by postodave » July 30th, 2007, 1:35 pm
In 1985 David Edwards and John Stott produced a book caled Essentials which was a liberal/evangelical dialogue about evangelicalism with Edwards the liberal taking the lead. In the course of this Stott had a go at defining Fundamentalism. His points, and I'm doing this from memory were something like
1. A literalist approach to scripture which denies the use of metaphor and symbol
2. Antintelectualism, including a rejection of Biblical scholarship
3. Support of the state of Israel in the belief that its existence fulfills biblical prophecy
4. opposition to political and social involvement apart from this support of Israel and some right wing political concerns
There may have been a couple of others. There has been a great deal of confusion about this word fundamentalism partly because key texts like James Barrs 'Fundamentalism' tend to yoke evangelicalism and fundamentalism together. Evangelicals have objected and Barr's amswer was along the lines that any evangelical can deny that they are a Fundamentalist by pointing to some other more extreme conservative group. Of course the same thing happens when Barr denies that there is much liberalism among C20 theologians. He can always point to some group that at some time has more precisely filled his definition of liberal. Perhaps best to think of a spectrum running from liberal to conservative; something like Os Guiness proposed in 'The Gravedigger File' Do people still read that? If there was any sanity in the Church it would have been a best seller.
So I drew my sword and got ready
But the lamb ran away with the crown