The Evangelical/Fundamentalist Cold War (Long but worth it, I hope.)
Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism are two movements within Protestant Christianity in North America. They are similar in many ways, including their disapproval of modernism and liberal theology and their emphasis on orthodox Christian doctrines. Fundamentalism began as a movement within evangelicalism itself. Despite this, by the 1940’s fundamentalists and evangelicals were cutting ties. While there is overlap, the gap between the groups has widened significantly. There are many reasons for this split. But at the heart was the doctrine of “ecclesiastical separation”.
Evangelicalism is a movement within Protestant Christianity that began during the late 1600’s among the Methodists and Lutherans in Scandinavia and Germany. Evangelicalism discourages ritualism, instead emphasizing personal holiness and evangelism. Evangelicalism denies the office of a priest as practiced in the Catholic Church. Instead evangelicals adhere to the “priesthood of the believer,” which makes every Christian accountable not to a priest, but directly to God. Evangelicalism is not a denomination, but contains many denominational and non-denominational churches.
Evangelicals place high value on the inerrancy of Scripture and the doctrines of Christian orthodoxy. Like fundamentalists, evangelicals believe in separation from the world. Unlike fundamentalists, they tend not to separate from other orthodox Christian movements and denominations.
Evangelicalism came into its own in the 20th century, overtaking Roman Catholicism and mainline Protestant denominations in the United States. As of 2004, 28.8 percent of Americans describe themselves as evangelicals, while 22 percent are Roman Catholic and 13.9 percent are members of other Protestant denominations. About 10 percent of Americans attend an evangelical church service on any given Sunday.
The fundamentalist movement was a movement within evangelicalism early in the 20th century. In 1909, Lyman Stewart, a wealthy oilman, decided that the basic truths of Christianity needed to be defended against the onslaught of modernism and liberal theology. The result was a series of books titled The Fundamentals, from which fundamentalism gets its name. Sixty-four authors contributed to the series, which emphasized five basic doctrines of the Christian faith: the sinful nature of man, his inability to be saved apart from God’s grace, the centrality of Jesus’ death for the regeneration of the individual, and the authoritative revelation of the Bible. If a fundamentalist is one who affirms these five basic doctrines, then all evangelicals are fundamentalists. Indeed, at first this was true. But soon fundamentalism diverged from these teachings, and the fallout was tremendous.
Fundamentalism came to be characterized by its spirit of confrontation. As Jerry Falwell, perhaps the most influential of all the evangelical fundamentalists, put it, “A Fundamentalist is an Evangelical who is angry about something.” Soon evangelicals began distancing themselves from the fundamentalist movement. At the same time fundamentalists began to separate from the evangelicals. There were 3 main points of contention, with the last being the most significant:
(You’re a fifth of the way done! Continue reading after the break.)
