Fundamentalisms Revived And Still Standing: A Review Essay -- By: Sean Michael Lucas

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 60:2 (Fall 1998)
Article: Fundamentalisms Revived And Still Standing: A Review Essay
Author: Sean Michael Lucas


Fundamentalisms Revived And Still Standing:
A Review Essay1

Sean Michael Lucas*

* Sean Michael Lucas is a Ph.D. student in Historical and Theological Studies at Westminster Theological Seminary.

There are many individuals who are born-again in fundamentalist churches. They accept Christ as their personal savior at a young age and later “surrender” themselves for full-time Christian service. For many of these fundamentalist teens only one university will do—Bob Jones University (BJU). Each September over four thousand young people crowd into the Greenville, South Carolina campus, believing that they are on “an island in the lake of fire,” or within the safe haven of “the fortress of faith.” Though many of these young people prepare for “secular” occupations, a significant number of young men enroll in the college for majors such as Bible, Pastoral Studies and Youth Ministries. These young men are known as “preacher boys,” due to their membership in the ministerial class that gathers weekly to hear the practical wisdom of Dr. Bob Jones III and other approved alumni ministering in fundamentalist churches throughout America.2

In those weekly meetings, Dr. Bob Jones III mounts the platform in order to warn his budding preachers of the insidious influence of the “New Evangelicals.” Claiming that BJU had trained more “New Evangelicals” than any other institution in America, Dr. Jones bears down on the preacher boys, warning them that they not prove traitors to God’s fundamentalist cause. In this black and white world of faithfulness and apostasy, many erstwhile “preacher boys” wonder if they will prove to be like Demas, a favorite ministerial

class anti-hero, one who “loved this present world” of money, power and fame more than the things of God.3

The choice offered ministerial students at BJU is between fundamentalist faithfulness and neo-evangelical apostasy. The implication is that, in this two-party worldview, one is either for the truth or evil. No mention is made of a third option, one that stands in ambivalent relation to both fundamentalism and evangelicalism. This option might be broadly called “confessionalism,” a position that stands against fundamentalism and evangelicalism’s moralism, minimalistic creeds and denigration of the church. Such a confessional option would include ethnic churches, such as the Missouri Synod Lutherans and Christian Reformed Church. It would also include churches and institutions that emphasize confessional standards, such as the Ortho...

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