This is an amazing, generous, inspirational sermon that was preached in 1922 and which is still completely relevant. I am reposting this extensive excerpt from a history website: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5070/ I mentioned both this and the rebuttal “Shall Unbelief Win?” in my prior post.
You can get a pdf of the full sermon at this Baptist Studies website, which includes the details of his arguments. It begins with some unnecessary “old school” supercessionism, suggesting the Christianity is the completion or “perfect flowering” of Judaism. This was a traditional interpretation, but is one that we have set aside as inaccurate and even harmful. Judaism and Christianity are two branches coming out from the same root–an idea we can find in the book of Romans. This supercessionist part of the sermon is not included in the excerpted version below (it was excerpted out by whoever made the excerpt.)
You can read the very long rebuttal sermon, which was preached by Clarence E. Macartney, at the Bob Jones University Library website: “Shall Unbelief Win?”
These sermons from 1922 are very relevant to our study of Christopher Hitchens’ book and critique of religion (or I would say, his critique of fundamentalism.)
~Nanette
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Already all of us must have heard about the people who call themselves the Fundamentalists. Their apparent intention is to drive out of the evangelical churches men and women of liberal opinions. I speak of them the more freely because there are no two denominations more affected by them than the Baptist and the Presbyterian. We should not identify the Fundamentalists with the conservatives. All Fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are Fundamentalists. The best conservatives can often give lessons to the liberals in true liberality of spirit, but the Fundamentalist program is essentially illiberal and intolerant.
The Fundamentalists see, and they see truly, that in this last generation there have been strange new movements in Christian thought. A great mass of new knowledge has come into man’s possession—new knowledge about the physical universe, its origin, its forces, its laws; new knowledge about human history and in particular about the ways in which the ancient peoples used to think in matters of religion and the methods by which they phrased and explained their spiritual experiences; and new knowledge, also, about other religions and the strangely similar ways in which men’s faiths and religious practices have developed everywhere. . . .
Now, there are multitudes of reverent Christians who have been unable to keep this new knowledge in one compartment of their minds and the Christian faith in another. They have been sure that all truth comes from the one God and is His revelation. Not, therefore, from irreverence or caprice or destructive zeal but for the sake of intellectual and spiritual integrity, that they might really love the Lord their God, not only with all their heart and soul and strength but with all their mind, they have been trying to see this new knowledge in terms of the Christian faith and to see the Christian faith in terms of this new knowledge.
Doubtless they have made many mistakes. Doubtless there have been among them reckless radicals gifted with intellectual ingenuity but lacking spiritual depth. Yet the enterprise itself seems to them indispensable to the Christian Church. The new knowledge and the old faith cannot be left antagonistic or even disparate, as though a man on Saturday could use one set of regulative ideas for his life and on Sunday could change gear to another altogether. We must be able to think our modern life clear through in Christian terms, and to do that we also must be able to think our Christian faith clear through in modern terms.
There is nothing new about the situation. It has happened again and again in history, as, for example, when the stationary earth suddenly began to move and the universe that had been centered in this planet was centered in the sun around which the planets whirled. Whenever such a situation has arisen, there has been only one way out—the new knowledge and the old faith had to be blended in a new combination. Now, the people in this generation who are trying to do this are the liberals, and the Fundamentalists are out on a campaign to shut against them the doors of the Christian fellowship. Shall they be allowed to succeed?
It is interesting to note where the Fundamentalists are driving in their stakes to mark out the deadline of doctrine around the church, across which no one is to pass except on terms of agreement. They insist that we must all believe in the historicity of certain special miracles, preeminently the virgin birth of our Lord; that we must believe in a special theory of inspiration—that the original documents of the Scripture, which of course we no longer possess, were inerrantly dictated to men a good deal as a man might dictate to a stenographer; that we must believe in a special theory of the Atonement—that the blood of our Lord, shed in a substitutionary death, placates an alienated Deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner; and that we must believe in the second coming of our Lord upon the clouds of heaven to set up a millennium here, as the only way in which God can bring history to a worthy denouement. Such are some of the stakes which are being driven to mark a deadline of doctrine around the church.
If a man is a genuine liberal, his primary protest is not against holding these opinions, although he may well protest against their being considered the fundamentals of Christianity. This is a free country and anybody has a right to hold these opinions or any others if he is sincerely convinced of them. The question is—Has anybody a right to deny the Christian name to those who differ with him on such points and to shut against them the doors of the Christian fellowship? The Fundamentalists say that this must be done. In this country and on the foreign field they are trying to do it. They have actually endeavored to put on the statute books of a whole state binding laws against teaching modern biology. If they had their way, within the church, they would set up in Protestantism a doctrinal tribunal more rigid than the pope’s.
In such an hour, delicate and dangerous, when feelings are bound to run high, I plead this morning the cause of magnanimity and liberality and tolerance of spirit. I would, if I could reach their ears, say to the Fundamentalists about the liberals what Gamaliel said to the Jews, “Refrain from these men and let them alone; for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will be everthrown; but if it is of God ye will not be able to overthrow them; lest haply ye be found even to be fighting against God.”
That we may be entirely candid and concrete and may not lose ourselves in any fog of generalities, let us this morning take two or three of these Fundamentalist items and see with reference to them what the situation is in the Christian churches. Too often we preachers have failed to talk frankly enough about the differences of opinion which exist among evangelical Christians, although everybody knows that they are there. Let us face this morning some of the differences of opinion with which somehow we must deal.
We may well begin with the vexed and mooted question of the virgin birth of our Lord. I know people in the Christian churches, ministers, missionaries, laymen, devoted lovers of the Lord and servants of the Gospel, who, alike as they are in their personal devotion to the Master, hold quite different points of view about a matter like the virgin birth. Here, for example, is one point of view that the virgin birth is to be accepted as historical fact; it actually happened; there was no other way for a personality like the Master to come into this world except by a special biological miracle. That is one point of view, and many are the gracious and beautiful souls who hold it. But side by side with them in the evangelical churches is a group of equally loyal and reverent people who would say that the virgin birth is not to be accepted as an historic fact. . . . So far from thinking that they have given up anything vital in the New Testament’s attitude toward Jesus, these Christians remember that the two men who contributed most to the Church’s thought of the divine meaning of the Christ were Paul and John, who never even distantly allude to the virgin birth.
Here in the Christian churches are these two groups of people and the question which the Fundamentalists raise is this—Shall one of them throw the other out? Has intolerance any contribution to make to this situation? Will it persuade anybody of anything? Is not the Christian Church large enough to hold within her hospitable fellowship people who differ on points like this and agree to differ until the fuller truth be manifested? The Fundamentalists say not. They say the liberals must go. Well, if the Fundamentalists should succeed, then out of the Christian Church would go some of the best Christian life and consecration of this generation—multitudes of men and women, devout and reverent Christians, who need the church and whom the church needs.
Consider another matter on which there is a sincere difference of opinion between evangelical Christians: the inspiration of the Bible. One point of view is that the original documents of the Scripture were inerrantly dictated by God to men. Whether we deal with the story of creation or the list of the dukes of Edom or the narratives of Solomon’s reign or the Sermon on the Mount or the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, they all came in the same way, and they all came as no other book ever came. They were inerrantly dictated; everything there—scientific opinions, medical theories, historical judgments, as well as spiritual insight—is infallible. That is one idea of the Bible’s inspiration. But side by side with those who hold it, lovers of the Book as much as they, are multitudes of people who never think about the Bible so. Indeed, that static and mechanical theory of inspiration seems to them a positive peril to the spiritual life. . . .
Here in the Christian Church today are these two groups, and the question which the Fundamentalists have raised is this—Shall one of them drive the other out? Do we think the cause of Jesus Christ will be furthered by that? If He should walk through the ranks of his congregation this morning, can we imagine Him claiming as His own those who hold one idea of inspiration and sending from Him into outer darkness those who hold another? You cannot fit the Lord Christ into that Fundamentalist mold. The church would better judge His judgment. For in the Middle West the Fundamentalists have had their way in some communities and a Christian minister tells us the consequences. He says that the educated people are looking for their religion outside the churches.
Consider another matter upon which there is a serious and sincere difference of opinion between evangelical Christians: the second coming of our Lord. The second coming was the early Christian phrasing of hope. No one in the ancient world had ever thought, as we do, of development, progress, gradual change as God’s way of working out His will in human life and institutions. They thought of human history as a series of ages succeeding one another with abrupt suddenness. The Graeco-Roman world gave the names of metals to the ages—gold, silver, bronze, iron. The Hebrews had their ages, too—the original Paradise in which man began, the cursed world in which man now lives, the blessed Messianic kingdom someday suddenly to appear on the clouds of heaven. It was the Hebrew way of expressing hope for the victory of God and righteousness. When the Christians came they took over that phrasing of expectancy and the New Testament is aglow with it. The preaching of the apostles thrills with the glad announcement, “Christ is coming!”
In the evangelical churches today there are differing views of this matter. One view is that Christ is literally coming, externally, on the clouds of heaven, to set up His kingdom here. I never heard that teaching in my youth at all. It has always had a new resurrection when desperate circumstances came and man’s only hope seemed to lie in divine intervention. It is not strange, then, that during these chaotic, catastrophic years there has been a fresh rebirth of this old phrasing of expectancy. “Christ is coming!” seems to many Christians the central message of the Gospel. In the strength of it some of them are doing great service for the world. But, unhappily, many so overemphasize it that they outdo anything the ancient Hebrews or the ancient Christians ever did. They sit still and do nothing and expect the world to grow worse and worse until He comes.
Side by side with these to whom the second coming is a literal expectation, another group exists in the evangelical churches. They, too, say, “Christ is coming!” They say it with all their hearts; but they are not thinking of an external arrival on the clouds. They have assimilated as part of the divine revelation the exhilarating insight which these recent generations have given to us, that development is God’s way of working out His will. . . .
And these Christians, when they say that Christ is coming, mean that, slowly it may be, but surely, His will and principles will be worked out by God’s grace in human life and institutions, until “He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied.”
These two groups exist in the Christian churches and the question raised by the Fundamentalists is—Shall one of them drive the other out? Will that get us anywhere? Multitudes of young men and women at this season of the year are graduating from our schools of learning, thousands of them Christians who may make us older ones ashamed by the sincerity of their devotion to God’s will on earth. They are not thinking in ancient terms that leave ideas of progress out. They cannot think in those terms. There could be no greater tragedy than that the Fundamentalists should shut the door of the Christian fellowship against such.
I do not believe for one moment that the Fundamentalists are going to succeed. Nobody’s intolerance can contribute anything to the solution of the situation which we have described. If, then, the Fundamentalists have no solution of the problem, where may we expect to find it? In two concluding comments let us consider our reply to that inquiry.
The first element that is necessary is a spirit of tolerance and Christian liberty. When will the world learn that intolerance solves no problems? This is not a lesson which the Fundamentalists alone need to learn; the liberals also need to learn it. Speaking, as I do, from the viewpoint of liberal opinions, let me say that if some young, fresh mind here this morning is holding new ideas, has fought his way through, it may be by intellectual and spiritual struggle, to novel positions, and is tempted to be intolerant about old opinions, offensively to condescend to those who hold them and to be harsh in judgment on them, he may well remember that people who held those old opinions have given the world some of the noblest character and the most rememberable service that it ever has been blessed with, and that we of the younger generation will prove our case best, not by controversial intolerance, but by producing, with our new opinions, something of the depth and strength, nobility and beauty of character that in other times were associated with other thoughts. It was a wise liberal, the most adventurous man of his day—Paul the Apostle—who said, “Knowledge puffeth up, but love buildeth up.”
Nevertheless, it is true that just now the Fundamentalists are giving us one of the worst exhibitions of bitter intolerance that the churches of this country have ever seen. As one watches them and listens to them he remembers the remark of General Armstrong of Hampton Institute, “Cantankerousness is worse than heterodoxy.” There are many opinions in the field of modern controversy concerning which I am not sure whether they are right or wrong, but there is one thing I am sure of: courtesy and kindliness and tolerance and humility and fairness are right. Opinions may be mistaken; love never is.
As I plead thus for an intellectually hospitable, tolerant, liberty-loving church, I am, of course, thinking primarily about this new generation. We have boys and girls growing up in our homes and schools, and because we love them we may well wonder about the church which will be waiting to receive them. Now, the worst kind of church that can possibly be offered to the allegiance of the new generation is an intolerant church. Ministers often bewail the fact that young people turn from religion to science for the regulative ideas of their lives. But this is easily explicable.
Science treats a young man’s mind as though it were really important. A scientist says to a young man, “Here is the universe challenging our investigation. Here are the truths which we have seen, so far. Come, study with us! See what we already have seen and then look further to see more, for science is an intellectual adventure for the truth.” Can you imagine any man who is worthwhile turning from that call to the church if the church seems to him to say, “Come, and we will feed you opinions from a spoon. No thinking is allowed here except such as brings you to certain specified, predetermined conclusions. These prescribed opinions we will give you in advance of your thinking; now think, but only so as to reach these results.”
My friends, nothing in all the world is so much worth thinking of as God, Christ, the Bible, sin and salvation, the divine purposes for humankind, life everlasting. But you cannot challenge the dedicated thinking of this generation to these sublime themes upon any such terms as are laid down by an intolerant church.
The second element which is needed if we are to reach a happy solution of this problem is a clear insight into the main issues of modern Christianity and a sense of penitent shame that the Christian Church should be quarreling over little matters when the world is dying of great needs. If, during the war, when the nations were wrestling upon the very brink of hell and at times all seemed lost, you chanced to hear two men in an altercation about some minor matter of sectarian denominationalism, could you restrain your indignation? You said, “What can you do with folks like this who, in the face of colossal issues, play with the tiddledywinks and peccadillos of religion?” So, now, when from the terrific questions of this generation one is called away by the noise of this Fundamentalist controversy, he thinks it almost unforgivable that men should tithe mint and anise and cummin, and quarrel over them, when the world is perishing for the lack of the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith. . . .
The present world situation smells to heaven! And now, in the presence of colossal problems, which must be solved in Christ’s name and for Christ’s sake, the Fundamentalists propose to drive out from the Christian churches all the consecrated souls who do not agree with their theory of inspiration. What immeasurable folly!
Well, they are not going to do it; certainly not in this vicinity. I do not even know in this congregation whether anybody has been tempted to be a Fundamentalist. Never in this church have I caught one accent of intolerance. God keep us always so and ever increasing areas of the Christian fellowship; intellectually hospitable, open-minded, liberty-loving, fair, tolerant, not with the tolerance of indifference, as though we did not care about the faith, but because always our major emphasis is upon the weightier matters of the law.
Source: Harry Emerson Fosdick, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” Christian Work 102 (June 10, 1922): 716–722.
In 2004, Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President of the Interfaith Alliance in Washington D.C., delivered a sermon responding to Fosdick titled, “Will the Fundamentalists Win? A Question Revisited.” I don’t know if it is available online, but I’ll paste the text below if you or others are interested:
WILL THE FUNDAMENTALISTS WIN?
A QUESTION REVISITED
Acts 5: 34-39; Galatians 1:6-9
On May 21, 1922, from the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church here in New York City, Harry Emerson Fosdick, who later became the founding senior minister of this great Riverside Church of New York City, posed the question, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” As an eyewitness to a mean-spirited divisiveness reeking havoc in American churches, Fosdick issued a clarion call for tolerance. Citing a biblical narrative on controversy surrounding the resurrection of Jesus and the intention of some people to silence all with whom they disagreed, Fosdick praised the counsel a Jewish leader named Gamaliel. “Let it be,” Gamaliel advised, “Wait and see what happens, he said, speaking of the resurrection. If the resurrection and those who proclaim it are only the results of human imagination and ingenuity, the whole movement will falter and ultimately fail. If, however, this is indeed, an initiative of God, no one will be able to stop it and all who try will find themselves opposing God.” Fosdick pleaded for such care-filled, appreciative-of-truth tolerance among his contemporaries.
Fosdick delivered that historic sermon on the fate of fundamentalism in a context heavily populated by self-designated protectors of truth who were seeking to drive out of their churches any persons deemed to possess a progressive or liberal mindset. Of course, those qualities of thought—progressive or liberal—were considered suspect, if not dangerous, largely because they represented disagreement with beliefs that fundamentalists had equated with the essence of Christianity.
Today, 82 later, the situation is as much the same as it is dramatically different. Now, fundamentalism is a powerful phenomenon in most of the major religions of the world. So loud are the voice and so heavy-handed the outreach of fundamentalism that entire religious traditions like Islam and Christianity are being redefined by the strident voices and often violent actions of extremists and, thus, misunderstood by the public as fundamentalist religions. Today fundamentalism is dividing mosques, temples, synagogues, and gurdwaras even as churches; splintering relationships families, friends, communities and nations. So rancid and rancorous are the divisive tactics now utilized by fundamentalists that they reach far beyond personal attacks intended to assassinate the character of individuals charged with various heresies to include explosive onslaughts of physical violence intended to destroy whole societies thought to be in error. Presiding over a shotgun wedding uniting religion and politics, fundamentalism now considers as a one-faith union its ideological call for political correctness and the biblical call for personal righteousness. Considering honest differences of opinion as serious moral errors, fundamentalism turns the kind of civil discourse between competing points of view essential to a healthy democracy into strident shouting matches laced with patronizing delineations between good and evil. Healthy discussions on the direction of the nation degenerate into accusations of a lack of patriotism or a flirtation with treason.
So, you see, it is an important question—Will the Fundamentalists Win? At stake here are nothing less than the vitality of democracy and the integrity of religion. Worship is a fitting context in which to revisit Harry Emerson Fosdick’s lingering question. Will the fundamentalists win?
My first answer, my most immediate answer, to that question is “Yes, very likely, the Fundamentalists will win for a while.” Pervasive fear within a nation breeds an impassioned preference for certainty and security that causes people to lose sight of ambiguity and the importance of liberty. A lack of support for public education places a premium on indoctrination. A ravenous hunger for answering complex problems with bumper-sticker solutions evokes a love affair with simplicity. All of these conditions stand as gold-gilded invitations to a rise of and a strengthening of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism well may prevail as a major influence in our society for a while.
But, long term, fundamentalism will weaken and fade in influence. I speak this morning only about the fundamentalism that I know best—Christian fundamentalism—though the principles involved in my remarks know no boundaries.
Incidentally, this critique of fundamentalism is for me as personal and practical as it is theoretical and institutional. Not only do I know fundamentalism intellectually, I know fundamentalism experientially. I grew up among fundamentalists. I did not have to study the methodology of fundamentalism to know the power of its punch and the consequences of its victories, I have felt its power in blows to my gut and I have seen its success in attacks on and the loss of friends, institutions, and a denomination that I loved.
Christian fundamentalism will not be defeated by the strategic opposition of others so much as it eventually will self-destruct. Fundamentalism carries within its very nature the seeds of its own demise. Allow me, please, to be specific.
A coldly rational religion preoccupied with advancing and defending propositions offers little help to persons whose needs are profoundly relational and whose calls for help are deeply emotional. I have stood beside parents shocked and stricken by grief over the death of a child and listened with disgust and dismay as a devotee of fundamentalism explained the doctrine of providence and offered an assurance that God simply needed the child more than did the parents. I have done follow-up counseling with people broad-sided by professional termination, disoriented by betrayal, and angered in the midst of a painful divorce who experienced the ministry of fundamentalism—a lecture on the immorality involved in such events without a word of empathetic understanding and hope. The great hurts of our lives find little solace, comfort, or eradication from a religion preoccupied with propositions and proselytism. Fundamentalism has not more sympathy than it does a sense of humor and healthy individuals are wary of anyone devoid of either, much less, devoid of both. But, there is more.
A religion of exclusion quickly will become peripheral in a religiously pluralistic society. Immediately I can hear the quick retort: “We must not adjust the particularities of our religion to conform to the characteristics of our culture.” Agreed. But no compromising adjustment to our faith is required; only a deepened understanding of the welcome that pulsates at the center of the gospel and faithfulness to that welcome in our ministry.
Shortly after I assumed leadership of The Interfaith Alliance, Joan Brown Campbell told me a story that I have not forgotten. Joan and Bill Moyers were present for a Clinton-Administration-sponsored White House Conference exploring the possibility of life on the planet Mars. One of the scientists in that conference declared without equivocation that in the biosphere independence means death. In other words, for life to be a reality, this scholar was arguing, interdependence is an absolute necessity. Another scientist stated the matter more bluntly, “The future either will be ecumenical or there will be no future.” Altering the wording only minimally, I would argue that either the future will be interfaith in nature or there will be no future of the quality that we know in the present. More than once your pastor has shared with me his conviction that the next “great awakening” in our nation will be interfaith in nature.
Now, please understand, it is not that we have to get along because of the closeness of our geographical proximity, we have to get along because of the depth of our religious integrity; we have to reach out to each other despite our differences not because of the smallness of the global village in which we live, but because of the largeness of the faith that lives within us.
A religion with a passion for narrower and narrower definitions of truth resists new insights from outsiders and erodes trust among insiders. I remember the first waves of the onslaught of fundamentalists within the Southern Baptist Convention. Those of us who continued to affirm the Bible as the Word of God became suspect because we did not articulate a long line of qualifying adjectives required to assure the doctrinal correctness of our affirmation. We were expected to say that we believed in the Bible as the verbally inspired Word of God that is without error and historically, theologically, and scientifically accurate—an expectation that Karen Armstrong says was unheard of before the 20th century. Such a press for preciseness is rooted in suspicion—“You may be trying to get away with something or without believing all that you must believe to be fundamentally orthodox.” You see, everybody is suspect, even colleagues. Over the course of time, fundamentalists begin to question each other—“Are you really with us? Do you fully believe as we teach?” A fundamentalist mentality assures a steadily declining number of true believers until, finally, only one trusted source of spiritual authority remains; and that one is whoever is speaking or writing.
A religion of arrogant absolutism and aggressive proselytism will engage in twisted gymnastics of moral casuistry in order to be right about everything and in manipulative strategies of conversion in order to win every possible person to its rolls and control their development. But people know better; not anybody is right all of the time. There is not an answer to every question. What is more, control practiced in the name of religion eventually feels more like control than religion.
Fundamentalism religiofies politics and politicizes religion with a passion that eventually erases any distinction between politics and religion, threatens the eradication of religious liberty, and compromises the essence of democracy. Already we can see the dangerous developments of this mindset and mission. Within Christianity, religious authenticity is equated not to reverencing the sacred, appreciating mystery, exploring divine revelation, embracing biblical truths and values, responding positively to Jesus’ call to discipleship, living in love and embodying with grace. No, the test of religious authenticity is more socio-political than spiritual.
In Fosdick’s day, fundamentalism demanded correct answers to crucial questions about theological beliefs: the infallibility of the Bible, the historicity of miracles such as the virgin birth, the plenary substitionary doctrine of the atonement, and reality of the second coming of Jesus. But more has been added. Unfaithful to its own truth, fundamentalism turns a person’s positions on select social-political issues into litmus tests for determining that person’s religious authenticity. If the frightened-to-the-point-of-panic jailer described in Philippians today posed the question to fundamentalists that he hurled at Paul in the first century, “What must I do to be saved?” I sense the answer would not be “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” but oppose abortion, condemn gay marriage, support vouchers for financing private education, and affirm posting the Ten Commandments in public places.
Fundamentalism peddles another gospel, a different gospel, which, on close examination, is not gospel.
Given a mindset committed the total triumph of its particular beliefs and values—call it religious imperialism, dominionism or triumphalism—serious questions develop as to whether or not an ideologically pure form of fundamentalism can affirm the respect for pluralism, the guarantee of basic civil rights, and the assurance of religious freedom for all people so integral to democracy. Signs of such a freedom-threatening goal mark the path of those who revise American history to deny religious liberty, asserting freedom for religion but denying freedom from religion, arguing for a majoritarian, states-rights approach to making a decision about an officially established religion, using the machinery of government to legislate sectarian values for imposition on the public, and teaming with militarists who embrace violence, if necessary, to impose their religious values on the community of nations.
I am reminded of E. Stanley Jones’ observation regarding the Crusaders. They conquered Jerusalem, Jones wrote, and found in the end that Christ was not there. They had lost (Christ) through the very spirit and methods by which they thought to serve Him.”
Fundamentalism often goes so far as to claim just as there is only one nation truly blessed by God, there is only true political party within that nation that is blessed by God.
People will not forever endure a form of religion that robs them of freedom and threatens to replace democracy with a theocracy. If that alone does not contribute to the demise of fundamentalism, the end may come via a vigorous struggle within fundamentalism’s rush toward a theocracy to see who will be Theo.
I can go not far from here to talk with a man whose family has been ripped asunder because fundamentalist parents judge that one set of grandparents is two liberal, not deeply enough grounded in the faith, and thus unacceptable as nurturers of their children.
Finally, fundamentalism will turn on God, reshaping God into its own image, making God small enough to manage for its purposes. Elie Wiesel has penned a haunting description of a religious fanatic who ultimately grows uncomfortable with God. “He turns divine beauty into human ugliness,” Wiesel observes, “He usurps God’s place in Creation. He takes himself for God. Like God he strives to make every man in his own image, but smaller. He wants everyone to resemble him yet remain smaller, humble and humiliated, bowed before his throne. Convinced that he is the sole possessor of the meaning of life, he gags or kills the Other (God) in order not to be challenged in his quest. And finally, the religious fanatic sees God not as his judge and king, but as his prisoner.”
Already we see that a God of grace does not seem moral enough, too soft on sin, to eager to forgive, too understanding of humanity. A God of mystery does not seem strong enough to prevail in a debate on Crossfire, fundamentalism demands certainty. Everything must be explained.
Do you see the seeds of demise that reside in the essential nature of fundamentalism?
Fundamentalism may persist as a dominant ideology, but it will fade as a strong religion. It is a different gospel.
One religion exults in freedom while the other imposes burdens. One religion uses fear to motivate goodness while the other sees all good as a derivative of love. One religion depicts God as a deity who must be appeased and kept happy through individuals’ fidelity to duty, conformity to orthodoxy, and heroic activity aimed at the achievement of perfection while the other religion portrays God as a deity head-over-heels in love with humankind who wants nothing more than a growing, loving relationship with every individual, imperfect though a person may be. One religion places conditions on grace, restrictions on forgiveness, and contingencies on God’s love while the other religion rejoices in God’s readiness to accept all who respond to an invitation that is as inclusive as it is divine. One religion considers what self-designated spiritual authorities say about the scriptures as important as the scriptures themselves and turns human commentary on the scriptures into a criterion for measuring the authenticity of others’ religious beliefs while the other religion encourages people, with the help of the Spirit of God, to listen for the Word of God in the scriptures and respond to that word with obedience in speech and actions. One religion makes a relationship with God a reward for right beliefs, proper words, and exemplary actions while the other religion identifies a relationship with God as sheer gift—undeserved and unearned though valued more than life itself
A religion based on fear fades as fear recedes. A religion that claims to answer every question with certainty loses its credibility in a world of ambiguity and before a recognition of the mystery at the heart of spirituality and faith.
The demise of fundamentalism, however, will not be a cause for celebration. Standing in the debris of its destruction, concerned about religions locked in competition, and praying over a deeply divided nation, we will regret that in crucial times people of faith did not show the world a better portrait of religion. We will be sorrowful over families divided by people who valued the correctness of their propositions more than fellowship with other persons.
But we dare not wait for that to happen. The demise is underway; no attack is needed. But faithfulness to the progressive vision of Christ is essential.
Another gospel, what the writer of Galatians called “a different gospel” will not supplant the gospel.
But let us not wait for the unwinding. Let us meet veiled attempts to create a theocracy with active civic participation, smart biblical studies, compassionate ministry, and examples of how piety and civility are partners even as are faith and inclusion, moral integrity and fidelity to forgiveness. Let us answer questions of faith not with personal hunches but with biblical studies: Is Christianity to be feared? Is Christianity about exclusion? Is the spirituality inspired by Jesus about shutting down or opening up? Being mean for Jesus must be countered by showing Jesus.
We cannot allow the takeover of our government by a movement that will compromise freedom and use legislation for sectarian indoctrination. We must study the Bible and vote, pray and work, love and lobby, care and campaign.
Let us move beyond tolerance to engagement, to mutual respect, to learning from each other. Let us show fundamentalists that we will protect their rights but we demand that they protect ours as well.
But, one day, we will want more—one day when one of our children fails in a manner that we have condemned in others but don’t want for our child, one day when we experience the inexplicable loss of a loved one and someone says to us what we have said to others about such tragedy being the will of God, one day when we are hurting so badly that we think we cannot stand another disappointment and a friend tells us that all we need is to have a stronger faith. On that day, once the anger recedes and the screaming—silent or vocal—recedes, we will see the bankruptcy of a religion of histrionics and a theology of imperialism and we happily will welcome the religion of the new covenant, the faith that comes from grace, and the love that never, regardless of the circumstances, will let us go.
But, dear friends, we need not wait for such a dreadful day. Today, the God of love calls us to a faith that leads to liberation not oppression, adoration not cynicism, affirmation not condemnation, and grace that is greater than law. Call it progressive if you will, or even liberal, but it is the religion of the new covenant fleshed out in Jesus Christ.
I don’t like the win/lose terminology. The fact is that I don’t want to fight with anybody. But sometimes conflict and controversy are a necessity.
Humility is missing the virtue. It is learned in the midst of a struggle with God. I will protect the rights of fundamentalists even as I protest their captivity of truth and God. But with God, no; I will struggle, and shout, but at the end of the day, I hope to lose. (Kazanzakis)
In his book, Report to Graeco, Nikos Kazantzakis tells of a young truth-seeker who traveled to a monastic community off the coast of Greece to visit with the hermits there and discover their way to God. One day the young man talked to an elderly hermit who had lived alone for 40 years. “Tell me, father,” the young man said, “Do you struggle with the devil?” “O, no, my son,” the old man responded, “My flesh is too old for that. I struggle now with God.” The young man exclaimed in astonishment, “With God, father?” Do you hope to win?” The aged hermit replied, “”Oh, no, my son. I hope to lose.”
I do not speak theoretically. A deep line of division runs like the life-threatening Sanandresw Fault through the body of Christians known as Baptists. The differences that lie on both sides of that division are real and deep, not surface matters easily resolved by semantics.
I know experientially the religion laced with fear, preoccupied with orthodoxy, suspicious of people who are different, and excited over the reality of hell.
Fundamentalism can make you want to look good even more than desiring to be good, cause you to mouth words that earn you acceptance by others sometimes at the expense of acceptance by yourself. Rigid rituals of confession become more important than the reality of God’s lavish forgiveness. A desperate dread of failure drains all of the energy out of a will to venture into truly abundant life. As long as all goes well, this religion can give you a sense of arrogant superiority, endowing you with the right to judge others harshly and even filling you with an air of militancy as you relate to those who do not appear to have seen the light by which you walk. This religion can cause you to present the good news in a tone of voice more appropriate to bad news. It can make you say “No” so many times that the word “Yes” drops out of your vocabulary. Ultimately this religion can wear you out, demanding that you make judgments that only God can make and asking you to carry burdens that only God has the strength to bear.
I know the religion of fear. I have heard the screams of hell. I have feared God more than loved God and thought of running from fear to be a more religious act than running to faith. I have imagined that the door to heaven is guarded by someone who makes entrance decisions based on a count of merit badges
roll of West Paris Baptist Church. It is not that I have created a religion to my own liking. No. I finally discovered the religion of the Bible’s teaching—seeing it with open eyes, feeling it with deepened faith, and speaking of it in the language of a gratified heart. From no less authority than Jesus of Nazareth I have learned that Christianity has love at its center, open arms as its posture, encouragement as its demeanor, and a welcome to all people as its first spoken word. I learned from Christ that freedom is not a bad word and that failure is not a terminal experience. Though I recognize the motivational power of guilt, I know that guilt alone can take us to the feet of a god not revealed in Jesus Christ.
I will not look down on those who prefer to rave about the threat of hell rather than speak of the love of God, but I will passionately disagree with them. The God I meet in the Bible wears a smile not a scowl, engages creation playfully rather than terrorizes people emotionally, invites everyone to a feast of celebration and despises only the factors that cause people to take life into their own hands and live as if they alone had a corner on truth and no need for others. The God whom I know through Christ carries us when we can’t even carry ourselves much less live as beasts of burdens transporting our deities.
In 1922, Fosdick declared, “I do not believe for one moment that the Fundamentalists are going to succeed.” What is the answer to that question now?
Elie Wiesel, And the Sea is Never Full: Memoirs 1969— Translated by Marion Wiesel. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999) p 271.
Quoted in John Killenger, Ten Things I Learned from a Conservative Church. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2002, p 55