The Failure of Fundamentalism — Phil Johnson

The Scope and Meaning of Fundamentalism

During this hour we'll be talking about the failure of the fundamentalist movement in the 20th century. Just from the title of this seminar and all which by the way, I did not choose somebody else made that title.

I thought some of you think I'm gonna come in here so hostile to fundamentalism that I thought maybe I should wear a Kevlar vest and a plastic raincoat. But I opted not to do that. So please don't throw anything.

I'm not protected. But it's true you use a word like fundamentalism these days and immediately you're in trouble and I'm going to spend some time Trying to give definition to that term fundamentalism in a moment but I want to say at the very outset that the kind of Fundamentalism I'm dealing with in this session is the movement that practices and insists on strict Second and third degree separation.

What I have in mind are the kind of fundamentalists who wouldn't even attend a conference like this because they would consider John MacArthur and Grace Community Church as new evangelical and So that exempts most of you IFC a guys.

Because you've kept John MacArthur as a member in your organization. But you know that according to the rest of the fundamentalist movement that makes you new evangelicals rather than fundamentalists anyway and so You're permitted to to consider yourself exempt from some of my criticisms here.

I do need to acknowledge that Some of what I am going to say about the fundamentalist movement doesn't necessarily apply to moderate fundamentalist groups like the IFC a and the GAR be and so I Say that because I know some of you guys are there.

I don't want you to feel too targeted. I I do recognize that the fundamentalist movement is a large and varied Movement. There is not just one fundamentalist movement, but there are many maybe thousands of smaller groups within fundamentalism and most of them don't get along with each other and So fundamentalism isn't the sort of monolithic movement that you can critique.

Fairly, I'm gonna try to be fair. But I'll admit up front that I am painting with a broad brush and I'm doing it deliberately because of time constraints and I don't have the time to Qualify everything and and exempt, you know, the IFC a and the GAR be from everything.

So now I give you all permission just to pick and choose as as you listen to me. Which criticisms might or might not apply to the particular? fundamentalist groups that you belong to. But at the very least I also recognize that Some of the issues most of the issues that I'm raising in this hour have already been recognized to some degree by groups like the IFC a and the GAR be and and these groups are trying to trying to deal with some of these things but at the same time because You IFC a types tend to be willing to grapple with the kinds of issues that we're raising here your credentials, you know this your credentials as fundamentalists are often disputed by the more hardcore fundamentalists who seriously regard groups like the IFC a as tainted with new evangelicalism and It's that spirit of hardcore fundamentalism that I'm critiquing primarily in this section.

And so for those guys here who have always considered themselves Fundamentalists, you don't need to feel like you're under attack. Actually. I'm on your side and In fact, let me say this From the title of the seminar again.

Those of you who don't know me might assume that I am someone who's hostile to the principles of fundamentalism. And that is not the case in the classic and historic sense of the word I am a fundamentalist.

I've never been really a member of the fundamentalist movement. But I have always had an interest in the movement and I've always had a deep sympathy for the true principles of historic Fundamentalism and here's what I mean by that.

I believe wholeheartedly in the authority of the inerrancy of Scripture. And I am quite willing to be Militant in defense of the gospel and some of you who may have listened to me in years past know what I mean I'm not afraid to stick my foot in it and Not reluctant to defend the gospel.

And in fact, I believe as Christians we have a duty to contend earnestly for the faith Whenever the vital truths of the gospel are under attack. It's our duty. We can't sit by silently and ignore things.

That's wrong. That's sinful. We have a duty to contend for the faith and I recognize that there is a core of truth that is absolutely essential to the gospel of Jesus Christ and That when someone's teaching deliberately rejects or fatally compromises any of those essential truths true Christian fellowship is impossible and seeking fellowship seeking any kind of spiritual fellowship with people who deny the essentials of Christianity is absolutely out of the question and I'm not willing to pretend that someone who rejects the Essentials of the gospel is my brother or sister in Christ and I would not Knowingly align myself in ministry or in Christian fellowship with a person like that in the name of Christian unity.

That's not a popular stance today. But that is what I believe the doctrines I would deem fundamental Include but and I stress this they're not limited to these one the verbal plenary Inspiration of the scriptures to the doctrine of Christ's virgin birth.

Three and this is a big one the principle of substitutionary atonement for the bodily resurrection of Christ and five the literal truth of all the miraculous elements of Scripture and Historically all authentic fundamentalists have been united in their affirmation of those five doctrines as Truths that are essential to the gospel.

Those are sometimes called the five fundamentals and If you many of you heard my seminar yesterday on justification by faith, you know already that I would also insist That the doctrine of justification by faith the principle of sola fide is also an essential truth of the gospel.

In fact, I would put the doctrine of justification at the head of the list and If time permits in this hour, I did it yesterday, but I'll do it again explain why I think that's such an important issue.

And it's especially an important issue as far as historic fundamentalism is concerned. But in other words what I'm saying is that in the historic and original sense of the word I am a fundamentalist at heart and I've always been since the day of my conversion.

This is not some new conviction for me. This is what I've always believed and yet I Was never part of the fundamentalist movement. Why? Well, because it was obvious even when I first became a Christian in 1971 it was obvious to me then that fundamentalism and I'm talking now about the visible organized Identifiable movement made up of men and churches who proudly label themselves fundamentalists that movement in 1971 was already seriously dysfunctional in 1971 the most vocal and visible figures in the movement were men like Jack Hiles and John R. Rice and in fact, I grew up in Tulsa, which is Well known as the home of every charismatic aberration.

But the house where my family lived at the time was actually less than a mile from the international headquarters of Billy James Hargis who was a fundamentalist radio preacher in those days. You never hear of him anymore.

He actually disgraced the fundamentalist cause in the mid -1970s because of an appalling moral scandal that came to light. But that was one of the fundamentalists I was personally familiar with and in fact the town where I Attended my first year of college had once been the hometown of Carl McIntyre and he still Dominated the airwaves there and so I'd listen to Carl McIntyre rant and rave on the radio every day.

And I also became acquainted with him through the radio and frankly the closer I got to the fundamentalist movement in the 1970s the more it seemed to me that the movement had significant tendencies that owed more to the cults and the Pharisees than to historic Christianity and So while I carefully kept my distance from the movement.

I Never stopped affirming the principles of historic fundamentalism. And during those years, I read a lot of fundamentalist literature. I subscribed to the sword of the Lord. I read everything John Rice wrote.

I read as much fundamentalist literature as I could find and of course One of the things I noticed right away was that there wasn't a whole lot of serious fundamentalist literature to read if You wanted to learn doctrine the place to go was not to the fundamentalist movement, and I thought that was strange.

Here's a movement whose very name suggests that they're concerned with fundamental doctrine. And yet that wasn't what any of their writings focused on. I came to Christ without any sort of evangelical or fundamentalist background and So I I studied at Moody Bible Institute.

It was the only evangelical school. I'd ever heard of. I knew it had a good reputation. I went there. I got my diploma from Moody in 1975 and after that I needed one more year of college liberal arts credits.

Which you couldn't get at Moody in order to complete my bachelor's degree and so having read all this Fundamentalist literature and and being somewhat sympathetic to the aims of the fundamentalist movement.

I decided to go to a fundamentalist school for the 1975 76 school year and that one year in a fundamentalist school convinced me that American fundamentalism as a movement was already seriously and perhaps irretrievably off the rails.

The movement was obviously in serious trouble. Doctrinally spiritually and morally. That was 30 years ago. But even then the fundamentalist movement was dominated by personality cults easy believism man-centered doctrine and an unbiblical pragmatism in their methodology with the altar calls of the bus ministries and all of that stuff aimed at manipulating people a Carnal kind of superficiality in their worship petty bickering at the highest levels of leadership deliberate anti-intellectualism even in their so-called institutions of higher learning and Moral rot no matter where you looked in the movement.

It seemed to me that the fundamentalist movement was doomed and in fact by the 1970s American fundamentalism had already ceased to be a Theological movement and it had morphed into a kind of cultural phenomenon a bizarre and ingrown subculture all its own whose public face more often than not seemed overtly hostile to everyone outside its boundaries and frankly, I thought that sort of fundamentalism deserved to die and I knew eventually it would because the most prominent hallmark of the visible fundamentalist movement was that its leaders loved to fight so much that they would bite and devour one another and proliferate controversies even among themselves Over issues that no one who thought rationally would ever try to argue.

Fundamentalism’s Fragmentation and Loss of Doctrinal Focus

These are essential Things as far as the truth of the gospel is concerned. They argued over non-fundamental issues not fundamental ones. And in fact about the time I started subscribing to the sword of the Lord John R. Rice got crosswise with Bob Jones jr. Over something and Exactly where their differences lay was never really very clear to me.

But for a couple of years or so John Rice refused to carry any advertising for Bob Jones University in his newspaper. And that war was going on when I first encountered the fundamentalist movement. And so the first things I read about Bob Jones were critical.

I thought he was one of the bad guys because John Rice said so and these two men both of whom Wanted to be seen as the dominant voice in the fundamentalist movement were publicly at odds with one another.

My strong feeling even then was that if Fundamentalists allowed their movement to continue in that direction They would soon be so fragmented that it would be impossible to speak of fundamentalism as a single coherent movement.

That is exactly what happened. And It happened sooner than I anticipated. When John Rice died in 1980 there was a war among his followers about who would become his successor and who would take his place as the de facto spokesperson and figurehead at the helm of the fundamentalist movement.

25 years later now There is still no clear successor to John R. Rice as the leading figure of the fundamentalist movement. And today's fundamentalists are more fragmented than ever. There are no clear leaders in the movement who are recognized and affirmed as leaders by the movement as a whole.

Fundamentalists are not moving together in any clear-cut direction. The fundamentalist movement is virtually dead. Now I realize that The fundamentalist movement has been declared dead many times before beginning with the aftermath of the scopes trial and as early as 1925 and in the 1950s after fundamentalists failed to recapture a single one of the mainline denominations from the liberals and the Fundamentalists responded by abandoning the denominations.

Lots of people in those days were declaring the fundamentalist movement dead again and So a true Fundamentalist who is aware of the history of his movement is not likely to be shaken by my declaration that their movement is practically dead because historically dry fundamentalist bones do have a way of coming to life and That's why every diehard fundamentalist will probably tell you that my obituary for their movement is premature.

But it is clear that the more serious minded and reflective Fundamentalists these days are concerned about the future of their movement. Read the fundamentalist chatter on the internet and you will see that in just the past month or so a large volume of fundamentalist bandwidth online has been devoted to a discussion about what Fundamentalists can do to keep their brightest young minds from abandoning the movement.

In fact look for the transcript of an address That was given by dr. Kevin Bowder to the American Association of Christian Colleges and Seminaries. That's a fundamentalist group and dr. Bowder is president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis which is a fundamentalist seminary and his message, which frankly I think is brilliant is a Encouraging and perceptive analysis of what's wrong with fundamentalism.

From a thoughtful and articulate fundamentalist who loves the movement and wants to see it back on track. My perspective is only slightly different. I think he's right in his analysis of the problems.

But I speak as someone who loves historic fundamental principles. But who hates what the American fundamentalist movement became in the second half of the 20th century and I have no sentimental sectarian or party attachment to the movement.

And in fact, it seems to me that any movement that could lionize someone like Jack Hiles and produce hundreds maybe thousands of Hiles clones while deliberately exaggerating petty disagreements in order to portray almost every Conservative evangelical outside the fundamentalist movement as a dangerous heretic a movement like that really needs to die.

And it would be my hope that whatever takes its place Would be less superficial more sober-minded. More doctrinally sound more faithful to Scripture than the party that always dutifully agreed with John R. Rice When he insisted he was a great scholar.

The new movement needs to be ruled by truth not by petty tyrants. It should be guided by biblical principles not by big personalities. It has to be motivated by a passion to see Christ's kingdom expand not driven by someone's desire to build a personal empire.

It has to remain committed to separation from those who deny essential gospel truths. But it also has to be equally committed to spiritual unity and brotherly kindness. Among those who affirm the essential truths of the gospel.

Above all it has to keep its focus on doctrines that are truly fundamental and not get sidetracked all the time over secondary issues petty preferences man-made rules foolish questions and Useless contentions over matters that are unprofitable in vain after all Scripture commands us to be that way.

Defining Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism

Now let me be clear I am not arguing that it's inherently wrong to be militant and In fact, I'd like to see a new movement That is no less willing to fight than Charles Spurgeon and the rest of our fundamentalist forefathers were.

We need some fights today, there are some doctrines under attack that we need to fight to defend. But let's make sure that our militancy is genuinely motivated as Spurgeons was by a love for the gospel and a passion for truth not by a perverse enjoyment of controversy for controversies sake.

Now I've already hinted at some of the reasons. I think the 20th century fundamentalist movement failed so spectacularly. I want to explore some of those things in a little more detail. And let me start by doing what I promised at the outset.

I want to give you two definitions. So that you'll know Exactly how I'm employing these terms. The terms I want to define for you are fundamentalism and evangelicalism. We sometimes speak of the Evangelical movement in contrast to the fundamentalist movement.

A lot of people therefore use those terms. Fundamentalism and evangelicalism as if they were virtually opposites. Historically though they have a lot in common the word Evangelical came into widespread usage at the time of the Protestant Reformation.

It's an old word and a good word. William Tyndale used that expression evangelical truth as a synonym for the gospel itself. An Evangelical then would be someone who affirms the essence of the gospel and in the historic sense The term is a Protestant term.

It describes those who see divine grace rather than good works as the whole basis of salvation as a matter of fact according to the Oxford English Dictionary Evangelicalism is defined this way. Here's how the Oxford English Dictionary gives it.

It's that school of Protestants which maintains that the essence of the gospel consists in the doctrine of salvation by faith in the atoning death of Christ and Denies that either good works or the sacraments have any saving efficacy.

That's a pretty good definition from a secular dictionary, isn't it? It's a good definition as far as it goes, but it does leave out one vitally important aspect of historic evangelicalism. Early in the Protestant Reformation a Heresy known as socinianism arose.

The socinians questioned the authority of Scripture. They doubted all the miraculous elements of Scripture. They rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. In other words, they were proto-liberals and as their heresy spread the term Evangelical was often used to contrast mainstream Bible believing Protestants from the socinians and So the term evangelical in effect Came to describe those who affirm both the formal and material principles of the Reformation in other words the two principles sola scriptura or the authority and sufficiency of Scripture alone and Sola fide or the doctrine of justification by faith those two principles Sola scriptura sola fide were essentially what defines an evangelical someone who holds to sola fide sola scriptura and by the way in the Historical sense of the word there is no such thing as an evangelical Roman Catholic because Roman Catholics deny both sola fide and sola scriptura.

Historic evangelicalism was a distinctly Protestant movement. You call someone Evangelical you were saying he's a Protestant. You could define an Evangelical simply as a Bible believing Protestant someone who affirms both sola scriptura sola fide.

Now that's what I mean by evangelicalism that is historic evangelicalism. That's the principles of evangelicalism. So what is fundamentalism? That's a fairly new term the word fundamentalist was coined by Curtis Lee laws in 1920 in an editorial that he wrote for the Watchman Examiner, and he proposed that the movement of men who opposed liberalism in the northern Baptist Denomination needed a name.

There was a group of men among the northern Baptists who opposed liberalism defended the truth of Scripture. He said they need a name and he explained why he didn't think it was sufficient just to label them conservatives.

And then he said this and I'm quoting he said we suggest that those who still cling to the great Fundamentals and who mean to do battle royal for the fundamentals shall be called fundamentalists. That's where the name began that's where the movement really gelled and noticed that two elements are expressly stated in that definition.

A Fundamentalist was someone who not only affirmed the essential truths of the gospel. In other words, he was an evangelical but he also was willing to fight for those truths and So there was a strong tone of militancy built right into the definition of fundamentalism from the very beginning.

Fundamentalists were by definition men who meant to do battle royal for the fundamentals. Now historically it didn't quite become perfectly clear what was implied by the expression battle royal until about the 1940s and 1950s when Fundamentalists began as I said to abandon the mainline denominations that had proved incorrigible in their liberalism and their apostasy and at that time the True-and-committed fundamentalists began to leave the denominations.

They couldn't fellowship any longer with organizations whose leadership were committed to opposing the authority of Scripture. But there was another group of men conservatives who were unwilling to separate from the liberal denominations and they Invariably obviously had to tone down their militancy and find ways to accommodate the drift of their liberal denominations and in other words in effect They gave up the battle and therefore they ceased being true fundamentalists.

That's how Ecclesiastical separation became the third pillar of fundamentalism and it's really the defining mark of fundamentalism. A true fundamentalist was someone who affirmed the essential truths of the gospel who was militant in his defense of those truths and who Would formally break fellowship with anyone who persisted in denying the fundamental doctrines.

Now, let me say what I said earlier according to that definition. I am a committed lifelong fundamentalist. So are many if not most of you I would imagine even if like me you've never technically been part of any group or church that wears a Formal imprimatur from Greenville, South Carolina or Pensacola, Florida or Murfreesboro, Tennessee or Hammond, Indiana?

Let me also point out that every true Fundamentalist is also an evangelical in the historic sense of the word. That's built right into the definition. It's impossible to be a fundamentalist without being also an evangelical, but it is possible to be an evangelical without being a fundamentalist in Fact George Marsden who's written quite a lot Chronicling the history of fundamentalism and all says this it started one of his books.

He says a fundamentalist is an evangelical who is angry about something I suppose that's close. Actually, I think there's even a grain of truth in it. But if you want to be more serious and less derisive It would be more accurate to say that a fundamentalist is an evangelical who is willing to contend earnestly for the faith.

And not willing to fellowship with someone who denies the faith. In other words I'm saying I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea of fundamentalism. When you distill the objectives and the distinctives of historic fundamentalism.

In its essence, it's perfectly biblical. But there is something seriously wrong with what most of the American fundamentalist movement has become. Now I recognize the modern limitations of the word Fundamentalism that's why I've tried to be careful and define this in the late 1970s when?

Islamic ayatollahs took political control in Iran this word Fundamentalism was hijacked by the secular media and turned into a synonym for the worst kinds of violent religious fanaticism. So that Islamic terrorists today are always called fundamentalists.

And we lost the word now. I suppose it was no great loss because by then the term Fundamentalism had already been pretty badly corrupted by some self-styled fundamentalists in America mostly Baptist ayatollahs.

Who had already moved pretty far away from the spiritual principles and even the clear doctrinal position of their historic? Fundamentalist ancestors and so the term was beginning to lose its significance and its usefulness anyway.

Likewise the word evangelicalism has come to mean something quite different from what the word meant. Historically and you have to you have to make a distinction between the idea of evangelicalism and the evangelical movement and Thanks to a little help from Christianity today magazine The evangelical movement has become so broad and so inclusive that the word Evangelical is now at least as useless as the word fundamentalism.

But nonetheless for the purposes of this seminar today I'm trying to employ the historic meanings of those terms evangelical and fundamentalist and If I use those expressions in any other sense, I'll try very hard to make my meaning clear.

But for example, here's what I mean if I use the expressions Fundamentalism or Evangelicalism without any kind of modifier you can assume that I'm using those terms in their historic sense. I'm talking about historic fundamentalism and historic evangelicalism the principles of those movements.

If I speak of the fundamentalist movement or the evangelical movement I'm probably speaking of those 20th century movements the way they were corrupted in American evangelicalism and fundamentalism and It's my contention that in the second half of the 20th century the mainstream of the evangelical movement abandoned historic Evangelicalism and the mainstream of the fundamentalist movement likewise abandoned historic fundamentalism so bear that in mind and By the way, I am NOT going to suggest to you that the evangelical movement has in any way succeeded where the fundamentalists failed.

It would be my assessment that the evangelical movement has if anything Melted down in an even more catastrophic way than the fundamentalist movement. It maybe isn't as obvious yet because the broad evangelical movement has so many thriving Megachurches all dutifully buying books for their 40 days of purpose and all eagerly awaiting the next evangelical fad.

But most of those churches are not any longer truly evangelical in any meaningful sense most of them have no discernible doctrinal position and In fact as the erstwhile fundamentalist researcher Elmer Towns pointed out a few years ago What defines them is their methodology not their theology?

Which is to say they are not really true evangelicals in any historic sense. And the evangelical movement in America is as dead as a doornail. Spiritually, it's just not obvious right now because so many people who call themselves Evangelical are so busy jumping on and off bandwagons.

That was the point of my seminar yesterday. And in many ways these two seminars go together. Perfectly and they explain why I think there's a desperate need for a new kind of movement or better a new reformation a True revival.

The Three Causes of Fundamentalism’s Failure

But my subject in this hour is the failure of fundamentalism. And I want to give you three reasons why I believe the fundamentalist movement of the 20th century went off track in such a serious and catastrophic way and For convenience sake and since most of you are preachers. I've alliterated these.

You can take them all three down now if you're fast enough. But leave some room on your page to fill in the details between the points. First fundamentalism failed because of a lack of definition a lack of definition.

Second it failed because of a lack of doctrinal clarity a lack of doctrinal clarity and Third it failed because of a lack of due process. The lack of due process and I'll explain what I mean by each of those and I'll repeat them Distinctly a point at a time as we work our way through what I have to say.

The Lack of Definition

First of all Fundamentalism failed because of a lack of definition. And I'm convinced that the ultimate failure of the fundamentalist movement Was guaranteed from its very inception because the original fundamentalists Didn't do enough to make sure that there was widespread Understanding and agreement about which doctrines are truly fundamental.

Now, of course virtually all Evangelicals agreed that certain doctrines were fundamental like the deity of Christ and the authority and inspiration of Scripture. But what about the doctrine of eternal punishment?

Or the doctrine of total depravity. Are those fundamental also? How many vital doctrines are there? How many fundamentals are there? Is it just five? I don't think so. Neither did any of the original fundamentalists think it was just five.

I'll show you that in a moment. But how many are there and is it possible to make a complete list? By the way, I'm not gonna answer that question in detail, but I would say my answer to that question would be no.

I don't think it's possible to make a complete list because the devil keeps coming up with new heresies that showed truths that are fundamental. Nobody a hundred years ago would have would have said that the doctrine of divine foreknowledge is fundamental.

I mean we would have said that but nobody challenged the idea these days with open theism you'd have to list the doctrine of divine foreknowledge in your list of fundamentals because it's Obvious that open theism actually introduces a God that is not the God of the Bible and it's not true Christianity.

So you have to keep adding to the fundamentals. That's one of the problems. But how do you tell what's fundamental? How who makes this determination that yes, this is a fundamental doctrine those questions were never carefully and thoroughly and thoughtfully addressed as far as I have ever been able to ascertain in Any of the vital literature of early fundamentalism?

There was general agreement that some doctrines are primary and some are secondary and at least five of the fundamentals were Generally agreed upon because they were the focus of debate Between fundamentalists and modernists in the Presbyterian denominations from the very beginning of the war with modernism even back in the 1800s but the hard work of Explaining clearly from Scripture how to determine whether an article of faith is essential or not was for the most part left undone and There was very little clarity in the distinctions that were made between primary and secondary doctrines and frankly Unless we first agree on the question of how to decide which doctrines are fundamental at the end of the day It means very little to say that we cling to the great fundamentals.

Because I think even some of the open theists would make try to make that claim. Now, here's how all of that came about the debate between modernists and evangelicals First began to focus on the question of essential doctrine.

Right at the end of the 19th century in 1982 the General Assembly of the Northern Presbyterian Church met for the first time ever west of the Rockies in Portland, Oregon and There they passed a resolution which was known as the Portland deliverance Which affirmed that the inspired word as it came from God is without error.

It was an explicit affirmation of biblical inerrancy and they also said that ministers who had changed their belief on that point Should withdraw from the ministry in essence. They were saying that inerrancy is a fundamental doctrine.

So inerrancy was the first fundamental ever really identified as such by the by the fundamentalist movement. No one realized it yet, but fundamentalism as a movement was beginning to take shape already.

But unfortunately the language of the Portland deliverance proved too weak and it wasn't detailed enough and most of the modernists were already Systematically attacking other doctrines besides biblical inerrancy and their quest to undermine people's faith in Scripture the modernist juggernaut continued to overtake this denomination and by the early 1900s the the New York Presbytery was ordaining candidates for ministry who just flatly refused to affirm the doctrine of Christ's virgin birth and So in 1910 the General Assembly passed another resolution Known as the doctrinal deliverance of 1910 also known as the five-point deliverance.

And it was the one that first listed five doctrines as essential. They are the same five fundamentals I listed for you earlier the inspiration and authority of Scripture the virgin birth the doctrine of penal substitution the bodily resurrection and the literal reality of biblical miracles.

Each of those five points in the resolution began with these words It is an essential doctrine of the Word of God and our standards. And then they would spell out the thing and after listing the five fundamentals the resolution said this these five articles of the faith are essential and Necessary and then it added this very important line.

Others are equally so and so the resolution Explicitly recognized that those five fundamental doctrines did not exhaust the list of essential truths. But nevertheless those five doctrines were where the Liberals had aimed their original attack and they continued to be the focus of intense battle for at least 20 years or more and.

So those same five doctrines were reaffirmed in a series of statements by various Presbyterian synods and General Assemblies over the next two decades and they became popularly known as the five fundamentals and to this day.

There are many people who mistakenly believe that Fundamentalism was based on five fundamental doctrines and no more. In fact, Chuck Colson is apparently one who holds that opinion if you read his book the body.

He says the five fundamentals are the backbone of Orthodox Christianity. And then he says this if a fundamentalist is a person who affirms these five truths. Then there are fundamentalists in every denomination.

Catholic Presbyterian Baptist Brethren Methodist Episcopal knows he starts with the Catholics and He says this everyone who believes in the Orthodox truths about Jesus in short every Christian is a fundamentalist.

Unquote. Now, that's frankly a pretty naive view of the history of fundamentalism. The Presbyterian five-point deliverance of 1910 was merely the opening salvo in a long discussion about fundamental doctrines.

In that same year 1910 saw the publication of the first articles in a 12 volume series known as the fundamentals and It was a catalog of about 90 articles by some 64 different authors. Defending a wide range of evangelical truths that were under modernist attack the articles were published in 12 paperback books over five years time and Distributed free of charge to pastors thousands of pastors under the sponsorship of a couple of California oil tycoons Lyman Stewart who helped found Biola back when it was known as the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and His brother Milton Stewart who was the other donor who helped to fund the publication of these books the fundamentals.

And those who contributed articles to the series are kind of a who's who of conservative evangelicals from the turn of the century. There was BB Warfield, sir, Robert Anderson James or G Campbell Morgan CI Schofield RA Tory and many others and They didn't limit their subject matter to the five doctrines named in the Presbyterian deliverance of 1910 but they also treated as fundamental doctrines such things as the literal bodily return of Christ the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit the personality of Satan the doctrines of sin and judgment and the doctrine of justification by faith and so.

Five years after the completion of the fundamentals in 1920 when Curtis Lee laws first coined the term fundamentalism a Considerable amount of literature on the fundamentals was already available and most of the founders of the movement Therefore seemed to think that the fundamental doctrines of evangelical truth had been pretty clearly defined and agreed upon already.

Justification by Faith and Doctrinal Neglect

Now I mentioned that the doctrine of justification by faith was one of the featured doctrines in the fundamentals. But I also need to say that justification by faith was hardly given the weight such a crucial doctrine deserves.

I said this yesterday in my seminar. This was the doctrine that Luther and Calvin both regarded as the most essential truth of the gospel. Luther said it was the article by which the church stands or falls.

Calvin said it was the principal hinge of all religion. But in the twelve volumes of the fundamentals the doctrine of justification was dealt with briefly in one short article six pages long by Handley mool an Anglican bishop and.

And Meanwhile, there were several chapters on science in the Bible including one by James or in which he insisted That no violence is done to the text of Genesis if you regard the days of of creation as long eons.

Which obviously today no one would consider very fundamentalist. And if you read all twelve volumes of the fundamentals, you will discover that the doctrine of original sin which has always been regarded by Catholics and Protestants alike as Absolutely essential to authentic Christianity that doctrine wasn't even dealt with at all.

Now perhaps those deficiencies are partly understandable given the historical context after all justification by faith and the Imputation of Adam's sin weren't at that moment under such direct attack by the modernists the way the inerrancy of Scripture was.

But those omissions and the misplaced priorities Soon had a noticeable effect in the fundamentalist movement. Very soon. They had an effect because no less than Billy Sunday the quintessential Fundamentalist evangelist of the early 20th century was wobbly on the doctrine of original sin.

He was fuzzy on the doctrine of justification by faith and the wider fundamentalist movement throughout the 20th century Proved to be vulnerable to various kinds of pietism perfectionism Neonomianism and the antinomianism of the no lordship movement.

The fundamentalist movement swallowed all of those errors the historic principle of soul of feed a Justification by faith as the Reformers and Protestant leaders through the end of the 19th century. Understood it was hardly given any attention at all in the preaching and the writing that was spun out by the fundamentalist movement in the 20th century.