This is a collection of thoughts on theology that I am forming. I hope to
add to the collection periodically and to continue to expand the different
topics included
- What are the
fundamentals and what is a fundamentalist?
- Who is Jesus
Christ?
- Why is the Bible
important?
- Did God really
create the universe?
- How does God view Divorce?
- What role does
feelings play in Christianity?
When people think of a fundamentalist, they often picture some radical militant
group that is running around protesting, attacking, and harming people. You
picture militant Muslims that are willing to kill themselves and murder others
for what they believe; or on a less extreme you might think of the group of
“fundamental Baptists” from Kansas that protests at the funerals of fallen
soldiers, claiming God killed them because the United States of America allows
homosexuality. This results in many people thinking that fundamentalist are
crazy and just generally hate people. It is becoming a sad stereotype and one
that scares many people away from wanting to call what they believe
“fundamentals.” To call it by another name, however, would not avoid the
problem, it would simply cause confusion; people would ask what you believed
and, in defining it, you would identify yourself as a fundamentalist; leaving
them wondering why you are not called such.
But if a
fundamentalist is not some crazy person killing and protesting, what are they?
In the strictest sense, they are an individual who holds to a set of fundamental
beliefs, defend those beliefs, and is willing to be a martyr for them if need
be. Saying that they are willing to be a martyr is far different from someone
who is killed for what they believe in an attempt to kill or harm others. A
fundamentalist, in other words, is someone who, when faced with the decision to
recant or be killed, chooses to be killed.
In speaking of
fundamentalists on more specific terms, I wish to define a Christian
fundamentalist. They are fundamentalists who hold to what has traditionally been
five fundamentals, though even here there seems to be some disagreement in what
they are.
1. Biblical inspiration and
inerrancy
2. The virgin birth and deity of
Christ
3. The substitutionary death of
Christ
4. The bodily resurrection of
Jesus
5. The authenticity of Christ’s
miracles or the literal return of Christ
These are the
fundamentals not only to Christianity but to the gospel (Christ’s miracles more
so than His literal return pertaining to the fifth point); that which a person
must truly accept in order to be saved (granted they may not fully understand
them at the time of their conversion, but they cannot be rejected or the gospel
which they would be claiming would not have a foundation.)
If one were to deny
the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, which many do today, where do you
draw the line? Some have tried to draw it in several places, but as soon as you
accept that one area is wrong, you create a snowball that rolls into an
avalanche, eroding the Word of God. Some have placed this line firmly and say
that, when it comes to science, the Bible is wrong. These people are often those
who wish to embrace evolution instead of a creation or intelligent design view.
Under this view, is Jesus lying when He quotes passages from the Old Testament
that discuss creation? Is He fooled, or just uninformed? It would seem that if
you accept any of these reasons you deny His deity, which is the second
fundamental.
To deny the second
fundamental in either part is to deny the truthfulness of the Bible and the
gospel that it teaches. For if Jesus was not God, then He was not sinless and
therefore not a worthy enough sacrifice to die for all of us. The same idea
could be continued through the remaining fundamentals, to dismiss any of these
is to dismiss the gospel.
Some Christian
theologians also insist that a Christian Fundamentalist must separate and refuse
to cooperate with any group that does not believe these fundamentals. And by the
very definition of a fundamentalist, which includes one that is willing to
defend and die for what they believe, it seems evident that separation must
occur. How can you really claim to defend something that you won’t stand apart
on? To not separate based on the fundamentals would be no different than to be
pro-life and yet work as the receptionist in an abortion clinic scheduling
abortions. While you can claim to be against abortion, you fail to oppose it
with each appointment you help to schedule.
Fundamentalism is
important, it is the basis of the gospel and I define myself as a
fundamentalist, but there are those in the fundamentalist movement that a friend
of mine calls, “fundies.” They are those that embrace separation in the name of
fundamentalism in ways fundamentals don’t allow. They claim that churches that
have the “wrong” kind of music should be separated from (is that a
fundamental?), they claim that churches that don’t have the appropriate word in
their name should be separated from (is that a fundamental?). “Fundies” are
those who wish to separate on a variety of topics that are in addition to the
fundamentals. It is not that some of the things that they wish to separate on
are bad, the problem is when they claim it in the name of fundamentalism. They
distort the meaning and message of fundamentalism and often give it a bad name.
I would list with the “fundies”, though not as a characterization of this group
as a whole, Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, that pickets
the funerals of soldiers and miners claiming their deaths where the judgments of
God on the USA for allowing homosexuality; they do this in the name of
“fundamentalism.” Not only is this obviously outside of Christian
fundamentalism, it gives the movement one of the biggest black eyes it has yet
to receive. Even though this specific group of “fundies” is an extreme example,
any group that chooses to stand against anything in the name of fundamentalism
that is outside of the fundamentals is attempting to redefine fundamentalism as
Fred Phelps has.
Christian
Fundamentalism is a good and important part of Christianity. Without these
fundamentals Christianity is just as empty and hopeless as any other religion.
Therefore, it is important to embrace the fundamentals and fundamentalism. It is
also important to not attempt to redefine the fundamentals by acting or reacting
to things other than the fundamentals in the name of fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism does not need more black eyes, it needs to be taught and
encouraged.
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How does God view Divorce?
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