I must follow, if I can: I am a Fundamentalist

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February 19, 2007

I am a Fundamentalist

I am a fundamentalist. Do you still love me?

Now, before you freak out, please understand what this means, not in terms of the "hot-button" association this word has with bigotry and intolerance. By definition, Fundamentalists believe:

1. In the infallibility of Scripture. By infallibility, we mean that it is the Word of God, and you can count on it. The literary consistency and reliability of the Bible as a document is so far beyond any other document ever in existance, so it's not only a legitimate document, but the words are actually from God. It was men who penned the letters on the page using ink and papyrus, but they were directly inspired by the Holy Spirit while they were writing, in a way that no other writer has ever been inspired since. When the canon of Scripture was closed, the Holy Spirit didn't stop inspiring people, but no writer after that ever had the authority of saying his words were God's. (Contrast this to the supposed "infallibilty" of the popes in Catholic dogma, when we all know they are sinful men who cannot be trusted.)

2. We believe in the diety of Christ and his virgin birth. This means that Jesus is God. Not just a hippie peasant with product in his hair who was really nice and said some cool stuff and taught that we should all be nice, too. Yes, Jesus was a man as well. He was both God and man. But he set his godhood aside while he became incarnate and "took the form of a servant". Closely linked to this is the doctrine of the Trinity, that God is at one time Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that these are three distinct persons yet one God at the same time. Unlike all men since Adam, he didn't have a sinful nature. Mary was a virgin. Jesus' father was God, not Joseph. The doctrine of Original Sin and its cancellation through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for our sins require both the diety of Christ and the virgin birth. If you don't believe this, you don't have Jesus.

3. When Jesus died on the cross, it wasn't just because everybody hated him and wanted him dead for his "revolutionary" teachings. His death was the point of his incarnation. He died for your sins. This is what we call the "substitutionary atonement" of his death on the cross. The Jewish Law demanded sacrifice for sins, but once you made your sacrifice and left the temple, you naturally went out and started sinning again, due to your sinful nature, thanks to great-great-[...]great-grandfather Adam. The prophets and the psalmists saw the futility in this, that even if you could do one bull or goat for every sin you committed, it's going to require a lot of blood, and you might eventually run out of bulls and goats. "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten-thousands of rivers of oil?" (Micah 6:7a, ESV) No, he will not. The point is whole-hearted obedience and devotion, and we are incabable of that on our own, due to Original Sin, and sacrifices cannot help in that regards. "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4, ESV) So God ordained to send His Son into the world as a sacrifice for our sins. Because Jesus was so infinitely perfect, his one sacrifice was sufficient for all. "...when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10: 12-14, ESV).

4. We believe in his literal resurrection from the dead. This is not all there is. There is life after death, and some people are going to heaven, and some people are going to hell. Forever.

5. We believe in his literal return at the Second Coming. This is not all there is. He's coming back, and he's going to be angry with some people. Revelation says he will be on a white horse, wearing a blood-spattered robe, with a double-edged sword coming out of his mouth, and tattoos on his leg. And he's going to be "trampling down the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored". The subsequent verses in Revelation 19 carry a very graphic portrayal of the feast that there will be for the carrion vultures due to all the enemies of God being slain. Try to reconcile this with your Swedish hippie Jesus. The Jesus of the Gospels is the same as the Jesus of Revelation, and you need to know him both as incarnate and exalted.

I have a lot of friends who are part of a church where these truths have always been affirmed. But a subordinate ministry of this church that's geared towards young adults is now taking part in "conversations" using source material in which these truths are no longer affirmed. Heretical teachings are being promoted, which come from authors who may say that they personally agree with the doctrines of the Trinity and the Virgin Birth, but they do not consider these doctrines as necessary, merely as helpful. Like a trampoline where you can remove one or two springs from around the edge, but the thing will still work. My friends are promoting books by authors who do not believe in the infallibility of scripture, who teach that truth is relative and that you can pick and choose what you like, and that the Bible is "open-ended", more of a narrative rather than timeless truth. Who teach the Pelagian heresy that you have the power to follow God's commands in and of yourself, without the need for grace. If my friends believe the things that are said in this book, then they have stopped being Fundamentalists. And this makes me very sad. This is a church that tries to be a "middle-road" church. Recently this church kicked out all the Calvinists and removed all books by Calvinist authors from their bookstore, because of this middle-roadedness. I will be curious to see what they do with this. The Pelagian-sounding teachings of the books these guys are reading are so much further off course on the other side.

Have you heard the Johnny Cash song, "God's Gonna Cut You Down?" Please, return to the height from which you have fallen, before it's too late. I love you.

Posted by aaronlord at February 19, 2007 04:33 PM

Comments

Thank you, Aaaron, for the post, it got me thinking.

Athough I agree with all of the definitions you cited about Fundamentalism, I have a few, "but what about this?", questions.

Looking *beyond* the exact words written by these gentlemen about this loving rebel named Jesus, I try to find what His words and actions say about His character. What kind of person was He? What list of adjectives would you find after His name?

In this light, I pose these questions:

1. Infallibility of Scripture. I agree. There's a lot written to support this (one example is The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel). I do think we need to be careful in the literal application, though. The Gospels were written by Jewish men in first century Israel. The language they used--words and metaphors--were from this perspective. (Reading only a male pronoun could give a person the idea that Jesus was only talking about men. We both know that Jesus 100% was *not* sexist.)

2. Diety of Christ and His virgin birth. Personally, I believe this without question. This stand of faith does not emanate from me, however, it's from God (see Matthew 16:17).

You stated, "If you don't believe this, you don't have Jesus". But, if you don't have Jesus, how can you believe this? :)

It's one of them beautiful paradoxes (paradoxi?) that, to me, usually means Jesus is involved. :)

3. Jesus died on the cross. Again, I think you're right on. I think sometimes humans think too much, think themselves right out of faith. I had a theology professor some time back who taught the concepts of High Christology (belief that Jesus was God before birth, existed with God and as God for all eternity) and Low Christology (Jesus was born human and, Lucky Duck, was the only one to live a sinnless life, so God *promoted him* to the Trinity). In his years of teaching, this professor went from very High Christological beliefs to Low. [I remember him wondering out loud where Jesus' Y chromosome could have come from. I remember thinking, "Duh! Jesus *invented* chromosomes!".]

4. Literal resurrection of the dead. I'm cool with this, but a muse I can not answer is *What about those peeps who never heard of Him?* Or those that didn't get the correct information, or a fair shot? How can you pick the correct product if the description is written in a foreign language?

5. What do you think of the rapture? Pre-Tribulation, Mid-Tribulation, Post-Tribulation? When I ponder that Jesus reminds me of Revelation 3:10: "Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you *from* the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth". The word *from* in the original Greek is *ek*, which means *out of*. Maranatha!

Hippie Jesus *Swedish*. Why Swedish? :)

One thing I've learned while living on this planet is that--right now--everyone is human. So anything a human (be he pastor of a big screen church) does is human.

This new biz the church is spewing sounds all soft and fluffy and new age religion. Am I remembering right that in the end times there'll be a world wide religion? That it'll be so appealing that even those humans who know the Real Deal (read Christians) will be tempted to believe it? And what's more appealing than to say God's not *out there somewhere*, but *you are in God*--and if you're in God, you might as well say you are God? [Have you heard of the Secret? It was on Oprah the other week.]

Wow!, this was way super much fun. Thanks for helping me to think. :)

I really am interested in your response, Aaron, so please do. Familyofluce@yahoo.com

Sincerely,
Lori

Posted by: lilly at February 25, 2007 09:37 AM

Greetings on this beautiful spring evening:

I've been thinking about Jesus' coming back to the planet. I'm curious, what is the Fundamentalist view re timing? Is it Fundamentalist to believe in the seven years of tribulation, like what John talked about in Revelation?

How 'bout the rapture (said to be indicated in Thessalonians, I believe)? If yes, when will Jesus' bride be *taken up*? Is it (the rapture)called a *Blessed Hope*?

Then here's the hmmmm... If grace is non-forfittable, will the fallen-away Christians hear the command, "Come up hither"?

I ask these questions respectfully, with the joy of talking about Jesus.

I hope to hear your response. Lori :)

BTW, you write well. Are you going to write a book?

Posted by: lilly at April 21, 2007 04:51 PM

Hi Lori,

Sorry I hadn't responded or approved your comments sooner. The server where my website is hosted has changed its email settings, so I'm not being notified when new comments are posted, and unfortunately, it means I can't send out notifications to subscribers like you either! So, I just hope you'll stumble upon this on your own.

In regards to the actual timing of the second coming of Christ, I don't think it's something that fundamentalists have to agree about. Just the fact that it's going to happen, because the Bible says it will. The Bible says no one knows the day or the hour. It also says to be prepared because he's going to come like a "thief in the night". He could come back this very second. Or he could tarry for another few thousand years (we'll have to colonize Mars if that's the case). I was raised pre-trib. But some of my friends are going a-millennial. Personally, I just want to be prepared for anything. I don't want to be so caught up in the idea of a pre-trib rapture that I lose my faith at the guillotine, you know?

Posted by: Aaron Lord at April 28, 2007 07:59 PM