Are Fundamentalist Baptists Also reformed?

What's your point?

 

While there are some reformed fundamentalists (Carl McIntire e.x), not all fundamentalists are reformed nor all reformed believers are fundamental.

For instance, I am reformed, but I am not a fundamentalist. Falwell was a fundamentalist but not reformed.

 

Why ask a question that already know the answer to?

 

I think I agree with Wade...

Wow, here on the BB you find you agree with people in one thread and disagree with them on another thread!

The BB brings us all together!:laugh:

 

Which famous reformed people would you say are fundamentalists?

 

No, they are still fundamentalists. :laugh:

 

I would hope that all fundamentalists are born again. You can be reformed and not born again. You can be Baptist and not born again.

 

I don't agree with that at all. Where do you get this data from that most Fundamentalists hold to a cal theology?

 

Again, to fully understand the point you are making, could you please note their names.

 

Jesusfan,

I also mention this because I believe most of the fundamentalists were not reformed. While people like McIntire existed, reformed people have generally been critical of fundamentalism. Now, we applaud their stand against modernism, but we oppose the penchant that boils down doctrine to 5-7 points, their focus on chialism, the skepticism of scholarship, and the narrowing down of doctrinal statements to bare minimums thus replacing historic confessions with short statements.

While Old Princeton, for instance, considered fundamentalists friends, they took issue with these issues.

 

Actually, Princeton in the early part of the 20th cent. did not consider fundamentalists friends, but made them leave (defrocked them), which was the start of Westminster Seminary in 1929, founded by such scholarly luminaries as Robert Dick Wilson, J. Gresham Machen, Oswald T. Allis, and Cornelius Van Til.

 

I mentioned "Old Princeton", which is commonly known as referring to those you mentioned, those who eventually left to form Westminster and their conservative predecessors (Hodge, Machen, Warfield, etc). Machen did not consider himself a fundamentalist (neither did Van Til), and he wrote and spoke about his opposition to fundamentalism sparingly, but it was evident he took exception to them. Much of what I wrote is a summary of Machen's writings on why he is not a fundamentalist. Thus, I agree with Machen and his critique of fundamentalism and hold closer to Machen's viewpoint than to the Fundamentalist viewpoint.

Thus, calling Machen and Van Til fundamentalists is innacurate. They believed themselves to be distinct from the fundamentalist movement. I agree more with both Van Til and Machen than with fundamentalists. While they considered fundamentalists friends, they also took exception to them.

 

Thank you for clarifying.

I've never considered Van Til to be a fundamentalist. I know that Machen did not like the term fundamentalist, and I think that was an objection to Carl McIntyre's methods. However, I think his book Christianity and Liberalism (on line here: http://www.biblebelievers.com/machen/), plus his stand against the modernism at Princeton, shows that he was in sync with the '20's fundamentalists and fought on their side.

 

Even he considered fundamentalists friends because of their opposition to modernism. However, he believed (as did Van Til) there were serious problems in that movement as I mentioned previously. Some of their "cures" he believed were going into the wrong direction.

BTW, I think his criticism of fundamentalism preceded McIntyre's departure. I will have to double check that, but I believe I am correct.

 

For example, what cures and what directions?

I'll look forward to that.

 

From personal experience, the term fundamentalist was a generally applied term for all who took a stand against the modernism of the day. This included all varieties of theology. Certainly some took exception to McIntyre's extremist activities and eventually separated from him personally.

In our Canadian Fellowship of Baptist Churches,we had many varieties of "fundamentalists" including dispensationalists, strong calvinists and even some that would be classed as non-calvinists (arminians of sorts). We grouped in fellowship to fight against modernism; the key battle. I am not certain this could happen so easily to-day. We tend to divide more readily.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Besides the issues I mentioned before (chialism, skepticism of scholarship, reduction to minimal confessions, reduction of historical perspective etc.) I think it is what Carl Henry called the 7 Dont's (don't drink, don't smoke, don't gamble, etc). They also believed (Carl Henry, Machen, etc) the removal from culture instead of the engaging of culture was tragic. This, I believe, is being rectified in the fundamentalist movement by some, but they seemed to retreat instead of, like Kuyper, who engaged and confronted culture within culture.

As for Machen, remember that the Bible Presbyterians broke away from the OPC in 1937 and founded in 1938. Machen died in 1939. Thus, the vase majority of his writings were before the Bible Presbyterians broke away.

There are several instances of his rejection and skepticism of fundamentalism going back to 1909 at Calvin's 400th Anniversary. I will list a couple here:

1909 he contrasted reformed theology as differing from that of Fundamentalism.

In 1927 he was asked to align closer with the fundamentalist movement. His response was that he loyalties existed outside of the fundamental group and with the reformed believers. This is when he said, "Hence I never call myself a “Fundamentalist.” . . . what I prefer to call my self is not a “Fundamentalist” but a “Calvinist” – that is, an adherent of the Reformed Faith."

Thus, from this quick survey, I think it is clear that he distanced himself from Fundamentalism long before McIntyre.