Fundamentalism
In 1922 in New York City, Harry Fosdick preached a sermon entitled “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” At the time, Protestants were embroiled in a debate between liberal theology that had been on the rise for at least half a century and Fundamentalist theology, so named for its emphasis on “fundamentals of the faith” such as the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth, divinity, resurrection, and second coming of Christ, and the substitutionary atonement. In his sermon Fosdick rails against the supposed intolerance of the Fundamentalists, arguing that Christians on both ends of the spectrum should be tolerant of each others’ views and avoid breaking fellowship with those of different opinions on these matters.
Though Fosdick has many good things to say, and his seeming zeal for spreading the Gospel is admirable, he ultimately is guilty of a dangerously errant view of the Scriptures, the Christian faith, and the place of tolerance in the Church. First, he has a poor understanding of the doctrine of Scripture and the nature of God’s Word. Fosdick accuses Fundamentalists of believing that the entirety of the Bible was “inerrantly dictated by God to men.” While there may have been a very small minority of Fundamentalists who held to this view in Fosdick’s day, it has never been the dominant or orthodox understanding of the mode of God’s inspiration of the Scriptures. This is simply a caricature by Fosdick that has little to do with the true Protestant doctrine of the plenary verbal inspiration of the Bible.
Fosdick’s counter-argument and his own understanding of Scripture contain both important elements of truth and significant problems. He compares the supposed Fundamentalist view to Islam’s doctrine that the Koran was written infallibly in heaven before being to given to Mohammed. He points out that this view of the origins of the Koran have stultified the culture of Muslim areas in enslavement to ideas like polygamy, slavery, God as an Oriental monarch, and the use of force on unbelievers. All of these things, he points out, are present in the Bible, but “are not final; they are always being superseded; revelation is progressive.” He says that the Bible is “the record of the progressive unfolding of the character of God to his people from early primitive days until the great unveiling in Christ.”
All of this is exactly right, but Fosdick demonstrates a poor understanding of Biblical Theology and the true nature of revelation. The two major acts of God with reference to man—redemption and revelation—go hand in hand, but they are not the same thing. Redemption has to do with the acts of God in space and time to save a people to himself throughout the generations of human history. Revelation has to do with the self-disclosure of God to men and follows the objective acts of God in redemptive history. The Bible is the written form of God’s self-revelation, and that revelation is indeed progressive. It starts with the relatively basic ways God dealt with the patriarchs, moves through the Law given to Moses and the age of the prophets, and finds its full and final expression, its glorious consummation, in Christ. God’s work of redemption goes on today in a subject-central way as he saves individuals to Himself, but Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension mark the completion of His objective acts of redemption, and the completion of His special revelation.¹ Fosdick, with a bad understanding of this, wrongly sees the Bible primarily as a source of inspiration and private, spiritual importance that essentially has different meaning for the modern Christian than for the pre-modern believer.
His view of Scripture also reveals something of what he believes about God. As a Christian, he clearly does not believe that the Koran is in fact the inspired word of God. He believes it to be a work of purely human invention and believes that the (wrong) treatment of it as God’s word is responsible for the calcification of the Muslim world in a medieval culture. He applies the same reasoning to the Bible, implying that if the Fundamentalists won and the Bible were treated the same way, it would have a similar result. It seems, then that Fosdick sees the Bible (like the Koran) not as the breathed-out word of an eternal, omniscient, timeless God. If he did, he might understand that the Word is equally applicable to all ages regardless of when it was written, and whether it was actually dictated or less directly inspired. Taken to its logical end, Fosdick’s line of thinking seems to end with an essentially Deistic view of God.
Fosdick also has a poor understanding of the role of tolerance among Christians and in the Church. He lambastes the Fundamentalists for excluding liberals from Christian fellowship, saying that anyone is entitled to their opinions and asserting that a liberal like himself would never be so intolerant. He clearly thinks the Fundamentalists are wrong in their beliefs, but his attitude seems to be that the Fundamentalists should be tolerant even if they are in fact right. In so doing—and even in his own “tolerant” attitude—he completely neglects the duty of pastors and elders of the church to preserve true doctrine and maintain the true teaching of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. It is one thing to be “tolerant” of an individual who believes unbiblical and unorthodox doctrines—all Christians should indeed be tolerant of such a person, if tolerance includes welcoming them into the church and teaching them the true Gospel and right doctrine. The elders of the Church, however, neglect their calling and will be called to account before God if they allow false doctrine to spread in the church, especially if they allow it to be taught publicly.
Finally, Fosdick’s beliefs about the proper relationship of religion and science in the modern world are fundamentally flawed, though they are typical of the spirit of modernism that has plagued Christianity for more than two centuries. Fosdick is right when he says that “all truth comes from one God and is his revelation,” and in his assertion that believers must “see this [modern scientific] knowledge in terms of the Christian faith and to see the Christian faith in terms of this new knowledge.” He references the medieval controversy between the Roman Catholic Church, with its established Ptolemeian view of an earth-centered universe, and Galileo Galilei who advocated the Copernican sun-centered understanding of the solar system. Fosdick compares liberals to Galileo as the one trying to “blend the new knowledge and the old faith in a new combination,” and puts the Fundamentalists in the place of the cruel, dogmatic, repressive Church of Rome. This controversy, however, lies at the beginning of the modern spirit that places scientific “knowledge” and human reason above faith in the revealed word of God, relegating revelation only to the realm of private, internal, spiritual values rather than the source of all true knowledge.
The titular question Fosdick raises in this sermon is difficult to answer. It would seem that to some extent the answer is negative, as the spirit of modernism pervades much of today’s evangelical world. Many Christians today do indeed view the Bible as only having importance for their feeble, privatized religion that is relevant only one day per week. On the other hand, the orthodox faith is alive and well in many churches where biblical doctrine is still taught. Christ, after all, has promised to build and preserve His church, and He will guard her from false teaching. To the extent that “fundamentalism” is part of the faith once for all delivered to the saints (a dubious assertion, but one for another essay), then, the answer is, yes. Not only shall the fundamentalists win, they must win, for they are the true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ who believe His true Gospel.
¹See Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), 5-8.
Though Fosdick has many good things to say, and his seeming zeal for spreading the Gospel is admirable, he ultimately is guilty of a dangerously errant view of the Scriptures, the Christian faith, and the place of tolerance in the Church. First, he has a poor understanding of the doctrine of Scripture and the nature of God’s Word. Fosdick accuses Fundamentalists of believing that the entirety of the Bible was “inerrantly dictated by God to men.” While there may have been a very small minority of Fundamentalists who held to this view in Fosdick’s day, it has never been the dominant or orthodox understanding of the mode of God’s inspiration of the Scriptures. This is simply a caricature by Fosdick that has little to do with the true Protestant doctrine of the plenary verbal inspiration of the Bible.
Fosdick’s counter-argument and his own understanding of Scripture contain both important elements of truth and significant problems. He compares the supposed Fundamentalist view to Islam’s doctrine that the Koran was written infallibly in heaven before being to given to Mohammed. He points out that this view of the origins of the Koran have stultified the culture of Muslim areas in enslavement to ideas like polygamy, slavery, God as an Oriental monarch, and the use of force on unbelievers. All of these things, he points out, are present in the Bible, but “are not final; they are always being superseded; revelation is progressive.” He says that the Bible is “the record of the progressive unfolding of the character of God to his people from early primitive days until the great unveiling in Christ.”
All of this is exactly right, but Fosdick demonstrates a poor understanding of Biblical Theology and the true nature of revelation. The two major acts of God with reference to man—redemption and revelation—go hand in hand, but they are not the same thing. Redemption has to do with the acts of God in space and time to save a people to himself throughout the generations of human history. Revelation has to do with the self-disclosure of God to men and follows the objective acts of God in redemptive history. The Bible is the written form of God’s self-revelation, and that revelation is indeed progressive. It starts with the relatively basic ways God dealt with the patriarchs, moves through the Law given to Moses and the age of the prophets, and finds its full and final expression, its glorious consummation, in Christ. God’s work of redemption goes on today in a subject-central way as he saves individuals to Himself, but Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension mark the completion of His objective acts of redemption, and the completion of His special revelation.¹ Fosdick, with a bad understanding of this, wrongly sees the Bible primarily as a source of inspiration and private, spiritual importance that essentially has different meaning for the modern Christian than for the pre-modern believer.
His view of Scripture also reveals something of what he believes about God. As a Christian, he clearly does not believe that the Koran is in fact the inspired word of God. He believes it to be a work of purely human invention and believes that the (wrong) treatment of it as God’s word is responsible for the calcification of the Muslim world in a medieval culture. He applies the same reasoning to the Bible, implying that if the Fundamentalists won and the Bible were treated the same way, it would have a similar result. It seems, then that Fosdick sees the Bible (like the Koran) not as the breathed-out word of an eternal, omniscient, timeless God. If he did, he might understand that the Word is equally applicable to all ages regardless of when it was written, and whether it was actually dictated or less directly inspired. Taken to its logical end, Fosdick’s line of thinking seems to end with an essentially Deistic view of God.
Fosdick also has a poor understanding of the role of tolerance among Christians and in the Church. He lambastes the Fundamentalists for excluding liberals from Christian fellowship, saying that anyone is entitled to their opinions and asserting that a liberal like himself would never be so intolerant. He clearly thinks the Fundamentalists are wrong in their beliefs, but his attitude seems to be that the Fundamentalists should be tolerant even if they are in fact right. In so doing—and even in his own “tolerant” attitude—he completely neglects the duty of pastors and elders of the church to preserve true doctrine and maintain the true teaching of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. It is one thing to be “tolerant” of an individual who believes unbiblical and unorthodox doctrines—all Christians should indeed be tolerant of such a person, if tolerance includes welcoming them into the church and teaching them the true Gospel and right doctrine. The elders of the Church, however, neglect their calling and will be called to account before God if they allow false doctrine to spread in the church, especially if they allow it to be taught publicly.
Finally, Fosdick’s beliefs about the proper relationship of religion and science in the modern world are fundamentally flawed, though they are typical of the spirit of modernism that has plagued Christianity for more than two centuries. Fosdick is right when he says that “all truth comes from one God and is his revelation,” and in his assertion that believers must “see this [modern scientific] knowledge in terms of the Christian faith and to see the Christian faith in terms of this new knowledge.” He references the medieval controversy between the Roman Catholic Church, with its established Ptolemeian view of an earth-centered universe, and Galileo Galilei who advocated the Copernican sun-centered understanding of the solar system. Fosdick compares liberals to Galileo as the one trying to “blend the new knowledge and the old faith in a new combination,” and puts the Fundamentalists in the place of the cruel, dogmatic, repressive Church of Rome. This controversy, however, lies at the beginning of the modern spirit that places scientific “knowledge” and human reason above faith in the revealed word of God, relegating revelation only to the realm of private, internal, spiritual values rather than the source of all true knowledge.
The titular question Fosdick raises in this sermon is difficult to answer. It would seem that to some extent the answer is negative, as the spirit of modernism pervades much of today’s evangelical world. Many Christians today do indeed view the Bible as only having importance for their feeble, privatized religion that is relevant only one day per week. On the other hand, the orthodox faith is alive and well in many churches where biblical doctrine is still taught. Christ, after all, has promised to build and preserve His church, and He will guard her from false teaching. To the extent that “fundamentalism” is part of the faith once for all delivered to the saints (a dubious assertion, but one for another essay), then, the answer is, yes. Not only shall the fundamentalists win, they must win, for they are the true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ who believe His true Gospel.
¹See Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), 5-8.
posted by Jeff at 12:51 PM
<< Home