What or who is a fundamentalist?

This question was raised on the Baptist only side of the board. I think there might be others besides Baptists who think of themselves as fundamentalist.Just what is a fundamentalist in todays thinking?

A Fundamentalist is what 50 years ago was call a Born Again Christian. They held to a very narrow interpretation of Scripture and allowed Scripture to explain scripture. They tend to attend independent churches because of the fear of outside corrupting influences historically noted among large denominations. They tend to be very cautious of "modern" trends, and see them as repackaged old ones. I use to consider myself a Born-againer. After Carter made the term questionable, I labeled myself a Fundamentalist in the finest sense. I do not consider Muslems Fundamental unless they fully adhere to ALL the dictates of THEIR Koran and apply them to THEMSELVES. They seem to pick and choose and apply things to outsiders...

Another term is ORTHODOX; however, this term is used by many who have BECOME anything but, again making the term shaded...

A fundamentalist is anyone unwilling to comprimise their belief system with modern influences. For example, if you are willing to believe the quaran when it says you should give your life to kill Jews and Christians, you are a 'fundamentalist'. If you are unwilling to comprimise the Bible with modern humanistic influences, you are called a fundamentalist.

In recent times it has become a derrogatory term meaning "fanatical" because of fundamentalist Islamics. However, it should be pointed out that, although the word has negative connotations, the word "fundamentalist" should only carry a negative if the thing being fundamentally believed or followed is evil or wrong.

For most liberals a fundamentalist is anyone that actually believes the Bible is to be taken seriously instead of rationalized away to vapid mediocrity and politcal correctness.

But when conservative Bible-believing Christians use this term fundamentalist in a negative way - I think they mean someone who is not practicing sound exegesis or using common sense.

In Christ,

Bob

I think the more common term for the old fundamentalist is the new term of evangelical. The new meaning of fundamentalist is more often thought of as funny-mentalist.

Within the United States, fundamentalism was originally a movement beginning in the late 19th century of Christian evangelical conservatives, who, in a reaction to modernism, insisted on adhering to a set of core beliefs. Fundamentalists, in this sense, have engaged in criticism of more liberal movements. The original formulation of American fundamentalist beliefs can be traced to the Niagara Bible Conference in 1878. In 1910, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church distilled these into what were known as the "five fundamentals", which were:

Inerrancy of the Scriptures
The virgin birth and deity of Jesus Christ
The doctrine of substitutionary atonement
The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ
The bodily second coming of Jesus Christ
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So I am almost a fundamentalist, as I believe in the infallibility of the Scriptures.

Good research Tragic! I was about to post the dictionary definition... But, you beat me to it...

We have a strange using definition of who and what a fundamentalist is or does. Mostly because the term has been so maligned by the liberal media...

I, too, have trouble with "inerrancy"...

There is a document at: http://ag.org/top/beliefs/truths_condensed.cfm

"The Bible - The Word of God" which can be downloaded... In it section three deals with Inerrancy & Interpretation... (Starts on page 96)

A document dealing specifically with inerrancy is at: http://ag.org/top/beliefs/position_papers/4175_inerrancy.cfm

We believe the Bible is the Word of God written; it is the revelation of the truths of God conveyed by inspiration through His servants to us. As such, it is infallible and without error

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1. We refer to original autographs. While the science of textual criticism assures us of a trustworthy text, inerrancy can be claimed only for the original writings (Jeremiah 36:2)

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This is where I'm at...

Originally posted by SpiritualMadMan:

We have a strange using definition of who and what a fundamentalist is or does. Mostly because the term has been so maligned by the liberal media...

Click to expand...

I am not sure it all the media's fault. Just take a look at some who call themselves fundamentalists. Think of those folks who use coarse langauge and call others by disrespectful names. Even some use profanity. But all of them claim to believe the Bible.

A true believer is the person who acts like the real thing that James talks about. He is not one who professes faith in Jesus and the bible but one who is ibedient ot God. Such a contrast exists today among those who call themselves Christians and those who live the live committed to Jesus. Remember it was the Pharisees who thought they were doing right and thought they were righteous but Jesus called them whitewashed tombs. There is a huge difference between education and the person who imparts their life into the life of another teaching them to be obedient servants of God. There is a huge difference between the person who is the humble servant of God and the person who cliams to believe the Bible but doesn't live it out in humble obedience. I think if we fully understood how we stacked up against God's holinesss not one of would have anything to say abouit ourselves. Not one of us would say we believe the Bible by our actions all the time. Everyone of us would be pointing others to Jesus because we would realize what we have to offer--nothing. We are just the messenger.

The articles untaken in a set of books called “The Fundamentals” were written as an answer to the modernism and liberal theology of the latter part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. They were written in order for ministers of the gospel, missionaries, Sunday School superintendents, etc. would have at their disposal articles which would be useful in affirming and reaffirming the fundamental truths of Christianity in the face of ever increasing attacks against it. Those who funded the writing and publishing of the series did so at their own expense and all the books which were printed in the original twelve volume series were given away free of charge as a service to the recipients. People started call themselves fundamentalism who agreed with the writing in the books. Below is a site where you can find the books


http://www.xmission.com/~fidelis/volume1/volume1.html

So, I guess the question might be how much of a fundamentalist one is or isn't?

We all know full well that the word "fundamentalist" has negative connotations because of the 9/11 attacks.

The 'liberal news media' (as SMM said) quickly tried to capitolize the view of Islamics as evil, so it was changed to 'fundamentalist islamics' because they had been knocking heads with 'fundamentalist christians' over such issues as abortion and evolution for years and they pounced on any opportunity to lump all the negatives about religion into one basket, in an attempt at associating the negative image of terror exported daily by radical Islamics with the message those 'bible bangers' were preaching.

It is the secularization and undermining of the Biblical foundation this country was founded on that drives this sentiment.

As with many words in our recent media influenced history, the original meaning has been lost to 'fundamentalist' and replaced with a 'buzz-word' that may or may not mean the same thing - but certainly is loaded with extra inferred meanings.