Subject: Fundamentalism
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 05:59:38 GMT
From:  (Graeme Hunt)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

On Sun, 24 Oct 1999 05:10:15 GMT,  (Troy Harris) wrote:
>On Sun, 24 Oct 1999 08:26:12 +1000, “J.P.H.” < > wrote:
>
>>>What is cultic about these simple facts?
>>
>>The fact that they are ‘used’ to disredit the reliability of the Bible.
>>>
>
>Cults usually are literal fundamentalists....

That isn’t true Troy, it is a silly statement actually. The 
term “fundamentalism” denotes a movement in theology 
this century designed to conserve the principles which lie at the 
foundation of the Christian faith, and to resist what were 
considered dangerous theological tendencies in the movement 
calling itself Modernism [liberalism]. 

Its tenets are not those distinctive of any Protestant 
denomination, but comprise the verities essential to the 
Christian gospel as inherited from all branches of the Reformation. 

The movement found literary expression in and received its name 
from the publication, between 1910 and 1912, of “The 
Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth.” The authors of this 
series of twelve volumes sought to enumerate and expound the 
verities which are essential to Protestant orthodoxy. 

Organisationally, Fundamentalism took shape as a consequence of 
the World Conference in Christian Fundamentals which convened at 
Philadelphia in May of 1919. Taking the name, The World’s 
Christian Fundamentals Association, the organisation required 
of its members adherence to nine points of doctrine, namely: 
The inspiration and inerrancy of scripture

The Trinity
The deity and virgin birth of Christ
The creation and fall of man
A substitutionary atonement
The bodily resurrection and ascension of Christ
The regeneration of believers
The personal and imminent return of Christ
The resurrection and final assignment of all men to eternal 
blessedness or eternal woe. 

The term “fundamentalist” has in recent years become a 
derisive term used by opponents of the fundamentalist view of 
scripture. It has also been a term falsely ascribed to extreme 
groups such as the tongues crowd who have departed from the real 
fundamentals of the Christian faith. 

>Nigel, I think, is objecting to Biblicism, an extreme form of
>fundamentalism.  This elevates the Bible to the central object of the
>Christian life to the point of it being its own divine entity, thereby
>drawing in men to make an idol of it.  

Biblicism is a literal interpretation of the Bible. It is not an 
extreme form of fundamentalism except in the eyes of those who 
are themselves in biblical error. There is nothing extreme about it. 

>  A good example of this is to look at a currently popular
>interpretation of the passage in Heb 4:12.  Which “Word” does it speak
>of?  The Son or the Bible?  The Biblicist would say the Bible.
>

It is the Bible. However, there is a sense in which you cannot divorce 
the written Word from the living Word because, as the Bible itself states, 
it is the thinking of Christ, the divine viewpoint.

>Again, there is no need for a “difference” here either. 
>If God is sovereign, and He is over all, then He is sovereign over His
>Church too.
>  His Church was merely the instrument of the collection of the canon.
>  Ultimately, we both submit to the sovereignty of God in this matter.
>  However, to ignore the historical facts surrounding the collection
>of the books of the canon, their counciliar ratification , and so
>forth, is a little truncated.

In this discussion this has not been denied and I believe your comments 
are needless and beside the point. What has been emphasised is the 
distinction between the actual inspiration of scripture and the Holy 
Spirit’s function in believers recognising what is and what 
isn’t part of the canon of scripture. The latter can in no way 
be equated with the doctrine of inspiration. 

Graeme Hunt
 
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~invictus