For the time being, we will be posting articles at both sites, but sometime in the future we will migrate fully over to re:Fundamentals.

You will want to update your RSS feeders to the new feed address: http://re-fundamentals.org/?feed=rss2

You can also connect to our social networking sites:

Jonathan Edwards wrote a whole book against this during the Great Awakening called “A Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God” so that people could discern between true and false revival. Revival is a work of God by His Spirit through his word bringing the spiritually dead to living faith in Christ and renewing the inner life of Christians who have grown cold. In revival, God makes old things new, gives new power the gospel and new spiritual awareness to those whose hearts and consciences had been blind, hard and cold.[1] So, if we seek true revival, we must look to those who experienced it as those whom were most ready for it. The Puritans prepared both America and England for revival for almost 100 years before it finally came in the post-Puritan era under Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and John Wesley. It’s important to note that God used both Calvinists and non-Calvinists alike in the Awakening because it was a quest for godliness and holiness that both kinds of men were seeking! Look at the kind of books that were produced by the Puritans; what were they most concerned with? Some titles reveal what they were pursuing: The Reformed (renewed) Pastor by Richard Baxter; The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs; The Christian’s Great Interest by William Guthrie; The Godly Man’s Picture by Thomas Watson; The True Bounds of Christian Freedom by Samuel Bolton; The Mortification of Sin by John Owen; A Lifting up for the Downcast by William Bridge and Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by Thomas Brooks.

They were not as preoccupied with their movement as they were their holiness before God. Nothing in their estimation was more important for any man than that his conscience should be enlightened, instructed, purged and kept clean.  To them, there could be no real spiritual understanding nor any genuine godliness, except as men exposed and enslaved their consciences to God’s word. This is what fundamentalism started out as. It was a militant defense of the inspiration and inerrancy God’s Word against liberalism and modernism but it seems that it became more of a position than a practical outworking in the lives of fundamentalists. This is evident by the kind of preaching, legalism and lack of biblical discernment in fundamentalism’s leading churches and colleges today. However, the Puritans lived out the Bible in every area of their lives and refused to be enslaved by legalism or licentiousness.

What kept the Puritans from deviating on one side or the other? The Gospel. It was not just the first hoop to jump through as it has become today. Without realizing it, we have traded in the gospel for a substitute product which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing. It is the content of the gospel that makes the difference. Today’s gospel preached in modern fundamentalism fails to make men God-centered in their thoughts and God-fearing in their hearts because that is not what it is trying to accomplish in the lives of whom we preach it to. We must stop seeing the gospel as merely a ticket to heaven; a get-out-of-jail-free card and proclaim it as a divine summons of God to come before Him and bow down under his Lordship so that He will be glorified in the conversion of His enemies! This kind of God-centeredness in the gospel carried over to Jonathan Edwards of whom J.I. Packer writes:

“The thought of man’s complete dependence on a free omnipotent God controlled Edwards’ whole religious outlook, and acted as the guiding principle of his entire theology. To Edwards, therefore, true religion was much more than either orthodoxy, or ethics or the two put together.  Edwards held no brief for easy believism, or moralism, or formalism of any sort. True piety was to him a supernatural gift, dynamic in character and intensely experimental in its outworking. It was a realized communion with God through Christ, brought into being by the Holy Spirit and expressed in responsive affections and activities[2].”

This is the heart of a new dynamic that I would like to see characteristic of fundamentalism – not separatism, not militancy, not “old fashionedness”, not intellectualism and academics, not excitement, not soul winning, not high standards, not traditional worship, not conservatism – but rather holiness…true godliness at the deepest levels of the heart working its way out in every practice and form!

[2] Ibid. p. 311

So, here’s my download from our Sunday worship at Grace Baptist Church in Merrimack, NH.

1. Yet another incredible worship gathering for us. God chose to send us several first time guests – at least two families although there might have been more.
2. We shared a message entitled “Oppression” from Ecclesiastes 4. We are currently in a series going through Ecclesiastes and thoroughly enjoying the beauty of this anthology.
3. Our music team really pointed us toward Christ and it was amazing to hear the gathered congregation really praising LOUDLY.
4. We had a volunteer meeting and there were like 40 people there! We have more volunteers than we have spots, which is awesome. I can’t wait to see how God moves us forward.

Take a look at the scriptures. In the Old Testament, we’ve been given an amazing account of God’s hand in history, along with examples that have been given for our edification. But if we lose sight of the real Point, we’ve missed it all. Jesus said that those scriptures “testify of Me.” They’re all about Him.

The New Testament is, undoubtedly, about Jesus Christ. His life, His ministry, His work, and His continuing work through the church and the power of the Holy Spirit. One is hard pressed to read the book of Acts without finding the gospel of Jesus Christ on the lips of the apostles. John made the nature of Christ a separating issue. Paul said that in all things He must have preeminence. He’s our greatest example of humility, of love, of holiness, of power, of everything. Paul wanted to know Him and the power of His resurrection. The early church ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

The post-New Testament early church wrestled with the nature of Christ. It was the cause of division early on. And we can see throughout history, getting it wrong is a source of all sorts of other heresies.

I’m grateful for the emphases going on within conservative evangelicalism and parts of fundamentalism today. There is a call back to the recognition of God’s sovereignty, of Lordship, and of repentance. I’m thrilled about the Gospel Coalition, Together for the Gospel, and other like minded efforts. Rallying around the gospel is vital – but even in these things, the nature of Christ isn’t as emphasized as I would like to see. No doubt, we are highlighting things like propitiation, and justification, because these things are needed. And, thankfully, I recognize that Christ is spoken of in all these things. But I believe more attention needs to be given to Him: His nature, His life, and how He absolutely influences every bit of doctrine and practice.

We’ve seen it over and again. When we focus on one doctrine over another, we lose sight of the main thing. All doctrine is important. But some have overemphasized ecclesiology, or eschatology, or bibliogy. I contend that there is only one thing you cannot overemphasize – Christology. Christology is the foundation, center, and capstone of every other detail of doctrine. It all points to Him, it’s all about Him. If your theology isn’t doing it, you’re not doing theology correctly.

My prayer is to see the New Dynamic of Fundamentalism become thoroughly Christocentric. I want to see how every issue touches on the doctrine of Christ. I want to always have Christ as the focus of every study, every post, every sermon. I want to see this exemplify the character and holiness of Christ. I want to see Christ lifted up and glorified in our lives, ministries, and even blogs. If we are not doing that, we are missing the most elementary thing and doing this completely in vain.

Kent Brandenburg commented and said:

It’s not like people haven’t heard what you are presenting. It’s the propaganda taught in the Native and African American studies departments at UC Berkeley.

I replied to him saying:

Now that’s what I call a racist sort of statement, unless you are willing to clarify it and explain it, because right now it smacks very much of racism by simply associating it with the teaching that occurs in studies of people who are non-white. At this point you have only given proof to Erik of what he was saying could possibly be an issue. I have a feeling that you probably didn’t mean for it to come across as it did. I surely hope you meant otherwise.

Now he has replied to my response.

A few weeks ago, you pull the race card because of a statement that I made that was thoroughly not about skin color. It shows quite a bit of insecurity. Perhaps you are feeling guilty about something? Where do you pastor? I just preached our kindergarten graduation tonight. Our kindergarten teacher, whom my wife and I discipled, is black. In her class were six kindergarteners, two Indian (from India), one Chinese, one black, and two hispanic. No whites.

I do not know why it has taken Kent so long to respond.  Neither do I know why he chose to engage the issue in another place when ample opportunity was given to him to clear it up here.  I explicitly stated that he could clarify his statement, and that I truly hoped that he meant otherwise.  It would have been better had he responded here and cleared the issue up instead of leaving the matter in a situation where we were unsure of what he was saying.  It would also have been better had he cleared the matter up here instead of bringing it up on another blog.

Never the less, in a sense of fairness, Kent’s comments are now here for you to see that he declares that he is not a racist, and that he does indeed work with people who are of a different color than he.

Kent, thank for clearing this up.

In Hebrew, bronze serpent is nechash ha-nechesheth. At the end of the verse, Hezekiah calls it nechustan – literally “that brass thing.” This is a beautiful play on words in Hebrew, bringing the serpent full circle.

We often misread the statement as saying that people called the serpent Nehustan, as if it were the name, but the Hebrew actually indicates that Hezekiah derided the serpent by referring to it as just a hunk of brass. It was not the title of honor but a title of disdain.

Why did the Israelites revere nechash ha-nechesheth as if it were a god? Because snake cults were very common in Canaanite at the time. Archaeologists have found snake icons in the sanctum sanctorum of a Canaanite temple in Hazor, as well as some possible icons in other temples in Gezer and Shechem.

Why say all of this?

Because it is just human nature to make gods out of hunks of brass, and we have an obligation as teachers of the Scriptures to remind people that hunks of brass are just hunks of brass. As unpopular as it might be to say, Christians often worship the things God uses rather than the God who uses them. This could be applied to leaders of personality cults, to versions of the Bible, and to even doctrinal structures.

If we really want to reform fundamentalism, we have to be willing to call hunks of brass what they are. We have to be willing to tear down the ‘old landmarks’ that have become altars.

One of the important points the fundamentalist movement advanced was the idea that there are certain core doctrines related to the Gospel which should be central.  Dispensationalists and covenant theologians, baptists and presbyterians, scholarly professors and populist preachers, Calvinists and Arminians all came together around the fundamentals and united in a defense of this core doctrinal truth in the face of a widespread liberalism.  All the denominations ended up having to split over the issue, but it took time.

The biggest problem I see in the fundamentalism of today is the tendency to raise the level of any and every issue to the same importance as the Gospel.  Certain sectors have certain pet doctrines or practices.  These become an all-or-nothing matter.  Bible versions, musical styles, specific eschatological positions and the like become defining elements and are raised in importance.  In so doing, the Gospel then, becomes just another thing we believe.  Rather than being What we believe, it becomes a point of our belief.  What really defines us is our stand for the various hot-button topics.

We’ve heard it said you have to keep the main thing the main thing.  Fundamentalism has been majoring on the minors for too long.

Adopting a Gospel-centered view frees us to find unity around the great truths of the Gospel and agree to disagree over the relatively minor points where we disagree.  This perspective doesn’t mean we sell out on truth and don’t care about doctrine.  It means we prioritize the doctrine which is essential to salvation.  Historic Christianity has always admitted that certain points in the Bible are more clear than others.  We must admit that due to the fall our reason has been marred, and there are many reasons why some of us won’t agree on minor points.  But when we agree on the major defining truths of the Gospel, that should matter much more than our disagreement on minor points.  Let us be defined by the Gospel!

Will

Building upon their posts (Though I think none of us anticipated this becoming a series of posts.) I would like to bring in another perspective.  That perspective is the value of doctrine.

The value of doctrine?  Yes.  Fundamental doctrine.  The historic Fundamentals.  For too long much of Fundamentalism has been wrapped up in making doctrines out of opinions, practices, and preferences.  It is our desire to move back to a doctrinally driven paradigm.  A doctrinally driven church counters the Purpose Driven Church and the Practice Driven Church (which we see in many IFB circles).

It is our desire to give wide latitude to our brothers and sisters in areas of Christian liberty.  On the other hand, we all hold to the basic, historic Fundamentals of the faith.  We long to find our unity, there, because it is a Christian unity.  There is not much wiggle room in those areas.  There is Christianity and there is Liberalism.  There is Christianity and there is its perversion in practice driven churches.  Christianity is about Christ and our relationship with Him through grace.  We long to hold that up to people so that they can experience liberation from sin and be saved.  We long to hold that grace up to people so that they can experience liberation from the treadmill of trying to earn God’s favor so that He’ll be satisfied with them and bless them as His children.

The “New Dynamic” is one in which we long to become a different people and help others do the same.  That will come by becoming a more Biblically and doctrinally educated people.  As that happens we will learn to trust God’s grace and will be transformed into the image of Christ.

I appreciate the men that I have brought on board over the last year or so.  These men who contribute to this blog are men whom I have never met face to face.  I can feel their love for Christ, though.  I can sense their desire to be true to Him and His Word.  I look forward to the days ahead when Fundamentally Changed becomes Re:Fundamentals (more discussion of that in the future) and we take this blog to the next level of discussion, teaching, and growth.  I look forward to learning from them.  I look forward, dear reader, to growing with you.

Stay tuned.  Be looking for Re-Fundamentals.com  Comment and let us know what you think.  Suggest, if you wish, something to add to the discussion.  We’d like to hear from you.  Tell us where you are on your journey.

The “New Dynamic”, Re:Fundamentals, and all of us here are on a journey of growth.  Journey with us.

The reason for all the emails? We’re trying very hard to avoid becoming known as an ‘anti-fundamentalism’ site. All of us, at some point in our lives, have left some form of extreme fundamentalism, and there are a lot of excesses in that particular camp that probably do need to be pointed out along the way. But we do not want to be reactionary.

Instead, we want to create a forum where people emerging from fundamentalism can discuss what fundamentalism needs to be;what the fundamentals actually are; and where we go from here. We want to heal wounds, not pour salt into them.

In the first post in this series, Will noted that we should strive to be humble in our approach to God’s Word. In this follow-up, I want to encourage everyone who participates in both the writing of these articles and in commenting on them afterward that this is a conversation – a discussion. None of us have arrived and have all the answers. No matter how definitive we may sound in our articles, we are striving to grow and learn from God’s Word.

There is a lot of diversity among the writers of this blog. Most of the writers are somewhat Reformed in their theological bend; some of us are widely read; others are maturing students of textual criticism. None of us are at a place where we are telling people what to believe, and may God save us from ever being in that place.

So if humility is the first characteristic of this New Dynamic, then let’s make conversation the second. This is a humble conversation for those coming out of extreme fundamentalism and asking, “What am I supposed to believe?”

There’s no way we are going to be able to change any of the current institutions. They are what they are. It will have to be us youngsters who buck the system, and work together without anyone having to be in the spotlight to forge a movement that stands for truth. We need to rebel against the political cronyism that dominates the current state of fundamentalism.  Wouldn’t it be great if a new generation of fundamentalism was known for it’s humility instead of its sectarianism? Pride is the pathway to failure in any person, church, movement or institution. I believe that pride has been the distinguishing trademark of fundamentalism in the last century. If as a new generation we could realize that it’s all about Jesus and not about any of us, we could make a big difference that may influence evangelicalism and the rest of the world. When you look at the 1800′s men like D.L. Moody were leading the way, but he was an incredibly humble man. We would do well to learn from their humility as we learn from our forefathers’ theology as well.