What is meant by Fundamentals, Dr. Silas C. Nair
‘What is meant by Fundamentals’ is a simple question and can be answered in simple words. But we need to know the background well before we can understand it correctly. First, therefore, I will try to explain the background.
Introduction: The Lord Jesus Christ promised to return. His coming was promised to those who believed in Him, i.e. the Church. The hope of the Church is that when He returns the Church will be caught up (which is called the Rapture) and the Church as the Bride of Christ will be with Him forever.
He is also the King of the Jews. But when the Jews rejected and crucified Him, the Kingdom that He promised to them was postponed. Therefore when he comes He will set up His kingdom in Jerusalem and rule as the King of kings for a thousand years. This is what is called the millennial rule of Christ.
During the apostolic era itself the believers expected their Lord to return. This is what is called the imminent return of Jesus Christ, i.e. His return could take place any time.
Towards the end of the seventh decade of the first century persecution started and the Church suffered at the hands of the enemy. This continued through second and third centuries. The enduring power was the imminent return of Christ, the hope of the Church. With the conversion of Emperor Constantine the persecutions ended and the Church received favours from the State and many joined the visible Church. Many of the believers believed that the millennium has come, because of the peace they enjoyed.
There followed the division of the Church as East and West, the ascendancy of the Roman Catholic Church and the dark period in Church history when common man was not even allowed to read the Scriptures. The sixteenth century Reformation gave back to the Church the truth of “justification by faith”. Revival followed.
It was still later in the 1830 and 40s that the millenarian movement started in America. Study of the scriptures awakened in the minds of believers the expectation of the second advent of Christ and the following one thousand year reign. The roots of fundamentalism are found in this movement. The interest gained momentum with the Niagara Bible Conference
Niagara Bible Conference: In the closing decades of the nineteenth century certain believers gathered for Bible study at Niagara-on-the-Lake Thus began the Bible Conference movement. In 1868 eight men who were connected with the pre-millennial periodical “Waymarks in the Wilderness”, met in New York city to study the Word. Later, their successors met in 1878 in Massachusetts and these study groups gathered further followers on the way and started meeting every year at Niagara on the Lake.
The topics for study mainly were “The person and Work of the Holy Spirit”, “How to study the Bible”, “Second Coming of Christ” etc. The topics strongly suggest that these were the result of J. N. Darby’s visit to the United States and the influence of the Plymouth Brethren.
When differences arose in 1877 conference, a fourteen point doctrinal statement was drawn up and officially adopted in 1890. The first article affirms that “the Holy Ghost inspired the very words of the sacred writings” and the last article profess the “belief in the pre-millennial advent after a fearful apostasy in the professing Christian body”. Thus the conferences reflect its background in the teachings of Darby and anticipates the twentieth century fundamentalism.
The movement attracted leaders such as the prominent Boston Baptist minister Adoniram J. Gordon (1836-95) and Maurice Baldwin (1836-1904), bishop of Huron in the Church of Canada.. The millenarians associated with the Niagara Conference also sponsored public conferences in major cities beginning in 1878, such as the Bible and Prophetic Conference in New York City.
Development of fundamentalist views: The Church is in the world. What happens in the world affects the church also in one way or another. Some thought that the millennium had arrived in the days of Emperor Constantine. Likewise when Americans were faced with labour unrest, social discontent and the rising tide of Roman Catholic immigration the millenarian movement began to grow. The only escape from these was the coming of the Lord Jesus. The Liberal Biblical criticism challenged true believers and also won many converts to this movement.
The Protestant evangelist Dwight L. Moody (1837-99) provided in his Northfield conferences an influential platform for millenarian expression. They supported foreign mission work and influenced missionary zeal.
There were a group of scholars within the Princeton Theological Seminary, N. J., who were interested in defending the authority and inspiration of the scriptures. Though they were not millenarians, the later invited the former for their conferences. The Princeton professors’ arguments were effectively used in defense of the Bible. The one thing they had in common was the authority of the Bible.
The millenarians cooperated with other defenders of the inerrancy of the Bible in founding the American Bible League in 1902 and in writing a series of 12 pamphlets entitled “The Fundamentals”. These pamphlets attacked the current theories of biblical criticism and reasserted the authority of the Bible.
By 1914 almost all leaders who started the Niagara conference had died and the new leaders were more militant and uncompromising. When there arose disagreements over prophetic interpretations for sometime the dissident factions were held together but finally the Niagara conference was abandoned.
Social degeneracy and liberalism alarmed the millenarians and their conferences were successful and the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association was formed in 1919. This conference provided a platform for the furtherance of millenarian-fundamentalist movement.
By 1914, among the Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian denominations in the North, liberalism had gained many adherents. But within the Presbyterian church, conservatives had, with the help of the millenarians, imposed a set of essential doctrines upon the denomination in 1910, declaring the inerrant inspiration of the Bible, the Virgin Birth of Christ, and the Atonement (redemptive activity), Resurrection, and miracle-working power of Christ necessary to the Christian faith.
Displeasure with the teaching of evolution, as well as anxiety over the spread of biblical criticism, gained momentum in the 1920s. Fundamentalists, believing that the Bible could not be reconciled with the view of the origin of life put forward by Charles Darwin, opposed evolution; but not every opponent of evolution was a fundamentalist..
Much of the structure of modern fundamentalism is provided by Bible institutes and Bible colleges. Many of these schools, such as the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Ill. or the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Calif., in addition to teaching their students, publish periodicals, broadcast from their own radio stations, hold conferences, and maintain a staff of extension speakers.
Fundamentalist beliefs have not changed significantly since the time of the Niagara conferences.
The Brethren Contribution: It was suggested that the travels of J.N.Darby in the United States and the influence of the Plymouth Brethren were seen as the base for Bible Study and the origins of millenarian movement. The brethren movement itself was a reaction against denominationalism and clerical hierarchy and certain compromises creeping into their churches. As they studied the scriptures they wanted to return to the simplicity of apostolic days and worship. The movement was a protest against the prevailing conditions of spiritual deadness, formalism and sectarianism. Their studies of scriptures confirmed in their minds that born again believers could meet together for breaking of bread without the distinction of clergy and the laity. One of their most outstanding teachers was J.N.Darby. Their gatherings were marked by devotion to the Lord, zeal for evangelism and a strong leaning toward prophetic studies. So, authority of the Bible, zeal for evangelism and eschatological studies marked their gatherings.
The Brethren contribution will be elaborated much more in forthcoming articles.
What Is The Meaning Of ‘The Fundamentals’: The word ‘fundamental’ means “one of the minimum constituents without which a thing or a system would not be what it is”. A fundamental particle is an elementary particle.. Let us take ‘atom’ for instance. “Scientists have increasingly developed techniques to probe ever more deeply into the structure of matter and to break down matter into its most basic elements. The concept of the atom has existed since the 5th century BC, but it was not until the beginning of the 19th century that this concept was developed into a scientific theory. Almost as soon as the modern atomic theory was established, it was discovered that atoms were not the basic pointlike building blocks that were being sought. Instead, atoms consist of electrons that are somehow bound to a tiny nucleus. The nucleus is made of neutrons and protons. For some time it seemed possible that these objects could be the fundamental building blocks, but in the 1960s it was found that the neutron and proton have structure as well” (Britanica)
Without being unduly technical let us say that atoms consist of electrons, neutrons and protons. In other words these three are the fundamental (elementary) particles of an atom.
Or let us take ‘music’. All music contains certain basic elements. These are rhythm, melody, harmony and form. Without these four basic elements it is not music.
Fundamentals of the Christian Faith: When we first asked the question, “What is meant by fundamentals”? what we really meant was, the fundamentals of Christian faith. Christian faith has certain fundamentals, basic elements. without which it cannot be called The Christian faith. It is The Faith which was one delivered to the saints.
We stand firmly and unashamedly committed to Biblical Christianity. This Christianity is today referred commonly as ‘Fundamentalism’. We have the burden of fulfilling the command of the apostle “Always be prepared to make a defense to any who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet.3.15). Where has the universe come from, what is its present form, what is the direction it is going? Only Christian faith has a clear answer to these questions. Our task of defending fundamentalism is more challenging today than ever before. To the modern technologically and scientifically advanced mind Christian theology seems decadent and is only figments of superstition and imagination of super naturalists who are fearful of danger. This is only because the modern minds assigns to conservative Christianity some propositions which the system does not require.
Conservative Christianity is not based on blind faith. Though it is true that natural mind cannot discern the things of the Spirit unless the Spirit Himself enlightens that mind, the Christian faith is based on solid grounds, the unchanging Word of God. God has acted in history and these acts have specific meaning, to the Jews, the people of God; to the Church, the body of Christ and to the whole humanity. God’s revelation has been progressive and it culminated in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. The divine plan by which Abraham was chosen to be God’s instrument to reach all the nations of the earth is explicitly taught in the scriptures, the Old and the New Testaments. All the basic elements that constitute this truth, the fundamentals, are in the Scriptures.
The inerrant and infallible Word of God containing the 66 books is one whole, logically and intelligently held together by the Divine writer, the Holy Spirit who inspired them. Every fundamental doctrine is important. They are all related to each other. They either stand or fall together.
In our next article we shall see ‘What doctrines are fundamentals and why’?
