1. A theory of legal interpretation emphasizing the importance of the everyday meanings of the words used in statutes.
2. Strict adherence to a text, especially of the Scriptures.
3. Textual criticism, especially of the Scriptures.
What is generally overlooked
is that fundamentalism, as it spread throughout the various denominations and
non-denominational groups, fell victim to its own virtues. The Word died in the
hands of its friends. Verbal inspiration, for instance (a doctrine which I have
always held), soon became afflicted with rigor mortis. The voice of the prophet
was silenced and the scribe captured the minds of the faithful. In large areas
the religious imagination withered. An unofficial hierarchy decided what Christians
were to believe. Not the Scriptures, but what the scribe thought the Scriptures
meant became the Christian creed. Christian colleges, seminaries, Bible
institutes, Bible conferences, popular Bible expositors all joined to promote
the cult of textualism. The system of extreme dispensationalism which was
devised, relieved the Christian of repentance, obedience and cross-carrying in
any other than the most formal sense. Whole sections of the New Testament were
taken from the Church and disposed of after a rigid system of “dividing the
word of truth.”
All
this resulted in a religious mentality inimical to the true faith of
Christ. A kind
of cold mist
settled over Fundamentalism…the basic doctrines were there, but the climate
was just not favorable to the sweet fruits of the Spirit…the doctrines were
sound but something vital was missing. The tree of correct doctrine was never
allowed to blossom. The voice of the turtle [dove] was rarely heard in the
land; instead, the parrot sat on his artificial perch and dutifully repeated
what he had been taught and the whole emotional tone was somber and dull…. As
the letter triumphed, the Spirit withdrew and textualism ruled supreme. It was
the time of the believer’s Babylonian captivity…. The error of textualism is
not doctrinal. It is far more subtle than that and much more difficult to discover,
but its effects are just as deadly. Not its theological beliefs are at fault,
but its assumptions.
It
assumes for instance, that if we have the word for a thing we have the thing
itself. If it is in the Bible, it is in us. If we have the doctrine, we have
the experience. If something was true of Paul it is of necessity true of us
because we accept Paul’s epistles as divinely inspired. The Bible tells us how
to be saved, but textualism goes on to make it something which in the very
nature of things it cannot do. Assurance of individual salvation is thus no
more than a logical conclusion drawn from doctrinal premises, and the resultant
experience wholly mental.
Then came the revolt. The human mind can endure textualism just so long
before it seeks a way of escape. So, quietly and quite unaware that any revolt
was taking place, the masses of Fundamentalism reacted, not from the teaching
of the Bible but from the mental tyranny of the scribes.Excerpted from: Keys to the Deeper Life by A. W. Tozer.
Copyright © 1957 by Sunday Magazine 1987 by Zondervan Publishing Corporation.
