A Confused Stand

I'm sure that I think that I mean this. I do. Am. Sure that is. About thinking. Meaning it. Well, I feel sorry for confused young fundamentalists. To start, they don't know who they are. What is a fundamentalist? Most of them can't figure it out. I have a hard time helping them. The early fundamentalists had a solid thing to stand against. They had to stop liberalism. But what about those who fellowshipped with liberals? But maybe the five fundamentals weren't enough. But we don't want it to be too much. And how exactly should we define these terms? What is inerrancy? What is Scripture?

What's the problem? They know they believe in unity. They also know they believe in separation. But they believe that the church is all believers. If it is all believers, then they have to unify with all believers. They have to be kind, and yet not put up with everything. They can't get along with everyone. So where do they take their stand?

I'm finding that it works sort of like this. And I mean sort of. They can't fellowship with Billy Graham---denial of literal hell, too much. They like Al Mohler, the Calvinistic voice of intelligence in the Southern Baptist Convention. He likes John MacArthur who is cool about exposition, which they like. They don't like Hyles. Oh no. And anyone like him. But Al Mohler fellowships with Billy Graham, and he is in the same convention as Rick Warren. But he isn't a Hyles guy, and that's good. Because the gospel is important. They want to be considered intelligent, intellectuals. That means new versions. All of them are done by people they don't fellowship with, but that's OK, because they found out that there are mistakes, not too many, in the text. But that's good, because it's reasonable. Anyone who says there isn't just doesn't get it. And they do. Multitude of the manuscripts. Perfect preservation. But not any Bible that anyone uses. But no one should worry. And they love evangelism and new converts can't read Elizabethan English. And Piper preaches with passion and wants unity and uses the ESV, easy to understand, but his music is the pits. They like his passion about worship, but not his worship, but they'll defend him until you say they really like him. You can't fellowship with David Cloud. Or anyone who wants to put culottes on every girl they can see. Because that's what those people want, and they hate legalism except with the ones who are legalistic, and for them they are legalistically unlegalistic. So they will fight against the KJVO and the 1-2-3s, and against anyone who says they fight too much, and their women don't wear pants, but they love Together for the Gospel, but not really. And Phil Johnson is the man. They love those guys, not enough for fellowship, but enough to show that they aren't like the old fundamentalists, even though they want to respect them. And they post. They blog. They sharpen. But don't like fighting. Like discussion. Agree to disagree. Except with certain ones. They don't drink but are fine with drinking, but not really, and even though you drink that's fine, but they don't like it. A fine cigar and a movie. Let's talk about it. They'll talk. Not going to commit. Not the theater, but the DVD, so since DVDs are the same, movies are OK. And are very cool with women. Speak up. But all for male authority. They are against the inclusive language version but for including women in the discussion because they're strong but sensitive or the other way around. Moused up hair good, pants hanging down bad, but daycare is good even though its bad. And they don't like the tone of the old fundamentalists, except for slacks, versions, and people who disagree with them.

Are you getting all this?