First a definition:
"Christian Fundamentalism is a conservative movement within American Protestantism that aims to uphold traditional Christian beliefs in the face of many modernist challenges. [It] arose out of the late 19th and early 20th century conflicts with mainline Protestant churches over modernist challenges, including biblical criticism and interpretation. In response, between 1910 and 1915 conservative scholars from Princeton Theological Seminary published a series of twelve books titled The Fundamentals, which reaffirmed biblical inerrancy and attacked biblical criticism. Soon, Christian fundamentals began founding their own Bible colleges and Bible institutes to teach fundamentalist doctrines to future generations and provide structure to the movement. Christian fundamentalists teach the literal interpretation of scripture and hold to key Christian doctrines, including Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection, and salvation from our sins through the grace of God by having faith in Jesus Christ." From: http://www.patheos.com/Library/Christian-Fundamentalism#ixzz3IE2nF8w7
The above sounds good, right? And much of it is. It became not so good, however once prominent leaders concocted doctrine from speculation . A few examples of non-biblical fundy rules: strict church attendance, tithing to local church, daily bible reading, and any number of good spiritual exercises that are elevated to law.
Outwardly enforced rules never change the inner heart: "Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence," (Colossians 2:20-23).
I love that scripture! I believe it applies to so many life situations: the consumption of alcohol, GMO foodstuffs, prescription medicines; reading "secular" books, watching movies, hanging out with potentially corrupting people, Christian disciplines and the like. If we are truly FREE, we have our Holy Spirit indwelled hearts to navigate us through traps and snares of life ("His rod and staff comfort me," Psalm 23:4).
The observance of outward rules has the added danger of enemy cooperation, for we play directly into Satan's hands, when we contract the disease of pride and superiority, or when we fail. Performance and failure are two sides of the same coin, because no one can endlessly practice the charade of perfection. After a period of rules observance, we stumbled or fall, and subsequently plunge into guilt, shame and more failure, becoming people of secret darkness and sin, separated from Jesus and vulnerable to further lies of the enemy.
I used to be a total fundy. I believed everything Christian conventional wisdom fed me. Every biblical interpretation, every "turn or burn" scare tactic, etc. I so feared my "sin nature" that I felt it needed corralling and moral legislation to keep it caged and subdued. And while I'm sure remnants of legalistic slavery still taint me, I strain toward the light, reaching to embrace the joy and abandon that Christ's death on the cross purchased for me. I know I still sin and I'm still in need of changing from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18), but it excites me to know that I start from glory (Christ's purchase) and go to greater glory! I don't go from current sewage or pig slop to glory!
I want to separate the wheat from the chaff: biblical truth from humanism, miraculous experiences from dogmatic science worship, and Spirit-filled living from works-based drudgery. I don't want to be a slimy Christian who participates in and absorbs pure garbage, rationalizing it all the way as "freedom," but neither do I want to be a pursed lips "saint:" one who trembles inside at every temptation, wiping my brow if I manage to escape and judging the loser who slips.
Christian Fundamentalism at it origin possessed the honorable desire to protect the truth of scripture, but it gradually slipped down the slope of pharisaical control tactics, based on the fear of "flesh," or sin nature. Romans 6:6-7 clearly sets us free from that dread: "...our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin," (Romans 6:6-7).
And while I definitely believe we need to avoid being polluted by the world (James 1:27), many fundamentalists take it too far: they vacillate between groveling as weak-willed worms and puffing out their chests in their well-kept precepts. This smacks of Pharisee-ism and warrants a close look at those Biblical party poopers.
The reviled Pharisees were religious control freaks and among the first biblical fundamentalists. They were "members of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity," (Google Definition). Their rules were paramount, not love and compassion. Jesus, in Matthew 23:24 accused them of "straining at gnats (tiny atoms of religious importance) and swallowing camels (huge issues of the heart). Jesus verbally scourged them for outward holiness and inward depravity. Rigid Christian fundamentalism can lead us down that same road of spiritual death.
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery," (Galatians 5:1).
The gospel is the bottom line. The gospel (GOOD NEWS!!) solves everything. But not the weak, escape-from-hellfire gospel. The true, God-is-madly-in-love with you gospel. The sacrificing, unrestrained Love that pursued humanity from the beginning. He who sacrificed everything to purchase our redemption also purchased our freedom and HE has the ability to sustain us and keep us from falling (Jude 1:24)!
So onto fallacy. The more I study the Word, the more I am convinced that many biblical ideas are NOT biblical. Take for example the whole End Times/Rapture/Tribulation/Anti Christ future theory. Not biblically supported. Invented in 1830 by John Darby. Supported by most fundamentalists. Time to weed out Biblical interpretation fiction from fact. So I guess I can't be fundamentally correct. I can only press on.
"But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus," (Phillippians 3:7-14).
