Also Salty is just confused about what fundamentalist means. (*slaps Salty*)
I'm confused? I am most certaintly not! I will now explain what I was talking about. A year or so ago, I based my concept on the following web site.
Fundamentalist Christianity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The article seems to have changed since I last read it, so I had to go and look elsewhere for info that would help explain my concept of fundamentalist Christianity. At the end of my post I will explain my own concept of what "fundamentalist Christianity" is.
The first here lists the so-called "Five Fundamentals" of a movement that came to be called "fundamentalist Christianity."
Fundamentalism
Over against these developments, the "Fundamentals" emerge as basic claims of faith. These include "the Five Points":
1) Divinely inspired scriptures which were inerrant in the original writing;
2) Christ's virgin birth and deity;
3) Christ's substitutionary atonement;
4) Christ's resurrection, and
5) Christ's personal pre-millennial and imminent second coming.
More generally, James Barr characterizes fundamentalism as marked by:
1) a strong emphasis on the inerrancy of the Bible;
2) a strong hostility to modern theology and to the methods, results and implications of modern critical study of the Bible, and
3) an assurance that those who do not share their religious viewpoint are not really "true Christians"
The third point in the second part, highlighted in bold, is where I would like to put an emphasis. It is the strict adherence to a system of doctrines, the belief either that they take Christianity more seriously than others, or that everybody else isn't a true Christian.
The following is another perspective. It is the idea that God has fixed ideas on moral and ethical issues. That is what I see as yet another aspect of what I call "Christian fundamentalism."
Liberal-Bane – The Real Truth About Christian Fundamentalism
This notion that G-d has fixed ideas on political issues is what Islamic fundamentalists believe, not us. — Andrew Sullivan, The New Republic
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The above quote displays the thinking that lies at the heart of the continuing slander and deconstruction of Christian Fundamentalism. Sullivan ´s quote lumps anyone who believes that G-d´s ideas are fixed and unchangeable with the Islamic terrorists who crashed airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Since Christian Fundamentalists do believe that G-d´s ideas are ‘fixed´ (‘I am the Lord; I change not. –Malachi 3:6; et al), Sullivan is making the not-so-subtle inference that Christian Fundamentalists are just as violent and apt to commit such heinous deeds as Osama Bin Laden and his murderous zealots. The fact that Sullivan is a nominal Conservative reveals just how pervasive liberal Christian theology has become. In fact, it was in response to that so-called theology that Christian Fundamentalism first arose, early in the 20th century.
The Historical Roots of America's Christian Fundamentalism
Long before the American Civil War, an ostensibly Christian religion arose which completely neglected the hundreds of biblical injunctions for social justice. In place of a message of social justice, this new Christian religion demanded only one thing: from the elite, money; from the rest of society, obedience to the established order. To assist the church in supporting the established power, the church demanded two things from the faithful. First, the true believer must have an unquestioning faith in the religious teachihngs of their church, usually expressed as an unquestioning adherence to the Bible as most helpfully interpreted by that Christian church, even if that unquestioning faith required one to suspend his willingness to reason and his ability to accept reality and facts.
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America's fundamentalist Christianity, then, is descended from the religion of slave owners, slave traders, and slaves. America's fundamentalist Christianity does not know how to liberate the oppressed, but it does know how to comfort bring comfort to the oppressor. America's fundamentalist Christianity does not know how to bring social justice into the world, but it does know how to subjugate the masses. America's fundamentalist Christianity does not know how to make the world a better place, but it does know how to silence dissent. America's fundamentalist Christianity is descended from the religion of slave owners, slave traders, and slaves. Beware the blessings of those who follow the religion descended from the religion of slave owners, slave traders, and slaves.
Christian Fundamentalism
1. Their religion forms their identity, both personal and communal.
2. There is one and only one truth, and it is theirs.
3. They are purposefully shocking.
4. They see themselves as part of a "cosmic struggle".
5. They interpret historical events as part of their "cosmic struggle".
6. They try to make any opposition to them look bad and immoral.
7. They only emphasize some parts of their heritage (in other words, they ignore what it is convenient to ignore).
8. Their leaders are typically male.
9. They try to rebel against the current distribution of power.
According to Bruce Lawrence (see Further Reading) Fundamentalists tend to see themselves as a repressed minority, even when they may in fact be a majority (or, at least, a major minority). They make up their own technical vocabulary, and although there are many roots and antecedents to Fundamentalism, it is its own movement, and nothing before it resembles it in every particular.
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Fundamentalism didn't become a serious political issue until the 1970s, when it became clear that the Fundamentalists were no longer an ignorable minority. It was at this time that the political Right began courting the Fundamentalists. Since then, the Christian Right has become a dominant force in national politics, and, since the United States is so visible on the global scene, it is becoming more and more influential in world politics as well.
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What does this mean for politics? Our nation seems to be drifting slowly but surely towards the right. With so many politicians holding either Fundamentalist views or very Christian Right views, the dynamic of our country is changing. Laws are being proposed that uphold Fundamentalist beliefs, such as the ban on abortions, educational reform laws, and welfare reform laws. It will be interesting to see how the rise of Christian Fundamentalism will influence politics in the next century.
Fundamentalism
One definition of fundamentalism, which is quite popular in modern media today, refers to any or all groups who react to modernism in a militant way. In this light, modern Islamic jihadists are described as "Islamic fundamentalists", and many unhelpful comparisons are often made between such persons and Christian fundamentalism.
Another quote:
Christian fundamentalism - Blog Toplist
The word fundamentalism conjures up all kinds of images in the 21st century mind.
Many equate fundamentalism with religious extremists who use violence to suppress or eradicate dissenting views. There was a day, however, when fundamentalism, in the Christian sense, simply meant to believe in the basics of the
faith.
I am basing my concept of fundamentalism on the sentence highlighted in bold, not the last part.
Christian fundamentalism fuels hatred, war - Christian Aggression
Almost invariably, fundamentalist movements are led by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others and, within religious groups, have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women and to dominate their fellow believers.
Fundamentalists are militant in fighting against any challenge to their beliefs. They are often angry and sometimes resort to verbal or even physical abuse against those who interfere with the implementation of their agenda.
Fundamentalists tend to make their self-definition increasingly narrow and restricted, to isolate themselves, to demagogue emotional issues, and to view change, cooperation, negotiation, and other efforts to resolve differences as signs of weakness.
Christian Fundamentalism is not militant - Reader comments at DanielPipes.org
I don't get it. Some of your commentors take ever opportunity to attack Christian Fundamentalism in the same vein as militant Islam.
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I get it! If you don't believe as they do you must be the enemy! That sounds a lot like militant islam - if you don't believe as we do we can attack you. A revival of Christianity worldwide, is a good thing and certainly is not to be feared as some of your commentors suggested.
Interesting view, but after that, it doesn't seem to say much.
I'd like to clarify that I'm not basing my concept of Christian fundamentalism on adherence to the Five Fundamentals, which was the original definition, but the latter, influenced by the September 11th attacks, which served as a metaphor for Fundie Christianity as a phenomenon of religious people who behaved like cosmic and ideological terrorists.
"Fundie Christianity" according to the latter definition disturbs me because it is supremacist. It believes it is more devout, more devoted and loyal to Christianity than me. It is a phenomenon of bragging, boastfulness, arrogance and conceit. I am not talking about the Five Fundamentals here. I am talking about bragging, boastfulness, arrogance and conceit. If there is a reason why the Five Fundamentals may be involved, and why conformists to the Five Fundamentals are often equated with this concept of Fundie Christianity, it's because they often brag about their conformity to the Five Fundamentals, which puts those conformists to the original definition of Fundie Christianity in the same category as the latter.
