In The Nick of Time

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.   read more»

Like a traitor, scorning justice,
Head unbowed before God’s Law,
Given glimpses of the Holy,
Tyranny was all I saw.

Soul infused with serpents’ venom,
Purposing unholy war,
Hands devising clever mischief,
All of this was I, and more.

He, dispensing awful justice
Haled me up before His throne,
Bound on me the grave indictment
Of commandments hewn in stone.

“Answer now,” the judge demanded,
“Justify yourself to me.
Saints and angels wait your answer—
Enter your judicial plea.”

I, exposed by blinding justice,
Naked in its righteous glare,
Stripped of every self-deception,
Stood with nothing to declare.    read more»

During my years of teaching at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College (1978-1985), I was asked to teach several courses in the area of counseling. I had never had a counseling course in college or seminary. Where would I begin? What resources were available to help construct meaningful courses in various aspects of counseling?

I had come out of seminary convinced of the doctrine of the sole authority of Scripture. I knew that without such an authority, nothing was worth preaching. I spent the first ten years of my ministry anchored to this important truth. There was no doubt in my mind but that the Bible had all the answers for life and living.

Nevertheless, as I planned my courses I began to question the degree to which the Bible actually spoke to this issue. Distracted by the cacophony of voices coming from the psychological world, I found myself being drawn toward some of the more popular psychological systems—especially that of Maslow. It seemed to me that there was at least some validity to what he and other secular psychologists were saying.

Given my earlier commitments, why was I so easily convinced that another resource would give better answers than the Bible? Why have so many other pastors and theologians been so easily persuaded that the perspectives of psychology actually give true answers to the difficult questions of the soul of man?

Part of what motivated me was a striving to become knowledgeable in my field of study and experience. The academic world pushes intellectual mastery, and to stay “alive,” one has to excel. I saw what happened to those who did not excel intellectually, and I was not interested in that!   read more»

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.   read more»

The press is full of reports about Baptist missionaries who have been arrested in Haiti. They are accused of—and, as of yesterday, formally charged with—attempting to abduct children illegally into the neighboring Dominican Republic, ostensibly with the purpose of eventually selling the children into adoption. The missionaries have been moved from lodging in a public building and sent to jail. Jail in Haiti. Jail in a Haiti that has been decimated by earthquakes.

I admit that my first reaction when I heard the story was, “Oh, no! Another black mark against Fundamentalists.” As it turns out, however, these missionaries were not from any Fundamentalist group. They were from Southern Baptist churches (albeit mainly from northern Southern Baptist churches). Still, they wear the names Baptist and missionary, and as far as most people are concerned, that has implications enough for the rest of us who are Baptists concerned with missions.

Naturally, the American press is playing up the story, focusing mainly on the two words Baptist and missionaries. To read the reports in the daily papers one would imagine the worst. Baptist missionaries have been arrested. Baptist missionaries were abducting children. Baptist missionaries have been charged and jailed. The natural assumption is that Baptist missionaries must be guilty.

The American public has reacted predictably. The press has offered its usual lurid report and the bulk of Americans assume that they have the facts and have been told the truth. The words child abduction stir up images of Amber Alerts and faces on milk cartons. Americans are all about images. If you can evoke the right images, you can get them to do anything.   read more»

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.

Leadership in Transition

The proto-fundamentalist period (roughly 1870 to 1920) was a time of rapid change in American culture. When this period opened, the memory of the Civil War was still fresh. The Old West was being settled. Indian wars were being fought. Most armies equipped their troops with single-shot rifles (often muzzle-loaders) and cap-and-ball revolvers. Ironclad steamships were in their infancy. The ordinary modes of daily transportation still employed livestock. John Philip Sousa was just composing his first marches. Southerners, especially those of African descent, were migrating toward northern cities.

By 1920, Americans had a different war burned into their consciousness, a war of worldwide consequence. The Old West lived on only in Hollywood film. Weaponry in the recent war had included bolt-action rifles, automatic pistols, machine guns, tanks, lethal gas, and aerial bombs. Mammoth ocean liners and battleships had been constructed and (as with the Titanic, the Empress of Ireland, and the Lusitania) sunk. Scott Joplin had introduced a new “jass” musical idiom with his rags, slow drags, and two-steps, and by the 1920s it had become fully-developed jazz. Most households either owned or aspired to own an automobile, and air travel had become a reality. The children of former slaves had begun a kind of renaissance in Harlem.

The transition from 1870 to 1920 includes a significant generational shift. Nowhere is this shift more clearly seen than within proto-fundamentalism. The prominent leaders of the early years were mostly dead by or shortly after the turn of the century. A. J. Gordon died in 1895, James H. Brooks in 1897, D. L. Moody in 1899, George C. Needham in 1902, Nathaniel West in 1906, and A. T. Pierson in 1911. In most cases, their public ministries had ceased well before they died. Such men were the most vigorous organizers of early proto-fundamentalism, and their departure left a decided vacuum of leadership within the movement.   read more»

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6

The Fundamentals

Before Fundamentalism became identifiable as a self-aware movement, American evangelicalism passed through a period of transition that could be labeled proto-fundamentalism. Stretching from just after 1870 until nearly 1920, the proto-fundamentalist period combined a number of important influences. Several of those influences found expression in what may be the most typical representation of the proto-fundamentalist decades, a series of volumes called The Fundamentals.

Eventually The Fundamentals comprised ninety essays in twelve volumes. The project was financed by Lyman and Milton Stewart, founders of Union Oil. The original editor was A. C. Dixon, who was later succeeded by Louis Meyer and then by R. A. Torrey. Initially published between 1910 and 1915, the books were sent free of charge to pastors, missionaries, and Christian workers. They are still being reprinted and read a century later.

The essays in The Fundamentals covered a variety of topics. The most frequent topic—more than a quarter of the articles—had to do with the doctrine of Scripture. Especially emphasized were issues related to inspiration and biblical criticism.

A second large bloc of essays dealt with the person and work of Christ. Several more covered issues in apologetics such as evolution or the existence of God. A handful of essays addressed current “isms” such as Romanism and Christian Science. The remainder consisted of personal testimonies, exhortations to Christian service, and studies in ministry methods.   read more»

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Liberalism

After the Civil War, American evangelicalism entered a period of change. Developments occurred in the areas of eschatology, evangelism, missions, education, and personal piety. From about 1870 to about 1920, evangelicals were building an entire infrastructure of churches, schools, conferences, missions, and other institutions. It is this network that constituted what, in retrospect, can be called proto-fundamentalism.

One very significant influence upon proto-fundamentalism was the rise of theological liberalism. The proto-fundamentalist period occurred during just those decades when modernist and liberal theologies (I will not distinguish the two) were working themselves into the denominational structures. Proto-fundamentalists were forced to deal with the initial manifestations of the new theology.

Liberal theology originated with F. D. E. Schleiermacher, who realized that the cultured and educated people of his day almost universally despised Christianity. What Schleiermacher tried to do was to relocate the center of Christian faith from the Bible and doctrine to religious experience. Doctrines and Scripture were no longer viewed as authoritative statements about external realities but as varied expressions of a common inward experience.

God was thought to be entirely immanent, both in the created order and within historical process. Since all humans somehow participated in the divine, liberals had no trouble speaking of the divinity of Jesus. One liberal, accused of denying the divinity of Christ, responded, “I have never denied the divinity of anyone.” What the liberals could not do, however, was to affirm that Jesus Christ is God in any unique sense.   read more»

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Personal Piety

Historical periodization is a subjective business. People do not just go to sleep in one period and wake up in another. Usually they do not even realize that a significant change has occurred except in retrospect. For historians to impose periods upon history is necessarily subjective and somewhat arbitrary.

Nevertheless, since history is linear and progressive, it is possible to trace development. The movement from one period to the next does result in change. Examining the record, a historian can detect these changes and can discern when some significant transition has taken place.

In the history of American Fundamentalism, the years from about 1870 to about 1920 seem to comprise a distinct period. During this period, Fundamentalism was not yet a discernable, self-aware movement. All the same, changes were taking place across American evangelicalism, and these changes strongly shaped Fundamentalism when it emerged in 1920.

In previous essays, I have posited that this proto-fundamentalist period was characterized by eschatological fascination, evangelistic fervor, and an emphasis upon worldwide missions. Secondary characteristics included a minimizing of denominationalism, the growth of the faith missions movement, and the development of the Bible institute as an important venue for proto-fundamentalist education. These influences, however, are only part of the story.

Another major influence during this period was a resurgence of personal piety. This resurgence was necessary because American Christians—indeed, American society—had become preoccupied with personal comfort and affluence. This was the gilded age, and businessmen were riding the crest of the second industrial revolution to amass fortunes. These individuals may have been a small minority, but they captured the imagination of the country and established an ethos that governed much of American culture.   read more»