We’re taking passages to wisdom and these days looking at somebody who is a teacher and a good friend, loose Meads and his book, his memoir about his walkthrough life with what he calls his elusive God. And today I want to start by thinking about our thinking and what does it mean to, uh, be thoughtful in our faith? And then we’ll get to Lou in Deuteronomy six. The verse that was the central command of Judaism told Israelites hero Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. They lived in a world that was polytheistic. And that teaching that there is only one, God, he is not an idol. He is not a little tribal. God. He is the creator of everything was core, but then not just that God has one. It goes on, you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength.
And this was the central command of the people of Israel. And when Jesus, the rabbi came along, somebody asked him one time, what is the central command? And so of course he cites this one. He adds to it a statement from Leviticus and love your neighbor as yourself, but he makes one other slight addition. This is from Luke’s version, Jesus answered and said to him, uh, you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, did you catch the addition? Jesus adds to heart, soul, and strength. You should love God with all your mind, with your thinking, with your imagining, with your learning, with your questioning, that everything you are capable of is a rational being that too belongs to God, that too is created by God, Neil planning.
It calls this the Magna Carta of Christian thought Christian intellectual endeavor love God yes. With your heart and your soul. And you’re saying, but also your mind, you and I do that as we walk through the day. Do I think about God? Am I curious about God? Do I wonder about God now a movement arose, uh, a hundred years ago or so that is often at odds with this notion of loving God with our mind, with having a thoughtful faith. And Lou is at the core of this conversation. And it’s a term that’s become very common in our day. Fundamentalism. Uh, people sometimes speak about it as though it could be true of any kind of religion as though there were Islamic fundamentalism. However, it actually arose in reference to Christianity in the early 20th century, as you might know, over a period of a century or so different kinds of liberal theology arose that interpreted the Bible quite differently.
Often thought there must not be any such thing as miracles, any such thing as a supernatural realm, possibly know such thing as a resurrection or the divinity of Jesus, or even really a robust personal God. So a lot was writing on this conversation, this conflict and a group of people in the early 20th century, about 1910 issued a series of pamphlets where they tried to lay out what are some of the core beliefs that Christians had believed over the centuries. And they called those the fundamentals, the fundamental beliefs. Now they were not particularly authorized to do this, but they had an audience. And it was those pamphlets. That little movement gave rise to the notion of fundamentalism. We will identify what’s essential to believe as a part of our faith, but in those decades, a kind of spirit arose that involved, not simply the affirmation of certain core beliefs, but other ideas like, um, the way that I can be pure before God is not only to make sure that whatever I believe is correct.
And often the ethos, although might not be said like this is it’s more important to be right. That it is to love. And so I must be right, but also I must only associate with other people who are right. And so that little phrase from the old Testament come out and be separate, was taken to mean. And if there are other people who claim to be Christians, but they are an error in some way, I must separate from them. And there are now over 38,000 denominations, Christian denominations in the world. And pretty much every one of them came because somebody was trying to be separate for somebody who wasn’t pure. And this movement known as fundamentalism, uh, often contained with it, a deep suspicion of the life of the mind, a suspicion of scholarship, a fear that if you’re willing to read anything and look at any book and consider any idea, you might lose your faith.
So don’t get too educated. Don’t be too widely read. And, um, that spirit of fundamentalism was very much opposed to, uh, people like loose needs. Lou taught at fuller seminary and the classic history of fuller seminary written by George Marson wonderful historian at Notre Dame is called reforming fundamentalism. Another movement arose in the forties and fifties. People like Harold, John akin gay, Billy Graham kind of represented the core of it said that they wanted to believe what was always essential to the Christian faith, what CS Lewis called mere Christianity, but without the anti-intellectualism, without the skepticism of science, KA him wrote a book called the uneasy conscience of fundamentalism, where he talked about the inability of fundamentalism to deal with systemic issues like racism.
And so, uh, a great deal of damage ended up being done to the faith. And Lou writes in this book about a time at fuller seminary, where he taught where there were a group of people that were not satisfied with his or folder’s view of scripture. They had quite a narrow view that said, um, unless you agree with our view of the Bible, Bible’s the word of God. God never makes a mistake. Therefore, if the Bible has a mistake, for example, the Bible in the old Testament uses the figure three for pie to calculate circumference. If you’re an engineer, you know, by a three, but this was a huge problem with that point of view, as opposed to somebody like Lou who said, no, God can communicate any way he wants to the scriptures, much like Jesus are both divine inspired by God, but also written by real people.
And God often could accommodate human understandings of science and mathematics in that moment in order to reveal what he wanted to reveal. So we don’t need to be threatened by any of that stuff. Big controversies known as battle for the Bible back, back in the day. And when Lou is commenting on all of this, here is what he writes about fundamentalism. I must admit that my distaste for fundamentalism comes from a deeper well than an intellectual disagreement about the Bible. I do not have the constitution, a person needs in order to be a fundamentalist, the literalism and the absolutism of fundamentalism run against the grain of my nature seem to have been born with a need to look at both sides of the question. Fundamentalism is dead set against giving me permission to satisfy this need. I certainly know fundamentalists who display a richer grace and stronger love than I do.
Theyre God is my God. Their savior is my savior. And yet I would not invite any of them to join me on a six day fishing trip. I embrace fundamentalists as my brothers and sisters in faith, but we are not likely to become the closest of friends. And I love that largeness of spirit. I love that acknowledgement that while I don’t identify as a fundamentalist, and there are aspects of that movement that are troubling to me, there are people who carry that badge who love way better than I do, who embody Jesus way more than I do. And I aspire to that kind of spirit we’re living in a day where, uh, it’s very difficult for a lot of us to know what label to even claim anymore. When I was growing up, evangelicalism was understood to be quite distinct from fundamentalism as a group of people, a tribe that embraced the Orthodox sexualities of the faith, but also cared about the life of the mind and were not co-opted by any political party and were concerned for issues like racism.
It’s interesting that Carl F H Henry who back in the forties wrote about the problems of fundamentalism dealing with racism when he was the editor of Christianity today in the sixties, criticized and kept his distance from Martin Luther king, cuz he said, there are some people who are not politically trustworthy, that we might be part of Martin Luther King’s movement. And we see that same kind of spirit sometimes even amongst our tribe today. So the invitation this day that comes from Lou, but, but way beyond him from Jesus is love the Lord, your God today, not just with all your heart, not just with all your strength, not just with all your soul, those two, but with your mind, think about God some today. Be unafraid to consider any possibility. Be unafraid to ask any question for as has been said before, our friend Jesus is the first person who would tell you, you must follow truth, wherever it leads and following truth in every moment is a deep part of how we love God with all our mind. I can’t wait to see you.