The Fundamentals of a Recovering Fundamentalist: Reorienting Towards the True, Good, and Beautiful, by Gabriel Gordon

Reviewed by Stephen Burnhope

 

Gabriel Gordon describes himself as “a Jewish Anglo-Orthodox Episcopal follower of Yeshua.”1 He is currently a graduate student at Marquette University. Through his Southern Baptist upbringing, he is also (as the title suggests) a former fundamentalist — or as he prefers to say, a recovering fundamentalist — concerning which he does not hold back: “Those of us who come from fundamentalism, if I may say so, bear a sickness and are in need of healing from that sickness.”2 The subtitle alludes to a move beyond fundamentalism to a faith that “looks backwards towards Christianity as it existed before the Enlightenment and even the Reformation.”3 Necessarily, his journey has involved a deconstruction, but Gordon rightly emphasizes that deconstruction alone is not enough. “It’s up to us recovering fundamentalists . . . to find and walk the good and right path of reconstruction, or as I’ve come to prefer to call it, the path of reorientation towards the good, true, and beautiful: the one that leads us to Yeshua.”4 For Gordon, “the way forward for us coming out of fundamentalism isn’t forward, so to speak, but backward. Not towards novelty, but back towards the tradition.”5

What, then, does Gordon have in mind by “the tradition”? Negatively, it means a rejection of the Protestant Reformation,6 the fruit of which he sees as more bad than good: the Reformers were right in seeing something in the Western Church that needed reforming, but wrong in how they went about it. It means a rejection of the epistemology of modernity, colonial ideology, and white Northern European/German theology and normativity.7 Positively, “the way forward is not simply to depart from European modernism, but to reclaim the Jewishness of Christianity and in a sense resource ourselves to a broad premodern orthodox worldview rooted in the Catholic, Eastern, and Oriental Orthodox traditions, much of which are homegrown and rooted in Africa and Asia rather than Europe — although there’s also a lot of good stuff from premodern Europe.”8 The base premise of the book, under which all other themes take their place, could be summed up as, “The only way to really escape from fundamentalism (and liberal Protestantism in general) is to go back to the premodern notions and understandings of the Christian faith, to convert to a different worldview than the modern Northern European one.”9

Readers of Kesher will be especially interested in the author’s Jewishness, which derives from his father’s side. Only at the age of eighteen did Gordon first meet him and discover that he was “a brown Jewish guy,” and hence, his own Jewishness.10 The author explains how this gave rise to “a certain kind of identity crisis,” as he wrestled with his ethnic identity: “Learning I was mixed, that my dad was a brown Jew, wrecked my self-understanding and identity as a white male.”11

Jewish themes are evident throughout, not least in the author’s claim that “the essential dogmas of the Christian faith are Jewish rather than Greek”12 and a concurrent critique that “huge swaths of the Northern European church today have succumbed to distortion and the complete jettisoning of the Jewishness of the faith through acceptance of German Enlightenment theology, which seeks to purge Christianity of any Jewish qualities.”13

In a world where anti-Jewish racism runs deep, often unconsciously so, it is quite understandable that many, especially those shaped theologically from Germany and Luther, would opt for theologies that downplay, devalue, or rid themselves altogether of the humanity of Yeshua Messiah, the Son of God. To not do so runs the risk of having to affirm the God of the universe, of all creation, is an observant Jew. . . . For if Yeshua is fully human and a specific kind of human, a Jew, while also being fully God, then God is Jewish. . . . Perhaps this is also why the church has often struggled affirming the Jewishness of Yeshua, because to do so would affirm the logic of God becoming a Jew.14

The author’s disdain for the modernist Western worldview and the theological anti-Judaism that the Protestant Reformation tragically bequeathed to fundamentalism (and, more broadly, to contemporary evangelicalism) comes together in this challenging statement: “The God many of us worship is not the God of Israel, but the god of Northern Europe and it’s (sic) Enlightenment; not the God who took on brown Jewish flesh, but the white Germanic god.”15

As to the book’s structure, Chapter 1 is largely devoted to a candid sharing of the author’s life story, which helpfully sets the scene for the book’s later themes and arguments. Chapter 2 is titled “Fundamentalism, Evangelicalism, and Historical Christianity” and critiques the first two movements in the light of the third. Chapter 3 offers “Principles and Practices for Recovering Fundamentalists/Evangelicals,” which promote a contemplative spirituality involving spiritual disciplines such as centering prayer and the daily examen.16 Chapter 4 is titled “Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy,” and briefly addresses problems such as dualism and the falsity of faith versus works. Chapter 5, “What Do I Do with the Bible?,” makes an important contribution. Although Scripture’s standing is preeminent within fundamentalism/evangelicalism, most of its problems derive from how Scripture is read and the authority claims for biblical truth that are founded on that reading. Chapter 5 addresses “The Gnostic Heresy,” not simply as a matter of Church history, but also in its perpetuation today. Finally, there are chapters on “The Gospel” and “The Church,” before a closing “Conclusion: How Then Shall We Live?” and some recommended resources.

Genre-wise, the book combines personal testimony (Gabriel Gordon himself being that “recovering fundamentalist”) and theological and cultural critique. As it develops, the critique extends beyond fundamentalism per se into evangelicalism more broadly (though, of course, fundamentalism and evangelicalism are siblings17) and even beyond that into matters that are only tangentially “evangelical.” It did not come as a surprise to read, towards the end, “When I began writing this book, I wasn’t sure where I was headed, or exactly what this book would turn out to be. It’s taken turns and birthed themes I had not thought of originally addressing.”18 This is candidly foreshadowed in one of the inside front cover endorsements: “Gabriel Gordon admits he doesn’t know what kind of book he has written here. I confess that, having got to the end, I’m not exactly sure either. This book recklessly trespasses the boundaries of spiritual biography, theological treatise, socio-cultural analysis, and prophetic proclamation.”19 To be clear, this was not meant as a reproach, but it does forewarn the potential reader that the book is, indeed, a combination of these genres and not simply (as one might have assumed from the title) the author’s journey of personal testimony.

Does the book sit within the popular domain or the academic domain? I am minded to say it’s more the former than the latter. Were it otherwise, a more academic approach would be appropriate in places. That said, some parts may already be a stretch for the everyday reader who has limited prior familiarity with some of the theological and cultural themes. As the title suggests (and the author confirms), one clear target audience for its readership is fundamentalists; or more precisely, former fundamentalists who have either gone through deconstruction, are currently going through it, or are about to.20

Kesher readers should be aware that although Gordon expressly writes as a Jew, and his objectives include recovering the original Jewishness of the Christian faith (for the loss of which conservative Reformed evangelicalism bears great responsibility), the book is not primarily focused on Jewish perspectives. He rightly calls out supersessionism and theological anti-Judaism in all its pervasive forms — which will be immensely helpful for readers who are unfamiliar with the extent to which it is inappropriately embedded in popular evangelical Christianity — but this is by no means the primary focus.

Notwithstanding the title, the book’s crosshairs are less sighted on fundamentalism per se — or even on the Reformed tradition more broadly — than the Enlightenment modernity within which those sit and of which they are symptomatic. The solution that the author offers to fundamentalism is neither a better version of evangelicalism nor some form of mainline Protestantism — either of which might have been expected. Instead, along with a reclaiming of the Jewishness of Christianity, he invites the rediscovery of “a premodern orthodox worldview rooted in the Catholic, Eastern, and Oriental Orthodox traditions.”21 (Readers may be interested in hearing more about how that might sit within a Messianic Judaism that has tended to be associated with the evangelical Christian world.22)

As minor criticisms, I would point to some loose terminology: for example, phrases such as “German ideology,” “German Enlightenment theology,” “Enlightenment Christianity,” and “Northern European Christianity.” (Are these one and the same, or distinct?) Similarly, “liberal” and “progressive” seem to be treated as synonymous. Most importantly, the author frequently commingles the terms “fundamentalism” and “evangelicalism.” The two are clearly closely related, but they are by no means identical; they are not, to my mind, adequately defined and differentiated here.23 (Sometimes they are capitalized, other times not, without any apparent rationale.) Given the centrality of these movements for the book, this seems unfortunate — not least because popular commentators often confuse them and historically the terms have reflected different iterations at different times. I had the sense that some parts of the book would have benefited from some further sharpening of the arguments and a clearer integration of some of the material into the narrative journey.

The Fundamentals of a Recovering Fundamentalist is bold in its ambitions, being both a journey of personal testimony and a theological and cultural critique. Moreover, that critique extends beyond fundamentalism per se to a range of tangential targets (many of which are named or alluded to in this review). Does the author overreach at times? Perhaps. Nevertheless, it is a worthy read; there is much that is well said and important to be saying. Readers who are largely unfamiliar with the subjects on which Gordon focuses his theological and cultural critique will find the book particularly interesting.

It seems appropriate to allow the author the final word. His overall vision for the book and its readers — both the opportunity and the threat — may be summed up in this quotation:

We who are recovering can and will be either those who helped shape whatever it is that’s around the corner into a beautiful, healthy, loving, kind, welcoming-to-the-other, Indigenizing, Jewifying, peacemaking, unity-loving, just, truth-telling thing that looks like Yeshua as embodied in the great tradition, or we will be a huge part in making it into another extremist movement, one that perpetuates colonization and continues the de-Jewifying of the faith, one characterized by exclusion of the other, hate, disunity, cynicism, elitism, dualism, impatience, injustice, jadedness, lies, and everything that doesn’t look like Yeshua embodied in the great tradition.24

---

1. 1 Gabriel Gordon, The Fundamentals of a Recovering Fundamentalist: Reorienting Towards the True, Good, and Beautiful (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2024), back cover.

2. 2 Fundamentals, xvi.

3. 3 Fundamentals, back cover.

4. 4 Fundamentals, xxix. Italics original. Throughout the book, Gordon uses Yeshua instead of “Jesus,” the reasons for which he explains as (1) he is Jewish, (2) to emphasize the Jewishness of Yeshua, and (3) to highlight the foreignness of Yeshua to the broader gentile world, and particularly his foreignness to the Western world (xiii).

5. 5 Fundamentals, xxiii.

6. 6 The author characterizes himself as a former Protestant who now rejects some of its foundational doctrines (including its anti-Judaism).

7. 7 “Lest we . . . forget, modernism and the Enlightenment — its sentiments, attitudes, categories, and assumptions — are built on and derivative of white racism and colonialism” (Fundamentals, 93). The author does not define colonialism or colonization as such, but it appears clear that he has in mind European domination and subjugation of indigenous peoples from the sixteenth century onwards, corresponding with the advent of modernity, the Enlightenment, and the Protestant Reformation. He argues that white modernist Christianity has “a tendency for colonizing” in its “theological DNA” (Fundamentals, xxv). Modernity’s belief in its “racial superiority” over against the “supposed inferior racial status” of indigenous people groups (“the ‘poor savages’ of the world”) is a “colonial ideal,” that he rejects (Fundamentals, 2). That said — and slightly confusingly, perhaps — Gordon also suggests “the very fact I am critiquing Northern European modernity at all implies I don’t think colonialism and anti-Judaism are part of their true nature, and I believe and hope that they can change” (Fundamentals xxv).

8. 8 Fundamentals, 243.

9. 9 Fundamentals, 56.

10. 10 Gordon uses the term “brown” because his father “is darker-skinned and doesn’t pass as white” (Fundamentals, 3). Unfortunately, he tells us nothing else about his father. It would have been interesting to hear more — especially concerning the father’s Jewish background.

11. 11 Fundamentals, 3.

12. 12 Fundamentals, 30.

13. 13 Fundamentals, 27.

14. 14 Fundamentals, 36. As Gordon insightfully observes, “Even God cannot do some things, and becoming a generic human being with no distinct sex or ethnicity is one of them” (Fundamentals, 39). We cannot fail to notice a correlation between the Church’s decontextualized universalization of Jesus and a decontextualized universalized reading of Scripture.

15. 15 Fundamentals, 96. In the footnote: “I think white Jesus, particularly blond, blue-eyed Jesus, is an example of this.”

16. 16 The author describes “centering prayer” as “a kind of apophatic prayer,” typically, but not exclusively practised at the beginning of the day. “Apophatic prayer is negative prayer, meaning you don’t use words, thoughts, or images. It is simply allowing yourself to rest in the infinite mystery of God . . .” This is in contrast to the more familiar kataphatic prayer that does use words, thoughts, and images. The daily examen, meanwhile, is prayer in which “you are examining your day and looking back to see how and where God was present” (Fundamentals, 82; 79).

17. 17 All fundamentalists are evangelicals (they would probably argue they are the only true evangelicals!), but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. That said, fundamentalist tendencies undoubtedly influence everyday evangelicalism below the surface (for example, its tendency towards biblicism).

18. 18 Fundamentals, 241.

19. 19 Geoffrey Ready (no page number).

20. 20 Fundamentals, xiii.

21. 21 Fundamentals, 243. I cannot avoid observing that the author will have in mind a selective incorporation of certain elements of a premodern orthodox worldview, since there was much that occurred in God’s name in that era which was not “good, true, and beautiful.”

22. 22 Gordon is part of Yachad BeYeshua and makes clear his deep gratitude and respect for the organization: “My life has forever been changed . . .” (xix; see also, 5, footnote 8). For more on Yachad BeYeshua, see https://www.yachad-beyeshua.org/.

23. 23 Gordon attempts to define and distinguish these terms in the first part of chapter 2 (along with “Historical Christianity”) but to my mind fails adequately to do so. He cites (without acknowledging the source) David Bebbington’s well-known “four pillars” of evangelicalism (biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism) but treats it as fact (is he aware that other definitions have been proposed?). Similarly, no source is offered for the proposed “five tenets that define a fundamentalist.” Moreover, these five tenets — inerrancy, penal substitution, the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, and the divinity of Jesus — are scarcely exclusive to fundamentalism (they are beliefs held by virtually all evangelicals). Gordon does acknowledge “there’s a lot more that fundamentalists believe and don’t believe,” but far more could have been said on that (such as fundamentalism’s emphasis on biblical literalism, and its socio-cultural features). Later in the book, page 133, he says (in a footnote), “If you remember from earlier in the book,” — I hadn’t — “I define Fundamentalists as the so-called conservative branch of liberal Protestantism.” Overall, this important section would have benefited from greater attention.

24. 24 Fundamentals, xxviii-xxix.