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VOW
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Edward John Carnell
Chapter VIII
Orthodoxyi is plagued by perils as well as difficultiesii, and the perils are even more disturbing than the difficulties. When orthodoxy slights its difficulties, it elicits criticism; but when it slights its perils, it elicits scorn. The perils are of two sorts – general and specific. The general perils include ideological thinking, a highly censorious spirit, and a curious tendency to separate from the life of the church. The specific peril is the ease with which orthodoxy converts to fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is orthodoxy gone cultic. 1. Fundamentalism When we speak of fundamentalism, however, we must distinguish between the movement and the mentality. The fundamentalist movement was organized shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. When the tidal wave of German higher criticism engulfed the church, a large company of orthodox scholars rose to the occasion. They sought to prove that modernism and Biblical Christianity were incompatible. In this way the fundamentalist movement preserved the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Its “rugged bursts of individualism” were among the finest fruits of the Reformation. But the fundamentalist movement made at least one capital mistake, and this is why it converted from a movement to a mentality. Unlike the Continental Reformers and the English Dissenters, the fundamentalists failed to connect their convictions with the classical creeds of the church. Therefore, when modernism collapsed, the fundamentalist movement became an army without a cause. Nothing was left but the mentality of fundamentalism, and this mentality is orthodoxy’s gravest peril. The mentality of fundamentalism is dominated by ideological thinking. Ideological thinking is rigid intolerant, and doctrinaire; it sees principles everywhere, and all principles come in clear tones of black and white; it exempts itself from the limits that original sin places on history; it wages holy wars without acknowledging the elements of pride and personal interest that prompt the call to battle; it creates new evils while trying to correct old ones. The fundamentalists’ crusade against the Revised Standard Version illustrates the point. The fury did not stem from a scholarly conviction that the version offends Hebrew and Greek idioms, for ideological thinking operates on far simpler criteria. First, there were modernists on the translation committee, and modernists corrupt whatever they touch. It does not occur to fundamentalism that translation requires only personal honesty and competent scholarship. Secondly, the Revised Standard Version's copyright is held by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ. If a fundamentalist used the new version he might give aid and comfort to the National Council and that, on his principles would be sin. By the same token, of course, a fundamentalist would not even buy groceries from a modernist. But ideological thinking is never celebrated for its consistency. 2. J. Gresham Machen The mentality of fundamentalism sometimes crops up where one would lease expect it; and there is no better illustration of this than the inimitable new Testament scholar, J. Gresham Machen. Machen was an outspoken critic of the fundamentalist movement. He argued with great force that Christianity is a system, not a list of fundamentals. The fundamentals include the virgin birth, Christ’s deity and miracles, the atonement, the resurrection, and the inspiration of the Bible. But this list does not even take in the specific issues of the Protestant Reformation. Roman Catholicism easily falls within the limits of fundamentalism. While Machen was a foe of the fundamentalist movement, he was a friend of the fundamentalist mentality, for he took an absolute stand on a relative issue, and the wrong issue at that. Machen gained prominence through his litigations with the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. He contended that when the church has modernists in its agencies and among its officially supported missionaries, a Christian has no other course than to withdraw support. So Machen promptly set up “The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions"; and with equal promptness the General Assembly ordered the Board dissolved. Machen disobeyed the order on the conviction that he could appeal from the General Assembly to the Constitution of the church. But this conviction traced to ideological thinking, for if a federal system is to succeed, supreme judicial power must be vested in one court. This is federalism's answer to the threat of anarchy. Wrong decisions by a court are not irremediable; but until due process of law effects a reversal, a citizen must obey or be prosecuted. Machen became so fixed on the evil of modernism that he did not see the evil of his fixation prompted him to follow a course that eventually offended the older and wiser Presbyterians. These men knew that nothing constructive would be gained by defying the courts of the church. Perhaps the General Assembly had made a mistake; but until the action was reversed by due process of law, obedience was required. No individual Presbyterian can appeal from the General Assembly to the Constitution, and to think that he can is cultic. Ideological thinking prevented Machen from seeing that the issue under trial was the nature of the church, not the doctrinal incompatibility of orthodoxy and modernism. Does the church become apostate when it has modernists in its agencies and among its officially supported missionaries? The older Presbyterians knew enough about Reformed ecclesiology to answer this in the negative. Unfaithful ministers do not render the church apostate. " Dreadful are those descriptions in which Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Habakkuk, and others, deplore the disorders of the church of Jerusalem. There was such general and extreme corruption in the people, in the magistrates, and in the priests, that Isaiah does not hesitate to compare Jerusalem to Sodom and Gomorrah. Religion was partly despised, partly corrupted. Their manners were generally disgraced by thefts, robberies, treacheries, murders, and similar crimes. Nevertheless, the prophets on this account neither raised themselves new churches, nor built new altars for the oblation of separate sacrifices; but whatever were the characters of the people, yet because they considered that God had deposited his word among that nation, and instituted the ceremonies in which he was there worshiped, they lifted up pure hands to him even in the congregation of the impious. If they had thought that they contracted any contagion from these services, surely they would have suffered a hundred deaths rather than have permitted themselves to be dragged to them. There was nothing therefore to prevent their departure from them, but the desire of preserving the unity of the church. But if the holy prophets were restrained by a sense of duty from forsaking the church on account of the numerous and enormous crimes which were practiced, not by a few individuals, but almost by the whole nation-it is extreme arrogance in us, if we presume immediately to withdraw from the communion of a church where the conduct of all members is not compatible either with our judgment, or even with the Christian profession." 1 Machen thought it thought it would be easy to purify the church. All one had to do was to withdraw from modernists; the expedient was as simple as that. “On Thursday, June 11, 1936,” said Machen to his loyal remnant, "the hopes of many long years were realized. We became members, at last, of a true Presbyterian church." It was not long, however, before Machen's true church was locked in the convulsions of internal strife. The prophecy of the older Presbyterians was fulfilled. Since Machen had shaken off the sins of modernists, but not the sins of those who were proud they were not modernists, the separatists fondly imagined themselves more perfectly delivered from heresy than the facts justified. This illusion spawned fresh resources of pride and pretense. The criteria of Christian fellowship gradually became more exacting than Scripture, and before long Machen himself was placed under suspicion. He had not taken his reformation far enough: the church was not yet true. This time the issue was not modernism; the issue, ostensibly, was dispensationalism and Christian liberty. And before this quarrel ended, a second true church was founded. Still, no classical effort was made to define the nature of the church. This is how the mentality of fundamentalism operates. Status by negation, not precise theological inquiry, is the first order of business. When there are no modernists from which to withdraw, fundamentalists compensate by withdrawing from one another. Machen tried to blend the classical view of the covenant with a separatist view of the covenant people. He honored Reformed doctrine, but not the Reformed doctrine of the church. This inconsistency had at least two effects: first, it encouraged Machen's disciples to think that the conditions of Christian fellowship could be decided by subjective criteria; secondly, it planted the seeds of anarchy. If Reformed theology could not define the nature of the church, how could it define the nature of anything else? The result was a subtle reversion to the age of the Judges: each man did what was right in his own eyes. Rebellion against the courts of the church converted to rebellion against the wisdom of the ages and the counsel of the brethren. 3. Dispensationalism Having drifted from the classical creeds of the church, the separatist is prey to theological novelty. Most of Machen's immediate disciples were shielded from this threat by their orientation in Calvinism, but fundamentalism in general did not fare so well. Dispensationalism filled the vacuum created by the loss of the historic creeds. Dispensationalism was formulated by one of the nineteenth-century separatist movements, the Plymouth Brethren. Hitherto, all Christians had believed that the church fulfills the prophecies of the Old Testament, and that the future of saved Jews falls within the general life of the church. Dispensationalism overturned this time-tested confession by contending that the church is only an interim period between two Jewish economies, the Old Testament and the millennium. While dispensationalism sincerely tries to honor the distinctives of Christianity, in practice it often honors the distinctives of Judaism. This is an ironic reversal. " It is strange ... that the unbelieving Jews should be represented as nearly right in their interpretation of the prophecies respecting the Messiah. We know that the whole, or very nearly the whole, of the nation looked for a temporal deliverance-for a Christ who would be a triumphant conqueror, to deliver them out of the hands of their temporal enemies. We know that it was this strong expectation that led most of them to reject Jesus; and that they were buoyed up, especially during the last siege, with the hope of a Christ coming to deliver them; and that this character was claimed by several pretenders, who accordingly obtained numerous followers. Now, according to the above scheme, Christ is to come as a victorious temporal deliverer of the Jews, and is to fulfill the prophecies just in the sense in which they have always understood them. If so, those who rejected Jesus were, on the whole, nearly right in their interpretation of the prophecies, and were only mistaken as to the time; which is very much what the Jews hold at this day." 2 Having withdrawn from the general theological dialogue, the dispensationalist has few active checks against the pretense of ideological pride. As a result, he imagines that the distinctives of dispensationalism are more firmly established than they really are. This illusion prompts him to fight major battles over minor issues. If it comes to it, he is not unwilling to divide the church on whether the rapture occurs before or after the tribulation. This is straight-line cultic conduct, for a cursory examination of Philip Schaff's Creeds of Christendom will show that the church has never made the details of eschatology a test of Christian fellowship. The dispensationalist is willing to go it alone because he is prompted by the counsels of ideological thinking. He compares Biblical doctrines to a line of standing dominoes: topple any one domino and the entire line falls. On such a scheme the time of the rapture is as crucial to faith as the substitutionary atonement, for any one doctrine analytically includes all other doctrines. This argument, of course, is a tissue of fallacies. It violates the most elementary canons of Biblical hermeneutics. When separatists flee from the tyranny of the church, they end with a new tyranny all their own; for there is always a demagogue on hand to decide who is virtuous and who is not. His strategies are pathetically familiar: " Things are in terrible shape; errorists are everywhere. The true faith is being threatened; my own life is in danger. Something must be done; some courageous person must volunteer. I'm free; I'm ready; I'm willing … Oh, yes, you may subscribe to my paper and keep up with the real truth. Three dollars will enroll you in my movement, and for $5.00 you may have a copy of my latest book." 4. Intellectual Stagnation When orthodoxy says that the Bible is the only rule of faith and practice, the fundamentalist promptly concludes that everything worth knowing is in the Bible. The result is a withdrawal from the dialogue of man as man. Nothing can be learned from general wisdom, says the fundamentalist, for the natural man is wrong in starting point, method, and conclusion. When the natural man says, "This is a rose," he means "This is a not-made-by-the-triune-God rose." Everything he says is blasphemy. It is non-sequitur reasoning of this sort which places fundamentalism at the extreme right in the theological spectrum. Classical orthodoxy says that God is revealed in general as well as in special revelation. The Bible completes the witness of God in nature; it does not negate it. Since the fundamentalist belittles the value of general wisdom he is often content with an educational system that substitutes piety for scholarship. High standards of education might tempt the students to trust in the arm of flesh. Moreover, if the students are exposed to damaging as well as to supporting evidences, their faith might be threatened. As a result, the students do not earn their right to believe, and they are filled with pride because they do not sense their deficiency. The intellectual stagnation of fundamentalism can easily be illustrated. Knowing little about the canons of lower criticism, and less about the relation between language and culture, the, fundamentalist has no norm by which to classify the relative merits of Biblical translations. As a result, he identifies the Word of God with the seventeenth-century language forms of the King James Version. Since other versions sound unfamiliar to him, he concludes that someone is tampering with the Word of God. This stagnation explains why the fundamentalist is not disturbed by the difficulties in orthodoxy. Faithful to ideological thinking, he denies that there are any difficulties. To admit a difficulty would imply a lack of faith, and a lack of faith is sin. 5. The Negative Ethic When the fundamentalist develops his ethical code, he is somewhat prompted by a quest for status in the cult. Consequently, he defines the good life as the separated life – separated, that is, from prevailing social mores. Whereas Christ was virtuous because he loved God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself, the fundamentalist is virtuous because he does not smoke, dance, or play cards. By raising a scrupu8lous demur over social mores, the fundamentalist can divert attention from grosser sins – anger, jealousy, hatred, gossip, lust, idleness, malice, backbiting, schism, guile, injustice, and every shade of illicit pride. This strategy places fundamentalism in the general tradition of the Donatists. Since the Donatists had not handed the Scriptures over to the Diocletian inquisitors (they were not among the traditores), they supposed they were virtuous. By accenting the sins that they did not have, they took an easy attitude toward the sins that they did have. An anxiety for negative status betrays fundamentalism into glaring hypocrisy. For example, a fundamentalist is very certain that smoking is sinful, for smoking harms the body and it is habit-forming. Yet, reasonably equivalent objections can be raised against excessive coffee drinking. The nerves may be upset or a stomach ulcer induced, and the practice is habit-forming. But the fundamentalist conveniently ignores this parallel. An attack on smoking ensures status in the cult, while an attack on coffee drinking does not. Moreover, the fundamentalist enjoys his coffee, and plenty of it. since medical tranquilizers soothe his nerves, he dies not need to smoke. The fundamentalist is also very certain that movie attendance is sinful, for the movie industry is a tool of Satan. But when the fundamentalist judges films on television, he uses a radically different criterion. There is a cultic reason for this shift in standards. Fundamentalists, it so happens, are afraid of one another. If a fundamentalist is seen entering a theater, he may be tattled on by a fellow fundamentalist. In this event the guilty party would “lose his testimony,” i.e., his status in the cult would be threatened. But, when he watches movies on television, this threat does not exist. Drawn shades keep prying eyes out. One of the unexpected blessings of television is that it lets the fundamentalist catch up on all the movies he missed on religious principles. Fundamentalists defend the gospel, to be sure, but they sometimes act as if the gospel read, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, don’t smoke, don’t go to movies, and above all don’t used the Revised Standard Version – and you will be saved.” Whenever fundamentalism encourages this sort of legalism, it falls within the general tradition of the Galatian Judaizers. Paul says that we are to “avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all men” (Titus 3:3). But the fundamentalist is often so intent on negative status that he confuses courtesy with compromise. As a result, he drives cultured people from the church. For example, if a fundamentalist receives a letter from a modernist, he may go right ahead and publish it without the writer’s permission. Overly anxious to attack modernism, he neglects his own duties as a Christian gentleman. He has perfect vision to see heresy in others, but not in himself. While we must be solicitous about doctrine, Scripture says that our primary business is love. But the fundamentalist finds the first task much more inviting than the second. Despite the severest apostolic warnings, schism in the church is often interpreted as a sign of Christian virtue. Separation promotes status in the cult; unity through love does not. 6. The Chief End of Man Whereas orthodoxy says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, fundamentalism says that the chief end of man is to win souls. This conversion of final causes did not come by accident. Lest we be misunderstood, however, let it be clearly and forcefully said that evangelism is an incumbency on the church. Woe to the minister who has no compassion for lost souls! If we are united with Christ's cross and resurrection, we must also be united with his tears for Jerusalem. But when the fundamentalist elevates evangelism above other Christian tasks, or when he conceives of evangelism in terms of techniques, he is no longer true to his own presuppositions. While evangelism is a sacred duty, it is by no means our only sacred duty. We offend the whole counsel of God unless we also stir up the gifts of exposition, teaching, counseling, prophecy, edification, ecclesiastical rule, and the discerning of spirits. It is not the gift which counts, but the humility with which it is received and the manner in which its duties are carried out. A missionary to the Moslems may never see a convert; but if he is faithful, he may receive a more illustrious crown than an evangelist who enjoys a high incidence of conversions. The greatest in the Kingdom must be least in himself. And from the perspective of God this may be a humble Dorcas who knits little coats and shirts for the poor. The fundamentalist's quest for souls is subtly interlarded with a quest for status in the cult for the soul-winner belongs to a new high-priestly caste. He can rise in prayer meeting and discourse on his accomplishments in the Kingdom. Ordinary human kindness does not have this cash value. Fundamentalism is also governed by a strict code of hero worship. When a notorious felon is converted, fundamentalists promptly make a celebrity out of him. He is sent into evangelism without the discipline of classical theology. This neglect inflates him with the notion that he is omnicompetent. He not only tells sinners to repent, but he stands behind the sacred desk and pronounces on science, the United Nations, and the cause of immorality in France. He egregiously offends humility and truth, but he does not know enough about humility and truth to measure his offense. He adds to general insecurity by giving dangerously simple answers to bafflingly complex questions. In so doing, he unwittingly verifies Christ's observation that “the sons o this world are wiser in their own generation than the sons of light " (Luke 16:8). Anxiety for evangelism often betrays fundamentalism into strange inconsistencies. For example, to ensure a goodly attendance at a youth railly, the fundamentalist thinks nothing of using an “intelligent horse:” for entertainment, or of adapting gospel lyrics to the rhythm of the dance floor. The majesty of God and the sanctity of the church must not impede the the work of saving souls. The fundamentalist often takes a magical attitude toward the Word of God. This attitude belittles the necessity of material righteousness in the soul-winner. Get the Word out – any manner will do – and God will see that his Word does not return void. This assumes that responsibility for arousing conviction rests solely on the written Word. But the written Word says otherwise: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). When Jesus addressed the woman at the well, he addressed her as a gentleman would (John 4:7-26). A prophet must speak, but he must speak with compassion. Example first, then precept. Unless kindness arouses a sense of fellowship, the Word of God will not arouse a sense of conviction. Since the task of general charity is apparently unconnected with the work of saving souls, it rates low on the scale of fundamentalism. Handing out tracts is much more important than founding a hospital. As a result, unbelievers are often more sensitive to mercy, and bear a heavier load of justice, than those who come in the name of Christ. The fundamentalist is not disturbed by this, of course, for he is busy painting “Jesus Saves” on rocks in a public park. Scripture says there are times – many more than a fundamentalist suspects – when we must view charity as an end in itself. Since Jesus came to reverse the curse on nature, any act of kindness brings glory to the covenant God. The parable of the good Samaritan shows this. But such pointed Biblical evidence does not move the fundamentalist. In the face of the most distressing social need Christ's question, "Did you feed the hungry?” means to the fundamentalist “Are you winning souls?” 7. The Category of Irony The predicament of fundamentalism must be viewed through, the category of irony; otherwise the base for pity and forgiveness is destroyed. Although fundamentalism is orthodoxy gone cultic, the perversion is fathered by misguided zeal, not malice. This fact should be acknowledged. Irony is kin to humor, but it is not a direct kin. Irony is paradox brought on by a zeal that overlooks the limits that original sin places on the entire human enterprise. This oversight betrays the zealot into contradiction; for the more he presses toward his goal, the more he pursues a course that is at variance with that goal. For example, Paul says that Christians should not be conformed to this world (Rom. 12:2). Anxious to honor this injunction, the fundamentalist takes an absolute stand against dancing. In so doing he not only outrages the natural instincts of the body, but he offends the teaching of Scripture elsewhere. Though David danced before, the Lord (II Sam. 6:14), the fundamentalist will not. David was more relaxed because he feared God more than he did man. He properly understood that some things are right or wrong according to circumstances. "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: ... a time to mourn, and a time to dance." (Eccl. 3:1,4.) The fundamentalist is so intimidated by the cult that his sense of social grace has all but atrophied. Although many nations perpetuate their traditions through the dance, the fundamentalist takes a harsh and unfeeling attitude toward the institution: all dancing is worldly; there is no stopping point between total abstinence and night-club lust. The fundamentalist laces religion with so many negative burdens that he often deprives the man on the street of the most innocent forms of recreation. And the fundamentalist defends his negations in the name of the very Lord who came that men might have life, and that they might have it abundantly. The fundamentalist ends in irony because he does not bring his cause to the-touchstone of classical theology. He fails to see that Christ reveals the limits of human virtue as well as the justice and mercy of God. When t e world rejected Christ, it rejected its own ideal. An oversight of this tragedy inspires the fundamentalist with the optimism that the existing order can be defecated by orthodox doctrine. Comforted by this illusion, he takes a cavalier attitude toward the sort of compromise that keeps society decent and orderly. Don Quixote is the literary symbol of this irony. He threw himself into the task of knight-errantry with intoxicating zeal. But since he did not understand the limits of virtue in himself, he did not understand the limits of virtue in history. This made him impatient with the realistic expedients that kept history from converting to an iniquitous tyranny. As a result, he increased general evil by overturning existing safeguards. When he met a line of prisoners, he promptly released them. Pleased with the evil he corrected, he failed to notice the evil he created. But this contradiction did not occur to him, for he thought he enjoyed a perspective that was untinctured by pride and personal interest. He did not reckon with the extent to which the ideals of knight-errantry were enlisted in the service of self-love. The fundamentalist is a religious knight-errant. He sallies off with
the doctrinaire expectation that society would resolve all its problems
if other people would only become as virtuous as he is. He entertains this
illusion because he identifies possession of the Word of God with
possession
of virtue. Having never traced the effects of original sin in the lives
of those who possess the Word of God, he does not reckon with the degree
to which the canons of orthodoxy are enlisted in the service of self-love.
He makes no serious allowance for either his own relative understanding
of the Word of God or the moral ambiguity of his vocation. Defending the
Bible is a comfortable egoistic accomplishment; battling modernists is
a pleasing palliative for pride. Since the Fundamentalist acknowledges
the virtue of his stand, but not the sin, he minvests his cause with more
purity and finality than it deserves. He uses the Word of God as
an instrument of self-security but not self-criticism. Mils is t e source
of his zeal and the cause of his irony.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Editor's Footnotes i In the first line of his Preface to The Casebook, Carnell writes, "Orthodoxy is that branch of Christendom which limits the ground of religious authority to the Bible. No other rule of faith and practice is acknowledged. Orthodoxy is friendly toward any effort that looks to Scripture; it is unfriendly toward any that does not." In the third paragraph of the same preface, he states his conviction "that the Reformed faith, despite its shortcomings, is the most consistent expresion of orthodoxy." ii. In Chapter VII of The Casebook, Carnell identifies
a number of difficulties with which orthodoxy must come to terms (i.e.
places where our knowledge is clearly imperfect). Among these are
the apparent conflict between science and Scripture, the antiquity of the
human race, and the nature of inspiration.
Author's Footnotes 1. Calvin, Institutes, IV.1.18 2. Richard Whately, A View of the Scripture Revelations
Concerning a Future State, pp. 154-155
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