Fundamentalism - Christian

Christian

Main article: Christian fundamentalism See also: Evangelicalism

Fundamentalism as a movement arose in the United States, starting among conservative Presbyterian theologians at Princeton Theological Seminary in the late 19th century. It soon spread to conservatives among the Baptists and other denominations around 1910-1920. The movement's purpose was to reaffirm key theological tenets and defend them against the challenges of liberal theology and higher criticism.

The term "fundamentalism" has its roots in the Niagara Bible Conference (1878–1897), which defined those tenets it considered fundamental to Christian belief. The term was popularized by the The Fundamentals, a collection of twelve books on five subjects published in 1910 and funded by the brothers Milton and Lyman Stewart. This series of essays came to be representative of the "Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy", which appeared late in the 19th century within some Protestant denominations in the United States, and continued in earnest through the 1920s. The first formulation of American fundamentalist beliefs can be traced to the Niagara Bible Conference and, in 1910, to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which distilled these into what became known as the "five fundamentals":

• The inspiration of the Bible and the inerrancy of scripture as a result of this.
• The virgin birth of Christ.
• The belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin.
• The bodily resurrection of Christ.
• The historical reality of Christ's miracles.

By the late 1910s, theological conservatives rallying around the Five Fundamentals came to be known as "fundamentalists". In practice, the first point regarding the Bible was the focus of most of the controversy.

Fundamentalist groups generally refuse to participate in events with any group that does not share its essential doctrines. In contrast, Evangelical groups, while they typically agree on the theology "fundamentals" as expressed in The Fundamentals, often are willing to participate in events with religious groups who do not hold to the essential doctrines.