I commend to you his recent series of blogs reporting on goings on at the ETS. Very interesting. You might not agree with everything Kent says about it (I don’t disagree with much, if any of it), but if you are interested in the issues we usually address in this space, you will find Kent’s reports quite interesting. Here are the links:

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part one

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part two

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part three

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part four

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part five

My Field Trip to the Evangelical Theological Society Meeting part six

It is common practice in the blogosphere to link to other blogs or articles online. This is part of the ‘netiquette’ of blogging, especially when you are writing a contrary opinion. The link provides context, your readers can go to your online ‘opponent’ to see what they said in context in order to decide whether they will agree with you or him or neither.

It is also common practice to link to news items of interest with a brief comment suggesting why the link was interesting to you.

I have occasionally linked to Christianity Today when I see articles of interest there, or when I wish to take issue with something said there. Some of my fellow fundamentalists have commented when I have done that without much of a disclaimer. I guess I don’t think a disclaimer is all that necessary when I am critiquing an article. It is pretty clear that I am not agreeing!  (Does anyone think I am ambiguous when I disagree?) And I don’t think a disclaimer is always necessary when I am just passing along a link to say: look at this, it’s interesting.

But what if I was writing an article listing a whole host of sites as “good resources for church planting” or “good resources for spiritual growth” or “good resources for theology”?

Suppose in writing such an article I listed exclusively evangelical sources with virtually no disclaimers of any kind. And suppose I wrote fairly positive mini-reviews of these sites, implying that these fellows are good brothers doing good work. Suppose that I wrote in a different post a generic disclaimer to my readers that “I don’t endorse everything I link to.”

I think I have a fairly well-known fundamentalist reputation. Ben Wright tells me I represent the fundamentalist wing of fundamentalism. (Thanks, Ben, I guess!) So if I were to write an article full of positive comments about the usual evangelical suspects with no disclaimers in that article itself… what would you think?

Would you wonder if my position had changed? Would you consider my ‘fundamentalist reputation’ maybe not as hard-line as you had earlier thought?

Fundamentalists are agreed that the way we are careful about fellowship is especially in the area of ministry cooperation – shared platforms, cooperative ministry opportunities and the like. We are apparently not so clearly agreed about internet endorsements.

The argument could be made that we will use books by evangelicals (or even others further ‘left’) in our seminaries without much of a disclaimer and a recommendation on the internet is very similar. And we see books by evangelicals in some of our Christian bookstores (like those at our Fundamentalist colleges).

So my question is this: when is a link not a link? When is it an endorsement? Or when is it perceived as an endorsement?

With the turmoil in fundamentalism over the apparent love affair many ‘young fundamentalists’ have with all things Calvin and all things evangelical, should we pause before we make what appear to be endorsements of popular evangelical ministries? What do we communicate when we make such links? Does the internet change our view of Christian cooperation? Is it limited only to active/physical cooperation in some kind of joint endeavour? Or can we give tacit approval to evangelicalism by the links we make?

A while back, I had a much longer blogroll in my side-bar. Some of the sites I listed were friends who weren’t necessarily so fundamentalist anymore. I still have a couple of links to blogs that are definitely not fundamentalist but are particularly interesting to me. But I did purge a lot of the links I used to have. I decided I didn’t want to promote them anymore – even though some of them were personal friends.

So what do you think? Am I merely a paranoid fundamentalist? (Keith, we already know that you will say ‘yes’.) Or is there some cause for caution and concern in the kinds of things we endorse?

For the sake of summary, simplicity and specificity could someone (perhaps RPittman, who last used this phrase) list some of these many problems of CE’s?

I responded with a list of four items that came to mind immediately, but I’d like to expand on that list a bit here.

Let me note a couple of things before getting to the list. I am not trying to say that CEs are evil, apostate, the spawn of Satan, or anything anywhere close to those epithets. I began my response to Ron Bean with this paragraph:

Ron, let me first acknowledge that there are many valuable contributions to Christian thought and life by Conservative Evangelicals. I think most of us who have problems with them do appreciate their ministries (to varying degrees).

What I am trying to outline is some items that remain significant barriers to ministry partnership. These are real differences between us. We aren’t just playing party politics as some allege. It’s not just that CEs haven’t gone to ‘our schools’ or aren’t in ‘our tribe’ or aren’t located in ‘our spot’ on the map. These differences involve objectionable beliefs or practices that all conservative evangelicals share in some combination or other.¹ They reflect an essential difference in philosophy of the ministry that manifests itself in the various problems I am noting.

Here are some of the problems from my perspective:

1. The growing influence of charismatism

The charismatics have major problems when it comes to inspiration, inerrancy and the canon. They either believe in ongoing revelation (denying a closed canon) or they believe the Bible is in error when it expressly says that Agabus spoke his prophecy by the "Spirit". The influence of charismatism has widely altered the shape of evangelicalism at large.

The infatuation with charismatism led John Piper and C J Mahaney to a friendly relationship with the Toronto Vineyard "Laughing Revival" phenomenon. Mahaney reportedly led his church in the ‘Toronto Blessing’ in the 90s. Have either Mahaney or Piper publicly repudiated these connections with serious error? I don’t know of any such repudiation.

As I am writing about this, an announcement arrives from 9Marks about some speakers at Together for the Gospel next year. One speaker will be one of the Sovereign Grace men, Jeff Purswell, who will be teaching from 1 Cor 12-14. What do you suppose will be the topic of discussion?

I ran across an article from the UK, sounding the alarm about the rise of charismatism in conservative circles because of the ‘Reformed’ connection in the case of Sovereign Grace. The article is a sermon preached at a conference in Northwest England called ‘God’s Glory Our Joy’. The message came from the 2009 conference, links found here. The message in question is called " The Charismatic Legacy: The impact of the renewal movement 40 years on". It is available as a Word file on the page linked.

The charismatic influence on ‘conservative’ evangelicals is a serious concern. It is not something to be dismissed. One could say that a large part of the collapse of evangelicalism at large is the growth of charismatic influence in its midst.

Because of this influence, fundamentalists need to give the conservative evangelicals a wide birth.

2. The continuing relationship between CEs and the Billy Graham organization itself.

The most conservative CE of them all, John MacArthur, has spoken in recent years at Graham’s training center, the Cove, and has published articles in Graham’s Decision magazine. The connections between Southern Seminary and the Graham organization are well known. Mark Dever is chairman of the board at Southern. Dever, Mohler, and others continue to affirm the necessary corrective of New Evangelicalism – needed to correct the ‘excesses’ of fundamentalism – and yet claim that we don’t need a new New Evangelicalism. Still, we see continuing errors like the signing of the Manhattan Declaration by many well-known conservative evangelicals.

3. The inconsistent complementarianism

Complementarianism is the doctrine of male headship / leadership in home and church. The doctrine has been ably defended and promoted by conservative evangelicals, yet its tenets are inconsistently applied. I noted this in an earlier post, but John Piper, the ‘grand-daddy’ of complementarians (editor of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) participated as one of six expositors preaching through Ephesians at the recent Lausanne conference. Two of the other expositors were women. The 9Marks organization recently announced a foray into the Phoenix area in a church that has a woman deacon and a woman on the ‘ministry staff’. (This latter may be an un-ordained person who is named distinctly from the elders of the church.) Still, one wonders how committed these men are to biblical complementarian ideals.

Ironically, complementarianism has given rise to a number of women speakers and writers. They have been promoted for their support of complementarian ideals. And of course they speak at ‘women’s conferences’ or at ‘women’s sessions’ in otherwise ‘male’ conferences. But we find their books and even their messages recommended to men. One recent conference elicited a male recommendation of a female message as “one of the very best I have ever heard.” So much for complementarianism.

4. The tolerance of worldliness on many levels

The tolerance of worldliness would include the widespread tolerance of men like Mark Driscoll, and such discussions as you see on SI where gambling and drinking are openly approved. (In moderation … of course.)

In this same category would be the widespread use of worldly music that undermines the gospel message being preached. Almost all the CE ministries usually touted as exemplary are affected by this.

These examples serve as a quick catalog of my concerns with conservative evangelicalism. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but simply to show objectively some definite differences between fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals.

From a fundamentalist perspective, I think these differences preclude any kind of ministry cooperation. The fundamentalist approach to ministry is just too different from the evangelical approach. I think the evangelical approach leads in a direction I don’t want to go, nor do I want the people I serve to head in that direction because of my failure to maintain a clearly distinct ministry.

1. That is to say, all CEs are marked by several of these characteristics, though not necessarily all of them.

A case in point is the recent brouhaha over Justin Taylor’s rebuke of Rob Bell. Already many pixels have been brought to bear on the specifics of the case, some in support of Taylor, others attacking him. One interesting little detail is noted by Christianity Today’s Liveblog, but is largely overlooked by most commenters, and is the point that launches my post today.

This is the detail noted by CT:

Taylor updated his post, changing some wording and deleting a reference to Cor. 11:14-15: “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.” Instead, Taylor ended the post with the following paragraph:

• Let’s remember to pray. Rob Bell needs to know and teach the liberating gospel of grace—including that Christ absorbed the Father’s wrath on behalf of those who trust in him and repent of their sins. And there are tens of thousands of folks who look to Rob Bell as a biblical teacher and leader. May God give much mercy.

Doesn’t that demonstrate my point about conservative evangelicalism? Almost… but not quite… separation.

What does the Bible say we are to do with false teachers?

• Romans 16:17 I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. 18 For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.
• 2 Corinthians 6:17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you

I don’t know any passage that admonishes us to pray for false teachers. Peter says of them:

• 2 Peter 2:12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction,

Unfortunately, the conservative evangelical is yet afflicted with the tolerance syndrome of new evangelicalism and can’t quite bring himself to persist in the forthright language of Scripture.

Pray for false teachers? I think not. Pray instead for those poor souls who are duped by them.

And about those conservative evangelicals…

Are we trying to kid ourselves, fellow fundamentalists? The instincts are all wrong on their side. If we can be accused of having separation on a hair trigger, it seems one must go an extremely long way before the conservative evangelical will pull the trigger at all. Their phasers are always set on ‘stun’, to borrow another metaphor.

I’ll have another post up shortly that illustrates the same point.

Among other things, he said:

"As we all know, our convention over the last decades has taken a stand for biblical inerrancy. I thank God for that," Page said. "But I believe that now a unified understanding and a call for an affirmation of an inerrant, infallible Word of God shall lead us to an even greater obedience of that Word. I believe that is where we need to be focusing now. As we affirm its inerrancy and infallibility, let’s do so by fleshing it out and living it in this world."

I wonder what he means by that, in light of this article that came out yesterday:

SBC Executive Committee decides not to oust Alliance churches

By Bob Allen

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) –Membership in a group that welcomes and affirms gays does not automatically disqualify a church from participation in the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC Executive Committee decided Feb. 22.

Hmmm… ‘fleshing it out and living it in this world…’ I wonder how the Executive Committee reconciles that vision with their decision about the Alliance churches.

Frank Page was President of the SBC in 2006 and 2007, I believe. I think he would be considered a conservative.

Curious.

Doran: I doubt we all agree with each other on the right way to solve that problem, but I do think (I’ll speak for myself on this one) that we are committed to the same principles of separation that we have always been, yet I do and have tried to acknowledge that there have been changes that have forced me to think through the applications differently than I have since becoming a pastor 22 years ago…[.in the midpoint of the last dedade, 2005-2006 there were some things that I thought were significant in a change of landscape, both internally and externally

Dever: I’d be curious to hear—what were those changes?

Doran: In early 2005 there was a meeting in which Kevin and I were both speakers. Both of us tried to make a case (I’ll try to say this as tactfully as possible) for drawing a circle, to say that if you are going to identify with historic fundamentalism,  certain theological aberrations have to be rejected. We tried to make an ernest appeal, but I didn’t think that that was actually going to get traction. I would say that outside [fundamentalism] in March 2005, Phil Johnson did his presentation on “Fundamentalism: Dead Right?” We spent four or five weeks going back and forth about it. The month right before that I had asked the folks at Grace [Community Church, John MacArthur’s church] very specifically on the issue of secondary separation, an idea they never publically accepted. But in his presentation, Phil Johnson said “we do believe it is valid, but has not been used properly.” So that was a significant change.

And later…

Doran: Right. And his book was beginning to talk about this. There’s probably a dozen books that began to talk about the problems of the evangelical left. Grudem in his book on Open Theism. Carson, Love in hard Places…the necessity of separating over the gospel. Mohler’s chapter in Horton’s book….so there actually was an uptick of talk about separatism among a certain segment of evangelicalism, that’s what I meant by a change in the landscape. [The evangelicals] were not as thorough and as consistent as I would have preferred…

I am cutting off a bits on these quotations, so please read the whole article for yourself to get the whole context.

It is interesting to note a few things here:

1. Dave has alluded to his change of mind in the past. He thinks these changes make a difference in how he applies separation. He has said this in various places and he says it here. The changes were internal and external, i.e., within Fundamentalism (although Dave says there is no Fundamentalism anymore) and outside Fundamentalism (if there is an internal and external… is there something defined by that boundary? but I digress).
2. The internal change seems to be that other Fundamentalists refused to be as aggressive against “certain theological aberrations” as Dave would have liked. I think we know what those aberrations are.
3. The external change seems to be that conversation on SI with Phil Johnson (and some other contact with PJ about that time). The change on the Johnson/MacArthur side is an acknowledgement on their part that secondary separation is valid, though misapplied. In addition, some other evangelicals were talking about separation (to some extent at least).

Is there any more to this? Please correct my impressions if I am missing something, but this does seem to sum up Dave’s view of what changed in 2005 resulting in a changing application of separatism.

What do you make of this?

• Should fundamentalism take some steps to draw a line over the versions issue?
• If yes, how tightly should that line be drawn?
• Does a ‘kinda, sorta’ acceptance of secondary separation by Phil Johnson constitute sufficient change on the part of Conservative Evangelicals to warrant ministry cooperation at any level?
• Does Phil Johnson speak for every conservative evangelical? Can we say that Phil’s acceptance of some form of secondary separation means that Mark Dever, for example, holds the same views and thus validates ministry cooperation with him?

I’m not sure about the answers to all of these. I am inclined to think that the ‘internal changes’ sound a lot like, ‘I’ll take my marbles and go home if you don’t play my way’ and the ‘external changes’ don’t go far enough in embracing separation as taught in Scripture. What do you think?

We are asking:

• Are Conservative Evangelicals the same thing as New Evangelicals? – varying answers: ‘not at all’, ‘somewhat’, ‘very much like’
• Should we cooperate with Conservative Evangelicals in some Christian endeavors? – verbal answers: ‘not at all’, ‘maybe’, ‘in some limited arenas’; practical answers: ‘not at all’ … at least up until this last six months or so…

You can debate the merits of these questions, whether they are important to ask or not, whether they are the right questions to ask, whether we are too obsessed with separation and this is evidence of that, or what have you. Regardless, these are the questions we are asking and the central theme around which most discussion on fundamentalist blogs have been obsessed for the last while, maybe since fundamentalists took up blogging at all.

All right then. We are wrangling about these questions. Up until the last six months or so this wrangling has mostly been talk. Now we are seeing some fairly important figures answering the questions practically by involving themselves in some kind of cooperative Christian endeavor with Conservative Evangelicals.

But here is where we  have something I don’t understand.

Dave Doran posted today at his blog a letter he sent to a fundamentalist pastor asking questions about his planned involvement at the upcoming Leadership Conference at Calvary Baptist Seminary in Lansdale, PA where Mark Dever is scheduled as the keynote speaker. The letter gives Dave’s rationale for participating:

That said, let me offer my thinking about why I don’t believe my speaking there needs to be justified. For context, I’ve spoken at all of the annual conferences at Lansdale since they started way back when, so it was something of a given that I would speak at this one. In other words, the burden of proof was on the side of why would I not speak (vs. why would I speak). I’ve posted something about my rationale for making speaking decisions on my blog, so you can read that for a longer explanation. The shortened version is simply the answer to these questions:

(1)     Do Mark Dever or CBTS extend Christian recognition and fellowship to those who deny the Faith?

(2)     Do Mark Dever and CBTS oppose the granting of Christian recognition and fellowship to those who deny the Faith?

(3)     Do Mark Dever and CBTS obscure the distinction between the church and the world by denying the transforming power of the gospel, by embracing worldly approaches for the church’s growth and/or worship, or by failing to articulate and practice genuine church membership and discipline?

I suppose someone could disagree with me about these, but my answers to these questions are, respectively, no, yes, and no. Since I believe that Christian fellowship and recognition is limited to those who embrace the Faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3), that we cannot ignore or disregard God’s commands about separation (Rom 16:17-18; 2 Ths 3:6-15), and that the distinction between the church and the world must be guarded (1 Cor 5; 1 John 2:15-17), these are the biblical justifications for and biblical boundaries of ministerial cooperation and fellowship.

I am no fan of the Southern Baptist Convention, but I also will not categorically assign everyone in it to the non-separatist category. Just as there were committed separatists within the Northern Baptist Convention for decades fighting for its purity, and just as there were men who fought for a long time within both the Presbyterian and Methodist churches, there are men of separatist conviction who have been fighting to remove liberalism and compromise with it from the SBC. Mark Dever is one of those men.

Just a few days ago, however, Dave gave his reasons for REFUSING an invitation to speak at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, pastored by Mark Dever. Here is what he said:

“My answer… to go back to Kevin’s [question]… my answer was to Mark [Dever], No, I won’t come and preach and the reason I won’t come and preach is because I don’t agree with stances that you’ve taken and your church might be an anomaly in the fellowship that it’s in, but its not … the, the rest and … and I … I’m not comfortable with that…”

Now, please note this is a transcription of audio, the ellipses indicate hesitations and pauses in speech, not anything that has been left out. And it is something that is off the cuff, not a prepared remark or anything on the same level as Dave’s letter to the fundamentalist pastor. I include the audio below.

Audio clip:

here

I have some questions about this:

The two venues are different: one is a conference at a seminary, the other is an invitation to speak in a church. What makes speaking with Dever at the conference acceptable and the speaking for Dever in his church unacceptable?

While the one statement is more thoroughly fleshed out and the other contains the briefest of off the cuff remarks, the two statements about the same person seem to be saying two different things. Am I right in seeing this as inconsistent? Does one statement contradict the other? Or am I missing the unifying principle between the two statements?

In any case, I don’t understand how it would be acceptable to preach in a conference with a fellow when you have refused to speak for him in his church. Perhaps Dave will have time to comment. I don’t want this to be an attempt to ‘bash Dave’, so I would like commenters to be extremely limited in putting editorial comment into their responses. I think the questions we are wrestling with are important and this situation offers a case in point.

It would be nice if we could really get some clarity that could aid us all in understanding how fundamentalists should proceed.

I thought I’d look back over the year of blogging and note my most commented posts. It might be instructive concerning the things that interest me which also interest a generally fundamentalist oriented reading audience. It might also serve for us to consider the issues facing us in the coming year.

The numbers of comments following these posts may be somewhat surprising. Some may think my numbers are kind of low. This is a function of several factors.

1. My readership isn’t huge, although it has picked up considerably at the end of the year (largely due to SI linking on some controversial posts).
2. Most blog chatter is generated by the most passionate few, there are many more readers than commenters.
3. Blog commentary does have a way of wearing itself out after the arguments have been beaten to death ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

With all those caveats in place, I’ll start with the list of most commented posts (in reverse order of posting):

The following list is in the format of ‘Date’ – ‘Post Title’ – ‘Comment Count’.

12/11 – kjo = neo-e? – 72
11/23 – are we still friends – 76
11/01 – show me the silent majority – 42
10/08 – fundamentalism – PLUS? – 38
9/23 – phantom movements – 16
9/1 – new methods in a spiritual wilderness – 54
8/25 – a new-fundamentalist manifesto – 41
8/1 – Van Til – not a fundamentalist – 18
7/19 – a perfect argument? – 31
6/22 – keeping our distance – 42
5/12 – it’s not simple – 40
4/5 – it’s not about separation – 27
3/16 – is SG music an entry level drug? – 21
2/17 – the vision thing – 18
1/20 – pin the tail on the fundamentalist – 11

Here is my analysis of the subject matter of these posts:

Issue of Conservative Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism Together OR Not (EFT)

• 6/22 – keeping our distance
• 4/5 – it’s not about separation
• 2/17 – the vision thing

The next few are actually sub-sets of this first topic, but they are also responses to the writings of several individuals:

• Responses to Bauder (EFT)
  12/11 – kjo = neo-e?
  11/01 – show me the silent majority
  8/25 – a new-fundamentalist manifesto
• Response to Doran (EFT)
  9/23 – phantom movements
• Response to Matt Olson (EFT)
  11/23 – are we still friends

Issue of Separation (more tangentially related to the CE vs. Fundy topic)

• 8/1 – Van Til – not a fundamentalist
• 1/20 – pin the tail on the fundamentalist¹

Issue of Calvinism

• 10/08 – fundamentalism – PLUS?

Issue of KJO argumentation

• 7/19 – a perfect argument?

Issue of Music

• 3/16 – is SG music an entry level drug?

What are we to make of all this?

What this shows, first of all, is that I have been obsessed with talking about the question of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists Together (EFT). This, it seems, has been the Fundamentalist conversation piece for the last five years. It has been steadily increasing in intensity, and is now bearing fruit in actions.

Ben Wright comments on it today and notes six things that we weren’t hearing from ostensible fundamentalist leaders six years ago, but are now:

1. I have more in common with some conservative evangelicals than much of the fundamentalist mainstream.
2. Let’s invite a particular sort of conservative evangelical to be our guest speaker.
3. We need to apply separation just as aggressively towards people to the right of us as to the left of us.
4. We need to recognize that some of these issues are complex judgment calls, not all of us are going to see all the issues the same way, and we need to grant one another the freedom to apply biblical principles in the ways their consciences dictate.
5. Platform fellowship doesn’t imply full mutual endorsement.
6. All of us are "disobedient brothers" in one way or another.

(BTW, the conversation following Ben’s post is quite interesting, and revealing, I think. KTB joins the conversation and, as usual IMO, muddies the waters with revisionistic statements. I think Ben has a better grasp of the history than KTB does.)

The interminable argument that we in Fundamentalism are engaged in these days is all about this question. The difference we are seeing now, as 2010 has closed, is that certain erstwhile Fundamentalist leaders are now willing to turn words into deeds.

Because of these deeds, the argument is becoming more sharply focused.

Some men have done things that Fundamentalists typically have not done for the last decades of history. Now we are going to have to decide what to DO about it. I am not sure that 2011 will see a resolution to the question, but I suspect we are going to see additional deeds of EFT in the coming year. The pressure will mount on the rest of us to react.

Three options occur to me:

1. Opening our fellowship to wider cooperation as the agents of change desire.
2. Resisting the change and experience a sharp split in what has heretofore been known as Fundamentalism.
3. Quiet, tacit, albeit uneasy, tolerance (the status quo response to the argument) which leaves the question on the table with no resolution in sight.

Which way is best? I favor number 2, but I am afraid we will get number 3.

1. This one is least on the comment count, but is one of my favorites of all the posts I made this year.

Dave’s major criticism of my piece centers on the way I expressed myself. First, he quotes my take on the objectives of both evangelicalism and fundamentalism:

The evangelical objective is cooperation with as many as possible while maintaining in some fashion the integrity of the gospel.

On the other hand, there is a group of churches, individuals, and Christian institutions that pursue separatism as an objective.

It really hurts to see your own words in pixelated print! Especially when your quoted words are followed with this critique:

More importantly, I believe he misses the mark on the objective of fundamentalism by making separatism the objective rather than the means to the objective.

I hate it when Dave is right like that! My statement of fundamentalism’s objective not only misses the boat entirely but it contradicts some things I have been saying here recently about separation plus non-cooperation.

Dave also criticizes my words ‘in some fashion’ with respect to evangelicalism’s objectives. I think my statement is somewhat awkward and unclear, but I don’t think it is as far off as my second statement with respect to the objective of fundamentalism.

First I’ll explain ‘in some fashion’ and then I’ll re-address both objective statements, hopefully with greater clarity on the one hand and greater accuracy on the other.

In using the words ‘maintaining in some fashion the integrity of the gospel,’ I am attempting to include a wide variety of people under the overall umbrella of the evangelical movement. While there are some evangelicals who seem more adept at maintaining the integrity of the gospel themselves, I think the characteristic mark of their evangelicalism is that they are open to supporting and including others in their circles of fellowship who are less concerned with the integrity of the gospel. I used Mark Dever as an example, since he is the man of the hour with respect to recent announcements. Dever is one who I see as having a pretty high level of integrity. But he is ready to open his arms in support and fellowship to a broad group of people who have much less integrity than he does. See my example in the ‘phantom movements’ post with respect to his connections to Mark Driscoll and the Acts 29 organization.

As a result of Dever’s kind of openness, I use the words ‘in some fashion’, because evangelicals seem to have an overriding principle which leads them to a broader tolerance of people who actually are less concerned with the integrity of the gospel.

This leads me to my understanding of the distinctive ends of evangelicalism as opposed to fundamentalism. The Scriptures really only give so many goals or objectives to the Christian church as a church. Other personal goals are given to individuals. I would suggest the prime directive, the number one objective is the Great Commission:

Matthew 28.19-20 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Of course there are other statements of this objective, but we are all so familiar with them that I think this will suffice. There is a corollary to this, one the apostle Paul gives us to expand on the disciple making aspect of the Great Commission:

Ephesians 4:11-16 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

So far I think these passages give us the primary objectives of the local church. This is our business. I think that evangelicals and fundamentalists by and large accept these objectives for their own and are marked as movements by setting about their business to attain these objectives. Because we share these objectives, some want to call Fundamentalists a subset of Evangelicalism. I disagree with that notion, Evangelicalism does not equal Biblical Christianity. These two objectives mark Biblical Christianity, which makes both Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism subsets of Christianity, not the one of the other.

Another reason Fundamentalism isn’t a subset of Evangelicalism is the historical reality that Evangelicalism departed from Fundamentalism, not the other way around.

The reason Evangelicalism departed from Fundamentalism to form a distinct movement was disagreement over the third objective of the local church, the objective to be on watch and on guard for error. This is stated succinctly (and famously) by Jude:

Jude 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

This doctrine is a church doctrine and a church responsibility, as the apostle Paul pointed out in his ‘farewell’ message to Ephesus:

Acts 20:28-31 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

The Christian church has an obligation to watch those on the outside who would threaten the flock of God and lead them into error or corrupt their Christian testimony. The Christian church also has an obligation to watch those who arise from within and give diligence to protect God’s flock from such errors and such teachers. Paul gives us instructions to that effect:

Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.

These last objectives certainly mark the Fundamentalist movement as a group. Whatever other failings we may have, Fundamentalists do see that churches have a responsibility of watching and guarding the flock.

It is these objectives that the New Evangelicals specifically rejected, opting instead for an emphasis on the other objectives in hopes of winning respect for their position and winning the souls of some apostates for Christ. Their compromise co-opted the majority of the conservative Christian church in North America and created a landscape where ‘never is heard a threatening word’ amongst the churches. This has led to all kinds of excess and error creating a hodgepodge of confusion and weak, ineffective Christianity.

It is undeniable that some Evangelicals have come to realize the folly of letting their guard down and embracing the wolves who would rend the sheep. But have these Evangelicals abandoned the movement begun by the New Evangelicals? You still hear them, even the most conservative of them, speaking against Fundamentalism and in praise of their New Evangelical forebears. They may criticize New Evangelicals by saying that they went too far or were too tolerant, but you will hear them praised as offering a necessary corrective to Fundamentalism. Some of these conservatives are now speaking about how they appreciate the seriousness of Fundamentalism, but you will never (or at least not so far) hear them say that Fundamentalism was right.¹

As such, it seems that New Evangelicalism has thoroughly indoctrinated the Evangelical mind and that Evangelicals have largely adopted the New Evangelical goals: an attempt to accomplish the Great Commission with a open policy towards errors that will corrupt the church, either in doctrine or in practice.

On the other hand, Fundamentalism has many permutations within its ranks. Some emphasize certain peripheral doctrines more than others. Some are willing to contend for certain peripheral doctrines and thus miss the genius of Fundamentalism. When Jude exhorted us to earnestly contend for the faith, I don’t believe he was urging us to contend for cultural applications of Fundamental principles or for particular interpretations of preservation, but rather for the body of doctrine which comprises the core of the Faith.

Nevertheless, those who are Fundamentalists can be discerned by their willingness to contend for those doctrines against teaching and practice that attack the essential core of Christianity. The objective of the purity of the faith and the safeguarding the spiritual life of the sheep is one that leads Fundamentalists to make divisions with and issue warnings against other Christians who either are in error themselves or are undiscerning about the errors of others.

Dave is arguing that there is no movements any longer. I don’t know if I have proved the opposite to anyone’s satisfaction (I doubt that I will persuade Dave), but I think that it is quite clear that there are groups committed to core Evangelical or Fundamentalist ideals who are trying to promote those ideals within their circles and to recruit others to join their circles. Are such groups and efforts evidence of some kind of ongoing movements? I think they are.

Having said all that…

Does it matter that there are movements or not? Should we make decisions about fellowship, cooperation or non-cooperation, or separation on the basis of the label someone wears?

No. Here I agree with Dave. There are some Fundamentalists who I don’t want to work with very closely, if at all. Can I say the opposite about Evangelicals? Can I say that there are some Evangelicals I could work with because they are closer to my ideals than some Fundamentalists? No, not at all. I have yet to see the Evangelical with whom I could join in some cooperative effort. As long as they remain committed to promoting works and men who are destructive to the faith or walk of Christians, I can’t work with them. And given the Evangelical commitment to openness towards the erring, I doubt that will ever change, no matter how much I like what individual Evangelicals might do or say.

~~~

Finally, I have to say that I have appreciated this exchange between Dave and I. I know that at least one of us can be prone to sarcasm which is an ineffective tool in the pixelated press, it seems. Hopefully we can keep our discourse on a gentlemanly level. I’ve appreciated the way Dave has disagreed with me and hope that I have maintained the same level of discourse.

1. As evidence of this, please listen to Al Mohler’s recent address to Southern Seminary as he opened the school year on August 24, 2010.

The Merriam Webster dictionary gives us this definition of movement:

a series of organized activities working toward an objective also : an organized effort to promote or attain an end, the civil rights movement

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh ed. (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003).

Based on this definition, one could dispute whether there has ever been much of a fundamentalist movement, especially if the word ‘organized’ is emphasized. Apart from some denominational fundamentalists in the early days (GARBC, CBA, OPC), my perception of fundamentalism is that it is largely a very loosely organized group of independent individuals and churches. By ‘very loosely organized’, I’d have to say ‘so loose as to not be organized at all’.

However, in the sample phrase the dictionary gives (‘the civil rights movement’), tight organization is not much more evident than we have seen in fundamentalism or evangelicalism, so I suspect the emphasis of the definition should fall on ‘activities working toward an objective’ or ‘effort to promote or attain an end’ rather than on the word organized.

In this sense, I think we can safely say there has been a fundamentalist movement and an evangelical movement.

Some may quibble and say the fundamentalist movement is merely a subset of the evangelical movement. There is a sense in which this could be true, but in fact the general use of the two terms in contrast is meant to suggest divergent ends, two distinct movements pursuing differing goals. In other words, when you construct a sentence saying, “I’ve previously argued … that there are no coherent and distinct movements that fit the Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism labels”, you mean to contrast the two terms as something different from each other. If one were merely a subset of the other, there would be no conflict, only tighter definitions for the subset. The contrasting element would have to be called something other than the header term – you would have Evangelical Fundamentalists and Evangelical Non-Fundamentalists (or something else for the latter).

Instead, in common usage, we refer to Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in contrast. By that, we mean that these are two groups with an essential difference between them. If you were to use the terms “Evangelical” or “Evangelicalism” by itself, without reference to Fundamentalism, you might mean something different entirely, but when the two terms are used together, it is their distinctives that are in contrast.

The Defining Ends

Our definition says that a movement involves efforts or activities working towards an objective or end. What is the end of Evangelicalism (as distinguished from Fundamentalism)? What is the end of Fundamentalism (as distinguished from Evangelicalism)?

Quite clearly we have to discard objectives that are common to both movements. In such activities, both are subsets of another movement – could we call it simply Christian? Thus, evangelism and discipleship, common objectives of Christianity, are not defining ends for Fundamentalism or Evangelicalism. They are common ends of a common cause both are involved in.

For an article such as this, it is impossible to survey the many attempts to define the objectives and distinctives of Evangelicalism, so these paragraphs from Wikipedia will have to suffice:

The contemporary North American usage of the term is influenced by the evangelical/fundamentalist controversy of the early 20th century. Evangelicalism may sometimes be perceived as the middle ground between the theological liberalism of the mainline denominations and the cultural separatism of fundamentalism.^[9] Evangelicalism has therefore been described as “the third of the leading strands in American Protestantism, straddl[ing] the divide between fundamentalists and liberals.”^[10] ((Wikipedia, “Evangelicalism” Accessed 9/23/10.))

Later in the same article, we read this:

Evangelicals held the view that the modernist and liberal parties in the Protestant churches had surrendered their heritage as evangelicals by accommodating the views and values of “the world.” At the same time, they criticized their fellow fundamentalists for their separatism and their rejection of the social gospel as it had been developed by Protestant activists of the previous century. They charged the modernists with having lost their identity as evangelicals and the fundamentalists with having lost the Christ-like heart of evangelicalism. They argued that the gospel needed to be reasserted to distinguish it from the innovations of the liberals as well as the fundamentalists.¹

Now I acknowledge, with the Wikipedia article. that “most conservative evangelicals believe the label has broadened too much beyond its more limiting traditional distinctives.”²

However, I would contend that conservative evangelicals by and large have not abandoned the essential distinctives that make evangelicalism a ‘middle ground’ between Fundamentalism and Liberalism today. Their objectives are related to that middle ground position and how to maintain orthodoxy in the middle ground, between the hard separatism of the Fundamentalist and the heterodoxy of the Liberal.

These comments from R. Albert Mohler may suffice as evidence of my contention:

The error of theological liberalism is evident in a basic disrespect for biblical authority and the church’s treasury of truth. The mark of true liberalism is the refusal to admit that first-order theological issues even exist. Liberals treat first-order doctrines as if they were merely third-order in importance, and doctrinal ambiguity is the inevitable result.

Fundamentalism, on the other hand, tends toward the opposite error. The misjudgment of true fundamentalism is the belief that all disagreements concern first-order doctrines. Thus, third-order issues are raised to a first-order importance, and Christians are wrongly and harmfully divided.

Living in an age of widespread doctrinal denial and intense theological confusion, thinking Christians must rise to the challenge of Christian maturity, even in the midst of a theological emergency. We must sort the issues with a trained mind and a humble heart, in order to protect what the Apostle Paul called the “treasure” that has been entrusted to us. ³

I can’t find the specific references right now, but I have read conservative evangelicals acknowledging new evangelical mistakes while at the same time crediting the new evangelical efforts as necessary correctives of fundamentalist excesses.

The evangelical objective is cooperation with as many as possible while maintaining in some fashion the integrity of the gospel. Mark Dever illustrated this spirit when he said to Mark Driscoll’s Acts 29 organization:

Our differences are enough to separate some of my friends—your brothers and sisters in Christ—from you. And perhaps to separate them from me, now that I’m publicly speaking to you. And I don’t want to minimize either the sincerity or the seriousness of some of their concerns (things like: humor, worldliness, pragmatism, authority).

But I perceive some things in common which outweigh our differences—which the Lord Jesus shall soon enough compose between us, either by our maturing, or by His bringing us home. I long to work with those, and count it a privilege to work with those whom My Savior has purchased with His blood, and with whom I share the gospel of Jesus Christ. I perceive that we have in common the knowledge that God is glorified in sinners being reconciled to Him through Christ.⁴

On the other hand, there is a group of churches, individuals, and Christian institutions that pursue separatism as an objective. We are as motivated (or perhaps more motivated) for evangelism and discipleship as the best evangelicals. But there is more … we are concerned that we proclaim the gospel without the entanglements of errant theology, errant practices, or worldly contamination. We may not entirely succeed in these objectives, nevertheless these objectives remain the common objectives of an identifiable group of Christians called Fundamentalists. Some of us may have significant differences with one another over soteriology or bibliology, but we all share these common objectives.

So … is there an Evangelical movement today? Is their a Fundamentalist movement? Yes. The two movements still exist, with many permutations within each of them, but we can still identify objectives that both movements pursue, objectives that distinguish them from each other.

When people from each of the two movements join together in some ecclesiastical endeavors, we can legitimately ask the question, “What objective are they pursuing?”

• Is someone moving from one movement to the other?
• Is a new objective being pursued?
• If no new objective is being pursued and no transfer of movements is involved, what end can result beyond confusion?

UPDATE: Dave Doran has responded here. He makes some valid points but I still disagree with his major premise. I’ll write a post later outlining where I think his criticisms are on target and where I differ, but this update will have to suffice for now. (Please note that Dave has been having some technical difficulties with his blog today.  You may have to fiddle with the link to get to his article.)

1. Wikipedia, “Evangelicalism” Accessed 9/23/10.
2. Ibid.
3. R. Albert Mohler, “Theological Triage”, 9marks e-journal, Mar-Apr 2008, Accessed 9/23/10.
4. The link for this post is no longer active, but you can read a fuller quote from my post, “Outrage is Easy … or is it?”