In the previous post of this series, I purposely did not include any citation of Kirsopp Lake’s familiar comment intending to use it as my opening of this post. Dr. Beale provides for us Mr. Lake’s words portioned into two parts. The first part says,
It is a mistake, often made by educated persons who happen to have but little knowledge of historical theology, to suppose that Fundamentalism is a new and strange form of thought. It is nothing of the kind: it is the . . . survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians. 1
The second one continues by saying,
The Fundamentalist may be wrong; I think that he is. But it is we who have departed from the tradition, not he, and I am sorry for the fate of anyone who tries to argue with a Fundamentalist on the basis of authority. The Bible and the corpus theologicum of the Church is [sic {inserted by Beale}] on the Fundamentalist side. 2
Dr. Moritz included Dr. Beale’s quote of Lake but was admittedly hesitant to do so because of its familiarity. 3 Concerning Mr. Lake’s words and its use by Dr. Beale and repeated by Dr. Moritz, Dr. Bauder informs us,
Perhaps not surprisingly, the quotation has become a favorite of those who have identified with Fundamentalism. David Beale appeals to it in his attempt to define Fundamentalism. Both Fred Moritz and Mark Sidwell refer to it in their defenses of separatism. Robert Reymond (a systematic theologian who was trained at Bob Jones University) includes it in his discussion of divine revelation. It even shows up in a sermon by Wayne Bley on the website of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International.
Fundamentalists are flattered to think of themselves as neither more nor less than representatives of historic Christian doctrine. They take comfort and courage in believing that they have neither added to nor subtracted from the deposit of faith, but that they simply proclaim and defend exactly the same message as the apostles did. This kind of reassurance feeds a craving for identity and significance.
It is also rather badly misguided, notwithstanding Lake’s observations. Of particular interest is Lake’s use of the word partial. Fundamentalism, said Lake, is the “partial . . . survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians.” In other words, Fundamentalist theology is represented in the Christian theology of antiquity, but not all of the older Christian theology has been preserved in fundamentalism. 4
In order for us all to understand what Dr. Bauder’s is saying, I want to restate the portion of Mr. Lake’s quote that Dr. Beale left out in his ellipses but that Dr. Bauder included to make his point about what he perceives is another weakness of historic Fundamentalism. Mr. Lake wrote,
It is the partial and uneducated survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians [emphasis added]. 5
With the full quote now out of the “ellipses bag” as it were, Dr. Bauder attempts to explain its meaning to shame Fundamentalists for not being what we ”flattered” ourselves to be. Dr. Bauder’s interpretive inference is that Mr. Lake was implying that Fundamentalism was incomplete in its understanding, appreciation, and appropriation of historic Christianity. That this is the case is seen in this portion of Dr. Bauder’s article,
Was Lake correct in his assertion that fundamentalism has preserved only some of the early Christian faith? To answer this question we need only look at the three chief symbols: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. If we make allowances for one or two controversial locutions (particularly filioque and the descent into hell), the remainder of these creeds confess the early Christian consensus about the biblical answer to the most important disputed questions in the early history of Christianity. In short, they are brief summaries of fundamental doctrines.
How ironic that most contemporary Fundamentalists—even many Fundamentalist pastors—have hardly even read them, let alone studied them. 6
With the table properly set before us, I will now get to the heart of the matter of answering my second question: Whether Fundamentalism was only a “partial and uneducated” return to the Biblical faith because it lacks in its appreciation for the history of theological development in contrast to those who are primarily interested in defending the Reformed faith.
Of primary order would be to determine beyond dispute what Mr. Lake actually meant by his use of “partial and uneducated.” However, that may be impossible as he died in 1946. So unless he further expounded upon the matter in the broader context of his book or latter in another written record, the matter becomes one of mere speculative guessing. I have not read Mr. Lake’s words in broader context nor do they seem widely available online. That leaves my only viable option to examine Dr. Bauder’s interpretation to find if it is plausible and consistent with the few facts before us.
Concerning Dr. Bauder’s interpretation and application
of Mr. Lakes’s words, I find these enumerated
implausibilities, inconsistencies, and errors.
One, in order to make the most hay with his inferred interpretation, Dr. Bauder transposes the application of the term “partial” away from the men and the Fundamentalism movement of Mr. Lake’s day (circa 1925) to the men and the movement of his own day. It would be one thing for Dr. Bauder to make a current application of his interpretation of the terms after offering solid proof that it could be applied fairly and accurately to the Fundamentalist contemporaries of Mr. Lake. In other words, even if it is conceded that many, most, or even all current Fundamentalists are ignorant of these cited early Christian creeds, this fact would be no proof that Mr. Lake thought the same of the men of his day. Would Dr. Bauder affirm early Christian creedal and historical theological ignorance on the likes of the men who authored the several articles in the widely distributed, multi-volume defense of the Christian fundamentals that was first published in 1909 under the title of The Fundamentals? Those men, who were from various denominations including ones that regularly recite ancient creeds in their worship services, would have been some of the contemporaries of Mr. Lake. If this is what Mr. Lake meant by saying “partial,” he could not have been more wrong, and, therefore, Dr. Bauder’s inferred interpretation is implausible.
Two, Dr. Bauder undermines his own argument for the supremacy of historical theology as a true test of Fundamentalism’s claim to theological completeness when in his stated example of his contemporaries ignorance of early post-apostolic creeds he is forced to exclude certain “controversial locutions [i.e. words or phrases]“ from his discussion of these “hallowed” creeds.
Three, as conceded by Dr. Bauder in needing to exclude ”controversial locutions,” the corpus theologicum has not been a very consistent witness. Very often it is a witness to Biblical truth, but it just as often has led multitudes away from Biblical truth. For many believers Dispensationalism and its related eschatological scheme cannot be Biblical because it is not considered to be a historical Christian doctrine. On the other hand, pedeo-baptism has strong historical support but it is clearly wrong. It is because of this increasingly inconsistent witness that many current Fundamentalists ignore the confessions and creeds and focus instead on the Scriptures.
Four, our Faith is not to be the product of consensus from Christian scholarship. Our Faith is a ”faith which was once delivered to the saints.“ No believer should be compelled to believe anything just because everyone else believes it. He should believe it because he has been thoroughly convinced by sound expositional study or teaching that it is Biblical truth. When Athanasius seemingly stood alone against the Arian consensus that denied the deity of Christ and was told that the whole world was against him, he responded by saying, “Then I am against the whole world.” 7
Five, his most egregious error is this one: In arguing for the necessity for an acceptance and understanding of historic theology in order to be theologically competent and complete, then by default he is also arguing against the preeminence of the Scriptures. Just to be clear, I believe that in his assertions Dr. Bauder argues against the ability for genuine believers to possess with any real certainty the doctrine of the New Testament who have the Scriptures but are separated for whatever reason from the “corpus theologicum of the Church.” Consider this quote of his,
First, Fundamentalists often naively assume that their ideas simply arise from the text of Scripture, without mediation. There is little sense of the struggle that was necessary in order for their doctrines even to be articulated, let alone to be preserved. 8
The truth is that only the Scriptures are inspired by God. Biblical inspiration means Biblical authority and gives cause for this statement, ”The Bible is the believer’s only rule for Faith and practice.” All else even the best works of the best men are polluted and flawed.
The truth is that only the Word of God is a complete revelation. A gaping hole in his elevated place of historical theology is that it itself is only partial. No doubt much that was written has not survived to our generation. (FWIW, much of what was written would have been better not to have been written in the first place.) We also know that much testimony to doctrinal fidelity was destroyed by those who attempted to control the theological debate. Furthermore, not all beliefs that every Christian has found in the Scriptural text was ever recorded. So what we have is only a select writings of a few men.
The truth is also that sound doctrine, apostolic doctrine, is only preserved in the Bible not scholars’ systematic theologies. Are we to accept that Providence shined on the works that survived and frowned on those which did not? Is there a corpus theologicum canon? Do the Scriptures even direct our thoughts to the historical theology of men and away from itself? Have we forgotten the noble Bereans who thoroughly examined Paul’s apostolic teaching and preaching with the Scriptures not the textbooks of Old Testament scribes, lawyers and doctors?
The truth is that because Holy Writ is inspired, a complete revelation, and preserved it only is sufficient for believers. Christians have everything they need in it.
It seems to me that Dr. Bauder is really arguing for the Orthodox position of the Reformed-minded men as what he desires for all Fundamentalists to be. Here are some appropriate words about this from Dr. George Dollar,
It would be improper to omit the fact, often unrecognized or ignored, that many orthodox men saw themselves in a distinctly different line of history, doctrine, and church life from that of the Fundamentalists, and we ought to spell out the contrasts in sharpest detail. The orthodox men affirmed their ancestry from the Protestant Reformation and its widely known and studied confessions and creeds. Most Fundamentalists did not see the Reformation as their spiritual heritage, but rather appealed to the New Testament. Again, the Orthodox had great reverence for the Church Fathers and their syncretism of the many views of their day. The Fundamentalists agreed with Spurgeon’s assertion that he liked the fathers but followed the grandfathers. 9
Finally, I readily admit that the Scriptures themselves teach the need for Spirit-gifted teachers to instruct believers about Scriptural truths; however, genuine Biblical instruction never resorts to concluding that some things are just too hard or too complex to explain to most Christians and must instead just be accepted by them as true. (Dr. Bill Rice III reminded us on several occasions in PCC’s evangelism seminar class that if we could not explain something to a twelve-year-old, we probably did not understand it very much ourselves.) Bible teachers must always explain things so that believers do understand what they are being taught and where and why that teaching is fully supported by the Scriptures. Anything less is to bring God’s people under spiritual bondage.
- Kirsopp Lake, The Religion of Yesterday and To-morrow, (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1925), pp. 61-62 quoted in David O. Beale, In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850, Unusual Publication, Greenville, SC, 2000, p. 4.
- Ibid.
- Fred Moritz, Contending for the Faith, Bob Jones University Press, Greenville, SC, 2000, p. 158.
- Kevin T. Bauder, In the Nick of Time, “Fundamentalism: Whence? Where? Whither? Part 2 Fundamentalism and History,” Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Minneapolis, 21 August 2009. Accessed at http://www.centralseminary.edu/publications/Nick/Nick231.html on 26 March 2010.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ernest D. Pickering, The Tragedy of Compromise: The Origin and Impact of The New Evangelicalism, Bob Jones University Press, Greenville, SC, 1994, Introduction, p. vii.
- Bauder, In the Nick of Time, “Fundamentalism: Whence? Where? Whither? Part 2.”
- 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, p. 148.
