Fuller boasts over 4,500 students from over 67 countries and 108 denominations so their loosy-goosey theological, political, and social positions are understandable as well as untenable and unscriptural.

The Evangelicals who founded the school did not like the Fundamentalists’ doctrine of separation, especially ecclesiastical separation. They did not agree with the Apostle Paul’s command to “come out from among them” because they wanted to stay in their denominations and maintain their perks, power, and positions. After all, they reasoned, one can carry personal and doctrinal purity just so far. They also did not want to pay the price of being shunned, slandered, and sacked by their churches. Many religious leaders had moved up in this world and enjoyed the “good life.” So they had to be careful, you know. One must be practical.

They said that they would remain in corrupt denominations and fight; well, they stayed in but they refused to fight. New Evangelicals are lovers not fighters and they don’t understand that true lovers love truth enough to fight for it. Most Evangelical leaders will not fight unbelief and corruption but they gladly fight Fundamentalists!

Another reason for breaking with Fundamentalists was the perceived need for social involvement. Most people would think that the debacle of the 1920s and 1930s with the infiltration of the social gospel into mainline churches would be enough evidence to make anyone eschew such unscriptural folly.

Most Evangelical leaders cannot or will not delineate between an individual Christian’s responsibility to society and a church’s responsibility. Therefore, modern Evangelicals are in hot pursuit of the social gospel as seen in many of the megachurches and emergent churches which are often led by playboy preachers in faded blue jeans, tee shirts, spiked hair, and gold chains. Usually with a BMW or Mercedes parked out front. And the television charlatan tools around town in a Rolls Royce!

The third leg to the Evangelical stool is their desire for a passionate love affair with theological liberals. So there was an understanding between them: unbelieving liberal preachers would overlook the unfortunate culture of these erstwhile Fundamentalists and these Fundamentalists would overlook the radical unbelief of the liberal clergy–people who were no more Christian than an emaciated alley cat. In fact, at least the cat was not a hypocrite, professing to believe the truth while all the time hating it. As one Evangelical confessed to this understanding between New Evangelicals and Leftist Liberals: we will call you “brother” if you will call us “scholar.” So they climbed into bed with each other and it is a sorry, sordid, sinful affair. And it is an affair.

All the above always results from a weak view of Scripture. From their beginning, the New Evangelicals, Christianity Today, and Fuller Seminary were weak on inerrancy. Inerrancy means there are no errors in the Bible while infallible means that errors are impossible. Harold Lindsell declared in The Battle for the Bible that “The very nature of inspiration renders the Bible infallible, which means that it cannot deceive us. It is inerrant in that it is not false, mistaken, or defective.” Lindsell presciently suggested in 1976 that caving on the doctrine of the inerrancy was “the thread that would unravel the church.” He was right on target as we watch this take place daily.

The ordained weasels among us have twisted inerrancy to mean that everything in the Bible is to be taken literally but even a fool knows that there are many metaphors, similes, and hyperboles in the Scripture. Proper hermeneutics will take care of that. No, inerrancy simply means, “without error.” As the Belgic Confession states, with the canonical books “there can be no quarrel at all.” The Bible is simply, “true.”

Billy Graham gave this heresy impetus when he declared in 1986, “I personally never use the word ‘inerrancy.’ I almost wish the word had never been used. I don’t think its [sic] a necessary word.” What a tragedy, but then Graham has gone through life having dinner with radical unbelievers and Evangelicals and throwing Fundamentalists a few crumbs now and then. During his meetings they have been relegated to sit in the back of the auditorium, metaphorically speaking.

Those Christians interested in obeying the Bible refused to “hook up” with the unbelieving crowd for any reason. I gladly associate with that principled crowd!

Copyright 2013, Don Boys, Ph.D.

The title “fundamentalist” is taken from a series of 12 books published in 1910-1915 written by 65 leading Christian scholars; however, I believe that such Christians go back to the beginning of Christianity! All believers in the early churches were Fundamentalists until the Gnostics arrived! The early Christians simply believed in “the fundamentals,” not only what is essential but what is important.

I gladly wear the badge of “Fundamentalist” because I have discovered in my life that these people are the finest, godliest, kindest, theologically sound, and most sincere people alive. Yes, we have had and will have a few scoundrels who have embarrassed Christianity but then that was true  for Paul and the Corinthian church. The Bible commands us how to deal with public sinners; however, even many Fundamentalist churches usually refuse to follow that command. I’m still thrilled to be a Fundamentalist.

The Modernist-Fundamentalist battle raged back in the 40s and 50s when many mainline churches and seminaries, led by unbelieving pastors and professors, lost hundreds of churches to the Fundamentalist camp. Many of those Modernists confessed to be true Christians at their ordination and at the signing of doctrinal positions but were dishonest, only pretending to be Bible Christians. Some were so radical they climbed into bed with Communists!

The fat hit the fire  in the late 40s when many dissatisfied Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and a few others exposed the rabid unbelief and Communist influence in the churches, colleges, periodicals, seminaries, and mission boards. Error cannot survive with truth just as darkness cannot coexist with light.  Over serveral years, courageous fundamentalist pastors left their church buildings, denominations, friends, pulpits, income, and retirement plans to begin anew in a hired hall or storefront church. It was a singular time in religious history to be compared, with a little hyperbole, to the Egyptian Exodus and the Protestant Reformation.

After the division, the issue was clear: we had unbelieving Modernists on one side and believing Fundamentalists on the other side. Then, in the late 40s and early 50s a formal schism happened when more liberal pastors pulled away from fundamentalism and became “New Evangelicals.” The Fundamentalists preached strict adherence to Bible teaching that included a “coming out” principle. They taught that believers should “come out” from unbelieving organizations as many of them had done. Fundamentalists also taught that they must contend for the faith and exhort people to do the right thing at all times. They also preached what their critics thought was a little too much about Judgment and Hell to come.

Sometimes while preaching, Fundamentalists even took off their suit coat and rolled up their sleeves! Some even sweated profusely to the disgust of the sophisticated in their audience. It seems few want to be associated with the memory of an uncouth John the Baptist; after all, he lost his head. Most New Evangelicals don’t have to worry about that. They do lose their senses, if not their composure, when they try to explain why they left their Fundamentalist roots.

Moreover, Fundamentalists preached that people who had been Born Again should live as if they had a new life. Christians were expected to tell the truth, be faithful to a spouse, obey the laws, pay their bills, live godly lives, and train their children to do the same. Some leaders went to extremes and made lists for members to follow. And yes, some things on the lists were silly with no scriptural support. Of course, that was exactly what the Jewish leaders did in Christ’s day.

There was concern on the part of Evangelicals that Fundamentalists were not cognizant, concerned, or committed to social problems; however, Fundamentalists believed that their main message was Christ and His death and resurrection. They remembered the debacle in the 1920s when the social gospel was preached and Fundamentalists wanted to steer away from that deadly error.

A snooty Evangelical falsely charged that a Fundamentalist who “was prepared to even speak to a Roman Catholic was often considered liberal and fatally compromised.” Intellectually speaking, that is poppycock and a generous portion of hogwash. In more than fifty years in Fundamentalist churches I have never been aware of that–nothing close to that. That’s dishonesty.

Evangelicals were always embarrassed about Fundamentalists’ “responsible militancy.” Evangelicals only get militant opposing Fundamentalists! I have noticed that the leading Evangelicals are far more patient and kind to unbelievers than to Fundamentalists. Very strange, especially when Evangelicals speak and write so much about love and tolerance. But the love and tolerance do not go to Fundamentalists.

It’s a fact: if a Christian is not militant, he is not a Bible-practicing person! Not mad, or malicious, or mean, but militant.

The accusation is made that Fundamentalists always insist on a literal interpretation of Scripture–even the metaphors and allegories. Nonsense, all Fundamentalists (even the dumbest among us) are aware that trees don’t have hands to clap; however, we do believe that God is trying to tell us something with every Bible passage. Even non-seminarians know that the Bible contains poetry, parables, proverbs, and prophecies as well as history.

A true scholar asks, “What does God want me know about that passage?“ Evangelicals may ask the same question, but after finding the truth of the Scripture, they refuse to obey it. With them, “love” is far more important than truth; however, truth without love is coldness and love without truth is corruption.

The fact is, we are to be Christians who love people, principle, and precepts.

Those who are Bible-oriented and Bible-directed have problems with her chosen life of perversion. Yes, I could have been less direct and offensive but some slow readers would not have comprehended my message which is Bible-sourced in Rom. 1:26: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.” The Bible teaches that when a person comes to Christ, he or she is a new person. Old things pass away and everything becomes new. New includes a bed partner of the opposite sex to whom one has made a lifetime commitment in marriage, or no bed partner.

From my limited reading about her, she seems to be very sincere and very dedicated to helping the displaced, the discouraged, and the diseased. All very commendable, but the social gospel (where social work is emphasized and the true Gospel is eliminated) has never worked, is not working now, and will never work. It will serve some helpless, hopeless, and hapless people but such activities did not take my grandmother or “Mother” Teresa to Heaven and good works won’t help Sara.

That said, my big concern is her “conversion” experience. Now, all conversion experiences are not identical; however there are some common denominators: the risen Christ; the Word of God; repentance; and belief. It doesn’t have to be in church with an organ playing and the choir singing “Just as I am” but it does have to be a New Birth experience. If not, there is no conversion. Sara gives no indication of such a Bible experience. In fact, she said that “Salvation is not an experience; it is a journey.” False! The New Birth is comparable to the physical birth and all birth certificates have a name, place, time, and parents listed. Rather definite like the New Birth. Both births are the starting point of a new life.

Sara wrote, “Eating Jesus, as I did that day to my great astonishment, led me against all my expectations to a faith I’d scorned and work I’d never imagined. The mysterious sacrament turned out to be not a symbolic wafer but actual food—indeed, the bread of life.” What a twisted understanding of the Gospel. There is no salvation in a ritual. It is the old Roman Catholic heresy of the bread and wine actually becoming the body of Christ. A reviewer of Sara’s book, Take this Bread: A Radical Conversion, wrote, “But she ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed.” Afraid not. She became a doer of good but that is not salvation. Good works proceed from the New Birth; they do not produce the New Birth.

In The Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead (Rob Bell said: “one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read.”) she writes, “that Jesus has given us the power to be Jesus.” No, He gives us power to live so that we remind people of Him. Such godly living would determine our sleeping arrangements. Christians cannot become “little gods” or “human Christs.” Such teaching is heresy. Sara continues her heresy when she wrote: “You have the authority to forgive sins. Raise the dead.” No, that is not true. No human can forgive sins, only God does that. Additionally, Christ gave authority to the Apostles that He did not give to other followers. And none of her Episcopal or Catholic fiends are raising the dead either.

She compares John the Baptist (calling him a “nutcase”) to an unwashed guy with “skanky dreadlocks” sleeping at the library entrance. She shows no understanding or appreciation for the local church that Christ died for.

One reviewer wrote, “Sara Miles shows genuine transformation and her life has clearly been changed. Repentance in the Bible is often NOT about contrition but about ‘metanoia’ which means ‘to live in a new direction.’ Miles seems to display this in clear and meaningful ways as a part of her conversion and encounter with Christ.” The shallowness is appalling. Yes, there was a change in her life. She stopped being an atheist but that commendable change did not make her a Christian. When a person becomes a Christian, change follows that experience.

Furthermore, the reviewer’s differentiation between repentance and contrition is bogus. Paul clearly wrote in II Cor. 7:10 “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation.” Repentance is a change of mind and heart that results in a reverse of direction. It means “to change one’s mind, repent, a fundamental change of character.”

Christianity Today, in a review, was unable to be judgmental about Sara’s conversion and her subsequent lifestyle; however, it can be very judgmental about Fundamentalists! It reported, “Miles became pregnant. She and the father, Bob, another journalist, settled in San Francisco, where their daughter Katie was born. Here Miles’s life took on a new domesticity, rooted in one place. Bob, ‘who had come out as a gay man,’ lived nearby. And Miles and Katie…began to share their home with Martha, an editor with whom Miles had fallen in love.”

The review continues, “But it would be a shame if such lapses kept evangelicals from reading Miles, who has no doubt been at the receiving end of plenty of caricatures (not least, the preposterous claim that living arrangements such as hers constitute a great threat to ‘the family’).” Yeah, a real shame.

So, Christianity Today recommends her books and even defends her lesbianism (although characterizing such as “lapses”) saying it is “preposterous” that such a life could be a threat to “the family.” I wonder if the magazine could muster up enough courage to declare that such a life is not conducive to a normal, Christian family? Does the magazine recommend that homosexuality be accepted and recognized as normal? Just asking.

Maybe someday CT will acquire enough biblical certainty, courage, convictions, and candor to make a judgment about sin even if it agitates, angers and alienates their subscribers.