Is it Time for Fundamentalism Again?
This is an interesting article that I found on the internet. Read the full post here.
Andrea L. Turpin reviews Owen Strachan's new book Christianity and Wokeness , which is named after J. Gresham Machen's 1923 book, Christianity and Liberalism . Not only is the name inspired by Machen's book, but Strachen also feels that his book is confronting an issue that is comparable in danger and importance to the Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy. While Turpin finds some positive takeaways from the book, she concludes that the book cannot be equated with Machen's work:
In the end, by invoking the comparison with Machen and early twentieth-century fundamentalists in his call to arms against “wokeness,” Strachan argues that a Christian who is convinced by the historical evidence that sins of the American past have effects that last into the American present and who is convinced by the theological evidence that it is our duty to materially assist people harmed by those sins…is as great a threat to the church today as those who denied the divinity of Christ were a hundred years ago .
So to answer the question in the title of this review, is it time for fundamentalism again? Yes—but not in the way Strachan thinks. It is time to remember what is truly fundamental to the Christian faith. Jesus commands us to love God and love our neighbor. Fulfilling these two greatest commandments requires orthodoxy and orthopraxis. Evangelism and care for the disadvantaged. Discipleship in personal holiness and alleviating the conditions which harm our neighbors. We can walk and chew gum. Because Jesus commands it. And what Jesus commands, the Holy Spirit empowers.
The full review is definitely worth reading.