There are two approaches that must be taken concerning this subject of “religious correctness.” One is from the perspective of the State and the other from the perspective of the Church. In both categories the remnant of Christ living on the earth today will find itself isolated from society and the public church unless it is willing to conform to the “religious correctness” designated by each.

The State’s View of the True Remnant

There is a growing hatred throughout the world for the concept of a fundamentalist. Before observing society’s view of the fundamentalist, we must with candor declare what a fundamentalist is. Basically existing in all religions, the term fundamentalist simply designates an individual who desires to get back to the fundamental principles of his religion. The synonymous term radical reflects this desire to return to the “root” of a belief system. Thus, amidst the changes in principles and practices of a religion, there is always a remnant within who calls its members back to the “root” or the “fundamentals” of that religion.

Therefore, a Christian Fundamentalist is one who desires to get back to the fundamentals of the Christian Faith. He is the genuine Christian; while others have changed and distorted the Christ of Christianity, he has not. The noted liberal Kirsopp Lake wrote in his book The Religion of Yesterday and Tomorrow an acknowledgment that Fundamentalism must be viewed synonymously with orthodox Christianity:

It is a mistake, often made by educated persons who happen to have but little knowledge of historical theology, to suppose that Fundamentalism is a new and strange form of thought. It is nothing of the kind: it is the . . . survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians. . . . The Fundamentalist may be wrong; I think that he is. But it is we who have departed from the tradition, not he, and I am sorry for the fate of anyone who tries to argue with a Fundamentalist on the basis of authority. The Bible and the corpus theologicum of the Church is on the Fundamentalist side.

The fact of the matter is that in our time the root or the original is not desired by society. Mankind is tired of the old; it is looking with eagerness to a new thing. Even the contemporary church hates the old paths of Christianity and is longing for some new doctrine and way of living.

The State’s View of the Fundamentalists

Fundamentalists have now been labeled as the troublemakers within society. The words of Ahab have become the State’s consistent charge against the Christian: “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” (I Kings 18:17). The saints are always viewed as in the wrong. It is always the Christian who turns “the world upside down” (Acts 17:6, 8); they are the ones who always “do exceedingly trouble our city” (Acts 16:20). Our beloved Lord was accused of sedition. The first Christians were called “enemies of the human race.” All manner of evil is said against them falsely. King Ahab only spake “after his kind.” He saw that Elijah had been instrumental in bringing down the drought and the terrible famine which accompanied it. He never paused to ask why Elijah prayed for a drought. The herald is often accused of causing the war; this same charge with the same irrationality and perversity is proclaimed today. If John the Baptist comes neither eating nor drinking, they say, “He hath a devil.” If the Son of man comes eating and drinking, they say, “Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber.” If we pipe, they will not dance; if we mourn, they will not lament (Matthew 11:17).

In response Elijah went on to say, “I have not troubled Israel, but thou, and thy father’s house” (I Kings 18:18). There is no trace of fear in these words by the prophet. The truth has nothing to fear. The trouble and suffering of the world spring out of sin, out of forgetting and forsaking God. If men leave Him out of their thoughts and lives, their sorrows will be multiplied (Psalm 16:4). The French Revolution shows the result of the negation of God. Communism and Nihilism do the same. “There is no peace to the wicked.” When the State turns away from God, it will begin accusing the saints for the problems that come. History has proved this to be consistently true.

The bombing of the World Trade Center, along with the deaths of the Branch Davidians by the Federal agents in Waco, Texas, provided the materials for the media to make synonymous fundamentalists and cultists. The media worked society into a frenzy convincing us that these lunatics should be locked up or somehow restrained. The media labeled these lunatics “fundamentalist” consequently suggesting that any type of fundamentalist was “politically incorrect.” When abortion clinics were bombed or burned down, the fundamentalists were blamed. The term has been carefully brought to the forefront suggesting it to be the core of society’s problems. The rejection of Christianity continues to grow in our America. To be a Christian, especially a Christian Fundamentalist, is to be stigmatized with a religion of evil.

It is clearly evident that the vast majority of those who control the mainstream media in our country are zealously against God; secular humanism is the norm of that which dominates the newsgathering crowd. Political correctness has made it so that Christians remain the only group that may be publicly defamed with impunity. Have we observed the labeling powers used by the media and the government in describing Christians? Terms like “sectarian,” which the dictionary defines as “a narrow or bigoted person,” are used with regularity. Even the United States Supreme Court has used the term synonymously with the word “religious.”

One of the most powerful assaults to date against Christianity and the home has been the rise of sodomy in its homosexual, lesbian, and pedophilia lifestyles. The blatantly offensive book After The Ball: How America will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s, written back in 1989 by two sodomites, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Manson, presents a strategy to promote the homosexual lifestyle. There are three areas these authors propose to overcome the nation’s view of the threat of homosexuality. The first strategy attempts to desensitize American society through consistent media promotion of the sodomite lifestyle. The common maxim “familiarity breeds contempt” may not always be true; rather, it is often true that “familiarly breeds tolerance.” The second strategy is jamming, or the forcing of a good concept upon an evil concept to make it more palatable to society. For example, rather than call themselves sodomite, they adopt the term gay to suggest carefree, abandon lifestyle. This is the identification of what you think is good with something that is bad. In contrast, those who are against their lifestyle are called “homophobic,” which simply is a man hater. They will endeavor to make the Christian belief negative in the sight of society. Concerning their third strategy conversion, they noted the following:

By conversion we actually mean something far more profoundly threatening to the American way of life. We mean conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will through a planned psychological attack in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media.

We are seeing these powers taking hold in TV programs overtly promoting this ungodly lifestyle. More and more the public, government schools are implementing “sexual diversity training” as an effort to force the students to accept sodomy as an equal lifestyle. Anyone who goes against it, and especially Christians, will be viewed as mean and hateful. This form of “political correctness” is out to destroy traditional values, morals, and principles forcing the Christian not only to tolerate the evil lifestyle in others but also to force him to declare that he will accept it as good.

The list of such sins of political correctness is ever growing: sodomy in all of its forms, abortion, transsexualism, transvestism, and all aspects of fornication. The Christian will be hated; the Bible that condemns these evil lifestyles will be banished from society, and all coming judgments upon the earth will be blamed on the Christians. Perhaps this will be the reason so many will be killed in the future. We must remember that John the Baptist was decapitated because of his stand against the immorality of the State’s dictatorial king and his mistress. We must also remember that Paul was beheaded by the State for the preaching of the Gospel. And Christ was crucified by a collaboration of both the State and the established religion of the Jew.

Only those who join the liberal and modernistic concepts of Christianity, only those who capitulate to the Neo-Christianity and tolerate the ungodliness of the State, and only those who will join the ecumenical, universalism Christianity will escape the wrath of the State. And eventually the State will finally turn on all religion, just as the Beast devours the Harlot riding its back in Revelation 17. We have observed recently how Rick Warren, a guru of the worldly Mega Church movement, was called upon to give the opening prayer for President Hussein Obama. But when the pressure came upon him from the gay community for supporting traditional marriages in California, he turned and publicly went on record as tolerating and permitting it. Yes, all religions, including Christianity, will be forced by the State to accept all forms of sexual beliefs in their doctrinal faith.

Religious Correctness in Christianity

Another “religious correctness” rising with authoritative power is found within the camp of Christianity. Liberalism and Modernism are the “correctness” of belief in the world denominational systems at this time. Any puritan within its denominational ranks will be ostracized, intimidated, and maligned in character. If he refuses to bow and submit to the religious correctness of his denominational Church powers (the “religious State”), he will be so ill-treated by his superiors with the hope that he will finally submit to the established “correctness,” or he will leave the mother church.

As a young man in my early twenties within a religious system, I was told by its ecclesiastical leaders, “Don’t rock the boat . . . Don’t you think; you let us do the thinking for you.” Their classic words that resolved my heart to leave were, “If there is a difference between what the Bible is telling you and what your Church is telling you, you go with the Church.” Such a “religious state” knows how to squeeze its parishioners into the corrective mold. Martin Luther was told, “Who are you to question the Church?” Wrong, evil, and error refuse to be questioned. Ecclesiastial leaders may present a nice front on the stage of the conference convention, but will turn in anger when confronted with the Word of God. When leaders become unapproachable, an erosion of heart has already taken place. Slowly, but surely, the religious correctness begins to spread from one generation of leadership to another. When apostasy begins to malignantly breed in a system, there is no antidote for it; it is only fit for judgment.

Religious correctness made its enveloping influence within Neo-Evangelicalism almost immediately at its birth. The subtle, critical approach to the Bible, the desire to broaden the base of “faith” acceptability through ecumenicity, the open acceptance of contemporary musical sounds and rock music, the decline of standards in dress in order to be received by the world, the theological concept of the Charismatics and their religion built upon existential feelings, etc. all have become a part of the “religious correctness” of our present Christian time in the evangelical world. Neo-Evangelicalism has now come heart to heart with the Charismatic movement. Charismatically owned TV networks have developed warm fellowship with Neo-Evangelical ministries, an integral part of those networks. Perhaps the only religious exercise those ministries do not participate in is speaking in tongues; nevertheless, they are part and parcel of the Charismatic crowd. Contemporary personalities such as Charles Stanley, Robert Schuller, Jack Van Impe, David Jeremiah, and John Ankerberg have no distinction from most of the Charismatics. Back in the latter part of the 1960s, Billy Graham’s participation in the dedication of Oral Roberts University became the prophetic event that told of the coming together of Neo Evangelicalism and Charismatism for the future. This is now part of the “religious correctness.”

Sadly, a “religious correctness” is coming into Fundamentalism. As any “correctness” concept has a growing dislike for those who do not line up with their “correct” thinking, certain actions are inevitable. Denominational leaders and leaders within independent movements tend to respond the same way. There is a spirit and mood that takes over when ecclesiastical powers of influence in leadership become a part of an individual’s ministry. When changes begin to take place in the leadership, in the ministry or its music, its dress, or its course of vision, there is a line that is crossed in the heart. Beyond that line the individual will no longer accept any questioning of what he has done. Anyone who stands in his way will be “blackballed,” will be removed from the inner circle of fellowship, will be talked against, written against, and looked upon as one who will not line up with the trends of the flow. Such “religious correctness” does not care any longer what is done to remove the hindrances and those who voice concern.

Once there are enough personalities and ministries who begin thinking the same pragmatic way, the “religious correctness” is formed, the mold is poured, and all within that fellowship must yield to that correctness. “This is the way we do things; this is the path we have chosen to survive.” “Our forefathers may have done it a different way, but this is the way we are going with it, whether you like it or not.” “If you are not with us in these methods or manner, then we count you as against us.”

What we condemned twenty years ago when Jerry Falwell called himself a Neo-Fundamentalist, we now believe to be the appropriate term for the new generation of Fundamentalist leaders. This is “religious correctness.” The blogs are now commending what was once condemned. What was once declared as “contemporary music” is now accepted. And anyone who will declare otherwise will be labeled as a hindrance to the way Fundamentalism now needs to go. The language is slick, the changes are subtle, and eventually the line of demarcation between Fundamentalism and Neo-Evangelicalism will be erased. Where we once condemned dialoging with the enemy of Liberalism, we now are told that such methodology with the Southern Baptist big boys and the leadership of Neo-Evangelicalism is all right. To win them we must become more like them in our programs, our music, our conventions, and our professionalism toward spiritual things. Yes, the religiously correct way is to present our Bible Conferences and prayer sessions like them. “This is the way it is done, and this is the way you will do it if you are going to be with us.”

Conclusion

When we begin to see happening in the independent ministries of Fundamentalism what happened in the denominations from which we came, it is an alarming sadness to the heart. The voices left within Fundamentalism today that are calling us back to the Bible and back to our honorable legacy are being shunned and isolated from the fellowship of the mainstream. For it seems that what would be viewed as the mainstream of Fundamentalism has over the past twenty years slowly left its divinely appointed course and craftily rerouted itself into the “religious correctness” of the Neo Christianity. The days of powerful preaching, which were marked by honorable stands against the apostasy and clear, pulpit warnings against what was potentially creeping into the house of Fundamentalism, have become a distant memory. When we begin to hear the preaching becoming more generic, when certain subjects are not religiously correct to be dealt with, when we are told in the back offices, “Don’t deal with this in your preaching,” and we live as if the changes don’t exist, we have entered into our own “political correctness.”

The sons of the forefathers have now come to age in leadership. The influence of precious veterans of the spiritual battles of the past has now been silenced. A new breed has come with their new voice, their new heart, their new terminology and vocabulary, their new way of preaching and building of ministries, and their new way of interpreting the Bible. The days of the rough prophets have past; we now are in the days of the polished, non-offensive, smooth delivery of a mutating gospel which is having less and less resemblance to the Gospel preached in former days. A new template of what is correct is now being thrust upon us.

My father, Dr. O. Talmadge Spence, stated years ago, “When prophets are no longer stoned, prophets are no longer prophets.” May God keep the remnant of voices, who may be accused of “rocking the boat,” true to the old, tried path, even if it is not “religiously correct.” Their voices are our only hope for biblical revival before the coming of the Lord.