Friday, January 13, 2006

Rick Warren - Enemy of the Fundamentalists

Recently, the Philadelphia Enquirer interviewed Rick Warren of Saddleback Chuch in California (The Purpose-Driven Pastor) for the paper's series on evangelicalism in America today. Warren made this quote at the end of the article:

Warren predicts that fundamentalism, of all varieties, will be "one of the big enemies of the 21st century."

"Muslim fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, secular fundamentalism -- they're all motivated by fear. Fear of each other.

Dr. Al Mohler, President of Southern Seminary, responded in his blog:

Equating Christian fundamentalism with Muslim fundamentalism is both wrong and dishonest. This falls right into the hands of those who argue for a phenomenological definition of "religion" that includes "fundamentalism" as a general reference to any person or movement that refuses to accept the basic worldview of modernity. Adding the therapeutic category of "fear" just adds to the confusion. The motivation of fundamentalist Christianity is fear of Muslims and Jews?

And, we might ask, just what definition of Christian fundamentalism operates here? Who, exactly, is Rick Warren talking about?

This much is clear -- an approach like this doesn't help.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

An even bigger problem is the array of definitions of what *fundamentalism* is. In the eyes of many, Fred Phelps represents fundamentalism, others see Pat Robertson, others see the TBN crowd. In these three I see a completely evil man, a well meaning but not particularly theologically astute man, and a fraud.

I suspect that many would consider Rick Warren a fundamentalist.

Aside from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, who are the real fundamentalists?

Brad Borders said...

Whenever I played football and we had a terrible game my coach would always take us back to the fundamentals. I guess he was a fundamentalist too!

Come see me on my blog Jeff!

Brad B