Authors: Paul Hartog

The Baptist Fundamentals (1920/1921) and Hermeneutics

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In 1920 Curtis Lee Laws proposed that those who cling to and earnestly contend for “the great fundamentals” of the Christian faith be called “fundamentalists.”1 For twenty-five years, Laws served as the editor of the Watchman Examiner, a Baptist publication. The most commonly cited list of the “fundamentals of the faith,” however, is the Five Point Deliverance (1901) used in the fundamentalist-modernist debates within the Presbyterian denomination.2 Yet in June of 1920, conservatives within the Northern Baptist Convention hosted a “Pre-convention Conference on Fundamentals of Our Baptist Faith” in Buffalo, New York, that resulted in a volume entitled Baptist Fundamentals (Judson Press, 1920).

Toward a Christian Approach to Culture

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How should a Christian understand and relate to the prevailing culture? Ignore it? Accommodate it? Engage? The answer to that question determines a Christian’s effectiveness in life and ministry. In this article, Dr. Paul Hartog, professor at Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary in Ankeny, Iowa, explores the issue of culture and Christianity from a thoroughly Biblical perspective and offers helpful instruction for properly relating to one’s culture. Five Basic Models In 1951 the Neo-orthodox theologian H. Richard Niebuhr authored the highly influential Christ and Culture, in which he proposed five basic models: “Christ against Culture,” “Christ of Culture,” “Christ above Culture,” “Christ Transforming Culture,” and “Christ and Culture in Paradox.”

The “New Perspective” and Justification, Part 2

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In the July/August edition of the Faith Pulpit, Dr. Paul Hartog of Faith Baptist Theological Seminary compared two facets of the “New Perspective” on justification with a Dispensational point of view. He focused on N. T. Wright’s treatment of the gospel and the righteousness of God. (You may access that issue at faith.edu/seminary.) In this issue he analyzes three additional facets of Wright’s “new perspective”-the final judgment according to works, the ordo salutis, and justification. The Final Judgment according to Works Wright maintains that “Paul, in company with mainstream Second Temple Judaism, affirms that God’s final judgment will be in accordance with the entirety of a life led—in accordance, in other words, with works” (253).1 Wright’s primary evidence for a general judgment based upon works is found in Romans 2:1-16, although he also argues from Romans 14:10-12, 1 Corinthians 3, and 2 Corinthians 5:10 (253).

The “New Perspective” and Justification, Part 1

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In the past few years some men have begun rethinking major issues of the Christian faith. Their thoughts and conclusions on a variety of subjects have been commonly called the “New Perspective.” In Part 1 of his article, Dr. Paul Hartog of Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary carefully compares two facets of the “New Perspective” on justification with a Dispensational point of view. He will complete his analysis in the September/October issue of Faith Pulpit. In his 1982 Manson Memorial Lecture at the University of Manchester, J.

“Fundamentalism” Distorted and the Baptist Distinctives Resounded, Part 2

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In 2003, the University of Chicago Press published Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World, a “revised and elaborated version” of the “Fundamentalism Project.” This accessible overview (281 pages) was written by R. Scott Appleby, along with Gabriel A. Almond (Stanford University) and Emmanuel Sivan (Hebrew University of Jerusalem). According to Strong Religion, “Fundamentalism” is a “hypothetical family,” “a reactive, selective, absolutist, comprehensive mode of antisecular religious activism” (14). Thus “the resistance to modern forms of secularization is a defining common feature of religious fundamentalisms” (20).

“Fundamentalism” Distorted and the Baptist Distinctives Resounded, Part 1

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Christian “Fundamentalists” have traditionally defined themselves not only by doctrine, but also by a disposition of “earnestly contending for the faith” through persistent evangelism, ecclesiastical separation, and an aggressive confrontation of apostasy through spoken and written word. Recently, adherents have recognized a definite shift in the use of the label “fundamentalist” in the public media and popular culture (including frequent references made to “Islamic fundamentalists”), although few laypeople can explain the details of the noticeable alteration. This inability can be partially explicated through a curious irony: fundamentalists have generally avoided secularized institutions of higher education, and the shift in terminological definition began in academia without fundamentalists themselves present at the discussion table.

The Da Vinci Code and Early Christian History, Part 2

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Other Historical Issues Teabing argues that Christians and pagans were warring in the early fourth century, “and the conflict grew to such proportions that it had threatened to rend Rome in two.” FACT: Christianity did not have enough political or military clout to rival the pagan masses in the early fourth century. Christianity actually began the century as an oppressed minority suffering under the Great Persecution of A.D. 303–313. Langdon asserts that early Christianity “honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagan’s veneration day of the sun.”

The Da Vinci Code and Early Christian History, Part 1

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The Da Vinci Code, authored by Dan Brown, has quickly become an international bestseller and is now in theatrical release.1 Because of its depiction of Jesus Christ and Christianity, this fictional page-turner has caused vociferous reactions far outside the literary world. Page one of the work, entitled “FACT,” asserts that “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” The book actually includes numerous historical inaccuracies, however. For the sake of time and convenience, this article will simply highlight those factual errors surrounding the book’s portrayal of early Christianity.2 These historical blunders particularly concern the fields of canonicity and Christology and are especially concentrated in the discussions on pages 230–259.

Economic Wisdom as an Analogy to Prudence of Separation, Part 2

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We have previously demonstrated that economic prudence involves the judicious allocation of limited resources. Economic wisdom also reminds us that personal freedoms must be balanced by public necessities and a shared communal well-being. Samuel Gregg argues that “it is irresponsible for people studying public policy from a Christian perspective to ignore not only the self-evident fact of scarcity but also the likely economic consequences of different choices.”1 Therefore, economic ethics “involves discerning the object of an act and the intention underlying the act, as well as considering the side effects of the act and the circumstances surrounding it.”2

Economic Wisdom as an Analogy to Prudence of Separation, Part 1

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Sound economic theory assumes the fundamental and undeniable reality of “limited resources.” Lionel Robbins, former Chair in Political Economy at the London School of Economics, defined economics as “the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.”1 Robbins wrote, “But when time and the means for achieving ends are limited and capable of alternative application, and the ends are capable of being distinguished in order of importance, then behavior necessarily assumes the form of choice.