The Scarlet F

by    Chuck Colson                                                                                                                                   Vol. V, No. 6, November 1992

[Chuck Colson is Chairman of Prison Fellowship Ministries and a widely known Christian author. This column first appeared in the April 1991 issue of Jubilee, the Prison Fellowship newsletter.]

According to a recent article in the New York Times, I am a totalitarian theocrat. The authors implied that I am anxious and confused about my faith, given to apocalyptic visions, possibly a sadist, and basically opposed to fiction, psychology, journalism, and assertive women.

In other words, according to the authors' definition, a fundamentalist.

At least I was mentioned in good company. James Dobson came under attack in the same article as a potential child abuser with sadistic tendencies.

The article was a scathing indictment of Bible-believing Christians and full of misinformation. Had the authors bothered to read my work, they would have known that I am anything but a theocrat. (I devoted much of Kingdoms in Conflict to critiquing that movement.) But never let it be said that journalistic integrity stood in the way of social commentary.

I'll admit that there may be, among believers, people with all kinds of problems, prejudices, and odd notions. But what does that prove? There are people with kooky ideas among the ranks of the liberals, Republicans, school teachers, and the editors of book review pages.

But the article's irresponsible labeling seems to me symptomatic of the growing tendency to substitute symbols and slogans for reason and argument in public discourse.

These days when you call someone a fundamentalist, you lump that person together with Shiite Muslims, the Ayatollah Khomeini, and the stereotypical backwoods bigot who stomps about angrily thumping his Bible. Call someone a fundamentalist and there's no argument: Your victim is hung without trial.

Another example: Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong released a book recently in which he asserted that the apostle Paul was a homosexual. In a "Today Show" interview, Spong explained his mission, captured in his book's title, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism. His interviewer nodded obligingly though probably neither she nor one in a hundred viewers had the foggiest notion what fundamentalism really means. No, everyone just knows it's a bad word – so Bishop Spong comes across as a hero for rescuing us from it.

Well, I for one am tired of seeing a perfectly good word twisted and used to beat Bible-believing Christians bloody.

The time has come to set the record straight: Fundamentalism simply means adherence to the fundamental facts – in this case the fundamental facts of Christianity. And understanding the history of this term is critical to understanding fundamentalism today.

Fundamentalism rose out of a controversy at the end of the nineteenth century when evolution science and so called higher biblical criticism began to challenge prevailing assumptions about biblical authority. This assault on orthodoxy affected even the great religious institutions of the day: Princeton Theological Seminary, for example, issued a statement of faith calling doctrines such as the virgin birth and the inerrancy of Scripture mere theories."

Meanwhile workers were leaving their farms for the sweatshops and assembly lines of urban industry, creating new ethical and social crises. A lively "social gospel" – strong on good intentions, but weak on biblical doctrine – emerged.

The first orthodox response to these developments came in 1910 when a group of pastors and lay people published a series of slim volumes titled The Fundamentals. These booklets defined what had been the non-negotiables of the faith since the writing of the Apostles' Creed.

The word fundamentalist first appeared publicly a decade later when a conservative Baptist newspaper used it to describe those ready "to do battle royal for the Fundamentals."

Those fundamentals have been generally understood over the years to embrace five points: (1) the infallibility of Scripture; (2) the deity of Christ; (3) the virgin birth and miracles of Christ; (4) Christ's substitutionary death; (5) Christ's physical resurrection and eventual return.

These are still the backbone of orthodox Christianity. If a fundamentalist is simply one who claims these truths, then there are fundamentalists in every church and denomination – Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, or Brethren. Every believing Christian is a fundamentalist.

Tragically, Christians have been taken in by distortions of the term. I recently heard a pastor warn his flock against falling away from the faith and getting involved in "sex, drugs, and fundamentalist sects." In much of the church's intramural battling, Christians have used the word against one another.

Admittedly, as the years have passed, the term has been used to describe certain separatist movements, anti-intellectualism, and legalism. It's been confused, misunderstood, and maligned. But enough is enough: It is time for orthodox believers to recapture the word for its original meaning.

Fundamentalism, in its classic sense, ought to be a badge of honor, not a slur of shame. The great distinctions in our world today are not between "fundamentalist sects" and some truer Christianity. The divisions are between those who know the Christ of the gospels and those who prefer to make God in their own image, according to their own notions of modernism.

It is along those battle lines that I take my stand. The world may scoff, but you can call me a fundamentalist any time.