I’ve written previously on the state of American Christianity, and it will probably surprise none of you that I remain as pessimistic about that. The WASP of old, supported by the three-legged stool of the Military, the Ivy League, and the Episcopal Church is no more. For better or worse we must soldier on. To the extent they remain alive, they have vacated the posts that would enable them to slow or stop the decline of the American Republic. But it is not the WASPs I wish to write to you about. Rather, I wish to draw attention to the only remaining moral backbone of America, the Fundamentalists.
Dr. Stephen Wolfe’s infamous tweet said it well
For the American Christians in this scene, the backcountry, low church, revivalist hobbits are your people. They are the last free people in this country, the last who dare believe the old myths, and God has blessed them for it. I wonder how many of the great theologians, of both America and the world, would be shocked that the only mainline protestant denominations that still stubbornly refuse to raise the rainbow flag is the Southern Baptist Convention. The Stewart brothers would be proud. Some history and explanations are necessary.
The Presbyterian Church of the United States, at the turn of the last century, stood as a titan of American Civic Life, or what we might call society. But for decades a battle raged within the denomination, only faintly perceived, as once more American Calvinism was racked by a German fever. From the Continent had come a school that subscribed to what was called higher criticism, which applied critical readings to holy scripture, in essence changing the question from ‘what is God saying here’ to ‘what does this tell us about the prejudices of the biblical authors’. Doctrines like the incarnation, the divinity of Christ, the resurrection, the infallibility of Scripture, had largely been taken for granted in an America that was bathed in Scripture. But between nascent Darwinism and these new German theological hermeneutics, the leaders of the Presbyterian Church began to believe these beliefs were tied to an infantile understanding of the Christian Religion. There were, however, dissidents.1
At the annual Niagra Bible Conference, driven primarily by Presbyterian Minister James H. Brooks, a declaration was issued stating what they believed to be the 14 Fundamentals of Biblical Christianity.2 These fundamentalists came from two primary camps - southern Presbyterians in absolute opposition to the German Higher Criticism theology coming from Union Theological Seminary, and the northern Presbyterians uneasy with the same, led by Princeton Theological Seminary, and their champion, J. Gresham Machen. Machen threw his weight, pen, and reputation behind the Fundamentalist cause, and puts very succinctly why in his book Christianity and Liberalism,
“Christ died--that is history; Christ died for our sins--that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity.”3
And this I think is what so many of you dark elves find difficult to understand. You look at these people and see nothing but kitsch moralism and ugly churches. None of the grandeur of European Civilization. But what you fail to understand is that these people are the Visigoths, the Ostragoths, and the Franks, in the late Roman Empire. The vital energy of Christianity is almost totally in their camp, and they have for a century now been at war on behalf of mere Christianity. I understand that you may come from other Christian Traditions, or perhaps no tradition at all, but I can tell you in absolute terms, their fight is your fight.
The Fundamentalists do not see into the future, they have no special insight. What they have is the determination to cling to those truths delivered to them by God, and the faith to put themselves at the mercy of Solemn Providence. No other group has clung to the Canon as they have, and their reward is that exact sense in which they remain uncorrupted and unspoiled as the rest of the West is. As I quoted Nick Land at Scyldings,
“Culture is the great faith, within which doctrinal specifics, even the loftiest, count for little. From Scripture, all interpretation descends. Whether and how the Bible—the Authorized King James Version of 1611, and only that—is believed, or disbelieved, and in either case how, is downstream of its canonicity. It should, regardless, as all those who are with us must accept, be taught, prior to any interpretation. On this point, the fundamentalist case is impeccable. What the Bible says does not depend upon what it means, but only the inverse. Its cultural authority, or canonicity, is solely grounded in the former, and not the latter.”4
When we survey the task we have before us, preserving our patrimony and carrying it into the future, the Fundamentalists stand not only as a testament that it can be done but as flesh and blood allies who remain a real and potent force. And having my foot in both camps, I pray to God that they experience similar triumphs. Because, dear friends, our fates are tied more closely than you can understand.
God bless my people, and God bless you all.
https://www.pcahistory.org/documents/deliverance.html
Gary J. Dorrien, The Remaking of Evangelical Theology, Westminster John Knox Press, USA, 1998, p. 15
J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism. 1935
Land, Nick, Why We Need the Canon Wars, Compact Mag, February 21st, 2023
Considering how the German Higher Criticism had practically been debunked while Darwinism/evolution is being maintained only by intellectual band-aids (if not brute force), it's funny how the "Fundamentalists" are given this sideways look by the more "sophisticated" Christians.