Certitude, Contingency & Faith
When the term was invented in the early 1920s, “fundamentalism” referred to a collection of anti-modernist tracts published from 1910 to 1916, a cooperative effort by conservative Protestants of various denominations with the main intent of reminding their fellow Protestants of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith which were under attack by theological modernists. They might have reasonably been viewed as a Protestant version of the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, issued by Pope PiusX in 1907, which did the same for Catholics.
Subsequently, however, “fundamentalism,” especially in the mind of its many enemies, religious and secular, came to refer to vicious closed-mindedness, and was adopted in that form by some conservative Protestants who were willing to accept the negative cognomen as a symbol of faithfulness to the Lord who promised that those true to him would be ill spoken of and bear other kinds of persecution. To these, “fundamentalism,” especially of the aggressive “fighting” variety, meant loyalty to Christ, and they took it as a badge of honor representing their form of revivalist Protestantism.
The Deepest Fault
Perhaps it was nearly a psychological impossibility (for me, raised in fundamentalist environs) to avoid what I found to be the deepest fault of the fundamentalists, which was not the tenacity with which they held to the fundamentals and for which they were accused of backwardness and closed-mindedness, but the accompanying certitude, sharpened and annealed by criticism and disdain not about the fundamentals only, but also about the form of religion in which they were believed. I wrote about this in an article titled “The Crisis of Evangelical Preaching” (Touchstone, Summer/Fall, 1988):
It had been my own impression for some time that rich and moving preaching among the Evangelicals was harder to find than it once was, but I tended to chalk that up to changes in myself rather than in the character and quality of the preaching. The question “Where have all our great preachers gone?” finally caught and held my attention when it was asked by a remarkable woman whose long career on the president’s staff of Wheaton College had placed her at the center of its world. She knew American Evangelicalism from the inside, and knew it very well. Behind her question I saw a uniquely informed perception which made the matter worthy of very serious consideration. Since she brought it to my attention, I have heard a number of other Evangelicals complaining about the quality of preaching in their churches (see, for example, J.N. Akers’ editorial “Bored to Fears” in Christianity Today, 22 April 1988). My friend’s question pointed to a problem which I am coming to think may be epidemic and a very serious matter indeed among those churches formed and constituted by preaching.
I am old enough to remember her great preachers. I heard some of them speak when I was a boy and they were near the ends of their careers, for my family attended a large conservative Baptist church where I had the frequent opportunity to hear them. I especially remember their power. I was an attentive boy and heard them with the defenseless impressionability of early youth. Their words swept over me with unchallenged authority. They were memorable men. Theirs was the great preaching my friend remembered from the center of her life and I from my nonage. She was right—this sort of preaching seems to have all but disappeared from the Evangelical churches. We have heard well-crafted, uplifting, clever, and occasionally inspiring and edifying sermons—but the old Chrysostomic power, without which no preaching can be called great, seems to be nearly exhausted.
Whence came the power? In one sense it was a holdover from the certitude and authority typical of the evangelical preaching of the nineteenth century, which was itself inherited from revivals of earlier times. But what allowed it to survive in certain strains of conservative religion into this far more tentative age? For a large number of early and mid-twentieth century preachers it was simply not optional. It was an essential part of the rhetorical panoply that a Fundamentalist needed to maintain his credibility and stand his ground during the controversies of the twenties, thirties and forties, to build great churches and other ministries out of the rubble of rejection and discredit. It was his sword and shield against the Menckens, Darrows, Fosdicks and Sinclair Lewises of his world, the sound of well-cultivated conviction, confirming to the preachers that they were right, not only about the gospel of Jesus Christ, but about the religious culture which they created around it. . . .
Always Dependent Trust
I still believe in the Fundamentals—although now I am more likely to speak of them in terms of the Creed—but the certitude offered by fundamentalism, the form of which I see in many religious places, I now believe to be a mere state of mind. It is in fact assurance contrary to faith, of a categorically different quality than what it imitates, and is in fact a form of unbelief, for faith does not give the kind of assurance religion, even in its most fervent form of conviction, does.
Faith, unlike certitude, has no element of presumption. It is always dependent trust that rests not in itself, as though it were a quality that could be possessed as personal property to be presented to God with the certitude of “money in the bank.” It is something wholly different. All that certitude requires is an attitude of conviction, which may be found in every religion, or quite apart from religion. A Christian may die in fear of rejection by the God in whom he has trusted—as did his Lord, who asked his Father why he had forsaken him—but then surrendered his spirit to him, perfect love casting out fear.
These are deep and hidden things, but faith and certitude should not be mistaken for each other. Faith always contains an element of contingency: it is so, but it might not be so. Kierkegaard had the right idea:
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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