Launched in L.A.: The Campaign of Christian Fundamentalism
Photo by Eduardo Wall. The City of Los Angeles, California.
Launched in L.A.: The Campaign of Christian Fundamentalism
When I began writing my memoir, Undertow, I
wanted to bring to the foreground the fundamentalist aspect of
the group I was in, The Way International. Why? Is something wrong with
fundamentalism? I say “yes.” My story shows serious drawbacks in the fundamentalist
approach to Scripture and its detrimental effects on adherents.
Note: Strangely, some ex-Way followers have argued
that The Way International is not fundamentalist, but rather a destructive
cult that promotes a patchwork of plagiarized teachings that Victor Paul
Wierwille (1916 – 1985) put together.
I agree that Wierwille did conduct a cult, and was a
controlling cult leader, but I’m here to say that The Way is ALSO
fundamentalist. Why: Because of Victor Paul Wierwille's non-negotiable belief
in inerrancy of the Scriptures. He founded The Way and
produced bible teachings (many plagiarized) still promoted as "The
Truth" today.
Inerrancy is the assertion that the Bible contains no
contradictions or errors. It is a cornerstone of Christian fundamentalism.
From: The Way International -
Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
As Biblical students, we learn that the rightly divided Word has
to fit from Genesis to Revelation. This means that it cannot have any
contradictions.
For seventeen years, I worked in The Way’s biblical research
department and never once saw any research that showed how “the Word” in its
entirety had no contradictions. That was only a claim made by Wierwille and
parroted by his followers. Wierwille claimed “it had to fit together like a
hand in a glove.” He got that idea from other fundamentalists.
Lyman Stewart, a fundamentalist who changed the
U.S.
Many good books are available on the topic of fundamentalism,
but a quick overview of the topic is in an article giving the background
of The Fundamentals,
a series of pamphlets distributed by a man named Lyman Stewart from
Los Angeles in the early 1900s.
The Fundamentals in
large measure changed the course of Christianity in this country. As a result,
it also changed the course of my own life and many others like me. From
the article I mentioned is this:
Between 1908 and 1923, Lyman poured millions of dollars – mostly
from his Union Oil holdings, but also from the Stewart Citrus Association
orange groves in Ontario – into making Los Angeles a world center of the
fundamentalist movement.
Click the following link (in green text) to that article, a
most important and relevant-to-our times report: The
Fundamentals.
Recommended reading
1.
Fundamentalism by James Barr
2.
The Roots of Fundamentalism by Ernest
R. Sandeen
3.
Fundamentalism and American Culture by
George M. Marsden