What Is Christian<\/em> \u201cFundamentalism\u201d and Who Is a Christian<\/em> \u201cFundamentalist?\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ll begin with a series of criteria for identifying fundamentalism (or someone as a fundamentalist). Then I\u2019ll go on to give historical-theological justification for the criteria. Readers who are not interested in the (admittedly rather lengthy and detailed) historical-theological justification can stop reading whenever they wish. (However, I warn them that if they comment on my criteria critically I will probably tell them to go back and read the historical-theological explanation that follows the criteria.)<\/p>\n So here are my criteria for deciding whether someone is a Christian<\/em> fundamentalist:<\/p>\n 1) If a person (or organization) is a theologically conservative Protestant Christian (by which I mean embracing classically orthodox Protestant doctrines such as the deity of Christ, the Trinity, the inspiration of Scripture, salvation by grace through faith, etc.) and<\/em> on principle declines to have Christian fellowship with anyone who has Christian fellowship with persons of questionable doctrinal commitments (\u201csecondary separation\u201d), he is probably a fundamentalist.<\/p>\n 2) If a person (I\u2019ll skip the rest that came before the \u201cand<\/em>\u201d in the first criterion above from here on) believes that belief in biblical inerrancy in all matters, including history and cosmology, is a cardinal tenet of Christian faith, she is probably a fundamentalist.<\/p>\n 3) If a person believes that the Authorized Version (KJV) is the only acceptable English translation of the Bible, he is probably a fundamentalist.<\/p>\n 4) If a person believes premillennial eschatology (and especially \u201cpre-tribulational rapturism\u201d) and young earth creationism are crucial Christian beliefs, \u201cfundamentals of the faith,\u201d she is probably a fundamentalist.<\/p>\n 5) If a person believes that America is \u201cGod\u2019s nation\u201d in an exclusive way (of other nations, tribes and peoples) such that America is, as a nation, part of God\u2019s salvation history and plan of redemption, he is probably a fundamentalist. (In Great Britain this would apply to belief about that nation such as \u201cBritish Israelism.\u201d)<\/p>\n 6) If a person believes that the Bible ought to be the basis of an entire educational curriculum, including studies of science, philosophy, psychology, etc., she is probably a fundamentalist. (To put this negatively: If a person does not believe truth can exist outside a Bible-based research project, that \u201call truth is God\u2019s truth,\u201d even that discovered by non-Christians, she is probably a fundamentalist.)<\/p>\n 7) If a person believes that Catholics cannot be Christians and\/or Calvinists or non-Calvinists cannot be evangelicals (etc.), he is probably, at least in some respects, a fundamentalist.<\/p>\n These are not absolute litmus tests. It\u2019s theoretically possible that a person might hold most of these beliefs and, for some unforeseen reason (a fluke) not<\/em> be a fundamentalist. Normally, a fundamentalist embraces all or most of these beliefs. Holding one<\/em> alone<\/em> does not make him or her a fundamentalist.\u00a0 As I explain below, \u201cfundamentalism\u201d is an ideal type, not an all-or-nothing template. And, these (above) are my<\/em> criteria, based on years of studying fundamentalism.<\/p>\n So, here, below, is my historical-theological explanation:<\/p>\n First, let me repeat something about these labels that many readers seem to miss or misunderstand. You may consider yourself either fundamentalist or not for different reasons than I give here. That is, your definition of it may be different than mine. I am explaining how I define the category. The same was true for liberal theology. Some people take umbrage because they fit my criteria but don\u2019t consider themselves theologically liberal. Fine. But I do (if you fit the criteria). Some people take umbrage because they consider themselves liberal but don\u2019t fit my criteria. Fine. But then I don\u2019t consider you liberal. Get it? The same applies to \u201cfundamentalist.\u201d<\/p>\n I am a historical theologian who specializes in modern theology. My InterVarsity book The Journey of Modern Theology: from Reconstruction to Deconstruction<\/em> constitutes one of the most exhaustive one volume critical surveys of modern theology in print. I\u2019ve spent thirty-five years studying modern theology including \u201cliberal theology\u201d and \u201cfundamentalism.\u201d That doesn\u2019t make me infallible, of course, and I\u2019m open to correction. But to say that I \u201chaven\u2019t studied liberal theology\u201d (as one commenter here stated) is absurd.<\/p>\n I mentioned my sources about liberal theology (Welch, Dorrien, Reardon, Brown, et al.). What are my sources about fundamentalism? Over the years that I have been teaching courses in modern and contemporary theology and church history at three Christian universities I have invited several self-identified Christian fundamentalists to my classes to speak about the subject. I have also had many encounters and interactions (some pleasant, some not so pleasant) with self-identified, knowledgeable fundamentalist theologians. I grew up surrounded by self-identified fundamentalists (and some relatives and acquaintances who called themselves \u201cevangelical\u201d but were also fundamentalists). I have read numerous books by fundamentalists and about fundamentalists. I own an almost complete set (first editions) of The Fundamentals<\/em>.<\/p>\n So who are some scholars that I have read on the subject of fundamentalism? Probably most important are George Marsden, Mark Noll, Joel Carpenter, Randall Balmer, and Martin Marty. (I should mention here that I have read some of Scott Appleby\u2019s work on fundamentalism but thought from the beginning he was applying the term too broadly and using a sociological definition rather than a theological one.) And I have read fundamentalists such as George Dollar, John R. Rice, Carl McIntire, Elmer Towns, Kevin Bauder, and many others. I grew up in a home that subscribed to Rice\u2019s The Sword of the Lord<\/em> publication and that included many fundamentalist books. One of my most recent (and most enjoyable) reads about fundamentalism was The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family<\/em> by Andrew Himes (John R. Rice\u2019s grandson). I reviewed it here.<\/p>\n It seems to me that the words \u201cfundamentalism\u201d and \u201cfundamentalist\u201d have taken on many different meanings in recent years\u2014like many religious labels. I remember reading in a secular publication that C. S. Lewis was a \u201cfundamentalist Anglican.\u201d When I taught at Oral Roberts University the local newspaper referred to Oral as a \u201cfundamentalist.\u201d I wrote a letter correcting the editors. Oral was no fundamentalist\u2014by any objective, historical-theological standards. He was then a charismatic United Methodist who hired Catholics, Orthodox and even semi-liberal Protestants to teach at his university. He refused to have any doctrinal statement. The only question I was asked when being interviewed was if I was in \u201cgeneral agreement\u201d with Oral\u2019s ministry. I was then (or at least convinced myself I could be), but after two years I was no longer, so I left.<\/p>\n Here I will describe four contemporary meanings of \u201cfundamentalism\u201d and \u201cfundamentalist\u201d<\/em> even though there are probably more.<\/p>\n First, there is the popular, journalistic meaning<\/em> and it applies those labels to anyone considered religiously conservative and fanatical. I remember how shocked I was when I heard television journalists referring to \u201cIslamic fundamentalism\u201d at the time the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran. Soon the appellation was being applied to all kinds of people most of whom were suspected of being potential terrorists. It was a \u201cHindu fundamentalist\u201d who assassinated Gandhi. Hindu fundamentalist? How did \u201cfundamentalist\u201d get out of its original Christian context and into world religions, politics and violence? Many original fundamentalists, like William Jennings Bryan, were pacifists! Now it\u2019s not unusual to hear and read journalists referring to Amish, Islamists, orthodox Jews, and numerous other disparate religious groups as \u201cfundamentalists.\u201d So what do all these people have in common that causes journalists so to label them?<\/p>\n Second, there is the sociological meaning<\/em> of \u201cfundamentalism\u201d and \u201cfundamentalist.\u201d I\u2019m not sure which came first, this meaning and then the wildly broad and inclusive journalistic meaning or vice versa. For the past thirty-some years sociologists have been defining \u201cfundamentalism\u201d as \u201creligious anti-modernism.\u201d Allegedly, anyone who is against modernity for religious reasons is a \u201cfundamentalist.\u201d But there are some problems with that. First, it\u2019s simply too broad. Second, many fundamentalists, historically, were consciously or unconsciously influenced by modernity. Third, fundamentalists are often the most willing to make religious use of modern technological innovations. Fourth, many spiritually-minded postmodern people could be called anti-modern in certain ways but could not<\/em> rightly be called fundamentalists.<\/p>\n Third, there is the popular, Baptist and evangelical meaning<\/em> of these terms. In this idiomatic use a \u201cfundamentalist\u201d is a mean-spirited conservative evangelical willing to use nasty, underhanded means to win a battle for control of a denomination. Then, more recently, I have heard people who use the label this way argue that there can be and are \u201cfundamentalist liberals\u201d because liberals (and even moderates!) can also be mean-spirited, nasty and underhanded. This seems to be a use of the labels to describe anyone considered religiously conniving and manipulative. This is, of course, entirely subjective and pejorative and has no place in scholarly<\/em> discussions of fundamentalism.<\/p>\n Fourth, there is the historical-theological meaning<\/em> of these terms \u201cfundamentalism\u201d and \u201cfundamentalist.\u201d This is the approach I am always trying to promote (to some people\u2019s amusement because they think I am like Don Quixote in this campaign). Unless we stick to historical-theological descriptions and definitions, religious labels float away into unusable vagueness and ambiguity. So what do I mean by \u201chistorical-theological approach?\u201d In defining and using religious and especially theological labels we ought to keep them rooted in historical movements and prototypes. Almost no one I know would dispute that \u201cfundamentalism\u201d began as a Protestant movement with strong theological overtones in the late nineteenth and\/or early twentieth centuries. We ought to be creative enough to come up with other labels for non-Christian and Christian movements that bear certain vague affinities with it. For example, \u201cCatholic fundamentalism\u201d or \u201cfundamentalist Catholicism\u201d is simply a misnomer. In Catholic religious history those called that would better be labeled \u201cextreme integralists\u201d or \u201cradical traditionalists\u201d (or something).<\/p>\n So what is the historical-theological definition of \u201cfundamentalism\u201d and \u201cfundamentalist?\u201d Well, that is much debated. Here you will find my own approach to it.<\/p>\n Fundamentalism is a centered-set category without definite boundaries (like all movements and ideal types). It began as a relatively cohesive movement and then, like most religious movements, dissolved but remained as an ethos permeating several movements, ministries, churches, denominations, organizations, etc. First I will describe the movement (which must remain the anchor for describing fundamentalism) and then the ethos emanating from it.<\/p>\n Scholars disagree about when and where fundamentalism began. As usual, the truth seems to be that it began in several places, independently, simultaneously. Several individuals and groups were thinking along similar lines, found each other, and coalesced around certain affinities. The common features of all these individuals and groups were: conservative Protestant, anti-modernist (in terms of ideology), anti-liberal theology, privileging something considered \u201ctraditional\u201d that is recognizable as a blend of revivalism and Protestant scholastic orthodoxy, biblicism (belief in biblical inerrancy and as literal interpretation as possible), etc.<\/p>\n Some of these people were Baptists, Presbyterians, Wesleyans (Holiness), independents (\u201cBible Christians\u201d influenced by the Plymouth Brethren movement), and Congregationalists. Pentecostals eventually joined in around the margins, uncomfortably. None were Catholics or Eastern Orthodox. Very few, if any, were Anabaptists.<\/p>\n