tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30991724.post4674845479551152114..comments2024-02-27T03:28:22.684-06:00Comments on In Defense of the Gospel: The Basis of FundamentalismLou Martuneachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08683967904677815711noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30991724.post-82782444114107524012012-05-08T10:50:54.308-05:002012-05-08T10:50:54.308-05:00Lou/Bro. Flanders,
Bro. Flanders wrote,
“The kin...Lou/Bro. Flanders,<br /><br />Bro. Flanders wrote,<br /><br />“The kind of evangelicalism that claims to believe the Gospel but allows that a Christian can reject some of it is not consistent with the concept that there is an absolute difference between right and wrong…Yet it must be conceded that Christian fundamentalists are not in every way true to the concept they espouse.”<br /><br />I agree that fundamentalists are forsaking their fundamentalism for a much broader movement when it comes to separation. I think we ought to forsake all movements for Biblicism, which is a commitment to the whole Bible as essential and the basis for fellowship. Fundamentalism never has done that. From the very beginning, fundamentalism, from it’s very etymology, is a movement of reducing separation to just essentials and non-essentials. The truth is that fundamentalism is about fellowship, not about separation, and so that fellowship turns the Divine Command for separation on it’s head, limiting it to a movement-made basis of fellowship. Evangelicals just cut the list down to the Gospel. This is my growing problem with the whole idea of fundamentalism. That is, where does God give us the idea in His Word that fundamentalists should determine which 5 doctrines are the basis of separation, any more than God gives the evangelical permission to reject some of the Gospel. Indeed, is not fundamentalism from the very beginning, limiting separation to “some” of God’s truth, while claiming “some” of God’s infallible truth is non-essential. <br /><br />Yes, some of it is non-essential to being saved, but ALL of it is essential to NT Christianity, which is the entire new life in Christ. Fundamentalism seems to scorn evangelicalism (and rightly so) for making separation only about the Gospel. However, they themselves, limit separation to the fundamentals, instead of the whole counsel of God.<br /><br />I reject what Bauder, Olson, Jordan, and company are doing, but I also reject the reductionism of a fundamentalist movement today that labels a Biblicist (Baptist) approach to separation as extreme, in the same spirit and tone, that the evangelical does with a fundamentalist, whose sphere of separation is just a slightly longer list.<br /><br />I would ask you both what I’ve been asking myself…can a fundamentalist, as described by and defined by the word itself, and movement of the last century, be a Biblicist, committed to the whole counsel of God? I don’t think so. Your thoughts…!?Steve Rogershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920334627083544106noreply@blogger.com