Occasionally, someone asks me if Christ Church congregants and their leadership are “fundamentalists.” And to those unfamiliar with both Christ Church and with historic fundamentalism, the question seems reasonable — they’re young-earth, six-day creationists, they interpret the Bible literally, and they, along with most other Christian churches, derive their moral standards from the Scriptures they and I believe to be God’s revealed, infallible Word.
But they’re not fundamentalists, as it’s currently understood, and neither am I.
Historically, “fundamentalism” arose in the early part of the 20th century, with the post-industrial, modernist societal changes that Christian conservatives saw as a threat to the classic doctrines and definition of the Christian faith. The challenges posed by higher criticism, the “social gospel,” and science — particularly Darwin’s theory of evolution — motivated a separatist mentality on the part of some Christian conservatives. The codifying of seven doctrinal “fundamentals” was expressed in a series of booklets written and distributed by noted Christian theologians such as R.A. Torrey. Those seven fundamental doctrines of Christianity, taken as inviolable articles of faith for the true believer and predicated on a belief in the Bible as God’s Word, are the deity of Jesus Christ; the nature of the Triune Godhead; Jesus’ virgin birth; his atonement for sins on the cross; his bodily resurrection; his personal, imminent return to the earth; and the necessity of personal conversion. Some, however, have seen that final doctrine not as one of the classic fundamentals, but, instead, a motivator and result of the identification of the previous six; this argument, then, adds “young earth” or six-day creationism, as told in the first two chapters of the Old Testament Book of Genesis, to the list.
I believe that the initial seven articles, not the “young earth” creationism, accurately codify the necessary fundamentals of the Gospel. And so, under that definition only, I am a fundamentalist and, accepting as they do also the additional belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis, so are Kirkers.
But the term “fundamentalist” almost immediately took on a meaning both different from and yet inevitably arising from the work of the theologians who insisted on the interwoven and inseparable articles of faith that, to them and to me, define Biblical Christianity. What was compiled as a definitive canon of Christian essentials was formulated within the social and historical context of early-20th century modernism, and the fundamentals expressed both doctrinal cohesiveness and the reaction of Christian conservatives against the creeping influence, inside the Church and out, of an emerging, changing, and more secular culture.
The trinity of threats seen to the Church were seemingly varied, but together were a driving force in establishing countless Bible colleges and seminaries that promoted a literal, conservative understanding and exegesis of Scripture. “Higher criticism” began in Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s as a method of interpreting Scripture through a lens of linguistic, historical and cultural forces that generally disdained the inspiration of the Bible — the Holy Spirit’s initiation and superintendency of God’s Word put to paper by men under the Spirit’s guidance, influence, and strength. “Higher criticism” theologians explored, even revered, the Scriptural texts as a compilation of 66 different books full of wisdom, history, theology, and poetry, but, in rejecting the infallibility of the textual result as well as the inspiration of the composers of those texts, were a threat to the literal, infallible, Spirit-breathed Bible conservatives held dear.
Likewise, the emergence of scientific advances and especially Darwinian evolution were seen as direct offenses to a literal interpretation of the Scriptural testimony of God’s work in creating all things — the belief that “God spoke, and the universe leapt into existence.” Darwin’s understanding of natural selection, mutation, and thousands of centuries of species adaptation was seen as an affront to the Genesis account and was conveniently and inaccurately summed up by Christian conservatives as the dethroning of God as creator and the substitution of apes and other primates for a literal, created, Adam and Eve. Panic ensued as the original “fundamentalists” convinced their congregations that without a literal, historical Adam, created in the image of God, humankind would soon shed all moral and religious restraints, living only by gut instinct and animalistic licentiousness.
As Americans and Europeans became more literate, and as advances in communications technology flourished, cherished notions of a literal six-day creation, a historical Adam and Eve, their fall into sin and expulsion from an actual, geographic Eden, a worldwide Noahic flood, an actual, physical Tower of Babel, and other Old Testament teachings threatened to be either disproven or simply discarded in favor of more “modern” understandings that directly contradicted Scripture — or seemed to. In addition, early fundamentalists were faced with unprecedented educational opportunities for their sons and daughters — forays into a world that appeared not only in contradiction to, but even mocking of, the simple, wooden, literal understanding of both the Bible and the world around them.
Finally, the fundamentalists were witnessing the emergence of what’s now called the “social Gospel.” The rise of post-millennialism — the belief that the Church’s spread of the Gospel and example of “Kingdom dominion” would transform society and the world around it into the Biblical 1,000-year period of sinlessness, peace, and Christian virtue, was critical to the inception of this “social Gospel,” which married evangelistic concern for souls with a “whole Gospel” approach that recognized the need to confront injustice and work for not only personal but social renewal. This Church-led worldwide transformation would usher in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, whose return to the Earth after the millennium would culminate in a final battle against Satan, the Day of Judgment, and an eternity of peace with Christ enthroned in Jerusalem as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The post-millennialism of the early 20th century was marked by significant advances in evangelism — the preaching of the Gospel to the lost — as well as to innumerable social reform movements, such as temperance and abolitionism.
Modern-day postmillennialists, including those in Moscow, have largely abandoned direct social reform movements, especially those that seek to relieve the poverty of the old, weak, immigrant and otherwise marginalized and forgotten. But the early-21st century expression of a nascent worldwide movement of fervent and well-equipped followers of Jesus Christ, devoted to righting socio-political wrongs and ushering in a world of peace and justice whose King would reign on the earth upon its establishment, was wrongly seen as a de-emphasis on personal soul-saving. It also proved to be a threat to the staunch conservatism of the South, prompting blistering jeremiads from the pulpit, accusing the “social Gospel” and its preachers of abandoning the soul-saving imperative of the Scriptures in favor of “liberal” reform movements that, not coincidentally, threatened in some cases the cherished social and political traditions of the conservatives — like racial segregationists. Not all of the original “fundamentalists” were racists, but it’s accurate, I think, to say that virtually all “Christian” racists of the time were fundamentalists.
“Fundamentalism” evolved from a description of a Biblically conservative doctrinal believe system to a reactionary movement against “modernism” and all its attendant evils — Darwinian evolution; secular higher criticism; political and theological liberalism; scientific advances that appeared to contradict Scripture; changing social policies; the reform movements of the “social Gospel;” and the casting off, real or imagined, of cherished, Biblical, moral restraint. I lament that the term has fallen into disrepute, frankly. When “fundamentalism” was a positive — a statement FOR something — it was an important unifier of Christian doctrine and orthodoxy. And under that definition — that a “fundamentalist” is one who believes the seven fundamentals of historic, Biblical Christian faith and takes them as essential doctrinal touchpoints for the Church — I am, indeed, a fundamentalist. And so are the Kirkers, although Wilson and his followers are staunch young-earth creationists and I’m not; what we would each consider an essential differs only on that point, while we unabashedly embrace the others. It’s not the strictest, Trinitarian core theology of the Kirk that I generally disagree with, although even those essentials, like the Triune nature of the Godhead, are marked with disagreements that I have occasionally with Wilson, et al, and their understanding of such things as, say, Christ’s eternal subordination within the Trinity to the Father.
Nonetheless, it’s the “minors,” the “beyond the core,” theology and practice of the Kirk that I object so strenuously to — precisely because Wilson and his accolytes are so often so very wrong in their understanding of and instructions in non-essential areas. For example, I vehemently disagree with Wilson, Wilkins, Schlisser and Leithart regarding their Federal Vision, but we do agree that salvation is brought us by Christ’s atonement on the cross — a fundamental doctrine that is, to me, an essential aspect of the faith. It is to Doug Wilson as well, and has been a doctrine of our faith since its inception at Pentecost.
It is, perhaps, tragic that most evangelicals now recoil, and rightly so, from being called “fundamentalists,” because the original meaning of the term was laudable. As an attempt to define the essence of the Christian faith, uniting those who embraced the core doctrines and found relationship with Jesus, “fundamentalism” served the Church by emphasizing and expounding on essential doctrines that gave a fully-developed understanding of the Gospel — when it didn’t insist on young-earth creationism. But today it’s inexorably entwined with an anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, anti-cultural and anti-ecumenical worldview that is defined by its oppositional stances, not its positive contributions to evangelism and doctrinal understanding.
I’d rather be “for” the work of the Gospel and not simply “against” the things that make the spread of that Gospel so urgent. Being against bad stuff is admirable, but the Gospel cannot be defined only by the things it opposes. That is the inadvertent, but incontrovertible, legacy of fundamentalism — a philosophy so energized by what it opposes that it’s lost its bearings in proclaiming, in joy and in love, what it cherishes.
My next post will be an examination of why Wilson, et al, aren’t fundies, although they appear that way to those who don’t understand that “believing in the Bible” and being a fundamentalist aren’t the same thing. Neither Doug Wilson nor Keely Emerine Mix would be especially welcome in King James Version-only, primitive Baptist circles, and yet — I’m guessing you know this already — the reasons why are quite different for both of us. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.