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Fundamentalism

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Barr's goal is to understand the fundamentalist positions and arguments. He certainly does submit submit them to sustained criticism, but makes every effort to be fair and provide reasoned criticism. He is a very competent biblical scholar who has contributed to the field.

He points out, fundamentalists are not really biblical literalists, as they keep adjusting their interpretations to somehow cohere with modern knowledge. They are really inerrantists, believing that the Bible contains no errors of any kind, if properly interpreted. "Inerrancy is maintained only by constantly altering the mode of interpretation, and in particular by abandoning the literal sense as soon as it would be an embarrassment to the view of inerrancy held." (p. 46) In other words, when literal interpretations conflict with established knowledge, they abandon them for nonliteral ones, often in ingenious, if highly implausible, ways.

A second note of fundamentalism is hostility to modern biblical scholarship and modern theology. For example, does it really matter to the validiy of our faith whether the book of Isaiah is divided into three main groups of material from different times? (Pre-exilic period, First Isaiah, chs. 1-39; exilic period, Second Isaiah, chs. 40-55; and post-exilic period, Third Isaiah, chs. 56-66.) Does it really matter our faith whether Deuteronomy was written several centuries after Moses? Does it really matter if Mark was the earliest gospel? Does it really matter whether the first creation story in Genesis was written after the Exile and uses contemporary imagery? Whether the story of the "man" and "woman" in Gen. 2-3 is an aetiological (everyman) story? The liberal positons actually take nothing away from faith in Jesus Christ. Why do so many fundamentalists think they do? Ad hominem arguments, really. They tend to read motives into modern scholarship, falsely accusing modern scholars en masse of trying to destroy the credibility of the Bible. According to Barr, they are actually stuck in the past with the 18th century deist controversies. Many deists did argue against revelation, but this is not a necessary presupposition of critical scholarship.

But of course, fundamentalists like to compare the ordinary nominal church going Christian. The must undergo a conversion to become true Christians, and it is expected that they will then hold conservative evangelical views. This has a danger of being a form a gnosticism, an elite group, whose primary faith is in the inerrancy of the Bible rather than in Christ Jesus. One peculiarity is that fundamentalists often prefer to read only trustworthy books by safe authors, and these do not seem to include critical scholars. Barr points out that they usually simply do not understand where modern scholars are coming from, nor do they really want to, and so make up all sorts of charges against them which have little basis in fact.

Strangely enough, the fundamentalist cannot agree on many things important to them. Pre- and post-millenarism and dispensationalism are cases in point.

Barr holds that fundamentalism is a particular type of religion, and acceptance of this religion controls how they interpret the Bible, rather than the other way around. The three elements of fundamemtalism he chose to deal with, inerrancy, the hositility toward critical scholarship and theology, and the distinction betwee the nominal and true Christian, are obviosly not given in the Bible. For example, the "Bible" could not declare itself to be inerrant because when the texts cited were composed, there was no 'Bible' in existence. It hadn't been put together yet by the church, and indeed, some had not been written yet! I haven't the space or inclination to go over the spurious 'claims' that fundamentalists 'claim' the Bible or Jesus made about the Bible, using passages that are clearly concerned with other issues.

This is not a sociology of religion book with survey results and statistics. Rather, Barr takes on the positions and arguments put forward by many fundamentalists. He documents them in the literature and shows there is a variety of opinions, something missed by another reviewer. He also argues that evangelical Christianity is not, and need not, be tied to fundamentalis, something also missed by the the same reviewer. Anyone who thinks that he is arguing against straw men just hasn't dealt with fundamentalists. I have, and I am grateful to Barr for helping to show me where those with whom I have controverted are coming from.

Barr was an outstanding theologian. His "Fundamentalism" has had and still has a major impact in evangelical and reformed circles. He analyses the trend in predominantly evangelical churches and demonstrates it as a different "religion." The fundamentalist movement appeals to orthodox Christians but, according to Barr, is not a homegeneous and sound coherent view on Scriptures. The book is a "must" for all reformed theologians and pastors or ministers. The study is not an "easy read" at all and Barr's style tends to become too complex. Yet it is doubly worth the effort of investing time in mastering this profound and timeless work.

Until reading this book I pretty much assumed fundamentalism (Christian, anyway) was mostly a U.S. phenomenon. Barr seems to be mostly occupied with British evangelicals. Actually, I was surprised at how *liberal* many of the evangelical/fundamentalist scholars he examines were by the standards of U.S. fundamentalists. For example, I imagine most garden variety U.S. fundies would be appalled that many of these scholars claim to be inerrantists and yet do not accept a literal six day creation and a young earth.

Nevertheless, Barr does an excellent job of exposing the difficulties inherent in the concept of biblical inerrantism. The previous reviewer notes that many evangelical scholars also oppose the reflexive apologetic/harmonization stance espoused by the scholars Barr cites. That may be so, but if rank and file evangelicals/fundamentalists knew that these people were in their midst, they would run them out of town on the proverbial rail, or at the very least withdraw their support from the institutions that employ them.

I have been fairly impressed with some of James Barr's other works in different areas (eg. 'Semantics of Biblical Language') and I ventured into 'Fundamentalism' with an open mind, but was disappointed. By 'fundamentalist' he basically means most conservative evangelicals; his particular gripe is with the doctrine of inerrancy, though he levels plenty of other charges at conservatives: they don't believe non-fundamentalists are 'true' Christians; they only make use of critical scholarship when it suits their own agenda; they elevate their own traditions to infallible status. Of course all these have been true of some evangelicals at one point or another, but Barr makes all of these more or less blanket accusations that he wants to make out are an inherent part of conservative evangelicalism. He frequently draws attention to extreme examples that many (or most) thinking evangelical scholars would disown, eg. Harold Lindsell's infamous harmonisation of Peter's denial (which had him postulating a sixfold denial). He picks on Howard Marshall for harmonising the two ascension accounts in Luke and Acts, suggesting that this is typical of evangelical harmonisation whose only motivation is to protect the Bible from error, when in fact it is only common sense to assume that the SAME event recorded by the SAME author is more likely than not to be able to be harmonised. Barr's work is full of double standards: he despises the way conservatives, when asked by a layman about liberal theology, will be directed to a book written by a conservative intending to refute the liberal position, and yet Barr himself writes with the intent of introducing non-conservatives to HIS interpretation and refutation of fundamentalism; he complains about the animosity shown by some conservatives towards biblical scholars, and yet his own work is marred by a hostile and unfriendly attitude. In fact, if it weren't for the blatant hostility demonstrated towards conservative evangelicalism throughout the book, and the fact that every accusation he raises he tries to elevate to 'typical' status within 'fundamentalism', he might actually have some good points to make. He doesn't seem to realise, however, that many of these criticisms have been raised WITHIN evangelicalism, by people who hold firmly to inerrancy, which Barr seems to see as the Achilles' heel of evangelicalism. Barr thinks that evangelicals have been wrong to reject biblical criticism? Good! Many evangelicals say the same thing, and it is only one narrow stream of evangelicalism who have rejected it outright, whereas many conservative scholars have used biblical criticism honestly and responsibly. Barr is fed up with crass harmonisations and ludicrous attempts to explain away 'errors'? Good! Many evangelical scholars are equally fed up, yet they remain inerrantists. Barr is tired of partisan propaganda from fundamentalists, of their failure to interact sufficiently with non-conservative scholarship, of being uncreative in theology and unwilling to step out into new territory? Good! Join the rest of the world of evangelical scholarship who have been raising the same objections for many years, from within a Bible-believing, inerrantist framework. Barr would like his readers to think that all the problems he finds in conservative evangelicalism are as a direct result of holding to inerrancy, but the evidence is against him. I have recently done my BA thesis on Barr's criticisms, particularly as they relate to inerrancy and interpretation, and I have come across many evangelical scholars who share Barr's concerns, and yet feel no need to abandon inerrancy (Craig L. Blomberg and Moises Silva were those who impressed me most). I found 'Fundamentalism' misleading and, in fact, almost vicious at times. I had to restrain my anger just to be able to learn from Barr's criticisms, because the underlying tone completely obscured any positive contributions Barr might have had to make. Barr is generally a good scholar, but he went beyond the bounds of good scholarship this time, and 'Fundamentalism' is more akin to the 'rubbishy partisan literature' he so despises than any fair, academic treatment of a subject which deserves attention.

This book is not basically about fundamentalism at all. It is, above all, an attack on biblical scholars who are familiar with liberal works, often accepting some of their conclusions, but refusing to bow down to the liberal project and so not hesitating to openly reject many of their more ridiculous findings. This really upsets the author. In this book he does not argue the liberal position but merely seeks to discredit those other scholars. One way to do this is guilt by association: he calls them fundamentalists. He primarily addresses the issue under the heading of biblical inerrancy. For others to use the word "fundamentalist" as a kind of swear word is one thing; that a linguistic expert should so drastically widen its meaning is not just ironic, it's inexcusable.

Since, by and large, he does not argue the liberal position but presupposes it to be the correct one, he greatly limits the audience for the book. It will only be of interest to liberals of like persuasion, but even they may find it heavy going.

For those who understand the fallacy of liberalism, it is an offensive book. For its central attack is on those who have delved into liberal views and brought out what they believe to be of some value from the mountains of rubble. Rather they should be commended. They have to suffer attacks from both sides. Not that his targets are all close to the very middle; they represent a wide range of positions.

If you are looking for a good book to help you understand fundamentalism and its rise, especially the American form, I recommend George Marsden's Fundamentalism and American Culture (New Edition).

There are important things that need to be said about inerrancy, and there are corrections that need to be made concerning the way many Christians, including published scholars, treat scriptures. But those who make the historical critical method rule over all else have nothing worthwhile to contribute. There is simply no understanding of the prophetic nature of scripture, or of God's purposes in it, so they miss the whole point of scripture.

You can get far more from one page of the works of many of Barr's targets (Charles Hodge, George E Ladd, John Bright, D Martyn Llyod-Jones, etc) than from whole commentaries that are little more than wild speculations on authorship, dates, literary forms and the like, derived from the liberal "scientific" approach being used in a totalitarian way (not that I am accusing Barr of this).