The Inevitable Convergence

In this month's edition of The Baptist Bulletin, a GARBC publication, there were a couple of good articles on fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism, one of which, was an interview with both Kevin Bauder and Al Mohler. The interviews were prompted by a new book on the four perspectives of evangelicalism of which these two men were contributing authors.
One of the articles was written by Kevin Bauder, called "Defending the Idea of Fundamentalism" which was an excerpt from the book. He says:

"Some version of fundamentalism is necessary. Granted, it needs to be a chastened fundamentalism. It needs to become even more serious about worship, preaching, devotion and holiness. It needs to become more doctrinally careful. It desperately needs to distance itself from the excesses of its worst exemplars.  If it cannot rid itself of hyper fundamentalism and revivalism, and if it cannot learn sobriety, then the fundamentalist movement probably does not deserve to survive." 

I agree that some kind of fundamentalism is necessary because there has to be a standard bearing group of faithful believers who will hold the banner of truth at the front of the battle lines. But, the current movement we know as fundamentalism has failed to do so and in my opinion, the small fragment of fundamentalism that has any resemblance to historic fundamentalism has discovered its need to reform far too late. The cancer of hyper-fundamentalism was allowed to spread for far too long until it has taken over the majority of the movement. According to this book, there are about 13,000 Independent Fundamental Baptist Churches in America of every flavor. How many of those do you think are "hyper-fundamentalist" churches? It's hard to say, but if you pick any place on the map and look up Independent Fundamental Baptist Churches in the phone book, most likely, it will not be a historic, balanced, "doctrinally careful" kind of church. The reality, I believe, is that historic fundamentalism's days are numbered and the movement will inevitably be dominated (if it isn't already) by the hyper-fundamentalists.

Bauder goes on to say:

"The dissolution of the mainstream would give them (hyper-fundamentalists) clear title to whatever remains of the movement, though it would bear little resemblance to historic fundamentalism...Hyper fundamentalism is not fundamentalism. It is a parasite on the fundamentalist movement. For many years it was simply a nuisance, largely ignored by mainstream fundamentalists. Ignoring the problem, however, permitted it to grow."

Nobody has to officially pull the plug and dissolve what's left of historic fundamentalism. It's going to dissolve anyway as it continues to shrink and young fundamentalists continue to leave the movement. Ignoring cancer will kill you too. When you realize it has eaten up almost all of your body, it's too late to start treatment. Fundamentalism is dying and is being replaced by a mutation of the movement that has become the new mainstream. So, what do we do? Eject and go to mainstream or conservative evangelicalism? Don't they have problems too? Bauder says something that I think is helpful for an answer:

"More and more of fundamentalism is being co-opted by what I call hyper-fundamentalism.  We're being slowly eroded by the hard right. That is forcing us to wake up to the fact that there were tough choices that we should have made a long time ago that we didn't.  So our hands aren't entirely clean in the way we have conducted ourselves.  Some of the blame that has been laid against us from outside fundamentalism has been merited. We deserved it...On the other hand, conservative evangelicals...have never seen what I would regard as a really robust, balanced Biblical fundamentalism.  And because of that, they are working their way toward a more separatistic position from a less separatistic position. If we articulate our ideas well, I think we have the opportunity to persuade them to a better position that they might not otherwise come to."  

Here's my diagnosis. The current movement of fundamentalism is going to die...within my lifetime. It will be forced to cooperate with the conservative evangelicals in order for its institutions to survive. So the usefulness of the current minority of "mainstream", historic fundamentalists will be in exactly what Bauder says will happen if we are careful to articulate our ideas well...it will move conservative evangelicals to a more biblical and healthy separatism and the two sides will be merged to form a new and improved fundamentalism, except we will lose the label (since it will already have been hijacked by the hyper-fundies). Some kind of "gospel-centric" tag will eventually evolve by those who oppose it and that name will stick as the new movement for orthodoxy and orthopraxy. It will look more like historic fundamentalism of the late 1800's in that it will consist of more than just Baptists. This is what I am looking forward to and will spend my years on this earth working toward, so that our church will have a solid movement to be a part of years after I am gone.