Bob, be accurate. Your statement (which I bolded) claims many who believe the fundamentals of the faith "will not defend the Word or oppose error." That is an opinion not based in facts. Every church that believes the fundamentals of the faith stands on the Word of God and defends the faith.
You apparently know nothing of the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies of the 1920s-1940s, during which many evangelicals in the major denominations refused to criticize or stand against theological liberalism. Again. you show no knowledge of the New Evangelical movement of the 1950s, which culminated in the 1957 New York Crusade of Billy Graham, who refused to disallow theological liberals from the crusade committee, thus not defending the faith. The New Evangelicals took the side of Graham, refusing to criticize or separate from liberals, and thus split evangelicalism down the middle: Fundamentalists and New Evangelicals.
Thus, virtually all church historians writing about Fundamentalism note that it was a movement opposing liberalism rather than uniting with it, as the New Evangelicals did. The New Evangelicals were genuine Christians who, nonetheless, refused to stand against heresy. Here are some quotes (I could give many more):
“Ideally, a Christian Fundamentalist is one who desires to reach out in love and compassion to people, believes and defends the whole Bible as the absolute, inerrant, and authoritative Word of God, and stands committed to the doctrine and practice of holiness.”
David O. Beale,
In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850 (Greenville: Unusual Publications, 1986), 4.
“Fundamentalism favored the cognitive and ideological battleground. Although the fundamentalists shared the other two movements’ [holiness Wesleyan and Pentecostals] concern for right living and the power of the Holy Spirit, they cared more about fighting for right doctrine.”
Joel Carpenter,
Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford U. Press, 1997), 5.
"So as we define fundamentalism it means a vigorous defense of the faith, active soul winning, great New Testament-type local churches going abroad to win multitudes, having fervent love for all of God's people and earnestly avoiding compromise in doctrine or yoking up with unbelievers"
John R. Rice,
I Am a Fundamentalist, (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord, 1975), 10.
“Fundamentalists view themselves as the legitimate heirs of historical New Testament Christianity. They see themselves as the militant and faithful defenders of biblical orthodoxy. They oppose Liberalism, communism, and left-wing Evangelicalism. True Fundamentalists hold strongly to the same basic tenets that they were debating seventy-five years ago. These defenders of the faith range from well-educated professors to backwoods preachers.”
Ed Dobson, Ed Hindson, Jerry Fallwell,
The Fundamentalist Phenomenon, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981, 1986), 2.