This post by Collin Hansen (author of Young, Restless, Reformed) is another reminder, from my perspective, of the significant gap between fundamentalists and evangelicals. The gap is largely one of understanding—I just don’t think we get each other. There are a few things I’d like to say about the post, but I’ll restrain myself and stick to what I consider to be the big problem. As long as evangelicals continue to think like this (or, at the bare minimum communicate like this), the gap will remain wide: After years of tension, Billy Graham delivered the decisive break between evangelicals and fundamentalists in 1957. Graham turned down invitations to preach in New York City under the sponsorship of fundamentalist churches before accepting one from the liberal Protestant Council. Fundamentalists have never let Graham or his evangelical sympathizers forget the snub.
Snub? Collin, you can’t be serious. Graham’s decision regarding the New York Crusade was merely a snub? What a terrible word choice. I hope that Hansen doesn’t really believe that’s what this divide was about—people peeved because Graham wouldn’t be their friend. The key word in that paragraph is “liberal” as when joined to “Protestant Council” in order to identify the group that Graham embraced. It wasn’t a snub that caused the rub, it was compromise. With the NYC crusade, Billy Graham finally came fully out of the ecumenical closet in which he had been hiding. That move brought the tensions between the separatists and non-separatists to a head (which many believe is the very reason that Graham did this).
I’d like to think that it was just a poorly chosen word, but these kinds of minimizing words are used much too commonly on the evangelical side of the discussion. It’s like reading a Southern account of the Civil War which claims the cause of the conflict was economics. I suppose someone could finesse it that way, but it would represent a serious mischaracterization of reality. To describe Graham’s compromise and ecumenical strategy in terms of personal pique qualifies as a similar mischaracterization. It trivializes a matter of crucial Gospel significance—to whom may the hand of Christian recognition and fellowship be extended? The NYC Crusade was Graham’s answer—it apparently can be extended to all whom claim the label Christian even if they deny the fundamental truths of Christianity.
For some odd reason, the Fundamentalists opted not to follow along with the tide that was flowing Graham’s way. It certainly wasn’t because they thought their position would prove more popular. Being that they were Fundamentalists, the answer is really pretty simple. They were still hung up on the idea that Machen expressed so well in the title of his book Christianity and Liberalism—liberalism is not Christian, so it is contrary to the Scriptures, and betrays the Gospel, to act as if liberals are our Christian brothers. When Graham threw his hat in the ring with the liberal Protestant Council, he was embarking on a path that was contrary to clear biblical teaching (e.g., 2 John 9-11; Gal 1:6-9; Rom 16:17-18). Fundamentalists rightly objected to this compromise.
Objections to Graham’s path were not limited to some obscure circle of snakehandlers—men from the faculties of Dallas, Westminster, and Grace Seminaries all wrote against the new evangelical compromise. These men weren’t offended by a snub; they were standing up for the Gospel.
As I read Collin’s description of the conflict between the new evangelicals and fundamentalists, it reminded me of the criticisms that C. H. Spurgeon faced during the Down-Grade controversy near the end of the 19th century. Spurgeon took what he believed to be a principled stand in defense of the Faith, yet his critics accused him of personal pique and wounded vanity. We all know how that turned out. If contemporary evangelicals want to paint the fundamentalists of the 1950s with the same kind of brush, so be it. If you’d like a more careful assessment of what was at stake in Billy Graham’s ecumenical practices, read Iain Murray’s Evangelicalism Divided.
The historical difference between fundamentalism and evangelicals has nothing to do with Calvinism. Hansen’s post makes that clear—does anybody think Billy Graham represents Calvinism? It is separation for the sake of the Gospel. Historically, good men from various points along the soteriological spectrum have stood together on the principle that Christian recognition and fellowship cannot be extended to those who deny the Faith. And, sadly, men from all along that same spectrum have, for five decades, denied this plain biblical truth and pursued the ecumenical path blazed by Billy Graham. That’s the dividing line. Always has been and, I hope, always will be.
Update: Larry Rogier develops the point of the last paragraph more fully here. 
