If you’ve ever been ice-skating – or, at least, been to a rink, then you would know that for a skater to travel in a straight line, she needs, constantly, to be drifting to the right and left. Skating in a straight line is a never-ending exercise in course-correction. If you look at the grooves in the ice from a skater going straightly, you’ll see that the track goes straight, and then begins to curve away from the midline. Not only does it curve away, but it does so not at a linear rate, but exponentially. Looking at a skater’s tracks you’d see that the lines are constantly moving away from eachother and dying off while a new line begins.
If you were to look at Church history, you’d notice, largely, the same phenomenon. Theology is, essentially, a responsive discipline. Very few theologians are, let alone should be, doing speculative theology which attempts to answer questions nobody is asking. And moreover, the most influential theologians in America are not the people we call theologians. Or even pastors! talk show hosts, musicians, and television script-writers are far and away more influential than Academic and Professional theologians – or pastors. This happens for a variety of reasons, most of which are bad, but it remains, nevertheless, true that theology is shaped not by the people best educated and trained to shape it, but by those who have control over Ear-Gate and Eye-Gate.
But culture is not static either. Culture is constantly moving somewhere and the Church, for good and for ill, responds to those changes. Thus, in Church history, we’re not always looking at theological changes wrought through pure speculation. In fact, we’re rarely looking at changes wrought through pure speculation – but, rather, theological shifts come about in response to heresy, cultural dynamics, and personality conflicts. Moreover, theology, throughout history, has always moved from responsive to reactionary. Why? Because we’re humans and we overdo things. We become so afraid of one error that we deliberately enter into another – wittingly or unwittingly. Lewis’ Screwtape brilliantly observed: “The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers when there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.”
And so what happens? The Church begins moving towards Christ – and then it begins to err. Then, eventually its errors are so onerous or egregious that some people split off and attempt to create a pure(r) movement. And this works…for a while…until it doesn’t and then another corrective is in place.
This is not new – heresy and recalcitrance lead to splits. And now is the time when we will see whether another split is in the offing. But first, let’s have a bit of history. In the 1800s scholars in Europe, influenced by the “Enlightenment”, principally in Germany, began to question many things. And in an effort to “save” Christianity, a guy named Schleiermacher, formed Liberal Christianity. And this began to move Protestantism away from a historically reliable faith. Others in Germany would attack the reliability of the Old and New Testaments with Higher Criticism. Well, the Higher Critics and Liberals eventually influenced all the mainline protestant denominations. In response to this there was a group of Conservative Christian theologians who wrote a book refuting the claims of Liberals and Higher Critics called The Fundamentals. Those who followed the line of traditional orthodox Christianity, who believed in the historicity of the Biblical material, as well as the reliability and inspiration of the texts, were known as “Fundamentalists”. The Fundamentalists held wide influence, but became TOO exclusive and became alienating and alienated because of certain positions on certain social issues. In essence, they were too small-tent. But the Fundamentalists didn’t go away, rather, those who wanted to be big-tent started calling themselves “Evangelical”. They didn’t stop caring about the fundamentals of the faith, but they also cared about the Evangel, and placed witnessing for Christ at a premium.
But from the very beginning, there were “Evangelicals” who were Fundamentalists-By-Another-Name as well as Liberals-Out-Of-Water and of course there was a great multitude in between. But, over the past 40 years, where the Church stands on social issues has become increasingly important. Moreover, in the past 20 years there has been a group that has been actively, vociferously, and unappreciatedly trying to move the liberalizing Evangelicalism back towards traditional orthodoxy. This group was dubbed the “Neo-Fundamentalists” and, of course, as we all know, Fundamentalists are bad – and “Neo” ANYTHING is bad. So Neo-Fundamentalists are doubleplusungood. And if you do a quick search on the internet and you’ll find lotsa folk decrying neo-fundies and Neo-Fundamentalism, proper.
But why? Well, basically, because Neo-Fundamentalists tend to be aligned with Republicans and Conservative social agenda. Why? Because many NFs are single-issue voters. And that single-issue is abortion. Also, because lots of NFs reject a whole host of radical and godless narratives and positions being foisted upon the American public by Democrats: transsexualism, gay marriage, socialism, the undermining of the family, (and now joining the list) the incoherent, repugnant, and evil Critical Race Theory. In other words, NFs are going Red because everyone else if going Woke. And, of course, going Red meant going Trump and that is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit!
Now, people define words differently, so let me say what I mean by Neo-Fundamentalism, or at least a form of it that deserves to have a case made for it. But first I want to say what my kinda NF is NOT.
It is not: KJV Onlyism; Beholden to Calvinism or Arminianism; or Primarily Political.
It is: a corrective movement within Evangelicalism which seeks to a) restore traditional orthodox protestant Christian theological norms b) reestablish Biblical and traditional praxis c) reform our current liturgies to better reflect Biblical and Historical patterns. In essence, the kind of NF I can get behind seeks to reform the Evangelical church to restore it to: orthodoxy; orthopraxy; and orthopathy.
Why is this needed? Because, simply, far too many “Evangelicals” are going Woke.
Is Evangelicalism salvageable? I dunno.
Is Neo-Fundamentalism divisive? Truth is only as divisive as the lies it repudiates.
Could this backfire? I don’t know how serving God better could backfire.
Could I be wrong? Sure – but I don’t think I am.
Where do we go from here? Aye, there’s the rub.
Here’s what I’ve been saying for years. If your pastor is Woke – get rid of him. If your pastor rejects the literal historicity of the teaching, miracles, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, session, and coming return of Jesus Christ – get rid of him. If he rejects the Nicene faith – get rid of him. If he believes the Bible is not God’s inspired, authoritative, inerrant, infallible word – get rid of him. If you can’t – leave. If your church is spending all its time on social agenda and not on making disciples and sharing the gospel – leave. Stop giving your time, talent, and treasure to a Church that compromises on the essentials of the faith. Give your pastor or church or denomination the option: reform or I leave. Are ultimata hard lines? Yes. Are they necessary? Sometimes.
Why do I draw such a hard line? A few reasons. Let me lay them out rapidly. First, nobody should be gorging on Wokeism or theological Liberalism – it isn’t good for your soul and if you believe, as I believe, that their teachings are heresy, then to help them in their heresy would be to violate a Biblical command! 2 John 1:10 warns us not even to let false teachers into our homes, let alone give them money! Jude’s words[1] are even stronger – we are to hate even the clothing stained by the sinful flesh. Which, of course, leads us to our second point: when you give your time, talent, and treasure to aid a false teacher, you are complicit in their false teaching. It isn’t as though there aren’t options. If you choose to help support a false teacher, then you are, according to the Bible (read: God) helping them to do more false teaching. You are culpable for that. Third, if the Church goes Woke, we have no message: the lost cannot be saved and our lampstand will be snuffed out. I could go on…but why? Are these three not enough?
The simple fact of the matter is that it’s coming into choosing time. Soon and very soon, it’s going to be time to pick sides. I do not believe that Evangelicalism can continue on this divergent path much longer because a house divided cannot stand. Jesus agrees with me, as does all of Church History. Evangelicalism is either going to Reform, go entirely Liberal, or split. And as it’s headed now, it looks to split. But I don’t wanna be the first or the last rat to leave a sinking ship. So, I’m sticking with it, for now. I’m still an “Evangelical”; outsiders would probably call me a “Neo-Fundamentalist” and theologically, I am. But I’m still trying to change those within our gigantic tent and reform it by kicking some of the raccoons and ‘possums eating our marshmallows and rifling through the trash and tightening the guylines. Let us seek reform first, and if reform is impossible, then let’s leave Evangelicalism…knowing that Evangelicalism, in truth, left us.
A Footnote:
[1] It must be said that there is a growing body of scholarship which questions whether Jude was addressing false-teachers at all! The con-case is well laid out in Part I of a II part series (Part II is yet to be released) by Herbert Bateman. See: Herbert W. Bateman IV, “The Minority Report: A Different Assessment for Interpreting Jude, Part 1,” Bibliotheca Sacra, no. 705 (January-March 2020): 91-105.