I See It. AISI is sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com.

Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956), “the sage of Baltimore,” was a lifelong cynic and skeptic who regularly and maliciously assailed and ridiculed conservative, Fundamentalist Christianity (see “The Man Who Hated Everything,” in As I See It 3:10, and the review of The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken by Terry Teachout in As I See It 8:1). However, one Fundamentalist Christian whom he greatly respected was Presbyterian scholar J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937). I was recently made aware of two articles by Mencken in which he lauds Machen for his scholarship, integrity and the internal consistency of his conservative theological views, in contrast to the insipid theology of Modernism. While dissenting strongly from some of Mencken’s remarks, I thought his perspective might prove informative to readers, especially his clear perception that Modernism, whatever it is, is not Christianity in any legitimate use of the word, and that Machen’s views are rigidly consistent with the Bible’s teaching.

That Mencken was favorably disposed toward Machen may be due in part to several things they had in common. Both were natives of Baltimore, born just a year apart; both were highly educated men—Machen formally, Mencken by dint of very extensive reading; both had their writings widely published; Mencken, of German immigrant stock, loved all things German and Machen’s name certainly looks German (though it is, in fact, English); Machen was a life-long bachelor who had the care of his widowed mother, while Mencken, a bachelor until age 50, likewise had the care of his widowed mother for many years. And, as Mencken points out, Machen, like himself, was not a proponent of Prohibition. Perhaps these factors, to some degree unconsciously, helped develop in Mencken his favorable opinion of Machen.

The text below is copied, with minor typographical errors corrected, from Geneva Redux.

A somewhat new conference occurs in Gilbert, Arizona later this month. I asked two of the organizers to share their thoughts on what the conference is all about.