Why I Am A Fundamentalist

The following is a message I preached in 1978, one year before I became pastor of Thompson Road Baptist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, where I would serve for the next 40 years, retiring in 2019 as senior pastor. I was, in 1978, a young pastor; I am now 82 years of age—and still a Fundamentalist. Some quotes may need to be updated in the message, but not the core of it. Here is why I was and still am a Fundamentalist:

“Modern man is a great innovator, and the day in which we live is a day of innovation. New machines, new ideas, new methods, new styles, new philosophies—who among us is not captivated, momentarily at least, by the sight or sound of something new?

Actually, wise King Solomon warned that there is nothing new under the sun. What is being tried by the new generation—and paraded and promoted as “the latest”—more than likely is nothing but a “revived relic” that had been tried and discarded already by past generations.

Therefore, when I hear of something new, I am at once dubious about it, and especially so when it relates to the theological arena. For instance, new-evangelicalism and neo-orthodoxy are terms describing modern movements in Christendom. But, an examination of both movements will reveal that neither is new. Rather, both are old forms of compromise and liberalism under new guises.

There are some things that should never be made new! There are some things that should never be changed!  To change what God has declared is absolute is to violate the Word of God.

In Proverbs 22:28, we read of ancient landmarks that were set by the fathers. These were to be changeless, for they were literally God-ordained boundaries. This proverb has its foundation in the law, recorded in Deut. 19:14: “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’s landmark—which they of old time have set in thine inheritance.”

This law was to be taken seriously. In Deut. 27:17 we read: “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.”

In Job 24:2, the patriarch Job placed this high on a list of sins committed by wicked men who rebelled against the light.

Of these ancient landmarks, which were boundaries, C.H. McIntosh, in his commentary on the Pentateuch, says: “The landmarks were not to be meddled with…Jehovah had given the land to Israel—assigned to each tribe and family a proper portion—marked off with perfect precision and indicated by landmarks so plain there could be no confusion, no clashing of interests—no grounds for lawsuits or controversy about property.”

Thus, the landmarks were border lines that were rigid and non-negotiable. They were never to be moved!

Just as the nation Israel had certain boundaries that were permanent, so the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ has certain defined boundaries within which she is to move freely. These boundaries are not to be moved. The great doctrines of the Christian faith—the historic landmarks of Christianity—are not to be tampered with. They are non-negotiable!

As a pastor and as a believer, I want to speak now to the landmarks of the Christian faith, and to the thesis: “Why I am a Fundamentalist.”

First, I will mention a few ideas or “charges” against Fundamentalism—what I choose to label “the defamation of Fundamentalism.”

Fundamentalism has been defamed through misrepresentation. George Dollar, in his book A History of Fundamentalism in America (Bob Jones University Press, 1973, p.176) speaks of the popular use of the word “Fundamentalist.” He says it “included all those who defended the Bible against attacks of liberalism. The popular use of the word has continued so that even today those believing that the Bible is the very word of God and that it should be taught and defended as such are generally labeled ‘Fundamental.’” So, Dr. Dollar was saying that the label “Fundamentalist” conveyed the idea of a movement that was, in his thinking, too broad. He later, in his book, spoke of a group of “evangelicals” that he would call “modified fundamentalists.” Of these he wrote: “Most of them have a fundamentalist background and affirm the inspiration of the Bible, the sinfulness of man, the deity of Christ, His atoning death, His bodily resurrection, and the return of the Lord. They are basically evangelical, but because of their surrender to New Evangelicalism, they are outside the mainstream of Fundamentalism. This they have not announced, and they go on getting money and students from churches and groups because they have not announced their new-evangelical character.”

Fundamentalism has also been “defamed” through the years by misleading labels. To merely mention a few, we have been labeled as “anti-intellectual;” embracing “Bibliolatry,” “anti-social,” “too negative,” “unloving,” and “obscurantists.”

Second, a definition of Fundamentalism: Historically, a book series called The Fundamentals (1909) marked the beginning of the Fundamentalist movement. The publication of The Fundamentals was preceded by a revival movement in the late 1800s, characterized by a renewed interest in eschatology, the birth of Bible Institutes, and the birth and rise of the 20^th-century Sunday School movement.

Close on the heels of these historic happenings came the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies of the 1920s-1930s, in which dividing lines were drawn over the authority and inspiration of the Bible, the ability of man to deal with his own problems, etc. Modernist leaders were men like E. Stanley Jones (“I do not believe in the Virgin Birth, and I do not know of any intelligent person who does”), Harry Emerson Fosdick, Elton Trueblood, James Pike, George Buttrick, and others. Arguing for the authority and inspiration of the Bible were notables such as J. Gresham Machen, J. Frank Norris, Robert Ketcham, H. A. Ironside, W.E. Dowell, Bob Jones, Sr., W. B. Riley, Harry Rimmer, R.A. Torrey, and others.

Here is what Fundamentalists have historically believed and affirmed: (1) An immoveable allegiance to the inerrant, infallible, verbally inspired Word of God (i.e., the Bible); (2) “Whatever the Bible says is so;” (3) All things should be judged by the Bible and only by the Bible; (4) the foundational truths of historic Christianity, including the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Birth; the substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross, His bodily resurrection and visible ascension into heaven, and His Second Coming; the New Birth through regeneration, the resurrection of saints to life eternal—and of the ungodly to final judgment and eternal death; (5) the fellowship of saints who are members of the Body of Christ, His Church; (6) fidelity to that faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3); (7) separation from all ecclesiastical denial of that faith through compromise and/or apostasy; (8) earnestly contending for the faith (a militant orthodoxy set on fire with soul-winning zeal).

(To be continued…)