I’m often asked why I criticize progressive-liberal Christianity so much. But I used to get asked why I criticize evangelical-fundamentalism so much.
And since the second group is “my people”—I was raised in an independent Bible church (fundamentalist-dispensationalist)— I’m going to start here.
Why do I criticize evangelical-fundamentalism?
It isn’t because they love the Bible. It is the way they love the Bible I have a problem with.
It isn’t because they love the gospel. It is how they understand the gospel I have a problem with
And it isn’t because they love the truth. It is where they place the truth I have a problem with.
The One Long Sentence
As one who loves the church, is a pastor of a local church, and a professor who trains pastors for the church, hear is my quick summary:
I’m concerned—even against—the evangelical-fundamentalist perspective that seeks certainty in a way that villainizes asking questions or having doubts, makes an idol of the Bible in a way that closes down critical conversations, is (most often) committed to a form of male domination, has an uncritical celebration of the Republican Party and its politics, holds an unreflective patriotism (if not nationalism) that ignores our racist history, has a small gospel that sounds like “bad news” to people who are seen as “salvation projects”, and spiritualizes salvation in a way that reduces the demands of discipleship!
(If you want a positive vision of a way forward, please check out my 5 Shifts for Reconstructing Faith: Renewing a Jesus-Centered Christianity.)
Let me break that down and fill it out
Of course I’m just offering short summarizes of what would take a book (books?) to express.
Distortion of Truth in Evangelical-Fundamentalism
• Sees truth as ideas, not as a way of life embodied in community.
• Sees knowledge and truth as a certainties to affirmrather than a process of faith and trust.
• Sees knowledge and truth coming through autonomous individuals disconnected from tradition and authority.
• Claims authority of the Bible but disconnects interpretation from history, tradition, and culture, causing idiosyncratic (at best) or heretical (at worst) interpretations and doctrines.
• Claims independence of thought (against tradition and “modernity”), but is uncritically modern in many ways.
Distortion of Ethics/Morality in Evangelical-Fundamentalism
• Debases Bodies (primarily women and minorities) leading to either being oblivious to or actively covering up trauma and abuse (this is why people seek emotional healing outside the church)
• Dysfunctional Sexual Ethic that has little direction or shaping of sexuality before and for marriage, and mostly ignores the discipleship of single people.
• Unacknowledged Racism in theology, practice, and politics (because of the debasement of bodies) (and see my Washington Post op-ed about “I believe you are not racist. But how will you combat hate?”)
• Power Politics that seeks to impose the truth of the Bible even at the cost of walking the way of Jesus (suffering love) (see “Embodied Faith Vs. White American Christianity).
Evangelical-Fundamentalism is More Liberal Than It Knows
Evangelical-Fundamentalism holds very modern ideas about how we know and what we are owed.
While criticizing liberal Christian doctrines as modern (“bad”) revisions of Christianity, evangelical-fundamentalist fail to realize they also are offering modern revision of 1) how we know what we know, 2) where and how we hold authority, and 3) what is most “essential” about a human being (made in God’s image).
Some of these would be…
- View of Knowledge (certainty seeking rather than embodied faith)
- Commitment to Individualism (rather than love of God and others)
- Emphasis on Rights (not character)
(The August cohort of 5 Shifts for Reconstructing Faith: Renewing a Jesus-Centered Christianity is forming now.)
Evangelical-Fundamentalism has a posture that…
• Doesn’t just stand for the truth, but fights others over the truth.
• Doesn’t just seek to transformation of society through personal witness and social involvement, but warring against anyone that doesn’t agree with them.
• Doesn’t just seek salvation of culture, but to win the war with and over culture.
• Doesn’t see the union of spiritual revival and social reform, but see social reform as a betrayal of spiritual revival.
You might be succumbing to this Fundamentalist disease if:
• You can’t respectfully and patiently disagree with other Christians.
• You see winning souls as disconnected from changing society.
• You see changing “hearts and minds” as the solution to most problems.
• You know a couple biblical proof texts about hot topic issues, but haven’t really tried to follow the life of Jesus (Matt. 5-7).
• You are quick with platitudes and criticism, and slow on pity or compassion for all people.
• You are more worried about big ideas destroying our culture (marxism, socialism, racism, fascism) than the actual people in your neighborhood.
• You are more afraid of what is happening in the world, or afraid of what is happening to the church, than you are filled with hope and joy in God.
So what is the way forward (since I don’t just love criticizing)?
It is a recovering of classic/global evangelicalism, which I explain in a free ebook called The Scandal of the Evangelical Memory.
And it is through making 5 shifts in our theology, which you can get in detail here, or in summary here.
Disclaimer:
Just to be clear, I’m against, I’m concerned about, I’m grieved by Fundamentalist Christianity.
But I’m hopeful for and love fundamentalist Christians—i.e. the particular people who may or may not be represented by some or all of the above.
My characterization of Fundamentalist Christianity (as a movement and a theological style) is a general type gathered through personal experience, shared stories, general data and reading.
Other Resources: