And this from a movement spawned by Rowan Williams with crucial American support by Frank T. Griswold its U.S. patron and C. Christopher Epting, Bishop of Iowa its co-patron.

Epting, in an attempt to contrast the evangelically-driven American Anglican Council with the other AAC (Affirming Anglican Catholic) had this to say. "While they (the American Anglican Council) "proclaim our Lord's Great Commandment and His Great Commission to be our life's highest calling," we (in Affirming Anglican Catholicism), "affirm (that) the riches of our catholic tradition are needed throughout the Church to further Christian mission."

While they (the AAC) "repudiate the 74th General Convention's confirmation of a non-celibate homosexual to be a bishop of the Church, and its acceptance of same-sex blessings as part of our common life," we "affirm that genuine Catholicism means full inclusion of members of the Church in the three-fold ministry, regardless of gender or sexual orientation."

Truth is the American Anglican Council's approach is biblical but not fundamentalist while the Affirming Catholic position is a sellout to the culture with fey religious language with a big plug for the Incarnation.

The truth is there are no "fundamentalists" in the Anglican Communion. Let us state that clearly and unequivocally. There are millions of Anglicans who hold to the fundamentals of the faith but they are not "biblical fundamentalists". They believe in the authority of Scripture but they are not necessarily inerrantists when it comes to their views of Holy Scripture.

What liberals, revisionists and Affirming Catholics love to do is confuse fundamentalism with evangelicalism and by doing so tarnish us all with the same brush.

John R.W. Stott the leading British evangelical Anglican of the last century whose ministry now straddles two centuries and who has written some 40 books, many on Biblical exegesis, once told this writer that he had spent a good deal of his adult life fighting fundamentalism. He calls it "wooden literalism."

Billy Graham is no fundamentalist either. In point of fact those who most opposed his early ministry were fundamentalists who saw him caving into the major liberal denominations in his hunt for converts. He is an outspoken evangelical who has, on occasion, made his voice known on a number of perplexing social issues.

Doug LeBlanc, an orthodox Episcopal writer who is an occasional guest columnist in Episcopal Life has written often about the pejorative tone of “fundamentalist,” by liberal bishops, but he also excoriates those of us who use the term “revisionist” from the right side of the church.

Canon Michael Green, one of the Church of England's leading evangelicals condemns what he calls liturgical and canonical fundamentalism of so much Episcopalianism in the West. "Pack it in, it is dated," he says.

But perhaps the most outspoken of world class theologians is Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen who says quite bluntly that fundamentalism is an ugly word which implies anti-intellectualism.

He writes: "Strangely, [fundamentalism] began life almost a hundred years ago with powerful forces within our culture seeking to deny the orthodox Christian faith. Humanity seized the central place, demanded freedom from God and called for the end of the authority of the Bible. In the face of modernistic attacks on the Bible and orthodox Christian faith, a number of evangelicals issued booklets defending 'the fundamentals'."

Jensen said these 'fundamentalists' made sober attempts to guard the truth; but they were not radical enough, given the challenge of modern thought.

"Unfortunately, it was not long before fundamentalism began to be associated with irrational, sub-standard defenses of Christianity, often couched in shrill language, and accompanied by a literalistic reading of the Bible. It developed a reputation for fanaticism, and was scorned by cultured people. Today, 'fundamentalism' implies an anti- intellectual, backward-looking and ugly zeal in the cause of religion."

The Sydney archbishop maintains that the greatest apologetic challenge at the moment is to distinguish classical, orthodox Christianity from fundamentalism.

"Fundamentalism is, in part, a self-defense against modernity. It is an attempt to inhabit the past, to rebuild the fortified castles of ancient days. Established cultures show a two-fold response to western secularism. To some extent they capitulate to the gift of technological power and its apparently atheistic scientific foundation. They become modern. On the other hand, they also develop an antagonistic response, using the real or imagined standards of the past to judge the present. The rate of change is too rapid; the loss of power too great; the walls go up. There is an intense hostility to freedom of thought, speech and action. There is a fundamentalist Islam and Hinduism, as communities and cultures protect themselves from simply becoming western and secular."

Jensen opines, "I am an evangelical Christian, but I am not a fundamentalist. Neither are the evangelical Christians of this Diocese. Anglicans stand for the gospel of Jesus. It will only be on those terms that Anglicanism will remain one of the most important elements in the Australian community. It won't do so by presenting as a pallid religious version of humanism."

Said Jensen: "You can shove true theology out the back door, but there will be a queue of false religions at the front door before you have time to sit down in front of the telly. Classical Christianity is based above all in the Bible. The scriptures have priority over all the thoughts of the human heart whether in the tradition of the church or in human experience. But orthodoxy is not in an intellectual isolation ward. In the first place it acknowledges the immense debt we owe to the Christians who have gone before us. It learns to interpret the Bible in the light of the reading of the Bible down through the centuries."

By labeling classical Christianity 'fundamentalist,' our society - and many in the Christian movement - dismiss what they should promote. Talk about God is silenced; we are tamed; we are lampooned; occasionally, we are even demonized.

In a remarkable story in the Sunday New York Times, Laurie Goodstein writes that religious experts are now saying that while it is clear that religiosity is on the rise, it is not clear that fundamentalism is. "Indeed, there may be a rising backlash against violent fundamentalism of any faith," she writes. Fundamentalism is actually on the decline around the world.

She cites the world's fastest growing religion as the Pentecostal wing of Christianity. Ms. Goodstein is not entirely accurate at this point. Pentecostalism was a stream that flowed into the formation of denominations like the Assemblies of God. What has happened is that Pentecostalism morphed into the broader Charismatic Movement which can be found in both Roman Catholicism as well as in a large number of Protestant denominations including the Episcopal Church. It is transdenominational in character.

Quincy Bishop Keith Ackerman, a high Anglo-Catholic is quite happy to call himself a charismatic as is John David-Schofield, (San Joaquin), John W. Howe (Central Florida) and Robert Duncan (Pittsburgh). A highly orthodox bishop like the Rev. Dr. C. FitzSimons Allison is more comfortable being called an evangelical without the charismatic flavoring.

Lutheran scholar and American commentator on religious trends Dr. Martin E. Marty, says that if he were to buy stock in global Christianity he would buy it in Pentecostalism, he would adamantly not buy it in fundamentalism.

After the American presidential election in November, some liberal commentators warned that the nation was on the verge of a takeover by Christian "fundamentalists, but that was about as fictional as Mel Gibson's movie providing the fertile ground for a backlash against American Jews and anti-Semitism. It never happened.

As Goodstein observes: "In the U. S. today most of the Protestants who make up what some call the Christian right are not fundamentalists, who are more prone to create separatist enclaves, but evangelicals, who engage the culture and share their faith."

Now that is certainly true of the evangelical wing of the Episcopal Church but not the church's revisionists. Orthodox Episcopalians are engaging the culture wars over homosexuality, abortion, school prayer, public displays of the Ten Commandments and much more, while revisionists simply cave in, waiting to endorse the next bit of idiocy that comes down the turnpike. It is why the Anglican Province of Nigeria will double its numbers from 18 to 36 million in the next three years because they are evangelicals out to share the 'faith once delivered' while Griswold's pluriform religion will only sink it.

Professor Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity notes that fundamentalism in non-Christian faiths became a phenomenon in the rest of the world in the 1970s (Christian fundamentalism had its origins in the US in the 1920s) with "the failure and the bankruptcy of secular, nationalistic liberal creeds around the world. From the 1970s on, you get the growth of not just more conservative religion, but religion with a political bent."

But Jenkins is quick to point out that fundamentalism does not necessarily lead to intolerance. "People with very convinced, traditional views can get along together for a very long time, but sometimes we get into cycles where they can't, and we seem to be in one of those cycles right now."

Furthermore Goodstein notes that there are signs of a backlash as religious believers grow disenchanted with movements that have produced little but bloodshed, economic stagnation and social repression. "Fundamentalist movements also stumble because they plan for the overthrow, but not for the governing. Half the Muslim, it should be noted, is illiterate.

R. Scott Appleby, a history professor at the University of Notre Dame says "it would be misleading to say fundamentalism is on the rise now. We're just more aware of it because these people are better organized, more mobile and more vocal than ever before."

From a strictly Anglican perspective the arguments take on particular meaning because the word "fundamentalist" is being bandied about by liberals and revisionists in order to demonize those of us on the right.

Archbishop Jensen puts it in perspective when he says, "I am an orthodox evangelical Christian by conviction. I am grieved by our disunity in the faith. But in this perilous moment, I join hands with classical Christians of all types, especially in the Anglican Church."

"Whatever differences we have - and they are significant - we must see that the threat to foundational beliefs and standard ethical commitments is now being posed by how we read the text of scripture, and that we must not dance with the world at this point. I am saying that we have in the scriptural gospel a message of enormous significance for the whole community. I am saying that we must not allow ourselves to be dismissed as fanatics and fundamentalists, but have confidence in the integrity of our message and in the 'plain teaching of scripture'. I am saying that we should affirm and promote without embarrassment classical, orthodox Christianity; Anglican Christianity and, for many of us, Anglican evangelical Christianity.

END