Several Emerging/Emergent readers have responded negatively to my blogs. They have said things like, “You don’t really understand what the Emerging and Emergent movements are all about.” Or, “Our denomination is still conservative and evangelical, not Emerging/Emergent.” Or, “Our Holiness denomination still believes the way it did 100 years ago.”
This last statement is fairly easy to disprove. Holiness denominations 100 years ago held strongly to The Fundamentals of 1910-1915. If we list the “fundamental doctrines” of The Fundamentals, we can then go through the list and determine which (if any) of the doctrines today’s New Evangelicals and Emerging/Emergent Evangelicals still hold to. (Nearly all evangelicals today are either New Evangelical or Emerging/ Emergent.) The results will not be very encouraging, I can assure you…
Before I provide a list of fundamental doctrines – and determine which (if any) of the fundamentals today’s evangelicals still hold to – I am providing the Wikipedia article on The Fundamentals below. (Wikipedia is not necessarily accurate.) I will add links, emphasize by bolding, and insert comments in [bracketing]:
The Fundamentals
The Fundamentals or The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth edited by A. C. Dixon and later by Reuben Archer Torrey is a set of 90 essays in 12 volumes published from 1910 to 1915 by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. They were designed to affirm orthodox Protestant beliefs and defend against ideas deemed inimical to them. They are widely considered to be the foundation of the modern Fundamentalist movement.
The essays were originally financed by Lyman Stewart[1] in 1909[2] to set out what they believed to be the fundamentals of Christian faith.[2] These were to be sent free to ministers, missionaries, Sunday School superintendents and others active in Christian ministry.[3]
The volumes defended orthodox Protestant beliefs and attacked higher criticism, liberal theology, Catholicism (also called by them Romanism), socialism, modern philosophy, atheism, Christian Science, Mormonism, Millennial Dawn (an early term for a particular Christian Bible Student movement which mostly later became the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” denomination), Spiritualism, and evolutionism (an article by geologist George Frederick Wright). (Wright did not attack biological evolution.)[I oppose Wright’s article; he supported theistic evolution. It is unfortunate that his unbiblical position was included in The Fundamentals.]
The previous paragraph alludes to “orthodox Protestant beliefs.” The Fundamentals defended five “basic doctrines” as follows (click here for a detailed discussion of these five doctrines):
1. The Trinity: God is one “What” and three “Whos” with each “Who” possessing all the attributes of Deity and personality.
2. The Person of Jesus Christ: Jesus is 100% God and 100% man for all eternity.
3. The Second Coming: Jesus Christ is coming bodily to earth to rule and judge.
4. Salvation: It is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
5. The Scripture: It is entirely inerrant and sufficient for all Christian life.
Now back to the Wikipedia article:
Contents of The Fundamentals
The 90 articles are available online in various places. I am pointing readers to this online source, rather than the Wikipedia list of articles. I assume the Wikipedia list is from an earlier edition of The Fundamentals. The “online article” website lists 90 articles in four volumes, while the Wikipedia list organizes the 90 articles in twelve volumes, in a different sequence.
I like this online source:
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
Authors of The Fundamentals Articles
Robert Anderson (1841-1918)
– http://cgi.ebay.com/Sir-Robert-Anderson-26-ebooks-Full-Collection-Cd-New-/160363854913
– http://www.phc.edu/gj_philjohnsonpap.php
Henry H. Beach
F. Bettex
George S. Bishop
Thomas Boston
Charles A. Bowen
James Burrell
J.L. Campbell
William Caven
Howard Crosby
A. C. Dixon
– another link – http://www.dbts.edu/journals/1996_1/ACDIXON.PDF
Charles R. Erdman
W. J. Erdman
J. M. Foster
Henry W. Frost
Arno C. Gaebelein
James M. Gray
Dyson Hague
David Heagle
Franklin Johnson
Howard A. Kelly
M.G. Kyle
George W. Lasher
– http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/lasher.george.w.bio.html
Lord Lyttleton
Daniel Hoffman Martin
Philip Mauro
R.G. McNiece
John McNicol
T. W. Medhurst
William G. Moorehead
G. Campbell Morgan
H. C. G. Moule
E. Y. Mullins
L. W. Munhall
John L. Nuelsen
James Orr
Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis (I added this link)
George F. Pentecost
– http://books.google.com/books?id=9WXozG4cLPIC&pg=PA435#v=onepage&q&f=false
Arthur T. Pierson
A. W. Pitzer
Algernon J. Pollock
William C. Procter
J.J. Reeve
Andrew Craig Robinson
George L. Robinson
Bishop Ryle
C. I. Scofield (I added link)
Robert E. Speer
Thomas Spurgeon
E.J. Stobo
John Stock
John Timothy Stone
Charles T. Studd
H. M. Sydenstricker
W.H. Griffith Thomas
R. A. Torrey
Canon G. Osborne Troop
Charles Gallaudet Trumbull
Benjamin B. Warfield
H. W. Webb-Peploe
Thomas Whitelaw
Charles B. Williams
Joseph D. Wilson
Maurice E. Wilson
George Frederick Wright
References
- ^ Marsden, George M. (2006). Fundamentalism and American Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 118. ISBN 0-19-530047-5. OCLC 61445933.
- ^ a b Malone, David (May 29, 2009). “Fundamentals”. Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections. Retrieved 2009-07-18.
- ^ Marsden, George M. (2006). Fundamentalism and American Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 119. ISBN 0-19-530047-5. OCLC 61445933.
Online copies
- The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth from The Fundamentals Homepage
- The Fundamentals from Internet Archive
Further reading
- Almond, Gabriel A.; R. Scott Appleby and Emmanuel Sivan (2003). Strong religion: the rise of fundamentalisms around the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-01497-5. OCLC 50562054.[page needed]
- Forster, Roger; Marston, Dr Paul (2001). “7 – Genesis Through History” (pdf). Reason Science and Faith. Chester, England. ISBN 1854244418. Retrieved 2009-03-24.
- Marsden, George M. (1991). Understanding fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8028-0539-6. OCLC 22710248.[page needed]
- Marsden, George M. (2006). “The Fundamentals”. Fundamentalism and American Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 118–123. ISBN 0-19-530047-5. OCLC 61445933.
- Numbers, Ronald A. (1992). The creationists. New York City: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-40104-0. OCLC 24318343.[page needed]
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