Fundamentalist Christianity

Fundamentalist Christianity represents a reaction within the evangelical community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries against the Christianity-internal pressures of theological modernity (often equated with theological liberalism[1]) and against emerging external pressures of the "theory of evolution", of rapidly advancing science and industry, and of the growth of cultural secularism. Fundamentalists believed that trends of higher criticism[2] and modernism had started to dilute the "true" Christian message. They fought for a return to what they understood to be the "fundamentals" of the Christian faith, with an emphasis on a literal interpretation of the Bible, personal holiness, and rejection of secular culture and science. The name "fundamentalist" derives from a 1910 publication of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, The Fundamentals, which contained essays denouncing Biblical criticism, secularism, anarchism, communism, socialism, liberalism, Catholicism, and evolution.

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Fundamentalist movements existed in most major American Christian denominations during the early 20th century. While fundamentalism as a formal movement retreated into the background after the embarrassment of the 1925 Scopes Trial, many churches and organizations continue to self-identify as fundamentalists. "Fundamentalist Christian" has become a generalized term for anyone who is a Biblical literalist, a creationist (especially a young-earth creationist), or a Christian politician who emphasizes their religion. Fundamentalism comprises a subset of evangelicalism, although not all evangelicals are fundamentalists.

History

Before 1880, most Americans viewed the Bible, if not as divinely inspired, at least as a convenient foundation for morals and decency. President Grover Cleveland (in office in the 1880s and 1890s) proclaimed the Bible as good enough for him without "notes or criticism, or explanations about authorship or origin or even cross-references."[3] Anglo-American Protestants held most positions of importance, so Christianity and U.S. culture were largely homogeneous.

However, in the 1880s sin entered America in the form of changes in assumptions regarding the divinity of the Bible. The 1859 publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species had rapidly accelerated the secularization of intellectualism, especially the natural sciences.[citation needed] Around this time, assumptions regarding the interpretation of the Bible started to change. As ministers like Horace Bushnell[4] (1802-1876) sought to synthesize the Scriptures with new understandings of science, focus shifted away from the idea of personal conversion. Instead, many sought to apply general Christian morality to the culture as a whole. German higher criticism further threatened the traditional understanding of the Bible's divinity.

As mainline Protestant denominations began to accept more liberal methods of Biblical interpretation, a conservative reaction occurred within evangelical Protestantism. Conservative "fundamentalists" insisted on retaining the traditional focus on Biblical primacy and simple, down-to-earth interpretation. In 1919 William Bell Riley[5] founded the World Christians Fundamentals Association.[6] Fundamentalists unified around a plain reading of the Bible, adherence to the traditional orthodox teachings of 19th-century Protestantism, and a new method of Biblical interpretation called "dispensationalism" and associated with John Nelson Darby (1801-1882). Between 1880 and 1920 conservative Christians began starting their own "Bible colleges" as alternatives to mainstream, usually secular, institutes of higher learning.

The Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy[7] was a full-blown culture war waged in America in the 1920s and 1930s. As mainline Protestants abandoned traditional interpretations of the Bible, it seemed that conservative Christianity was being put on trial. After the embarrassing Scopes Trial of 1925, fundamentalist evangelicals experienced increasing cultural anxiety. Not only did they face a seemingly hostile culture, but even most Protestants were abandoning what Fundamentalists saw as the "core principles" of Christianity. In fact, H. Richard Niebuhr[8] wrote an encyclopedia entry on Protestantism in 1937 in which, "with a measure of confidence", he wrote off evangelicalism as a thing of the past.[9]

In the face of such hostility, fundamentalist evangelicals from the 1920s to the 1960s increasingly withdrew into their own subculture. Bible colleges served to provide education within this "evangelical ghetto".[citation needed] Most important, however, was the emphasis on the family unit. Fundamentalists viewed the family as a safe haven, separate from the "corrupting influence" of the world. By the 1960s evangelicals perceived that America was becoming a godless society, as extra-marital sex, feminisms, and abortion all seemed to threaten the very existence of the traditional family.

At the same time, outspoken evangelicals were beginning to find success in the public sphere. Billy Graham's evangelistic crusades (1947 onwards) brought fundamentalist Christianity to the front pages of newspapers around the United States. Leaders of a newly-political fundamentalism include Jerry Falwell and Rob Grant. Prominent politicians like Chuck Colson (1931-2012), Jimmy Carter (1924- ), Gerald Ford (1913-2006), and later, the Prophet Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) would further bring evangelicals into the center stage of the media. (The emergence of the Religious Right highlights an interesting paradox in the fundamentalist mindset: If America and the world are doomed anyways, why work to make it better?) Politically active evangelicals failed to understand that America had become a truly multi-cultural nation, and bellicose attempts to re-impose Biblical standards were not just largely fruitless - the misunderstanding contributed to the awkwardness between evangelicals and society at large.

The five fundamentals of Christian fundamentalism
  1. Inerrancy of the Bible.
  2. Literal truth of the Bible.
  3. The virgin birth and divinity of Jesus Christ. Fundamentalists hold this against encroaching materialism which denies the supernatural.
  4. The doctrine of atonement through substitution, a Calvinist doctrinal innovation according to which Christ inserts his own perfect record, in place of ours, into the divine retributive mechanism. This fundamental is held in opposition to the early Church's "ransom" and "moral uplift" theories of atonement.
  5. The bodily resurrection of Jesus and the imminent personal return of Jesus Christ. This is a critical building block for Christian fundamentalist movements that deny responsibility for global warming, since the end of the world is near.[10]

Fundamentalism in United States politics

The trend in modern United States politics and modern "fundamentalism" is increasingly toward blending politics and religion, as the Republican Party and general conservatives are being pulled into an ever increasingly fundamentalist point of view (see Religious Right). There is a worrying tendency among some Christian fundamentalists to oppose democracy.

One of many fallacies that Christian fundamentalists perpetuate is that the Founding Fathers were Christian fundamentalists, when in reality George Washington, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and others were actually deists (y'know, people who aren't necessarily religious, but still believe in an invisible supreme being).

In the US, Christian Fundamentalists tend to favor a "pro-life" view, often to an extreme that would not allow exceptions for rape, incest or general (non-fatal) health of the mother. They are also generally opposed to comprehensive sex education, single parenthood, and of course gay rights.

Amateur Hour

The Christian Fundamentalist sphere, especially in the United States, is politicized and propagandistic. Add to that a general disregard for scholarly study of theology (such as the study of traditional interpretations held by historical Christian thinkers and reformers), and what we get is theological amateur hour.

The American Christian Fundamentalist sphere frequently bursts into controversies over theological issues that should have been settled 2000 years ago. Beginning in the 1980s and continuing today, fundamentalists have been blowing up over the issue of "Lordship Salvation" (whether the exact nature of saving faith includes a commitment to obedience), with fundies accusing each other of being unsaved false teachers from teh Debil. Fundies supporting hierarchical gender complementarianism somehow introduced a variation of a trinitarian heresy known as subordinationism (which is about a father-son relationship in the trinity) in order to justify their social views, only to backtrack in the biblical times of 2017.[11] This is especially ridiculous considering the fact that less politicized conservative Christian denominations hold non-subordinationist views along with support for traditional gender roles at the same time without problem.

Fundies are also prone to believing in teachings that have little to do with how Christianity, Protestant or Catholic, has been up to 1900, including the prosperity gospel, word of faith, and pentecostalism.

Examples of Christian fundamentalist individuals and institutions
gollark: That gives me an idea - I should make some sort of giant potatOS research complex on CN and pack it with random dangerous machinery, valuable loot, and warning signs.
gollark: They should set these games in the GTech PotatOS Research Laboratories™ instead.
gollark: Solution: mod it with a buzzer loud enough to tear apart the very fabric of reality.
gollark: But it's not SmArT.
gollark: I mean, I could use a microphone, but I do not care about "aUdiO QuaLity" or whatever.

See also
For those of you in the mood, RationalWiki has a fun article about Fundamentalist Christianity.

References
  1. "Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism", George Marsden, Eerdmans Publishing, 1991, p. 32
  2. See the Wikipedia article on Higher criticism.
  3. D.G. Hart, That Old-Time Religion in Modern America, (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002), 204.
  4. See the Wikipedia article on Horace Bushnell.
  5. See the Wikipedia article on William Bell Riley.
  6. See the Wikipedia article on World Christian Fundamentals Association.
  7. See the Wikipedia article on Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy.
  8. See the Wikipedia article on H. Richard Niebuhr.
  9. Hart, 56.
  10. Dr. Dale A. Robbins. "What is a fundamentalist Christian?".
  11. https://www.cbe.org.au/index.php/theology/191-defining-subordinationism
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