Christian fundamentalism
Fundamentalists argued that 19th-century modernist theologians had misunderstood or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, which they considered the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
[11] A few scholars label Catholic activist conservative associations who reject modern Christian theology in favor of more traditional doctrines as fundamentalists.
[16] Some who hold certain, but not all beliefs in common with the original fundamentalist movement reject the label fundamentalism, due to its perceived pejorative nature, while others consider it a banner of pride.
[18] 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.
[25][26] 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).
Another group "for conservative Christians who wanted to be culturally engaged" was the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) founded in 1942, by Harold Ockenga.
[32] Fundamentalism was seen as a form of anti-intellectualism during the 1950s; in the early 1960s American intellectual and historian Richard Hofstadter interpreted it in terms of status anxiety, social displacement, and 'Manichean mentality'.
[32] Instead of interpreting fundamentalism as a simple anti-intellectualism, Paul Carter argued that "fundamentalists were simply intellectual in a way different than their opponents".
"[37] Others viewing militancy as a core characteristic of the fundamentalist movement include Philip Melling, Ung Kyu Pak and Ronald Witherup.
"[41] According to Marsden, recent scholars differentiate "fundamentalists" from "evangelicals" by arguing the former were more militant and less willing to collaborate with groups considered "modernist" in theology.
A dynamic preacher and leader in Canadian fundamentalism, Smith wrote 35 books and engaged in missionary work worldwide.
At a large conference in Philadelphia in 1919, Riley founded the World Christian Fundamentals Association (WCFA), which became the chief interdenominational fundamentalist organization in the 1920s.
[49][50] Although the fundamentalist drive to take control of the major Protestant denominations failed at the national level during the 1920s, the network of churches and missions fostered by Riley showed that the movement was growing in strength, especially in the U.S. South.
Both rural and urban in character, the flourishing movement acted as a denominational surrogate and fostered a militant evangelical Christian orthodoxy.
In 1972–1980 General Social Surveys, 65 percent of respondents from the "East South Central" region (comprising Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Alabama) self-identified as fundamentalist.
[58] Edwards (2000), however, challenges the consensus view among scholars that in the wake of the Scopes trial, fundamentalism retreated into the political and cultural background, a viewpoint which is evidenced in the movie Inherit the Wind and the majority of contemporary historical accounts.
It lacked a prestigious leader like Bryan, utilized pseudoscientific argument rather than religious rhetoric, and was a product of California and Michigan rather than the South.
[60] Webb (1991) traces the political and legal struggles between strict creationists and Darwinists to influence the extent to which evolution would be taught as science in Arizona and California schools.
These included Reverends R. S. Beal and Aubrey L. Moore in Arizona and members of the Creation Research Society in California, all supported by distinguished laymen.
They sought to ban evolution as a topic for study, or at least relegate it to the status of unproven theory perhaps taught alongside the biblical version of creation.
The broader term "evangelical" includes fundamentalists as well as people with similar or identical religious beliefs who do not engage the outside challenge to the Bible as actively.
According French, that psychology is one that shares "three key traits": certainty (of a mind unclouded by doubt), ferocity (against perceived enemies of their religion) and solidarity (of "comrades in the foxhole", a virtue surpassing even piety in importance).
[67] By the time Ronald Reagan ran for the presidency in 1980, fundamentalist preachers, like the prohibitionist ministers of the early 20th century, were organizing their congregations to vote for supportive candidates.
The Logos Foundation, led by Howard Carter, was a controversial Christian ministry in the 1970s and 1980s that promoted Reconstructionist, Restorationist, and Dominionist theology.
In 2013, composer Andrei Kormukhin and athlete Vladimir Nosov founded the Orthodox fundamentalist and conservative Christian organization known as the Sorok Sorokov Movement.
The Sorok Sorokov Movement was founded in reaction to Pussy Riot's 2012 protests, which were themselves against increasingly socially conservative policies in Russia, including moves towards decriminalizing wifebeating and criminalizing homosexuality.
Chaplin in particular supported the creation of "Orthodox squads" in order to punish people from carrying out "blasphemous acts" in religious places.
Some have argues that the Sorok Sorkov Movement has been involved in protecting the construction of Russian Orthodox churches in Moscow, though the facts have been hard to verify with this.
However, through the complexity of the dispensational framework, it has actually forced lay readers to remain dependent upon the inductive methods of Bible teachers and ministers.
[87] Christian fundamentalism has been linked to child abuse[88][89][90] as well as corporal punishment,[91][92] with a number of practitioners believing that the Bible tells them to spank their children.
