Answering a Crisis of Authority

Many years ago I started blogging and writing on matters that were important to me and the church where I was pastoring. I was among a group of young fundamentalists that were pejoratively labeled, "Neo Fundamentalists" by the most conservative wing of evangelical Christianity, so my blog became "NeoFundamentalist" and I used to go by the screen name "NeoFundy."

Among fundamentalism (the most conservative side of Evangelicalism), the rise of the internet and blogging proved to be a serious challenge to the status quo. During the early 2000's, one blog / forum ("Sharper Iron") became the fast moving hub for those who wanted to think through and challenge the standard narrative of why young fundamentalists were abandoning their separatist roots. Since that time, it has slowed down and become more of a news and views forum.

Blogging during that time initiated several friendships that happily remain to this day. Those friendships were forged in the shared belief that something had to change in our circle of churches, ministries, and conservative evangelicalism as a whole. We came together as co-belligerents in a conversation that still reverberates today. However, critique and analysis cannot sustain a movement, and while blogging served a useful purpose in highlighting the problems, it did not offer much in the way of constructive solutions.


This realization led me to abandon my blog and focus on personal ministry, in the form of music, mentoring, and helping churches through times of transition and challenge. My soul needed to build, and the time for tearing down had passed. We have traveled for almost a decade with that goal in mind, but now I find myself drawn to write again. This time with a focus on building.

We face a crisis of authority in our society as a whole and even in our churches. Fundamentalists, from the beginning, have been concerned with submission to the authority of God's word, but over time that ideal gave way to a submission to authoritarian individuals and organizations. Evangelicals have always been fundamentalists in the eyes of the world at large, but over time their commitment to Scriptural authority has been eroded by a casual approach to practical application of Biblical principles.

The reality is that submission to the principles of "Sola Scriptura" is what unites the people of God, regardless of how they self identify, and that will make them a fundamentalist in the eyes of every worldling that things fidelity to Scripture is radical. In light of this, and recent political winds, it seems that a re-statement of what we mean by submission to the authority of Scripture is in order.

That is the foundation of the best versions of both fundamentalism and evangelicalism. So since I am no longer one of the young guys, and since I still hold to that which has always defined the core of both fundamentalism and evangelicalism, this blog will be "PaleoFundamentalism." Let's explore the implications of Scriptural authority together.

So... "Hello!" to my old blogging friends!
Paul Henebury
Charlie Eldred
The Inimitable "TeamPyro"
Joel Tetreau
Bob Hayton
Bob Bixby
Justin Taylor
Don Chitty