Outchurched

Fundamentalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_fundamentalism

From wikipedia:

Christian Views
Christian fundamentalists (major separate article) see their scripture, a combination of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as both infallible and historically accurate. The New Testament represents a new covenant between God and man, which is held to fulfill the Old Testament, in regards to God’s redemptive plan. On the basis of this confidence in Scripture, fundamentalist Christians accept the account of scripture as being literally true and believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and rules the church from heaven. They believe that the church has been granted the gift of the Holy Spirit, who leads the church into fulfillment of God’s will according to the Scriptures.

Most Christian fundamentalists do not believe that it is possible to infallibly interpret the Bible on every point, but even those who believe this do not feel it is in contradiction to their main premise concerning the necessity of infallible scriptures. This is because they believe that God interprets His own intent and fulfills His will for those who trust Him, and through them, despite their faulty understanding; nevertheless it is the church’s obligation to understand the Scriptures, to believe what they say and act accordingly. However, there are types of Christian belief that attach infallible authority to the interpretations of some single, living individual or ruling body.

Southern Baptist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist

From wikipedia:

“The Controversy”
By the late 1970s, two clear factions had emerged in the convention. Moderates argued for a less fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible and were open to adopting changes that reflected those taking place in society as a whole. Amongst other things, moderates took more liberal positions on issues such as temperance and ordination of women.

Conservatives, alarmed by what they considered to be an erosion of their traditional values, fought back and engineered an effort to gain administrative control over the convention. Led by Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson, conservatives succeeded in having conservative sympathizers elected to key administrative positions in the convention, including the election of Adrian Rogers as the convention president. Throughout the 1980s, conservatives consolidated their control over the convention at every level from the administration to key faculty at their seminaries. This change in control, termed the “Conservative Resurgence” by supporters and the “Fundamentalist Takeover” by detractors, culminated in the adoption of significant changes to the Baptist Faith and Message at the 2000 SBC Annual Meeting.

don’t ever use the word ‘engaged’ again or i’ll slice your tongue out.

Re: fundamentalism and faith versus reason–in addition to the anti-modernist, anti-intellectual brand of fundamentalism you mention, there are also rationalist flavors of fundamentalism that try to redefine reason and science in such a way that it supports their doctrines. Representatives of these groups are responsible for a lot of the “evidence”-based apologetics works you see floating out there (e.g. Josh McDowell; also, William Lane Craig argues that you can become a Christian without ever taking a leap of faith). These groups tend to accuse dissenters of using reason badly (as opposed to blaming them for using reason at all).

Thanks for responding to my comments. I’m glad they were useful :)

For interest I have posted some comments about your podcast on my blog at http://www.podcastplayer.org/wordpress/archives/2005/04/15/194/ I tried to get it to send a trackback, but it looks like Wordpress coughed up a hairball..

McKormick-
Thanks for looking those bits up. We probably should have done that before the show.

And who said ‘engaged’? I don’t remember.

Leighton-
You make a good point and are obviously better informed on the issue.

I think you said, ‘thanks for engaging with us in this discussion’ or something. An old x-friend/boss/senior pastor used to use that word. it brings to mind cheesy discussions with baby boomer pastors about postmodernism and how to use it as a tool for ‘engaging’ this generation. blah.

“blah”

I agree.

If I ever say something like that I give you permission to remove whatever body parts neccessary for my cleansing.

Danalonians 5:8 (DIV) states, quite clearly…

“Thou shall not dis the Dan as regardeth his vocabulary usage because of thine own personal linguistic hangups.”

Repent now McKormick! ;)

You’re the one becoming a fundamentalist, not me. . . jk.

Nice job guys. Really enjoyed this show. So cool to know you guys are being listened to in the UK (by at least one fan).

Also was tickled to hear the Outchurched theme song at the beginning :-)

Nice job with the intercutting/editing of Frank’s questions and Dan/Ryan’s responses. It gave the show a nice town-hall-esque kind of flavor.

On another note, I was waiting for The One True Dan Tripp to become fully untethered when you guys starting discussing how the Republican party has co-opted Christianity. Dan, I’m impressed you kept it together. I’m waiting for the show where you unleash on that point.

Dave-
Thanks for the compliment.

I’m sure we’ll talk about politics at some point. But, for me it seems like subject matter has been covered pretty well. I mean, isn’t it obvious?