In previous articles I have tried to address some of the problems with fundamentalism. I have not been—nor should anyone be—afraid to face these hard issues head-on, to admit the difficulties, and to attempt to correct them. Five of the seven churches in Asia Minor had rebuke-worthy faults mingled with virtues in Revelation 2 and [...]
On Easter Sunday evening in 1990 when I was a zealous seventeen year old, a few friends and I made the fifteen-minute drive to a more informal after-meeting for the youth in Dr. Paisley’s church in east Belfast, Northern Ireland. That was a big year for us young fundamentalists. In July the World Congress of [...]
In the first article in this series I spoke of the legacy that the early fundamentalist movement has left to the evangelical church and suggested that conservative evangelicals enjoy better days today because of the fundamentalist struggle. I still believe that, and in later articles I will show the benefits and blessings of fundamentalism [...]
For the past forty years or more fundamentalism has struggled with its own existence. During that time fundamentalists have been discussing the nature and the future of a movement that was intended to defend the truth, but that has—some would argue—developed into a cold, impotent, and isolated subdivision of the evangelical church. This might [...]
A few years ago, when Dr. Paisley made, what some saw as uncharacteristic political choices, the whole of Britain and Ireland, indeed the world media, buzzed with the news. I also was surprised, and, like a good Ulsterman and expat, I had my opinions. Ironically, I was in Northern Ireland at the time doing [...]
A number of years ago I was speaking in a church on the subject of salvation. I made the point, as a side note, that salvation is not a one-time event, but that it is a process. In fact, the New Testament speaks of salvation using all of the tenses---past, present/continuous, and future, “I [...]
Fundamentalism never wavered from its original purpose to defend the faith. This was its greatest virtue and the reason for its success in leaving us “better days.” Despite the merits of fundamentalism, however, and its evident success, the movement developed quite a prominent Achilles heel. As I said at the beginning, fundamentalism was an [...]
Very often when my children ask me for something that they know they aren’t likely to get, I will try to lighten the moment by asking them, “Do you want the short answer or the long answer?” The short answer, of course, is “no.” The long answer explains why. For many within the fundamentalist [...]
I woke this morning to the sad news that Dr. Paisley has died. We knew him as Dr. Paisley, or just “Doc” in familiar conversation, but he was known in later years as Lord Bannside. Ian Paisley was born in April 1926 into the home of a Baptist pastor. He preached his first sermon at [...]