Brett Grainger. In the World but Not of It. New York: Walker and Co., 2008. Print.
In the World but Not of It is subtitled “One Family’s Militant Faith and the History of Fundamentalism in America.” That subtitle may be slightly misleading. This book is really a collection of seven essays plus and introduction and an epilogue. Each chapter truly stands by itself as an essay on its own, but together there is an eclectic view of American Christian Fundamentalism.
The author notes that the definition of the “F-word” has shifted. Though the book does not mention it, the term fundamentalism comes from a collection of Protestant writings called The Fundamentals. Grainger names what he calls five fundamentals of Christianity: the inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth of Jesus, Jesus’ death on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice for sin, Jesus’ bodily resurrection, and the second coming of Christ. I would add the doctrine of the Trinity.
Now many Christians of all persuasions might see themselves as agreeing with these teachings, but Fundamentalists traditionally are seen as emphasizing separation from worldly influences. They not merely avoid sin, but consciously do things in order not to be associated with sin, e.g. going to movies, dressing immodestly, and similar things. Grainger notes that they do not do things openly distinctive like Mennonites who dress in a certain way or Hutterites who mostly live in communities. They are ordinary people, the man next to you on the assembly line, the woman waiting in line at the store.
Grainger devotes a chapter on this separation ideology as he describes the Plymouth Brethren family in which he was raised. He speaks of them with respect but also with irony. Fans of The Prairie Home Companion recognize the “Sanctified Brethren” of Garrison Keillor as Plymouth Brethren. Keillor also treats them with respect and irony, though with a little more humor than Grainger.
Grainger also spends some time discussing the dogma of Dispensationalism a teaching developed by the founder of the Plymouth Brethren, J. N. Darby, that has become the standard doctrine of American evangelicals, Fundamentalist or not. Still Grainger notes that while Dispensationalism presents a very specific end-times scenario, even those who are expected to promote it realize that not everyone agrees on such an issue.
The person who really popularized the dogma in the United States and Canada was C. I. Scofield with his 1909 Scofield Reference Bible. But the book notes that even the pastor of the Scofield Memorial Church in Dallas says that nowadays “most folks really don’t care.” He notes:
People aren’t arguing whether King David really lived or not. They’re trying to figure out how to talk to their granddaughter who’s dating a Muslim. They’re trying to figure out how to have a good attitude wit their boss who’s a pain in the rear. The conversation has just changed. (47)
Two or three chapters are devoted to people whom many would consider outside even the mainstream of Fundamentalism. Probably the strangest is devoted to a Canadian man who has repeatedly sued his government for invasion of privacy. He sees such things as surveillance cameras and computer databases as precursors to the antichrist. This has less to do with Baptist or Brethren theology but just emphasizes that individuals sometimes interpret the Bible in an idiosyncratic way. Among Bible-believers, the Bible is the authority, but they understand that not everyone interprets it the same way.
There is also a chapter on Jewish believers. The book says that about 160,000 Jews in the United States have been born again and acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. Along with these are gentile Christians who travel to Israel or to the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida, to discover the Jewish roots of their faith. Grainger notes that Bible-believing Christians in the United States are often even more supportive of Israel than American Jews are.
His chapter on Creationism focuses on Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis organization. He notes that AiG has become the premier Creationist association in the country by taking a cultural approach. Ham’s approach, he explains, takes a postmodernist frame of reference to communicate—people who are Creationists believe the Bible, people who are evolutionists do not. It becomes a question of truth, power, and frame of reference. This differs from what had been the largest Creationist group, the Institute for Creation Research, which takes a more strictly modernist and scientific approach to the issues.
Perhaps the most interesting and original thesis in In the World but Not of It is that Dispensationalism, which developed in the nineteenth century, has parallels with other philosophies that became popular in that century: Hegelian and Marxist dialectics, Nietzschean macroethics, evolution by natural selection, and psychoanalysis. These four philosophies and Dispensationalism all see life as a continual conflict. All see the conflict eventually coming to an eschaton, an end of history when the conflicts will finally be resolved. The reason Christian Fundamentalism is despised by those who subscribe to the other philosophies is that such Christians have a different view of the end of history. To them, it will not come with a classless society, a benevolent übermann, a biologically favored race, or a society of the unrepressed. The end of history will come when Jesus returns.
There are a few minor errors in the text. Luther’s “Tower Experience” occurred before 1519, the date that Grainger gives it. By 1519, Luther had already posted the 95 Theses and was defending his beliefs. Also Pat Robertson does not own the Trinity Broadcasting network. TBN is run by the Crouch family. Robertson heads the rival Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).
Grainger only hints at his own experience in church after his childhood. In that sense Grainger, too, is a product of our postmodern culture. He says that his struggles with perceived sexual immorality turned him off to Fundamentalism. Truly, in the Western world, not just America, the main reason people abandon the church of their youth is that they find most churches’ definition of sexual immorality too “narrow.” He seems annoyed or angered that one cannot have free sex and be a good Christian. Still Grainger acknowledges the original “Hound of Heaven” is described in Psalm 139:7 “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” Perhaps God is still pursuing him.