Category: My Journey

My story in regards to fundamentalism, and any reflections or personal ruminations along the way

A Fundamentalist Self-Critique

~ Bob Hayton ~ 3 Comments

The last few years have seen the world wide web do a number on fundamentalism. I speak particularly of the independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement, and the influence of blogs like Sharper Iron (SI).

Jason Janz, SI’s founder, published his young fundamentalist survey, and soon thereafter Phil Johnson (of Pyromaniac fame), delivered his speech “Dead Right: The Failure of Fundamentalism“. A maelstrom of web action, interaction and reaction ensued which has yet to calm down. The fundamentalist blogosphere has been a place for theological critique and development, and has been the occasion for a slow exodus from the IFB movement.

Some, like myself, left the IFB from other considerations. Others were awoken to errors in extreme fundamentalism (IFBx) through the web. For all, the availability of conservative evangelical materials produced by John Piper and John MacArthur and others, has given a greater intellectual freedom to many as they can see what life outside IFB (or IFBx) halls looks like.

With the winds of change blowing strong, and with the emergent movement and other bleak theological developments on the horizon, many a fundamentalist leader and institution has taken a skeptical view of the web and of Sharper Iron and other fundamentalist blogs. This should not be surprising.

The reactions have not all been so stick-in-the-mud-like, however. Many fundamentalist leaders are jumping into the fray and being honest and open about the problems they see. Leaders like Dr. Dave Doran and Dr. Kevin Bauder and other contributors at Sharper Iron, give hope to fundamentalism as a willingness to change is displayed. The idea and merits of fundamentalism are being clearly put forth, and many a young man stays within the IFB ship hoping to play a part in righting it and seeing fundamentalism play a part in helping wider evangelicalism see the errors of its way (and there are many).

Now that I’ve brought you up to speed, let me encourage you to read this fundamentalist self-critique by Kevin Bauder. He has just started a series that will detail a history and critical examination of fundamentalism. His posts come first as essays in his online publication In the Nick of Time, from Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis. Then they are showcased at Sharper Iron. Andy Naselli tipped me off to the article being available, and I’m sure this week SI will be publishing it there. You can read it now here (pdf). [Update: here’s the link for the article on SI]. Let me add an excerpt or two from it to entice you to read the whole thing. Part 1 is also available here.

…Because they are cut off from the Christian past, fundamentalists have little sense of the extent to which they have truncated the whole counsel of God. While they rightly insist upon the necessity of confessing certain fundamentals, they have little patience for careful doctrinal exploration and articulation, even when the doctrines under consideration are fundamental. They profess to love the Bible as an object, but even in the better neighborhoods of fundamentalism it is not difficult to find people who despise the attempt to understand biblical teaching in any depth.

Fundamentalists are all about defending the faith. Too often, however, all that they are willing to defend is a truncated faith of slogans and clichés. Even the most important areas of doctrine are reduced to rather pat formulae. Non-fundamental areas of the faith may be left completely unexplored.

Comparing Fundamentalist faith and practice to the faith and practice of historic Christianity is like comparing a hamburger to a filet mignon. The two obviously have something in common, but it would be misleading to say that everything in the steak is also in the hamburger.

Kirsopp Lake said that Fundamentalism is the “partial . . . survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians.” To the extent that he is correct, Fundamentalists should probably be a little less enthralled with his description. And I think that he is right.

Minnesota Religious Bloggers

~ fundyreformed ~ 4 Comments

Desiring God’s blog, with 21,000+ subscribers may be the most popular Minnesota religious blog. Tony Jones’ emergent blog is showcased on belief.net. But in an article on Minnesota religious blogging published today at MinnPost.com, it is yours truly who heads the list of Minnesota religious bloggers!

Since blogging is inherently narcissistic, I guess no one is surprised that I’m tooting my own horn right now! 😉

Seriously, the article is an interesting read, and MinnPost.com looks like an interesting mix between online journalism, blogging and a traditional newspaper format. A couple of my local blogging buddies also make honorable mention: Jamsco at The Responsible Puppet, and Shaun at Bible Geek Gone Wild.

The article does bring up a good point. Talking about faith has been enhanced through the online media. Many who are in oppressive religious groups or who are just hesitant to make their questioning or religious seeking known, find the internet very helpful in evaluating their religious beliefs. The world wide web both equips and propels one to find out what they believe and why. The one thing you can count on with respect to the web is that your opinion will be challenged — from all sides. Personally, I think that is a good thing, as Biblical Christianity can stand on its own two feet, and a well-grounded faith is a strong faith.

So all my loyal blog readers will have to go over and read the article. Be sure to leave a comment too, and say how awesome my blog is!

The Bible on Hair Care

~ fundyreformed ~ 5 Comments

No, I haven’t yet found a Biblical defense for using Pert’s Plus. I’m talking about what the Bible says about hair length.

This may be a surprise to you, but listen to what Paul says in 1 Cor. 11:14-15.

Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering.

What do we do with this teaching? In my fundamentalist upbringing, we had hair rules, and for us guys: hair check. If our hair was getting anywhere near our shirt collar or ear lobes, we would be in trouble. Demerits and/or detention would come in a hurry!

It’s easy to discount such standards as tomfoolery. Along with the head covering that 1 Cor. 11 refers to, we can easily contextualize this command as appropriate for Corinthians only. But are we doing justice to Paul’s appeal to “nature” here?

This is the question that a bunch of reforming fundamentalists and I have been addressing in one of our forum topics over at our new group site: Transformed by Grace. The discussion has avoided hard and fast extra Biblical rules, and has been quite profitable. Let me share one small quote, out of several I gave in the discussion. This is from Tom Schreiner in the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Crossway):

Paul’s point, then, is that how men and women wear their hair is a significant indication of whether they are abiding by the created order. Of course, what constitutes long hair is often debated–what is appropriately masculine or feminine in hairstyle may vary widely from culture to culture.

I agree. On this point, I concluded with the following:

I do think women’s hair should be generally long, and men’s generally short. There is some room for varying styles and cultural fashions, but I do think today many of the short, short hairstyles worn by women are both non-attractive, and not glorifying to God.

What do you think? Does the Bible deal with our hair care? What about hairstyles today, is everything neutral or a-moral? Should a Christian look to the Bible before they run to a hairdresser? Please join the discussion in the comments here, or visit the Transformed by Grace forum on the question.

One last point: the Biblical view of a distinction between the genders being reinforced by our dress is also taught in Deut. 22:5. I dealt with that passage (often misused to condemn all women who wear pants) in an earlier post.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead: My Blog under Review

~ fundyreformed ~ 6 Comments

Wow. Is January 2008 half way over already? My how time flies!

I’ve been blogging now for 2 years and 2 months (mid November 2005 was when my blogging really started in earnest). In that time this blog has seen 437 posts, over 2800 comments, and anywhere from 104,000 (Statcounter/Sitemeter) to 150,000 (WordPress‘ calculations) pageviews. (My stats start from when I switched to WordPress in July of 2006).

Blogging has definitely been fun. I’ve discovered hundreds of great blogs and been discovered by scores of like minded bloggers. I’ve received encouragement and thanks for what I do, even as I’ve occasionally been criticized or discouraged by others. Through this whole process, I’ve made online friends and I’ve explored many topics I would not have otherwise. It’s been great.

The new year provides an opportunity for me to step back and assess my blog. Some of you are wondering if I’ve really been assessing my blog since it is now mid January and my new year post has only just appeared. Truth be told, we’ve been battling 2 rounds of sickness since Jan. 1 in our house, and life has been busy. Which brings me back to my purpose.

Looking Back (2007)

2007 was a year of multiple blogging personalities for me. In April, I jumped on the Mike Huckabee bandwagon, eventually creating a tumble blog accumulating Huckabee links and videos — Go Huckabee! (On a side note, tumble blogs promise to be the best way for many of you still on the fence — Larry! — to create and maintain a blog with almost no effort. Check out this post about tumble blogs.) Then in the summer, I started a team missions blog, Kingdom Surge.

The competing blogs hindered my focus on this blog, as did daily life with 3, and now 4, kids. With sometimes serious and prolonged debates, this blog can wear me out at times. My own character flaws have also contributed, resulting in the many loose ends left unfinished around here in 2007. I started a series on The Bible and the King James Only Debate, only to get about 1/2 way thru and stop. I have only blogged through 1/5th of Piper’s What Jesus Demands of the World. And I’m not yet finished with my series blogging through my church’s confession of faith. Add to that my series on man-centered Christianity that is stuck in the middle, and my entry into the atonement debate which never actually panned out. (The debate has continued without me).

My mind has always been a haven of loose ends and a hodge podge collection of thoughts. And my blog has reflected this. The dual nature of my blog complicates things as well. On the one hand, my blog chronicles my journey out of extreme fundamentalism and spends a lot of time dealing with various positions and issues related to fundamentalism. But on the other hand, I blog about general Christian topics, Reformed themes, and (now) political ruminations — like most normal Christian blogs.

Looking Ahead (2008)

So here comes 2008 and a chance for me to do a better job blogging. To do this I’ve determined to try to focus more on my own blog’s content. I’ll continue sharing posts that I’ve read and enjoyed (check my sidebar for “My Latest Blog Finds“). And I will interact with other blogs out there from time to time. But I am purposely not going to 1) interact with every comment left on my blog, 2) follow every blog I’d like to as closely as I would really like to, and 3) get drawn into fruitless debates in other venues as often as I have in the past.

If I can restrain myself in this way, then I can try to tie up the loose ends this year. I aim also to continue fine tuning the design and user-friendliness of my blog (which means completing my “topics” page, and perhaps explaining what I think about fundamentalism better). I also hope to deal with other topics that haven’t been thoroughly addressed here but which bear on my general theme. Oh, and I’d love to do some work on my KJV Only Debate blog.

Besides continuing with my missions blog (which needs some work and focus too), I still plan on continuing to blog for fun. That means I will continue to be spontaneous, and I’m sure some people appreciate that from time to time. But in 2008 I hope to finish some unfinished business, with the possibility of gearing my blog up for a transition away from dealing with fundamentalism so much and focusing more on Reformed matters and general Christian themes.

One more note of caution. As I try to become more intentional with my blog, I may post less frequently. I can’t let my blog consume me and take me from matters I really should attend to. I must nourish my spiritual life and lead my family first, and blogging can be detrimental to this.

Before I finish, let me encourage other bloggers to assess your blogging. Be sure you are using blogs and not being used by blogs. No one will be perfect, but we can’t be afraid to focus on real life and let our virtual realities slip.

In my next post, I’m going to highlight the best and the worst of Fundamentally Reformed‘s 2007. I’ll try to be as self-serving as my first post of 2007 was, because hey, this is my blog and it’s fun to look back!

My 219 Epiphany, part 2

~ fundyreformed ~ 10 Comments

So I am picking up my story [click here for part 1] at the point when in California we were introduced to a new emphasis in teaching: Scripture assumed that certain behaviors would follow from genuine salvation. As I said before, the issue of false professions was not really explained or dealt with very much in the churches I grew up in, or even at Bible college for that matter.

1 John 2:19 was the verse the pastor pointed us to, which made everything fall into place for me. It became a key verse for me in more ways than one. The verse says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

This verse specifically deals with some false teachers (called “antichrists” by John) who eventually stopped fellowshipping with the believers John is addressing. These teachers seemed to be “of us” but they apostasized and John interprets that to indicate that they never truly had been “of us”. They never had genuine salvation. The verse becomes the “key” to interpreting all of the difficult stories one comes across with regard to salvation. So-and-so was at one time a fervent believer and really serving God, but now he denies Christ or he never darkens the door of church. John would have us assume that such a person was never truly saved. They did not lose salvation, they never really ever had salvation. This became a revelation to me. Real believers will persevere in their faith. Real believers will be the ones who are growing in their faith.

Before I go on to explain the ramifications of this, let me go to a few supporting Scriptures which concur with this interpretation of 1 John 2:19. One is from Jesus’ stern warning in Matt. 7:21-23. To those who claimed to do miracles in Jesus’ name and who called him “Lord, Lord”, Jesus says “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” It is not that Jesus at one time knew them, and then later disowned them because of their sin. No, he had never known them. Further attestation to this truth would be the promises to “overcomers” in Rev. 2 and 3. The promises are synonymous with being saved (for instance “will not be hurt by the second death” is one of the promises). And the promises are given to those who overcome, not to quitters. Along these lines the parable of the sower as interpreted in Luke 8:11-15 discusses people [rocky soil] who receive the word [seed] with joy yet only “believe[s] for a while” and later apostasize [shrivel up] due to tribulation [heat of the sun on a plant with no deep roots]. These were never truly saved. (Cf. Jn. 15:1-8).

This understanding of the nature of salvation led me to expect more from people who claimed to be saved. And for a time I became quite the fruit-inspector! I was quite judgmental and often suspected the worst of many people. This was due to some of my hyper-fundamentalist assumptions and confusions. It also led me to expect a lot from myself. (And indeed we need to “examine [our]selves, to see whether [we] are in the faith.” cf. 2 Cor. 13:5.) I came to see that many people’s salvation may well not be genuine and that God expects truly saved people to be traversing the high road.

Such an understanding led me in a time of crisis to get saved again. I had been dealing and struggling with a particular sin problem for a long time, and this struggle just didn’t jive with what I thought Scripture expected of believers. I had grasped the key, but was having trouble truly understanding and applying it. But thankfully the epiphany would only get clearer with time.

Eventually, as I started seriously evaluating Calvinism, I began to see how it fit with my understanding of 1 John 2:19. And as I began to grapple with many other verses such as Heb. 3:6; 3:12-14; 12:14; Col. 1:23; 1 Tim. 1:19; 6:12; 1 Cor. 9:27; Rom. 2:6-10; and Jude 21 among others, I began to understand the Calvinist doctrine of the “perseverance of the saints”. This doctrine teaches that true believers will persevere in their faith to the end because God is at work in them “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). God will produce good works in his children by His power (Eph. 2:10, Tit. 2:14, Phil. 1:6, 1 Cor. 15:10).

Such a doctrine is one means God uses to prod us on to faithfulness and good works. It should warn us to not presume that we will make it. Rather we must fight sin, and cling to our Savior, resting in His work as our sure hope of eternal life. This teaching causes us to continue to believe and rest in Jesus, rather than presume upon a past time when we “believed” in Jesus. It produces “believing ones” not just “believers” (people who one time in their had believed). Such a doctrine does not teach that believers will be perfect and not struggle over sin, but rather that they will fight sin and not have a care-free attitude towards sin.

Such a doctrine is consistent with the idea of eternal security that I had so emphasized as a teenager. Yet it says more. It is not just that people who are “once saved” will be “always saved”. Rather it claims that people who were “once saved” will presently be believing and growing. Unlike the doctrine of eternal security [which gets stretched by many to allow current Christ deniers and perpetual sinners a place in heaven], it calls us to not assume that due to a one time profession of faith we are absolutely “saved”. 1 Cor. 1:18 captures the true meaning of the Greek when it says “to us who are being saved”. Salvation is in a real sense a work in progress. Positionally we are justified and as good as saved. But God is at work redeeming our bodies. Truly saved people are serious about fighting the fight of faith and forsaking sin. They don’t presume upon God but rest in God’s grace.

This doctrine should not, however, be misconstrued as a works based salvation teaching. We are to be trusting in Jesus alone and only His work accomplishes any bit of good works in us. And those good works are not at all the basis upon which we are justified.

Perseverance also shouldn’t frighten us. Rather it should encourage us. If we examine ourselves and see evidences of God’s work in our lives, if we see genuine faith and love for Christ, we have every reason to expect that God is at work in us and will be faithful to enable us to persevere in our faith. 1 John teaches that genuine believers will not have a nonchalant view of sin. They will be ones who strive for fellowship with God. If we are striving, that is most likely evidence that our faith is real

This teaching should also not call us to assume the worst of everyone either. Sometimes fruit is not visible to us “fruit-inspectors”. Humans with beams in their eyes are not the best judges, and in fact they won’t be the Judge (cf. Rom. 14:4, 10). Instead we can be encouraged by evidences of grace in people’s lives. We can hope the best for people. We should lovingly confront those who persist in sin, but we should let God pass the ultimate judgments.

I am not going to be able to answer all the questions in this one post. Remember even after my epiphany, it still took me a long time to really grasp this doctrine. My post “Once Saved, Always Saved?!?!” is another attempt to deal with this doctrine, and if you have questions check that post out for further help.