2. Here are some Scripture passages that say otherwise:

Luke 12:32-33, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

Luke 14:12-14, “Then Jesus said to his host, ‘When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’”

Matthew 10:42, “If anyone gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.” Matthew 10:42

See also Matthew 25:31-46.

James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Galatians 6:10, “As we have, therefore, opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”

Romans 12:20, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.”

3. Again, even if you were right, your beef is not with the New Evangelicals alone. Plenty of godly men held views different from contemporary young earth creationism — long before the New Evangelicals got fed up with the direction fundamentalism was heading. For example: Charles Hodge, C.H. Spurgeon, William Jennings Bryan, William Bell Riley, and B.B. Warfield.

My point has not been to defend the outcome of the New Evangelicalism — it’s not too difficult to find things to criticize there. My point is that fundamentalism as a group/movement made certain grave errors which led some to try another approach. That this new approach introduced errors of its own should be no surprise. Sons of Adam were involved.

Giving cups of cold water are not a church responsibility.

And last, I don’t agree. Any view of creation that rejects literal 24 hour days is simply wrong and unacceptable.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Social action is absolutely not a guaranteed road to liberalism anymore than commitment to truth is a guranteed road to nastiness. Giving cups of water in Christ’s name is important.

Without violating Romans 5 there are several ways to interpret Gen 1-2.

With respect to your last paragraph, I don’t agree that all of these motives were praiseworthy at all. The so-called motive of scholarship is, I think, baloney. I don’t think Fundamentalism was bereft of scholars and I am not that impressed with many of the scholars evangelicalism has produced, nor with the motive of desiring the approval of liberal scholars. I totally disagree with the motive of social action – it is a broad road straight to liberalism. The broader tent on creationism is gospel denying when we take Rm 5 into account. As for more openness with respect to eschatology, I think that existed. There were fundamentalists of many eschatological persuasions. T. T. Shields for example, although some would say he was one of the nasty ones also… matter of opinion and perspective, I think.

Ok, that’s all I can do for now.

Maybe more later tomorrow.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Well, you are begging the question. Your definitions and the way you are posing the question include this conclusion. So, there is really no way to discuss further — unless you are willing to reconsider your categories.

You wrote: “the impetus for New Evangelicalism wasn’t just that fundamentalists were nasty, and not all were.”

I have stated agreement with that truth previously.

You wrote: “The NE motives were scholarship, social action, broader tent on creation… and something else, I can’t remember the forth motive.”

I believe that the fourth motive was to include more eschatological or hermeneutical options (pre-trib, pre-mil, dispy shouldn’t be only or predominate views within evangelicalism).

All four of those motives were/are praiseworthy! They are not liberal. They are not compromising. They are not traitorous. They are things that should have characterized fundamentalism but did not. And, they are things which fundamentalism was characterized as being nasty and schismatic about — though (again) not all individual fundamentalists failed in all these areas.

I think Answer 1 is possible. But I think you would have an extremely anemic kind of evangelicalism much sooner and probably more pervasive. I think you can argue that the SBC is kind of anemic, although it certainly has many strong pockets … but it is huge group, and they aren’t all Al Mohler clones (or Dever, or Patterson, etc). But in general, I would agree that Answer 1 is possible.

On Answer 2, you have to remember that the impetus for New Evangelicalism wasn’t just that fundamentalists were nasty, and not all were. And yes, Dr. Bob Jr was Vice President of the NAE, not just a card carrying member. But that was before the New Evangelicalism caused him to pull out. The NE motives were scholarship, social action, broader tent on creation… and something else, I can’t remember the forth motive. And these aren’t just made up, they were stated repeatedly by Ockenga and others. I think you can find them in Ockenga’s foreword to The Battle for the Bible, among other places.

The NEs didn’t come about simply because Fundies were schismatic and unloving. That just isn’t true, or at least, not completely true.

So my response to #2 is no, not true. The NE movement was clearly a moderating, inclusive movement, led by men who clearly wanted to change the separated approach that concluded the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies. They didn’t want to perpetuate a dichotomy – a Fundamentalist/Evangelical vs. Liberal divide. They wanted to bridge the gap with the Liberals and didn’t care what the Fundamentalists thought or did. They wanted the trichotomy. Or at least, were quite prepared to allow the trichotomy to persist if they couldn’t move all the fundamentalists to come along with them.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Your original question: “If the fundamentalists hadn’t been separatists, would there even have been an evangelicalism today?”

Answer 1: If you mean, “Would there be people who believe like today’s evangelicals?” The answer is yes. If you mean would there be an evangelical “movement” like the one we have today, Who knows? If we did, it would have to have emerged in a different way, but maybe it would have. Kind of like it did in the SBC.

Answer 2: If those who came to call themselves fundamentalists hadn’t been schismatic and unloving, would there even be a fundamentalism? Even Bob Jones Jr. was originally an evangelical — a card carrying member of the National Association of Evangelicals. If the “nasty” ones had behaved maybe there would be a unified evangelicalism instead of your Liberal, Evangelical, Fundamentalist trichotomy.

No, the original moderates and the New Evangelicals were all siding with the liberals. That was the point of the movement, whether all involved realized it or not. Decisions were made to open the arms to liberals and Catholics and what have you. The moderates saw it and behold it was very good in their eyes. They couldn’t be more wrong.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Again, “they” can be generalized. “We” can only be addressed as individuals.

My original point wasn’t just turn the knife on the fundamentalists. My original point was to say that your original point is overly simplistic in regards to what went down in the original fundamentalist/modernist controversy and the follow up emergence of the New Evangelicalism.

If you want to say that some fundamentalists were schismatic and lacking in Christlike love and others weren’t — fine, I fully agree.

Can you say that some of the original “moderates” and later New Evangelicals weren’t “siding with” the liberals?

The article I linked to with this post illustrates the process that repeats itself over and over again with respect to liberalism. Liberalism creeps in to a denomination, conservatives react, controversy ensues, and the moderates generally side with the liberals and kill off any attempt at purification. That is what I was writing about.

So you want to chime in and say, well, yeah, but fundamentalists have been nasty in the past and fought turf wars, etc, (and feel free to add in any extra charges you like, it doesn’t bother me). My response is basically, “and your point is?” The fact that certain fundamentalists may or may not have erred (or worse, use harder language if you like) is really irrelevant to my point about this continuing and constant pattern where moderates actually side on the anti-gospel side of the equation just for the sake of ‘peace’ and ‘unity’. Are you defending this kind of betrayal by moderates or not?

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3