Considerations Concerning the Proclamation of a Post-Fundamentalism Era and the Foundations for Paleo-Evangelicalism, Part Two

Even the casual reader will note that this series is not a scholarly treatise of the subject at hand.  I do not believe that it needs to be so to be beneficial to most people; therefore, I will gladly leave it for true scholars to actually delve into the depths and fill in the wide gaps left behind by this series.  That said, I do not intend to so easily concede the fact that a fancy for a philosophy more than fidelity to the Scriptures was the genius of the Fundamentalism movement.  I will keep my arguments at that point and not about the pro’s and con’s of Scottish Common Sense Realism.  I believe that a preliminary examination of the cited sources should be my beginning point for this post.

When asked about the proof for his assertion that philosophical Scottish Common Sense Realism played a significant role as a foundational philosophy for Fundamentalism, Dr. Bauder said that all he needed to do was to direct the questioners to the resources that document the fact.  What are these factual resources and the men behind them?  To name a few there is Dr. George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture; Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millennarianism, 1800-1930; and Mark Noll, The Princeton Theology 1812-1921 and The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.  These are a sampling of those Dr. Bauder mentioned, and I may be wrong but I did not note among all those listed anyone that I recognized as a self-identifying Fundamentalist.  The discerning man knows that there is a real problem in relying on any non-Fundamentalist to understand Fundamentalism or its history.  Why would that be?  It should be easy to understand that all these men have specifically chosen not to be a Fundamentalist and while the specific reasons for the individuals no doubt vary, what must be true in each case is that each one of them believes that Fundamentalism is flawed and lacks genuine Biblical or historical support.  If it were otherwise, why would they not be self-identifying Fundamentalists?   My question is why would any self-identifying Fundamentalist seek to understand Fundamentalism’s true foundations by studying those who reject Fundamentalism?

Now there is nothing wrong with being familiar with these or other men and their works, and in so far as these works record historical events and the like they can even prove beneficial.  Researching a multitude of original sources, reducing that large volume of gathered information down to a sizable quantity, and then relaying all the pertinent information into a coherent, readable format may not be easy, but it does not require any spiritual stature by the individual to do it well.  Here is what Dr. George Dollar said in his History of Fundamentalism in America,

A recent study by Ernest Sandeen, The Origins [Roots?] of Fundamentalism, is a fair and factual study of the movement from 1870 to 1920, and Sandeen provides many helpful insights. 1

Dr. Beale of BJU in his In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850 remarks,

More recently, however, Fundamentalism has benefited from widespread attention from scholarly studies.  Ernest R. Sandeen, for example, in his  Roots of Fundamentalism (1970) depicted the movement as a respectable force in Christendom.  George M. Marsden, in Fundamentalism and American Culture (1980), ably defended the movement against blanket charges of anti-intellectualism.  He has been close to the movement and displays a remarkable grasp of Fundamentalism. 2

He furthered remarked,

Of the several general histories of Fundamentalism, most possess merits that far exceed their weaknesses. 3

Scanning through the books on Fundamentalism by Pickering and Moritz one will also find that they both use some information gleaned from both Sandeen and Marsden in a positive, helpful manner.  However, there is a danger in any and all that a liberal ”Christian” produces.  Being an unregenerated natural man, he cannot understand the things of God.  ["But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Cor. 2:14]  It is one thing to accurately relay sourced information, but it something entirely different if an author attempts to make sense of what he is relaying.  Since a modernist cannot understand spiritual issues or events from a spiritual perspective he is forced then to use another means to seek to understand them.  What is that other means?  There is no question that the preferred other means of the old liberal/modernist which is today’s neo-orthodox is human reasoning.  Reason is the opiate of the modernist.  The publisher of Dr. Sandeen’s book  The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millennarianism, 1800 – 1930 is the University of Chicago Press.  In promoting the importance of the book they state the following:

Ernest Sandeen’s Roots of Fundamentalism remains a landmark work in the history of religion.  A National Book Award finalist, it was the first full-length study to present an intellectual historical critique of the Fundamentalist movement in America [emphasis added]. 4

For most Fundamentalists the dangers associated with Christian liberalism is usually fairly obvious and they wisely refrain from imbibing its toxic offering.  However, the need for them to be cautious when they interact with or are exposed to Evangelicals is not as well understood.  It is to our shame that seemingly only a very few understand and can discern the tincture of the serious error mingled into the Evangelical brew of Christianity.  So as far as a discerning Fundamentalist should be concerned about these matters, abstinence is the need in some cases and moderation in the rest.  Am I alone in this observation?

Dr. Chester E. Tulga wrote this about the matter of evaluating Fundamentalism,

It is our conviction that fundamentalism as a movement can best be understood by those who were a part of it, who participated in it, rather than late comers who dislike it.  There is a strange similarity between the middle-of-the-roaders who dislike fundamentalism in the past and those who dislike fundamentalism today. 5

Commenting as to weaknesses and concerns in some of the studies of Fundamentalism, Dr. Beale provides us with this statement,

The older histories of Fundamentalism were characterized by extreme liberal bias, careless generalizations, and outright error. 6

and then this concerning the afore-mentioned Sandeen book,

In spite of the many merits of Sandeen’s study, his work suffers from at least three weaknesses.  First, Sandeen fails to distinguish between broad Evangelicalism in recent decades and Fundamentalism. . . . Second, Sandeen, abandoning his normally dispassionate tone, makes an attempt to refute the theology of the old Princeton theologians, Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield. . . . Finally, the book is not completely true to its title.  Fundamentalism does have “roots,” but Sandeen has only treated a root, i.e. millenaianism.  7

and finally about Dr. Marsden’s Fundamentalism and American Culture he wrote these noteworthy words,

A major distraction in Marsden’s work is his overemphasis on the importance of common sense philosophy and the Baconian inductive method in Fundamentalism’s history [emphasis added]. 8 

Now we have a direct conflict.  To some the importance of common sense realism in Fundamentalism’s history has been overemphasized to the point of it being a “major distraction,” and to others its proper place has not been previously noted by us nor yet its deleterious effects negated sufficiently by the passing of time.  Here are some of Dr. Bauder’s own words,

Many Christians embraced Common Sense Realism, particularly in America.  It became a powerful force in American theology before the Civil War.  It was still influential in the proto-Fundamentalist milieu of the 1870s through the 1910s.  Proto-Fundamentalism is the social and ecclesiastical environment out of which the Fundamentalist movement emerged around 1920.  Not surprisingly, Fundamentalists inherited and were profoundly affected by Common Sense categories.  The Fundamentalists who were most affected tended to be those who were convinced that they had no philosophy at all [emphasis added]. 9

With whom will you agree?  As far as I am concerned, Dr. Beale has answered my question about this questionable part of the Bauderian theory of Fundamentalism’s history.  What is interesting to me is that he answered this question of mine even though his assessment of Dr. Marsden’s study was prior (1986) to the recent In the Nick of Time series (2009) by Dr. Bauder and, therefore, not in any way directed at Bauder’s sentiments.

The next part of this series will be a consideration of some of the information available about Sandeen, Marsden, and Noll and their related works from credible sources.  Following that post will be the completion of my answer to question one: Whether Fundamentalism was flawed from its beginning by Scottish Common Sense Realism, sentimentalism, and populism or whether it rests more squarely upon Biblical principles.

1. George W. Dollar, History of Fundamentalism in America, updated ed., ed. Marcia Dollar Phillips, by George W. Dollar Jr. and Marcia Dollar Phillips, Ann Arbor, MI, 2006, preface.
2. David O. Beale, In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850,  Unusual Publications, Greenville, SC, 1986, p. 4-5.
3. Ibid., p. 399.
4. University of Chicago Press, “Synopsis of  Ernest R. Sandeen’s The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930.” Accessed at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&isbn=9780226734682.
5. Chester E. Tulga, “The Fundamentalism of Yesterday, the Evangelicalism of Today, and the Fundamentalism of Tomorrow,”  Testimonies, May 1998, p. 7, quoted by Fred Moritz,  Contending for the Faith, Bob Jones Press, Greenville, SC, 2000, p. 3.
6. Beale, p. 399.
7. Ibid., p. 400.
8. Ibid., p. 401.
9. Kevin T. Bauder, In the Nick of Time, “Fundamentalism: Whence? Where? Whither? Part 3 Fundamentalism Common Sense,” Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Minneapolis, 28 August 2009.  Accessed at http://www.centralseminary.edu/publications/Nick/Nick232.html.
   

Read Considerations Concerning the Proclamation of a Post-Fundamentalism Era and the Foundations for Paleo-Evangelicalism, Part 3.

Read Considerations Concerning the Proclamation of a Post-Fundamentalism Era and the Foundation for Paleo-Evangelicalism, Part One.