Fundamentalism

By James Barr

Book Overview

Much of the Christianity which flourishes best today has ""conservative"" or ""fundamentalist"" characteristics, that is, strong emphasis on the correctness of the Bible, hostility to the methods of modern critical theology and an assurance that those who choose to differ are not really ""true Christians"" at all. In this penetrating critique Professor Barr first argues that the nature of fundamentalism is often misunderstood and that the general understanding of the way in which biblical conservatism works needs to be improved and corrected. Secondly, however, he seeks to dissuade those who are attracted by it, arguing that the conservative position is not only incoherent as a scholarly position but thoroughly in contradiction, theologically, with the central logic of Christian faith. Biblical scholarship and theology, he believes, have much to learn from the discussion. While it is right to repudiate a fundamentalist approach, the reasons advanced for this rejection have often been unsound, and these unsound arguments have damaged both modern biblical criticism and modern theology. Both conservative evangelical and more liberal scholars are likely to study what he has to say with unusual avidity.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1532676727
• ISBN13: 9781532676727
• Release Date: November 2018
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers
• Length: 390 Pages
• Weight: 1.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Fundamentalism as seen by a biblical scholar

Barr's goal is to understand the fundamentalist positions and arguments. He certainly does submit submit them to sustained criticism, but makes every effort to be fair and provide reasoned criticism. He is a very competent biblical scholar who has contributed to the field.He points out, fundamentalists are not really biblical literalists, as they keep adjusting their interpretations to somehow cohere with modern knowledge. They are really inerrantists, believing that the Bible contains no errors of any kind, if properly interpreted. "Inerrancy is maintained only by constantly altering the mode of interpretation, and in particular by abandoning the literal sense as soon as it would be an embarrassment to the view of inerrancy held." (p. 46) In other words, when literal interpretations conflict with established knowledge, they abandon them for nonliteral ones, often in ingenious, if highly implausible, ways.A second note of fundamentalism is hostility to modern biblical scholarship and modern theology. For example, does it really matter to the validiy of our faith whether the book of Isaiah is divided into three main groups of material from different times? (Pre-exilic period, First Isaiah, chs. 1-39; exilic period, Second Isaiah, chs. 40-55; and post-exilic period, Third Isaiah, chs. 56-66.) Does it really matter our faith whether Deuteronomy was written several centuries after Moses? Does it really matter if Mark was the earliest gospel? Does it really matter whether the first creation story in Genesis was written after the Exile and uses contemporary imagery? Whether the story of the "man" and "woman" in Gen. 2-3 is an aetiological (everyman) story? The liberal positons actually take nothing away from faith in Jesus Christ. Why do so many fundamentalists think they do? Ad hominem arguments, really. They tend to read motives into modern scholarship, falsely accusing modern scholars en masse of trying to destroy the credibility of the Bible. According to Barr, they are actually stuck in the past with the 18th century deist controversies. Many deists did argue against revelation, but this is not a necessary presupposition of critical scholarship.But of course, fundamentalists like to compare the ordinary nominal church going Christian. The must undergo a conversion to become true Christians, and it is expected that they will then hold conservative evangelical views. This has a danger of being a form a gnosticism, an elite group, whose primary faith is in the inerrancy of the Bible rather than in Christ Jesus. One peculiarity is that fundamentalists often prefer to read only trustworthy books by safe authors, and these do not seem to include critical scholars. Barr points out that they usually simply do not understand where modern scholars are coming from, nor do they really want to, and so make up all sorts of charges against them which have little basis in fact.Strangely enough, the fundamentalist cannot agree on many things important to them. Pre