Is it time to drop the term fundamental?

I'm with you sister! Other words that have been perverted are, faith, hope, and charity. We can't allow the world to dictate our vocabulary.

 

I hold to the fundamentals of the Christian Faith. If that makes me a fundamentalist so be it. However, I would point out to you all that by accepting a modern spin on the terminology you are buying into the liberal attempt to make those of us who hold to the fundamentals of the Christian Faith out to be some kind of monsters (or something).

If you want to call me a fundamentalist because I hold to the fundamentals of the Christian Faith...Okay.

If you want to call me a conservative because I hold to a conservative literal historical/grammatical interpretation of the Word of God...Okay.

If you want to call me a liberal because I believe in a liberal out-pouring of God's love, grace, and mercy and a liberal application of the fruits of the Spirit...Okay.

However, don't you dare call me a moderate. Moderate means in the middle, not too hot, not too cold, but lukewarm. What does the Bible tell us that Jesus does with the lukewarm? He vomits it out of his mouth (Rev. 3:14-22).

 

I once heard Dan Rather say this, "...fundamentalists, or as some call them, knee jerk reactionaries." Connotations on words are the responsibility of the user. It is clear the the unsaved are making a concerted effort to replace the positive connotation of "fundamentalist" with a negative one. No matter what word you come up with it will soon have a negative connotation because the lost will never accept it as a positive. Many years ago some of the people with mental handicaps were categorized as idiots, imbecilles, and morons. These were medical terms and hod NO negative connotations other than discriptions as to the degree of the mental handicap. Now look at how these words are used. Then they changed them to mental "retardation". "Educably Mentally Retarded" for example. Then to Educably Mentally Handicapped. My point is, is that no matter what word is used, if the "concept" behind that word is viewed as a negative thing then the word will also become negative. I don't like others getting to define my words for me but sometimes they do.

 

Good post Bibleboy!

Let me follow your lead…

Amen! I too embrace the fundamentals of our faith. I am a fundamentalist.

Amen! I too embrace a conservative literal (within common sense) historical/grammatical interpretation of the scriptures. I am a conservative.

Amen! I too embrace these this, plus I believe that the Christian faith provides liberty from sin and the freedom to live as people devoted to God. I am a liberal in this sense.

I don’t like the term moderate, but I identify myself that way in Southern Baptist political life to help others understand my position.

Your post demonstrates the foolishness of labels and attaching labels to each other. A label is almost always a gross oversimplification of a person’s true position.

My preferred term for myself is “radical”. The root word, “radix” literally means “root” (no pun intended). The reason I like the term is that I am fundamentally consumed with the “root” issues of the Christian faith. While I study opinions from a wide and diverse group of Christians thinkers, I must ultimately choose what I believe the Bible teaches and what the Lord calls me to do.

This unfortunately sometimes conflicts with what my brothers and sister in Christ who call themselves fundamentalists, liberals, moderates and conservatives may believe.

There are some here who get very upset with me because I seem to be all over the place theologically because I don’t fit into a traditional theological mold. In reality, my theological understanding is both internally consistent and consistent with the scriptures (although I’m sure I’m blind to some errors and misplaced emphases).

Thanks for a good post!

 

Baptist Believer,

Herein lies the rub between fundamentalists and so called "moderates" - for all your boast of believing the "fundamentals of the faith" you insist on speaking of liberals as "brothers and sisters in Christ" when liberals deny the virgin birth, deity, and resurrection of Christ, the inspiration, historical accuracy, and authority of the Bible, and are universalists, condone same gender sexual relationships, etc. etc. etc.

It would be a lot easier to take your "moderation" seriously if you would call those things which are anti-Christ anti-Christ.

Mark Osgatharp

 

Amen, Mark
Murph

 

I am a fundamental, independent, pre-millennial, pre-tribulation, born again Baptist with no apologies for being same! Drop fundamental? No way!!
Any other questions?

 

I once had a Mormon call me a "scripturologist"

HankD

 

Herein lies the rub between fundamentalists and so called "moderates" - for all your boast of believing the "fundamentals of the faith"</font>[/QUOTE]It’s not a boast, it’s a confession. I believe the fundamentals because they are at the heart of the Christian faith.

No… Read it again.

“brothers and sister [should say ‘sisters’] who call themselves fundamentalists, liberals…

There are people who call themselves liberals (because of the specific political or theological context in which they live) who embrace the essentials of the faith and are therefore true believers.

Ah, so this is a liberal? I was working without a definition of the term. We had a thread about the definition of a “liberal” recently but few people seemed to have any idea what a liberal was, except a person who did not believe the same way as they did.

For the record, if someone does not believe in the deity and resurrection of Christ, they are not a liberal Christian, they are simply not Christian.

1.) That wasn’t the purpose of my post.
2.) I was pointing out that I don’t particularly care for the term “moderate”.
3.) There are lots of false doctrines embraced by Christians, but that doesn’t necessarily make them anti-Christ. (Think of views of “race”, eschatology, certain theories of scriptural
authority, and such.) And then there are views that are anti-Christ, like rejection of the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and that Christ has come in the flesh.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the term, "fundamentalist" invented by Christians? And yet the infidels hated us, and used the term with scorn? And then applied it to Muslims? If this is the case, then why do we think that any other name will not be treated the same way? How long before they start calling Muslims, "foundationists", or whatever? And will we have to change the name every ten years?

I say stick with "fundamentalist"; but perhaps a better and less ambiguous title would be: "bible-believing Christian". They won't be able to call the Muslims that one! And as Ernie pointed out, if you want to talk about a specific issue, use the specific term, e.g. pre-millennial, baptist, etc...