Featured Fundementalism and neo-evanglicalism

I fully agree with you here about this, as i see Billy Graham as one who is saved, but he started to depart from the fullness of the truth when he allowed himself to be seen as allaincing with catholic and others who do NOT teach the true gospel of christ!

 

You're close, but a little off. Neo-evangelicalism was actually a reaction to fundamentalism rather than the other way around. Here is a brief time line:

1910-1915: A series of essay books on the basic doctrines (including creationism) is published called The Fundamentals. This is where fundamentalism gets its name.

1920s-1940s: The fundamentalists fight against theological liberalism in the mainline denominations, in particular the Northern Baptists, the Southern Baptists and the Northern Presbyterians. They mostly lose, so various groups exit these denominations, including the Southern independent Baptists, the Conservative Baptists, the GARBC and the Orthodox Presbyterians.

1927: John R. Rice is blackballed by the Texas Baptist Convention for opposing in his radio show the liberalism at Baylor U., his alma mater.

1929: J. Gresham Machen and other conservative Presbyterian scholars withdraw from Princeton in protest against liberalism to form the Westminster Theological Seminary.

1936: Machen and others leave (or are kicked out of) the Northern Presbyterian to form the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination.

1937: John R. Rice becomes the main leader of Southern fundamentalism through his paper the Sword of the Lord.

1947: Harold John Ockenga, pastor of Park Street Church in Boston and president of Fuller Seminary, coins the term "New Evangelicalism" (sometimes called neo-evangelicalism) in reaction against the perceived failures of fundamentalism.

Early 1950s: New Evangelicalism gradually becomes a movement among young, intellectual evangelicals. Fuller Seminary grows and becomes the intellectual hothouse of the new movement with such scholars as Carl F. H. Henry.

1957: Ockenga writes his famous press release in which he delineates the New Evangelicalism as being opposed to the ecclesiastical separation and personal separation of fundamentalism, and in favor of increased cooperation with liberalism in a strategy of infiltration instead of separation, hoping to win liberals over by niceness.

1957: Billy Graham cooperates with theological liberals in his New York Crusade, rejecting the help of a committee of fundamentalists led by Jack Wyrtzen. Noted fundamentalists of the day such as John R. Rice and Bob Jones Sr. and Jr. sadly oppose Graham's compromise. With this, evangelicalism goes in two directions, and the rest is history.

 

You're welcome! God bless. :wavey:

 

I believe that Gragam's inclusion of liberals in his crusades is the reason that Martyn Lloyd-Jones refused to participate in the Billy Graham crusades in England!

I must say that in his early years I enjoyed Billy Graham's preaching even though he was strongly Arminian and premillennial if not dispensational. As he got older his preaching suffered, at least in my opinion. Perhaps because he became more liberal in his thinking!

 

For years, I thought Billy Graham was too fundamentalist, and here you all think he is too liberal.

I've seen all kinds of charges made against Billy Graham over the years, but I've never seen any of them substantiated.

 

It depends on what charges you've heard. Billy Graham abandoned fundamentalism in 1957. He would object strongly to being called a fundamentalist. If you want to do real research, the John R. Rice papers, with extensive correspondence with Graham, are currently at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (along with the Francis Schaeffer papers), and the Billy Graham papers are at Wheaton College, I believe.

There are tons of stuff out there if you know where to look. Scholarly books that trace the split between New Evangelicalism (NE) and fundamentalism, including Billy Graham's friendships with noted liberals and Catholics, include: A History of Fundamentalism in America, by George Dollar; Reforming Fundamentalism, by George Marsden, etc., etc. A book detailing Graham's compromises with Catholicism is: Billy Graham and the Church of Rome, by Ian Paisley (yes, that Paisley). For a defense of Graham's compromises in evangelism with liberals, see Cooperative Evangelism by Robert Ferm (1958). For a scholarly analysis of the theology of NE see The New Evangelical Theology, by Millard Erickson. For a critique of the same see Neo-Evangelicalism, by Robert Lightner.

A sample quote about the '57 NY campaign of Graham from Marsden: "Working with the Protestant Council meant cooperating with a group that was predominantly nonevangelical and even included out-and-out modernists" (p. 162, about the '57 NY crusade where Graham made the break with fundamentalism).

In spite of all of this available information, when I started one of my first threads here on the BB, all of the historical facts (easily verified) were strongly doubted and attacked: http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=4309

 

Oh, I don't doubt that he's not as right-wing as he used to be -- which is a good thing, in my opinion. The more moderate a person is, the better. I dislike extremes of the right and left.

 

Funny thing how someone who is a fundamentalist just because they believe the words of Scripture can be called an extremist nowadays. Paul certainly wasn't a moderate. He wanted those who preached a false Gospel to the Galatians to be maimed! But Billy Graham is happy to hang around with and cooperate with those who proclaim a similar gospel of works to that such as the Catholics and theological liberals who don't even believe in the deity and virgin birth of Christ.

 

John, for me it is not that they believe the words of Scripture that make many who are called fundamentalist extremist. For me that is no problem. I believe I am pretty fundamental in that regard. For me it is the extreme right-wing political stances that many fundamentalists that make them extremist. Have you noticed how often such folk quote Paul and how seldom they quote Jesus?

 

Naw, I don't pay much attention to that, though I vote. Ask me about Japanese politics, though. :type:

I do think there are fundamentalists who go too far in that direction, and I don't think it is proper to have an American flag on the platform of a church. (Japanese Christians of any stripe would never have a "Hi no Maru" flag in their church.) But I don't think that right-wing politics are either necessary to be a fundamentalist nor limited to fundamentalists in American Christianity.

 

I completely agree with you on the flag. Many years ago I read a book by a well known historian who said there is no place for the flag of a country to be on display in a church. The flag represents the political world, the secular world, the world of power and greed. Christ said to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” But Christ never said to mix the two.

I agree that that right-wings politics in not a necessary position a person must take to be a fundamentalist. My point is that many fundamentalist are right-wingers and, to me, that takes away from their stated belief in the teachings of Christ. Christ talked much more about how we should treat each other than in what we believe.

Far too many Americans confuse the two and, IMHO, that is a serious mistake.

 

It is an insult to claim that moderates don't believe the words of scripture and that only fundamentalists do. That is extremism, besides being false.

I firmly believe that the extremes of right-wing and left-wing fundamentalism are the greatest dangers to the church.

 

I completely agree with both of your comments.

Far too many fundamentalists hold the position that anyone who does not agree with their interpretation does not believe the words of scripture. The reverse charge could be made. The problem is not scripture but the interpretation of scripture and all to often it is the selective interpretation of scripture.

After all it was not all that long ago that fundamentalists in the South preached the Biblical truth of segregation. And historically speaking, not that long ago that slavery was preached as inerrant truth.

 

Please don't put words in my mouth. I said nothing like this.

You know, it would be great if you responded to something I actually said in my post. Maybe you could be polite and make it a question, as in, "JoJ, are you saying that moderates don't believe the Bible?" Then maybe we could have a good discussion based on actual positions.

Historically speaking there is no such thing as "left-wing fundamentalism."

 

If you'll carefully research this out you'll find that there were evangelicals and fundamentalists on both sides. Things were very complicated among Christians in those days. My brother (no fundamentalist) has written a book giving the good and bad about fundamentalists and racism, starting with our fundamentalist granddad: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1453843752/?tag=baptis04-20

While actually being in favor of segregation, Granddad once took his family out of a restaurant which would not serve his black friend. He also sponsored a black man from Africa who studied to be a preacher in America.

Go a little further back and you'll learn that many who nowadays would probably be called fundamentalists (or at least conservative Christians) opposed slavery in the 19th century. David Livingstone is a prime example: he fought slavery all over Africa and in England. Another who fought slavery is Baptist missionary to India Nathan Brown, who late in life became a missionary to Japan and was the first to translate the entire NT into Japanese.

 

It should be clear that I am equating the far left with fundamentalism in their unyielding and arrogant attitude that they and they alone are right and that those who disagree are worthy of condemnation.

 

Nope. That was your imagination. If you were a self-proclaimed liberal (in the classic sense beginning with higher criticism), then I wouldn't have implied it, I would have said outright that you didn't believe the Bible. But I've never discussed the "moderate" position one single time on the BB, and to tell you the truth I'm not quite sure what it is.

Then tell me, what are the "fundamentals" of the far left? That's what fundamentalism starts with, a set of fundamental doctrines believed by all who claim the name. I'm not aware of any such theological positions/doctrines taken by the left. (I assume you mean theological left here, right? Because the political left is another ball game entirely. For the record, I was against Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority.)

And while we're on it, many fundamentalists are not what you think we are. I've known leading fundamentalists who knew liberals personally and yet never condemned them personally.