Talk:Christian fundamentalism

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Fundamentalist Christianity

The name of this ought to be Fundamentalist Protestantism because it excludes examples of fundamentalism in non-Protestant groups such as Roman Catholicism or Eastern/Oriental Orthodoxy. --96.227.235.245 (talk) 23:29, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Are there any specific examples of "fundamentalist" groups within Roman-Catholicism or other Orthodoxy? Jwesley78 (talk) 23:59, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Opus Dei perhaps? And I'm not simply talking about the anti-Christian/Catholic depictions as in certain recent novels. 203.25.1.208 (talk) 07:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Fundamentalist = Extremist?

Without proper citation, I feel the following sentence should be removed form the opening section: "Some left-leaning and centrist Christians since the turn of the twentieth century have taken to the use of the word 'extremist' instead, feeling that use of 'fundamentalism' provides the views of such groups with an authority they do not deserve."

The fundamentalists beliefs are held by many mainstream protestant denominations (e.g., Southern Baptists, most Pentecostals, most Methodists, most Presbyterians), and many of these are even shared with the Catholic church. To say that other (even "centrist") Christians refer to fundamentalists as "extremists" seems unlikely. Furthermore, I see no reason for the term "fundamentalist" to imply that they have more "authority", but merely that they have a stricter set of beliefs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwesley78 (talk • contribs) 03:28, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the sentence from the article. If you disagree, please add your thoughts here. Jwesley78 (talk) 19:38, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I feel that the opening paragraph of this article uses the word 'militant' too freely. It almost implies that there will be a large section of "people destroyed this and killed this in the name of...", however there is no such section. I personally group the words militant and extremist together, so if references to extremism were removed, what do you think about removing references to 'militant'? It implies a sort of violence associated with Fundamental Christianity, which this article does not portray. MattFromOntario (talk) 14:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

militant = violent??? not in ordinary English usage. It means intense devotion to a cause, and an eagerness to pick intellectual fights (not fist fights) [see the long Marsden quote at the end of this page] Rjensen (talk) 14:10, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Ecumenical analysis of the fundamentals

Instead of asking whether fundamentalists are necessarily anti-Catholic, a good idea would be to analyze whether the fundamentalist doctrines are in any way shared by Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Many of their beliefs are similar or comparable, while others are not. ADM (talk) 00:12, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

• Virgin birth : yes. The council of Ephesus authoritatively handed down this Gospel teaching. Catholics also believe in the Immaculate-Conception, which is a step further than the fundamentals.
• Inerrancy of Scripture : yes. It is affirmed at the Second Vatican Council's declaration Dei Verbum.
• Deity of Jesus : yes. This is a normative teaching of the ecumenical council of Nicea.
• Subsitutionary atonment : yes. It was originally a Catholic doctrine that was borrowed by Calvinists during the Reformation.
• Authenticity of miracles : yes. This is also affirmed by the document Dei Verbum.
• Bodily resurrection of Jesus : yes. This was notably affirmed by Catholic bishop Ignatius of Antioch against proponents of docetism.
• Pre-millenial Second Coming : no. The Church teaches amillenialism, a doctrine opposed to early beliefs on chiliasm, and so its beliefs about the Second Coming are not the same as most fundamentalists.
• Sola scriptura : no. This view is not shared, since Catholic teaching holds that the Word of God and the Body of Christ are closely related.

Higher Criticism

To expand the Higher Criticism topic. American Bible Students were reacting to the aggressive and often poorly researched revisionist statements and claims being made by Higher Critics. Modern American Skeptics often raise well thought out objections to what they see as fabrication or fantasy in religion. The Higher critics of the 19th century were presenting a case as ridiculous as the Scopes Monkey Trial Case. The challenge to modern Fundamentalism is to address the New School of Skeptics who are far more challenging than the limp 19th centuary revisionist 'scholars'.Johnwrd (talk) 23:46, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Got a source we can use? Bowler suggests it was more to do with Modernists accepting progressive ideas, which the fundamentalists found problematic in relation to original sin. . dave souza, talk 22:53, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

What Is the Heritage Movement?

Under the Section "Breakup", the following reference is made: "Many groupings, large and small, were produced by this schism. Neo-evangelicalism, Reformed and Lutheran Confessionalism, the Heritage movement, and Paleo-Orthodoxy have all developed distinct identities"

Just what is the Heritage Movement?

I find nothing describing it in terms of religion in general or fundamentalism in particular. From what I find it refers to the movement in England to preserve old buildings. The other terms all have researchable definitions, not so for Heritage Movement LAWinans (talk) 21:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Is this article meaningless?

In Feb 2008, Soxwon wrote "This article is in bad shape. There are no cites in the historical section, the definition of Fundamentalist Christianity can't seem to focus on anything meaningful, many schools of religion are given w/o elaboration as to their meaning or their role, lots of weasel words, a list of generalizations with almost no citations, and in general a lot of assertions that have no citations to back them up."

That is still true. The problem is that with the best will in the world, it is probably not possible to write a decent article on the subject, because the word "fundamentalist" is virtually meaningless. Or, to be precise, it has several different definitions, and these vary according to time (the word is no longer used in the same way that it was used in the early 20th century), with place (the American usage is not quite the same as the British usage), and according to the circles one moves in (different groups of people use the word in different ways.) Hence I believe that to have an article which describes something called "Fundamentalist Christianity" and tries to chart its history and development is simply not possible. It may, however, be possible to have an article on the different ways in which the word is defined and understood. Wildernessman (talk) 13:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

the solution perhaps is to closely follow the major scholarly studies -- the reliable sources such as books by Marsden, Sandeen, and Balmer. I have tried to do this add have also added information based on the scholarly journals. They all agree that fundamentalism is especially characterized by aggressive attacks on liberal modernism. Rjensen (talk) 08:37, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

removed non-sourced material

A whole section that has been challenged since 2007 and still was never sourced was deleted. There was plenty of forewarning. 97.85.185.160 (talk) 09:13, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Fundamentalism and evangelicals

The RS (eg Marsden, Baumer, Queen) agree that fundamentalism and evangelicalism are overlapping categories. for example the Southern Baptist denomination is both fundamentalist and evangelical. The distinction is one of style, with the more aggressive anti-liberal evangelicals called fundamentalists. Rjensen (talk) 05:18, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree that they are overlapping, per certain meanings of the terms, but even if we consider one a subset of the other, the langage I removed is misleading at best. The distinction is not just one of style. While I do not dispute that historians are RSs, the historian's meaning of "fundamentalism" is not the same as other meanings of "fundamentalism"-- and the historian's meaning of "fundamentalism" is a poor choice to treat as the main or only meaning in a Wikipedia article.

If you think such other ideas are able to be sorced, then sorce them. For example, the"Southern Baptist denomination" is not even unified under one theology or catagory. Each local church sets its own theology and practises. ^{şṗøʀĸşṗøʀĸ: τᴀʟĸ} 05:47, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Per "keep quote from Marsden"-- if any of the text is a quoted from from Marsden then it needs quotations marks around it. Without quotations marks it is (i) plagerism, (ii) needlessly difficult for other editors to further edit, and (iii) should be removed anyway as plagerism. ^{şṗøʀĸşṗøʀĸ: τᴀʟĸ} 05:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

good point about using quotation marks and I will add them. Marsden actually says about fundamentalism, :

Briefly it was militantly anti-modernists Protestant evangelicalism. Fundamentalists were evangelical Christians, close to the traditions of the dominant American revivalist establishment of the 19th century, who in the 20th-century militantly oppose both modernism in theology and the cultural cultural changes that modernism endorsed. Militant opposition to modernism was what most clearly set off the fundamentalism from a number of closely related traditions, such as evangelicalism, revivalism, Pietism, the Holiness movement, millenarianism, Reformed confessionalism, The Baptist traditionalism, and other denomination orthodoxies. Fundamentalism was a "movement" in the sense of a tendency or development in Christian thought that gradually took on its own identity as a patchwork coalition of representatives of other movements. Although it developed a distinct life, identity, and eventually a subculture of its own, it never existed wholly independently of the older movements from which it grew. Fundamentalism was a loose, diverse, and changing federation of cool belligerents united by their fierce opposition of modernist attempts to bring Christianity into line with modern thought. [George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture 1980 p 4 Rjensen (talk) 06:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The Fundamentals and Genesis

That the early Fundamenatlists were not literalists in their interpretation of Genesis 1 is clear from James Orr's article on this subject. Please correct the record.