Evangelicals vs Fundamentals

Fundamentalist!

 

Fundamentalist!

 

I don't see much difference. Methodists were once fundamentalists and now they are liberal evangelicals. Very few of either group are monergists so they lean at different angles toward a form of salvation that requires cooperation and synergism between God and man.

The difference may be in the level of legalism they ascribe to.

 

Fundamentalist by birth, education, association, and conviction.

 

There is a huge difference. Study the 1957 New York Crusade of Billy Graham, when the major break occurred between fundamentalism and New Evangelicalism. (Fundamentalists are subsumed historically as under the rubric of "evangelical," but not "New Evangelical".) A recent book by Paul Smith (son of Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel) addresses the history: Amazon.com

Very few Methodists were actual fundamentalists when the movement started early in the 20th century. were Bob Jones Sr. was an exception. The Methodist denominations were certainly not fundamentalist, and were opposed to fundamentalism, as was the Northern Baptist Convention.

And by the way, the differences between fundamentalism and New Evangelicalism were never, ever soteriological in nature.

Care to expand on this?

 

The Central Baptist Seminary faculty nailed it. Waldmen and Williams, not so much. Williams especially got a lot wrong. For example, he has Billy Graham in the "early 1900s." That's pretty ignorant! Graham did not even start preaching until the late 1940s! And as a fundamentalist, he was a bust, leading the New Evangelicals away from fundamentalism. (Cf. my biography of John R. Rice, Ch. 13.)

 

John, I was referring to the start of Methodism under the Wesley brothers. They were the first "fundamentalists" in that their methods were established based upon the fundamental truths they saw in scripture.
Ultimately, however, such a focus on rules leads to legalism and then makes a hard shift toward liberalism. My observation is that any form of legalism will result in one of two things. Either the person (following legalism) will become very prideful in how well they think they are doing, or they become very depressed in how poorly they think they are doing. When a person sees that they cannot live up to such "holiness" standards, they often give up on Christianity or they go into liberalism to avoid their feelings of despair.

My comments toward fundamentalists and evangelicals is purely anecdotal. Both, however, tend to be synergists in my experience which often tends toward legalism in my observation.

From reading your comments, you are a professor so I expect and accept that you will view this topic from an academic perspective. I can only speak from experiential observation.

 

It's a misconception that fundamentalism only consists of adherence to fundamental doctrines. If there is no form of ecclesiastical separatism, there is no fundamentalism in the genuine sense. Billy Graham was a fundamentalist early in his career, but from 1957 he refused to be called one, though he adhered to the same doctrines as the fundamentalists.

I'm puzzled. Are you equating the fundamental doctrines of the "faith which was once delivered unto the saints" with simple rules?

I do agree with your assessment, as long as you are defining legalism correctly according to its theological meaning (and many do not) and not with some cultural construct.

Here is a Baptist theologian's definition: "Legalism is a slavish following of the laws in the belief that one thereby earns merit; it also entails a refusal to go beyond the formal or literal requirements of the law” (Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed., p. 990).

Some think that legalism is simple adherence to rules, and therefore all fundamentalists are somehow legalists, but that's not accurate. There is a strain of fundamentalism that thinks that sanctification involves the keeping of rules, but I'm not from that group. Most fundamentalists, following the Keswick tradition, realize that sanctification must be based on faith, not works.

Synergist theology was not actually any part of original fundamentalism. I refer you to the Presbyterian fundamentalists such as J. Gresham Machen, Carl McIntyre, B. B. Warfield, and Francis Schaeffer (who later became a New Evangelical but leaned back towards fundamentalism in his book, The Great Evangelical Disaster). Again, the Stewart brothers, who financed the series of books known as "The Fundamentals," were Presbyterians.

And believe it or not, one of the leading independent Baptist seminaries is 4 point Calvinist, Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. (Went there for a "Bible Faculty Summit" last year.)

I'm fortunate to have both the experiential and the academic perspectives, having been raised independent Baptist.

 

There is no such thing as a 4 point Calvinists. Anything less than 5 points is a person who is living in contradiction and confusion. This, in my understanding, removes them from Reformed doctrine and places them in a syncretist worldview.

 

Okay. I'd say you're the minority view on that, but your point was on synergist theology in fundamentalism, and they are fundamentalists.

 

IIRC, back in the day at MBBC, the difference was said to be what was the proper reaction to Modernism/Liberalism.

 

Evangelical, Conservative.

I went to Central Baptist Seminary, so I know those guys, and love them. I am very acquainted this distinction, and I appreciate their precision in the definition.

 

I tend to agree but I would not call it syncretistic, just inconsistent. However, Kevin Bauder, the Theology guy at Central Seminary, holds to that and I cannot hold a candle to him intellectually, so i dare not debate him.

 

For starters, an unBiblical total deptivity versus a Biblical total deptivity.

 

I generally stay away from this forum since I do not consider myself a fundamentalist (just passing through)
...but since a question was asked (Which would you more closely be associated?) I'll add a quote that identifies a different mindset between fundamentalism and evangelicalism.

"...[O]ne of the things that makes an evangelical different from a fundamentalist is that an evangelical is supposed to be willing to wrestle with the evidence. One of the hallmark differences between a fundamentalist and an evangelical is willingness to dialog over the issues. A fundamentalist condemns; an evangelical thinks." ​

Daniel B. Wallace
Aug 10, 2006

Rob