What the Heck is a Fundamentalist?

In a continuation of our “What the Heck is . . .?” series, David and ...

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In a continuation of our “What the Heck is . . .?” series, David and Curtis help us think about the concept of fundamentalism and how it fits into the current cultural moment. Is fundamentalism just a set of beliefs? Is it a way of approaching belief? Does it perhaps even extend beyond traditional religious belief to certain political beliefs? And where do uncertainty and humility fit into all of this? Join us as we unpack how fundamentalism functions both within the church and in the wider culture.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Will Roberts

    I had a member of my Presbyterian church leave the church because he found the true church which was an acapella church of Christ. He made the argument that no instruments are mentioned in New Testament worship. This isn't even scripturally correct.

    Revelation 14:2, NIV: And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps

    I made the argument to this former member that if it is good enough for the church in heaven it should be good enough for the church on earth.

    I think it is a good point. Though he didn't appreciate it.

    I have found church arguments about buildings, worship, and other small things are common not just in fundamentalist churches but all types of religious communities. I don't think fights over small things is a symptom of fundamentalism. I think it is a symptom of religion itself. When you inject God into the mix even little things can become spiritualized and become existential battles. I have also found that our fights are often never about what we say they are about. Often couples argue over household chores. But a debate over who is or is not doing the laundry can take on oversized tones when people are not talking about harder things in the relationship. Often fights over small things are because we don't know how to talk about our bigger misgivings, anxieties, and doubts, so we project onto smaller things we know how to talk about.

    I read David's book and thought a lot about going back to Federalism as a way to lower the temperature in our country. Yet there was a time where the Federal Government did not have as much power before the Civil Rights act and those were not fun times for many Americans. I remember David talking about trying to argue a case against a coal company that was clearly in the wrong when the Judge and most of the community knew people who worked for the coal company and were in their pocket. Often local control lacks accountability, objectivity, and the ability to make hard unpopular changes. I worry that a return to more decentralized authority will inevitably result in the impingement on people's rights. It seems like a strong central authority layers removed from local pressures is the only way to enforce rights. What rights we decide to give must be fought in the public process. But perhaps it would be better if we fought that out nationally and learned how to loose well than devolve power and create a situation again where no one's rights are protected.

    A foreign actor threatening your democracy is a bit different than the threat coming from inside your house. I often have thought that the oath of office to defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic should remove the word domestic. Because the moment you open the door to your fellow citizens being enemies is the moment you open the possibility of civil conflict outside the political process.

    The wicked problem in our context is both sides genuinely believe they are defending democracy. I don't think a podcast about the threat to American Democracy is needed.

    Instead a podcast on Christianity, reasoning, knowledge, news, and how we know what we know would be helpful. That book Think Again might be a more interesting podcast. Having some neutral principles about how to think about political news might be more useful than just saying one side is a threat to democracy. Generally when I call my neighbor a threat it doesn't improve the situation. But when I take them seriously and enter into a process of exploring what we know and how we know it that might gain more results.

    For example Curtis has mentioned his vaccine advocacy several times on this podcast.

    I am generally pro vaccine. Preached a sermon on why you should take the vaccine and got a good deal of flack. But that doesn't mean the anti-vax movement hasn't taught me things I didn't know.

    Like the Vaccine Court system which gives vaccine makers blanket immunity for their product. I think the anti-vax movement has a good point that such an institution smells fishy and leads to mistrust. If vaccines are safe such an institution shouldn't be necessary. Thus if we believe vaccines to be safe we should work to abolish vaccine courts and develop scientific reporting systems.

    To say that Vaccines should not give one pause and they are an obvious good isn't completely true from my experience.

    Vaccine courts did give me pause. And I think we should be humble enough to say when the other side has a good point. Instead of talking about people we disagree with when they are not in the room we should come and reason together in a respectful and rigorous way.

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  2. Val Xavier

    What a great episode, at least for someone raised in the Christian Church variant of the CoC.

    I do want to point out I was a little surprised you didn't mention the *key* difference - beyond Basketball and Kitchens - The absence of *musical instruments.* As I was taught, you "non-fiddlers" prohibited pianos and organs specifically because they were not ordained for use in the New Testament, which is the broader principle underlying all of the arguments you noted. Neither were basketball or kitchens mentioned in scripture. Conversely, if "kitchens, basketball courts, and pianos" were specifically mentioned in the New Testament then they would have been perfectly fine for CoC worship. "If God wanted us to have..." and all that.

    Your key point though, that "truth" in the empirical sense is antithetical to Love, may be the most important knowledge we can take from this conversation. A little bit of empirical knowledge makes it really hard for us to be humble, and to Love.

    Excellent work. Thank you.

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  3. Luke Jones

    I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you both for these podcasts.

    David I am currently a member of the church of Christ and what some might label as “Anti” and unfortunately can relate to many of the sentiments expressed here.

    A critical point you all highlighted is this is more of a psychology vs a specific set of beliefs. One may be persuaded of very specific propositional beliefs because they are what you believe most honors God or simply are practices that due to your spiritual heritage abide most closely with the current state of your conscience. And as Rom 14:23 states, “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” But this is far different than holding these propositional beliefs in such a way as to say everyone who does not also hold them is not doing so in “good faith” in Christ.

    Unfortunately I don’t believe I was quite as eyes wide open to this fundamentalism streak in my spiritual heritage until the pandemic because it was not the way I was raised, despite having pretty specific propositional beliefs. I also believe it is not shared by all or even the majority in todays church of Christ. I particularly see a less “fundamentalist” belief system in the younger generation.

    But this is very personal for me because I had to make a very recent decision to “leave” my current local congregation due to such a fundamentalism streak that led to unnecessary division. Thank you so much for putting these podcasts out and helping me process this difficult time in my life.

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    1. Luke Jones

      Also not sure if it’s always the case but I have also observed a fairly consistent overlap between those with a Christian Nationalist world view and those with a Fundamentalist world view. It’s almost as if Christian Nationalists are simply a specific manifestation of Fundamentalism.

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  4. Tom and Robin Moore

    I grew up in the SBC and my husband was a hit-or-miss Assembly of God. When I was in my early twenties I was searching for a little something different. I went to a friend of mine's church that was an Apostolic Pentecostal Church. They emphasized outward symbols of Holiness in the women. Such as Rapunzel long hair and Little House on the Prairie dresses. All the while, the men could strut around in nice suits I might add. More importantly I was annoyed with what seem to be there hardcore denial of the Trinity and carefully crafted interpretation of scripture to reflect that. Then there was the case of a friend of mine who struggled with his sexuality. He was baptized there and the elders were praying over him and literally they were pushing him down to be slain in the spirit. He showed me the bruises the next day.

    The only problem I had with SBC was having the youth group go out witnessing at the local mall. I never enjoyed cold call witnessing. And besides that, we would often talk to people who were clearly much older than us and wiser. The approach was always the same- If you died tonight do you know where you would go? I mean how random. I suppose it work for some

    But like Curtis, I learned a lot about scripture from vacation bible school with SBC.. After a few times winning candy bars by yelling out 'Jesus wept !" as a scripture, they finally moved on from me. LOL!

    I think I heard Tim Keller mention something his wife said about fundamentalism as it depends on what your fundamental is? You could say jihadist are fundamentalist but you could also say the Amish are fundamentalists. They are completely different.

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    Dale C Smith

    We need to remember that we pray"thy kingdom come" it is a present and future hope/belief ; it is not expected to be fully here now. It may be the belief that it was closer in our comfortable social comunity called church than it is in tyh emore aware cmplex society of today is the status we fear losing.

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    Alan

    David, thanks for the shout-out to the "younger CoC listeners" who are attending non-fundamentalist Churches of Christ. I am encouraged that many of our churches are turning back to our ecumenical roots.

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    Charles

    Another great episode; I learned a lot!

    Question to help foster a “learner” mindset among the two of you: what conclusions did you share that you think are most susceptible to being wrong?

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  8. Shawn Crawford

    As someone born in the (instrumentalist) restorationist movement in 1991 went to restorationist undergrad (Kentucky Christian University) and attended a noninstrumentalist church through law school and currently attend a church of christ(again, instrumentalist), hearing your, David's, description of restorationism was like a mirror universe episode. I don't know if it's because I was from another branch or the time separation

    For example, I recognized the term sword drill, but did not recognize the exercise described. (Our sword drills were races to find particular passages when given the citation.) We do memorize a ton and place a high value on the text.

    Some of it I think I learned differently because of experiences like yours. As I grew up, the saying "we are Christians only, but not the only Christians" was recited often. But that might have been because that was a fight had the generation before. Always felt odd to see restorationists act like Methodists weren't true Christians.

    I've heard your citation to your restorationist background as fundamentalism before and thought therefore you were talking about me and mine when talking about fundamentalists, but after this episode, I'm not sure you are talking about us. Again, I don't know if that's difference in "branch" or difference in time.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Alan

      Shawn, I think there are both generational and theological differences.

      The early leaders of the restoration movement were decidedly non-fundamentalist. Their intent was to launch a unity movement, reacting against the dogmatism and exclusivity of 18th and 19th century American Protestantism (with its emphasis on line-drawing and creeds...propositional truth anyone?).

      Over time, the restoration movement split into a few different streams: the Churches of Christ (acapella and instrumental), the Christian Church, and the Disciples of Christ. The acapella Churches of Christ probably became the most fundamentalist over time--see David's commentary.

      In recent years, the acapella Churches of Christ have become much more ecumenical. In that sense, we are returning to our roots. I think our hermeneutic is also improving. At its best, I think our faith tradition still has a lot to offer: a love of scripture, simplicity in worship, and an emphasis on unity.

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    Bruce Stouffer

    As someone who would speak of being a fundamentalist in the present rather than past tense, “I have thoughts” (as Jonah might say):

    1. I’ll begin by reiterating my overall appreciation for David’s stand against the political craziness that has overtaken much of conservative American Christianity in recent years, including fundamentalism. He has, in my view, shown much more discernment of the true nature of the populist Right than many in my own circle. The Dispatch has been one of my oases of sanity in these times.

    2. I will echo a previous commenter in wishing this podcast hadn’t passed over the fundamentalist/modernist controversy that gave rise to fundamentalism in the first place. I suppose the fact that you all focused on fundamentalism as a psychological phenomenon is more evidence that the term has outlived its usefulness as a label, as some within fundamentalism itself will acknowledge.

    3. About propositional truth v. knowing Christ as the Truth: I will readily affirm that the Christian’s goal ought to be knowing Christ in a personal way, not merely assenting to propositions. And I will acknowledge that too many professing Christians have failed in that regard (myself included). However, I don’t see how that makes propositional truth unimportant. One can acknowledge those truths without truly knowing Christ, but one cannot claim to truly know Christ if he will not acknowledge those truths.

    4. About Paul’s “now we see in a mirror dimly”: yes, there are things we will not know or comprehend in this life. Yes, we ought to be accepting of other believers who have different ideas about matters about which Scripture has not spoken clearly (as Paul explains in Romans 14). But that doesn’t mean we should be unsure about those things Scripture has clearly addressed. For instance, earlier in the same letter in which Paul spoke of seeing “in a mirror dimly,” he did not hesitate to call out immorality in the Corinthian church and urge them to expel the man responsible. Likewise, he did not mince words when speaking of those who would add to or change the gospel message. I know that I’m getting to the heart of the divide between fundamentalism and broader evangelicalism here, but I thought I would give voice to the fundamentalist perspective, unpopular though it may be.

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  10. Richard Kennedy

    Not done yet, but Sword Drills? I remember them as Sunday School drills ( I used them teaching Episcopalian Sunday School), where swords at the ready, we raced through our Bibles to *find* particular passages. My Fundie upbringing enforced memorization, but stressed a Biblicism (I wear that as a badge of honor, not an insult, though I am clearly NO Fundie, nor Evangelical) that was facile and widely knowledgeable, such that you could FIND what you might memorize. Different and adjacent to what the guys are working from.

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