In looking at the more recent history of the Christian
church, we can learn a lot and improve on what the Fundamentalist Conservative
church has done. The Fundamentalist movement was one of the biggest movements
of the 20th Century and has shaped the church in a major way. This
movement formed in response to societal and intellectual pressures on both the
church and the Scriptures It was formed in reaction to the supposed modernist
movement of culture of the time, whether that was the earliest 20th
century or the 1980’s. This movement was shaped by pietism, or the emphasis on
the emotional reaction to God over the intellectual reaction to God; therefore
any ideas of thoughts contrary to the words of scripture were viewed with
disdain. It was also very reactionary in general, in a way to pull the church
away from the extreme liberalization and modernization of the church.
This
movement has also shaped the post- modern landscape of the Christian church. The Fundamentalist church has also made
decisions that have caused a large number of Christians to become increasingly
disenfranchised from the church. Therefore, it is important that the
progressive/moderate respond in such a way that opens up dialogue with those
marginalized by the Conservative Fundamentalist church. Therefore, it is
important the progressive churches to understand from the Fundamentalist movement,
but also improves discourse with those disenfranchised. Whether that means to
take a stand on more progressive issues, and not lose our voice , but also to
advocate for the embracing of both science and faith, because that is seen as
important to so many in today’s world.
In the early 20th century, many people were
going away to school, and learning about the theories of evolution and higher
biblical criticism. This left their traditional parents at home somewhat
terrified when they would come home believing more about Evolution and
Darwinism than in the traditional Genesis creation story, and their parents
were of course terrified because of their supposed dismissal of the Genesis account and
the basic theological education they had received while at home. There was also
the growth of higher biblical criticism which in their minds was the cause of
this increasing awareness of more liberal expressions
According
to Linder,
“
Evolution appeared destined to triumph without another major battle—at least
not as to the fact of evolution, as opposed to the mechanism by which it
occurs, which remained a topic of debate. In theological circles, the rage was
“higher criticism,” an approach to determining scriptural meaning by looking at
the socio-historical setting of its writers.
The Bible contained important messages, these theologians said, but no
serious person can any longer pretend that the Bible, for example, provided an
accurate guide to world history.
Literalism seemed headed for virtual extinction”(paragraph 1).
The teaching of evolution and higher biblical criticism
was seen to be taking the forefront in the culture as a whole. With this rise
of modern culture in the world, the church was scared of the repercussions. They
saw the rise of Modernism to be a major issue in the lives of not only the
people of the church, but the world in general. They saw their response as
important to the very life’s blood of the church. According to Menzies, “In the
United States, Fundamentalism emerged about 1875, reaching the zenith of
influence in the 1920’s. It grew out of a shared concern by Evangelical
leaders, both church leaders and scholars for a means of responding to the
alarming heavy erosion of basic theological scholarship, beliefs that were
under heavy assault from liberal theological scholarship”(p.199).
There were several main contributors to the
Fundamentalist movement of the early 20th century. There was Charles
Nelson Darby, Dwight L. Moody, and Charles Rigby. Each contributed to the
movement in different ways. All of these people preached against beliefs and
theories of Darwin and other scientists at the time. Charles Nelson Darby,
founder of the Brethren movement, believed the bible was the beginning of
Christian understanding in all things. According to Linder, “Darby insisted
biblical prophesies provided “a sure guide to human history—past, present, and
future.” (GE, 27) After having founded the movement three
decades earlier in England, Darby traveled across the Atlantic six times
between 1859 and 1874 to spread his doctrine of biblical inerrancy and the
imminent return of Christ to establish the millennial kingdom. Everywhere he
went, and in his fifty-three volumes of writings, Darby broadcast his message
that the Bible represented the inspired, authoritative, faithfully transmitted,
and infallible word of God”(paragraph 3). He believed that the scripture was
not only basic in understanding, but it was the sole authority in spiritual
matters. He believed in the eminent return of Christ was the reason for the
church in the world. There was also Dwight
L. Moody, evangelist and founder of the Moody Bible Institute. According to
Gonzalez, “Moody was a Chicago shoe salesman who was moved to act by the lack
of religious life among the masses of that great city. He began bringing people
to the Congregationalist church he attended, but soon founded an independent
church” (p.33). Moody was a firm believer in the inerrancy of scripture. He
believed that Genesis was foundational to understanding all of Christianity.
According to Linder, “To say Moody took the Bible seriously is an
understatement. He rose at five o’clock
every morning to engage in several hours of prayerful study of the book [the
Bible]. He was especially interested in
Genesis, offering the advice: “Spend six months studying Genesis; it is the key
to the whole book.” Although a careful
study of the Bible, no one could call Moody a well-rounded reader. His choice of books followed a simple
rule. “I do not read any book,” he said,
“unless it helps me understand the Book” (paragraph 5).
Another
person who was important to the formation of Christian fundamentalism was William
B. Riley. William B. Riley was a Baptist minister, and later called a “second
Moody” by the press. According to Linder, “Riley’s distinctive brand of
fundamentalism combined social activism, puritanical moralism, and a literalist
premillennialist theology”(paragraph 8). Riley was also huge in the building of
fundamentalism against both society pressures and higher biblical criticism.
According to Linder, “Riley invented the label “fundamentalist” and became the
prime mover in the movement that took that name.” (paragraph 10) Riley was
instrumental in the forming the movement as a whole with the formation of WCFA
(World Christian Fundamentalist Association), one of the largest and most
influential groups of early fundamentalists.
Although Riley’s movement was first reactionary to the
movement of higher criticism, he soon believed that liberal leaders and
theologians were more threatening to the Christian movement. According to
Linder, “Although his Fundamentalist movement began as a reaction to the
growing popularity of “higher criticism” (the view that the Bible is best
understood in the distinct historical and cultural context which produced it),
Riley soon identified the growing acceptance by modernist religious leaders of
evolution as the infidelity most threatening to Christian values”(paragraph 12)
Scopes
Monkey Trial
One of the most foundational events of the Fundamentalist
movement was the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. In it, after the
Tennessee state legislature passed a law against the teaching of evolution in
public schools. The American Civil Liberties Union sought to have a test case
in Tennessee. The test case was found to occur in Dayton, when the biology
teacher (who actually never remembered teaching evolution) was brought up for
the teaching of evolution. According to Moran,
“In
the 1920’s much of the fundamentalist discontent focused on the issue of
evolution which supporters and detractors often labelled Darwinism.
Participants in the crusades against evolution clearly aligned themselves with
fundamentalist goals. Some fundamentalists, such as William Jennings Bryan
denounced evolution for providing a rationale for warfare and buttressing what
came to be known as Social Darwinism” (p. 98)
According to Gonzalez,
“The
conflict between liberals and fundamentalists was exasperated in the post-war
period. This was the time of the famous Scopes Trial, which symbolized the high
point of the effort on the part of fundamentalists to ban the teaching of the
evolution in public schools—an effort that in some quarters would continue into
the twenty-first century. Almost all denominations were divided over the issue
of fundamentalism—particularly the inerrancy of Scriptures, which by then had
become a hall of fundamentalist orthodoxy.”(p. 476)
This
case was eventually overturned on appeal, and given the scrutiny of people at
the time on the state of Tennessee, no more teachers would tried for teaching
evolution in the public schools. According to Menzies, “Following the famous
Scopes Monkey Trial over the teaching of Evolution in schools in Dayton,
Tennessee in 1925, Fundamentalism was publically humiliated and the movement
retreated into defensive posture. For the next decades, fundamentalism
languished in the thros of internal conflict” (p.199)
After
the Scopes Monkey trial, Fundamentalist Christianity retreated into more
standard affair. They concentrated on not only revivals but Global missions. It
wasn’t until the 1970’s and the election of Jimmy Carter that Christianity saw
that given the right candidate they could unite under the banner of one
candidate. This candidate who united the Religious Right was Ronald
Reagan. According to Lambert,
“The
political influence of the Religious Right is surprising in light of the
history of fundamentalists since the Scopes trial, when conservative
evangelicals in general and fundamentalists in particular disengaged from
politics. In part, they stayed on the sidelines because they believed that they
should concentrate on other endeavors, such as evangelistic enterprises,
including revivals and missions. They believed that it was more important to
concern themselves with eternal salvation than with mundane politics. Yet at
the same time it bothered them to watch American culture become captive to
"secular humanism" in the period between 1925 and the mid-1970s.
Public education at every level taught the nation's young people that science,
not faith in God, held the key to human progress. Moreover, in the view of
religious conservatives, the U.S. government seemed to be antagonistic to the
Christian faith” (p. 188)
This new Christian Right was gathered at a
grassroots level in response to certain facets of secular culture and the
world. These grassroots campaign was in reaction to an increase in divorces,
the LGBT, and feminist movements. All of these movements galvanized the
Religious Right, and greatly their responses to the issues have greatly come to
affect the post-modern world. According
to Lambert,
“In
the mid-1970’s, the wife of fundamentalist minister denounced most of the books
adopted for English classes by the Kanawha County School board in the Kanawha
Valley of West Virginia. She claimed the books were “disrespectful of the
authority and religion, destructive of social and cultural values, obscene,
pornographic, and unpatriotic or in violation of individual and familial rights
of privacy” (p. 194)
Open
Hearts Gathering, a more progressive church in a very conservative area, we
believe that we can learn a lot by looking at the rise of the Fundamentalist
movement. Firstly, we must learn not to concede our voice to the extreme
Fundamentalist conservative party. Since the 1980’s there voice has been at the
forefront of Christian thought of theology, power and agenda. Secondly, it is
important that we not run away from the answers of science. We, as Christians,
do not need to divide our heart thinking from our intellect. Both of these
streams of consciousness can work together and inform each other. They
accentuate each other and are not at war with one another and one does not need
to cut off their intelligence to understand faith. They should and do magnify
each other. The sciences answer question that faith and the people at the time
of scripture could never have thought to imagine. Faith and Spirituality answer
questions that science begins to answer, but there is a huge amount of grey
area where both answers can inform human understanding of our world.
In terms of LGBT issues for example, Progressives
and moderate churches have to be more vocal. Not only in terms of being more
vocal on spiritual issues but also political issues, standing up for what the
Gospel truly says, not just the literal gospel but the spirit of the gospel that
has been informed and not only filtered through our heart, but also our mind. When
the spiritual but not religious crowd (the largest chunk being the twenty to
thirty year olds, they see the church as not being in line with their beliefs
on issues. They believe the church is not concentrating on what the Gospel
really says. This has caused a large group of them to leave the church in
general. The progressive church must have ethics that are engaging of the world
in a new way compared to our fundamentalist predecessors. Our ethics must be
those which concentrate on matters that are not considered “in people’s
bedrooms”. Open Hearts Gathering has been very vocal in these issues. When
North Carolina was debating the passage of Amendment One, Open Hearts Gathering
was one of the only faith communities in Gastonia to speak out against it. Our
minister at the time was the only to actually speak out on news station, which
I applaud. This is just one example in the past where Open Hearts Gathering has
been a very vocal voice to help say that Conservative Fundamentalist is not the
only voice in the church.
We
as progressive and moderate Christians do not only need to have a voice in every
debate, but we need to speak as loudly and as often as needed. It is by the
conceding of the Christian voice for the eighty years that has caused the
Christian church to become dominated by the extremely Fundamentalist thought.
It is also the yielding of the voice of progressives and moderates that has
allowed for a whole generation of people to become disenfranchised from the
Christian community as a whole. We also need to strengthen our voice by banding
together with similar people of faith across denominational and other religions
on these issues. This is where the true ecumenical work begins. It is through
this ecumenical work that we can fully embrace the message of Christ and a view
of Christ that we may share with even those in other Christian communities.
Whether that is LGBT people, or the Spiritual but Not Religious people,
especially in the twenty-thirty year old age range.
One
issue that we could see this overlap in terms of us having a voice and
embracing an opinion that embraces not only science but faith is the issue of
ex-gay/reparative therapy. Being that conservatives have been at the forefront
of policy and theological discussion for years and so many people have been
hurt in terms of reparative therapy. Reparative therapy is something neither
supported by science or rational theology, and it does not help the individual.
Yet for Fundamentalist theology, being that LGBT is broken and in need of being
fixed, whether it is by whatever methods, this therapy is deplorable. It is
through avocation for dismissal of this practice that we can practice both
these principles more fully. We are not only using a voice to advocate for the
individual but also for the moderate and more progressive voice in general.
The rise of the fundamentalist conservative
church in the 20th century was has a reactionary result to higher
criticism and an increase in intellectual knowledge among clergy but also
children going away to school in general. They reacted to this “modernism” by
an increased reverence for inerrancy of scripture. The two points of view came
to a boiling point during the Scopes Monkey Trial, where a teacher was tried
for the teaching of evolution in public school. Although the man was found
guilty, the case was thrown out on appeal, and fundamentalism was publically
humiliated and ran into the sidelines, until the 1980’s where it once again
crystallized in reaction to more secular pressures on not only scripture but
family values. It was also through this rise that the Conservative voice became
the assumed main component of the Christian faith, which then caused a major
rise in “Spiritual but Not religious” in the 21st century.
Therefore, it is important that the progressive and moderate voice of the
church continue to speak out on matters of importance. Not to concede our voice
to the Fundamentalist/Religious Right.
Bibliography
Gonzalez,
Justo L. The Story of Christianity: The Reformation To The Present Day. New
York; HarperOne Press, 2010
Lambert,
Frank. Religion in American Politics: A Short History . Princeton, New Jersey;
Princeton University Press, 2008.
Linder,
Doug. Putting Evolution on the Defensive: William B. Riley and the Rise of
Fundamentalism in America. Last modified 2005. Accessed on July 17, 2014, http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/Fundamentalism.html
Menzies, William W. 2011. “Nonwesleyan Pentecostalism: A Tradition of
Influence in Fundamentalism.” Asian
Journal of Pentecostal Studies 14 issue 2: 199-211.
Moran, Jeffrey P. 2004. “The
Scopes Trial and Southern Fundamentalism in Black and White: Race, Region, and
Religion.” Journal
of Southern History 70 issue 1: 95-120
