Rick Warren on Fundamentalism

Tim Challies pointed me to an "online extra" article on the Philadelphia Inquirer's website this past Sunday on Rick Warren.  It's a pretty good article and Warren says some good things.  I particularly like his concern that the church has come to be known more for what it is against than what it is for - I think he is absolutely right about that.  The church has become known as a reactionary organization.  He also has apparently been reading Nancy Pearcey, because he quotes her quote of Bill Wichterman who said that politics is downstream from culture.  He goes on to embellish that a bit, saying that he would trust the local rabbi, Imam, pastor or priest to know a community better than he would the local community.  That's a bit of an overstatement, I have known some local politicians who know their communities better than anyone else, but his point is still good - politics is not ultimate, so we'll give him that one.

But at the risk of being cranky and being known for what I am against, I have some concerns, mostly over the way he plays fast and loose with history.

Warren says:

"The New Testament says the church is the body of Christ, but for the last 100 years, the hands and feet have been amputated, and the church has just been a mouth. And mostly, it's been known for what it's against,"

And . . .

"One of my goals is to take evangelicals back a century, to the 19th century," said Warren, 51, shifting painfully in his chair because of a back sprain suffered during an all-terrain-vehicle romp with his 20-year-old son, Matthew. "That was a time of muscular Christianity that cared about every aspect of life."

Not just personal salvation, but social action. Abolishing slavery. Ending child labor. Winning the right for women to vote.

It's time for modern evangelicals to trade words for deeds and get similarly involved, Warren contends.

Fair enough - the body of Christ has hands and feet and is not just a mouth - that's a good point.  But he completely ignores what was happening one hundred years ago.  Evangelicals didn't amputate the church's hands and feet, any survey of Christian missionary activity will show that evangelicals have always been involved in the kinds of mercy ministries he is advocating.

What was happening a century ago was that the modernists were using their hands and feet to meet the physical needs of people while using their mouths (with voices raised) to deny the fundamentals of the gospel.  So, while the evangelicals kept their hands and feet busy, they  opened their mouths (and used their pens) to combat the errors of the modernists.

J. Gresham Machen was one of the great leaders of the fundamentalist movement and it is interesting that he was defrocked by his denomination precisely because of his formation of an alternative mission board.  While some were supporting Pearl Buck and other missionaries who engaged in humanitarian endeavors while denying the gospel, Machen started a mission board that would engage in missionary endeavors for the sake of the gospel.

I think Warren made a slip of the tongue here and was just being careless in his speech when he said he wants evangelicals to trade words for deeds but it is a crucial mistake.  To "trade" means to replace one with the other, and to trade a "word orientation" to ministry for a "deed orientation" is fatal to the faith.  The fruit of the gospel shows itself in deeds, but the message of the gospel is only communicated in words.  Where there are no words there is no gospel.  Again I am sure this was a slip of the tongue, as I know Warren desires to preach the gospel, as he understands it, wherever he goes.  But its still a fatal slip.

Warren's loosey-goosey approach to history comes out in his comments on fundamentalism. 

Warren predicts that fundamentalism, of all varieties, will be "one of the big enemies of the 21st century."

"Muslim fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, secular fundamentalism - they're all motivated by fear. Fear of each other."

In his famous Pew Forum interview, (which I think he did very well on in many ways) Warren says:

Now the word "fundamentalist" actually comes from a document in the 1920s called the Five Fundamentals of the  Faith. And it is a very legalistic, narrow view of Christianity, and when I say there are very few fundamentalists, I mean in the sense that they are all actually called fundamentalist churches, and those would be quite small. There are no large ones.

Aaarrrgghhh Matey!!  Would a little accuracy kill anyone here?  Let's go over this again.  The way the word "fundamentalist" is used today is very different from the way it was used back in the 1920's with the publication of the Fundamentals of the Faith.  The Fundamentals were key, cornerstone Christian doctrines which the writers believed must be affirmed by anyone who calls themselves a Christian. All of these doctrines had been denied in one form or another by the modernists.

J. Gresham Machen was one of the key churchmen and intellectuals in the formation of this.  However, Machen later parted company with his fellow fundamentalists because they took the fundamentalist movement in a more social direction.  Later fundamentalism become more concerned with social issues, like prohibition and other things and Machen correctly understood that the movement had lost its gospel and doctrinal moorings and became a legalistic, deeds oriented, behaviorally focused movement.

I am not sure if Machen ever said it in these words, but what happened is that the later fundamentalists became like the modernists they opposed in that they became focused on social issues.  Their issues were different from the modernists issues, but the modernists and liberals were two peas in the same pod in that they defined Christianity in terms of deeds, rather than beliefs.  To be sure, the fundamentalists still adhered to the gospel whereas the modernsts didn't, but the fundamentalist gospel got buried under their legalism.

Machen understood that Christianity was a life, but it was a life based on belief.  The modernists denied the centrality of belief and the fundamentalists did a lousy job of connecting the dots.

So, this is why I think Warren is being very sloppy and unhealthy here in the way he talks connects the five fundamentals with a narrow, legalistic view of Christianity.  Is this the fundamentalism that is one of the enemies of the 21st century?  Does he mean to say that those who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth of Jesus, the substitutionary atonement, the second coming, the Trinity and justification by faith are enemies of the 21st century?  Come on Rick, what is your purpose in saying things like that? 

And what is driving Warren to equate Christian fundamentalists with Muslim, Jewish and secular fundamentalists, particularly Muslim fundamentalists?  Each of these groups have their extremists but does he mean to say that Christian extremists pose the same danger to the 21st century as do Muslim extremists?  And by that I don't mean to be inflammatory toward the average Muslim fundamentalist. Although I do not agree with the way he words things I agree with sentiment of President Bush that the vast majority of Musims (even the fundamentalists) are peace loving.  It's the extremists from any group that we have to worry about.  Does recent history show that Christian extremists have posed as great a danger to the 21st century as Muslim extremists?  If you have trouble answering that question my buddy the Discoshaman has a tally sheet on the sidebars of his Religion of Peace blog that might help you.  Again, I'm not defending any Christian extremism at all - it is something to be repented of.  Christian extremism may in fact turn bloody, and this would be a great tragedy, but as of yet it hasn't and Warren is gravely mistaken to equate it with other forms of extremism.

The biggest gripe I have about Warren is that he is fundamentally like the fundamentalists he disapproves of, and he has much in common with the modernists whose doctrinal views he denies. Fundamentalists, modernists and Warrenists have this in common - Christianity is a religion defined by its deeds, not by the gospel.  In the Pew Forum interview he says he wants to create a reformation of deeds, not creeds.  That is the very undoing of Christianity because Christianity begins with the presupposition that all of our righteous deeds are as filthy rags in the sight of God. Yes I know the fundamentalists and Warrenists will scream bloody murder when I say this.  They wil say, "well of course the gospel is primary."  But the problem is they don't say that.  The Philadelphia Inquirer says that Warren

wants to use his growing influence - and wealth - for an ambitious global attack on poverty, AIDS, illiteracy and disease.

That is great - Warren is announcing to the world that he has come up with a new initiative to do what Christians have always done.  What he didn't do here was make the proclamation of the gospel primary and these other things secondary.

I realize I am being unduly harsh here - I do think it is a good thing that Warren is using his influence for these noble humanitarian ends, and I do know that he will deliver include some type of gospel message in his larger humanitarian agenda.

But I do think it is worthwhile for all of us Christians to step back and recalibrate our understanding of what exactly God has called us to be and to do and to understand exactly what the greatest crises in the world are.

The greatest crisis facing the world today is not poverty, AIDS, illiteracy, disease, abortion, homosexual marriage, sexual promiscuity, governmental malfeasance, drinking, smoking, dancing or card-playing. 

The greatest crisis facing the world today is unbelief.  These other things are problems to be sure, but they pale in comparison to the problem of unbelief. 

And I do hope that in the future Mr. Warren will be more careful when talking about Christian history to not charge our forefathers with crimes they didn't commit.  I also think it would be prudent for him to align himself with those who championed the primacy of the gospel, instead of distinguishing himself from them.  Why would any preacher want to distinguish himself from those of the past who fought so valiantly for the recovery of the gospel?

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