Why American Christians Reject Fundamentalism

American Christians, on the whole, are wary of fundamentalism. The dominant form of Christianity in America has never been fundamentalism. Christian fundamentalists are among us, but most Americans view religious fundamentalism as a form of tyranny. We don’t like tyranny or tyrants. We prefer freedom, particularly religious freedom. Fundamentalism strikes us as oppressive and unfree.

There are theological reasons for this. First, the sovereignty of God. God’s sovereignty over all is not a call to tyranny but humility. If God is sovereign, then I am not! If God is sovereign, then I should be humble about my views and recognize that I could be wrong. God is, in essence, beyond human knowledge. Statements about God and God’s will are always human interpretations; they must be evaluated on a large mental field by many people. This saves us from fanatics and religious tyranny. God is sovereign. We are not. Every human government, institution, and church stands under the judgment of God.

Second, God is free. If we believe in the sovereignty of God, then we also affirm that God can do whatever God wishes to do. We cannot control God any more than we can control salvation. Because God is free, salvation can appear anywhere, anytime, and through anyone. God is not restricted as to the means of salvation or the persons God chooses to be his prophets. Revelation, in other words, can come from all directions, from any source, at anytime, from any place. This is the freedom of God. We cannot restrict God’s revelation, God’s grace, or God’s salvation. We cannot pronounce judgment on who is everlastingly saved or everlastingly lost.

Third, the cross of Christ. The greatest argument against religious fundamentalism is the cross of Christ. Jesus was crushed by the combined powers of altar and throne, church and state. We cannot call the religious leaders of his day “fundamentalists,” but they certainly were not committed to religious freedom! The death of Christ is a warning against religion in politics. How does this connect with our time? Since the late 1970s conservative and fundamentalist Christians in America have been expressing the need to “take back America” for God. They continue to have a political agenda for our nation, to “Christianize” America according to their definition. This is a dangerous blend of religion and politics. This blurs the line between church and state. The cross of Christ condemns the union of church and state; it also condemns the efforts of religious fundamentalists to impose a theocratic ideal on our country.

Finally, the sources of Christian theology keep us from fundamentalist extremes. Over the centuries a method of doing theology has been developed. This method revolves around four sources of truth: Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience

The church has used all four sources to discern God’s revelation and God’s will. Fundamentalists reduce the Christian revelation to a book—the Bible—and interpret this book through the lens of inerrancy (an error-free book straight from God). The church as a whole has never done this. Fundamentalism is a freak when compared to centuries of interpretation and discernment by Christians and theologians. Fundamentalism turns Christianity into a “religion of the book,” like Islam and Orthodox Judaism. But Christianity has never been a religion of the book.

Rather, Christian truth has always been a blend of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Ideally, we aim at the Bible without biblicism, tradition without traditionalism, reason without rationalism, and experience without subjectivism. This is balance. We need balance, and there is nothing about fundamentalism that is balanced.

To sum up, we have four checks against religious fundamentalism:

•The sovereignty of God
•The freedom of God
•The cross of Christ
•Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience

These save us from fundamentalism and the tyranny of religious fanatics.