Fundamental/Mainstream/Reformed ???

[puros_bran]

Several weeks back the Pastor,who is also the Sunday School Teacher for my age group, issued a call for us (3 couples and a lady who's husband just left for Iraq) to become the church leaders/teachers/deacons/pastor etc etc that We should be, in other words 'Its time to grow up'. Being a Trucker I am to some degree out of daily fellowship, so I turned to the Net to suppliment. I have found satisfaction in this and a couple other boards but I've encountered Labels that I don't quite grasp. What exactly is Fundamental/Mainstream/Reformed theology as it applies to the Baptist denomination? How do they compare/contrast?

If I'm beating a dead horse I apologize in advance. The search function doesn't operate properly on my BlackBerry.

 

[ReformedBaptist]

Several weeks back the Pastor,who is also the Sunday School Teacher for my age group, issued a call for us (3 couples and a lady who's husband just left for Iraq) to become the church leaders/teachers/deacons/pastor etc etc that We should be, in other words 'Its time to grow up'. Being a Trucker I am to some degree out of daily fellowship, so I turned to the Net to suppliment. I have found satisfaction in this and a couple other boards but I've encountered Labels that I don't quite grasp. What exactly is Fundamental/Mainstream/Reformed theology as it applies to the Baptist denomination? How do they compare/contrast?

If I'm beating a dead horse I apologize in advance. The search function doesn't operate properly on my BlackBerry.

Hey brother,

Most likely fundamental would refer to that branch of Baptists that have a strict adherance to the fundamentals, namely the diety of Christ, virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, innerancy (inspiration and infalibility) of Scripture, bodily resurrection of Christ, et.

Mainstream might refer to the Southern Baptist Convention within a Baptist context. Reformed theology most commonly would refer to Calvinism but could include Covenant Theology as well.

Hope that helps,
RB

 

[Thinkingstuff]

Several weeks back the Pastor,who is also the Sunday School Teacher for my age group, issued a call for us (3 couples and a lady who's husband just left for Iraq) to become the church leaders/teachers/deacons/pastor etc etc that We should be, in other words 'Its time to grow up'. Being a Trucker I am to some degree out of daily fellowship, so I turned to the Net to suppliment. I have found satisfaction in this and a couple other boards but I've encountered Labels that I don't quite grasp. What exactly is Fundamental/Mainstream/Reformed theology as it applies to the Baptist denomination? How do they compare/contrast?

If I'm beating a dead horse I apologize in advance. The search function doesn't operate properly on my BlackBerry.

Here is a good definition from wikipedia on fundalmentalism from its actual founding rather than some peoples redefinition thought this call has had a lot of acceptance in certain baptist churches:

[The term "fundamentalism" has its roots in the Niagara Bible Conference (1878–1897) which defined those things that were fundamental to belief. The term was also used to describe "The Fundamentals", a collection of twelve books on five subjects published in 1910 by Milton and Lyman Steward[10][11] The first formulation of American fundamentalist beliefs can be traced to the Niagara Bible Conference and, in 1910, to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church which distilled these into what became known as the "five fundamentals":[12]

The inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this.
The virgin birth of Christ.
The belief that Christ's death was an atonement for sin.
The bodily resurrection of Christ.
The historical reality of Christ's miracles.
By the late 1910s, theological conservatives rallying around the Five Fundamentals came to be known as "fundamentalists."

Since then, the focus of the movement, the meaning of the term Fundamentalism, and the ranks of those who willingly use it to identify themselves, have gone through several phases of re-definition,[10][11] though maintaining the central commitment to its orthodoxy.