What Is Fundamentalism?

History

Fundamentalism's first phase ran from the 1890s to the 1925 Scopes trial, as it broke, never completely, from Evangelicalism in reaction to liberal Protestantism. It then passed from public view without losing ground, and reemerged around 1970. Former Catholics are disproportionately represented: in many congregations, one-third to one-half of members, especially in the Northeast, Midwest and Southwest; an estimated one in six U.S. Hispanics is now Fundamentalist.

Fundamentalists claim to continue the faithful remnant of original Christianity, but until about a century ago there was no such separate movement. It arose against the Social Gospel, Darwinism, and German higher criticism of the Bible. Its basic elements came from the Princeton theology of B. B. Warfield and Charles Hodge. In 1909 oilmen Milton and Lyman Stewart funded The Fundamentals, twelve volumes by 64 contributors, three million copies of which were distributed free. The liberal Harry Fosdick's article "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" gave the movement its name.

The five fundamentals

1. The inspiration and infallibility of Scripture, in Warfield's plenary-verbal sense extending to the very words of the original manuscripts.
2. The deity of Christ, with the virgin birth. For many Fundamentalists, assurance of his divinity rests on inner experience; Warfield called the transforming power of the Lord in one's life the supreme proof. When ardor fades or sin comes, faith can fail, which explains many defections to agnosticism. They also hold Mary was a virgin only until Christ's birth.
3. Substitutionary atonement: Christ was punished by the Father in our place.
4. The bodily resurrection, on which they agree with Catholics.
5. The Second Coming, though they dispute whether it comes before or after the millennium, and whether there is a rapture.

Distinguishing marks

• Reliance on the Bible alone, excluding Church authority.
• Faith in Christ as personal Lord and Savior, a one-to-one relationship without community or sacraments, with salvation dated to the moment of "acceptance" and held to be assured.
• Intense evangelism, since those without that experience are thought lost.
• Disciplined, rule-bound congregations, with non-biblical rules on drinking, gambling, dancing and smoking, and heavy demands on members' time, so that nonconformity brings ostracism.

Despite criticism, Fundamentalists do hold key Christian truths in a society that has often forgotten Christ.