On the Trail of Fundamentalism, Conclusion

In the light of the considerations outlined in the last two posts, the consensus today seems to be that most sincere and active Christians and churches would reject the “fundamentalist” description. They prefer “Bible-believing” or “evangelical”, each of which carries the idea of foundational New Testament beliefs and practices (thus avoiding the charge of liberalism). Such terms also allow churches to distance themselves both from the perceived rigid legalism of some (hyper-Calvinist) wings of the church, and from the 'lunatic fringe' associations attached to “fundamentalism” by the popular press and trendy atheism.

We do well to return to A W Tozer's analysis (see previous posts). Although written 50 years ago, his overview of trends is both timeless and masterly.

The human mind can endure textualism just so long before it seeds a way of escape... The masses of Fundamentalism reacted against the tyranny of the scribes.

In centuries past, perhaps, a matter so weighty to the Church might have required the convening of a Council of wise and respected leaders to confer and deliver a prescriptive ruling. Not so now!

The result... has been a religious debauch hardly equalled since Israel worshipped the golden calf... The separating line between the Church and the world has been all but obliterated.

Aside from a few of the grosser sins, the sins of the unregenerate world are now approved by a shocking number of professedly "born-again' Christians, and copied eagerly. Young Christians take as their models the rankest kind of worldlings and try to be as much like them as possible. Religious leaders have adopted the techniques of the advertisers: boasting, baiting and shameless exaggerating are now carried on as a normal procedure in church work. The moral climate is not that of the New Testament, but that of Hollywood.

This has come at a terrible cost:

Most evangelicals no longer initiate, they imitate... The holy faith of our fathers has in many places been made a form of entertainment, and the appalling thing is that all this has been fed down to the masses from the top.

And worst of all:

That note of protest which began with the New Testament and which was always heard loudest went the Church was most powerful has been successfully silenced. The radical element in testimony and life that once made Christians hated by the world is missing from present-day evangelicalism.

This is still the dilemma for Christians and churches today: to tighten up and risk "the tyranny of the scribes"; to let go and settle for a non-threatening but emasculated faith; or to be bold enough to cut a new path, which is nevertheless the old path of the New Testament: "a new commandment, but the commandment you heard from the beginning" (1 John.2:7).