Fundy's Only Please! Regarding the SoF

A Brief History of Fundamentalists

The history of Fundamentalists in America is always disputed. But nearly all sources place Fundamentalism as having reached its pinnacle in the early to mid 1920’s. It was at its height in 1925 when the infamous “Scopes Monkey Trial” took place.Every source available also states that Fundamentalism sprang up in response Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Although most had been arguing about the inerrancy, inspiration, and infallibility of the scriptures, true Fundamentalism didn’t start until the late 1870’s early 1880’s.

I shall partially use Grant Wacker’s definition for Fundamentalism:“Historic Fundamentalism…concerns stemmed from broad changes in the culture such as growing awareness of world religions, the teaching of human evolution and, above all, the rise of biblical higher criticism.”[i]
The ideas of inerrancy, infallibility, inspiration were argued for from the 1500’s, these ideas were argued for in the 1800’s by the likes of John Nelson Darby, D.L. Moody, Billy Sunday, Alexander A. Hodge, Benjamin B. Warfield, etc., especially on the heels of the Second Great Awakening. Most would argue that the term was first coined between 1878-1897 during what is known as the Great Niagara Conference.[ii]

Some place, rather, link the stance on “biblical inerrancy” to A.A. Hodge and B.B. Warfield while during their tenure at Princeton University. And some place the roots squarely at the feet of J. N. Darby.While the history is disputed, the core of Fundamental beliefs as stated by all sources as the series of twelve volumes of books written between 1910 and 1915 known as “The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth”.[iii]However you see it, this writer can show from history of Southern Baptists, that this just perhaps the start of Fundamentalism in the Southern Baptist churches was ignited by Crawford H. Toy in 1879.

By most accounts, C.H. Toy was a brilliant young man, he graduated from Norfolk Military Academy in 1852, and soon enrolled in the University of Virginia that same year at 16 years of age. It was there he studied Greek, Latin, Italian, German as well as law, medicine, and music. From there, he went on for graduate schooling at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. By 1860, at the start of the Civil War, Toy had graduated and enlisted in the Confederate Army as an ordinary foot-soldier. Soon afterwards he was made an army chaplain. He was captured during the Gettysburg campaign, exchanged, and being a good Confederate, re-enlisted in 1864. He left the army and went back to school. Unable to studies suitable to his tastes, he traveled to Germany and enrolled in the University of Berlin in 1866. There he studied Sanskrit and Hebrew, and was introduced to “progressive” European thinkers. It was during this time that he came back to America and accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution and also adopted a liberal position on biblical criticism.

James P. Boyce persuaded him to accept a teaching position at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He soon afterwards began to teach the Genesis creation account with Darwinism. He believed the passages of Psa. 16:10 and Isa. 53 was misunderstood by the New Testament writers because they used rabbinic hermeneutics of the day and placed emphasis on an Christological understanding. When he founded Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, James P. Boyce wrote the “Abstract of Principles”. In order to teach there, everybody had to sign the “Abstract” stating that they would not teach contrary to the principles stated therein, or they would face dismissal by the board of trustees. From 1858 until this day, 154 years, this is still the position of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In April 1879, Boyce came to Toy and asked him to refrain from teaching contrary to the “Abstract”. Toy insisted in answering questions by his students and continued as he did. In May 1879, he was forced to resign and became Professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages at Harvard University. He eventually broke all ties with Southern Baptists, lost the love of his life Charlotte Diggs “Lottie” Moon, and eventually became a Unitarian.

His teachings, the spread of Darwinism, and higher criticism came to fruition in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. It was at this time that Fundamentalism was at its pinnacle.

In the early 1900’s, Fundamentalists were needing a voice for their convictions. So between 1910 and 1915, the twelve volume books entitled “The Fundamentals, A Testimony to the Truth” was written and published. The Fundamentals can be broken down into four general areas:

1. Revivalism
2. Orthodoxy
3. Evangelism
4. Social Action

Continued...

[i] Grant Wacker, The Rise of Fundamentalism, [article-on-line] Accessed 4/28/2012, on the world-wide-web at: The Rise of Fundamentalism, The Twentieth Century, Divining America: Religion in American History, TeacherServe, National Humanities Center

[ii] Fundamentalism, Wikipedia, [article-on-line] accessed 4/28/2012, on the world-wide-web at: Fundamentalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[iii] The Fundamentals, A Testimony to the Truth, found on the world-wide-web at The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth

Add to this mix Social Darwinism as seen in the issue of slavery in the years prior to 1860, the differences between Northern and Southern churches of the same time,[i] and the influx of Non-Protestant immigrants from southern and eastern Europe flooding into America, Fundamentalists believed they were betrayed by their statesmen who had led them into an unresolved war with Germany which was the seat of what they believed was “destructive biblical criticism[ii]

The early 20th Century was a focal point because of all these issues for Fundamentalists. “The Fundamentals” became the handbook for Fundamentalists and sold millions of copies which helped to pay for lobbyists who helped “by presenting anti-evolution bills in the legislatures of eleven states (mostly in the South).”

It is at this time I must also show how social Darwinism and Fundamentalism sprang from the same issues but grew into different things.

“The social gospel grew out of the abuses of industrialism. By the turn of the twentieth century American cities had become magnets for cheap labor. Poverty bred a new kind of hopelessness. Wealthy captains of industry, like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, were seen as indifferent to the sufferings of the poor. Some of the rich were philanthropists, but others justified their cruelty with a philosophy called Social Darwinism. If evolution favors the survival of the fittest, they argued, why should the strong help the weak to survive?”[iii]

A key player in both movements was William Jennings Bryan. In 1925, John Scopes was arrested for violating Tennessee state law that forbids teaching evolutionism in its schools. The leading Fundamentalist of the time, Bryan, helped the attorney for the prosecution while John Scopes’s attorney was the famous Charles Darrow. This trial was immortalized in the 1960 movie “Inherit the Wind”.

While Bryan helped to win the case, it also had a negative effect on Fundamentalism. Many came in on the other side saying they saw a division between “educated, tolerant (liberal) Christians and the narrow minded, tribal obscurantist Christians. Although this began the slide of Fundamentalism in America until the 1970’s, it also helped establish several of the major canters of Christian Theology in the U.S.; The Moody Institue in Chicago, Il., and Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Lewis S. Schafer wrote his “Systematic Theology” in 1947, all one has to do is read this and you will hear Fundamentalism echoing all though his work.

Earlier I said that The Fundamentals could be broken down into four categories. It is in the category of “Evangelism” that I wish to address.

In The Fundamentals, it states very plainly:

"The lexicographers, the grammarians and evangelical theologians are all pronounced against the interpretation put upon the words of Jesus when He said: “Except a man (anyone) be born of water kai spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” The lexicographers tell us that the Greek conjunction kai may have an epexegetical meaning and may be (as it frequently is) used to amplify what has gone before; that it may have the sense of “even,” or “namely.” And thus they justify the reading: “Except a man be born of water, even (or namely) spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” The grammarians tell us the same thing, and innumerable instances of such usage can be cited from both classic and New Testament Greek. The theologians are explicit in their denial that regeneration can be effected by baptism. They hold to a purely spiritual experience, either before baptism, or after it, and deny that the spiritual birth is effected by the water, no matter how applied. And yet some who take this position in discussions of the “new birth” fall away to the ritualistic idea when they come to treat of baptism, its significance and place in the Christian system. (It would be easy to justify all these statements by reference to authors and books, but space forbids the quotations here. So patent are they that we can hardly doubt the acceptance of the assertion by the intelligent reader, without citations in proof).”[iv]

And we also read:

“Faith is a vital principle. "If it hath not works, is dead, being alone" (James 2:17,18). Two things are required of the believer, immediately upon his profession of faith in Jesus as Saviour and Lord, namely, verbal confession and water baptism. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Romans 10:10. See also Psalm 107:2; Matthew 10:32,33; Romans 10:9; 1 John 4:15, etc.) "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). The believer is not saved because he is baptized; but, baptized because he is saved. We are saved through faith alone, but not the faith that is alone, because "Faith without works is dead, being alone." Water baptism is a divinely ordained ordinance whereby the believer witnesses to the world that he died with Christ, and is risen together with Him," an habitation of God through the Spirit. (See Matthew 28:19,20; Acts 2:38,41; 8:12,13,16,36,38; 9:18; 10:47,48; 16:15,33; 19:5; 22:15,16; Romans 6:3,4; Colossians 2:12; 1 Peter 3:21; 1 John 2:3; 3:22).”[v]

What I propose is that since I have shown “The Fundamentals, A Testimony to the Truth” is the handbook for Fundamentalists, I would respectfully ask that the point of Fundamentalists believing that one is baptized because they are saved and not saved because they are baptized be added to the Fundamentalists SoF.

We are not concerned so much about the issues of credo-baptism verses predo-baptism, or we are not so much concerned over the mode of baptism rather than an expressed belief that one is baptized because they are saved and not saved because they are baptized.

The above are beliefs held by Fundamentalists as shown from the handbook for Fundamentalist theology.

[i] The Historical Roots of America’s Christian Fundamentalism, [article-on-line] accessed 4/28/2012, found on the world-wide-web at: http://www.rebuff.org/history.html

[ii] Grant Wacker, The Rise of Fundamentalism, [article-on-line] Accessed 4/28/2012, on the world-wide-web at: The Rise of Fundamentalism, The Twentieth Century, Divining America: Religion in American History, TeacherServe, National Humanities Center

[iii] American Experience, Monkey Trial, [article-on-line] accessed 4/28/2012, found on the world-wide-web at: American Experience | Monkey Trial | People & Events

[iv] The Fundamentals, A Testimony to the Truth, Book III, Chapter 10, Regeneration, Conversion, Reformation, George W. Lasher, D. D., L.L. D.

[v]The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, Book III, Theology, Chapter 12, The Doctrines that Must be Emphasized in Successful Evangelism, By Evangelist L.W. Munhall, M.A., D.D

The believer is not saved because he is baptized; but, baptized because he is saved...Water baptism is a divinely ordained ordinance whereby the believer witnesses to the world that he died with Christ, and is risen together with Him," an habitation of God through the Spirit. (See Matthew 28:19,20; Acts 2:38,41; 8:12,13,16,36,38; 9:18; 10:47,48; 16:15,33; 19:5; 22:15,16; Romans 6:3,4; Colossians 2:12; 1 Peter 3:21; 1 John 2:3; 3:22).

I disagree with making the statement part of the CB SoF.

Will an actual poll be conducted?

Yes of course, I mentioned the wrong forum name. I meant Christian Forums, other than that my opinion stands, baptism should not be mentioned in the SoF.