Second of three parts.
For all Professor James Barr’s adverse comment on fundamentalism in his recent book, he does quite objectively state its central beliefs. One would think most members of the university world would be adequately preinformed about these, but perhaps they are not.
Fundamentalism, says Barr, calls for “a simple and clear theology, based on a single well-known source, the Bible” in contrast to “the shilly-shallyings of more sophisticated theology” (p. 35). Fundamentalism emphasizes Christ’s substitutionary atonement for sinners rather than works-salvation, and personal faith in the crucified and risen Lord rather than sacraments; it enjoins daily experience of the Holy Spirit and “a good knowledge of the Bible coupled with acceptance of its authority” (pp. 31, 81). It proffers salvation through “a particular kind of message … not necessarily or universally preached in the churches” (p. 11). Personal conversion is indispensable, and its supposed coincidence with a change of opinion is “structurally essential” (p. 18).
Lay evangelistic witness, Barr continues, holds an important place, as does the sacrificial support of worldwide missions (pp. 33 ff.). While fundamentalists are not ascetics, they readily deny themselves certain enjoyments to further the task of evangelism (p. 99). Their group dedication encourages many others to adopt a personal faith (p. 318).
Much that Barr says about fundamentalism—even if in a censorious context—may, in the absence of any persuasive alternative, serve to commend the evangelical outlook to many of his readers. Barr acknowledges the “positive pressure towards conservative positions” that fundamentalism exercises on theology and biblical study (p. 9) and the “seeming attractiveness of the position” for those whose minds are still open (p. 10). “Fundamentalism has roots that … go back into the Bible itself” (p. 183), Barr concedes. In an age in which nearly everything seems threatened by obsolescence, fundamentalism “works reasonably well for large numbers of people and is also reasonably stable” (p. 314).
Intrinsic to fundamentalist faith, Barr notes, is the distinction between true and nominal Christianity in the matter of pure doctrine (p. 17). “The fundamentalist view of the Bible as a whole is very much grounded upon the teaching of Jesus” (p. 170); it is considered wrong, observes Barr, to say that Jesus “didn’t know” (p. 171). Conservative evangelicals avoid cooperation “with ‘liberalism’ and ‘modernism’ and other false gospels” (p. 22); their “special calling is to present their own distinctive witness” (p. 25). Evangelical organizations make a deep evangelistic impact through “the solidity of their witness” (p. 25). Those who “share a conservative evangelical faith” have a deeper bond across denominational lines than do nonevangelicals inside their various denominations (p. 20). Fundamentalists do not consider the large denominational bodies “coterminous with the community of true believers” (p. 30). They hold church leaders and clergy answerable to the authority of the Bible, tend to view skeptically any excessive concentration of ecclesiastical power, and minimize the distinction between clergy and laity (pp. 100 f.). Fundamentalists distrust the ecumenical movement because it accepts the essential Christianity of those who hold radically divergent doctrinal views (p. 328).
Fundamentalism, moreover, has some sturdy intellectual allies. It is “certainly not a preserve of the uneducated,” says Barr, but is “quite evenly spread through the different social and professional classes” and has “strong representation” among university students. “There is certainly no reason to suppose that advanced education forms a barrier” to it (p. 90). “Fundamentalism is increasingly seeking to make its voice known through scholarship rather than through purely dogmatic assertion,” Barr tells us. “In modern conservative scholarship questions are often not simply foreclosed through the use of dogmatic argument. Contact is often made with nonconservative scholarship …” (p. 88). “The sort of scholarship conservative evangelicals respect has improved in erudition and in ability to present itself on the historical level on which world scholarship exists” (p. 125). A “very large proportion” of conservative scholars “interest themselves academically” and “become scholars in … textual criticism, the grammar of New Testament Greek, archaeology and the Bible, Coptic, Semitic linguistics, … Egyptology, Assyriology, Ugaritic studies” (p. 128).
On the national scene, conservative Christians strive for “a Christian country dominated by Christian values” (p. 110). They discount utopian views of history and expect, rather, a cataclysmic divine climax (p. 115). Their eschatological hope centers in Christ’s imminent return (p. 35). Many evangelicals emphasize eschatological prophecy, says Barr; he himself downgrades futuristic prophecy and does not consider the Jewish return to Palestine “a matter of cosmic religious importance” (p. 118).
Despite sporadic portrayals of fundamentalism as a bizarre modern cult, Barr concedes its “remarkable similarities” to “the official Roman Catholic position.” Roman Catholicism until recently held a “quite strictly fundamentalist position … as regards biblical literature and biblical criticism,” he says (p. 105). Rome at first resisted biblical criticism much as Protestant evangelicals do now, and the Roman Catholic Church (historically) and evangelical Christianity emphasize the importance of correct doctrine and the historical accuracy of the events reported in the Bible (p. 106).
Given Barr’s contrast of fundamentalist Christianity with the churning religiosity of our age, why did this Oxford scholar find it necessary to write a major work that goes into detail about a view he considers repulsive to the modern mind, for all its deep biblical roots?
The answer is not hard to find. The spectacular growth of evangelical conservatism, Barr tells us, has become “an extremely irritating phenomenon” within mainstream Christianity (p. 336). One reason why fundamentalism has shown “so much vitality in the last decade or two,” he says, is that scholars of the critical school have not challenged it (p. 140).
The evangelical appeal to the Bible, Barr assures readers, should “intimidate” nobody. “The non-conservative should not let himself be intimidated by fundamentalist arguments with their endless citation of texts and passages; the ability to produce these does not necessarily betoken any real or profound knowledge of the Bible at all” (p. 38). Barr emphasizes that not one of the major denominations of British Christianity can be considered fundamentalist or evangelical, and that in only a few places in the world is fundamentalism the majority faith (p. 18).
Why, then, are what Barr summarizes as “the simple and superficial arguments” of fundamentalists “bound to remain frustration”?
Barr is clearly concerned over the striking decline of pluralistic ecumenical fortunes and the cresting of the evangelical tide. Religious publishers find a diminishing market for works by nonconservative scholars except as they turn sensationalistc; evangelical readers, on the other hand, maintain a brisk demand for conservative, well-tempered literature. Not the critical views of scholars like D. E. Nineham, John A. T. Robinson, and Barr but rather the more biblically grounded views are what capture the commitment of many young ordinands in the Church of England. On university campuses, ecumenical student effort languishes while hundreds of students flock to Christian Union meetings in places like Oxford and Cambridge. In the ailing churches, bewildered laymen wonder why they should attend services oriented toward the so-called myth of the incarnation; interest quickens wherever the Crucified Jesus is powerfully proclaimed. Even in London an Oxford alumnus who preaches an authoritative Bible now draws the largest Sunday-night congregation.
Barr acknowledges that fundamentalism flourishes even in times of theological liberalism. Its influence has steadily gained since 1960 despite the rise of radical theologies. Biblical critics and modern theologians more and more appear to be but a glamorous vanguard of generals with a diminishing army of followers. Despite every conceivable assault on historic evangelical theism, including a polemical depiction of it as a putrid corpse, biblically based Christianity continues to show itself alive and well.
The Oxford critic is clearly distressed because exclusively conservative evangelical colleges survive in the Church of England (p. 19). He fears that conservatives may be “taking over a field that was once non-conservative,” that is, biblical theology, and doing so in disregard of critical scholarship (p. 233)—which, as he sees it, requires nonevangelical emphases. He also laments the fact that nonevangelical ecclesiastical forces do not currently control the selection of university teachers of theological or biblical studies so as to limit the number of those holding conservative views (pp. 102 f.).
Barr concedes that “the world of mainstream church and theology is not at all a rosy and happy world where everything is well; on the contrary, it is within that mainstream Christianity that the really serious problems and conflicts of church life and theology lie” (p. 336). A hurried reading of that comment might give the misimpression that Barr thinks ecumenical Christianity stands in need of evangelical renewal. But that is not at all his point. The main hope of the ecumenical church, Barr indicates, lies in a sapping of conservative vitalities.
In a dramatic passage, Barr scorches the liberal clergy for not boldly declaring from their pulpits the radical implications of biblical criticism and the new theology for traditional Christianity. The dilemma of mainstream Christianity, Barr states, is that even the nonevangelical clergy neglect the scholarly authority of the biblical critics. Many nonevangelical clergymen hesitate to break completely with a Bible that is considered in some respects to be intrinsically authoritative and accurate; thus they needlessly and inexcusably compromise with fundamentalism (pp. 333 ff.). Barr even imputes dishonesty to nonevangelical clergy who thus accommodate traditional views that, he insists, they do not at all believe (p. 335). Conceding that evangelicals do not shilly-shally about God and the Bible, Barr implores the nonevangelical clergy not to shilly-shally about the new theology and biblical criticism. It seems apparent from Barr’s plea to the disloyal shilly-shallyers that he seeks a full-scale renewal of the modernist-fundamentalist controversy.
That Barr would like to see the demise of fundamentalist-evangelical-conservative views is wholly evident. To be sure, he declares it is “no part of my purpose to stick the label of‘fundamentalist’ upon anyone” (p. 5); rather, he proposes “to understand fundamentalism as a religious and intellectual system and to see why it functions as it does” (p. 9). He aims to clear up misunderstandings of fundamentalism (p. 8), which in some forms is “essentially … emotionally-based,” in others is “coldly intellectualistic,” and in still others strikes a balance (pp. 17 f.). But whatever its form, Barr declares, fundamentalism is not a valid continuation of mainstream orthodoxy (p. 168); he pronounces evangelical “claims for ‘orthodoxy’ … a sham” (p. 197). His verdict is that fundamentalism is “thoroughly destructive of Christian understanding of the Bible” (p. 196).
To be sure, after delivering one harsh judgment after another, Barr now and then resorts to a more tempered opinion of fundamentalism, as when he notes its long roots in Scripture. But such qualified concessions sound much like a benediction intoned by a sheriff who has just officiated at a hanging. Barr declares it is not necessarily so that “in order to be a fundamentalist a man must have a closed mind” (p. 323). Yet fundamentalist theological arguments do come, he assures us, “from a social and religious organism which does have a closed mind” (p. 323).
Barr attributes the survival of fundamentalists to “the type of intellectual exposure” they get (p. 91), a thesis one can readily extend to include nonfundamentalists also. He explains the phenomenon of fundamentalist intellectuals by designating most of the learned in the camp as specialists in fields other than religion (p. 91). If this implies that only professional religionists can discern the truth about Christ and the Bible, their track record has not been good.
American readers can somewhat gauge Barr’s objectivity in evaluating evangelical scholarship by his verdict on J. Gresham Machen, whose academic competence was conceded by even his most articulate theological adversaries. Machen preferred, in view of his Reformed (Presbyterian) views, to be designated an evangelical rather than a fundamentalist. Yet at the height of the modernist-fundamentalist controversy no scholar championed conservative essentials more ably than Machen. But Barr does not trouble to distinguish Machen’s writings from “the simple and superficial arguments” of fundamentalists (p. 38); he brushes Machen aside by quoting only a partisan secondary source (p. 165) and fails also to note that Machen did not castigate all subscribers to biblical errancy as nonevangelicals. Amid his resentment of Machen’s pointed rejection of modernism, Barr might of course have also noted Barth’s disavowal of modernism as heresy; but perhaps it was Barth’s ecumenical associations that make his judgments more palatable to Barr. In any event, only prejudice could give this verdict: “The polemic of neo-orthodoxy against liberal theology was infinitely more effective than that of traditional conservatism, because Barth and his associates, unlike conservative apologists, had thoroughly studied liberal theology and knew what it was” (p. 214). Barr’s hostility assuredly is not based on any inability of evangelical commentators either side of the Atlantic to recognize liberal theology when they read it.
Only because Barr considers heresy a now irrelevant conception does he hesitate to apply the label to fundamentalism (p. 197), though he insists that if Scofield dispensationalism is not heretical, “then nothing is” (p. 196). While he considers dispensationalism an intolerable mythology, Barr finds Bultmannianism more bearable (pp. 235, 237). He defends modernism and even radical Bultmannianism as having not “the slightest idea of attacking Christianity … as a revealed religion” (p. 166), whereas he treats Machen and the fundamentalist as foes within the camp.
Barr’s ill-concealed hope is that internal differences will tear conservative Christianity into irreconcilable factions (pp. 304 ff.). He believes that increasingly conflicting evangelical publications are “likely to lead to tensions within conservative evangelical religion in the long run” (p. 126) and he does his best to help the cause along. 1 myself, in the “Footnotes” series that once appeared as a CHRISTIANITY TODAY feature and was reprinted as Evangelicals in Search of Identity (Word, 1976), noted mounting evangelical tensions over matters like biblical inerrancy, socio-political involvement, and the basis of transdenominational cooperation. Yet one must concede that American Christianity will suffer if it depends mainly on evangelical leaders bound by geographical nearness, evangelistic visibility, and overlapping directorates and financial underpinning; such bases for religious power and cooperation are a poor guarantee of a productive response to criticisms such as Barr’s.
To My Godson At His Baptism
Appearing
At Advent,
You became for me
Before a day had passed
A special offering.
I saw in you
Our Lord’s
Most fragile form.
And I rejoiced
In His might.
Today, you are again
The gift whom we return
To the Giver
For safekeeping
Forever.
BONNIE L. BOWMAN
It is surprising, however, to one familiar with the American religious scene and its widely shared literature, that Barr highlights differences of evangelical perspective while downplaying the range of agreement that sets evangelicals apart from other critical scholars (pp. 187 ff.). He pits Calvinist against Arminian, pietist against activist, Pentecostalist against non-Pentecostalist, dispensationalist against nondispensationalist, premillenarian against postmillenarian. He often tends to pick out positions taken by various evangelical writers in a way that he considers reprehensible when evangelicals follow the same technique of selectively quoting critical scholars (p. 132).
Barr’s thesis that “a common fundamentalist view of the Bible does not succeed in providing a clear or unitary basis for faith” (p. 189) sounds strange alongside his initial warning that the movement’s “organizational base” approximates a “conservative evangelical denomination” (p. 22). Provoked by evangelicals’ frequent dissent from ecumenically oriented positions, Barr “cannot help asking whether a strict sect solution, that is, separation as a strictly fundamentalist church, would not be a more honest and sincere position” (p. 322). This proposal leaves little doubt that Barr’s conception of ecumenical pluralism has no room for a consistent evangelicalism. When evangelicals consider “the elimination of liberals more important than the unifying of the churches,” Barr labels it pernicious (pp. 328 ff.); when Barr considers the elimination of evangelicals the key to ecclesiastical unity, the prejudice somehow becomes virtuous.
Barr complains that fundamentalist theology fixes on “a few nodal points” and fails to see “theologies as wholes” (p. 166). In defending nonconservative alternatives, however, he nowhere recognizes that the deletion of central articles on the fundamentalist check list—such as inspiration, the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus—necessarily invalidates any professedly biblical theology or consistent basis for Christian unity. Instead, he satirizes the emphasis on “pure doctrine” according to which those who do not make “the proper evangelical noises” about virgin birth and biblical inspiration are considered non-Christian (p. 14). Historic Christianity is not well served by this careless dismissal of fundamentalist expositions of the Trinity, atonement, and sin and evil as biblically simplistic and trivial (p. 177).
Since Barr has introduced the charges of simplism and triviality, one may ask whether he himself adequately universalizes the doctrine of sin when he rhetorically asks: “Does conservative evangelicalism teach that a man in and through his adherence to conservative evangelicalism may be following out his own sinful impulses, or that conservative faith may itself be a structure vitiated by the deep and all-pervading sinfulness of mankind?” (p. 178). Evangelicals at least believe that divine once-for-all revelation relativizes sin in some respects; if Barr does not, he should beware of casting boomerangs.
If evangelical Christianity is in as much disarray as Barr believes, then he surely need not be so preoccupied with it. He questions whether “relatively orthodox fundamentalism … will survive, or … be displaced by … its own more extreme offspring”—that is, Pentecostalism (p. 209). The irony of Barr’s book on Fundamentalism lies in the posing of just such second-level alternatives.
We surely have a right to expect from the Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture in Oxford a persuasive case for Christianity that rallies intellectuals to a rationally compelling faith and especially so at a time when many people and forces are competing for the mind and will of man and humanity faces the endtime of civilization. It is one thing to pronounce an acerbic verdict that the conservatives’ argument for miracles and the supernatural is “completely valueless.” What conservatives ask of Barr is no more than he demands of them: to state explicitly where the natural ends and the supernatural begins, and to indicate how far the supernatural can work naturally (p. 278). Let him tell us, unambiguously and systematically, what concept of biblical authority he considers the acceptable modern alternative to the historic Christian conviction that the New Testament is “a unified body of teaching all of which was always right, and still is” (p. 84).
Barr deplores the fact that evangelical apologists generally make “no contact with the positions held in modern theology and biblical criticism” (p. 81). But today those positions change more quickly than Paris fashions; even seminarians tend to review them as transitory oddities. If Professor Barr will state the preferred position for the 1980s in an orderly way, he will evoke more intellectual confrontation from both evangelical and nonevangelical scholars than Oxford can conveniently handle.
The next and last installment of this article will deal with the outlines of an alternative position projected by Barr.
A Response From Helmut Thielicke
Here is an [abridged] response to the rather curious article by John Warwick Montgomery, “Thielicke on Trial” (March 24). Montgomery’s obsession with assigning a heresy hat to me leads him to proclaim some fantastic things about my “dispute” with the so-called Free University of Hamburg. Permit me to make the following comments.
1. This “university,” both in my opinion and in that of other competent persons, is a macabre contraption that threatens to bring shame to the Gospel. Montgomery is listed as one of the instructors of this institution, though I have been told that he can scarcely speak German.
2. The courts, at the first level of jurisdiction, prohibited this institution from calling itself a “university” after the state agencies had already refused to give permission to do so. The president of the sponsoring association, Saake, is currently being prosecuted by the state attorney with the charge that he was using an academic title without the legal right to do so.
3. Almost all of the members of the faculty have by this time separated themselves from the undertaking and are involved in forming a new graduate school.
4. The advertising of this school cannot be taken seriously. This, among other things, led me to feel obliged to warn well meaning Christians about this undertaking.
5. The Protestant Church in Germany and many free church associations and pietistic societies have unambiguously distanced themselves from this so-called university and refused to provide it support. Examinations that it conducts and titles that it wants to grant (Lic. theol.) are accredited neither by the state nor by the church.
6. The courts contested only one sentence in my long article against this university. The court was of the opinion that my criticism of this faculty and its quality (and I certainly was not forbidden to express such criticism) could have resulted in two gentlemen feeling defamed, who themselves did not belong to the actual faculty and had only given guest lectures on occasion. (One of these two persons has distanced himself from the endeavor in the meantime; I don’t know about the other one.) I was only required to revise the one sentence, but I publicly added that my negative judgment still stood. It is therefore incredible to read what Montgomery says about my so-called punishment. The astronomical fines that allegedly were required of me are exaggerated in direct proportion to the pretenses and self-ostentation with which this structure still presents itself to the public before its exitus.
7. Like Mr. Montgomery, I, too, would like to conclude with a quotation from Luther and ask myself how the Reformer would probably have characterized this species of people. But I think I had better not: Luther used for such things a kind of earthy and crude vocabulary that could well bring upon me the wrath of the courts, if I were to repeat it. For that reason. I prefer to remain silent, even though Mr. Montgomery may say and misunderstand as much as he wants, whether it be due to lacking understanding or to aggressive resentment. 1 find it depressing to have to wash dirty laundry before the eyes of strangers, even though I am only doing it to prevent the honor of the Gospel from being dirtied by the unqualified.
HELMUT THIELICKE
D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.
