No Place for Church: Or Whatever Happened to Fundamentalist Ecclesiology?

As I was reading a few weeks ago from Rolland McCune's Promise Unfulfilled: The Failed Strategy of Modern Evangelicalism, I about fell out of my chair when I encountered the following footnote:

Both the new evangelicals and the fundamentalists believed in and appealed to the purity of the visible church in their diverse formulations of separatism. After extensive research, Larry R. Oats concluded that neither side gave theological precision to their doctrine of ecclesiology, and this failure only furthered the division between the two groups. The Relationship of Ecclesiology to the Doctrine of Ecclesiastical Separation evidenced in the New Evangelical and Fundamentalist Movements of the Middle Twentieth Century (Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1999), p. iv.

I haven't had the opportunity to read all of Oats' disseration*, so I can't say to what degree beyond McCune's summary it actually details the deficiency of the ecclesiology of both fundamentalists and broader evangelicals. And although I've taken a class with McCune and several from Oats, I really don't know whether their views of fundamentalist ecclesiology would be quite as dim as mine.

Of course, my surprise upon reading this footnote had nothing to do with the fact that someone was raising doubts about evangelical ecclesiology. Evangelicals themselves do that sort of thing all the time. What was really astounding to me was that fundamentalists are raising questions about fundamentalist ecclesiology. Self-criticism isn't the kind of thing we typically do often or well.

I actually do do it often, even if I don't do it particularly well. But then I'm the kind of guy whose perspective on fundamentalist ecclesiology has been shaped by a popular university that wouldn't permit its faculty and staff to attend a local church on Sunday morning unless they were on paid staff.

I'm the guy who learned more than he wanted to know about fundamentalist ecclesiology when, while working for a fundamentalist Bible college, heard about a professor who candidated for a pastoral role in a local church that used the NIV, but was forbidden by the college president to use anything other than the KJV when he preached in that church. When the president later explained the school's position on translations in chapel, I asked the president of this institution, which proclaimed wholehearted commitment to the primacy of the local church, why local church pastors weren't permitted to make the decisions about what translations of Scripture students and faculty would use in their local church ministries. His response? "No pastor has ever asked me for permission to let students or faculty use any other translation."

I'm the guy who heard quite recently a professor in a fundamentalist college share the story of a man who abandoned pastoral ministry for a teaching position in a college because he wasn't "reproducing himself at all" as a pastor, and I wondered, "Does this professor think this was a good choice or a bad one? Or is he merely indifferent?"

Of course, this is nothing more than anecdotal evidence. Maybe my perception of a fundamentalist culture that is dominated by prominent, influential personalities who lead parachurch ministries or engage in itinerant evangelism is simply skewed. Maybe it's completely inconsistent with reality. Maybe all the people who share this assessment are simply misguided.

In any case, my hope is that fundamentalist pastors and congregations will hear the concerns of Drs. McCune and Oats, two widely-respected teachers, pastors, and thinkers who are far more knowledgeable and credible than I. My hope is that people in positions that provide the means and carry the responsibility to effect change will consider whether and how our ecclesiology truly is deficient and take steps to reverse the trend, whether that is on a macro or micro level. My hope is that the church can regain its rightfully prominent standing as a display of God's glory and as the bride of Christ. My hope is that the revitalization of churches will restore other potentially useful organizations and functions to their rightful role of service, not leadership.

Finally, my hope is that we'll avoid placing the blame for this departure from biblical ecclesiology primarily on the parachurch leaders who've accepted the leadership role that ought to have resided in local churches and their pastors. After all, the men I've referred to above are, themselves, products of the fundamentalist culture that created the problem. It seems a bit unfair to make them the scoundrels. Rather, we should assign responsibility to the ecclesiastical culture in fundamentalism that has led so many congregations and pastors to abdicate their rightful, biblical role.

And we ought to change that culture.

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*As best I can tell, I've never asked for anything from the readers here (except, of course, unswerving loyalty in the fine print at the bottom). But I would dearly love to have a copy of Oats dissertation, and I just can't quite justify at the present time the $41 to order it from the fine folks here. So if any of you have a couple $20s and a single burning a hole in your pocket, don't be afraid to surprise me with a copy. You can have it shipped to my attention at this address. Oh, and for your searching convenience the order number for this dissertation is 9925184.

When They Discuss Fundamentalism at Trinity

Andy Naselli has posted his review of Rolland McCune's Promise Unfulfilled: The Failed Strategy of Modern Evangelicalism, which he delivered yesterday in a class at Trinity.

I read the book over the summer, posted on it once, and intend to post more on it, but I've been intending to for a while. For now, let me merely associate myself with Naselli's thorough and insightful analysis and make two comments:

1. I thought the documentation in Iain Murray's Evangelicalism Divided and George Marden's Reforming Fundamentalism offered all the possible documentation of why the new evangelical strategies of ecumenical evangelism and recovery of apostate denominations were bad ideas. I was wrong. McCune goes far beyond them. I simply cannot comprehend how anyone who believes and loves the gospel could conclude that this strategy has been wise, fruitful, or faithful. Yet some seemingly do.

2. As fundamentalists frequently do, McCune criticizes Al Mohler for taking "a lead role in the Billy Graham Louisville ecumenical evangelistic crusade a few years back." Now, I've disagreed with Mohler often, and I certainly don't intend to try to justify this choice, but I think it's worthwhile to point out that Mohler only did so on the condition that no Roman Catholics or liberal Protestants participate in the crusade leadership. This was a significant concession for the Graham camp, even if one is not convinced that it vindicates Mohler. Personally, I'll be far more inclined to accept this fundamentalist criticism as valid when a 32 year-old separatist fundamentalist successfully recovers a theological seminary from the absolute pits of liberalism and transforms it into a conservative bastion and the largest seminary in the world without forming any alliances that could be reasonably questioned.

Dispensationalism: 150 More Years to Get It Right?

As I was reading Andy Naselli's interview of Rolland McCune on his newly-released Systematic Theology volume, a couple things sent my mind in motion. But one of those simply floored me.

Naselli's twelfth question was a provocative one: "What issues have been lingering difficulties in your theological reflection?" It strikes me as the kind of question many theologians would have dodged—it's not especially fashionable for a professional theologian to admit he doesn't have everything figured out.

But McCune doesn't dodge or even unload a squid-like ink blob of obfuscation. Though I'd need some more explanation to grasp his broader point, the implications of his closing comments should be inescapable. Here's what he said:

When I was in seminary in the later 1950s, Dr. John C. Whitcomb opined in class that dispensationalism could take possibly two hundred years to be fully integrated into ST. Dr. Ryrie was reported to have said he thought dispensationalism was about thirty percent developed back then.

I've lived the vast majority of my life in unabashedly Dispensational contexts, and that Dispensationalism has been pretty dogmatic—the kind that sees Covenant Theology as serious error. In many cases, it's seen as the kind of error from which one needs to separate. Some might think of Covenant Theology as "uniquely precarious." Exposure to that sort of dogmatism seems to be the experience of quite a few people my age.

No doubt there are Dispensationalists who don't demonstrate that level of separatist dogmatism. No doubt many CT'ers are similarly dogmatic and condescending to Dispensationalists. And which system is right isn't really the issue here.

So what is the issue? Well, it simply seems to me as though advocates of a system that needs a bit more time to ripen—according to some of its most ardent advocates—might want to demonstrate some reserve when they critique other systems. I'm not suggesting that energetic debate is unfruitful. I've benefited immensely on a personal level from evaluating the clash between the best presentations of mutually exclusive views. And I'm certain that critical interaction has helped both camps move towards better articulations of their views. But I am wondering if a bit more charity and humility, coupled with less rhetoric and fewer straw men, might not serve the cause of the gospel well.

Thinking Biblically

I read with interest Part 2 of Dr. Rolland McCune's article published on SharperIron today. Both portions are worth reading, but I thought the latter contained some particularly worthy advice. In it, he enumerates several issues that will demand biblical thinking and teaching from pastors in the closing years of the 20th century (he was writing in 1989): the importance of thinking theologically, feminism, divorce and remarriage, abortion, civil disobedience, homosexuality, various bio-ethical issues, and immortality and eternal punishment. McCune's advice:

These are old heresies to be sure, but Fundamentalists must be able to articulate the truth of Scripture on these issues. We can no longer consign them to the thinking of the Modernists. Many Fundamentalists have New Evangelical friends and relatives who are being exposed to these teachings. The Fundamental pastor and leader of today will have to be informed and able to teach the Word of God correctly on these subjects. Mere dogmatism and a string of illustrations will lose the day.

The battle of ideas is a gigantic struggle that demands a thorough biblical education and training. After that there is continuous and arduous study of the Scriptures. These matters are doctrinal issues in the last analysis, and must be met with clear theological and biblical thinking. No amount of hillbilly evangelism or flurry of church activity will make them go away if we Fundamentalists want to be God's messengers to modern man in the 1990s and beyond.

These are wise words. I immediately pondered where a pastor might go for biblical insight on these issues. I only spent about five minutes looking, but I found everything but bio-ethical issues here. In fact just a couple days ago these folks were talking about the eternality of hell here (text). If there really is nothing on bio-ethical issues there, I know you can find it here.

My Favorite Dispensationalist Quote. Ever.

Thirteen or fourteen years ago students in the Dispensationalism class at MBBC were assigned Alva McClain's Law and Grace as one of the required texts. I'm sure I read it at the time. Unfortunately, I didn't mark it at all. Flipping through the notes I might have written, from the vantage point of the present, would be a bit of theological archeology. Ah, what might have been.

The book is marginally useful—maddeningly frustrating by repeatedly ducking at least one foundational issue, while making a quite helpful contribution to the indefatigable specter of legalism. Maybe we'll get back to that later. Written in 1954, it feels a bit dated.

But one little snippet just about knocked me out of my chair towards the end of my recent re-read. Let me just say first that McClain is no junior varsity Dispensationalist. His The Greatness of the Kingdom is a Dispensationalist classic. He's actually much more thorough and persuasive than some of the more widely-known Dispensationalist authors. And he's highly regarded by Rolland McCune, who—perhaps more than any other living theologian—represents the Dispensational wing of the Dispensational Party.

So here's what McClain had to say:

I would like to encourage Christians who delight in finding the Lord Jesus Christ upon every page of Scripture. Do not permit yourselves to be frightened by those over-cautious souls who cry against what they call "too much typology." Doubtless there are some things which may properly be catalogued as "types" and the others not. But whatever you may call it, it is the privilege and highest duty of the Christian to discover and behold the face of the Lord Jesus in Scripture—everywhere! Far better to break a few rules of classical hermeneutics than to miss the vision of his blessed face. (67-68, emphasis added)