Over the years that I have been doing Christian apologetic writing on forums, blogs, and via Christian eNewsletters, those who disagree with my Conservative Christian writings thought they had found a good way to put me down. Many in the secular world, and even many in the Liberal side of the Christian world - threw the word "Fundamentalist" at me as though they were painting me with some dark, evil slime. I cannot tell you how many times I have been told, "Bill Gray is a 'Fundamentalist'!"
And, my response would always be, "Yes, I am a Conservative Christian, which can also be called a Fundamentalist Christian." To me, Conservative Christian and Fundamentalist Christian are synonymous - meaning that I am a Christian whose faith has descended from the first 120 Holy Spirit indwelled disciples who were gathered in the Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost, 33 AD. They were the core of the Christian faith - and from those 120 believers billions have come to faith in Jesus Christ.
Those 120 disciples were not Baptists, nor Methodists, nor Roman Catholics, nor any other denomination. They were just 120 disciples whom the Holy Spirit indwelled and empowered on that wonderful day. And they went out and began telling people about Jesus Christ and the gift of eternal life He had purchased for them on the cross of Calvary.
God did not create denominations - man did. Through the forty men God selected to put His Word in writing - God gave us His full revelation on salvation and living the Christian life. Then men started disagreeing with one another, i.e., what does that Scripture passage really teach us? Are the books of the Bible the literal Written Word - or just thoughts put in writing by 40 sheepherders? And on and on. Man taking the perfect revelation God has given us - and trying to put their own spin on it. And, that, folks - is how we have come to have so many different denominations and sub-groups within denominations. Nothing is so perfect that fallen man cannot mess it up!
So, yes, I am a Conservative, Fundamentalist Christian - because I believe there is one Bible written for all mankind - and I believe that Bible is the Holy Spirit INSPIRED, Holy Spirit INERRANT, Holy Spirit LITERAL Written Word of God. And the only name I wear is Conservative Christian, or Fundamentalist Christian if you desire. Yet, because my personal Statement of Faith aligns very well with the Baptist Statement of Faith - I suppose you could call me a Baptist-flavored Christian. In heaven there will be no denominations!
So how did the name "Fundamentalist" come about? Toward the end of the 19th century (1801-1900) liberal theology was gaining a strong foothold in American churches and educational institutions. Conservative Christians, i.e., those who hold to the doctrine that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, literal Written Word of God, were growing more and more concerned about the false representation of the Christian faith found in Liberalism, i.e., the late 19th century "theological modernism, whose aim was to revise traditional Christian beliefs to accommodate new developments in the natural and social sciences, especially the theory of biological evolution.
In other words, they wanted to take the Word of God - and rather than adapting their worldview and thinking to what God has given us - they wanted to adapt God's Word to make it fit the secular worldview and desires.
This we have discussed before as Eisegesis (reading INTO the Bible what you want it to say to support a desired, predetermined theology) versus Exegesis (reading FROM the Bible what God inspired to be written there).
In the early part of the 20th century, two brothers,Lyman and Milton Stewart, successful Christian businessmen, were so concerned over the incursion of liberalism into our Christian faith that they decided to put their money to work in defense of Biblical Christianity. They financed the writing and publishing of a twelve-volume group of essays titled "The Fundamentals" which they distributed free to over 500,000 pastors, teachers, and theologians, starting in 1910.
The Stewart brothers also funded the foundation of a Christian college, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (which later became Biola University). In 1952 Biola added theTalbot School of Theology, a non-denominational, conservative evangelical Christian theological seminary. The seminary is named after Dr. Louis Talbot, president from 1932 to 1935 and from 1938 to 1952 - and pastor for many years of the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles (later pastored by Dr. J. Vernon McGee). Also, in 1917, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (Biola) published and distributed the books of essays, The Fundamentals, as a four-volume edition which includes all the initial 12 separate volumes. I have that four-volume set in my personal library.
The cornerstone of the original Bible Institute building in Los Angeles was laid on May 31, 1913, and dedicated with these words from Lyman Stewart: "For the teaching of the truths for which the Institute stands, its doors are to be open every day of the year, and all people, without reference to race, color, or class will ever be welcome to its privileges."
Another great fighter against the incursion of Liberalism into our Christian churches was Dr. J. Gresham Machen, late Professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. His book "Christianity And Liberalism," published in 1923, is the seminal book defending Conservative (Orthodox, i.e., the set of doctrines which were believed by the early Christians) Christian theology.
I have his book in my personal library, but since it is already fragile I have gone online and found a PDF download from which I can copy/paste excerpts. Below are excerpts from Chapter 4, The Bible:
Another extension of Liberal Theology into our Christian churches and faith today if found under the name: The Jesus Seminar. Sounds legitimate, right? That is what I also thought the first time I read about this group of supposed Bible scholars. And, I could not have been more wrong. This group is Liberalism taken to the extreme.
According to the Jesus Seminar web site:
They decided which parts of the New Testament were valid by casting colored beads. Basically, after discussing and voting on the validity of the miracles and teachings of Jesus Christ in the Bible - the Jesus Seminar concluded that over 80% of the sayings of Jesus in the New Testament were not valid, were not from Him - but were inventions of the writers of the Bible.
Also, according to the Jesus Seminar:
According to Greg Koukl, Christian apologist and founder of the Christian apologetics organization Stand To Reason:
What made The Jesus Seminar dangerous is that the Liberal News Media jumped on their bandwagon and began publicizing their meetings and conclusions. Folks, because this Ultra Liberal group wears the name "Jesus Seminar" and because the Liberal News Media strongly supports and publicizes anyone who tries to discredit God, the Bible, Jesus Christ, and our Christian faith - that created a grave danger for new believers and for those who are just beginning to seek God.
And, that my Friends is why it is so important that we Conservative Christians, we who hold to the Biblical teachings of our Christian faith and doctrines - MUST really live the Great Commission, "Go, Make disciples, Baptize them, TEACH them. . . . be My witnesses, in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and in all the world" (Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8, Mark 16:15). The eternal life of many folks still depend upon us sharing the full Word of God with them.
GO into your own personal Jerusalem (your family, friends, community) ~ GO into your own Judea and Samaria (be willing to stand in the face of opposition, telling your state and federal leaders that we will not evict God from America) ~ GO into all the world sharing the Gospel. Through the use of the internet and social networking - we now can go into all the world sharing His Word. Polish up your Great Commission and GO share His Word!
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
And, my response would always be, "Yes, I am a Conservative Christian, which can also be called a Fundamentalist Christian." To me, Conservative Christian and Fundamentalist Christian are synonymous - meaning that I am a Christian whose faith has descended from the first 120 Holy Spirit indwelled disciples who were gathered in the Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost, 33 AD. They were the core of the Christian faith - and from those 120 believers billions have come to faith in Jesus Christ.
Those 120 disciples were not Baptists, nor Methodists, nor Roman Catholics, nor any other denomination. They were just 120 disciples whom the Holy Spirit indwelled and empowered on that wonderful day. And they went out and began telling people about Jesus Christ and the gift of eternal life He had purchased for them on the cross of Calvary.
God did not create denominations - man did. Through the forty men God selected to put His Word in writing - God gave us His full revelation on salvation and living the Christian life. Then men started disagreeing with one another, i.e., what does that Scripture passage really teach us? Are the books of the Bible the literal Written Word - or just thoughts put in writing by 40 sheepherders? And on and on. Man taking the perfect revelation God has given us - and trying to put their own spin on it. And, that, folks - is how we have come to have so many different denominations and sub-groups within denominations. Nothing is so perfect that fallen man cannot mess it up!
So, yes, I am a Conservative, Fundamentalist Christian - because I believe there is one Bible written for all mankind - and I believe that Bible is the Holy Spirit INSPIRED, Holy Spirit INERRANT, Holy Spirit LITERAL Written Word of God. And the only name I wear is Conservative Christian, or Fundamentalist Christian if you desire. Yet, because my personal Statement of Faith aligns very well with the Baptist Statement of Faith - I suppose you could call me a Baptist-flavored Christian. In heaven there will be no denominations!
So how did the name "Fundamentalist" come about? Toward the end of the 19th century (1801-1900) liberal theology was gaining a strong foothold in American churches and educational institutions. Conservative Christians, i.e., those who hold to the doctrine that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, literal Written Word of God, were growing more and more concerned about the false representation of the Christian faith found in Liberalism, i.e., the late 19th century "theological modernism, whose aim was to revise traditional Christian beliefs to accommodate new developments in the natural and social sciences, especially the theory of biological evolution.
In other words, they wanted to take the Word of God - and rather than adapting their worldview and thinking to what God has given us - they wanted to adapt God's Word to make it fit the secular worldview and desires.
This we have discussed before as Eisegesis (reading INTO the Bible what you want it to say to support a desired, predetermined theology) versus Exegesis (reading FROM the Bible what God inspired to be written there).
In the early part of the 20th century, two brothers,Lyman and Milton Stewart, successful Christian businessmen, were so concerned over the incursion of liberalism into our Christian faith that they decided to put their money to work in defense of Biblical Christianity. They financed the writing and publishing of a twelve-volume group of essays titled "The Fundamentals" which they distributed free to over 500,000 pastors, teachers, and theologians, starting in 1910.
The Stewart brothers also funded the foundation of a Christian college, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (which later became Biola University). In 1952 Biola added theTalbot School of Theology, a non-denominational, conservative evangelical Christian theological seminary. The seminary is named after Dr. Louis Talbot, president from 1932 to 1935 and from 1938 to 1952 - and pastor for many years of the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles (later pastored by Dr. J. Vernon McGee). Also, in 1917, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (Biola) published and distributed the books of essays, The Fundamentals, as a four-volume edition which includes all the initial 12 separate volumes. I have that four-volume set in my personal library.
The cornerstone of the original Bible Institute building in Los Angeles was laid on May 31, 1913, and dedicated with these words from Lyman Stewart: "For the teaching of the truths for which the Institute stands, its doors are to be open every day of the year, and all people, without reference to race, color, or class will ever be welcome to its privileges."
Another great fighter against the incursion of Liberalism into our Christian churches was Dr. J. Gresham Machen, late Professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. His book "Christianity And Liberalism," published in 1923, is the seminal book defending Conservative (Orthodox, i.e., the set of doctrines which were believed by the early Christians) Christian theology.
I have his book in my personal library, but since it is already fragile I have gone online and found a PDF download from which I can copy/paste excerpts. Below are excerpts from Chapter 4, The Bible:
Modern liberalism, it has been observed so far, has lost sight of the two great presuppositions of the Christian message - the living God, and the fact of sin. The liberal doctrine of God and the liberal doctrine of man are both diametrically opposite to the Christian view. But the divergence concerns not only the presuppositions of the message, but also the message itself. The Christian message has come to us through the Bible. What shall we think about this Book in which the message is contained? (page 69).
An objection is sometimes offered against this (inspired, inerrant, literal) view of the contents of the Bible. Must we, it is said, depend upon what happened so long ago? Does salvation wait upon the examination of musty records? Is the trained student of Palestinian history the modern priest without whose gracious intervention no one can see God? Can we not find, instead, a salvation that is independent of history, a salvation that depends only on what is with us here and now? (page 70).
But at this point a fatal error lies in wait. It is one of the root errors of modern liberalism. Christian experience, we have just said, is useful as confirming the gospel message. But because it is necessary, many men have jumped to the conclusion that it is all that is necessary. Having a present experience of Christ in the heart, may we not, it is said, hold that experience no matter what history may tell us as to the events of the first Easter morning? (page 71).
The contents of the Bible, then, are unique. But another fact about the Bible is also important. The Bible might contain an account of a true revelation from God, and yet the account be full of error. Before the full authority of the Bible can be established, therefore, it is necessary to add to the Christian doctrine of revelation the Christian doctrine of inspiration. The latter doctrine means that the Bible not only is an account of important things, but that the account itself is true, the writers having been so preserved from error, despite a full maintenance of their habits of thought and expression, that the resulting Book is the "infallible rule of faith and practice." (page 72).
This doctrine of "plenary inspiration" has been made the subject of persistent misrepresentation. Its opponents speak of it as though it involved a mechanical theory of the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, it is said, is represented in this doctrine as dictating the Bible to writers who were really little more than stenographers. But of course all such caricatures are without basis in fact, and it is rather surprising that intelligent men should be so blinded by prejudice about this matter as not even to examine for themselves the perfectly accessible treatises in which the doctrine of plenary inspiration is set forth. (page 73).
As a matter of fact, the doctrine of plenary inspiration does not deny the individuality of the Biblical writers; it does not ignore their use of ordinary means for acquiring information; it does not involve any lack of interest in the historical situations which gave rise to the Biblical books. What it does deny is the presence of error in the Bible. It supposes that the Holy Spirit so informed the minds of the Biblical writers that they were kept from falling into the errors that mar all other books. The Bible might contain an account of a genuine revelation of God, and yet not contain a true account. But according to the doctrine of inspiration, the account is, as a matter of fact, a true account; the Bible is an "infallible rule of faith and practice." (pages 73, 74)
As a matter of fact, however, the modern liberal does not hold fast even to the authority of Jesus. Certainly he does not accept the words of Jesus as they are recorded in the Gospels. For among the recorded words of Jesus are to be found just those things which are most abhorrent to the modern liberal Church, and in His recorded words Jesus also points forward to the fuller revelation which was afterwards to be given through His apostles. Evidently, therefore, those words of Jesus which are to be regarded as authoritative by modern liberalism must first be selected from the mass of the recorded words by a critical process.
The critical process is certainly very difficult, and the suspicion often arises that the critic is retaining as genuine words of the historical Jesus only those words which conform to his own preconceived ideas. But even after the sifting process has been completed, the liberal scholar is still unable to accept as authoritative all the sayings of Jesus; he must finally admit that even the "historical" Jesus as reconstructed by modern historians said some things that are untrue. (pages 76-77).
Bill Gray Note: You may download the PDF copy of this book at: www.extremetheology.com/files/MachenLiberalism.pdf
Another extension of Liberal Theology into our Christian churches and faith today if found under the name: The Jesus Seminar. Sounds legitimate, right? That is what I also thought the first time I read about this group of supposed Bible scholars. And, I could not have been more wrong. This group is Liberalism taken to the extreme.
According to the Jesus Seminar web site:
Westar Institute - home of the Jesus Seminar - is dedicated to fostering and communicating the results of cutting-edge scholarship on the history and evolution of the Christian tradition, thereby raising the level of public discourse about questions that matter in society and culture.
The Jesus Seminar was organized in 1985 to renew the quest of the historical Jesus and to report the results of its research to the general public, rather than just to a handful of gospel specialists. Initially, the goal of the Seminar was to review each of the sayings and deeds attributed to Jesus in the gospels and determine which of them could be considered authentic.
Thirty scholars took up the challenge at the initial meeting in Berkeley, California. Eventually more than 200 professionally trained specialists, called Fellows, joined the group at various phases. . . The Seminar met twice a year to debate technical papers that were prepared and circulated in advance. At the close of debate on each agenda item, Fellows voted using colored beads to indicate the degree of authenticity of the words and deeds attributed to Jesus in the gospels.
The first findings of the Jesus Seminar were published in 1993 as "The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus."
The Fellows used a voting system to evaluate the authenticity of about 500 statements and events. For certain high-profile passages the votes were embodied in beads, the color of which represented the degree of confidence that a saying or act was, or was not, authentic:
Red beads – indicated the voter believed Jesus did say the passage quoted, or something very much like the passage.
Pink beads – indicated the voter believed Jesus probably said something like the passage.
Grey beads – indicated the voter believed Jesus did not say the passage, but it contains Jesus' ideas.
Black beads – indicated the voter believed Jesus did not say the passage—it comes from later admirers or a different tradition.
They decided which parts of the New Testament were valid by casting colored beads. Basically, after discussing and voting on the validity of the miracles and teachings of Jesus Christ in the Bible - the Jesus Seminar concluded that over 80% of the sayings of Jesus in the New Testament were not valid, were not from Him - but were inventions of the writers of the Bible.
Also, according to the Jesus Seminar:
Jesus of Nazareth was born during the reign of Herod the Great.
His mother's name was Mary, and he had a human father whose name may not have been Joseph.
Jesus was born in Nazareth, not in Bethlehem.
Jesus was an itinerant sage who shared meals with social outcasts.
Jesus practiced faith healing without the use of ancient medicine or magic, relieving afflictions we now consider psychosomatic.
He did not walk on water, feed the multitude with loaves and fishes, change water into wine, or raise Lazarus from the dead.
Jesus was arrested in Jerusalem and crucified by the Romans.
He was executed as a public nuisance, not for claiming to be the Son of God.
The empty tomb is a fiction – Jesus was not raised bodily from the dead.
Belief in the resurrection is based on the visionary experiences of Paul, Peter, and Mary Magdalene.
According to Greg Koukl, Christian apologist and founder of the Christian apologetics organization Stand To Reason:
Who Are the (Jesus Seminar) Scholars?: Journalists frequently refer to the 74 "scholars" of the Jesus Seminar as representing the mainstream of biblical scholarship. Being a bona fide scholar, though, means more than just having a degree. Generally, a scholar is one who demonstrates a mastery of his discipline and who makes an academic contribution to his field. By this definition, only fourteen members of the Seminar qualify, including scholars like John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. Twenty others are recognizable names in the field. One quarter of the group, though, are complete unknowns (one is a movie producer), and half of them come from a cluster of three ultra-liberal schools: Harvard, Claremont, and Vanderbilt.
What made The Jesus Seminar dangerous is that the Liberal News Media jumped on their bandwagon and began publicizing their meetings and conclusions. Folks, because this Ultra Liberal group wears the name "Jesus Seminar" and because the Liberal News Media strongly supports and publicizes anyone who tries to discredit God, the Bible, Jesus Christ, and our Christian faith - that created a grave danger for new believers and for those who are just beginning to seek God.
And, that my Friends is why it is so important that we Conservative Christians, we who hold to the Biblical teachings of our Christian faith and doctrines - MUST really live the Great Commission, "Go, Make disciples, Baptize them, TEACH them. . . . be My witnesses, in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and in all the world" (Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8, Mark 16:15). The eternal life of many folks still depend upon us sharing the full Word of God with them.
GO into your own personal Jerusalem (your family, friends, community) ~ GO into your own Judea and Samaria (be willing to stand in the face of opposition, telling your state and federal leaders that we will not evict God from America) ~ GO into all the world sharing the Gospel. Through the use of the internet and social networking - we now can go into all the world sharing His Word. Polish up your Great Commission and GO share His Word!
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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