Featured 20 Reasons I Don’t Take Potshots at Fundamentalists

OK. so we can conclude that there are 2 areas which impact fundamentalism 1) Doctrine and 2) Practice (do's and don'ts.

Number 1 - probably all the Baptists on the BB are number 1 fundamentalists.
Number 2 - Probably each and every one of us is headed for the Lake of Fire by the standard of someone else.

Oh you drink!, smoke, go to the movies, celebrate Christmas AND HALLOWEEN! Have a BEARD!! eeekk!!

In my opinion a church which continuously hearkens back and singles out certain laws in the Law of Moses is probably in trouble.

Legalisms to me then is depending upon an external law (Moses or otherwise) rather than the leading of the Spirit to guide me through this pilgrimage on planet earth.

Like many of you, I grew up in my Christian childhood (spiritually speaking) as a "fundamentalist" with an unwritten set of 20th century rules (I know its the 21st century now) chiseled in an invisible piece of granite hanging somewhere in the church sanctuary.

Probably it's almost a necessary phase, I'm glad I grew out of it.

Don't get me wrong - some rules are absolutely necessary especially for the babes in Christ and we should be ever mindful of their adolescent view of Christianity. There must be a balance of law and grace.

HankD

 

Separation - my definition from the 2 Corinthians passage.

2 Corinthians
14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

This one is easy for me being a former Catholic, I renounced my Catholic faith and cleaved unto my biblical faith.
Stopped going to mass, stopped practicing the Catholic sacraments.
Stopped the usage of statues images, prayers to the saints, etc, etc, etc...
In other words I separated from the Catholic church.

HankD

 

Elaborate please. The only ones Ive ever been exposed to have very controlling pastors....whose deacons cut the grass & take out the garbage....and impose ridiculous unbiblical rules on the congregation. everything from what type of shoes to wear, to length of hair...blah, blah blah.

 

Heaven forbid he did not have a tie......they would have had a conniption fit if he.......and there in lies the problem.

 

OK, lets let this fly up the flagpole (got it off the net:

Legalism refers to any doctrine which states salvation comes strictly from adherence to the law. It can be thought of as a works-based religion.

 

What would you like elaboration on? The split in the 40s and 50s? Well the cliff note version would be that it all centered around a rising star in fundemental circle by the name of Billy Graham. As his crusade got bigger so did the pressure to include more and more churches. The old guard fundementalist cautioned against letting the liberal denomination be involved whereas the younger men did not see the problem. That was pretty much the catalyst for thr split between what would become evangelicals (new evangelicals) and fundementalist. And as my pastor always pointed out in an ironic matter it was the evengelicals that separated themselves from thr fundementalist.

Now as far as your experience I have no doubt about it but for me my worst experience with power hungry 'pastors' has been out side of fundementalist circles, so to me again it all comes down to the individual churches and their leaders.

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well that is the purely technical definition of legalism. My rant was about how the term is presently being misused today and how to define the modern misused term of "legalism".

HankD

 

As HankD noted, this is the primary definition. A second definition, in current usage, would involve undue emphasis on things that are neither specifically addressed in scripture nor strongly implied in biblical principles. Of course, this is quite subjective, as someone snarkily stated: "Anyone with standards more strict than mine is a legalist; less strict, they're a liberal."

Standards related to personal appearance and dress can vary by culture, as I'm sure folks here know. Acceptable attire in Hawaii might not pass muster in New England, for instance. One such "cultural disconnect" involving a pastor friend occurred when he was a missionary to Newfoundland. While on furlough, he visited the church he'd attended all through his BJU years. The pastor, same one as when my friend had attended, objected to the missionary's beard (beardless adult males are exceedingly rare in Newf, for several good reasons), and his church ceased their support of this missionary. This certainly fits the #2 definition.

 

This one has always been a mystery to me as we are told (in the OT at that) that the messiah had a beard.

Spurgeon had a beard, the most famous Baptist known.
Beards became unpopular with the advent of the world wars.
Insect vermin I suppose.

Fortunately for me I did not have my beard when I went through Bible School so I avoided the possible expulsion.

HankD

 

They never gave us that reason in Bible school!

HankD

 

And they criticize Puritans

 

Interesting. Could you give some examples? I'm trying to think of some and the only thing I can come up with for a liberal church being legalistic is if they didn't perform certain social gospel good deeds of some sort. For example, if a church didn't have a soup kitchen they would be looked down on.



Sent from my Motorola Droid Turbo.

 

Well I on many many occasions I would tell my brother to stop imposing his "liberty" on me because that is how they present their rules.
So a couple of examples:
I like skirts, and find them much cooler to wear in the summer months. Well I was very much criticized for wearing skirts to church most Sundays. I was "free" to wear pants and how dare I not wear pants to be more seeker friendly.
I like wearing my hair long. Again I was very much criticized for having long hair because you know I was "free" to cut it short and how dare I not cut it short to again be more seeker friendly.
I was actually pulled aside by a 'pastor' over the skirt issue, and my brother who works at this church would also get on me about wearing skirts and not cutting my hair shorter.
How dare I not read the latest best selling book
How dare I not use the Message.
How dare I .... fill in the blank with whatever is the hottest trend in Christendom at the moment.

Needless to say I was happy when I was able to leave that church. Still causes issues in my family since until I got married and moved out of state I went to different church than my family because I was not going to be dictated to like that. Even when I stopped going to that church my brother would often get on me for my more conservative ideas and actions.

 

Ah, America, the land of the FREE!

HankD

 

This is a good post. I hope you don't mind a couple of historical corrections.

Having said that, the actual split between New Evangelicalism (a term not yet recognized on this thread) was at the Billy Graham NY City crusade in 1957. There was little disagreement in the 1940s and early 1950s. (Graham was a separatist until 1957.) Graham specifically turned down a request that fundamentalists lead by Jack Wyrtzen and others form the 1957 committee. Instead, he insisted on an ecumenical committee with an avowed liberal on it. Most leading fundamentalists were pro-Graham until then.

New Evangelicalism began long before 1957, with the coining of the term in 1948 by Harold John Ockenga. With the direction of Fuller Seminary, the founding of Christianity Today, and the 1957 event, the break was complete.

 

New York Times, May 2, 1927, p. 24:

"The time has come for a new evangelicalism, the Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker Jr. declared in his morning sermon yesterday in Calvary Episcopal Church, Fourth Avenue and Twentyfirst Street. The old evangelicalism, he asserted, had failed when it refused to keep pace with science and 'the new knowledge.'"

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A07EED8173BE233A25751C0A9639C946695D6CF