Why I'm Not Looking for a Movement to Join

by Phil Johnson

What follows is a short excerpt from a message I gave 5 years ago at the Shepherds' Conference. The session was titled, "Dead Right: The Failure of Fundamentalism," and it unleashed a firestorm in the blogosphere. (That was a couple of months before I actually began blogging in earnest.) A transcript of my message was posted at SharperIron.org (an always-interesting fundamentalist blog) just a day or so after I delivered it. A prolonged and very active discussion began at that blog even before the Shepherds' Conference ended that year. When I heard about the SharperIron.org conversation, I visited that blog to supply a more accurate transcript, provide some documentation, and clarify a few of my comments. There I encountered Dave Doran, president of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. He was an articulate and patient critic of my message, and we had an extended conversation on that blog, lasting several weeks. Someone saved most of those posts, and the document (available here) makes fascinating reading even now. Dr. Doran reminisced about that exchange on his blog today, and SharperIron also posted links to the original article and the Doran-Johnson discussion. That led me to the transcript of my message, and the following section stood out to me as blog-worthy. Since I need to do another "Redneck Atheism" post tomorrow, I'm stepping on Dan Phillips's excellent post this afternoon in order to get this online whilst it's still in my head. Enjoy.

   have always preferred independency. I consider myself an independent in every sense. I'm not looking for a movement to join. I belong to [Grace Community] church. That's enough for me. And I'm willing to work alongside anyone and everyone who shares my essential biblical convictions, whether the label they would slap on themselves is "fundamentalist," "evangelical," "strict and particular Baptist," or just plain old "Christian."

Think about the fruits of the various twentieth-century movements. Liberals and theological radicals never did anything but kill churches and turn denominations into spiritual wastelands.

"Fundamentalists" who tied themselves to the movement got sidetracked into fighting and dividing into ever-smaller and less significant factions. They managed to start with the all the right ideas, all the right enemies, and all the best men—and reduce their movement to virtual insignificance in less than a hundred years.

"Moderates" never did anything, period, except gum up the works of denominational discipline, while compromising and clouding everything that ought to be kept crystal-clear.

If you think about it, the twentieth century saw the same pattern repeated that you see throughout all of church history. The true vitality of the church is traceable through the nonconformists, the independents, the true biblical separatists. The true secret of their power is not—and never has been—in earthly organizations, political clout, or visible movements of any kind. Their power is derived from the biblical truth they preach. And the influence of that kind of power has always been what determines the relative health and spiritual vigor of the church.

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