July 2, 2024
Modernism and Formalism

A discussion about two important terms
A discussion about two important terms
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Looking at our world from a theological
perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast
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making Theology Central. Good morning everyone. It is Tuesday, July the second,
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twenty twenty four. It is currently
ten forty four am Central Time,
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and I am coming to you live
from the Theology Central studio located right here
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in Abilene, Texas. Now,
if you've been paying any attention, you
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know that all this week and all
of next week is dedicated to you listening
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to the live webcast on the Sermon's
two point oh app and at Beta dot
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Sermonadio dot com or the Sermonadio dot
com website. But the Beta side is
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the site you should be using Beta
dot Sermonadio dot com or the Sermon's two
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point oh app. It's all about
you tuning in and listening to the live
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webcast. Well, if you notice
right now on those apps, I'm the
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only one broadcasting. There's no live
webcast. The one before mine was a
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funeral. There is nothing happening right
now, but in about fifteen minutes,
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and about fifteen minutes there will be
the Daily Prayer webcast. Right the Daily
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Prayer webcast, I believe it starts
right at eleven am. Central Time.
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They always start with a devotional and
then they go into prayer. Happens every
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day. I think right at eleven
eleven, did I say eleven pm eleven
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am Central Time? And so you
definitely want to tune in, So I'm
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going to try to. I just
wanted to go live for just a few
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minutes leading up to that one to
tell everyone to go listen to that one,
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to remind everyone of the of the
challenge for the next two weeks.
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I think I could be wrong,
but because we're fast approaching the fourth of
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July, and remember, I'm already
concerned that a lot of the webcasts are
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going to be filled with patriotism and
politics, and we've already seen a little
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bit of that. We've already seen
a little bit of that. I think
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it's only going to get work.
But I'm also noticing, at least it
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feels to me that the number of
webcasts are way way way down. Being
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kind of a holiday week. I
think, I think there's just not going
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to be a lot of webcasts.
So we will see. So maybe I
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picked the wrong week to do this, Maybe we'll have to extend it out
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another week. But at the same
time, it may give you a break,
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right, if you're not listening to
anything else, you're only going to
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listen to live webcast, well,
then you kind of get you know you
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maybe maybe you just maybe maybe you're
going to be busy this week, so
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maybe it will work out. But
please keep the sermons two point oh app
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you know, handy, and make
sure you're checking. I know, look
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I have. I have begged and
begged and pleaded with them. Get notifications
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set up for the sermons two point
oh app so that because I want to
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be notified anytime someone goes live anytime, and so currently you have to be
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checking. So be checking. But
for now, between now and the again,
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the Top of the Out or the
Daily Prayer webcast should be going live,
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so you can definitely switch to that. But for now, what I
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want to do is focus on just
simply taking a few minutes to familiarize yourself
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with two very important terms, two
very important terms in church history, right,
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two very important terms. In fact, I probably know more about the
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first one than the second one,
but I want to bring them to your
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attention, and then maybe later when
there aren't any other webcasts going on,
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then maybe I will come back.
And then we'll do. Maybe this will
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turn into a mini series. We
will see the first one I've talked about
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so many times. But here's what
happens. So, as many of you
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know I've been I have a series
currently that we're talking and discussing revival based
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off one of the latest issues of
the sort of the Lord newspaper right now.
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We started it and the article became
very frustrating, taking verses out of
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context, misapplied. But okay,
all right. So I was like,
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I was sitting here thinking, well, maybe I turn on the microphone and
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we do a little bit more work, you know, in that series.
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But then I'm like, wait,
what is this? So on page eighteen
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and this issue of the Sword of
Lord newspaper, it is the section called
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Questions and Questions Answered Doctor Shelton Smith, and the question is what is modernism,
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worldliness and formalism? And I'm like, ohoh, three very important terms,
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modernism, worldliness, and formalism.
All three of them could really become
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a series. We could do an
entire series on modernism, entire series on
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worldliness, and an entire series on
formalism. And we have some interesting discussions,
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I think, but I wanted to
just take a few minutes between while
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there's no live webcast going on,
before the next one starts. Wish up.
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I believe it's at the top of
the hour. I want to make
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sure that you are very familiar and
know what modernism is and formalism is.
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We'll get to worldliness at another broadcast. Are you ready? So I'm gonna
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just read how it's written here the
sort of the Lord Newspaper. Are you
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ready? Here we go. Every
once in a while I get questioned,
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I will get a question about our
position as stated on the mash head of
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the newspaper, modernism masthead of the
newspaper. If I can read correctly,
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modernism, worldliness, and formalism,
Doctor Rice listed those matters on the front
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of the sword many years ago in
order to help define exactly what the sword
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was about. Now, if I
remember correctly, I'm going to look at
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the front of the paper. Yeah, yeah, right here. If I
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look at the front of the paper, what they call the masthead. If
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I look at there in front of
it, it says the sword of the
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Lord Newspaper, an independent Christian publication
standing for the verbal inspiration of the Bible,
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the deity of Christ, his Blood, Atonement, salvation by faith,
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New Testament, so winning and the
premillennial return of Christ. Opposing modernism,
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worldliness and formalism. It's right there
at the front of the paper. Three
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and those terms are very very important
for you to understand, all right.
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So so he gets questions sometimes and
they get letters at the sord of the
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Lord. Hey, what about these
three things? He goes on to say,
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each of these three words describes certain
things which we feel are unbiblical.
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So they feel modernism, formalism,
and worldliness are all unbiblical. Okay,
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I think we should all be able
to say amen to that. We should
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all be able to say amen to
that. So let's start with the first
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one. Let's go with modernism,
right, Let's at least try to offer
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a basic understanding of this term.
More importantly, when you think of the
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term modernism, you actually need to
think of about a controversy that happened in
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the nineteen hundreds, which is very
instrumental to understanding modern day church history.
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Are you ready? Here we go? Modernism a term that was coined back
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in the early part of the last
century to describe what we now call liberalism.
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Now, I'm just gonna be honest
with you. I don't like the
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term liberalism used in theology, right, because when we hear the term liberalism
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now, it almost carries a political
connotation. So I don't think churches.
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When churches say we are opposed to
liberalism, almost inevitably they're referring to political
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liberalism. When so I don't like
using the term in theilological language, right.
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I don't like it because it doesn't
carry theological liberalism. It carries the
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idea of political liberalism. And then
when many Christians say we are a conservative
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church, and in some cases,
I don't think it really reflects a theilological
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conservativism. It reflects a political one. And that's the political infiltration in the
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political corruption of the American church.
It's even corrupted our language. Right,
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So I don't like the term liberalism. Modernism holds a very specific meaning in
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the history of philological disputes. So
I know now we call it liberalism,
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but I think we should just use
the term modernism because or you have to
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say philological liberalism, right, because
I don't want to be I don't I
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don't want to be known as being
politically conservative. I don't want to be
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I want to be known as being
philologically conservative. I want to be understood
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from a philological perspective, not a
political or cultural perspective. Right, so
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let's continue. Modernism was a term
that was coined back in the early part
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of the last century to describe what
we would now call liberalism. The Modernist
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fundamentalist controversy of the nineteen ten to
nineteen thirty era was a full orbed clash
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between Bible believers and those who want
to and to diminish the Bible and favor
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of their own agenda. Now,
that's what I really want you to know.
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The Modernist Fundamentalist controversy nineteen ten to
nineteen thirty. That controversy every Christian
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should know it, every Christian should
be an expert. And the modernist fundamentalist
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controversy between nineteen ten and nineteen thirty. Now, if you've listened to our
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series on the Niagara Creed, right, the Niagara Bible Creed. That very
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much coming out of that controversy,
very much. The Niagara, the Niagara
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Creed, the Niagara Bible Conference,
that four volume set of books called The
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Fundamentals, all of that comes right
out of this controversy. And I have
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told I have begged Christians if you
listen to my preaching, those four books,
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the Fundamentals, They're literally on a
table behind my pulpit. They have
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been there now for years, and
I constantly I will reference them and preaching
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and tell people you need to read
these books. You need to read these
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books. You need to read these
books. You need those books still are
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sitting on the table because no one
ever takes them to read them. I
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cannot. I don't know what to
do to get people to read them.
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Now when people read them, they're
kind of like, well, this is
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kind of, you know, kind
of I don't know. I don't know
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what people are expecting when they read. When they do read them, but
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I think they're somewhat disappointed in the
way, but they're very just dealing with
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the issues that were so fundamental at
that time in this controversy between the modernists
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and fundamentalist, between the modernist and
fundamentalist. All right, so that controversy,
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you need to know that controversy nineteen
ten and nineteen thirty. You need
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to know about the niagraa Bible conference, You need to know about the niagraa
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Bible creed. You need to know
those things and you need to know those
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four volumes fund the fundamental the Fundamentals, because they so define that era,
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and you can kind of see out
of that controversy. You can kind of
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see the different streams of Christianity.
And just think nineteen ten to nineteen thirty,
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there was a lot going on theologically. The nineteen hundred, the nineteen
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hundreds, moving forward, you really
have the birth of the modern day charismatic
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movement. You have the birth of
one is Pentecostalism, all of that happening
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right there in nineteen hundred, and
then you have the modernists and the fundamentalist
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controversy, which is going to break
off into different camps. Right. You're
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going to have the fundamentalists, You're
going to have what's kind of kind of
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become the modern evangelicals. You're going
to have the philological what we'll call liberals
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or the philological modernists. You're going
to have the charismatics. It's a crazy
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time in church history. I know
we like to go way back into church
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history, but to really kind of
understand our present situation, I think that
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that nineteen hundred, like nineteen hundred
to nineteen thirty, nineteen hundred to nineteen
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fifty that those fifty I see fifty
years nineteen hundred to nineteen fifty. You
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have some crazy stuff going on theologically, which I think kind of determines and
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kind of kind of well, everything
breaks off into different streams, so I
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think you have to know that,
all right. So you have the modernist
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fundamentalist controversy of nineteen ten to nineteen
thirty era. It was a full orbed
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class between Bible believers and those who
wanted to diminish the Bible in favor of
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their own agenda, whether you use
the term modernism or liberalism. Doctor Rice
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and the sort of the Lord Newspaper
opposed it then, and they oppose it
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now, and they do oppose it
now. Sometimes I think they go a
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little bit more when they're opposing political
liberalism than versus theological liberalism. And sometimes
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they put forth a political conservativism and
versus a theological one, and those are
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different. But please, you have
to if you don't know the this controversy,
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I would love for you to let
me know what you know about it
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or don't know about it, because
then we can we can work on it.
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I've got I've got pages of notes. I can start talking about it.
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Right now, I can start,
I can start breaking down the controversy
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right now. The modern for example, I'm just looking at my notes.
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The modernist fundamentalist controversy was a philological
dispute that took place in the early twentieth
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century with an American Protestant Christianity,
particularly in the United States. Here and
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then here is a summarized outline of
the key points of the controversy. I'm
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not gonna let I'm not gonna tell
you now. I'm not gonna tell you
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now about it. But that's modernism, right, So let me read that
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again. Modernism was a term that
was coined back in the early part of
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the last century to describe what we
would now call liberalism. I hate the
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term liberalism. Let's say this,
modernism describes a philological liberalism that would deny
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the fundamentals of the faith. Okay, this is they're denying the fun fundamentals
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of the faith, philological fundamentals.
I know. Somehow modernism and fundamentalism turns
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into an argument about music and hair
and dress. No, it's about the
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fundamentals of the faith, the inerrancy
of Scripture, the bodily resurrection of Christ,
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the deity of Christ. Right,
Like those very fundamental issues. The
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dating of some of the books of
the Bible. Are they actually prophetic or
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were they written after the fact,
and so they're not really prophecy. Who
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wrote the books? Like the very
important philological issues. Right, So that's
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what modernism is. Think of it. Philological liberalism are just think modernism a
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philological approach that attacks and denies the
fundamentals of the faith, leads leading to
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a great questioning, skepticism and denial
of historical biblical Christianity. Now, what's
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formalism? So there's there's modernism.
What is formalism? Formalism is a term
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that has been coined to describe what
happens in a dead ritualistic type of church.
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When we go to church on Sunday, we believe that there ought to
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be evidence of the delight of the
Lord, and that the Spirit of God
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has given direction to the service.
It has been the practice among dead liberal
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churches to so thoroughly program everything that
one has to check the bulletin to see
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whether to stand or sit, or
what is coming next. Some churches go
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to great extremes on that, and
as a result, the light of life
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go out of it. We are, of course opposed to that formalism.
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Now, we could argue that every
church has some level of formalism, because
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every church has kind of an order
of the way you do things, and
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after a while you get used to
it. We're going to stand on this
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song, we're going to greet after
this, we're going to take the offering
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here, we're going to do this, We're going to do this. Every
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church has it to some level.
So now, now what some people refer
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to is formalism that's dead or lifeless
or cold. What they're really attacking is
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liturgical churches. So I don't know
if we should should we be opposed to
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formalism because I know, even even
the fundamentalist churches, there's a formalism.
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This is the way you do this
is how you do things. Okay,
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we're gonna stand on this, we're
gonna sit here, we're gonna shake hands.
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Ever, I mean, you're following
the same order, and there's rarely
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ever any change or disruption to that. So to me, it was more
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the charismatic world that criticized the formalism. That was more to me, the
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charismatic world kind of like, no, we need the spirit leading things and
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then it leads to just total anarchy
and chaos. And God is not the
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order that God is not the god
of chaos, is the God of order,
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so he brings order out of chaos. He doesn't bring chaos to order.
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So I don't know about the formalism
part. So you can you can,
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you can make your own determination about
how much should we be opposed to
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that is that really an issue?
And then but the modernism that's what I
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really want you to focus on.
So I want you to know two terms
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today modernism. But when it comes
to modernism, I want you to know
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the modernist fundamentalist controversy of the nineteen
ten or from nineteen ten to nineteen thirty.
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I think you could probably go a
little bit further back, because I
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think the modernist kind of ideas higher
criticism and those were already coming in from
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Europe prior to nineteen ten, at
least I feel like they were. I
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would have to go look at the
dates of books and things like that,
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you know, to be exact.
But you need to know that modernist fundamentalist
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controversy and what and how, because
I think I think what happens is you
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see the modernist movement. Do you
see the modernist ideas coming in? And
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then I think in many cases within
Protestant Christianity, there was a debate on
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how do you respond to these concepts? Do we fight? Do we separate
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ourselves? If seminaries are bringing in
these modernist ideas, do you pull out
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of these seminaries? Do you then
start your own Bible institute? If your
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denomination is being infiltrated by modernism,
do you remove yourself from the from the
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denomination and start independent churches? Well
that's where the whole independent fundamentalist kind of
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idea kind of emerges. Forget the
seminaries, We'll have Bible institutes and our
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local churches. Forget being a part
of a denomination, We'll have independent churches.
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Because they were fighting it, others
were like no, no, no,
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no, no, no no,
we'll stay within the denomination and try
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to fight it. We won't.
We We're going to continue to send people
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to the seminary. We're going to
try to change it from within. And
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the fundamentalist arguments like no, set
we come out from among them and be
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ye separate, We're not going to
deal with it. And then that leads
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to from the modernists fundamentalists dispute,
and then you break into streams Christianity where
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you have more of the evangelical mindset, not so much fighting trying to find
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ways. Listen, what do we
have in common, more ecumenical, let's
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work together, Let's still support the
denominational struture. Let's continue to support the
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seminaries. And then the fundamentalists were
like, no independent churches, Bible institutes,
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forget the whole seminary, forget the
denominational structure. So you have that
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split. So then in a roundabout
way, you end up with the modernist
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or the or you know again,
theilological liberalism, the fundamentalist, and then
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you have the evangelicals. Now within
the fundamentalist movement, what I think you
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have is you have those who broke
away for philological reasons to fight for the
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fundamentals of the faith. And in
many cases within fundamentalism, it deteriorated and
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it kind of fell apart into a
very legalistic like now we're going to argue
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about music and hair and should a
pastor wear a tire or not wear a
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tie and just all of these It
just started turning into that kind of stuff,
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right, and then you oh,
and then I think there was a
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lot. I hate to say it. I know they will deny it,
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but I think in many cases some
of the charismatic ideas creep into fundamentalism.
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They would never not saying like speaking
in tongues, but some of the ideas
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of God speaking to us outside of
the Bible and some of that, and
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some of their ideas about the Holy
Spirit, to me seems more influent,
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being more influenced by early charismatic concepts
than they were about from historical biblical Christianity.
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So you kind of have but really
what you kind of end up if
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you think about coming in the nineteen
hundreds moving forward, you have the philological
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modernism or theological liberalism, you have
the fundamentalist, you have the evangelicals,
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and then you have the charismatics,
and then fundamentalism, of course deteriorates into
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just ridiculousness in many cases, just
fighting over anything. And it's like they
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were gonna they since they started by
separating from others, they just kept separating.
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They just kept we're gonna separate,
We're gonna separate. No, no,
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no, We're we're against this,
We're against this, We're against and
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they just kept more and more and
more and more and more, and you're
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kind of like, what is happening
here? So I think that's a critical
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time in church history. So the
formalism, I don't know. I mean,
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don't you. I would just challenge
you to consider it this way.
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When it comes to formalism, I
think unless you're just full blown charismatic,
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I think you all believe. I
think we all believe that there has to
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be some level of formalism, some
level of level of order and structure or
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church services to send into utter anarchy. So then so if you are more
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formal with a very definitive liturgy,
when when that because when they criticize,
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well, they have to have a
bulletin to know when to stand up or
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sit down. Hey, even in
fundamentalist churches, people can't just stand up
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at any time, right that people
would be like what are you doing?
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People can't just start clapping and raising
their head. No, no, there's
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going to be like no, no, no, we don't do that.
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So so they have their own rules. So I don't know about the formalism.
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I don't know. I didn't like
their definition of formalism. I don't
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know. I think there's there's a
level of it. If you go to
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a liturgical basis, does does that
mean dead? Does that mean lifeless?
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Does formalism is? Formal? Is
formalism the enemy of life and passion and
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zeal? Because I think in many
like charismatic churches, they would be known
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for their passion and zeal and their
lack of formalism. But does all that
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suppose that passion and zel really mean
life? Because sometimes it just seems like
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people are just doing what's expected of
them, just like people do what's expected
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in a liturgy. People do what's
expected if they're supposed to raise their hand
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yell shout. I know people I've
worked with plenty of charismatics. They were
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no more spiritual than anybody else,
So they all that outward sign of supposed
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life did not necessarily translate to anything. And I've known people who go to
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quote unquote dead cold formalism who seem
very godly and very committed and very dedicated
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to God. And there are so
I don't think you can. I don't
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like the I don't like the criticism
of formalism. I'm I don't like that
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the sort of the Lord may be
opposed to it, but I guarantee you
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they expect some level of formalism even
in their own churches. So I don't
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know about the modernism that I'm fascinated
by how it led to kind of the
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modern day Christianity. I think what
we have in modern day Christianity really maybe
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I'm overstating the historical significance, but
I think it's usually understated. I think
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modern Christianity can be literally traced back
to the modernist fundamentalist dispute and then how
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it breaks off into into streams now. I think the only thing that would
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be missing if you want to understand
modern day Christianity is the emergence and really
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the origins of modern day charismatic charismatic
movement starting in the nineteen hundreds. I
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think that there's there's there's modern day
Christianity. You can pick your stream,
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you can, and if you kind
of look at it, fundamentalism is clearly
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lost a lot of its power and
influence. I mean, I don't think
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there's any way to get around that. It's had it, It had its
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heyday, and it seems to be
very much nowhere close to what it was.
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That's my own feelings. You may
disagree, but I believe that's my
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own feelings. The evangelical modern Church
seems to still kind of be somewhat dominant.
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We had the now we could talk
about the research, the resurgence of
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reform theology. There was that time
where the young, restless and reformed movement
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happened. But I think that's kind
of fallen up. It'd be hard to
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kind of to see where we are. We have kind of the I think
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we have the we have the I
don't know if you've ever been in an
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area where there, you know,
there's a creek or a river and it's
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kind of dried up. It doesn't
look like it used to used to be
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flowing, you know, powerful rapids, and now you're kind of like,
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well, what has happened? I
think now we see a lot of these
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streams of Christianity that are just kind
of they look kind of dried up rivers.
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They're still there, they're still moving, but it's just what it doesn't
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look the same. And I think
that's kind of like where are we now?
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Like what is emerging now? I
think now we're emerging again. We
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definitely have the political philological hybrid that's
a mutated version of something Okay, we
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definitely have that. We still have
obviously the more evangelical, ecumenical, you
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know, you know, go along
to get along, peaceful loving, not
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so much wanting to fight. I
think a lot of people are just I
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don't. I just think more people
today are more political than they are theological.
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So we get trying to figure out
where that that river kind of branches
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off. I think I think that
the politically corrupted churches. I focus on
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the on the ones on the right, on the conservative churches, because the
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reason I focus on them is because
the conservative churches usually have a somewhat sound
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doctrinal statement, right, So you
get very upset when you have a church
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that has a sound doctrinal statement but
becomes corrupted by politics, and then they
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they they they create this mutated monster. The liberal churches that become infiltrated by
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politics, they're they are they are
liberal theologically, so they've already denied the
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fundamentals of the faith. So I
don't really care if they get corrupted by
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politics. In fact, I would
expect them to get corrupted by politics,
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because they've denied the fundamentals of the
faith. They've got to have something else
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to replace that. Because they've denied
the fundamental of the faith. Politics would
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be a good answer. Social causes
would make sense. They've already denied the
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actual fundamentals of the faith. It's
the conservative churches who say they haven't denied
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the fundamentals of the faith who then
get corrupted by politics that makes no sense.
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They're throwing away their treasure for the
trash of politics that makes no sense.
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So those are the two terms modernism
formalism. Now, the whole goal
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here was just to wait until let
me look here and look here in the
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sermon's two point. Oh, app
I was simply because of our challenge.
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Hang on, let me look here. Oh, it's just us, all
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right. I thought the daily prayer
thing started at the top of the hour.
359
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I could be wrong, all right, or United Prayer, I call
360
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it daily prayer. I thought that
their podcast, their webcast started at the
361
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top of the hour. Maybe it
starts at twelve, all right? So
362
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yeah, yeah, I want to
do it. I want to go right
363
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to my notes. I want to
go write to my notes and talk about
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the modernists fundamentalist debate. But I
think I've given you at least a good
365
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idea. But remember the goal this
week for the next two weeks for the
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sermons two point oh app sermon challenge
is you're supposed to be listening to to
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random webcast when you're coming out of
taking note, just like we do with
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the sermons. The random sermons,
you write down the name of the message,
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the name of the broadcaster, and
then a one sentence. Well if
370
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you can do it in one sentence, just write out a short summary of
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what the webcast was about. Okay, the key is to listen to the
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live ones. So what I wanted
to do I saw there was nothing live.
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I wanted to come on and kind
of fill in the gap before what
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I thought was supposed to happen at
eleven, and that was the United Prayer
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one. But I'm not seeing it, so maybe it starts. I saw
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a countdown clock. I saw a
countdown clock, and I thought it was
377
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supposed to start, So maybe I'm
missing something. I may be confused,
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but I wanted to just kind of
be the in between so that I could
379
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promote it. But there we go. All right, So are you familiar
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with the modernist fundamentalist controversy? Are
you the modernism the modernist? Are you?
381
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Are you familiar with that and are
you in formalism again? I I
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don't know about the formal I don't
know about complaining about formalism. I just
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don't know the modernist one. Now
that guess the issue is is is the
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issues of modernism? Are Are they
the issues in twenty twenty four? I
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mean, it feels to me,
this is my own feelings that I feel
386
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like that there's been a dramatic change. I felt that at one time the
387
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church was very much involved in philological
disputes. Right, there was all these
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theological disputes happening within christiandom, right, all of these five right over,
389
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like things like the purpose driven church
and seeker sensitive churches versus churches that fought
390
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against that kind of understanding of the
church and how the church should be developed
391
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and growing, the major fights between
Calvinism and non Calvinism. There was,
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like I felt, there was all
these theological disputes, right that what Intie
393
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writes new perspective on Paul and fighting
over issues related to justification, sanctification,
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lots of just major philological disputes,
right, maybe the resurgence of all millennialism
395
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being fought against premillennial There was like
philological theilological, theilological, theilological, philological,
396
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philological, theological, theological, and
somewhere, I feel like the theological
397
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has been so minimized, and the
church now is more fighting cultural issues and
398
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political issues and going after quote unquote
how many sermons have to mention woke,
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woke, woke, woke, woke. They're fighting the culture, and I
400
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think the concept of the the theological
has been abandoned. That's my own feelings.
401
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The church seems so has so just
like chased the dragon of a cultural
402
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war, like they're in fighting the
dragon of the culture, and I just
403
00:31:22.319 --> 00:31:25.000
I just don't know. And I
think that if you look around at the
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00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:30.160
church, the church is more theologically
illiterate, biblically illiterate, and theologically confused
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than it's ever been. That's that, that's I mean, that's just my
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00:31:37.319 --> 00:31:41.039
you know, on the spot feeling. So some ways, I wish we
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could go back to the modernist fundamentalist
fights, okay, because those were biblical,
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00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:48.319
those were theological. Those are those
like, you know, all right,
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well, here's the word of God. What does it say, not
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00:31:52.960 --> 00:31:59.599
fighting over I don't know. It
seems like I don't know. Somewhere,
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00:31:59.599 --> 00:32:04.720
I feel like we've lost the plot. That's my own personal feelings. I
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00:32:04.720 --> 00:32:10.319
know many of you will strongly disagree, and that's okay. All right,
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So today, modernism, formalism,
these are the things that sort of the
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Lord newspaper fight against. What do
you think about these terms? Do you
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00:32:28.119 --> 00:32:30.480
agree? Disagree? I would love
to get any of your thoughts. You
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00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:34.319
can email them to me. News. If it Yahoo dot com, that's
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news. If it Yahoo dot com. I hope I made the right decision.
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Like I, I thought this is
going to be like fifteen minutes,
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and as soon as I saw the
other webcast go live, I'd be like,
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all right, everyone that go watch
that one because that's what we're doing
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this this week and the next two
weeks. But since I didn't start,
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now I feel like, well,
maybe I should have just went all in
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on what I was going to do. But that's okay, you know what
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it's it's good sometimes to lead people
wanting more than giving them too much.
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00:33:01.160 --> 00:33:05.799
I know, typically my broadcasts go
so long that people want me to shut
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00:33:05.880 --> 00:33:08.599
up. So in this case,
maybe maybe, just maybe, Oh I
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00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:14.920
wanted you to keep talking about modernism
and the fundamentalist controversy. Oh I'm interested.
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00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:17.519
I don't know if anyone to be
actually interested in that historical situation.
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00:33:17.960 --> 00:33:22.039
I think every Christian should know it. All right, there you have it,
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Thanks for listening. We'll obviously be
back at some point today and we
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will see if we can talk about
these things. All right. If you
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00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:37.440
have any interest in the modernist fundamentalist
controversy, look up the Niagara Creed,
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00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:40.559
all right, or you can go
look up our series on the Niagara Creed,
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00:33:40.759 --> 00:33:45.319
because that creed is very instrumental,
right, arises out of the modernist
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00:33:45.319 --> 00:33:52.119
fundamentalist dispute, fight dispute and debate
and controversy. And then look up the
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00:33:52.279 --> 00:33:57.160
four I think four volume set the
Fundamentals. What I'll do is I'll look
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00:33:57.240 --> 00:33:59.759
for a link. This is what
I'll do. I'll look for a link
438
00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:05.079
to the Fundamentals. I can probably
find it on Amazon for relatively cheap,
439
00:34:05.400 --> 00:34:07.320
and I will send you a link
so you can only see the books.
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00:34:07.320 --> 00:34:10.960
You can may be able to find
the books online for free. I'll send
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00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:15.159
a link via the Church one app. So if you download the Church one
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00:34:15.199 --> 00:34:21.000
app churchne make sure your notification is
on. You'll get a notification with a
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link to those books. And you
should greatly invest your time because when you
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go back and kind of look at
it, it gives you an idea of
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what was happening. And when we
know the past, we bet we have
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00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:38.800
a better job of interpreting the present
and we are more equipped to possibly see
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00:34:39.079 --> 00:34:45.880
where we're headed in the future.
Thanks for listening everyone, have a great
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00:34:45.960 --> 00:34:50.119
day. God bless
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Looking at our world from a theological
perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast
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00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:16.039
making Theology Central. Good morning everyone. It is Tuesday, July the second,
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twenty twenty four. It is currently
ten forty four am Central Time,
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and I am coming to you live
from the Theology Central studio located right here
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in Abilene, Texas. Now,
if you've been paying any attention, you
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know that all this week and all
of next week is dedicated to you listening
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to the live webcast on the Sermon's
two point oh app and at Beta dot
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00:00:39.880 --> 00:00:44.359
Sermonadio dot com or the Sermonadio dot
com website. But the Beta side is
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00:00:44.399 --> 00:00:48.439
the site you should be using Beta
dot Sermonadio dot com or the Sermon's two
10
00:00:48.479 --> 00:00:51.759
point oh app. It's all about
you tuning in and listening to the live
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webcast. Well, if you notice
right now on those apps, I'm the
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only one broadcasting. There's no live
webcast. The one before mine was a
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funeral. There is nothing happening right
now, but in about fifteen minutes,
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00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:11.319
and about fifteen minutes there will be
the Daily Prayer webcast. Right the Daily
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Prayer webcast, I believe it starts
right at eleven am. Central Time.
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They always start with a devotional and
then they go into prayer. Happens every
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day. I think right at eleven
eleven, did I say eleven pm eleven
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am Central Time? And so you
definitely want to tune in, So I'm
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going to try to. I just
wanted to go live for just a few
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minutes leading up to that one to
tell everyone to go listen to that one,
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to remind everyone of the of the
challenge for the next two weeks.
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I think I could be wrong,
but because we're fast approaching the fourth of
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July, and remember, I'm already
concerned that a lot of the webcasts are
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going to be filled with patriotism and
politics, and we've already seen a little
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bit of that. We've already seen
a little bit of that. I think
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it's only going to get work.
But I'm also noticing, at least it
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feels to me that the number of
webcasts are way way way down. Being
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kind of a holiday week. I
think, I think there's just not going
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to be a lot of webcasts.
So we will see. So maybe I
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picked the wrong week to do this, Maybe we'll have to extend it out
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another week. But at the same
time, it may give you a break,
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right, if you're not listening to
anything else, you're only going to
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listen to live webcast, well,
then you kind of get you know you
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maybe maybe you just maybe maybe you're
going to be busy this week, so
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maybe it will work out. But
please keep the sermons two point oh app
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you know, handy, and make
sure you're checking. I know, look
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I have. I have begged and
begged and pleaded with them. Get notifications
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set up for the sermons two point
oh app so that because I want to
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be notified anytime someone goes live anytime, and so currently you have to be
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checking. So be checking. But
for now, between now and the again,
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the Top of the Out or the
Daily Prayer webcast should be going live,
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so you can definitely switch to that. But for now, what I
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want to do is focus on just
simply taking a few minutes to familiarize yourself
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with two very important terms, two
very important terms in church history, right,
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two very important terms. In fact, I probably know more about the
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first one than the second one,
but I want to bring them to your
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attention, and then maybe later when
there aren't any other webcasts going on,
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then maybe I will come back.
And then we'll do. Maybe this will
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turn into a mini series. We
will see the first one I've talked about
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so many times. But here's what
happens. So, as many of you
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know I've been I have a series
currently that we're talking and discussing revival based
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off one of the latest issues of
the sort of the Lord newspaper right now.
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We started it and the article became
very frustrating, taking verses out of
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context, misapplied. But okay,
all right. So I was like,
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I was sitting here thinking, well, maybe I turn on the microphone and
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we do a little bit more work, you know, in that series.
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But then I'm like, wait,
what is this? So on page eighteen
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and this issue of the Sword of
Lord newspaper, it is the section called
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Questions and Questions Answered Doctor Shelton Smith, and the question is what is modernism,
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worldliness and formalism? And I'm like, ohoh, three very important terms,
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modernism, worldliness, and formalism.
All three of them could really become
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a series. We could do an
entire series on modernism, entire series on
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worldliness, and an entire series on
formalism. And we have some interesting discussions,
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I think, but I wanted to
just take a few minutes between while
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there's no live webcast going on,
before the next one starts. Wish up.
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I believe it's at the top of
the hour. I want to make
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sure that you are very familiar and
know what modernism is and formalism is.
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We'll get to worldliness at another broadcast. Are you ready? So I'm gonna
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just read how it's written here the
sort of the Lord Newspaper. Are you
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ready? Here we go. Every
once in a while I get questioned,
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I will get a question about our
position as stated on the mash head of
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the newspaper, modernism masthead of the
newspaper. If I can read correctly,
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modernism, worldliness, and formalism,
Doctor Rice listed those matters on the front
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of the sword many years ago in
order to help define exactly what the sword
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was about. Now, if I
remember correctly, I'm going to look at
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the front of the paper. Yeah, yeah, right here. If I
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look at the front of the paper, what they call the masthead. If
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I look at there in front of
it, it says the sword of the
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Lord Newspaper, an independent Christian publication
standing for the verbal inspiration of the Bible,
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the deity of Christ, his Blood, Atonement, salvation by faith,
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New Testament, so winning and the
premillennial return of Christ. Opposing modernism,
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worldliness and formalism. It's right there
at the front of the paper. Three
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and those terms are very very important
for you to understand, all right.
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So so he gets questions sometimes and
they get letters at the sord of the
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Lord. Hey, what about these
three things? He goes on to say,
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each of these three words describes certain
things which we feel are unbiblical.
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So they feel modernism, formalism,
and worldliness are all unbiblical. Okay,
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I think we should all be able
to say amen to that. We should
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all be able to say amen to
that. So let's start with the first
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one. Let's go with modernism,
right, Let's at least try to offer
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a basic understanding of this term.
More importantly, when you think of the
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term modernism, you actually need to
think of about a controversy that happened in
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the nineteen hundreds, which is very
instrumental to understanding modern day church history.
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Are you ready? Here we go? Modernism a term that was coined back
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in the early part of the last
century to describe what we now call liberalism.
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Now, I'm just gonna be honest
with you. I don't like the
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term liberalism used in theology, right, because when we hear the term liberalism
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now, it almost carries a political
connotation. So I don't think churches.
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When churches say we are opposed to
liberalism, almost inevitably they're referring to political
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liberalism. When so I don't like
using the term in theilological language, right.
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I don't like it because it doesn't
carry theological liberalism. It carries the
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idea of political liberalism. And then
when many Christians say we are a conservative
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church, and in some cases,
I don't think it really reflects a theilological
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conservativism. It reflects a political one. And that's the political infiltration in the
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political corruption of the American church.
It's even corrupted our language. Right,
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So I don't like the term liberalism. Modernism holds a very specific meaning in
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the history of philological disputes. So
I know now we call it liberalism,
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but I think we should just use
the term modernism because or you have to
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say philological liberalism, right, because
I don't want to be I don't I
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don't want to be known as being
politically conservative. I don't want to be
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I want to be known as being
philologically conservative. I want to be understood
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from a philological perspective, not a
political or cultural perspective. Right, so
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let's continue. Modernism was a term
that was coined back in the early part
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of the last century to describe what
we would now call liberalism. The Modernist
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fundamentalist controversy of the nineteen ten to
nineteen thirty era was a full orbed clash
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between Bible believers and those who want
to and to diminish the Bible and favor
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of their own agenda. Now,
that's what I really want you to know.
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The Modernist Fundamentalist controversy nineteen ten to
nineteen thirty. That controversy every Christian
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should know it, every Christian should
be an expert. And the modernist fundamentalist
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controversy between nineteen ten and nineteen thirty. Now, if you've listened to our
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series on the Niagara Creed, right, the Niagara Bible Creed. That very
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much coming out of that controversy,
very much. The Niagara, the Niagara
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Creed, the Niagara Bible Conference,
that four volume set of books called The
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Fundamentals, all of that comes right
out of this controversy. And I have
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told I have begged Christians if you
listen to my preaching, those four books,
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the Fundamentals, They're literally on a
table behind my pulpit. They have
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been there now for years, and
I constantly I will reference them and preaching
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and tell people you need to read
these books. You need to read these
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books. You need to read these
books. You need those books still are
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sitting on the table because no one
ever takes them to read them. I
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cannot. I don't know what to
do to get people to read them.
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Now when people read them, they're
kind of like, well, this is
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kind of, you know, kind
of I don't know. I don't know
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what people are expecting when they read. When they do read them, but
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I think they're somewhat disappointed in the
way, but they're very just dealing with
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the issues that were so fundamental at
that time in this controversy between the modernists
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and fundamentalist, between the modernist and
fundamentalist. All right, so that controversy,
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you need to know that controversy nineteen
ten and nineteen thirty. You need
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to know about the niagraa Bible conference, You need to know about the niagraa
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Bible creed. You need to know
those things and you need to know those
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four volumes fund the fundamental the Fundamentals, because they so define that era,
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and you can kind of see out
of that controversy. You can kind of
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see the different streams of Christianity.
And just think nineteen ten to nineteen thirty,
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there was a lot going on theologically. The nineteen hundred, the nineteen
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hundreds, moving forward, you really
have the birth of the modern day charismatic
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movement. You have the birth of
one is Pentecostalism, all of that happening
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right there in nineteen hundred, and
then you have the modernists and the fundamentalist
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controversy, which is going to break
off into different camps. Right. You're
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going to have the fundamentalists, You're
going to have what's kind of kind of
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become the modern evangelicals. You're going
to have the philological what we'll call liberals
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00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:41.559
or the philological modernists. You're going
to have the charismatics. It's a crazy
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time in church history. I know
we like to go way back into church
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history, but to really kind of
understand our present situation, I think that
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that nineteen hundred, like nineteen hundred
to nineteen thirty, nineteen hundred to nineteen
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fifty that those fifty I see fifty
years nineteen hundred to nineteen fifty. You
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00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:11.080
have some crazy stuff going on theologically, which I think kind of determines and
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kind of kind of well, everything
breaks off into different streams, so I
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think you have to know that,
all right. So you have the modernist
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fundamentalist controversy of nineteen ten to nineteen
thirty era. It was a full orbed
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class between Bible believers and those who
wanted to diminish the Bible in favor of
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their own agenda, whether you use
the term modernism or liberalism. Doctor Rice
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and the sort of the Lord Newspaper
opposed it then, and they oppose it
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now, and they do oppose it
now. Sometimes I think they go a
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little bit more when they're opposing political
liberalism than versus theological liberalism. And sometimes
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they put forth a political conservativism and
versus a theological one, and those are
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different. But please, you have
to if you don't know the this controversy,
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I would love for you to let
me know what you know about it
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or don't know about it, because
then we can we can work on it.
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I've got I've got pages of notes. I can start talking about it.
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Right now, I can start,
I can start breaking down the controversy
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right now. The modern for example, I'm just looking at my notes.
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The modernist fundamentalist controversy was a philological
dispute that took place in the early twentieth
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century with an American Protestant Christianity,
particularly in the United States. Here and
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then here is a summarized outline of
the key points of the controversy. I'm
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not gonna let I'm not gonna tell
you now. I'm not gonna tell you
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now about it. But that's modernism, right, So let me read that
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again. Modernism was a term that
was coined back in the early part of
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the last century to describe what we
would now call liberalism. I hate the
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term liberalism. Let's say this,
modernism describes a philological liberalism that would deny
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the fundamentals of the faith. Okay, this is they're denying the fun fundamentals
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of the faith, philological fundamentals.
I know. Somehow modernism and fundamentalism turns
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into an argument about music and hair
and dress. No, it's about the
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fundamentals of the faith, the inerrancy
of Scripture, the bodily resurrection of Christ,
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the deity of Christ. Right,
Like those very fundamental issues. The
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dating of some of the books of
the Bible. Are they actually prophetic or
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were they written after the fact,
and so they're not really prophecy. Who
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wrote the books? Like the very
important philological issues. Right, So that's
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what modernism is. Think of it. Philological liberalism are just think modernism a
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philological approach that attacks and denies the
fundamentals of the faith, leads leading to
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a great questioning, skepticism and denial
of historical biblical Christianity. Now, what's
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formalism? So there's there's modernism.
What is formalism? Formalism is a term
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that has been coined to describe what
happens in a dead ritualistic type of church.
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When we go to church on Sunday, we believe that there ought to
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be evidence of the delight of the
Lord, and that the Spirit of God
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has given direction to the service.
It has been the practice among dead liberal
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churches to so thoroughly program everything that
one has to check the bulletin to see
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whether to stand or sit, or
what is coming next. Some churches go
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to great extremes on that, and
as a result, the light of life
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go out of it. We are, of course opposed to that formalism.
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Now, we could argue that every
church has some level of formalism, because
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every church has kind of an order
of the way you do things, and
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after a while you get used to
it. We're going to stand on this
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song, we're going to greet after
this, we're going to take the offering
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here, we're going to do this, We're going to do this. Every
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church has it to some level.
So now, now what some people refer
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to is formalism that's dead or lifeless
or cold. What they're really attacking is
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liturgical churches. So I don't know
if we should should we be opposed to
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formalism because I know, even even
the fundamentalist churches, there's a formalism.
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This is the way you do this
is how you do things. Okay,
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we're gonna stand on this, we're
gonna sit here, we're gonna shake hands.
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Ever, I mean, you're following
the same order, and there's rarely
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ever any change or disruption to that. So to me, it was more
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the charismatic world that criticized the formalism. That was more to me, the
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charismatic world kind of like, no, we need the spirit leading things and
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then it leads to just total anarchy
and chaos. And God is not the
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order that God is not the god
of chaos, is the God of order,
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so he brings order out of chaos. He doesn't bring chaos to order.
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So I don't know about the formalism
part. So you can you can,
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you can make your own determination about
how much should we be opposed to
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that is that really an issue?
And then but the modernism that's what I
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really want you to focus on.
So I want you to know two terms
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today modernism. But when it comes
to modernism, I want you to know
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the modernist fundamentalist controversy of the nineteen
ten or from nineteen ten to nineteen thirty.
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I think you could probably go a
little bit further back, because I
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think the modernist kind of ideas higher
criticism and those were already coming in from
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Europe prior to nineteen ten, at
least I feel like they were. I
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would have to go look at the
dates of books and things like that,
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you know, to be exact.
But you need to know that modernist fundamentalist
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controversy and what and how, because
I think I think what happens is you
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see the modernist movement. Do you
see the modernist ideas coming in? And
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then I think in many cases within
Protestant Christianity, there was a debate on
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how do you respond to these concepts? Do we fight? Do we separate
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ourselves? If seminaries are bringing in
these modernist ideas, do you pull out
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of these seminaries? Do you then
start your own Bible institute? If your
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denomination is being infiltrated by modernism,
do you remove yourself from the from the
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denomination and start independent churches? Well
that's where the whole independent fundamentalist kind of
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idea kind of emerges. Forget the
seminaries, We'll have Bible institutes and our
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local churches. Forget being a part
of a denomination, We'll have independent churches.
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Because they were fighting it, others
were like no, no, no,
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no, no, no no,
we'll stay within the denomination and try
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to fight it. We won't.
We We're going to continue to send people
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to the seminary. We're going to
try to change it from within. And
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the fundamentalist arguments like no, set
we come out from among them and be
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ye separate, We're not going to
deal with it. And then that leads
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to from the modernists fundamentalists dispute,
and then you break into streams Christianity where
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you have more of the evangelical mindset, not so much fighting trying to find
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ways. Listen, what do we
have in common, more ecumenical, let's
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work together, Let's still support the
denominational struture. Let's continue to support the
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seminaries. And then the fundamentalists were
like, no independent churches, Bible institutes,
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forget the whole seminary, forget the
denominational structure. So you have that
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split. So then in a roundabout
way, you end up with the modernist
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or the or you know again,
theilological liberalism, the fundamentalist, and then
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you have the evangelicals. Now within
the fundamentalist movement, what I think you
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have is you have those who broke
away for philological reasons to fight for the
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fundamentals of the faith. And in
many cases within fundamentalism, it deteriorated and
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it kind of fell apart into a
very legalistic like now we're going to argue
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about music and hair and should a
pastor wear a tire or not wear a
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tie and just all of these It
just started turning into that kind of stuff,
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right, and then you oh,
and then I think there was a
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lot. I hate to say it. I know they will deny it,
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but I think in many cases some
of the charismatic ideas creep into fundamentalism.
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They would never not saying like speaking
in tongues, but some of the ideas
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of God speaking to us outside of
the Bible and some of that, and
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some of their ideas about the Holy
Spirit, to me seems more influent,
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being more influenced by early charismatic concepts
than they were about from historical biblical Christianity.
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So you kind of have but really
what you kind of end up if
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you think about coming in the nineteen
hundreds moving forward, you have the philological
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modernism or theological liberalism, you have
the fundamentalist, you have the evangelicals,
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and then you have the charismatics,
and then fundamentalism, of course deteriorates into
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just ridiculousness in many cases, just
fighting over anything. And it's like they
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were gonna they since they started by
separating from others, they just kept separating.
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They just kept we're gonna separate,
We're gonna separate. No, no,
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no, We're we're against this,
We're against this, We're against and
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they just kept more and more and
more and more and more, and you're
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kind of like, what is happening
here? So I think that's a critical
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time in church history. So the
formalism, I don't know. I mean,
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don't you. I would just challenge
you to consider it this way.
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When it comes to formalism, I
think unless you're just full blown charismatic,
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I think you all believe. I
think we all believe that there has to
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be some level of formalism, some
level of level of order and structure or
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church services to send into utter anarchy. So then so if you are more
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formal with a very definitive liturgy,
when when that because when they criticize,
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well, they have to have a
bulletin to know when to stand up or
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sit down. Hey, even in
fundamentalist churches, people can't just stand up
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at any time, right that people
would be like what are you doing?
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People can't just start clapping and raising
their head. No, no, there's
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going to be like no, no, no, we don't do that.
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So so they have their own rules. So I don't know about the formalism.
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I don't know. I didn't like
their definition of formalism. I don't
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know. I think there's there's a
level of it. If you go to
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a liturgical basis, does does that
mean dead? Does that mean lifeless?
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Does formalism is? Formal? Is
formalism the enemy of life and passion and
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zeal? Because I think in many
like charismatic churches, they would be known
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for their passion and zeal and their
lack of formalism. But does all that
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suppose that passion and zel really mean
life? Because sometimes it just seems like
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people are just doing what's expected of
them, just like people do what's expected
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in a liturgy. People do what's
expected if they're supposed to raise their hand
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yell shout. I know people I've
worked with plenty of charismatics. They were
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no more spiritual than anybody else,
So they all that outward sign of supposed
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life did not necessarily translate to anything. And I've known people who go to
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quote unquote dead cold formalism who seem
very godly and very committed and very dedicated
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to God. And there are so
I don't think you can. I don't
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like the I don't like the criticism
of formalism. I'm I don't like that
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the sort of the Lord may be
opposed to it, but I guarantee you
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they expect some level of formalism even
in their own churches. So I don't
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know about the modernism that I'm fascinated
by how it led to kind of the
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modern day Christianity. I think what
we have in modern day Christianity really maybe
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I'm overstating the historical significance, but
I think it's usually understated. I think
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modern Christianity can be literally traced back
to the modernist fundamentalist dispute and then how
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it breaks off into into streams now. I think the only thing that would
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be missing if you want to understand
modern day Christianity is the emergence and really
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the origins of modern day charismatic charismatic
movement starting in the nineteen hundreds. I
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think that there's there's there's modern day
Christianity. You can pick your stream,
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you can, and if you kind
of look at it, fundamentalism is clearly
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lost a lot of its power and
influence. I mean, I don't think
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there's any way to get around that. It's had it, It had its
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heyday, and it seems to be
very much nowhere close to what it was.
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That's my own feelings. You may
disagree, but I believe that's my
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own feelings. The evangelical modern Church
seems to still kind of be somewhat dominant.
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We had the now we could talk
about the research, the resurgence of
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reform theology. There was that time
where the young, restless and reformed movement
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happened. But I think that's kind
of fallen up. It'd be hard to
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kind of to see where we are. We have kind of the I think
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we have the we have the I
don't know if you've ever been in an
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area where there, you know,
there's a creek or a river and it's
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kind of dried up. It doesn't
look like it used to used to be
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flowing, you know, powerful rapids, and now you're kind of like,
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well, what has happened? I
think now we see a lot of these
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streams of Christianity that are just kind
of they look kind of dried up rivers.
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They're still there, they're still moving, but it's just what it doesn't
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look the same. And I think
that's kind of like where are we now?
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Like what is emerging now? I
think now we're emerging again. We
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definitely have the political philological hybrid that's
a mutated version of something Okay, we
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definitely have that. We still have
obviously the more evangelical, ecumenical, you
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know, you know, go along
to get along, peaceful loving, not
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so much wanting to fight. I
think a lot of people are just I
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don't. I just think more people
today are more political than they are theological.
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So we get trying to figure out
where that that river kind of branches
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off. I think I think that
the politically corrupted churches. I focus on
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the on the ones on the right, on the conservative churches, because the
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reason I focus on them is because
the conservative churches usually have a somewhat sound
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doctrinal statement, right, So you
get very upset when you have a church
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that has a sound doctrinal statement but
becomes corrupted by politics, and then they
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they they they create this mutated monster. The liberal churches that become infiltrated by
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politics, they're they are they are
liberal theologically, so they've already denied the
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fundamentals of the faith. So I
don't really care if they get corrupted by
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politics. In fact, I would
expect them to get corrupted by politics,
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because they've denied the fundamentals of the
faith. They've got to have something else
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to replace that. Because they've denied
the fundamental of the faith. Politics would
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be a good answer. Social causes
would make sense. They've already denied the
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actual fundamentals of the faith. It's
the conservative churches who say they haven't denied
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the fundamentals of the faith who then
get corrupted by politics that makes no sense.
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They're throwing away their treasure for the
trash of politics that makes no sense.
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So those are the two terms modernism
formalism. Now, the whole goal
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here was just to wait until let
me look here and look here in the
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sermon's two point. Oh, app
I was simply because of our challenge.
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Hang on, let me look here. Oh, it's just us, all
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right. I thought the daily prayer
thing started at the top of the hour.
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I could be wrong, all right, or United Prayer, I call
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it daily prayer. I thought that
their podcast, their webcast started at the
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top of the hour. Maybe it
starts at twelve, all right? So
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yeah, yeah, I want to
do it. I want to go right
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to my notes. I want to
go write to my notes and talk about
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the modernists fundamentalist debate. But I
think I've given you at least a good
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idea. But remember the goal this
week for the next two weeks for the
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sermons two point oh app sermon challenge
is you're supposed to be listening to to
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random webcast when you're coming out of
taking note, just like we do with
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the sermons. The random sermons,
you write down the name of the message,
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the name of the broadcaster, and
then a one sentence. Well if
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you can do it in one sentence, just write out a short summary of
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what the webcast was about. Okay, the key is to listen to the
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live ones. So what I wanted
to do I saw there was nothing live.
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I wanted to come on and kind
of fill in the gap before what
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I thought was supposed to happen at
eleven, and that was the United Prayer
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one. But I'm not seeing it, so maybe it starts. I saw
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a countdown clock. I saw a
countdown clock, and I thought it was
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supposed to start, So maybe I'm
missing something. I may be confused,
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but I wanted to just kind of
be the in between so that I could
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promote it. But there we go. All right, So are you familiar
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with the modernist fundamentalist controversy? Are
you the modernism the modernist? Are you?
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Are you familiar with that and are
you in formalism again? I I
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don't know about the formal I don't
know about complaining about formalism. I just
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don't know the modernist one. Now
that guess the issue is is is the
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issues of modernism? Are Are they
the issues in twenty twenty four? I
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mean, it feels to me,
this is my own feelings that I feel
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00:29:48.160 --> 00:29:49.680
like that there's been a dramatic change. I felt that at one time the
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church was very much involved in philological
disputes. Right, there was all these
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00:29:55.880 --> 00:30:00.880
theological disputes happening within christiandom, right, all of these five right over,
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like things like the purpose driven church
and seeker sensitive churches versus churches that fought
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00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:10.359
against that kind of understanding of the
church and how the church should be developed
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and growing, the major fights between
Calvinism and non Calvinism. There was,
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like I felt, there was all
these theological disputes, right that what Intie
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00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:27.200
writes new perspective on Paul and fighting
over issues related to justification, sanctification,
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lots of just major philological disputes,
right, maybe the resurgence of all millennialism
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00:30:33.640 --> 00:30:40.200
being fought against premillennial There was like
philological theilological, theilological, theilological, philological,
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00:30:40.279 --> 00:30:44.160
philological, theological, theological, and
somewhere, I feel like the theological
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00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:48.799
has been so minimized, and the
church now is more fighting cultural issues and
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00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:55.599
political issues and going after quote unquote
how many sermons have to mention woke,
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00:30:56.160 --> 00:31:02.680
woke, woke, woke, woke. They're fighting the culture, and I
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00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:08.119
think the concept of the the theological
has been abandoned. That's my own feelings.
401
00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:17.680
The church seems so has so just
like chased the dragon of a cultural
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00:31:17.720 --> 00:31:22.240
war, like they're in fighting the
dragon of the culture, and I just
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00:31:22.319 --> 00:31:25.000
I just don't know. And I
think that if you look around at the
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00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:30.160
church, the church is more theologically
illiterate, biblically illiterate, and theologically confused
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00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:37.039
than it's ever been. That's that, that's I mean, that's just my
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00:31:37.319 --> 00:31:41.039
you know, on the spot feeling. So some ways, I wish we
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00:31:41.039 --> 00:31:45.720
could go back to the modernist fundamentalist
fights, okay, because those were biblical,
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00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:48.319
those were theological. Those are those
like, you know, all right,
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00:31:48.799 --> 00:31:52.680
well, here's the word of God. What does it say, not
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00:31:52.960 --> 00:31:59.599
fighting over I don't know. It
seems like I don't know. Somewhere,
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00:31:59.599 --> 00:32:04.720
I feel like we've lost the plot. That's my own personal feelings. I
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know many of you will strongly disagree, and that's okay. All right,
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00:32:10.599 --> 00:32:19.160
So today, modernism, formalism,
these are the things that sort of the
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00:32:19.160 --> 00:32:28.119
Lord newspaper fight against. What do
you think about these terms? Do you
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00:32:28.119 --> 00:32:30.480
agree? Disagree? I would love
to get any of your thoughts. You
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00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:34.319
can email them to me. News. If it Yahoo dot com, that's
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00:32:34.519 --> 00:32:37.000
news. If it Yahoo dot com. I hope I made the right decision.
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00:32:37.079 --> 00:32:40.480
Like I, I thought this is
going to be like fifteen minutes,
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00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:43.759
and as soon as I saw the
other webcast go live, I'd be like,
420
00:32:43.799 --> 00:32:46.519
all right, everyone that go watch
that one because that's what we're doing
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00:32:46.559 --> 00:32:50.799
this this week and the next two
weeks. But since I didn't start,
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00:32:50.839 --> 00:32:52.079
now I feel like, well,
maybe I should have just went all in
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00:32:52.119 --> 00:32:54.759
on what I was going to do. But that's okay, you know what
424
00:32:55.079 --> 00:33:01.119
it's it's good sometimes to lead people
wanting more than giving them too much.
425
00:33:01.160 --> 00:33:05.799
I know, typically my broadcasts go
so long that people want me to shut
426
00:33:05.880 --> 00:33:08.599
up. So in this case,
maybe maybe, just maybe, Oh I
427
00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:14.920
wanted you to keep talking about modernism
and the fundamentalist controversy. Oh I'm interested.
428
00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:17.519
I don't know if anyone to be
actually interested in that historical situation.
429
00:33:17.960 --> 00:33:22.039
I think every Christian should know it. All right, there you have it,
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00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:24.880
Thanks for listening. We'll obviously be
back at some point today and we
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00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:30.920
will see if we can talk about
these things. All right. If you
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00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:37.440
have any interest in the modernist fundamentalist
controversy, look up the Niagara Creed,
433
00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:40.559
all right, or you can go
look up our series on the Niagara Creed,
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00:33:40.759 --> 00:33:45.319
because that creed is very instrumental,
right, arises out of the modernist
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00:33:45.319 --> 00:33:52.119
fundamentalist dispute, fight dispute and debate
and controversy. And then look up the
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00:33:52.279 --> 00:33:57.160
four I think four volume set the
Fundamentals. What I'll do is I'll look
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00:33:57.240 --> 00:33:59.759
for a link. This is what
I'll do. I'll look for a link
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00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:05.079
to the Fundamentals. I can probably
find it on Amazon for relatively cheap,
439
00:34:05.400 --> 00:34:07.320
and I will send you a link
so you can only see the books.
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00:34:07.320 --> 00:34:10.960
You can may be able to find
the books online for free. I'll send
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00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:15.159
a link via the Church one app. So if you download the Church one
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00:34:15.199 --> 00:34:21.000
app churchne make sure your notification is
on. You'll get a notification with a
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link to those books. And you
should greatly invest your time because when you
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00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:30.840
go back and kind of look at
it, it gives you an idea of
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00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:34.639
what was happening. And when we
know the past, we bet we have
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00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:38.800
a better job of interpreting the present
and we are more equipped to possibly see
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00:34:39.079 --> 00:34:45.880
where we're headed in the future.
Thanks for listening everyone, have a great
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00:34:45.960 --> 00:34:50.119
day. God bless

















































































