Fundamentalists have a reputation for being legalistic—and that reputation is entirely deserved. They’re totally legalistic. They have to be; it comes with the fundamentalism. If you’re gonna insist, as Fundies do, that there are certain doctrines all Christians have to believe, and if they don’t they’re not Christian—and if you’re gonna insist, as most Fundies do, you need to avoid and distrust people who aren’t truly Christian—then legalism is inevitable.
Now yes, there are such creatures as gracious Fundamentalists! I know many. I grew up with many. They believe in Fundamentalism, and believe it’s important; but they also believe in the Spirit’s fruit, which includes kindness and generosity and compassion and patience. And they strive to be those things, and do a really good job. Better than me!
But because they’re Fundamentalist, their strict demands for doctrinal purity are gonna butt heads with their good fruit. Again, inevitable. Because they follow the Spirit, they have to love their neighbors. But because they’re Fundamentalists, they have to tell these same neighbors, “Jesus expects you to believe what I do, and until you do, you’re not Christian; you’re going to hell.”
Because they’re Christian, and follow the scriptures, they’ll certainly tell people we’re saved by God’s grace. And totally believe it! But because they’re Fundamentalist, this grace only comes through faith—and by “faith” they don’t mean trusting in Jesus to save us regardless of our wayward beliefs. (In other words, actual saving faith.) By “faith” they mean the Christian faith. Specifically the Fundamentalist faith. When the scriptures say “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,” Ac 16.31 they mentally insert “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as described, and only described, in our doctrine; you cannot know him any other way, and thou shalt be saved.” You cannot pray, “I believe; help thou mine unbelief”; Mk 9.24 you have to sort out your unbeliefs first.
Don’t get me wrong: Doctrine is important. Theology and orthodoxy are important. We’re not gonna grow properly as Christians when we have a distorted understanding of who Jesus is, and what he teaches us about his Father. That’s why we spend the rest of our lives following him, getting to know him better, and unlearning all the junk we’ve picked up about him from pagans, Christianists, and intellectually lazy Christians who simply regurgitate what we’ve been told instead of doing our homework. (Including intellectually lazy Fundies.) But what makes us Christian? Following Jesus. Do we need to know everything about him first? Nah; his first students surely didn’t. But they knew he has the words of eternal life, Jn 6.68 and followed him anyway. As must we.
Legalism puts the cart before the horse: It insists we get sorted out before we can come to Jesus. And obviously it has to be the other way round! Come to Jesus, and he’ll sort us out.
So yeah, Fundies do legalism. Because while they’ll claim, “Come to Jesus and he’ll sort you out,” they tend to behave as though, if you’re not yet sorted out, you’re holding out; you’ve not yet come to Jesus; you’re not yet Christian. And if they’re the paranoid sort of Fundamentalist, they’ll suspect you have a devil in you, and that’s why you’re not sorted out yet. They might have to cast you out! Not the devil—you.
When they’re more fundamentalist than Jesus.
Because many Fundamentalists believe “the bible has all the answers,” you’re gonna find a number of Fundies who actually attempt to get pull the answers to everything out of the bible. Everything. Whether they’re legitimately there or not. They’ll claim to have found “biblical principles” which tell us Christians shouldn’t listen to rock music, or pierce our eyebrows, or wear yoga pants, or drink caffeine. No, the bible says nothing about any of these topics; we’re meant to use our God-given wisdom to figure out, on an individual basis, if these things are okay for us. But these Fundies insist nope; the “principles” they’ve found, declare to every Christian everywhere that God’s okayed one thing and forbidden another. And if you dare defy the principles, you’re defying God.
This’d be an instance of false prophecy; of claiming “Thus saith the LORD” when no, he doesn’t, and never did. True, these particular Fundies are in no way claiming to be a prophet when they dig up “biblical principles.” Good thing for them, ’cause God’s not at all happy with false prophets.
- Deuteronomy 18.20 KJV
- But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
Lucky for them we don’t stone false prophets to death anymore. Although if certain Fundies had their way and we implemented some form of Christian nationalism in our government… we might start again!
Anyway, I bring up these “biblical principles,” because they all too frequently get turned into doctrines which Fundamentalists are now expected to believe. Same as all the other doctrines they’re expected to believe. And again: If they don’t adhere to all the doctrines their churches demand, the leaders and the people of their churches are gonna doubt their Christianity. After all, if you’re saved by faith, but you’re not upholding every tenet of their particular, very specific faith, how can this faith possibly save you? It can’t. You’re going to hell.
Hence there are so many Fundies who fret about their salvation. Who worry Jesus may not love ’em enough to let ’em enter his kingdom. Who panic if any doubt whatsoever enters their mind—and not doubts about the big deals, like whether God exists or whether Jesus rose from the dead; but about the bonus beliefs Fundamentalists have added to the pile, like whether Christians can borrow money or get vaccinated.
I’ve met many former Fundamentalists who discovered one of those bonus beliefs was false or unnecessary… if not completely stupid. (“Hey, it turns out astronauts actually have landed on the moon!”) Way too many of these folks wound up quitting Christianity altogether. Because if one of their fundamentals turned out to be false… maybe all of them were? Maybe none of it is true? Maybe it’s all lies, tricks invented by control freaks in order to make us behave and give them money?
Plus if Christianity has never felt like freedom to them—as it’s supposed to!—you know they’re gonna go somewhere else. Anywhere else. There are so many ex-Fundies who are now Wiccans, simply because Wiccans are so very anti-legalist. (Or try to be.)
One of the reasons I tend to point to the ancient Christian creeds instead of Fundamentalist faith statements is because the ancient Christians knew better than to hand down rulings about everything. They understood, often better than we do, that we Christians have freedom in Christ to agree to disagree. About a lot. And that we have no business judging one another about such things. Ro 14 If your convictions differ from mine, it’s okay. You answer to Jesus, not me. And I answer to Jesus, not you. We have one Lord. And he does grace.
A lot of Fundamentalists understand this too! They don’t try to add to their faith statements. They’re perfectly happy with what’s essentially the bible and the Apostles Creed. They recognize the dangers of legalism, so they limit their doctrines to only what’s essential to Christianity. As they should. As we all should.
