I grew up in a Fundamentalist church. For the uninitiated, the distinguishing mark of Fundamentalism is separation. This separatism is grounded in the modernist controversy at the beginning of the last century, when Bible believers reacted against the liberalism that denied the fundamentals of the faith. Unfortunately, the reasons many Fundamentalists give for separation have become more and more ridiculous. I grew up in a church that saw contemporary music and loose dress standards as liberal, while the false gospels of easy-believism and American exceptionalism were preached. Largely due to this hyper-separatist attitude, I never had any real contact with a classic liberal.
I now live in Grand Rapids, and am searching for a church with my girlfriend. We disagree on some minor preferences, and our desire to compromise has led us to some churches that we wouldn’t otherwise consider. One of these churches is the inspiration for this post. This church, which I will not name here, showed quite a bit of promise. The music is excellent. The attitude is Christ centered. The preaching is not quite as exegetical as we’d like, but the sermons usually capture the attitude of the text that is being preached. We visited this church a few times, liked it, and so we scheduled a meeting with a pastor to discuss theology.
Overall, our meeting went well. We agreed with the vast majority of what this pastor said. He is opposed to patriotic services. He believes in the literal resurrection and return of Christ to set all things right. He believes that salvation is by faith in Christ alone. He had an obvious heart for God and his community. All these things are good and should be commended.
However, he explained to us the difference between his denomination and others by the terms “bounded set” and “centered set”. Most denominations are a bounded set; that is, they have creeds to define what is good doctrine and what is false doctrine. His denomination is a centered set; it does not have creeds to set a boundary or orthodoxy; there are only affirmations that form a center.
On the surface, this doesn’t sound that bad. One of this church’s six affirmations is “the centrality of the word of God.” That’s great, right? Not quite. Belief in inerrancy (or infallibility or truth or whatever your term) isn’t required by this statement. There are members of this denomination who believe in inerrancy. There are others who don’t. To them, that’s not the point there.
Admittedly, the point is good. The church we visited preached Christ and is filled with believers who I share faith in Christ with. However, the absence of creeds is a fantastic way to allow actual liberalism to slowly creep in. This pastor, by his own admission, did not believe that the created order was normative. He believed that God created woman in submission to man, but that this order was primitive (not his word) and meant to be overcome. By this logic, any commands in Scripture we don’t like can be construed this way and disregarded.
So, we will continue to look for a church. We have a giant list of things we’re looking for, ranging from the essentials (things like affirmation of the Apostle’s Creed and the five fundamentals) to preferences. This time, we won’t be so quick to assume that the essentials are covered.
Taste Of The Breakthrough 