What is the difference...

[LovebirdsFlying]

....between fundamentalism and legalism? Please explain in as much detail as you can.

I mentioned in my introduction that I once attended a Sunday School class where the entire discussion was on whether to take Communion from one big cup or a lot of little cups. Another entire class was spent on how long a woman's or man's hair should be. And the same body of Christ teaches that, based on I Corinthians 14:34 about women keeping silent in the churches, a woman should not even so much as say grace at the table if there is a man or teenage boy present. At a New Year's Eve party I attended, hymns were sung for fellowship, and women were not allowed to lead them. When I asked why, in a party setting as opposed to a worship service, women were still expected to keep silence, I was told that if the women were allowed to lead the singing at a party, they might think they should also be allowed to speak in church. As if women are too stupid to know the difference between a party and a church service.

And this is fundamentalism as I understand it. Am I mistaken? If so, what is the true nature of fundamentalism?

Thank you and God bless.

[IamRedeemed]

This is what I have heard some call a one inch wide, ten mile deep question. lol

Fundamentalism is not any of those things you mentioned though. Not that there aren't some who not understanding the evangelistic heart or mind of God can blow certain Scripture out of proportion and out of context in their attempt to make the labor force even fewer for the harvest than it already is, as there are some that can and do, but...you can probably find most of what you might be looking for to answer your question here (http://www.christianforums.com/t5769410-please-read-current-rules-as-of-7-25-07.html)

:wave:



....between fundamentalism and legalism? Please explain in as much detail as you can.

I mentioned in my introduction that I once attended a Sunday School class where the entire discussion was on whether to take Communion from one big cup or a lot of little cups. Another entire class was spent on how long a woman's or man's hair should be. And the same body of Christ teaches that, based on I Corinthians 14:34 about women keeping silent in the churches, a woman should not even so much as say grace at the table if there is a man or teenage boy present. At a New Year's Eve party I attended, hymns were sung for fellowship, and women were not allowed to lead them. When I asked why, in a party setting as opposed to a worship service, women were still expected to keep silence, I was told that if the women were allowed to lead the singing at a party, they might think they should also be allowed to speak in church. As if women are too stupid to know the difference between a party and a church service.

And this is fundamentalism as I understand it. Am I mistaken? If so, what is the true nature of fundamentalism?

Thank you and God bless.

[desmalia]

....between fundamentalism and legalism? Please explain in as much detail as you can.

I mentioned in my introduction that I once attended a Sunday School class where the entire discussion was on whether to take Communion from one big cup or a lot of little cups. Another entire class was spent on how long a woman's or man's hair should be. And the same body of Christ teaches that, based on I Corinthians 14:34 about women keeping silent in the churches, a woman should not even so much as say grace at the table if there is a man or teenage boy present. At a New Year's Eve party I attended, hymns were sung for fellowship, and women were not allowed to lead them. When I asked why, in a party setting as opposed to a worship service, women were still expected to keep silence, I was told that if the women were allowed to lead the singing at a party, they might think they should also be allowed to speak in church. As if women are too stupid to know the difference between a party and a church service.

And this is fundamentalism as I understand it. Am I mistaken? If so, what is the true nature of fundamentalism?

Thank you and God bless.
Oh dear, that is terrible, isn't it? Fortunately, no, Fundamentalism is not like that at all. It sounds like what you experienced was legalism. Fundamentalism is about holding to the fundamentals of the faith which are found in Scripture. Because we love God and His Truth, and seek to always obey and glorify Him, we certainly do take the time to discuss and consider how we can best do that. But minor issues, like what size cup to use in communion or how long a woman's hair must be should never become a focus.

As far as woman's role in the church, you'll find that we do believe in order and submission, but also that women are just as equipped and ordained to participate in ministry and worship as men are. We are simply called to do these things in different roles, as defined by Scripture.

Legalistic doctrines come most often from fear and improper study of Scripture. They're created by taking a verse or passage out of context and reworking it to fit a new, man-made "law". We are warned not to do this in Scripture, but it does happen even today in some churches. Such practices are contradictory to true Fundamentalism.

[Iosias]

....between fundamentalism and legalism? Please explain in as much detail as you can.

I mentioned in my introduction that I once attended a Sunday School class where the entire discussion was on whether to take Communion from one big cup or a lot of little cups. Another entire class was spent on how long a woman's or man's hair should be. And the same body of Christ teaches that, based on I Corinthians 14:34 about women keeping silent in the churches, a woman should not even so much as say grace at the table if there is a man or teenage boy present. At a New Year's Eve party I attended, hymns were sung for fellowship, and women were not allowed to lead them. When I asked why, in a party setting as opposed to a worship service, women were still expected to keep silence, I was told that if the women were allowed to lead the singing at a party, they might think they should also be allowed to speak in church. As if women are too stupid to know the difference between a party and a church service.

And this is fundamentalism as I understand it. Am I mistaken? If so, what is the true nature of fundamentalism?

Thank you and God bless.

There are clear guidelines set out in Scripture regarding issues such as these and so it is not legalism to discuss them for they are important and do matter.

Legalism is when these things determine our salvation. :)

[cubanito]

There are clear guidelines set out in Scripture regarding issues such as these and so it is not legalism to discuss them for they are important and do matter.

Legalism is when these things determine our salvation. :)

And there above you have an example of where Fundamentalists do not always agree. Now, AV1611 is probably not a legalist, from his posts I certainly do not think so. However, AV1611 often extends the rules of Scripture further than I think is warranted. Now, please, this is NOT meant to be a personal attack, and I DO NOT want to derail this thread by trying to discuss point by point our differences here.

The point is that there are many different types of Fundys, and some do in fact become not only legalistic, but downright abusive (again, I am calling AV1611 neither). However, this is not all, not even most of those who call themselves "Fundys" In fact, by insisting that women must wear dresses and men pants, when it is clear that in Biblical times there was not even the thought of such a dress codes, they actually disqualify themselves as Fundys.

Anyone who gives more weight to tradition, wether tradition from 1000years ago or from 50 years ago, than Scripture is NOT a Fundy.

Women teaching in the Church, sorry, the Bible is pretty clear that's a no.

Singing in parties, why not?

Nevertheless, and I do say it with some regret, there are some in the Fundy camp that obsess over minor exterior matters and border, if not altogether fall into, legalism.

JR

[LovebirdsFlying]

I think it was a total waste of time to spend the entire hour discussing such trivial matters. They may not determine salvation, but Jesus talked about straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

The fundy church I remember (to which many relatives belong) is so caught up in "don't do this" and "don't do that" that they didn't come across as loving, caring, merciful, or any of the fruits of the Spirit.

[MercyBurst]

....between fundamentalism and legalism? Please explain in as much detail as you can.

I mentioned in my introduction that I once attended a Sunday School class where the entire discussion was on whether to take Communion from one big cup or a lot of little cups. Another entire class was spent on how long a woman's or man's hair should be. And the same body of Christ teaches that, based on I Corinthians 14:34 about women keeping silent in the churches, a woman should not even so much as say grace at the table if there is a man or teenage boy present. At a New Year's Eve party I attended, hymns were sung for fellowship, and women were not allowed to lead them. When I asked why, in a party setting as opposed to a worship service, women were still expected to keep silence, I was told that if the women were allowed to lead the singing at a party, they might think they should also be allowed to speak in church. As if women are too stupid to know the difference between a party and a church service.

And this is fundamentalism as I understand it. Am I mistaken? If so, what is the true nature of fundamentalism?

Thank you and God bless.

Fundamentalists have a tendency to lean toward traditions that are not biblical. I remember when girsl were supposed to wear dresses at all times. Well that just didn't get it with the women's softball team!!!

As one fundie pastor explained -- when you add to the word of God through legalism, then you begin to confuse sin with opinion. When this happens you can be lead into sin because you are confused. What you thought was morally wrong is actually ok, and this leads you to sin on other points that are indeed morally wrong.

[Iosias]

The fundy church I remember (to which many relatives belong) is so caught up in "don't do this" and "don't do that" that they didn't come across as loving, caring, merciful, or any of the fruits of the Spirit.

That is not a rule though (pardon the sorta pun) for I used to be in the Plymouth Brethren who are a "Fundamentalist" denomination but they were very loving and when I left an elderly lady cried.

As human beings we sort of live by the "Don't tell me what to do!" attitude but when we are converted we learn that now "Not my will be done but Thy will be done". Yes some people love to be buzy bodies but most I have met are concerned (a) about living a life pleasing to God, and (b) protecting their members from the devices of Satan etc.

I recently regained contact with a couple in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, perhaps the most conservative denomination in the world, but they were friendly and we got along well.

Don't let your one bad experience cloud your judgement of others :thumbsup:

[Iosias]

Fundamentalists have a tendency to lean toward traditions that are not biblical. I remember when girsl were supposed to wear dresses at all times. Well that just didn't get it with the women's softball team!!!

I wonder if you realise that in Scripture to show your leg is to be naked!

Exodus 28:42 "You shall make for them linen undergarments to cover their naked flesh. They shall reach from the hips to the thighs;"

Isaiah 47:2,3 "Take the millstones and grind flour, put off your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers. Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one."

[cubanito]

Fundamentalists have a tendency to lean toward traditions that are not biblical. I remember when girsl were supposed to wear dresses at all times. Well that just didn't get it with the women's softball team!!!

As one fundie pastor explained -- when you add to the word of God through legalism, then you begin to confuse sin with opinion. When this happens you can be lead into sin because you are confused. What you thought was morally wrong is actually ok, and this leads you to sin on other points that are indeed morally wrong.
Yep, there is that tendency. We should lovingly correct it

JR

[LovebirdsFlying]

Don't let your one bad experience cloud your judgement of others :thumbsup:

Good advice. I wonder whether my experience extends to the whole of that particular denomination (which I am reluctant to name for fear of starting a firestorm) or just a few of the members. As I say, many of my extended family members belong to that denomination, including some who are preachers, deacons, Sunday School teachers, etc.

But the denomination as a whole does look bad. I have never been to any one of their services--and this is in more than one state--where the sermon was not some variation on, "We are the only ones who are going to be saved." They will not use musical instruments in worship because they say there is no mention of instruments in the NT. (Revelation and I Corinthians, that I know of....) If the Bible doesn't mention it, it technically doesn't exist. One preacher relative said cats are not mentioned in the Bible so therefore they are demonic in origin. (Contradicts John 1, "by him (Christ) all things were made, and without him nothing was made that has been made.")

And what I mean by getting caught up in don't-do-this, don't-do-that, is, well, for example, we were watching a sitcom's Thanksgiving episode, which ended with the mother, a young daughter, a teenage son, and some of his friends seated around the table. The mother said the blessing, and all my relatives could think about was, "She's not supposed to be praying." Why? Because there were teenage boys at the table. No woman even says grace if there is a teenage boy present. I mentioned that there was a verse in the Bible about judging others, and I was SEVERELY rebuked.

As I state, this is my experience with more than one congregation in more than one state. The denomination (which will not call itself a denomination, since it claims to be the one true church) calls itself fundamental. Does that denomination embody the spirit of fundamentalism, or is it missing the boat?

[LovebirdsFlying]

Let me add one final thought--none of my relatives who are members of this denomination have ever owned a cat. Is this carrying things just a BIT too far?

[Vambram]

Let me add one final thought--none of my relatives who are members of this denomination have ever owned a cat. Is this carrying things just a BIT too far?
What does owning a cat have to do with anything?? How do they justify that?

[LovebirdsFlying]

Since the Bible doesn't specifically ever mention cats, then technically they don't exit. That's why they're associated with Halloween, witches, etc... :rolling eyes:

[Vambram]

Since the Bible doesn't specifically ever mention cats, then technically they don't exit. That's why they're associated with Halloween, witches, etc... :rolling eyes:
Oh My.... you are right, what a weird and wacky intepretation of the Bible those relatives of yours have.
In all of my 29 years since I have been born-again, I ain't never heard of that interpretation before.

[cubanito]

Yep, what u describe goes beyond legalism into Wackoville.

As to musical instruments, what do they make of the Psalms w their descriptions of multiple musical instruments and such?

These people may call themselves Fundys, but they are not. To ban musical instruments when Psalms is full of them is to substitute man made tradition for the Scriptures.

I'm too busy now, but eventually I have to get around to posting why I believe the "regulative principle" is wrong in theory, and in practice is the substitution of man's traditions in direct oposition to the Scriptures. Many of those who think themselves very pure in their adherence to Scripture have unknowingly fallen into the same Pharisee trap of adding and subtracting from the Scriptures to support man-made traditions.

In the meantime, if you're interested in both sides of the debate, I suggest you look up "regulative3 principle." I am mildly opposed to it in theory, and vigorously opposed to it as practiced.

JR

[LovebirdsFlying]

Yep, what u describe goes beyond legalism into Wackoville.

That made me laugh. :D ^_^

In the meantime, if you're interested in both sides of the debate, I suggest you look up "regulative3 principle." I am mildly opposed to it in theory, and vigorously opposed to it as practiced.

JR

I will look it up. Thank you. God bless.

[LovebirdsFlying]

Um, question-- so does this wackoville conclusion apply only to my relatives, or--

Well, I'll name the denomination so that I can ask this question. Is it the whole of the Church of Christ, or were they as individuals just carrying things too far? Does the Church of Christ officially teach that cats are unbiblical?

A friend of mine tells me that where he lives, there are congregations who are careful to spell it church of Christ, with a lower case C, to avoid giving the impression that they have named their church. There are splits over that communion cup question, resulting in churches with signs reading "church of Christ, one cup communion." Then someone got to thinking, well, it says cup, not glass, so it's "church of Christ, one cup communion with handle."

Did Christ ever intend for His followers to be this darn nitpicky?

[BigNorsk]

What you really have is a bunch of people that are gripped by pietism or even full blown legalism who think they are fundamentalists.

I would probably call them stereotypical fundamentalists. They really are quite representative of what the fundamental reform movement got morphed into in many cases.

It actually goes against the very meaning of fundamentals. They do indeed strain out the gnat (strain at a gnat for those KJO readers) and swallow a camel. They have lost track of what is law, what is gospel, the functions of each of those and so on.

In other words they ignore the fundamentals and focus on the little things. They call themselves fundamentalists but their focus is distorted to whatever is the last few disputed things. And often the disputes are in those very areas that scripture is not so clear, that's why there's a dispute.

Marv

[cubanito]

My brother Marvelous Marv is correct.

Remember that historically the Pharisees came from Jews who wanted to honestly practice what God had asked, as God had asked. They were a reaction against the hellenistic (read world compromizing) Jews and the political upper-class Saduccees. The Pharisees were in the begining trying their best to honor God.

However, over time they came to the idea that simply applying the Law of Moses was not enough, that the Law of Moses needed a "hedge" or protection around it. In other words, that one should be super-duper nity-picky to avoid even coming close to breaking a commandment. More time passed and the result was a whole series of man made traditions whic effectively suplanted the Law of Moses. So what was originally "do not boil a kid in his mother's milk" became a complete separation of even the dishes to hold dairy and meat.

In reality, this is not fundamentalism, BUT we must admit that it comes from fundamentalism, and that if we ourselves are not careful, what is a sincere desire, even obsession, with Scripture can become an evil preocupation with gnats, jus as Christ so forcefully warned.

In short, there IS a danger among fundamentalists of falling into the kind of Phariseeism you describe. To deny this is to be at greater risk of it, and not honest.

JR

[Albion]

Fundamentalism is defined by the Fundamentals. I have no reluctance to agree with them and yet I am far from being the kind of legalist that some have described here. I think we need always to keep Fundamentalism and Fundamentalist churches separate in our thinking. In the latter, all kinds of legalisms grow, but that's beyond and not a part of Fundamentalism itself.

[Albion]

It actually goes against the very meaning of fundamentals. They do indeed strain out the gnat (strain at a gnat for those KJO readers) and swallow a camel. They have lost track of what is law, what is gospel, the functions of each of those and so on.

In other words they ignore the fundamentals and focus on the little things. They call themselves fundamentalists but their focus is distorted to whatever is the last few disputed things. And often the disputes are in those very areas that scripture is not so clear, that's why there's a dispute.

Marv

Right. The problem comes from us believing in the Bible. Then we have the matter of understanding it.

But we should also note that legalism is not particularly a Fundamentalist problem, or even a Protestant one. Catholics who rely upon Church, Tradition, etc. are every bit as prone to straining out a gnat by following that system, perhaps moreso.

[BigNorsk]

Well historically almost anything that starts out as a reform has pietism and legalism follow it. It almost seems a generational thing.

You get the original people, sincere, usually trying to correct an error.

Fundamentalism for instance is basically a reform to correct Modernism.

And the first people, the first generation or two, generally are up on the issues and they understand things, often though what they know isn't well transmitted to the children.

And so the reform drifts into error, often legalism where the little things become very important.

This tends to happen for a generation or two and then their children react, usually with indifference, but sometimes outright opposition to their parents, if they hear someone say such and such just one more time they are going to scream.

So the pendulum tends to swing back again the other way. And on it goes.

So what stage you experience seems to be mostly controlled by when you are born in relation to when the movement started. Over time there tends to be splits within the group with those in one stage separating from those in another. And if you listened they probably spend the biggest share of their time talking about the recent disputes and not the errors of Modernism.

And daughter and granddaughter movement spring up where people try to correct the current errors.

Sometimes a few years after the splitting and fighting lets up. Everything kind of settles down and the groups will reunite. A few years usually means at least 50 but more likely 150.

And so it goes when you have people.

Marv

[LovebirdsFlying]

Well, thank you. :D

This has been an absolutely fascinating discussion. Not to mention educational. I've been enjoying it to the hilt.

Note: Some of my relatives would have me shot for calling their church a denomination. :preach: "This is not a denomination. It is the one true church as established by Christ." I could go on and on, but I won't. :sigh:

If I'm understanding correctly, fundamentals of the Christian faith include things like Christ being born of a virgin, fully human and fully God, living a sinless life, dying on the cross to save us from sin, and physically rising again the third day. Correct? Fundamentals of the Christian faith do not include things like whether your church uses a piano, or whether to use padded pews, or whether cats are mentioned in the Bible. Am I right?

Fiancé Mike pointed out, if my relatives' religious beliefs exclude things not specifically mentioned in the Bible, does that mean they hold their services without electricity or running water? Um, nope. :P

[Albion]

If I'm understanding correctly, fundamentals of the Christian faith include things like Christ being born of a virgin, fully human and fully God, living a sinless life, dying on the cross to save us from sin, and physically rising again the third day. Correct? Fundamentals of the Christian faith do not include things like whether your church uses a piano, or whether to use padded pews, or whether cats are mentioned in the Bible. Am I right?



Yes, right.

To be specific, here is the actual list of fundamentals--

Fundamentalist: (Defined by the World Congress of Fundamentalists in 1976)

A born-again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who

Maintains an immovable allegiance to the inerrant, infallible, and verbally Inspired Bible;
Believes whatever the Bible says is so;
Judges all things by the Bible, and is judged only by the Bible, aka - "Sola Scriptura";
Affirms the foundational truths of the historic Christian Faith:
The doctrine of the Trinity
The incarnation, virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, ascension into Heaven, and Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
The new birth through regeneration of the Holy Spirit
The resurrection of saints to life eternal
The resurrection of the ungodly to final judgment and eternal death
The fellowship of the saints, who are the body of Christ;
Practices fidelity to that faith, and endeavors to preach it to every creature;
Exposes and separates from all ecclesiastical denial of that Faith, compromise with error, and apostasy from the Truth; and
Earnestly contends for the Faith once delivered.

[BigNorsk]

Well, thank you. :D

This has been an absolutely fascinating discussion. Not to mention educational. I've been enjoying it to the hilt.

Note: Some of my relatives would have me shot for calling their church a denomination. :preach: "This is not a denomination. It is the one true church as established by Christ." I could go on and on, but I won't. :sigh:

If I'm understanding correctly, fundamentals of the Christian faith include things like Christ being born of a virgin, fully human and fully God, living a sinless life, dying on the cross to save us from sin, and physically rising again the third day. Correct? Fundamentals of the Christian faith do not include things like whether your church uses a piano, or whether to use padded pews, or whether cats are mentioned in the Bible. Am I right?

Fiancé Mike pointed out, if my relatives' religious beliefs exclude things not specifically mentioned in the Bible, does that mean they hold their services without electricity or running water? Um, nope. :P

Yeah, I think you've got a good handle on it. If you are with some people who don't get all bent out of shape talking about these things it can be both fun and educational. You know you can actually take all the fundamentals from the Bible. For instance: 1Co 15:12-14 NET.
(12) Now if Christ is being preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
(13) But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
(14) And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty.

Clearly marks the resurrection as a fundamental, necessary belief.

We actually make the fundamentals how our systematics are laid out. For instance there is the basic material principle of being a Christian, the doctrine of justification. It and the assumptions that go into it are the fundamental doctrines anything necessary for salvation is fundamental.

Then the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper are secondary fundamentals. That throws a lot of people, how can something be a secondary fundamental. Well they save, they are means of grace, just as scripture presents them, but they are not absolutely necessary for salvation. Therefore they are fundamental, involved in salvation, but secondary since they are not absolutely necessary.

Then there are the nonfundamental doctrines. Things like the end times fit there. Your salvation does not hinge on how you understand the end times. Though if your understanding of the end times destroys your belief in the fundamental doctrines it certainly can be dangerous. Other such doctrines would be the Antichrist or angels. Those doctrines are not involved directly in salvation.

So when you study Lutheran Dogmatics (Systematics) you automatically study what is and what is not fundamental.

Moving on, I know what you are saying about people and their reaction to being called a denomination. I'm thinking a lot of Baptists that would make a big thing about they are not a part of a denomination, they are part of a convention or such would take one glance at me and say "Ah, a member of the Lutheran denomination."

Well let's look at that, I am a member of an autonomous local church. We are lead by a plurality of ordained elders of which the pastor is one. We have a deacon board for taking care of the worldly things in order to free the elders for the important spiritual matters. We freely belong to an association of such congregations which we refer to as a synod. The synod is not over the local congregations, it exists in order for the congregations to be able to cooperate in matters of mutual importance. Things like running a seminary, providing a school, and missions. The synod can break fellowship with the local congregation if there becomes disagreements but that's about it. The synod does not discipline individuals or anything.

Sound familiar? It's much like the set up many Baptist who insist they aren't a denomination have. If they aren't a denomination, I'm certainly not in one either.

Now the exclusion of things not specifically mentioned in the Bible is an area of disagreement. Some people go by that sort of thing and often it is called the regulative principle.

I don't go by the regulative principle. I would agree with the normative principle. That would say the bible is the norm, that which is commanded is commanded, that which is prohibited is prohibited and that which is neither is free.

The free areas can of course not become doctrine or dogma. That would be inserting man as God. Indeed, if someone teaches in error that the teachings of man are the teachings of God, then they are no longer free but must be opposed in order not to destroy the gospel.

Lutherans use the term Adiaphora for those areas of freedom.

Note that Lutherans are never loved by legalists because we must oppose those who turn areas of freedom into areas that are not free.

If a Lutheran runs into a legalist who teaches that instead of say wine being a blessing from God to be received with thanksgiving, that it is prohibited and must be avoided. A Lutheran is basically bound to drink in front of the prohibitionist in order to proclaim the gospel and show his freedom.

This of course drives the prohibitionist crazy. And due to this Lutherans are often considered just the worst sinners in the world by many legalists. After all the legalist knows that no Christians would drink, or for that matter dance or do any of the other things the legalist has decided mark a "true" Christian and a "true" church.

This was an early issue in Lutheranism, there is some evidence that it was at least part of the reason for Martin Luther's marriage to Katherine. Though there is no doubt that their marriage was a very good one and quite fruitful. Of course we Lutherans know that the real reason was Katherine decided she was going to marry Martin and so it was just a matter of time until it happened. :D

Lutherans the marks of the true church are wherever the Gospel (in the broad sense) is proclaimed and the Sacraments are rightly performed. And all true Christians are those who have faith in the promises of God.

That's an important distinction that helps you distinguish legalists. Ask a legalist about who is a Christian, and you will likely gets something like "He doesn't smoke, he doesn't chew, he doesn't go with girls that do." They turn to nonfundamentals as the marks of the church.

I belong to a group that not that long ago was fully gripped by pietism or even full blown legalism. If it was 50 years ago, I couldn't in good conscience belong. But that's pretty well been worked out.

Marv

[mothcorrupteth]

Yes, right.

To be specific, here is the actual list of fundamentals--

Fundamentalist: (Defined by the World Congress of Fundamentalists in 1976)

A born-again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who

Maintains an immovable allegiance to the inerrant, infallible, and verbally Inspired Bible;
Believes whatever the Bible says is so;
Judges all things by the Bible, and is judged only by the Bible, aka - "Sola Scriptura";
Affirms the foundational truths of the historic Christian Faith:
The doctrine of the Trinity
The incarnation, virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, ascension into Heaven, and Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
The new birth through regeneration of the Holy Spirit
The resurrection of saints to life eternal
The resurrection of the ungodly to final judgment and eternal death
The fellowship of the saints, who are the body of Christ;
Practices fidelity to that faith, and endeavors to preach it to every creature;
Exposes and separates from all ecclesiastical denial of that Faith, compromise with error, and apostasy from the Truth; and
Earnestly contends for the Faith once delivered.


Ah, I'm afraid you omitted one, Friend:

Wears a bomb belt at all times just in case an abortion clinic is spotted during day-to-day commutes. AK-47s are optional.;)

When one studies authoritarian/legalist church groups, a very broad heuristic pattern emerges:

Legalism tends to generate extrabiblical commandments and solidify them as doctrine, trampling over other biblical truths in the process, "teaching for commandments the doctrines of men." Take, for instance, Hobart Freeman's Faith Assembly of Warsaw, IN, in which members were forbidden to engage in foreplay or any other sexual behavior that was not for the express purpose of reproduction. Contraception was out. The rationale therebehind was that these behaviors excited human lusts and were therefore sinful, but in the process, the entire book of Song of Songs was thrown out the window, as were Paul's teachings regarding what to do with a Brother who was overcome with lust. What began as a fundamentalist approach to Scripture became rather unfundamentalist when the Word was expanded to say more than it actually said.
As has been pointed out by others here, legalism also tends to make doctrines the basis of salvation, which by proxy equates salvation with the one particular assembly or demonination/connection of assemblies that teaches that particular array of doctrines. Antichrist Maledict XVI's recent reminder to Protestant churches that we are "not churches in the true sense" is an example of such an elitist mentality. Faith Assembly is called to my mind again, as well--one former member reported that Freeman eventually reached the conclusion that "This is it. This is the place. You cannot be saved anywhere else."
Legalism tends to produce church leaders who act as mediators between God and man, whereas Scripture tells us there is ONE mediator between God and man, which person is Christ Jesus. This is what the Pharisees were notorious for, because they loved to have the people call them "Rabbi" while they pranced about in shows of false modesty. But "call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." Many legalist cults (including Roman Catholicism) completely ignore this exhortation and submit themselves to men who act as priests for them as if we were still under the Old Covenant. These characters usually are considered to possess enormous privilege with respect to prophecy and power to heal. One memorable example of Kool-Aid fame was Jim Jones of People's Temple, who insisted that his followers call him "Father." By contrast, the biblical pattern for ecclesiology is a plurality of elders who "oversee" the assembly to correct younger brethren and to make certain the assemblies are conducted in an orderly manner.
Legalism tends to produce the self-fulfilling prophecy of a "we are being persecuted" mentality. Usually, this begins with the group leader, who insists that because the group is special and unique in its doctrines--the one true church on earth--that mainstream churches are jealous and therefore out to slander them. This primes members for unusual behavior that will inevitably catch the public eye, at which point the "persecution" passes from imagination to reality and only reinforces the leader's teachings. Take again Faith Assembly (I apologize for continually making reference to only one group, but it is one with which I am closely familiar). Freeman preached against the use of medicine in favour of faith healing to the point that young pregnant women were expected to give birth at home (all this is contrabiblical, as well, as any quick glance at Eph. 6:29 and Col. 4:14 demonstrate). Consequently, when babies and mothers started dying, Freeman became paranoid about what would happen when word got out, so he advised his flock never to report these deaths (though they never did this anyway because it was shameful within the group for members to be marked as someone who lacked the faith to heal his or her child). Dissenters nevertheless began to take their stories to the media, and in response, Faith Assembly was only convinced all the more that they were under persecution, especially when someone set fire to their assembly building in 1980. From personal experience, I know that members of FA spinoffs always downplay anything critical of their groups as part of the conspiracy of slander. Sociological analyses of infant mortality in Koskiusco County, IN, mean nothing to them, and doubletalk and accusations of unspirituality (logical fallacy: appeal to ridicule) are the typical responses to pointing out Scripture that flatly contradicts their teachings. There is no room for discussion or debate. Note that by contrast, Creation Science actively takes part in a logical criticism of atheistic theories and draws inferences about diabolical motives only as a part of the discussion as to why these criticisms have been previously overlooked.
Legalistic churches also use the "love bombing" technique that almost all cults use on new recruits to trap them. This entails a sort of unconditional positive response to everything the recruit does or says, except for criticisms, which are cleverly dodged through doubletalk until they know the recruit is hooked. At that point, the reinforcement schedule shifts to avoidance. The outside world is demonized, and leaving the group becomes an outright phobia. As such, one finds relief from anxiety only in fellowship with the group, thereby ensuring their psychological dependence and obedience.
For more excellent observations on defining features of legalism, I highly recommend Ronald M. Enroth's Churches that Abuse, if you can find it.This is not fundamentalism. In fact, if anything, it only supports a fundamentalist outlook, because legalist cults like these are identified in the Scriptures: Mt. 24:24, 2Thes. 2:3-12, 1Tim. 1:6-7, 2Tim. 3, 2Pet. 2, 1Jn. 2:18-22 (cf. Tit. 1:16), Jude. Lest we forget, we are saved by grace alone through faith, and that not of ourselves; it is a gift of God. It is was upon that solid Rock, the true Gospel, upon which fundamentalism was erected.

Now, groups like Catholics and liberals and neoevangelicals and emergents will rightly put aside their beloved sacraments and thinly veiled gnosticism and point out that salvation is in Christ, and that they are in Christ, so why don't we put aside the bickering and argument and get together again? The accusation is that we are divisive and legalistic, exalting belief in the "fundamentals" as tantamount to salvation. And it's true some fundamentalist groups have done that. HOWEVER, the True Gospel invariably reduces to these fundamentals, and Paul clearly said that whosoever comes to us teaching another gospel, let him be accursed, anathema maranatha. Because if you deny the Gospel, you aren't in the right Christ--you're in Antichrist.

Personally, if you speak in tongues, I won't accuse you of being unsaved. I may question whether what you're uttering is actually a spoken language, or the frequency wherewith you speak in them, but I won't challenge your salvation. But if you DARE sully the Gospel that has the power to save men from sin, then you're out, bub.

[Albion]

[quote=mothcorrupteth;38012233]When one studies authoritarian/legalist church groups, a very broad heuristic pattern emerges:

Legalism tends to generate extrabiblical commandments and solidify them as doctrine, trampling over other biblical truths in the process, "teaching for commandments the doctrines of men." Take, for instance, Hobart Freeman's Faith Assembly of Warsaw, IN, in which members were forbidden to engage in foreplay or any other sexual behavior that was not for the express purpose of reproduction. Contraception was out. The rationale therebehind was that these behaviors excited human lusts and were therefore sinful, but in the process, the entire book of Song of Songs was thrown out the window, as were Paul's teachings regarding what to do with a Brother who was overcome with lust. What began as a fundamentalist approach to Scripture became rather unfundamentalist when the Word was expanded to say more than it actually said.
As has been pointed out by others here, legalism also tends to make doctrines the basis of salvation, which by proxy equates salvation with the one particular assembly or demonination/connection of assemblies that teaches that particular array of doctrines. Antichrist Maledict XVI's recent reminder to Protestant churches that we are "not churches in the true sense" is an example of such an elitist mentality. Faith Assembly is called to my mind again, as well--one former member reported that Freeman eventually reached the conclusion that "This is it. This is the place. You cannot be saved anywhere else."
Legalism tends to produce church leaders who act as mediators between God and man, whereas Scripture tells us there is ONE mediator between God and man, which person is Christ Jesus. This is what the Pharisees were notorious for, because they loved to have the people call them "Rabbi" while they pranced about in shows of false modesty. But "call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." Many legalist cults (including Roman Catholicism) completely ignore this exhortation and submit themselves to men who act as priests for them as if we were still under the Old Covenant. These characters usually are considered to possess enormous privilege with respect to prophecy and power to heal. One memorable example of Kool-Aid fame was Jim Jones of People's Temple, who insisted that his followers call him "Father." By contrast, the biblical pattern for ecclesiology is a plurality of elders who "oversee" the assembly to correct younger brethren and to make certain the assemblies are conducted in an orderly manner.
Legalism tends to produce the self-fulfilling prophecy of a "we are being persecuted" mentality. Usually, this begins with the group leader, who insists that because the group is special and unique in its doctrines--the one true church on earth--that mainstream churches are jealous and therefore out to slander them. This primes members for unusual behavior that will inevitably catch the public eye, at which point the "persecution" passes from imagination to reality and only reinforces the leader's teachings. Take again Faith Assembly (I apologize for continually making reference to only one group, but it is one with which I am closely familiar). Freeman preached against the use of medicine in favour of faith healing to the point that young pregnant women were expected to give birth at home (all this is contrabiblical, as well, as any quick glance at Eph. 6:29 and Col. 4:14 demonstrate). Consequently, when babies and mothers started dying, Freeman became paranoid about what would happen when word got out, so he advised his flock never to report these deaths (though they never did this anyway because it was shameful within the group for members to be marked as someone who lacked the faith to heal his or her child). Dissenters nevertheless began to take their stories to the media, and in response, Faith Assembly was only convinced all the more that they were under persecution, especially when someone set fire to their assembly building in 1980. From personal experience, I know that members of FA spinoffs always downplay anything critical of their groups as part of the conspiracy of slander. Sociological analyses of infant mortality in Koskiusco County, IN, mean nothing to them, and doubletalk and accusations of unspirituality (logical fallacy: appeal to ridicule) are the typical responses to pointing out Scripture that flatly contradicts their teachings. There is no room for discussion or debate. Note that by contrast, Creation Science actively takes part in a logical criticism of atheistic theories and draws inferences about diabolical motives only as a part of the discussion as to why these criticisms have been previously overlooked.
Legalistic churches also use the "love bombing" technique that almost all cults use on new recruits to trap them. This entails a sort of unconditional positive response to everything the recruit does or says, except for criticisms, which are cleverly dodged through doubletalk until they know the recruit is hooked. At that point, the reinforcement schedule shifts to avoidance. The outside world is demonized, and leaving the group becomes an outright phobia. As such, one finds relief from anxiety only in fellowship with the group, thereby ensuring their psychological dependence and obedience.
For more excellent observations on defining features of legalism, I highly recommend Ronald M. Enroth's Churches that Abuse, if you can find it.This is not fundamentalism. [quote]

Hey, that's what I was going to say! :) Anyway, I think this point is getting through, whoever explains it.

[kobuk]

Pure legalism was demonstrated by the people Yahshua confronted in Jerusalem who were the ones who eventually hanged Him on the Cross. The Scribes and Pharisees were lovers of their position in a religious hierarchy. Just to get the perks in society that go with it. Which included palaces, wealth and control.

So the scam was in the legalism. The faked dedication to religion for personal gain.

[Armistead]

I was once a legalist. I got saved at 15 at a IFBC and spent years there. It took me years after getting out to
get legalism out of me. I do believe in the fundemental
basics of our faith.

Obviously, many times God gave us partail answers and when men fill in the gaps, we create problems. Certainly the Christian faith is still trapped in many legalisms from the Roman experience.

For me it's simple. Christ gave us the law of love and said it fulfills all the law. That is how I define sin in my life. Paul and James said we abide in love by doing no harm to others. If my actions would cause others harm, then it is sin for me. If not, then I feel I am free to act without being judged. The bible agrees with that.

My brother goes to a Bap church that is so legalistic, it's members obvious have no joy and live in fear an guilt.

The Pastor has a list of rules. Obviouse they are biblical to him, but they are not divine. Paul was clear, what may be sin for one, may not be for another. He has rules, like the inch rule, the womans dress must be so many inches below the knee...above the breasts, ect.(you wear pants to church, you may be referred to as whorish)No make up, women long hair, men short, ect.

They were going to the beach and swimming came up. Anyone wanting to swim, must do so fully clothed..no joke. They youth went on a hiking trip and the girls had to wear dresses. My niece said she wanted to wear knee shorts, due to the heat. That was a no. However, she mention how easy it would be for boys to see up her dress while climbing. The Pastor made them climb in seperate groups. Obvious, he doesn't understand normal sexuality and I wish my brother would leave this church.

He has a list of Pastors who are saved and who are false. Unsaved Pastors are those like Graham, Charles Stanley ( the wife deal), ect.

No music, no movies, no nothing. The kids and teens are miserable.

When we look at all other faiths with contempt, we are in error. The fact is, no man can much agree on anything. I go to a SBC, even though I don't agree with everything, but it's close for me. When you look at all the many different baptist denominations, it's obvious man is the problem.

People should be their own judge, living by the law of love and not juding others over every minor issue that the bible doesn't cover. It's scriptural

[LovebirdsFlying]

WOW! I read that last post, and all I could think was :sigh: .

Did that pastor have rules telling you how to breathe? How to clean yourselves after using the bathroom? How many times to chew your food?

Gosh!

Jesus didn't put all those rules on His disciples. How does that pastor justify it?

[WannaWitness]

Simply put:

Fundamentalism is the following of GOD'S law (straight from the Bible).

Legalism is the following of MAN'S law; usually these are unreasonable and controlling.

Some people may have a certain special conviction. One common example is the thought that women should never wear pants at any time (most of the time because they are thought to be unfeminine and/or immodest). Having convictions such as this are perfectly fine. However, the actual legalism sets in when the person thinks that if a person doesn't do it "their way", then they're not really saved.

[kobuk]

Fundamentalism to me has gradually become more and more clear to mean emulating Yahshua and His Apostles with regard to being a true disciple who diligently sorts out truth from error and then applies that truth in following the commands learned in Scripture. All of them. Not picking and choosing or ignoring one command over another. I don't claim to have arrived there yet but i know the right direction to walk in.

...The fundamentals of Yah's Word gradually becoming my own fundamental behavior and best character traits. As the sinful wretch that we all are, gradually fades to become less and less predominant. As the Holy Spirit renews our minds.

Therefore, the worst thing that i can do is willfully tell individual lies or willfully propagate a pack of lies known as false doctrine. False pride has to go, as does any other form of irrational thinking. Purity of behavior, clarity of thinking and holiness and everything else that's good gradually become ours when we love the truth and diligently pursue it. Recieving revelations of His true presence that transends the Universe and time/space. Everything.

[DerSchweik]

Lovebirdsflying - I realize much of what you are experiencing in that congregation is probably true. I am from the cofC ("little c, little o, little f, big C" ha!) and I have seen this sort of stuff in some of the numerous congregations I've visited in the past - and honestly, it pains me when I see it.

Not all congregations are like that, believe me. The only "apology" I can give for such behavior, which exists in many other sects of Christendom (let's be honest) is this, for what it is worth - the churches of Christ "began" with a rather daunting goal of restoring New Testament Christianity, primarily a response to the profligation of bizarre teachings and practices encountered in both protestant and catholic churches. The goal was to get back to purity of doctrine, back to the Bible, back to what we could discern from it rather than other people's opinions, traditions, etc.

It's a worthy goal, in my opinion, and still worthy today. And in the 17-and 1800s when the spirit of revivalism really took hold in America, so too grew this goal and the churches.

But with success always comes excess. The "founders" if you will of the cofCs, Christian churches, disciples of Christ, etc. were very learned men and very knowledgeable about the bible - and extremely competent in teaching and defending it; for example, I'm slogging through the transcript of the Campbell-Rice debates - some 1,000 pages of public debate, laden with references to authors and texts that probably only exist today in basement archives of major university libraries. These guys knew about that which they preached and taught.

I sense some in the churches have, rather than pick up the thread of intellectual and spiritual maturity (and for that matter, purity) our forefathers possessed, have throughout these past generations, instead of the thread, have picked up its title, and with a lesser spirit of either intellectualism or spirituality have gradually morphed into some of what you are experiencing today. How else can a noble goal, going back to the basics to counter the excesses of gradual changes from generation to generation, morph into a lesser, almost petty goal?

Brilliant (for lack of a better word) men must always suffer the dogmatism of their less brilliant supporters. Paul encountered the same in some of the churches he planted - including divisions (Corinth), legalism (Galatia), etc. But the errors of those churches did not alter the truth of Paul's message. I daresay that if the Campbells and Stones of several centuries ago were around today, they'd be excoriating and condemning many of the churches that claim them as their "forefathers" today; and rightly so.

Legalism is a flaw in all of us. The Pharisees were inheritors of generations of gradual "add-ons" to the original commandments and statutes their forefathers received from God, add-ons that frankly were probably innocent at the time, and likely culturally based, but which came to be "laws" to successive generations who, rather than understand their reason for inclusion (with all the intellectual and spiritual effort demanded thereby), simply (and perhaps naively) adopted them as defacto "truthes" to be obeyed.

Aren't we all thus tempted? While your experiences are unfortunate - and I don't deny them, they are not necessarily the norm. Your family and that congregations deserves our prayers however, for consider them who are thus imprisoned by the banner and not the thread of what they profess to believe.

In Him,

[DerSchweik]

Simply put:

Fundamentalism is the following of GOD'S law (straight from the Bible).

Legalism is the following of MAN'S law; usually these are unreasonable and controlling.

Some people may have a certain special conviction. One common example is the thought that women should never wear pants at any time (most of the time because they are thought to be unfeminine and/or immodest). Having convictions such as this are perfectly fine. However, the actual legalism sets in when the person thinks that if a person doesn't do it "their way", then they're not really saved.
Well put Wanna.

"Fundamentalism" is in my opinion a worthy trek - for whenever we lose our focus or bearings, whether spiritually or secularly, we usually admonish one another to "return to the fundamentals" to get back on track. And that is all fundamentalism is, nothing more, getting back to the basics when we find ourselves lost in the convoluted complexities of whatever path we are on.

Legalism is a tough issue. When we lose the "spirit of the law" and substitute in its place the "letter of the law" we tend to legalism. Where, to use your example, the spirit of the law is modesty and purity, but the letter of the law becomes rules for how to dress, often with a specificity that is so restrictive as to impair the spirit, we end up adopting the letter but abort the spirit in the process.

I am reminded of a completely secular example in this regard. In my town, we built speed bumps everywhere in town - and I mean everywhere. Speed bumps became the "letter" of the law where the spirit was to prevent speeding that could lead to accidents. And even though we had laws against speeding, we felt the need to add to them additional constraints - constraints that frankly worked and worked well to prevent anyone from speeding at all. Interestingly, the speed bumps negated the need for speeding laws thereby for no one could in fact speed, even if they wanted to. Well, we're gradually taking most of them down - not because we learned the lesson of legalism, but because the legalism that reared itself in speed bumps became a hazard to emergency equipment - ambulances, fire trucks, etc., impairing them from doing their jobs safely.

You see, the problems of legalism are such that they impair the freedom and spirit of the laws they were created to "enhance." And whenever we attempt to "enhance" God's laws, we similarly impair God's Spirit. And it can't be helped! There is no "fix" to enhancing God's laws without impairing His Spirit at the same time, regardless of how good our intentions are. And the reason is those "good intentions" are never the "good" we think they are, for they arise not from Him, but from us.

Thus, getting back to the basics, the fundamentals, is to be applauded whenever legalism has taken root.

Amen, and blessings to all,

[kobuk]

ControlFreak-ism is very common too in the Church Growth Movement and the Rick Warren Purpose Driven Movement.

I listen to a lot of talk radio.and in the past couple years i've heard some horror stories about the tactics of the above two Satanic heretical invasions. Mainly what's in operation is scamming the Biblical structure of a Local Church by hijacking the decision making process using well known psychological manipulation techniques.

I don't want to hijack this thread with a major new branch of discussion. Just suffice it to say that the thread-starter's original horror story is not at all uncommon today. Though his example appeared to be of the variety of controlfreak-ism that's based on a single meglamaniacal individual.

The cult that David Koresh founded, the Branch Dividians, is another excellent example of 'single individual' controlfreak-ism.

[sageoffools]

I have a pastor friend (whom I agree with) that refuses to preach standards in his church, not that the church does not have any (e.g. church leaders, sunday school teachers, deacons, etc. all must agree to and abide by certain standards). But for the non-leadership members he does not preach standards. His feeling is that there are too many standards, all that are different, and all that claim to be able to base their standards on the Bible.
He only preaches surrender to Christ and, as the people grow closer to Christ He will show them what they need to change, how long to have their hair and what kind of clothes to wear.

[flaja]

The point is that there are many different types of Fundys,

I've seen this term (fundies) used on other boards and it was always meant as a term of derision. Why do you use it here?

In fact, by insisting that women must wear dresses and men pants, when it is clear that in Biblical times there was not even the thought of such a dress codes, they actually disqualify themselves as Fundys.

Deuteronomy 22:5 The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

[flaja]

Fundamentalism is defined by the Fundamentals. I have no reluctance to agree with them and yet I am far from being the kind of legalist that some have described here. I think we need always to keep Fundamentalism and Fundamentalist churches separate in our thinking. In the latter, all kinds of legalisms grow, but that's beyond and not a part of Fundamentalism itself.


Are you really talking about fundamentalism and fundamentalist churches or fundamentalism and cults? An outfit that is hell-bent on being a cult will often latch on to beliefs/doctrine that society recognizes for the sake of public relations. A cult that cannot halfway present a normal face to the public likely won’t attract many followers, and the more followers a cult has the more power the cult leaders can exercise, and when it comes to cults it is all about power.

[Albion]

Are you really talking about fundamentalism and fundamentalist churches or fundamentalism and cults?

I wasn't speaking of cults. I meant only that congregations can tend to become legalistic quite apart from whether they are called Fundamentalist churches. Individuals can do that too. However, "Fundamentalism" refers to a set of ideas that are known and specified, so it can't go beyond them without ceasing to be Fundamentalism.

[kobuk]

Not a lecture. This is how i understand things to really be. Asked for was our views. Here's mine. They could change as i recieve more truth.

The word "Fundamentalism" is just as loaded a term as "conservative". And you can bet that liberalism is creeping all over the place and slithering into every crack of any solid Biblically based Local Church that adheres to the "fundamental truths" on Yah's Word. I believe Yahshua and His Apostle personified true Fundamentalism. We should go by their examples as the source of our pure definition of the word 'Fundamentalist. Not some set of writing by men. Which no doubt are under enormous pressure today to be re-written.

I think every Local Church and individual person must decide on the best self defining principles they are going to affix to themselves in the public arena. We have some historic definitions of what is true Fundamentalism we can refer to that were written by men. But we borrow them for our use only as far as they align with Scripture. What i'm saying is we must not elevate men's collections of principles above the only true and infinitely reliable source -- Yah's entire Word.

What is the difference...

....between fundamentalism and legalism?

Legalism is an extreme deviation from what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of true believers. Fundamentalism as defined by true Fundamentalist, is first of all based on aligning all that is our selves with a christlikeness that the Holy Spirit has as His main job in producing in us.

[flaja]

Maintains an immovable allegiance to the inerrant, infallible, and verbally Inspired Bible;

What does all of this mean? Take Ruth 3:15. Two different editions of the King James Bible came out in 1611. The first read 'and he went into the city' for Ruth 3:15 and the later printing had this verse as 'and she went into the city'. Neither printing is an error when compared to the other because Hebrew manuscripts with both readings exist in about equal number. Either we don’t have a perfect set of manuscripts for the Bible, or we don’t have a complete and error-proof understanding of what the manuscripts were meant to say. However, I do maintain that legitimate Christians do have a complete and error-free understanding of a complete set of Biblical manuscripts as far as doctrine is concerned.

At the same time, I must insist that it is possible and absolutely necessary that inerrancy, infallibility and inspiration extend to copies of the original Biblical documents as well as translations thereof. I am not saying that every manuscript copy and every translation is inerrant, infallible and inspired, but if the translation that I rely on is not inerrant, infallible and inspired, then I cannot have an inerrant, infallible and inspired understanding of the Bible since we don’t have all (if any) of the original documents and I am fluent only in English.

BTW: Since Timothy had a Greek father and he was not a practicing Jew before he became a Christian, chances are he did not know Hebrew and thus had to use the Greek Septuagint translation for the OT. Timothy also wouldn’t have had access to a complete set of original Biblical documents. So when Paul told Timothy (II Timothy 3:16) that All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, he was talking about the Scripture that Timothy had access to and could read- meaning copies and translations of the original documents.

Believes whatever the Bible says is so;

What happens when the Bible is vague in what it says? The word day, as it is used in Genesis 1 and 2 is a prime example.

Judges all things by the Bible, and is judged only by the Bible, aka - "Sola Scriptura";

There has to be a faith element in this. How else can you know that what you accept as the Bible is really the Bible? You could say you rely on the guidance of the Holy Ghost, but how do you know that what you take as being the Holy Ghost is really the Holy Ghost? If you define the Bible by the Holy Ghost and then define the Holy Ghost by the Bible, you are engaged in circular reasoning. If you say I believe the Bible because the Bible tells me to, then again you are engaged in circular reasoning. At some point you must demonstrate faith and concede that your relationship with God has to transcend the Bible.

The new birth through regeneration of the Holy Spirit

I am not familiar with this concept; it is something that I haven’t encountered before.

The resurrection of the ungodly to final judgment and eternal death

Eternal death or eternal punishment?

Exposes and separates from all ecclesiastical denial of that Faith, compromise with error, and apostasy from the Truth; and Earnestly contends for the Faith once delivered.

Which will get you called narrow-minded, judgmental, un-loving, un-Christian etcetera, even by people who claim to be Christian themselves.

[flaja]

I wasn't speaking of cults. I meant only that congregations can tend to become legalistic quite apart from whether they are called Fundamentalist churches. Individuals can do that too. However, "Fundamentalism" refers to a set of ideas that are known and specified, so it can't go beyond them without ceasing to be Fundamentalism.

I asked because the descriptions given here for some of these legalistic churches sound like they have cult-mentality.

[flaja]

Does anyone know of any fundamentalist statement regarding things like movies, music, dancing etcetera?

[Albion]

I asked because the descriptions given here for some of these legalistic churches sound like they have cult-mentality.

I am not sure which churches you are referring to. In the courswe of the discussion, others have dropped Rick Warren's church, the Branch Davidians, the Churches of Christ, and a couple of others into the debate. But these are not Fundamentalist churches just because they are mentioned, and the reason they were mentioned was, I think, because the writer considered them to be legalistic.

What makes a Fundamentalist church or anyone a Fundamentalist is found in post #25. Anything added over and above that is not Fundamentalism and anything added over and above that, which might be called legalistic, is just that particular person or church's own doing.

Put another way, some Fundamentalists do engage in this, but it doesn't make Fundamentalism any different because it happens. Additionally, I think it could be argued that non-Fundamentalist churches do the same thing--add to or embellish their basic beliefs in a nit-picking way (which practice we call adiaphora in theological terms, i.e not essenial).

[Albion]

Does anyone know of any fundamentalist statement regarding things like movies, music, dancing etcetera?

Some churches which call themselves Fundamentalist probably have created such a thing. But it has nothing specifically to do with Fundamentalism which means holding to the stated fundamentals. Anything else is outside that. I, for example, believe in governance by bishops. The next person could believe in not drinking coffee. The one after that could say that footwashing is a sacrament. ALL ARE, nevertheless, FUNDAMENTALISTS because they agree on the fundamentals listed in post #25.

I understand that I am stressing the meaning of the word and of the movement, whereas you may be more interested in the fact that churches that are otherwise Fundamentalistic go beyond the fundamentals with these kinds of Calvinistic regulations. Certainly there are many which do.

[flaja]

I am not sure which churches you are referring to. In the courswe of the discussion, others have dropped Rick Warren's church, the Branch Davidians, the Churches of Christ, and a couple of others into the debate. But these are not Fundamentalist churches just because they are mentioned, and the reason they were mentioned was, I think, because the writer considered them to be legalistic.

What makes a Fundamentalist church or anyone a Fundamentalist is found in post #25. Anything added over and above that is not Fundamentalism and anything added over and above that, which might be called legalistic, is just that particular person or church's own doing.

Put another way, some Fundamentalists do engage in this, but it doesn't make Fundamentalism any different because it happens. Additionally, I think it could be argued that non-Fundamentalist churches do the same thing--add to or embellish their basic beliefs in a nit-picking way (which practice we call adiaphora in theological terms, i.e not essenial).

I was referring mainly to the ban on cat ownership. And I am not saying that fundamentalism = cult. I am saying that these cults are using fundamentalism as a front. In popular culture a cult would be taken as something worse than a fundamentalist church so some cults use fundamentalism as their starting point thinking that it gives them respectability. They attract members by associating themselves with something that would-be members are familiar with.

BTW: Does anyone know why you cannot use cut and paste to copy whatever is in the box you use to type a post/reply for this board? I tend to put anything I post through MS Word’s spell/grammar checker, but the cut and copy functions don’t work here. I can cut something from MS Word and paste it in the box, but I cannot go in the opposite direction.

[Albion]

I was referring mainly to the ban on cat ownership. And I am not saying that fundamentalism = cult. I am saying that these cults are using fundamentalism as a front.

Ah. I didn't "get" that from your messages before. I agree. If so, though, I wouldn't think there is much that can be done about it since the word is so widely misused anyway. We have Fundamentalists arguing among themselves, saying that some odd doctrinal twist or other is Fundamentalistic, so if they don't understand the word, I doubt that we can expect better from non-Fundamentalists.

In popular culture a cult would be taken as something worse than a fundamentalist church so some cults use fundamentalism as their starting point thinking that it gives them respectability. They attract members by associating themselves with something that would-be members are familiar with.

Interesting. I'll have to keep my eyes open to that in the future. Of course, they all say that they are strict Bible-believers and students of the Bible when advancing their views, so it follows that what you are saying they do is also appealing to them.

[flaja]

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Ah. I didn't "get" that from your messages before. I agree. If so, though, I wouldn't think there is much that can be done about it since the word is so widely misused anyway. We have Fundamentalists arguing among themselves, saying that some odd doctrinal twist or other is Fundamentalistic, so if they don't understand the word, I doubt that we can expect better from non-Fundamentalists.


Like I said before, I think popular culture associates Evangelicals with Fundamentalists. I think this is wrong. My understanding is that Evangelicals = Pentecostals, and I think Pentecostals, by and large, also have cultish leanings. This is especially true when it comes to Pentecostal pastors that make themselves dictators over their congregations in the name of the Bible. Growing up I knew a man who knew a man who seemed to be perpetually in Bible college because he wanted to be a church pastor. He finally got his Bible degree several years after I had my biology degree.

At the time (back in the mid-1990s) I couldn’t have told the difference between a Fundamentalist and a Pentecostal, so I didn’t realize that this would-be pastor was a Pentecostal. He wanted to start a church so I decided to attend his services. We started out meeting in a hotel conference room (about $80 a week) and then after a few months we moved to his living room (actually it was his wife’s living room since he had just gotten married and he and his 20-something son moved into her duplex apartment). After a few more months he decided that he wanted to associate his church with the Foursquare Gospel outfit. This organization wasn’t going to offer any financial or other aid and my take on the membership application was that affiliating with this organization meant giving it a say in all of your church’s property. I did some research on the Foursquare’s founder, Amee Semple McPherson, didn’t like what I learned and told the pastor that I would leave his church if he joined Foursquare. He told me to get lost.

And the real kicker was the fact that apart from his wife, the wife of the man that had introduced me to him a decade before and me he never had even a single other person attend his services. He was always telling me that so-and-so wanted to come to his services and so-and-so was about to bring his family to services but so-and-so never materialized. I wanted to do some fundraising in order to get a building for a proper church, but we couldn’t do that until he incorporated his church in order to get non-profit status for IRS purposes. It was always I’m working on it and would have it in a week or two.

The last I heard this man had taken his wife to New York State, where he was from, and was some sort of part-time assistant pastor. I hate to say it, but his wife (who had been raised Baptist) should have told him to go to Hell. She was a native Floridian and had never lived anywhere but Florida and Jacksonville, NC (father was a Marine) and she had to leave a job at a bank where she had worked for about 20 years in order to follow her husband to NY.

But, this kind of behavior from a pastor is not limited to Pentecostals. I am attracted to Baptist churches (IFB and BBF) because they are usually King James Only, which I am also to a certain extent. But, I cannot take their isolationism; they should have a denominational structure for the sake of pooling their resources and having the benefit of mutual accountability. Neither can I take their tendency to allow their pastors to be the sole source of earthly authority for them. Any man that cannot be told by an earthly power that he is wrong will invariably be wrong about something.