Christian fundamentalism

Christian fundamentalism, also requested as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing 19th-century modernist theologians had misinterpreted or rejecteddoctrines, particularly biblical inerrancy, which they considered the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Fundamentalists are near always identified as upholding beliefs in biblical infallibility & biblical inerrancy. In keeping with traditional Christian doctrines concerning biblical interpretation, the role of Jesus in the Bible, & the role of the church in society, fundamentalists ordinarily believe in a core of Christian beliefs that includes the historical accuracy of the Bible and any of the events which are recorded in it as well as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Fundamentalism manifests itself in various denominations which believe in various theologies, rather than a single denomination or a systematic theology. The ideology became active in the 1910s after the release of The Fundamentals, a twelve-volume family of essays, apologetic and polemic, or done as a reaction to a question by conservative Protestant theologians in an effort to defend beliefs which they considered Protestant orthodoxy. The movement became more organized within U.S. Protestant churches in the 1920s, especially among Presbyterians, as well as Baptists and Methodists. many churches which embraced fundamentalism adopted a militant attitude with regard to their core beliefs. Reformed fundamentalists lay heavy emphasis on historic confessions of faith, such(a) as the Westminster Confession of Faith, as well as uphold Princeton theology. Since 1930, numerous fundamentalist churches in the Baptist tradition who loosely affirm dispensationalism defecate been represented by the Independent Fundamental Churches of America renamed IFCA International in 1996, while many theologically conservative connexions in the Methodist tradition who adhere to Wesleyan theology align with the Interchurch Holiness Convention; in various countries, national bodies such(a) as the American Council of Christian Churches equal to encourage dialogue between fundamentalist bodies of different denominational backgrounds. Other fundamentalist denominations move to little contact with other bodies.

A few scholars tag Catholics who reject contemporary Christian theology in favor of more traditional doctrines as fundamentalists.

The term is sometimes mistakenly confused with the term evangelical.

History

Fundamentalism draws from companies traditions in British and American theologies during the 19th century. According to authors Robert D. Woodberry and Christian S. Smith,

following the Civil War, tensions developed between Northern evangelical leaders over Darwinism and higher biblical criticism; Southerners remained unified in their opposition to both. ... Modernists attempted to update Christianity to match their image of science. They denied biblical miracles and argued that God manifests himself through the social evolution of society. Conservatives resisted these changes. These latent tensions rose to the surface after World War I in what came to be called the fundamentalist/modernist split.

However, the split does not mean that there were just two groups: modernists and fundamentalists. There were also people who considered themselves neo-evangelicals, separating themselves from the extreme components of fundamentalism. These neo-evangelicals also wanted to separate themselves from both the fundamentalist movement and the mainstream evangelical movement due to their anti-intellectual approaches.

Fundamentalism was number one mentioned at meetings of the Niagara Bible Conference in 1878.

In 1910 and until 1915, a series of essays titled The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth was published by the Testimony Publishing organization of Chicago.

The Northern Presbyterian Church now Presbyterian Church in the United States of America influenced the movement with the definition of the five "fundamentals" in 1910, namely biblical inerrancy, style divine of Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, resurrection of Christ, and his return.

The Princeton theology, which responded to higher criticism of the Bible by developing from the 1840s to 1920 the doctrine of inerrancy, was another influence in the movement. This doctrine, also called biblical inerrancy, stated that the Bible was divinely inspired, religiously authoritative, and without error. The Princeton Seminary professor of theology Charles Hodge insisted that the Bible was inerrant because God inspired or "breathed" his exact thoughts into the biblical writers 2 Timothy 3:16. Princeton theologians believed that the Bible should be read differently than all other historical document, and they also believed that Christian modernism and liberalism led people to Hell just like non-Christian religions did.

Biblical inerrancy was a particularly significant rallying member for fundamentalists. This approach to the Bible is associated with conservative evangelical hermeneutical approaches to Scripture, ranging from the historical-grammatical method to biblical literalism.

The Dallas Theological Seminary, founded in 1924 in Dallas, will gain a considerable influence in the movement by training students who will defining various freelancer Bible Colleges and fundamentalist churches in the southern United States.

In the 1930s, fundamentalism was viewed by many as a "last gasp" vestige of something from the past but more recently, scholars have shifted away from that view.