Fundamentalism - Controversy

Controversy

The Associated Press' AP Stylebook recommends that the term fundamentalist not be used for any group that does not apply the term to itself. A great many scholars have adopted a similar position. A good many scholars, however, use the term in the broader descriptive sense to refer to various groups in various religious traditions including those groups that would object to being classified as fundamentalists. That is the way that the term is used in The Fundamentalism Project by Martin Marty, et al., from the University of Chicago.

Christian fundamentalists, who generally consider the term to be pejorative when used to refer to themselves, often object to the placement of themselves and Islamist groups into a single category given that the fundamentals of Christianity are different from the fundamentals of Islam. They feel that characteristics based on the new definition are wrongly projected back onto Christian fundamentalists by their critics.

Many Muslims object to the use of the term when referring to Islamist groups, and oppose being placed in the same category as Christian fundamentalists, whom they see as theologically incomplete. Unlike Christian fundamentalist groups, Islamist groups do not use the term fundamentalist to refer to themselves. Shia groups which are often considered fundamentalist in the western world generally are not described that way in the Islamic world.