If fundamentalism were really about agreeing to a set of fundamentals, then count me in. Of course, I now realize my Catholic friends and my mainline liberal Protestant friends agree with the same fundamentals, so that’s not really what it is at all. Most of that is just being orthodox.
Fundamentalism is about a particular read on the Bible. An arcane view of the future. A very specific Gnostic view on (even redeemed) humanity. A nihilistic hopelessness to the Christian walk.
And, of course, separation. It really is all about separation. Fundies try desperately to look separated but not totally irrelevant to the world. They want to be seen as both godly and significant. And their attempts miss the point.
We aren’t supposed to be separate. We are made separate. Or set apart. Or sanctified. Or holy. It’s an act of God, not a short hair cut.
Trying to look separated is like forming a Barbie doll’s foot to look ready to walk in high-heeled shoes. It’s missing the point. She’s just a hunk of lifeless plastic with a freakishly perfect form. A play thing. A poor but pretty copy of the real thing.
It’s Who lives on the inside that makes us beautiful, not the man-made plastic perfection on the outside.
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5 thoughts on “Why I No Longer Call Myself a Fundamentalist”
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I hope you’re still posting/onitoring this blog, Dr. Lewis (Can I call you “Camille”? I was never your student, to my knowledge, so this feels stiff, otherwise?
What are your takes on ecclesiastical separation? You’re on safe ground… I’m a former BJU type whose gone to “wider pastures” within the church, also, but I’ve been interested in the growing “convergence” between conservative eveangelicals and “progressive” fundies (e.g. Dever and Minnick).
Of course, you can call me Camille! 😉
The separation trope is my “hobby horse” from an academic standpoint. It’s the thing that my first book covered and what future work will cover as well.
I think the fundamentalists have it completely wrong, tbh. Sanctification, not separation, is the “goal” (for lack of a better term), and God does that. He has sanctified us. He has made us holy through Jesus. The IFB has it all wrong.
As for Minnick’s progressive fundyism . . . uh, in sum, no. His preaching isn’t orthodox. His separation is still of premier importance. So if you want to talk ecclesiastical separation, let’s start with orthodoxy.
OK, now I’m fascinated. How is Minnick unorthodox?
As I stated to another “reforming” fundie, Paul would never survive the airtight “secondary separation” standards the fundies claim he outlines. He fellowshipped with the theologically and morally sloppy Corinth, Ephesus and Galatia, from what I can tell, he never “separated” from James, though there were unorthodox legalists emanating from his camp (see Galatians), and rather than separate from the false teachers within the churches, he conronted them on behalf of the genuine believers who were falling prey to their lies, including deploying Timothy to take them on in Ephesus (see 1 Timothy).
If Paul was a separatist, he sucked at it 🙂
That said, I do think there is something to be said for confronting and distancing one’s self from believers who intentionally and consistently cooperate with “false teachers”, e.g. Billy Graham, etc.
Thanks for hearing me vent. This is therapuetic, and after 18 years mind you! 🙂
Vent away!!
I don’t think Billy Graham cooperated with “false teachers” like the fundies said. 😉 But that’s another discussion.
Pick any sermon by Minnick. Go on sermonaudio. Pick any of them. They are all the same: he pedantically discusses the Text — on and on — and then he ends with the clincher: “And so our only hope . . . is to live biblically so that in the end God will be pleased with us.”
They all end that way. All of them. And that’s not orthodox. *Our* living biblically is not our only hope. That’s our damnation!! Our only hope is Jesus. *HE* lived to please God *for* us. And so? God IS pleased with us. Period!!
Wait, Graham didn’t cooperate with “apostates”. Camille, you’re upsetting my apple cart. How am I going to separate from anyone at this rate?
Off to Sermon Audio, and then I should do something less nerdy with what remains of my weekend.
Thanks!
WM