The two great calamities feared by every author are being ignored and being misrepresented. Of these two, most see the first as the greater calamity. Better to be distorted than not to be talked about at all. For that reason, I am grateful to Pastor Kevin Hobi, who has reviewed Four Views on the Spectrum… Continue Reading
Many conservative evangelical and even fundamentalist churches today have transformed the Christian faith into a kind of pop-culture version of The Way. This change began to become most prominent in the early 20th century, right after the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. Joel Carpenter captures well the shift to pop religion in his important work on the history… Continue Reading
A few days ago, Pastor Aaron Menikoff had a piece posted from the most recent 9Marks eJournal on the 9Marks blog.1 In this piece, entitled “What About Movie Clips? Applying the Regulative Principle,” Menikoff advocates the regulative principle and gives a couple brief reasons (in application) to avoid movie clips in sermons. The piece is… Continue Reading
It has become common in some circles to contrast “classical” fundamentalism with “cultural” fundamentalism. The idea seems to be that fundamentalists of the distant past were theologically and intellectually responsible, temperamentally mild-mannered, and practically free of the baggage that came to characterize the later movement. At some point between the 1920s and the 1950s this… Continue Reading
Dear Les, Somewhere C. S. Lewis notes that friends are people who look at the same things. I first noticed what you were looking at during the mid-1990s when I read your preface to Doug McLachlan’s Reclaiming Authentic Fundamentalism. I was surprised that a fundamentalist insider—the president of a prominent fundamentalist college—would take the risks… Continue Reading
In one of his books, Jack Hyles identified three varieties of fundamentalism. One was interdenominational fundamentalism, represented in his day by such institutions as the International Council of Christian Churches. The second was Northern Baptist fundamentalism, represented primarily by the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches and the groups that came out of the Conservative… Continue Reading
Recent kerfuffle over a Christian university changing its philosophy and practice of music has led to much discussion over whether disagreements over music and worship philosophy warrant separation between believers. Here’s my attempt at an answer. What do you mean by separation? I do not view separation as some kind of binary “on/off switch.” In other… Continue Reading
Nathan Hatch, in his Democratization of American Christianity, writes concerning the changes in American religion due to the implicit notion of the “Sovereign Audience”: Popular gospel music became a pervasive reality in Jacksonian culture because people wrested singing from churchly control. The music created a spontaneous, moving medium, capable of capturing the identity of plain… Continue Reading
There has been a lot of talk in recent years on the internet and at conferences about why young people are rejecting fundamentalism and/or a conservative philosophy of worship. Everyone likes to play the blame game, but the issue that seems to get most often cited is music. Young people are being attracted to the… Continue Reading
Music philosophy is not a separation issue of the same kind of level as heterodoxy or flagrant, known sin. Probably one of the most common questions I’m asked is if I think differences over worship/music philosophy warrants separation. Here’s my attempt at an answer. What do you mean by separation? I do not view separation… Continue Reading
As I consider the landscape of fundamentalism today,1 some characteristics of its worship encourage me, while others concern me. The primary influences on modern fundamentalist worship reveal the reasons for this mixed assessment. Three Influences Shaping Worship Today In my estimation, three sources have influenced modern fundamentalist worship most: 1.John Piper 2.Wayne Grudem 3.Sovereign Grace… Continue Reading
“The new Calvinists constantly extol the Puritans, but they do not want to worship or live as they did. One of the vaunted new conferences is called Resolved, after Jonathan Edwards’ famous youthful Resolutions (seventy searching undertakings). But the culture of this conference would unquestionably have met with the outright condemnation of that great theologian.”… Continue Reading