The Legacy Of Modern Christian Fundamentalism

The word fundamentalism conjures up all kinds of images in the 21st century mind. Many equate fundamentalism with religious extremists who use violence to suppress or eradicate dissenting views. There was a day, however, when fundamentalism, in the Christian sense, simply meant to believe in the basics of the faith.

In an effort to stem the growing liberal theological tolerance of some of its leaders, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1910 adopted a list of 5 core beliefs that were "necessary and essential" to the Christian faith:

The inerrancy of Scripture.
The virgin birth of Christ.
The belief that Christ's death was an atonement for sin.
The bodily resurrection of Christ.
The historical reality of Christ's miracles.

If the fundamentalist movement had remained bound to these ideals and had not gotten swept away by other issues, there is no doubt that most if not all orthodox Christians would proudly wear the label fundamentalist today. Fundamentalism, like any movement that loses its focus, eventually became a caricature of itself that drowned out the values on which it was founded. One of the greatest conservative intellectuals who lamented this "drowning out" of pure fundamentalism was Dr. Carl F. H. Henry (pictured top left).

Dr. Henry wrote a short treatise on the subject published in 1947 entitled,"The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism"In this seminal critique of a movement gone astray, Dr. Henry wrote,

What concerns me more is that we have needlessly invited criticism and even ridicule, by a tendency in some quarters to parade secondary and sometimes even obscure aspects of our position as necessary frontal phases of our view. To this extent we have failed to oppose the full genius of the Hebrew-Christian outlook to its modern competitors.

It is indeed unfortunate for us that some brothers in Christ continue to follow that sad legacy of being distracted by incidentals. Even today as the majority of students in our churches "graduate from God" there are those who are drowning out the call for student ministry reformation with cries for emancipation and eradication. It is the hope of this student ministry leader and blogger that when the dust settles from this current crisis, we would see families equipped instead of churches stripped.

My Truth: A Sign Of The Times

The old phrase that goes, "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" has reached its expiration date. Like the milk in the old carton way back in the refrigerator, truth has been sniffed on and succinctly discarded. I saw this relativistic mentality so poignantly demonstrated in the book display in the picture you see here. No longer, so we are told, should we refer to the truth but should refer to it as "my truth".

I have no gripe with Stephen Colbert per se it's just that his attempt at humor represents something that has gone horribly wrong with our values system. What's really scary is that its not just non-Christians who accept this view of truth. The "my truth" philosophy has its claws deeply entrenched in the Church and in the family. It takes a soul that is sensitive and alert to Satan's subtle encroachments to see how the Christian milk carton is also starting to sour.

The only means for preventing this spoilage in our families and churches is to be pasteurized by exposure to God through prayer and meditation on His Word. For student pastors that may mean spending more time planning and conducting Biblically grounded teaching than pizza bashes and lock-ins. For parents this may mean dad turning off the TV and getting the whole family around the couch for family worship. Whatever measure is called for, the time for implementing it is now before "my truth" becomes the only truth and leaves us with no truth.

Is Student Ministry Biblical? (Part One)

Just yesterday this blog was reviewed by an independent third party. One of the criticisms we received was that our format is too much like a lecture instead of a dialog. To a certain extent, I agree with the reviewer and so we are going to make a concerted effort to be more Socratic in our writing. Therefore, I start with a simple question: "Is Student Ministry Biblical?"

If the stats that we hear are true and 75% of our students are graduating from student ministry and are leaving the church, then obviously something is not right. So what is the problem? Is it youth pastors? Is it the curriculum we use? Maybe we don't have enough activities or big enough bands coming to play for us? If you asked 100 different youth pastors you would probably get 100 different answers. Still, I'm very curious as to what those answers might be. What is going on in student ministry? Is it Biblical? Is it effective? I want to know what you think. Don't be shy. Here is your chance to anonymously vent. Take advantage of it.