Ben Byerly’s Blog

In a tribute to Philip Yancey (The Healing Pen - CT), Tim Stafford writes:

The strength of fundamentalism is its forcefulness and purity. Fundamentalists know what they think, and they are fierce in promoting it. They can usually tell you what you think, too; they are often better at defining and critiquing others’ positions than they are at listening to how others understand themselves.

What seems to stick with ex-fundamentalists is a sense of principle, a willingness to fight for the truth, yet also a strong reaction to the rigid all-knowingness of the fundamentalist mindset. At least that is what I see in Philip: a powerful sense of honesty and idealism, and a great wariness about making judgments. At Wheaton, Philip worked to reconstruct his world, trying to strip it clean of fundamentalist accretions while preserving (and discovering) genuine, honest faith.

I can relate.