(Contribution from a netfriend on a list I subscribe to):

G'day Rowland and the Group

At 08:32 PM 1/23/03 +1100, Rowland and Jan Croucher wrote:

The whole point about fundamentalism, which distinguishes it from evangelicalism, is the closed mind that it attaches to.

I have trouble distinguishing these two -isms, let alone telling the difference between the various "flavours" of evangelicalism like pentecostalism, etc. Can anyone give a concise answer as to the differences?

Cheers,

(One friend, to which I replied):

My little attempt at the distinctions: 

 and following... And another responded:

And a very helpful account it is too!

The only problem I see is that if you keep making this much sense, you'll have very few friends on this earth. The liberals won't have you because you believe in God and Jesus and the Bible, enough to actually promote them and to sort of imply that you think Christianity might actually be true rather than just one valid choice among many. The other side won't have you either, because you don't support whatever simplistic ideas they are on about just now.

But I think you'll have plenty of friends in Heaven. Good stuff.

I think that the current "missionary" efforts of the Sydney Anglicans and others of like mind are actually motivated in much the same way as the current spate of Islamic terrorism. In both, it is an attempt to unite a group in crisis against an external enemy. Within Islam, the crisis is the diminishing influence of the Arabs. In the evangelical movement, the crisis is the question of the supernatural.

Where are the miracles? The modern culture which this evangelical cult represents has no place for them. But the Bible is full of them. The explanation given, as I understand it, is the doctrine of "cessationalism". It claims that, when the last of the Apostles (who had personally known Jesus in the flesh) died, the time of miracles (including prophecy) was over, and so they stopped. This fits well with the closed cannon of scripture of course.

There are two problems with this approach.

The main one for me is that it makes so little sense. Let me parody it for you.

"Since the begining of time, God acted in the universe he had made. He created the heavens and the earth. He spoke with Adam, and later with Noah. He parted the waters for the Isrealites, flattened the walls of Jericho, and sent fire from heaven to shame the prophets of Baal. He provided for a widow who fed his prophet, so that a jar of oil and a container of flour were endlessly replenished. He did all manner of strange things to a guy called Jonah. He turned water into wine, healed the sick, raised the dead, and kept making more food, baskets and baskets of it.

This all kept happening, much the same, since creation, through the fall, the flood, the exile, the captivity, the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. God kept acting. People were healed, even raised from the dead. But then something happened.

Something bigger than the fall. Bigger than the crucifixion. Bigger even then the resurrection. Something so big that, for the first time ever, God changed his whole relationship to his creation. God stopped acting.

This big event we call the End Of The Apostolic Age."

I think that the reason this sounds so stupid is that it is.

But the proponents of cessationalism have another, even bigger problem. The whole reason for this doctrine is to allow them to combine a particular bible-based approach with a modern world view, one which demands that views be based on evidence. And unfortunately, the bible itself provides not one shred of evidence for the doctrine of cessationalism.

And this is a crisis. And the response to it is to find an external enemy, such as liberal theology. But the main point of this invented conflict is to draw attention away from the enormous problems in the movement itself.

I can't see it working. The problems are too big. It will distract the Church for a while, but I think that the Church still has a powerful backer.

God.

Yours in Christ [Name omitted]