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The Northern Fundamental Baptists that we have discussed in this history have largely been captured by contemporary evangelicalism. The same thing has happened to the interdenominational and non-denominational fundamentalists, as we saw in “Fundamentalism Captured by New Evangelicalism” in the chapter “Interdenominational Fundamentalism.”

This is true for the Fundamentalist Fellowship, the Baptist Bible Union, the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society, the Conservative Baptist Fellowship, the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship, the Union of Regular Baptist Churches, the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, Central Baptist Theological Seminary, and Pillsbury Baptist Bible College.

Most of the schools that were originally approved by the GARBC are either new evangelical or defunct. These include Los Angeles Baptist College (today The Masters College), Grand Rapids Baptist Bible College (today Cornerstone University), Western Baptist College (today Corban College), and Baptist Bible College of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania (today Clarks Summit University).

Consider Wealthy Street Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan, the church of those fighting fundamentalists Oliver Van Osdel and David Otis Fuller. When Fuller died in 1988, Wealthy Street Baptist moved to the suburbs and changed its name to Wealthy Park Baptist Church. There was a gradual change in stance through the 1990s. In 2015, William Swem, who was associate pastor from 2011, became senior pastor. He is a graduate of Pensacola Christian College. In 2018, the church relocated again and was renamed Plainfield Baptist Church. The young pastor is leading in a contemporary, evangelical, non-fundamentalist direction. Browsing through 283 sermon titles at Swem’s SermonAudio page in 2019, we could find nothing on separation. There is nothing that could not be found at a conservative evangelical church. It must be understood that the great error of New Evangelicalism is not the heresy it preaches but the truth it neglects. There is silence on separation. There is no fight, no aggressive defense of the faith. The music at Plainfield Baptist, the 21st century edition of Wealthy Street Baptist, is “blended,” part sacred and part contemporary, which always moves toward a heavier emphasis on contemporary. The dress is “as we feel most comfortable.” The church announces, “There is no ‘dress code’ here.” Of course, that isn’t true. There is a dress code, but it is the world’s dress code as opposed to one based on the principles of God’s Word for holy pilgrims that characterized the church in its former days.

Consider Fourth Baptist Church of Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the 21st century, Fourth Baptist is no longer the fundamental Baptist church of its former days. It has a soft, evangelical-style mood and program. In Winning People to Christ: Lost Secrets of the Past, David Sorenson compared Fourth Baptist Church of the 1960s and 1970s with Fourth Baptist today. The numbers are still up, but the fighting fundamentalist fervor for truth and against error is gone and the evangelistic fire is gone.

“Today, Fourth is consumed with intellectualism (thanks to Central Seminary). Though not publicly identifying themselves as Calvinists, it is just beneath the surface. When we were there, I surely heard Calvinistic buzz words when an assistant pastor got up to pray. When the rather ‘deep’ sermon was completed, the pastor just prayed and said, ‘We are dismissed.’ No invitation of any sort. The music is technically conservative--piano, organ, etc. But the hymns they sang surely had a distinct contemporary flavor. It is my understanding they no longer have evangelistic meetings (which were a fixture of the past), and heaven forbid call such a meeting a revival meeting. There is no bus ministry of any size. We used to have humongous VBS when I was on the staff there, bussing in over a 1,000 kids each day, not including church kids. Today, there is just a little VBS program for the church kids. And of course, they do not use the KJV. Their radio station (WCTS--which originally stood for ‘Witnessing Christ To Sinners’) today leans clearly in a ‘conservative’ evangelical direction with new evangelical or Southern Baptist preachers. I used to work there 50 years ago and back then we were not allowed to even play anything by George Beverly Shea because of his association with Billy Graham. Doc Clearwaters was a separatist of the separatists. They sold their camp which had been an evangelistic ministry” (David Sorenson, Winning People to Christ).

These are just the briefest examples of how that the old Northern fundamental Baptists have morphed into Evangelicalism.

Everything is merging, blending, homogenizing. The black and white of an uncompromising stand for truth is merging into gray.

We see the “graying” in the omnipresent emphasis on being positive and non-judgmental, the neglect of separation, the dislike of separation, the mocking of separatists, the growing silence of clear rebuke and warning. We see it in the downplaying of “denominational” distinctives, the generic church names. We see it in the spread of charismatic and contemplative mysticism and psychology. We see it in the coalescing around the new music and the new Bibles.

The blending is a fulfillment of prophecy; it is the spirit of the age, but we don’t have to yield to it.

Thankfully, there are many churches that are still standing in the old paths. They are boldly, forthrightly, unhesitatingly standing for white and against black on every biblical issue.

We consider examples in the chapter “Where Are Fundamental Baptists Today?”

There we also look at Scriptures that refer to the end of the church age. God has given promises to those at the end who follow the Word of God instead of capitulating to the compromise and apostasy of the times.

I don’t know what others will do, but with whatever remaining days God gives me, I intend by His grace to stand stronger in the Word of God, not weaker, to be more outspoken than ever, and to let the chips fall where they may! On the authority of God’s promises, I am sure that I won’t regret it.