True Christian Fundamentals

The Fundamentalists were well-intentioned folk.  Amid the chaos of Protestantism and the millions, perhaps billions, of different interpretations of Scripture it indulged, church leaders tried to identify a minimum number of things people should believe to call themselves "Christian."  This was, at its outset, a decidedly conservative approach - it fought against changes to Christianity that it perceived from liberalism and evolution, by reinforcing core beliefs such as Biblical Inerrancy, which allowed them to state that the creation of the world as outlined in Genesis was absolutely true, simply by virtue of its being present in Genesis.  More on that in the next post, I think.

These were people who thought their world was becoming more evil, who feared an active and powerful Satan leading people astray with false beliefs.  While some, certainly, may have engaged in fundamentalism as a way of solidifying their political power, back in those days, fundamentalists were on the ropes, and there was little power to be gained.  Power was developed slowly, over a period of many decades.  It wouldn't be until the 70s that that power began to coalesce behind the Republican party.  Such is the source of the famous Barry Goldwater quote:

Source: http://berkshireonstage.com/2014/05/09/mr-conservative-barry-goldwater-play-about-christian-politics-and-dc-gridlock/

But, that's not the point of this article.  Instead, I want to offer a challenge to Fundamentalists to solve one problem: That is, how do you know the heart of another person?

You see, Fundamentalism is entirely external - it is a codification of beliefs, so that those beliefs can be reinforced across denominations; but, just because a preacher stands before a congregation and shouts and rattles the pulpit and appears to be calling down lightning from Heaven with his words, that doesn't mean he himself believes the things he's saying.  It doesn't mean that those in the congregation will buy into his words, either.  Christianity today is, as many of you have noted, a "luke warm" belief, with congregants attending church more for the social scene than for any actual conviction.

A friend of mine from the UK once told me that all of the Anglican preachers she knew over there are, in fact, atheists.  This is but a symptom of the problem.

I also saw this in a much more publicly-broadcast way back when I was dating, which really wasn't that long ago.  I used to read profiles on OkCupid every day.  That site offered the ability to winnow down your potential matches on a wide variety of criteria, and further to read their responses to a wide array of questions that could help provide further insights into their beliefs.  The majority of users I found who lived in Tulsa and who listed "Christian" as their religion held wildly divergent beliefs that were anathema to their supposed religion:

1. By and large, these Christians felt it was inappropriate to teach evolution in schools.  Where they accepted that it would be taught, they almost always said it must be taught side-by-side with Creationism.  Most, however, said only Creationism should be taught.
2. Most said homosexuality was a sin.
3. Many smoked.  (I'd estimate 40%, but it's entirely a rough estimate based on personal perception and not on the exhaustive work of actually coding the responses.)
4. Most said that they would need to have sex with someone before marrying them.

The latter two seem at odds with the former two, because in the codification of Fundamentalism that gives rise to the former two beliefs, the latter two are also verboten: smoking is a violation of the treatment of the human body as a temple to God; sex before marriage is a violation of the arguments Paul made against fornication.

This is, most likely, endemic of two factors: #1, it's easy to believe in those things that don't directly effect you, while it's easy to disregard those things that do; #2, the extent to which arguments against evolution and homosexuality are made in popular Fundamentalist discourse, in lieu of other arguments.

Therein lies the problem I present to Fundamentalists at the moment (although obviously, I have many, many other problems with Fundamentalism than this): how can you claim that divergent theologies are sinful, when you don't know the actual hearts of your members?  When the people who make up your congregations, and even your leading pastors, hold wildly heterodox beliefs, how can they be Fundamentalists?

It's a problem of the internal versus the external.  We say that those who hold true beliefs will bear Spiritual Fruit, but then ignore those who do bear Spiritual Fruit.  For a good example: Princess Diana often went on mission trips into Africa, holding the poorest and most desperately in need dear to her heart; yet, we throw out that Fruit because she wasn't "Christian" in the mindset of the Fundamentalists.  Mother Theresa exhibited an even greater problem, as she was undeniably Christian by her actions, and yet her beliefs had her in a religion that Fundamentalists are not entirely comfortable with (leading to the claim that it's possible to be a Christian even in non-Fundamentalist religions).  When Fundamentalists get caught doing something wrong, they are often excommunicated socially (though not legally) from the church if the church wishes to remain out of the controversy, but more often than that, they are still held to be members of the church and Christians, because of their identification with these Fundamentalist groups.  Their sins are ignored, their lack of Spiritual Fruit is ignored, because of their in-group identification.

That's what Fundamentalism really is - the identification of the in-group, the "Us" that allows believers within the group to also coalesce their hatred of "Them." It's important to fight beliefs such as that, just as Goldwater did:

Source: http://bigfishink.com/?p=3108