Drell’s Descants

7/4/2007

Confessions of an Episcopal Fundamentalist

Filed under: General — Brad Drell @ 8:30 am

A snippit:

In a more positive vein, just what are fundamentalists? We fundamentalists are people of faith, embracing Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. Each day we experience a fresh intimate personal communion with him. This holy relationship is the ground of our new and unending life as children of the living God.

Moreover, we are people of boundless ecstatic hope, trusting wholly in the risen Christ for this life and the life to come, for he is the Alpha and the Omega, the author and finisher of our salvation. We eagerly anticipate that eternal kingdom of love, righteousness and peace where he shall reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Finally, we fundamentalists feel Christians are preeminently called and equipped to be a royal priesthood of divine love as integral members of the mystical body of Christ. Because we know that without Christâ€™s redeeming and salvific love, humanity will surely perish, we take the great commission of Matthew 28:19-20 very seriously.

I have been told by many critics in no uncertain terms that fundamentalism is incompatible with Anglicanism. However, those who made such dogmatic assertions have never adduced the proof to sustain them. My research has tended to confirm that just the opposite is true. The more I read of Latimer, Cranmer, Hooker, Andrewes, Wesley, Wilberforce, Pusey and Keble, the more it becomes apparent that these great luminaries of our Anglican heritage with their high view of scripture fall well within the parameters of what the contemporary revisionists within The Episcopal Church dismiss as â€œfundamentalism.â€

With all the assorted progressives, humanists, self-styled â€œmoderates,â€ liberals, New Agers, revisionists and radicals leading Episcopalians down the primrose path to self-destruction, I submit that what our beleaguered church most needs to survive intact is more self-confessed fundamentalists â€“ people who will affirm and hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints, willing humbly and patiently to speak the truth in love to our non-fundamentalist sisters and brothers and be equally willing to listen with respect to what they have to say.

8 Comments »

It seems that a number of present day Anglicans/Episcopalians should get a copy to read of J.I. Packer’s Fundamentalism And The Word Of God.
Packer’s observations and insights written 50+ years ago ring truer today than ever.

Comment by Padraic — 7/4/2007 @ 8:57 am

It seems to me that many of the revisionists in TEC have no idea what Anglicanism stood for prior to the liberal/revisionist agenda of the last 50 years.

Comment by David+ — 7/4/2007 @ 9:10 am

I’ve always been thankful to be a Wesleyan in the Church of the Wesley’s; now I discover I am an Anglican fundamentalist.

Isn’t it wonderful to read well written apologia?

Comment by Bob Maxwell+ — 7/4/2007 @ 2:29 pm

Hear! Hear!

Comment by Phil Moberg, Jr. (ex-EJWarrior71) — 7/4/2007 @ 4:07 pm

The revisionists have no idea what the Anglican Communion stands for today, this very minute

The Anglican Communion stands with Christ.
With the oppressed, the poor, the humble.

Revisionsits - by definition - are powerful, rich, and so arrogant they think they can “redefine GOD”.

And the Anglican Communion and every Christian acaross time and space stands against them and everything they stand for, world without end!

Comment by Sinner — 7/4/2007 @ 4:14 pm

Brad–Following is a letter to TLC I just sent. I know you toy with the edgy feel of the tag “fundamentalist” as you fight away on the HOBD listserve, but don’t go for it.

Kenneth Aldrichâ€™s claiming of the label â€œfundamentalistâ€ is profoundly misdirected. His rosy picture of what fundamentalists believe and donâ€™t believe betrays a lack of historical awareness. Having been exposed to fundamentalist teaching in high school and two years of Bible college and serving now in the territory of Bob Jones University, I testify that fundamentalism is much more a narrow, negative mind-set than it is a simple affirmation of historic Christian doctrines.

While Christian fundamentalism began as such an affirmation in 1919, it quickly morphed into an anti-scholarship, anti-culture, separatist movement that turned on itself. J. Gresham Machen, an early Presbyterian champion of â€œThe Fundamentals,â€ soon saw the turn the movement was taking and distanced himself from the label â€œfundamentalist.â€ I believe J.I. Packer (cited by Mr. Aldrich) made the same wise decision.

Compounding the problem of the label â€œfundamentalistâ€ is the wide-spread association of it with Islamic terrorism. Conservative English Anglicans latched onto the term â€œevangelicalâ€ as a time-saving tag when one was called for. If we need a shorthand identifier, this one points in a positive, mission-oriented direction.

Comment by Jim Workman — 7/4/2007 @ 4:33 pm

Fundamentalism gets a bad rap by some who equate it with snake handlers and bigots. So, if you have a belief in the fundamental message of Christ, you are a bigot in the liberal lexicon. Neat. Bluntly the best Christians I know are fundamentalists. Some wear funny collars and pointy hats, some don’t. I never miss a chance to see Pastor Jakes on the small screen. Now there’s a fundamentalist. Sinner, you need to spend some time watching him, seriously.

Comment by ted mcwhorter — 7/5/2007 @ 7:09 am

Well, there is another way to look at it. Your doctor calls it “splitting,” combined with “magical thinking.” Both are diagnoses, whereas strong religious belef is not a diagnosis.

The idea that trut is a thing rather than a relationship is one that Jesus rejected. It is of some satisifaction that black-and-white thinking combined with the magical is considered treatable and there are drugs available.

Paul Marshall

Comment by Paul Marshall — 7/5/2007 @ 4:30 pm

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