This is more than just the camel's nose

Well, the proverbial camel’s nose in the tent story is finding reality within Fundamentalism. It was announced recently that Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary would feature Mark Dever as their keynote speaker, along with Kevin Bauder, Dave Doran, and several of the seminary’s faculty members, at their Advancing the Church Conference next February.

One must wonder how we are “advancing” the church when we start down the road of compromise. Particularly two of the, so-called, Fundamentalist seminary presidents involved in this conference (Kevin Bauder of CBTS and Dave Doran of DBTS) have, in various ways over the past year or so, made efforts to prepare us for this coming together of Fundamentalism and Conservative Evangelicalism. Central Seminary’s Ethos statement on Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism states, “we believe that careful, limited forms of fellowship are possible.” I guess we can now see what that statement means in practice.

I would recommend that you visit Lou Martuneac’s blog, In Defense of the Gospel, at  http://indefenseofthegospel.blogspot.com/ for more detail on what these men have been doing.

Dave Doran in 1995 wrote an excellent article for Frontline magazine titled, “In Defense of Militancy.” Sadly, he has moved away from that militancy he so well articulated. He closes that article with these five paragraphs,

I have never had a conversation with a militant Fundamentalist who denies that some of us have sinned in doing what we believe is right. We have sometimes taken the right stand with the wrong spirit (cf. 2 Thess. 1:5), or we have taken a stand on some issue too hastily or without solid Biblical support. These problems do not invalidate the cause of Fundamentalism or of being militant about separation.

Unfortunately, those who reject our position are quick to paint caricatures of our movement. The liberals did it; the New Evangelicals followed their example; and every defector from militant Fundamentalism has used the same tactic to “prove” his position while rejecting militant separatism (cf. the writings of Jerry Falwell, Jack Van Impe, and John MacArthur).

The tag of belligerence is no new one. Militant Fundamentalism has borne it many times before. The very nature of the combat, the very essence of being aggressive in a cause, means that some will one to be too zealous or belligerent. For those being tempted toward a Fundamentalism that softens its image and tones itself down, the words of George Marsden should serve as a wake-up call.

The neo-evangelicals were thus still torn internally over variations of the same issues that were dividing them from separatist fundamentalists. Their one impulse was to insist that the exact positions won in the fundamentalist stand against modernism were too important ever to abandon. At the same time, they clearly wished to purge themselves of all the unessential traits acquired during the fundamentalist era, especially the spirit of belligerence. To put their dilemma in a question, To what extent was their movement a reform of fundamentalism and to what extent was it a break with it? The “new evangelicals” had no easy rules by which to settle these issues (Reforming Fundamentalism [Eerdmans, 1987], p. 171).

It seems to me that those who are wanting to rid contemporary Fundamentalism of its alleged belligerence should proceed with great caution. The last group of people to take that path found it to be a winding road that ends up in a theological and moral wasteland.

Conspicuously missing within the articulations of those so-called Fundamentalist who wish some form of cooperation with Conservative Evangelical is Scripture. No one has weighed in on what the Bible says.

Look at Romans 16:17 for instance. Here we read, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.” Some would have us narrow the term, “the doctrine” down to mean just the Gospel. With this verse coming at the end of such a letter, it is most negligent to suggest that after all the Apostle Paul has expounded upon that now at the end he would reduce it down to mean simply the Gospel. No, he is referring to the whole body of teaching we have received, and when we come across someone who has something different we are to note that man and avoid him.

Every Conservative Evangelical at some point within “doctrine” is contrary to what I have learned. I have no choice but to obey my Heavenly Father and have nothing to do with them. It doesn’t matter what “good” they may be doing on various fronts. That is not the issue. Doctrine is the issue and Fundamentalists and Conservative Evangelicals are at odds. Those who seek to redefine our terms and rewrite our history in order to make this “careful, limited fellowship” possible are doing so to their own demise.

A softening on separation always leads towards apostasy.