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John,
Point taken. There are very good people who would condone barbaric acts of violence for the simple reason that it's "biblical" (in their minds).
Frankly, Evangelical Christians scare the death out of me when I think of them voting or doing anything political.....

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Behold, now is "THE ACCEPTABLE TIME,"
behold, now is "THE DAY OF SALVATION" --
The apostle Paul, NASB

The problem is of mindset. As Rene once noted, if every commentary is written by Spirit filled people but are different in their conclusions who is the right commentator?
You may say that you have the corner on truth because the denomination has decided these are what identifies you as xyz denomination.

But you should call them xyz doctrine. Not fundamental doctrine, underived doctrine. That smacks of chauvinism. It says "We are the true church".

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Sam

All Scripture references from the NASB unless otherwise indicated.

Being evangelical is fine.
Others labelling Christians with a pejorative we have to accept. Christian was once pejorative.

Calling yourself a Fundamentalist Evangelical is a modern form of the "I am a follower of Apollo" vs "I am a follower of Paul" approach.

_________________
John

My soul looks back in wonder at how I got over

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Hmmnnn... Please elaborate. What's the difference between calling oneself "evangelical" (which is in your words "fine")and "fundamentalist evangelical" (which is obviously to you not "fine")? How does this equate with the situation in Corinth?
It seems to me you are finding reason to agree with the current culture and now stretching Biblical application to agree with you. Once again no one here has said that this work has saved them, nor have they said it's inerrent, nor do they use it to prove they are "the true believers" or even "better believers". They've merely said they agree or likely would agree with Torrey's Fundamentals and wonder why the label has become pejorative.

I've always been curious, what is the evidence that the term applied to those in Antioch (Acts 11:26) as "Christians (Christianou)" was pejorative. If it was "pejorative", why did Peter use it in 1 Peter 4:16. Do we have any evidence it was "pejorative" other than the opinions of modern commentators? What is the basis of this argument?

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Blessings,
Randy
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It's strange that the 9 Jewish lepers with their orthodox theology couldn't see God, (the Shema was in their way, obstructing acceptance of a Trinitarian God) but a "foreigner" with NO theology, blasphemous or orthodox, believed the right things.

Also strange that held beliefs seem to desensitise the "pure" to obvious events, while the "uncircumcision" who came for healing realised the massive implications of what had happened to them. Case in point, Naaman. No one asked him to believe "the right things", but he knew that God had touched him.

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Sam

All Scripture references from the NASB unless otherwise indicated.

Hey, Randy. I've long held the same question, and brought it up on a thread called Original Application of the Word χριστιανος (it's in subforum 7a, General Theological Discussion; I tried to copy and paste the URL but it wouldn't paste in because of the Greek word in the thread title; you can find it by pasting χριστιανος into the 'search forum' box).

I think the issue of this thread is whether we can tolerate intolerance. It would be glib in saying those who do not tolerate intolerance are themselves intolerant (which is disingenuous), but the crux of their stand is that they wish for a good thing, to operate in a setting of tolerance for all.

This is a very timely article. He sees that people are being force to tolerate all views because their heroes hold some views which are suspect, but some of their opponents have good insights!

Quote
It used to be easy to tell the goodies from the baddies. From the 1950s to the 1980s, you had evangelicals (hooray): strong, thoughtful, humble and godly people who preached the gospel and believed the Bible was God’s true and inspired word (John Stott, Billy Graham, Carl Henry, Martyn Lloyd-Jones and JI Packer). And then you had liberals (boo, hiss): weak, fluffy, compromising dilettantes who didn’t believe the Bible, didn’t believe the virgin birth, didn’t believe the resurrection, didn’t believe anything (Rudolf Bultmann, JAT Robinson, David Jenkins and John Shelby Spong). Forgive the caricature, but if you affirmed the resurrection, you affirmed the Bible and everything in it; if you rejected it, you rejected the Bible and everything in it. Simple.

Not any more. For many leaders and theologians today, not to mention ordinary Christians, there is not one danger to be warded off, but two: liberalism and fundamentalism. Liberalism is still at one extreme, but now fundamentalism is at the other, and evangelicals are increasingly self-identifying as those who sit in between those two positions. So, whereas fifty years ago a critique of liberalism would mark you out as a good evangelical, these days it might suggest you had drifted from the vitally important middle ground, and were in fact a fundamentalist in disguise – and this causes some influencers to avoid critiquing liberalism without critiquing fundamentalism as well (like Tim Keller, Tom Wright, Ben Witherington and many others), and others to devote far more time and energy to debunking fundies than liberals (like Rob Bell, Brian Maclaren, Scot McKnight and many others). Those who operate within the 1950s framework, and who speak in terms of those who submit to the Bible and those who don’t, are regarded by many as naïve bumpkins, divisive antagonists or worse (like Wayne Grudem, Mark Driscoll, Al Mohler and many others).

[from "The Biggest Theological Debate of the Next Twenty Years" by Andrew Wilson]

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Sam

All Scripture references from the NASB unless otherwise indicated.

Just Read Rick's link and I think Bauder nailed the issue. His eight characteristics before this last paragraph are IMHO dead on.


I also think it is a good point that those Evangelical Fundamentalists who ignored the problem of our Hyper-fundamentalist folk is what permitted this faction to grow and even IMO seem to be speaking for the whole group. Perhaps this is why this discussion has gone several pages!

This does look like an interesting read and I'll have to put it on my Amazon wish-list!

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Blessings,
Randy
Forum Code of Conduct
The Bible NETWork Doctrinal Statement
The Net Bible Online

I did not say 'calling oneself "evangelical"'. Rather, I said 'being evangelical" which is an actvity any Christian of any denomination or none may do from time to time. Similarly, a Chistian may also be pastoral, or be didactic or exercise other gifts. This is different from taking a label. Conversely, it is possible to take the label Evangelical and never be evangelical in your actions.



Letters between Pliny the Younger and the Emperor Trajan are indicative of this, though more would be required to be conclusive.

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John

My soul looks back in wonder at how I got over

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Are we confusing evangelistic with evangelical? Evangelistic descibes an activity aimed at conversion. The word Evangelical is now most commonly used to describe Christians who hold a common set of beliefs - at least when describing persons or organizations.

Of course you my use tems as you understand them, but I think the above is the more common understanding where I live.

pastorjohn

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"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." Gal 5:6b

Pastor John C. Blackburn

OK. I thought my sentence construction (and lack of capitalisation) would indicate that I was using the term as an adjective and not a noun. The Australian Macquarie dictionary and the Miriam-Webster use that for the primary meaning of the adjective.

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John

My soul looks back in wonder at how I got over

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes