Fundamentalist Diversity

:sleeping_2: :sleeping_2: :sleeping_2:
Yawn. What's all that yelling? Someone woke me up. Oh, it's you guys.

Patty is fixing breakfast, but I'll take a few minutes here.

Rhet, my one-volume copy of The Fundamentals is 710 pages long. No one ever used it for a doctrinal statement. It has articles on everything from the virgin birth to what is wrong with evolution and higher criticism to what is wrong with the Catholics, how to do missions, how to pray, how to tithe, etc., etc. And yes, many Fundamentalists have the book/pamphlets/set of books and have read it/them.

If you want an original source for Fundamentalist doctrinal statements, go back to the statements put out by millenarian conferences in the late 19th century. For further research on this, see The Roots of Fundamentlaism, by Ernest Sandeen. Sandeen's thesis is that Fundamentalism did not begin with The Fundamentals but with the millenarian conferences. I agree with him to a degree.

As for non-Democratic/Republican politics in the churches, you'll have to explain what you mean here. Are you referring to the repercussions of Jerry Falwell's "Moral Majority" in the late 1970's, or infighting about preservation, or something else entirely?

Gotta go. Breakfast smells good!

 

Actually, this is the very reason I started this thread. That is, I wanted to show that there are a lot of different groups who call themselves Fundamentalist and take a strong stand against liberalism, but differ on details.

To take just one issue, while the BBF has had controversy over the Bible versions issue, the GARB has not had near so much. Ian Paisley's Presbyterian group in Ireland (with close ties to BJU) uses the KJV and has made public statements on it, but has had no controversy about it within the group that I know of. In the IFCA Bible versions are not an issue. On another issue, the SBF (Southwide Baptist Fellowship) has been "drawing nigh" to the SBC, but the venerable FBF (Fundamental Baptist Fellowship) has not and will not.

And so it goes. There is wide diversity among Fundamentalist groups. Some have ties with each other and some do not. For example, I've never been to a Bible Presbyterian meeting but would like to. Dr. Carl McIntyre once gave the entire Rice Clan lodging in a motel he owned in Florida when we went to visit Disney World, but unfortunately he wasn't there and I didn't get to meet him. However, some IFB groups would not think of fellowshipping with Dr. McIntyre's group. In my mind that is their perogative and they are still Fundamentalists. :type:

 

Oooooh, my head is swelling. STOP. raying:

No, seriously, thank you for the kind words, Rhet. All glory to God, amen?

I'd love to meet you on earth someday, but if I don't, "Here, there or in the air!" :wavey:

 

:laugh: :laugh:

 

Hi, thjplgvp. I kept meaning to get back to this. Thanks for the good comments and the information on the BBF. I still plan to add more groups to the definitions here, but have been hoping someone else would.

I feel sorry for Fundamentalists who cannot fellowship with anyone who is not exactly like them. I remember the sainted Dr. Monroe Parker, a Fundamentalist if there ever was one, sharing with me the hope that a certain church he would send me to on deputation would come out of the group they were in, because the group tolerated liberalism. But he still sent me there in the hope that we could help them on their path!

My beloved grandfather, John R. Rice, often used these verses for such cases:

Ps. 119:63--"I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts."

John 10:16--"And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd."

 

Fundamental Baptist Fellowship

Okay, I'm finally back to introduce the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship (FBF). I thought maybe Squire would do this, but hey, he's a busy man!

This may be the oldest Fundamentalist fellowship. It traces its roots to the "Fundamentalist Fellowship of Northern Baptists" which was started in 1920. These men came out of the Northern Baptist Convention with the Conservative Baptists when liberals took control of that convention, then the out of the Conservative Baptists when it would not recognize Baptist World Mission, a Fundamentalist alternative to the Conservative Baptist board.

Constituents: This is primarily a Northern and Western US group. FBF pastors usually have links to some of the giants of Northern Fundamentalism in the 1940's through the 1970's, such as Monroe Parker, Richard Clearwaters, Myron Cedarholm, Earle E. Matteson, G. Archer Weniger (and his brothers), Wayne Van Gelderen, Sr., Ed Nelson, etc. I am privileged to have known these men I just mentioned, in particular Dr. Parker. Drs. Van Gelderen and Nelson helped get my wife and me together. I was grilled extensively by Dr. Weniger in my BWM candidate committee, and they said I was sweating and as white as a sheet when I came out! What an honor (and I deserved it)!

Schools: Bob Jones U., Maranatha BBC, Northland BBC, Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary (where my son goes), Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. In my view, FBFers are the most scholarly and educated of all IFB groups.

Numbers: I'm not sure. Anywhere from 500 to 1000, at a guess. Squire, do you know?

Stand on versions: Not KJVO. Many FBFers would be KJV-preferred, but many would use other versions, with the NKJV or the NASV being preferred.

Stand on separation: Strong separatists in the mold of the original Bible Baptist Union of the 1920's.

Mission board: The most common board supported by FBF pastors is Baptist World Mission, through which I have the honor of being sent.

Website: www.f-b-f.org

 

Okay, Bro. Mexdeaf. I'll wait on the BBF for awhile more. For myself, I don't know enough about current events in the BBF to do a good job.

 

Boy did you have it easy! Just those two men? And both of them good and kind men. I had about eight, as I remember, and they were old line FBF Fundamentalists all! :laugh:

True, the missionaries joining BWM nowadays are from all over. But trust me, the BWM board is pretty much FBF. :thumbs: