A huge personal problem of mine is that I try to see concepts as black and white. I often oversimplify to help myself understand things. One of the challenges then of me being a religious studies nerd is that absolutely nothing is black and white when it comes to beliefs, traditions, and worldviews. For example, fundamentalists don’t just exist in the Baptist tradition. Matter of fact, people who hold to traditionalist conservative theological positions (yes, I know, a mouthful) exist in almost every denomination. To try and map out what makes a fundamentalist what he is would literally be an impossible task, let alone to then extend that study to cover evangelicalism, liberalism and all the other sects of various theology.
For that reason, in some areas you must oversimplify and take the risk of being too broad in order to approach a huge topic, and for the sake of this post, such is the case with fundamentalism. In trying to map out a theological taxonomy chart, you have several theological positions that are well established and from my studies they can be pretty safely established based on each position view of the Bible. On the left, you have the more progressive and liberal positions, towards the middle you have the more evangelical positions, and on the right, you have the more conservative positions.
Extremes are usually not the best position to hold. This is fairly obvious in modern day America, where the average citizen, conservative or liberal, can look at their parties’ extremist wing with disgust for their actions. Proper balance is usually found in the average of the extremes. That said, as fundamentalists, we are already on the far-right side of our theological taxonomy. The only groups farther right than the fundamentalists would be the Ruckmanites and Landmarkists. They are clearly the most extreme on our theological taxonomy, were we to have one drawn up. Many in those camps have taken the identity of New IFB to distinguish themselves from traditional IFB churches (IFB = Independent Fundamental Baptist). Those of us in those traditional IFB churches do not hold to those extremes and would generally agree that they belong in a theological position of their own.
But the fact remains that fundamentalists are far on the right side of that theological spectrum. This has the potential to cause some significant challenges for the movement. A big part of fundamentalism is our emphasis on separation, both personal (in terms of holiness and influences allowed in the home) and ecclesiastical (relating to separation of churches from one another based on doctrinal differences). The Bible is clear that there is to be some separation from the world. I am not denying that. As a matter of fact, everyone has a standard, whether they call it a standard or not. No church would allow a preacher to speak without clothes on, for example. Everyone has standards; how many or how few is often the determining factor in where they fall on that theological spectrum.
That said, this emphasis on separation often can cause some significant challenges, especially among the youth who grow up in our churches. Fundamentalists watched as those on the left continued to move farther and farther left. I assert that fundamentalism’s protective response was to move farther and farther right and that it has been detrimental to the growth of the movement, and in some cases, it has been unbiblical. We have started to move towards a more extremist worldview.
I’ll give an example. I met a young lady, just a few weeks ago, who said that she had attended an IFB church growing up. The main impression that the church had left on her was how strict they were in their standards. She wouldn’t consider attending a church as strict as that church again because of the way she was treated when she didn’t want to conform to the standards of her previous church. Here’s the problem, and this goes back to what I’ve written before. Everyone is at different places on their spiritual journey. We cannot use shame and anger as methods to enforce the standards that we hold on other people’s lives. We have individual soul liberty. Every person is responsible only to God for their actions. Church, of all places, should be a place for them to feel safe, rather than what it has almost become, a place where we broadcast our spirituality in the clothes that we wear. If a person is not convicted to hold a certain standard remember, “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” They don’t come to church to please your standards. They come to church to hear from God’s Word. Stay true to God’s Word, and let the Holy Spirit do the convicting.
Remember, the extremist’s point of view is generally not the best or most truthful point of view. We seek a balance. Why? Extremism on a surface level sounds like what everyone should strive for in terms of defending truth: an uncompromising adherence to a set of principles to the exclusion of all others. The problem is that extremist principles usually lie well outside of the doctrinal truths that have long been established. They have not stood the test of time and cultural changes. Again, we seek a balance. It is not wise to be radical for radical’s sake. There has not been some new revelation from God that changes what has been established firmly in place for hundreds of years. We ourselves, as conservatives, have become increasingly more and more progressive in the other direction. This is humorous, as we have literally become the very thing we have sought to destroy.
Now, am I saying we shouldn’t preach any standards? Absolutely not. I am merely advocating for conservative Christians to be more aware of the way in which we treat people in our churches who differ from us on standards. As soon as I mention Independent Baptist to someone when they ask what type of church I’m visiting them from, I shouldn’t see them recoil and shut me out because of being treated poorly in the past by other churches of the same type. There is a way to lovingly hold a certain standard and tolerate those of a different standard. I think we will be more effective once we start to change the narrative.