The Five Fundamentals of the Faith

On Sunday, July 29th, I mentioned in my sermon the expression, "the five fundamentals" of the Christian faith, and I asked how many people could name them.

I wasn't surprised when no one volunteered the answer, but I was surprised that no one even seemed to know what I was talking about.

Back in one of my history courses (I was a History major in college)I became very interested in a controversy that split the Christian community right around the beginning of the 20th century. It was called the "Modernist-Fundamentalist Controvery."

Most people would have a sense of what I'm referring to if they saw the movie, "Inherit the Wind," the story of the Scopes trial that put the Darwinian doctrine of evolution on trial. It was a battle between two legendary figures, attorney Clarence Darrow for the defense, and three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution.

The argument was about evolution, but at the center of the storm was the larger issue of whether the Bible was a reliable source for Christian teaching and practice. Bryan, a Presbyterian, was also a fundamentalist, and during the trial he was called as a witness for the defense. Ultimately all testimony for the defense was thrown out by the judge and Scopes was convicted.

Fundamentalists insist that it is wrong to "tamper with God's word," so they focus on five doctrines that they see as fundamental to the Christian faith:

(1)The literal inerrancy of the autographs (the originals of each scriptural book); (2) the virgin birth and deity of Christ; (3) the substitutionary view of the atonement; (4) the bodily resurrection of Christ; (5) The imminent return of Christ.

Great debates were held between fundamentalists and modernists during the early 20th century, but Lutherans were involved only peripherally. Why? Perhaps the fact that many Lutherans still did not speak English and retained their ethnic tradition. Also, Lutheran already had the Book of Concord which provided them with a solid theological basis for their faith-- the Formula of Concord, the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the Small and Large Catechisms, and of course, the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian creeds.

Lutherans did not see themselves as belonging among the American Protestant tradition (and still do not), so although they may be sympathetic to the viewpoints and concerns of Fundamentalist Protestant Christians, they are not easily tempted to get engaged in this sort of debate.

Any more questions?