Christian fundamentalism
Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and American Protestants as a reaction to theological liberalism and cultural modernism. Fundamentalists argued that 19th-century modernist theologians had misunderstood or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, which they considered the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
Fundamentalists are almost always described as upholding beliefs in biblical infallibility and biblical inerrancy, in keeping with traditional Christian doctrines concerning biblical interpretation, the role of Jesus in the Bible, and the role of the church in society. Fundamentalists usually believe in a core of Christian beliefs, typically called the "Five Fundamentals". These arose from the Presbyterian Church issuance of "The Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910". Topics included are statements on the historical accuracy of the Bible and all of the events which are recorded in it as well as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Fundamentalism manifests itself in various denominations which believe in various theologies, rather than a single denomination or a systematic theology. The ideology became active in the 1910s after the release of The Fundamentals, a twelve-volume set of essays, apologetic and polemic, written by conservative Protestant theologians in an attempt to defend beliefs which they considered Protestant orthodoxy. The movement became more organized within U.S. Protestant churches in the 1920s, especially among Presbyterians, as well as Baptists and Methodists. Many churches which embraced fundamentalism adopted a militant attitude with regard to their core beliefs. Reformed fundamentalists lay heavy emphasis on historic confessions of faith, such as the Westminster Confession of Faith, as well as uphold Princeton theology. Since 1930, many fundamentalist churches in the Baptist tradition have been represented by the Independent Fundamental Churches of America, while many theologically conservative connexions in the Methodist tradition align with the Interchurch Holiness Convention; in various countries, national bodies such as the American Council of Christian Churches exist to encourage dialogue between fundamentalist bodies of different denominational backgrounds. Other fundamentalist denominations have little contact with other bodies.
A few scholars label Catholic activist conservative associations who reject modern Christian theology in favor of more traditional doctrines as fundamentalists. The term is sometimes mistakenly confused with the term evangelical.
Terminology
The term fundamentalism entered the English language in 1922, and it is often capitalized when it is used in reference to the religious movement. By the end of the 20th century, the term fundamentalism acquired a pejorative connotation, denoting religious fanaticism or extremism, especially when such labeling extended beyond the original movement which coined the term and those who self-identify as fundamentalists.Some who hold certain, but not all beliefs in common with the original fundamentalist movement reject the label fundamentalism, due to its perceived pejorative nature, while others consider it a banner of pride. In certain parts of the United Kingdom, using the term fundamentalist with the intent to stir up religious hatred is a violation of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act of 2006.
History
The movement has its origins in 1878 in a meeting of the "Believers' Meeting for Bible Study" in the United States, where 14 fundamental beliefs were established by evangelical pastors.Fundamentalism draws from multiple traditions in British and American theologies during the 19th century. According to authors Robert D. Woodberry and Christian S. Smith,
However, the split does not mean that there were just two groups: modernists and fundamentalists. There were also people who considered themselves neo-evangelicals, separating themselves from the extreme components of fundamentalism. These neo-evangelicals also wanted to separate themselves from both the fundamentalist movement and the mainstream evangelical movement due to their anti-intellectual approaches.
From 1910 until 1915, a series of essays titled The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth was published by the Testimony Publishing Company of Chicago.
The Northern Presbyterian Church influenced the movement with the definition of the five "fundamentals" in 1910, namely
- The inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this.
- The virgin birth of Christ.
- The belief that Christ's death was an atonement for sin.
- The bodily resurrection of Christ.
- The historical reality of Christ's miracles.
Biblical inerrancy was a particularly significant rallying point for fundamentalists. This approach to the Bible is associated with conservative evangelical hermeneutical approaches to Scripture, ranging from the historical-grammatical method to biblical literalism.
The Dallas Theological Seminary, founded in 1924 in Dallas, would have a considerable influence in the movement by training students who will establish various independent Bible Colleges and fundamentalist churches in the southern United States.
In the 1930s, fundamentalism was viewed by many as a "last gasp" vestige of something from the past but more recently, scholars have shifted away from that view.
In the early 1940s, evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians began to part ways over whether to separate from modern culture or engage with it. An organization very much on the side of separation from modernity was the American Council of Christian Churches, founded in 1941 by Rev. Carl McIntire. Another group "for conservative Christians who wanted to be culturally engaged" was the National Association of Evangelicals founded in 1942, by Harold Ockenga.
Changing interpretations
The interpretations given the fundamentalist movement have changed over time, with most older interpretations being based on the concepts of social displacement or cultural lag. Some in the 1930s, including H. Richard Niebuhr, understood the conflict between fundamentalism and modernism to be part of a broader social conflict between the cities and the country. In this view the fundamentalists were country and small-town dwellers who were reacting against the progressivism of city dwellers. Fundamentalism was seen as a form of anti-intellectualism during the 1950s; in the early 1960s American intellectual and historian Richard Hofstadter interpreted it in terms of status anxiety, social displacement, and 'Manichean mentality'.Beginning in the late 1960s, the movement began to be seen as "a bona fide religious, theological and even intellectual movement in its own right". Instead of interpreting fundamentalism as a simple anti-intellectualism, Paul Carter argued that "fundamentalists were simply intellectual in a way different than their opponents". Moving into the 1970s, Earnest R. Sandeen saw fundamentalism as arising from the confluence of Princeton theology and millennialism.
George Marsden defined fundamentalism as "militantly anti-modernist Protestant evangelicalism" in his 1980 work Fundamentalism and American Culture. Militant in this sense does not mean 'violent', it means 'aggressively active in a cause'. Marsden saw fundamentalism arising from a number of preexisting evangelical movements that responded to various perceived threats by joining forces. He argued that Christian fundamentalists were American evangelical Christians who in the 20th century opposed "both modernism in theology and the cultural changes that modernism endorsed. Militant opposition to modernism was what most clearly set off fundamentalism." Others viewing militancy as a core characteristic of the fundamentalist movement include Philip Melling, Ung Kyu Pak and Ronald Witherup. Donald McKim and David Wright argue that "in the 1920s, militant conservatives united to mount a conservative counter-offensive. Fundamentalists sought to rescue their denominations from the growth of modernism at home."
According to Marsden, recent scholars differentiate "fundamentalists" from "evangelicals" by arguing the former were more militant and less willing to collaborate with groups considered "modernist" in theology. In the 1940s the more moderate faction of fundamentalists maintained the same theology but began calling themselves "evangelicals" to stress their less militant position. Roger Olson identifies a more moderate faction of fundamentalists, which he calls "postfundamentalist", and says "most postfundamentalist evangelicals do not wish to be called fundamentalists, even though their basic theological orientation is not very different". According to Olson, a key event was the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942. Barry Hankins has a similar view, saying "beginning in the 1940s....militant and separatist evangelicals came to be called fundamentalists, while culturally engaged and non-militant evangelicals were supposed to be called evangelicals."
Timothy Weber views fundamentalism as "a rather distinctive modern reaction to religious, social and intellectual changes of the late 1800s and early 1900s, a reaction that eventually took on a life of its own and changed significantly over time".