Many years ago I was rummaging through my dad’s garage and came across a box of books. In it were the four famous volumes pictured here: The Fundamentals, published in 1917 by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and edited by R. A. Torrey, first pastor of my home church, Church of the Open Door, also in LA. Originally published around 1910 as twelve volumes, these essays were written by the most scholarly and conservative Christians of the time in response to German “higher criticism.” With the financial support of William and Lyman Stewart of Union Oil Company, they were sent to every English speaking pastor and missionary in the world and represent the beginnings of the fundamentalist movement in America.
Many conservative Christians today may not realize that fundamentalists and their later counterparts, evangelicals and charismatics, were a minority of protestants during the first half of the twentieth century. At the time, the very identity of Christianity was at stake. “Modernism” had infected the majority of seminaries and mainline denominations. The “social gospel” was all the rage. It wouldn’t be until the 50’s and 60’s that conservative Christians exploded in number across America and around the world.
With many leading liberal Christian scholars and pastors outright denying the deity of Christ and the reality of the resurrection, among other key Christian doctrines, at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was natural for conservatives to ask, What are the central doctrines of our faith that we need to defend? At what point do one’s beliefs cease to be Christian? On which doctrines do we accept disagreement and on which doctrines do we expect agreement? Hence the term “fundamentals.”
It’s been over 100 years since those volumes were published. Their impact still reverberates throughout our culture. But, as a conservative evangelical myself, I’d like to add my humble suggestion to the movement: maybe it’s time to think about fundamental Christian behaviors and not just fundamental Christian doctrines. What are the central behaviors that distinguish believers from non-believers?
If this discussion ever gets off the ground, I’d like to suggest that one practical result of Christians living out their faith should be the ability to bring their church to the point where it can say, “There is no needy person among us.” That is, I’d like to see the church return to one of its original priorities: meeting the needs of it’s widows and orphans, a practice we observe again and again throughout the New Testament.
Truth must be balanced with observable love. Maybe one of the reasons Christianity is being marginalized in our culture today is because it hears the first without seeing the second.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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