Thursday, May 17, 2007

KJVO and Fundamentalism

Perhaps this subject has become passe, but after sitting through a class on contemporary theology, the issue has again been brought to the forefront of my thinking. Our professor began the class by defining the term "fundamentalism". He stated that at its foundation, fundamentalism is an idea. It is an idea that seeks to revere the Bible as the very Word of God, and as the Word of God, it must be believed and obeyed. Assuming this is an accurate definition of the movement (which can be debated as not even the professor stuck to this definition seeing "ballroom dancing" as from the Devil) then the KJVO movement strikes at the heart of our very ideology. They haphazardly disregard our view of the priority of "original manuscript inspiration" crossing over in many cases into "bibliolatry" (a term I first heard used by a professor I had at NBBC). Have we become so yellow as to point our fingers at men like Piper as "in error" for mere hermeneutical issues but then accept a blatant denial of our doctrine of bibliology. I guess I send this out to those of you who are devoted fundamentalists. This is a big reason (along with our aptitude to Arminian theology) that I have become increasing fed up with the hypocritical nature of the movement. Is it worth holding firm to a movement that "winks" at PCC and other schools and pastors that deny and undermine our view of scripture?

3 comments:

Matthew LaPine said...

I wonder if some of this is the common view that the right is "safer" than the left. You'll find no disagreement from me on this one.

Anonymous said...

If the only "fundamentalist" churches in the area all indeed winked at PCC (which some in the area certainly do), I would not go to a fundamentalist church. Thankfully there is a church in the area (several, I'm sure) that have no problem giving a look of disgust PCC's way.

Cribro said...

I've seen this bias firsthand in my move down to Southern. As I attempt to get acclimated here I am finding that some of the "facts" which were taught in class at Faith about the error of the Southern Baptists were actually erroneous... A good chunk of the guys I have met here are more conservative then the GARBC variation upon the theme of fundamentalism. It is truly sad that such inconsistency exists and that people are so plagued with erroneous bias...