Two Cheers for Fundamentalism

“So, you’re basically a—what do they call it?—a Bible-thumping fundamentalist, right?”

That’s what a student on a secular university campus where I’d been teaching a course one semester asked. He was an agnostic but wouldn’t have thought of himself that way, simply because he’d grown up in such a thoroughly secular environment. He wouldn’t have given religion enough thought to think of himself as a “non-believer,” since he almost never encountered an actual believer.

He had asked a series of questions to find that I believed the miracles and the Resurrection were literal truths in space and time, that the Bible was wholly inspired and inerrant, that heaven and hell are real and that explicit faith in Christ is the only way to find the one and escape the other, and that marriage is a one-flesh covenant, and sex outside of it is wrong.

The student stopped and said, “Wait. Are those words offensive?”

I said, “Are you kidding? After seven years of being called a cultural Marxist for believing character matters and that racial injustice is wrong, I have never felt more seen.” A Bible-thumping fundamentalist—at least as he meant it—that’s exactly what I am.

Now, this context is one of the few in which I would use the word fundamentalist for myself. Like the word evangelical, though, the word no longer conveys what this secularist student meant. It used to mean someone who believed in the “fundamentals” of the faith: the historicity of the biblical accounts, the Virgin Birth, the substitutionary Atonement, the bodily Resurrection, a visible and physical Second Coming, etc. By that definition, Billy Graham—the founder of Christianity Today—and all of those involved with the post-war evangelical movement were fundamentalists. And so am I.

In fact, in the old days of what was seen as a two-party system in the American church—of fundamentalists and modernists—the so-called fundamentalist party was broad enough to include hyper-creedal Presbyterians such as J. Gresham Machen, fiery revivalists such as D. L. Moody, experiential Baptists such as E. Y. Mullins, along with tongues-speaking Pentecostals and “deeper life” enthusiasts.

The problem with fundamentalism was that it came to not be about the fundamentals at all, but about an ever-narrowing sect based on grievance more than hope, quarrels more than cooperation. It came to be defined more and more by “secondary separation” from those who didn’t see everything the same way.

The renewal movement that came out of all of that, which came to be known as “evangelical,” struck out on a different path—though not a new path—back toward respecting what the creeds and confessions defined as essential for cooperation with conviction. This included biblical authority, the necessity of new birth, the reality of the supernatural and of sin, and the dual destinies of heaven or hell. When one knows what is fundamental, one is able, then, to work across differences on those things that we agree are important but are not of the essence of what it means to be a gospel Christian.

One of the fundamentals is the resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus, who tells us to listen for “what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 3:13). If we are really listening for his voice, the result will be a changed and transformed people.

Listening is the theme of CT’s annual Week of Giving, an important week for the ministry as we remember our first issue in October of 1956. Will you join us at CT so that, together, we can listen to the Spirit? What these divisive times need more than anything is to hear a Galilean accent saying, “Come and see.”

This week only, your gift will be doubled—thanks to generous ministry partners.

By giving today, you’re not only joining a community of believers who want to advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ, you’re helping us to build such a community together.

DOUBLE YOUR GIFT

Remember to send any of your questions or comments to questions@russellmoore.com, along with your Desert Island Bookshelf (please include photo) or your Desert Island Playlist. I’m grateful for all of you.

Onward,
Russell Moore