Our last burden for this series of articles deals with our understanding of God’s will in the light of present-day Fundamentalism. What is His will for Fundamentalism? It is evident in studying church history that God intended for the historic Fundamentalist movement to arise at the most crucial hour of the history of the Church. From the very first generation of the Church, there has always been the need for contending for God’s Word. Very soon after the birth of the Church by the Holy Spirit, it was already facing the throes of a false Church and its takeover on earth.
The New Testament became God’s Mystery unveiled to protect the Truth amidst the falling away. The New Testament was given to maintain both the mind of God’s people in thought of Truth and to maintain the heart in abiding in Christ. The Bible was the mystery of God’s will for the Church and for the coming generations of that Church. This revealed mystery to the saints was to stabilize their souls amidst the philosophies and error that would try to take over the Church’s thinking when the powers of Satan would rise in deception. The New Testament was the unveiling of the mystery of God’s will to provide insight for each dispensational season or age of the Church. It is evident in history that God has worked in the Church ages differently; His economy, His workings were be revealed through His Word, making known His will for that generation and what each remnant generation must do to overcome. Though church history has been some two thousand years in the unfolding, a careful study is most important to the Christian at this late hour of history.
The Aftermath of the Protestant Reformation
We begin this journey drawing from history at the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation brought back not only Western civilization to a proper view of the Bible but also the individual conscience before God and His Word. The remnants of history have been composed of individuals who have resolved the Truth in their own heart, but who also saw that there were others who were facing the same powers of compromise and change. Thus, in seasons of history they united to combat the powers that arose within the institutional Church against the Word of God.
Though a waning came to the Church during the 1600s, there was a mighty move of God in the 1700s. It brought a working of grace to the human heart, whereas the Reformation was more of a work of God in the human mind which led to the believing of the heart. The deepest thoughts of God, as well as the deepest affections for God, were manifested during this time.
However, Satan was quick to bring about movements to try to stop the work within the heart. Liberalism and Modernism arose with mighty powers that invaded the intellectual halls of the university seminaries in Europe and washed ashore in America. Reason now reigned against revelation; this invasion destroyed the historicity and literality of Scriptures to those who prepared for the pulpits of the future. Christianity was now heading into a direction globally that would be irreversible. The Bible was now fully open for questioning; the climate was mainly in the doubting of it in the intellectual circles of theology.
In this environment Historic Funda-mentalism was born. It endeavored to call back hearts to the legacy of true Christianity and the hope of stabilizing the pulpits across America with the only true Gospel that could set men free. Though these precious men waved the banner of truth in their pulpits, they could not stop the higher powers of ecclesiastical leadership that kept the lecture halls filled with the liberal teachers. More and more, sympathizers with the liberals were rising into the denominational leadership. It was an inevitable sealing of the apostasy. Though Historic Christian Fundamentalism began as a puritan movement within the historic Baptist and Protestant denominations, there came the day when it was evident they could not turn the tide of the apostasy. It now pervaded the denominations. Thus men made the exodus from the apostasy and became independent within their historical legacy.
The Birth of Neo-Orthodoxy
While Fundamentalism was rising, another movement was rising within the ranks of Liberalism and Modernism—Neo-Protestantism, later known as Neo-Orthodoxy. It was a movement against Liberalism in spirit, though not in heart, for it maintained the same presupposition of the Liberals that the Bible was a myth and by no means accurate in its presentation.
An important aspect of Neo-Orthodoxy is rooted in the development of Existentialism. Existentialism concluded historicity does not matter. Although Modernism attempted to deny the historicity of Scripture through human reasoning, Existentialism provided a different means to deny Scripture’s historicity. While continuing to use the Bible, it created an approach to interpretation where absolutes were conspicuously absent. Man’s world could merely be what he willed or believed it to be. He did not have to prove it through absolutes; he simply needed to make a “leap of faith” into his imaginative world. Existentialism’s interpretation of life brought a realm of thought into existence that was contrary to the linear logic so praised by the Enlightenment (that child of the Age of Reason). It took us beyond the realm of rational Modernism to an irrational outpost of Postmodernism. Existentialism had opened a new frontier of thought that did away with the past, even past “modern” thought.
The Concept of Existentialism
Existentialism has no boundaries or limits in its view of logic; it is so elastic and fluid that it will permit whatever path or realm of imagination one desires to travel. It lives for the present “moment” or the “now”; past roots or future consequences are never considered. It provides accommodation for whatever one wants to believe without the need of proving it with absolutes. Other philosophies have their limitations and boundaries, but Existentialism denies even the absolutes of its own boundaries.
Neo-Orthodoxy took hold of this philosophy and made it its hermeneutical principle for Bible interpretation. It denied the real, existing true God, and allowed for the creation of whatever kind of God one would desire.
Radical Theology or Theothanatology, (the “death of God”) came out of Neo-Orthodoxy; allowing for the creation of an imaginary god allowed for the death of the historic true God. This opened the door for anything and everything. It was beyond the Modern; it was Postmodern. Christianity was eventually taken by this tsunami of theology, believing it was the hope for the future continuation of Christianity in a secular, postmodern world.
The final frontier of this existential Christianity has become the Emerging Church Movement within Christianity. This movement has truly become the groundbreaker for postmodern Existentialism in the Church. All past aspects of Christianity have been discarded: its forms, its language, its terminology, its concepts, its creeds of faith, and even its tangible appearance. As Brian McLaren, one of the Emerging Church gurus, has stated,
You see, if we have a new world, we will need a new church. We won’t need a new religion per se, but a new framework for our theology. Not a new spirit, but a new spirituality. Not a new Christ, but a new Christian. Not a new denomination, but a new kind of church in every denomination.
These observations become a plea from the contemporary indicating that even the modern has lost its influence and effectiveness for the Church. In the light of changes that have come in the secular world, the Church must now move into another era. Liberalism truly broke the ties with biblical Christianity and set the Church free as a floating island to eventually chart its own course for the future. The world and church are moving from old Modernism and Secularism to quickly embrace a postmodern world where the institutional Church has become a new church with a new spirituality and framework of theology in order to publicly survive.
The Past Crisis in Fundamentalism
Where is Fundamentalism in all of this? The first pull away from Historic Christianity within Fundamentalism was back in the 1940s with the birth of Neo-Christianity. Men within the Fundamentalist camp were secretly drawn to the intellectualism of the Liberals and even the rising Neo-Orthodox theologians. A gentle pull to the writings of the Liberals and the Neo-Orthodox produced a longing to meet with them, to dialogue them, and to enter the waters of that vast world of contemporary Christianity. They left the historic Fundamentalist movement because of its public separation from the Liberals and the Neo-Orthodox. Once their ship left the haven of Historic Fundamentalism and its heart of separation, the ocean of the world was before them. Heart changes brought other changes: dress standards, music standards, living standards, and worship standards—they all changed. They fell in love with their freedom, their freedom of expression and thought and worship.
Parallel to the Neo-Evangelical departure from Fundamentalism was the rise of the Charismatic movement. Eventually, through the media powers of the Charismatics, the line of demarcation between these two groups was erased. Their churches grew and became a prominent, popular Christian voice. They even saw the hope of becoming friends with the Roman Catholics.
The Present Crisis in Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism has entered another crisis. We must realize that we are well into the fourth generation of Fundamentalism; from church history’s perspective, the tendency of a fourth-generation leadership is toward apostasy. The fourth generation is one that has apathetically heard the first generation without hearing the heart of truth; it is a generation drawn to the popular side of the evangelical world. They have secretly listened to the Neo-Evangelical messages and music, observed their growth, and longed to be like them. They have desired to be popular in the Evangelical world, to be accepted, to be befriended by them. At the same time, they are conscious that important qualities of Fundamentalism must be changed in order to be accepted by this prosperous circle.
The eyes and ears of this new breed of Fundamentalists have not been upon their predecessors; possibly they have been exploiting some past neutralities and compromises when it seemed expedient. Behind the scenes they have been quietly waiting for the right time to commence radical changes and compromises. Amazingly, these changes have come almost simultaneously among the young leaders that have taken Fundamentalist universities, colleges, schools, and churches. Critical to this tidal wave of change have been the “change agents” such as Bob Jones University which is crossing over Fundamentalism into Neo-Evangelicalism.
What are the changes that have been taking place leading up to the present? First, there is a neutrality of message now coming from the pulpit. This is a non-confrontational message easily accepted by Neo-Evangelical leaders observing the changes in the present Fundamentalist movement. Such preaching has become non-offensive in its content; it only goes so far in dealing with the world; and it only goes to a point in dealing with the extremes of Christianity. The days of true, anointed Bible preaching, hitting the target of the contemporary and of the escalating failures in Fundamentalism, have come to an end among the Fundamentalist preachers. The days of preaching with strength of conviction are over, unless the strength comes only when condemning the remnant voices hindering and questioning their changes. Now and then perhaps a sermon may be preached by a man in his 60s or 70s who has the memory of past strength. Yet, the sermon is only the memory of how it once was; a present heart for truth is gone. Those who taught us how to wield the sword in the battle are now teaching us how to sheathe the sword. To such men there are no longer any battles, just misunderstandings.
Another change has occurred in the careful science of Hermeneutics. The interpretation of Scripture is vastly changing, resulting in diverse interpretations of the Scriptures to excuse the new paths of compromise and change. This includes new views of Scriptural separation in Fundamentalism. In recent years true, biblical preaching has mutated into preaching which is only concerned with the exposition, the Greek, the Hebrew, and void of its true application to the times in which we live. The intellectualism of Neo-Evangelicalism is now taking the Fundamentalist pulpits; it includes a lot of mechanical knowledge but is void of spiritual understanding.
The English Bible version controversy started with the Liberals back in the 1800s. Contributing to it especially were the manipulative powers of Westcott and Hort whose work became a popular pursuit among the Neo-Evangelicalists in the 1940s and 50s. The KJV has been hated because it has been the version in the battle against Roman Catholicism and the apostasy in Protestantism. There has been no other English version that has been a Version for the Battle of Truth. Dr. Stewart Custer was one of the early, prominent ones that pressed for the New American Standard Version back in the 1960s, and took his position from the Neo-Evangelical, intellectual perspective. When the book The Mind of God to the Mind of Man: A Layman’s Guide to How We Got Our Bible was inaugurated at the last World Congress of Fundamentalists in 1999, it was not simply a presentation exalting the modern versions. It became a direct attack against the beloved KJV. I fear that it was one of the final death blows to Historic Fundamentalism.
Then Fundamentalist music entered into the grey area between sacred and contemporary where subtle changes could be more easily pursued. The sedated, easy listening voices and non-offensive music styles that became universally accepted continued to mutate toward the New Age sound and subtle background syncopations. Although much of the music stayed with the traditional hymn texts, the musicians began changing the melodies and harmonies bringing the historic hymn into the contemporary. More and more Fundamentalist composers pushed the envelope within the grey area farther away from their legacy. Some of these composers finally went totally into the contemporary. They were no longer teasing with the contemporary; they were warming up to it. Those who were already at the border of the contemporary took the next step.
Even the clothing of the singing groups on the covers of the recordings became more and more casual. The church people were now permitted to listen to Bill Gaither’s Southern Gospel music whetting their appetite for more of the same within their Fundamentalist churches and schools. The models and the masters of Fundamentalist music now were receiving accolades from the Neo crowd; they were being invited to write and arrange for them, becoming a part of the accepted contemporary musical elite. The administration of the Fundamentalist schools lauded such faculty members who were being used by the Neo crowd and assisting the school’s reputation among the Neo.
Thus, the change agents had done their duty, claiming it was part of their evangelistic outreach. Just as the Neo-Evangelicals taught them, they became one of them in order to win them. Through all of these changes, individuals were becoming more and more what they secretly had longed to be. It must be said that the music in Fundamentalism has gone away from Truth; basically every school and the majority of Fundamentalist ministries have capitulated to the enemy and found among them acceptance.
There will be no return to the Truth in Fundamentalism! What was subtle in its change fifteen years ago is now openly on display without apology. The contemporary language of the “new” has now become integrated within the language of the Fundamentalists. In order to lead and be accepted, one must know the substitute intellectual vocabulary of the Neo that has taken the place of the Scripture’s language. It is the integrated language, the accommodating language, the language that is fluid with even the secular world. The schools we once looked to for strength and hope for our youth to become the anointed ones for the future have changed.
We first saw these changes in the new teachers coming in from secular and liberal schools. Their degrees brought clout and notoriety to the schools they joined. The intimidating pressure from the secular world caused the schools to believe they were in competition with the secular world, and thus they involved themselves in the secular contests, achievements, and even athletics. There was pressure to get rid of standards viewed by the secular world as puritanical, outdated, and a detriment to society; what the students could do and what they could not do, where they could go and where they could not go, all had to change.
To accommodate worldliness, clothing had to change. Women’s slacks paved the way for shorts. In seminary, young men shed their ties, dressing-down amidst ministerial training. Other changes included off-campus dating, fewer restrictions on music listened to in the dorms, and campus concerts of blue grass and country/western music for the enjoyment of the students and faculty. Accompanying these changes were greater associations with secular schools and their faculty. Even attending movie theaters is now permitted as long as it is not within a certain mileage from the ministry. These changes would have caused those of the founding years to rise up in holy anger.
The Christian era of such schools is now passing; they are now being acclimatized to the secular. One has only to enter the dorm rooms to see how powerful the secular world has become to the students with their personalized identification with the world and the Neo-Christian imagery. Professors now are no longer men of piety, but rather men and women who have been influenced to get in harmony with what the students and the contemporary request. It is rare to find a teacher whose character is not constantly flawed by continual immaturity and spiritual flounderings. Even increased secularization in Christian schools through exploding sports programs is leading schools to hire more highly-skilled coaches who will merely mix “Jesus” in the competitive world and lead students to secular scholarships. We are witnessing through sports the contemporary outreach of the change agents to include NASCAR, which will introduce more young people to the world of sports on Sunday and its allegiance to alcohol, country/western singing, along with its proclivity to immorality. Neo-Evangelicalism truly has become the way of Fundamentalism. It is evident the schools have lost their spiritual sanity and have become acclimatized to the “Jesus” of the secular sports world.
Both the grandsons of the second generation and the sons of the third generation of Fundamentalism have no concept of Historic Fundamentalism. They know nothing of the battles; they know nothing of the life; they have no memory from which to draw unless it is a bitter memory or a mocking memory of the past. Many conversations I have had with such young Fundamentalist leaders prove they are on a floating island, cut away from the past, rejecting their past, and believing that God is calling them to emerge into another image, another identity of Fundamentalism. They are looking for an identity of Fundamentalism that will be accepted by all Christendom. When conversations arise using historic biblical principles and terminology, they have no understanding. There is no common ground for conversation. To them, we are the fools, and they are the Emergers.
The Present Distress
Where are we today in Fundamentalism? We are presently on an accelerated voyage away from what our legacy was, our purpose, our birth, and our appointment by God. As with America there will be no return. We have sealed the departure. I have been hesitant to declare that Fundamentalism has entered apostasy, but I believe we are nearing the threshold of it. A new generation is now at the helm of the ship, and they have their sights set on a new horizon. It has been charted by Neo-Evangelicalism which has longed to get the Historic Fundamentalists off course, yea, to completely dismantle the ship. The day is soon coming when there will be no resemblance of the former days. God’s economy has now shifted with Fundamentalism; He is not among the movement as He was before.
As the analogy was given by Ezekiel of the departure of the Shekinah glory from the Temple, it is evident God has left Fundamentalism’s Holy of Holies and passed the threshold of the Temple. Is He crossing the Kidron Valley toward the Mount of Olives? Or has He gone up from the Mount of Olives? It is evident there are a number of individuals within the movement that still are seeking God, but they are only a remnant. They do not represent the movement; they are a remnant of the movement.
If God’s economy with Fundamentalism is now over, what is the remnant to do? I personally believe there will be no other movement like Fundamentalism to arise before the coming of Christ in the clouds of the Rapture. It does seem that God is bringing pockets of the remnant into an awareness of one another; a few, with the hope of saving their families, are moving to places where a remnant resides. Nevertheless, it appears more likely that providence will ordain that we will be together separately. Whether or not God moves certain ones together geographically, they must continue on with God, though few in number, and pray for continued insight into both the times and the preciousness of the Lord. Though biblical separation from others is part of the remnant’s appointment, yet we read in Jude 19 of a characteristic that will mark the apostates more and more: “These be they who separate themselves.” A growing number of the leaders within Fundamentalism certainly do not want anything to do with the Remnant.
Conclusion
God must now reveal the mystery of His will of how we are to live as we anticipate the coming of Christ. As for the patterns within Scripture, our instructions are clear. (1) Enoch, before he was translated, walked with God, and pleased God. And without faith in the Word it is impossible to please God and even walk with God. (2) We are told within the Epistle of Jude that Enoch declared, “Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints” to judge the ungodly. Enoch dealt with the apostasy and warned of the coming judgment that included the belief in the coming of the Lord. (3) Second Peter 1:19 states, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” All of the verb tenses in the earlier part of this passage are in the present tense. We must ever continue “having” and “taking heed,” to the light that continues to shine. “Until the day dawn” is in the aorist tense; “the day star arise” is also in the aorist tense, the tense of the crisis. The phrase “in a dark place” presents a Greek word meaning a drought produced by excessive heat, hence signifying a dry, murky, squalid, or foul place due to neglect or want of cleanliness; repulsively mean and dirty, filthy; morally repulsive or wretched. In the light of this description of the End Time, what are we to do?
This is what we must now do: Our book The Rise and Fall of Historic Christian Fundamentalism became the last words from our heart to the Fundamentalist movement. God is now drawing our hearts to help the remnant around the world to be ready for the secret coming of the Lord in the air. The Remnant transcends the theological systems; it transcends the labels and tags of human and earthly identification. All of these identities have now succumbed to the apostasy. Perhaps outside of the Fundamentalist label, there are those who are sick and tired of the denominational system, the theological system, and the falling away their churches have entered. Our burden must now be to the remnant.
Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him (Malachi 3:16, 17).
These words were written in the last book of the Old Testament when the offspring of those who returned from the Babylonian Captivity were now gainsaying the Lord and coming to the threshold of apostasy. This was God’s cry to the remnant found among His people. We read from the last part of the Book of Nehemiah, when he returned to Jerusalem the second time, that there was no revival and there seemed to have been no recovery. This was the time of Malachi. It must be acknowledged that Fundamentalism is here in a prophetic, historic setting. There will be no return to God for the Fundamentalist movement. Its remnant must now be looking to God for what we need to do to get ready for Christ’s coming.
In the light of the falling away of Fundamentalism, perhaps the question should be asked: “How do we who desire to get back to the legacy of Truth describe ourselves now?” The answer is simple: “I am a pilgrim, a Hebrew (a sojourner) on my way to heaven. I believe completely in the Bible, its supreme authority for everything that touches my life. I desire to be identified with those who have committed their lives to the Word of God, the will of God for this generation, and to be separated from the apostasy of Neo-Christianity in all of its forms. I want to be clear in my preaching the absoluteness of an infallible book as well as its standards in personal living, in worship, and in music. I want to be a true, Bible Christian, which today amidst the facade of modern Christianity would be a remnant Christian.”
This is now what God is doing; this is His economy for the End Time of the last days. He is working through the remnant; His word is with the remnant. They are the only ones who have kept the Word in their generation, and they have found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
I am a remnant Christian. I will not be understood by the world and will be hated by the Church. This is now my lot.