The Fundamentals by Reuben A. Torrey

The Fundamentals Reviews

• 
  Douglas Wilson

  In the early part of the twentieth century a controversy in the church erupted between the modernists and the fundamentalists. The fundamentalists got their name from the fact that they published an enormous number of booklets defending "the fundamentals," by which they mean the infallibility of the Bible, the deity of Christ, etc. Those booklets were published in four volumes, and I have to say that I am quite proud of my fundamentalist fathers. They acquitted themselves well, and with great learning. They were (to my view) a tad too accommodating with some things (e.g. age of the earth), but for the most part they held the line wonderfully.
  
  The last essay in Volume 1 has this marvelous line, addressing the modernists, who haven't changed a bit in the last century.
  
  "A striking characteristic of these people is a persistent ignoring of what is written on the other side."
  
  The date marks my completion of the first volume. I will note when I finish the other three volumes in the body of the text here. Finished the second volume in September 2016. Finished the third volume in November of 2016. And finished the fourth volume in December of 2016.
• 
  Etienne OMNES

  Au début du 20e siècle en Amérique, comme dans tous les pays occidentaux, la querelle entre les fondamentalistes (conservateurs) et les modernistes (libéraux) bat son plein. Un millionaire presbytérien décide alors de financer l'impression et la distribution de près de 90 essais, envoyés à 250'000 enseignants chrétiens dans tout le pays. Presque 3 millions de tracts et petits essais défendant l'orthodoxie évangélique du début 20e siècle, et des critiques du libéralisme. Les fundamentals sont la réimpression de ces 90 essais, etl'oeuvre fondatrice des "fondamentalistes" dont les évangéliques actuels sont les successeurs.
  
  Au départ, j'ai cru lire une systématique ou équivalent, mais je me suis bien vite rendu compte que ce n'est pas le cas: les textes sont de qualité variable, parfois obsolète, et assez dispersés quant à leurs objectifs et leurs langage: certains sont des tracts d'évangélisation, d'autres des petits traités systématiques; certains sont des simples témoignages de conversions, d'autres de l'apologétique "street-level", d'autre de la défense académique de haut niveau...
  
  Il faut lire ces tracts comme des sources historiques primaires: il est rare de voir rassembler de façon si concise l'état du monde évangélique conservateur du début 20e siècle. On observera que globalement nous avons rattrapé au début du 21e siècle le niveau de la théologie du début 20e, après l'éclipse fondamentaliste (qui n'a rien à voir avec ces tracts). On observera aussi l'énorme influence de l'épistémologie du "bon sens" ou "sens commun", qui fait appel à l'expérience et l'observation directe des évènements et textes bibliques. Enfin, on se rappellera quelles sont les spécificités de l'évangélisme, et à quel point nous avons changé depuis.
  
  Une fois que je l'ai lu comme une photographie du monde évangélique du début 20e siècle, j'ai été plutôt satisfait de cette lecture, et même intéressé. J'ai mieux compris grâce à ce livre quel est au juste l'héritage évangélique, et quelles sont ses forces et faiblesses. Une lecture intéressante pour ceux qui aiment les sources primaires historiques.
• 
  RevRonR

  The Fundamentals was a 12-volume work that in large part, contained contributions from the greatest Christian conservatives in the early 1900s. The theological error they sought to contend with was labeled “Modernism.” Modernism denied the veracity, inerrancy, the blood atonement of Christ, miracles of Scripture, among many other destructive beliefs against the true faith. In their times, the authors of The Fundamentals courageously stood up against the nonsense of the Modernists, without shrinking back. Though they fought hard, still some losses occurred, such as the fall of Princeton Theological Seminary to the hands of unbelievers and it has been a disaster ever since. This work brought many authors of various denominations together to stand for the cause of the preservation of the true biblical faith, which included, the inerrancy of Scripture, truth of miracles and biblical creation, the virgin birth of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ and His return some day, and the substitutionary atonement of Christ, without which, there is no salvation for mankind. Scholars and great church leaders like B. B. Warfield, R. A. Torrey, C. I. Scofield, A. T. Pierson, G. Campbell Morgan, among many others entered the fray and really produced a great apologetic in its time. I can’t believe Evangelical seminaries do not use this as a textbook and lesson in how to stand up again heresy in our own generation. I’m glad I read through the entire volume. Even if you don’t agree with true authentic evangelicalism (and really, there is only one type), this still is worth the read for its historical value. A read I highly recommend.
• 
  Rick Davis

  Well this collection was not exactly what I expected it to be before I read it. I expected it to be a series of doctrinal essays on the fundamentals of the faith. Instead it is a series of 90 essays on a wide variety of topics from the aforesaid fundamentals to eschatology, missions, evangelism, personal testimonies, archaeology, and critical theory. Some of the essays were extremely good. On the whole the first chunk of essays are the best; they all deal with the subjects of higher criticism and biblical archaeology. The doctrinal essays were a mixed bag. The later essays were of much lower quality.
  
  One thing that surprised me was the wide variety of opinion among the fundamentalists. Some were what we could call young earth creationists, some were old earth creationists, and some were straight up theistic evolutionists. Doctrinally some were staunch Reformed folk, some were Baptists, some were Anglicans, etc. Eschatologically there were those who leaned in a postmillennial direction, and some that were strongly premillennial.
  
  Overall I can't rate this more than 3 stars because of the widely mixed quality of the essays. The more scholarly essays at the front are still highly useful. Many of the essays are good for historical purposes.
• 
  Peter Kiss

  Overall, I'm not sure if I will actually pick these up again after reading them through. I think the first volume is the only one that has true potential to be a very helpful resource in the future. I'd give the first volume five stars, the second two, the third three, and the fourth four. Because of the nature of the articles, some were very dry and not very good, and others would be very engaging. The dispensationalism was quite painful though.
• 
  Josiah Bates

  This is one of those sets that I've grown up with, and I am very thankful that I did. It set good guard-rails for my theology early on.
• 
  Frank Peters

  This is an important series of essays historically, as it is a demarcation of the struggle between those who wanted to blend the best of Christianity with the best of modern humanism (the so-called liberals), and those who believe that Christianity is truly from God, and therefore stands alone due to the power of God. The essays for the most part were not particularly good, even as the essential message in the majority was worthwhile and important. I found it interesting how the essays were far less dogmatic than those who today refer to themselves as fundamentalist. Once or twice I was surprised by elements in the essays that I (as a biblical purist or conservative) thought to be too liberal for my liking. On the other hand, there were also a few essays which certainly paved the way for a dogmatic, legalistic approach to Christianity. The series is currently bound in four volumes, which I would describe as follows:
  
  Volume one is completely focused against the higher criticism, which was a view that sought to describe the bible in terms of evolution. As with eugenics, and many other pseudo sciences of the day, the higher criticism also pretended to be scientific, because of its dependence on evolutionary theory. The view arbitrarily decided that religious thought in Israel has evolved from a more ancient polytheistic view and eventually advanced to the monotheism that we read in the Bible. To justify this, the higher criticism decided that all of the earlier books of the Bible are myth, and were written much later following the exile.
  
  This volume demonstrates repeatedly and a bit redundantly why the higher criticism is a failed view. Not only is it inconsistent from a literary perspective, archaeology shows that it is absurd. It is worth noting that the views of the higher criticism were developed prior to the incredible and overwhelming finds of archaeology. It seems to me that God was enjoying the process. For this 21st Century reader, most of the chapters were rather dull. Notable chapters that I did find particularly interesting and worthwhile were Chapters: 13, 15, 16 and 18. Chapter 16, which discusses the evidence from archaeology, was especially useful.
  
  Volume two moved from an obsession with arguments against the higher criticism into positive arguments for both the Bible as well as various theological concepts. The target audience seemed to have changed in this volume from a thinker in general to someone who is already a Christian. Too many of the chapters read like a sermon, with low information content. Thus, many of the sections on the inspiration of the bible were OK, but not necessarily worth reading. The theological sections were for the most part more useful and better written.
  
  A few of the chapters, I found particularly good. These include in the first section: Chapter 6 that uses fulfilled prophecy as evidence for God’s inspiration of scripture, and in the section sections Chapters 9, 10, 11, 15, 17 and 18. This latter theology section was largely apologetic in nature, but accomplished this purpose competently.
  
  The chapters in volume three were aimed at topics in theology, missions, and the church. This last topic meant that too much effort was made in criticising others, especially the Roman Catholic church. While these arguments were mostly sound (for the time it was written), I was reminded of Jesus parable about taking out a splinter in your brothers eye. Far too many of the chapters were written by preachers who seemed to transfer sermons into print. This meant that too many of the chapters were overly wordy, overly redundant, with only a very, very small information content. Thus, they were really very boring, even if I agreed with the main points being made.
  
  The highlights in this volume for me were: Chapter 4, which argued against Universalism, Chapter 6 on the atonement, Chapter 8 on Salvation by Grace, Chapter 14 on Evangelism, Chapter 16 on Prayer for Evangelism, Chapter 25 on the Incarnation and Chapter 26. In contrast, I found Chapters 1, 15, and 22 particularly poor, or in the case of Chapter 15 – entirely out of date, and therefore irrelevant for where I live today.
  
  Volume 4 was possibly the worse volume of the four. Chapters 1 and 4 were particularly poor; both being snapshots into wrong through existing at the time the chapters were written. Since both chapters were comments on philosophy and science, rather than having a foundation in the scriptures they should be largely rejected. The volume also contained chapters with clear elements of dogmatism, and for the first time I can now see the seeds of what has now become known as fundamentalism. Too many chapters were primarily rhetorical, with no real strength to the arguments. Thankfully, there was one outstanding chapter (#3), as well as a number of very good ones (8,15,17,18,22,24,26,27), which included a number of the personal testimonies that ended the books.
• 
  Read1000books

  Here, in four volumes, we learn the major doctrinal beliefs of Biblical Christianity. It was from this set of books (originally published as pamphlets and gathered together into hardcover books in the nineteen-teens) that the term "fundamentalist" originated. We also learn (contrary to the current big media mindset) two important things that are not true:
  (1)Bible fundamentalists do not support violence, or "forced conversions", but simply the opportunity to present the truths of the Gospel if a person consents to listen. Note this quote from Volume 4, page 282:"The sword we are to wield is the "Word of God, the sword of the Spirit"(Eph. 6:17)". And
  (2)Bible fundamentalists are not anti-education, as evidenced by this statement found in Volume 2, page 167:"...high scholarship is not incompatible with belief in the full inspiration and accuracy of Scripture". Not to mention that a perusal of the tables of contents reveals the great majority of the authors of the 100+ articles in the set have doctors degrees. So much for prevailing media opinions.
  If you wish to know what Bible fundamentalists believe, look here.
• 
  Andy

  0040
• 
  Kathleen Dixon

  As I wrote on one of my progress reports, there were a couple of essays that were quite interesting in their content. Throughout, however (as I expected), I disagreed with their theology.
• 
  Jeff

  Bought and read the 4-volume set quite a few years ago. Great essays on what Christian beliefs are all about. Highly recommended!
• 
  Kevin

  It's a dated reading, but the Fundamentals gives good insight to how conservative Christian leaders responded to liberalism in the early 20th century.