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Luther Peak:
Speaking Truth Forty Years Ago Luther Peak was a one-time follower of J. Frank Norris. Fundamentalism, as he describes it, is alive and well and embodied in the current leadership that dominates the SBC. In 1956, fundamentalism was an extreme position on the edge of Southern Baptist life. Most fundamentalists were Independent Baptists who encouraged churches to leave the SBC. Some participated in a limited manner with the SBC financially. They gave very little to the Cooperative Program, which is also characteristic of most churches pastored by SBC presidents from 1979 to the present. Today, fundamentalism, as described by Peak, is no longer on the fringe, but dominates the SBC. Even Jerry Falwell, an independent fundamentalist Baptist, now feels at home with the SBC while traditional Baptists feel estranged. Why We Left Fundamentalism by: Luther C. Peak, 1956 The mission of this message is to reach every young preacher, Sunday School teacher, active worker and individual Baptist who may be somewhat troubled and disturbed by the charges which are recklessly hurled at Southern Baptists, and who may be considering the possibility of leaving the denomination and affiliating with some splinter Baptist group. Splinter groups are essentially and basically proselyting 'isms, growing largely upon the labors of Southern Baptists, from which "converts" are gathered by misrepresentation and misinformation. I write with reference to Fundamentalism and with particular reference to Fundamentalism among Baptists, originating mainly in the Southwest, especially in Texas. I hasten to say, however, that I make a distinction between individual Baptists who are to be found within Fundamentalism and the movement of Fundamentalism itself. Some of the finest Christians I have ever known are in Fundamentalism. Some of the most godly and consecrated preachers, Sunday School teachers and Christian workers are to be found in the ranks of Fundamentalism. I value their friendship and fellowship in the Christian faith. I have nothing but goodwill in my heart toward all who are earnestly and sincerely serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ wherever they may be found. The sincerity of some individual believers, however, does not justify the movement itself. There are many wonderful people and many sincere and devout people in the Catholic church, but this does not justify Catholicism. My emancipation from Fundamentalism was Spirit-led. The passage that the Lord used was Ephesians 4:29-32: "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." I write without bitterness or rancor. The first step that my mind took, which resulted in breaking the chains of spiritual and mental bondage in which I was held for so long, was to accept without reservation and in absolute honesty the above passage and to apply it to my heart and life. When this film of prejudice, bias, and false pride was wiped from my eyes, Southern Baptists were a different people to me from what they had ever been before. In the Fundamentalist movement we were usually in a fight of some kind. When we were not fighting Southern Baptists, Northern Baptists, the National Council of Churches, the Catholics, Communism or Modernism, we fought each other. It was impossible to work within the framework of Fundamentalism without being drawn into conflict with others. I was no exception. The terrific pressures could not be escaped, and long before my mind had accepted the possibility of working with Southern Baptists, I systematically set about to become reconciled to all brethren with whom I had been drawn into controversy. I withdrew from the fellowship and the Norris movement as such as a result of a change in my concept of the basic philosophy of the Christian religion. I believe in all of the fundamentals of the faith but I do not believe in the methods and outlook of such that had been classified as 'Fundamentalism,' particularly in the Southwest. I have not been alone in this, by any means. Across the nation thousands of ministers of the Gospel have been led by the Spirit of God likewise. In the United Evangelical Action magazine of February 15, 1955, Dr. Bernard Ramm is quoted as follows: "Fundamentalism originally referred to the beliefs that there are certain great truths in Christianity, which, if changed, would dissolve Christianity. Each Christian is allowed personal conviction in respect to a great number of doctrines and interpretations but the personal liberty is hedged about by key infallible and eternal doctrines. This is the term in its historic and good sense. "In more recent years another movement has developed within historic Fundamentalism that had given the word an odious connotation. Men with much zeal, enthusiasm and conviction, yet lacking frequently in education or cultural breadth and many times highly individualistic, took to the stump to defend the faith. "Many times they were dogmatic beyond evidence, or were intractable of disposition, or were obnoxiously anti-cultural, anti-scientific and anti-educational. Hence, the term came to mean one who was bigoted, and obscurantist, a fidelist, a fighter and an anti-intellectual. Many of these are men godly in life, in belief thoroughly Christian, and, therefore, spiritual brothers of all who accept Biblical Christianity." Before proceeding further, I would like to make it crystal clear that I have had no change of mind whatever with reference to the great doctrine of the Christian faith. 1. I believe the whole Bible from Genesis 1:1 to Revelations 22:21 as the verbally inspired and infallible Word of God. 2. I believe Jesus Christ was born of Mary the Virgin and is the Son of God and God the Son. 3. I believe that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, the Just for the unjust that He might bring us to God. 4. I believe that He rose from the grave the third day according to the Scriptures. 5. I believe that He, only, is the great High Priest; and we need not the intercession of any man, but that Christ ever liveth to make intercession for us. 6. I believe that Christ will come again in person, bodily, visible, to establish His kingdom on the earth. 7. I believe that in order to be saved the soul must be born again. 8. I believe that every truly born-again soul should declare his faith by the act of baptism, setting forth the Lord's death, burial and resurrection. 9. I believe that the church is a body of baptized believers whose only mission is not to "reform the world," but to preach and teach the Gospel of salvation to the individual soul. 10. I believe that a New Testament Baptist church should recognize: 1. Christ as its only Head. 2. The Holy Spirit as its only administrator. 3. The Word of God as its only message. 4. The winning of souls as its mission. But I am not a Fundamentalist. Why? That is the purpose of this paper. We will endeavor to give some, but not, by any means, all, of the reasons why we left Fundamentalism to work with Southern Baptists.
Follow or be attacked As a church we exercised our freedom for a number of years and cooperated with that group of Baptists known in the Southwest as Fundamentalists. Because of a number of reasons, as a free and independent church we exercised our liberty and our freedom to change the channel of our cooperation to that of the Dallas Baptist Association and the Baptist General Convention of Texas. We had as much right to direct our contributions and our cooperation and fellowship toward these organized bodies, as we had to direct our contributions and cooperation and fellowship toward the Fundamentalists in the first place. During the 15 years we cooperated with Fundamentalists, a threat hung over our heads. If we should have disagreed with the decisions which were handed down from the top our church would have been attacked, maligned and misrepresented. The pastor would have been attacked, smeared, and misrepresented. Great harm and untold injury would have undoubtedly been done. This was done in hundreds of cases throughout the nation, from coast to coast, when a pastor and a church decided to pull out. Since we made our decision, attack after attack has been made against us; and they are continuing, and every effort has been made to destroy the church. This is the bondage of Fundamentalism; pastors and churches follow either the party line or they are mercilessly attacked and, if possible, ruined. Today as an independent and sovereign Baptist church we are not under the dictation and control of anyone. We are in fear of no man or group of men, but of our own voluntary free will and choice we are cooperating with Baptist brethren whom we can trust and in whom we have confidence as Christian men.
Problem of explaining what kind of Baptist you are We got tired of explaining what "kind" of Baptists we were. As a pastor I have made home calls constantly, and during the past 20 years I have explained to many thousands of people just what "kind" of Baptist church I was pastor of. I found myself constantly under the necessity of trying to explain what the difference was, and I don't believe that I ever explained this difference one time with any degree of satisfaction. Today there is a sprinkling of churches across the nation claiming to be Baptist. Many of them are true Baptist churches, while others are semi-Baptist or half-Baptist. For instance, there is the innocuous "Bible church" which is strong on dispensationalism, strong on "separation," strong on "faith missions," and strong on using the name "Baptist," but not strong on the distinctive principles and tenets of Baptists at all. The only use such churches have for the name "Baptist" is because it proves useful to them in catching innocent Baptist people and getting them into the membership. This type of church wants to feed and grow upon the increase of Baptists, but its leadership is not interested in supporting the Baptist way, the Baptist program, the distinctive Baptist plan for evangelizing the world. This type of Baptist church has nothing to do with the regular and genuine Baptist churches of its locality. It will associate with the various "Bible" churches, "independent" churches, interdenominational churches, Gospel missions and whatnot, having plenty of time to have representatives of various faith missions, some of them operated by only one man, where all of the money is handled by one man, and an accounting is given to no one - to speak in its pulpit. But it never sends one cent to legitimate Baptist channels to be spent under the supervision and direction of responsible Baptist leadership. The endless wars and factional fights among brethren Meetings of Fundamentalists are called "Fellowship Meetings," but they are everything else but that. I have attended such meetings which were truly spiritual and uplifting, but especially in recent years when the bankruptcy of leadership began to really show up and the movement fell into a state of disintegration, every meeting was the scene of endless factions and disputes among brethren. The energies of those who were laboring to promote a solid and constructive work were spent in adjudicating differences between pastors and churches and in an atmosphere of antagonism, while many preachers were clamoring and struggling for office, for recognition, for leadership to generate and gather a personal following around themselves. It proved to be a well-nigh impossible task. Not only so, but various small publications of the "yellow journalism" type carried these wars and frictional fights out to the people in the churches, so that the pastor was embarrassed by having to explain these matters or to try to settle the minds of this people over some issue which had been raised. We came to see that this was because any banner of protest raised by any reformer of the denomination gathers around itself the dissident and divergent elements of the ministry. Every preacher who has flunked out with the denomination immediately assembles with others under the banner of protest. Every preacher seeking a position of some kind gathers there. Every preacher with some grudge against his brethren gathers there.
The false philosophy of Fundamentalism The philosophy of Fundamentalism is unchristian. It has no basis in the Scriptures upon which to rest. That philosophy is: Fundamentalism supposes itself to be right doctrinally. Therefore, people who are not aligned under its banner are wrong. Therefore any steps that Fundamentalism may take to gather disciples out from under the banner of others and assemble them under its own banner are right, and they are fully justified in taking them. The philosophy of Fundamentalism is that it is right to do wrong in order to do right. This is why many a Fundamentalist preacher has no conscience whatever as to the ethics of the ministry. A certain church comes to mind. The church employed a song leader. The pastor and his wife and staff of workers had worked very hard and built up a congregation. Unknown to the pastor, the song leader went to work to undermine and to split the congregation, which he was successful in doing. He took a large group of people with him, organized them into a new church in the hope of establishing himself in a secure position. However, it was not long until this same man was discharged by the very people he had led out, whereupon another pastor in another city in the same movement immediately picked this man up and installed him in his own church as the music director. The song leader who did this doesn't seem to bear any signs of reproach, and what he did is passed over as of no consequence. Such ethics would not be tolerated in the business world. A doctor who would do a thing like this would have his license revoked and would be disowned by the American Medical Association. A lawyer who would do a thing like this would be disbarred by the State Bar Association, and he should be. But in the realm of Fundamentalism, preachers may split each other's churches, make war upon one another, print and publish lies and slander against the character of others and all be accepted as the normal procedure. It is a lawless and anarchistic world under the guise of evangelical Christianity. Many are the broken and blasted lives which this scourge has touched through the past quarter of a century. Fundamentalism judges, tries, condemns, sentences and executes those with whom it disagrees in order to gain a following or carry a point. I repudiate personally and utterly the false philosophy of Fundamentalism as such. I believe in fair play. Loyalty to Jesus Christ will not allow any man to make such damaging accusations of another without having absolute proof of the truthfulness of the charge. The whole movement of fundamentalism is a proselyting movement. It is a parasite, feeding upon the labors of others to a large degree. Fundamentalism is down a dead end street. It is a negative proposition. In the eyes of Fundamentalists there are few Christians outside of their own ranks. Everything that is done in church life which is different from the way Fundamentalists do it is classified as "modernistic." May 2000 |