A theological tendency seeking to preserve what are thought to be the essential doctrines (fundamentals) of a religion. The term was originally used of the conservative US Protestant movement in the 1920s, characterized by a literal interpretation of the Bible, and revived with conservative Christian movements in the late 20th-c. Generally, it is any theological position opposed to liberalism, with important (often violent) manifestations found today in all major religions, notably Islam.
Religious Definition:
In comparative religion, fundamentalism has come to refer to several different understandings of religious thought and practice, through literal interpretation of religious texts such as the Bible or the Qur'an and sometimes also anti-modernist movements in various religions.
Non-Subject Specific Definition:
Movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles.
Brief History:
Fundamentalism is a continuing historical phenomenon, characterized by a sense of embattled alienation in the midst of the surrounding culture, even where the culture may be nominally influenced by the adherents' religion.
Similarly, Fundamentalism, as the term is used today, is a fairly recent creation closely linked with the historical and cultural contexts of 1920s U.S. Protestantism (e.g.
Many groups described as fundamentalist often strongly object to this term because of the negative connotations it carries, or because it implies a similarity between themselves and other groups, which they find objectionable.
The fundamentalist phenomenon
Although the term fundamentalism in popular usage sometimes refers derogatorily to any fringe religious group, or to extremist ethnic movements with only nominally religious motivations, the term does have a more precise denotation. "Fundamentalist" describes a movement to return to what is considered the defining or founding principles of the religion. It has especially come to refer to any religious enclave that intentionally resists identification with the larger religious group in which it originally arose, on the basis that fundamental principles upon which the larger religious group is supposedly founded have become corrupt or displaced by alternative principles hostile to its identity.
This formation of a separate identity is deemed necessary on account of a perception that the religious community has surrendered its ability to define itself in religious terms. The "fundamentals" of the religion have been jettisoned by neglect, lost through compromise and inattention, so that the general religious community's explanation of itself appears to the separatist to be in terms that are completely alien and fundamentally hostile to the religion itself. Fundamentalist movements are therefore founded upon the same religious principles as the larger group, but the fundamentalists more self-consciously attempt to build an entire approach to the modern world based on strict fidelity to those principles, to preserve a distinctness both of doctrine and of life.
The term itself is borrowed from the title of a four volume set of books called The Fundamentals published in 1909. They were called "The Fundamentals" because they appealed to all Christians to affirm specific fundamental doctrines such as The Virgin Birth and bodily Resurrection of Jesus.
The pattern of the conflict between Fundamentalism and Modernism in Protestant Christianity has remarkable parallels in other religious communities, and in its use as a description of these corresponding aspects in otherwise diverse religious movements the term "fundamentalist" has become more than only a term either of self-description or of derogatory contempt. Fundamentalism is therefore a movement through which the adherents attempt to rescue religious identity from absorption into modern, Western culture, where this absorption appears to the enclave to have made irreversible progress in the wider religious community, necessitating the assertion of a separate identity based upon the fundamental or founding principles of the religion.
Fundamentalists believe their cause to have grave and even cosmic importance. Community, comprehensively centered upon a clearly defined religious way of life in all of its aspects, is the promise of fundamentalist movements, and it therefore appeals to those adherents of religion who find little that is distinctive, or authentically vital in their previous religious identity.
The fundamentalist "wall of virtue", which protects their identity, is erected against not only alien religions, but also against the modernized, compromised, nominal version of their own religion. There are fundamentalist equivalents in Hinduism and other world religions. These groups insist on a sharp boundary between themselves and the faithful adherents of other religions, and finally between a "sacred" view of life and the "secular" world and "nominal religion". Fundamentalists direct their critiques toward and draw most of their converts from the larger community of their religion, by attempting to convince them that they are not experiencing the authentic version of their professed religion.
Many scholars see most forms of fundamentalism as having similar traits.
Objections to the use of the term
Christian fundamentalists, who generally consider the term to be positive when used to refer to themselves, often strongly object to the placement of themselves and Islamist groups into a single category. There is however no objection to the term fundamentalist when used to describe only Christian groups, and objections to the term Muslim fundamentalist are much less strong.
Many Muslims protest the use of the term when referring to Islamist groups, because all Muslims believe in the absolute inerrancy of the Qur'an, and western writers only use the term to refer to extremist groups. Unlike Christian fundamentalist groups, Islamist groups do not use the term fundamentalist to refer to themselves. Shiite groups which are considered fundamentalist in the western world are not considered such in the Islamic world.
The Associated Press' AP Stylebook recommends that the term fundamentalist not be used for any group that does not apply the term to itself. This would generally mean that some Christian groups can be described as fundamentalist, but Islamist groups can not be.
Basic beliefs of religious fundamentalists
For religious fundamentalists, sacred scripture is considered the authentic, and literal word of their religion's god. Fundamentalist beliefs depend on the twin doctrines that their god articulated his will precisely to prophets, and that followers also have a reliable and perfect record of that revelation.
Since a religion's scripture is considered the word of its god, fundamentalists believe that no person is right to change it or disagree with it. The fundamentalist insistence on strict observation of religious laws may lead to an accusation of legalism in addition to exclusivism in the interpretation of metaphysical beliefs.
Christian views
Self-described Christian fundamentalists see the scripture, a combination of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as both infallible and historically accurate. On the basis of this confidence in Scripture, many fundamentalist Christians accept the account of scripture as being literally true.
It is important to distinguish between the "literalist" and Fundamentalist groups within the Christian community.
Many Christian Fundamentalists, on the other hand, are for the most part content to hold that the Bible should be taken literally only where there is no indication to the contrary. As William Jennings Bryan put it, in response to Clarence Darrow's questioning during the Scopes Trial (1925):
"I believe that everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there;
Nevertheless, they typically believe that it is the church's obligation to understand the Scriptures, so far as that is possible, to believe what they say, and to act accordingly.
According to Lionel Caplan, a so-called expert on religious fundamentalism,
"In the Protestant milieu of the USA, fundamentalism crystallized in response to liberals' eagerness to bring Christianity into the post-Darwinian world by questioning the scientific and historical accuracy of the scripture. 9 of Caplan 1987] suggests that to understand the success of the Moral Majority, an alliance between the conservative forces of the New Right and the fundamentalist wings on the mainly Southern Baptist Churches, we have to appreciate these fears, as well as the impact of a host of unwelcome changes - in attitudes to 'morality', family, civil and women's rights, and so on - which have, in the wake of economic transformations since the Second World War, penetrated especially the previously insular social and cultural world of the American South." (Caplan 1987: 6)
The term fundamentalist has historically referred specifically to members of the various Protestant denominations who subscribed to the five "fundamentals", rather than fundamentalists forming an independent denomination. This wider movement of Fundamentalist Christianity has since broken up into various movements which are better described in other terms.
Over time the term came to be associated with a particular segment of evangelical Protestantism, who distinguished themselves by their separatist approach toward modernity, toward aspects of the culture which they feel typify the modern world, and toward other Christians who did not similarly separate themselves. Examples of things that fundamentalists might believe important to avoid are, modern translations of the Bible, alcoholic drinks or recreational drugs, tobacco, modern popular music including Christian contemporary music, folk instruments in worship, dancing, "mixed bathing" (men and women swimming together), and gender-neutral or trans-gender clothing and hair-styles.
Because of the prevalence of dispensational eschatology, some fundamentalists vehemently support the modern nation of Israel, believing the Jews to have significance in God's purposes parallel to the Christian churches, and a special role to play at the end of the world.
The term, fundamentalist, is difficult to apply unambiguously, especially when applied to groups outside the USA, which are typically far less dogmatic. Many self-described Fundamentalists would include Jerry Falwell in their company, but would not embrace Pat Robertson as a fundamentalist because of his espousal of charismatic teachings. Fundamentalist institutions include Pensacola Christian College, and Bob Jones University, but classically Fundamentalist schools such as Fuller Theological Seminary and Biola University no longer describe themselves as Fundamentalist, although in the broad sense described by this article they are fundamentalist (better, Evangelical) in their perspective. - the Bible Institute of Los Angeles - was founded under the financial patronage of Lyman Stewart, with his brother Milton, underwrote the publication of a series of 12 books jointly entitled The Fundamentals between 1909 and 1920.)
In its broader sense fundamentalism has been applied to some Catholic as well as Protestant groups within Christianity. Arguably fundamentalist features within some Catholic monastic or religious orders, past or present, have not yet been sufficiently discussed. Members of the Catholic group, Opus Dei, insist that they lack fundamentalist and other traits usually ascribed to cults or sects. They add that if their perspective can be called fundamentalist, then so can many other groups among Catholic and Protestant Christians(In example, the Catholic Church does not believe in the total sinfulness of homosexuality, a belief which would be a far stretch for most Protestant churches). Fundamentalist dysfunctions and functions recently recognized in new religious groups are freshly perceived as increasingly visible among larger traditions. In short, intensive fundamentalist traits shed new light on the presence of fundamentalist features in more comprehensive and traditional contexts. Further discussion might disclose how deeply fundamentalist phenomena may or may not be rooted and spread throughout broader religious traditions.
Jewish views
Most Jewish denominations believe that the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible or Old Testament) cannot be understood literally or alone, but rather needs to be read in conjunction with additional material known as the Oral Torah;
Mormon views
Mormon fundamentalism is a conservative movement of Mormonism that believes or practices what its adherents consider to be the fundamental aspects of Mormonism. Most often, Mormon fundamentalism represents a break from the brand of Mormonism practiced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and a return to Mormon doctrines and practices which adherents believe the LDS Church has wrongly abandoned, such as plural marriage, the Law of Consecration, the Adam-God theory, blood atonement, the Patriarchal Priesthood, elements of the Mormon Endowment ritual, and often the exclusion of Blacks from the priesthood.
Islamic views
Muslims believe that their religion was revealed by God (Allah in Arabic) to Muhammad,the prophet of Islam, the final prophet delivered by God. However, the Muslims brand of conservatism which is generally termed Islamic fundamentalism encompasses all the following:
It describes the beliefs of traditional Muslims that they should restrict themselves to literal interpretations of their sacred texts, the Qur'an and Hadith.In all the above cases, Islamic fundamentalism represents a conservative religious belief, as opposed to liberal movements within Islam.
"Non-Abrahamic" religions
Some argue that the religious idea of fundamentalism is limited to "Abrahamic religions", and have connected the phenomenon specifically to the notion of revealed religion.
Buddhism
H.H. the Dalai Lama has agreed that there exist also extremists and fundamentalists in Buddhism, argueing that fundamentalists are not even able to pick up the idea of a possibly dialogue.
The Japanese Nichiren sect of Buddhism, which believes that other forms of Buddhism are heretical, is also sometimes labelled fundamentalist. However, Nichiren Buddhism contains influences from Shintoism and a strongly nationalistic streak that would disqualify it from being fundamentalist in the strictest sense.
At the height of the Dorje Shugden Controversy Robert Thurman claimed: "It would not be unfair to call Shugdens the Taliban of Tibetan Buddhism" referring to the Muslim extremists of Afghanistan, who believe in swift and brutal justice.
David N. Kay argued in his doctoral research that the New Kadampa Tradition fits into the criteria of Robert Lifton’s definition of the fundamentalist self.
Non-religious fundamentalism
Some refer to any literal-minded or intolerant philosophy with pretense of being the sole source of objective truth, as fundamentalist, regardless of whether it is usually called a religion. For example, when Albania under Enver Hoxha declared itself an "atheist state", it was deemed by some to be a kind of "Fundamentalist Atheism" or more accurately "Stalinist Fundamentalism". There are people who in their attempt to live according to the writings of Ayn Rand seem to detractors to transgress respect for other perspectives in propagating their views, so that they are deemed to be a kind of "Objectivist Fundamentalist", and they are spoken of derogatorily as, "Randroids."
Occasionally, it seems to represent an idea of purity, and is self-applied as signifying a rather counter-cultural fidelity to some noble, simple, but overlooked principle, as in Economic fundamentalism;
Arguments in favour of fundamentalist positions
Fundamentalists claim both that they practice their religion as the first adherents did and that this is how religion should be practiced. Fundamentalists justify this belief on the idea that the founders of the world's religions said and did things that were not written down; For fundamentalist Christians, this claim is justified by the Gospel of John, which ends with the statement "there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."
Criticism of the fundamentalist position
Many criticisms of the fundamentalist position have been offered. Some of the most common are that the theological claims made by fundamentalist groups cannot be proven, are irrational or are demonstrably false and contrary to scientific evidence. Consequently, each fundamentalist faith is observed to splinter into many mutually antagonistic groups. In addition, it has been observed that there is no such thing as a Muslim, Jewish, or Christian Fundamentalist. Rather, a fundamentalist's fundamentalism is their primary concern, over and above other denominational or faith considerations.
In order to carry out the fundamentalist program in practice, critics claim that one would first need a perfect understanding of the ancient language of the original text, if indeed the true text can be discerned from among variants. (A Living Tree, Dorff, 1988)
Most fundamentalists do not deal with this argument.
Fundamentalism is held by many to cause followers of a faith to become overly attached to their religion's leaders.
A general criticism of fundamentalism is the claim that fundamentalists are selective in what they believe and practice. Yet fundamentalist Christians do not adhere to this doctrine, despite the fact that it is not contradicted in the New Testament. Critics contend that unreasonable literal readings of the Bible and other religious texts by fundamentalists necessarily result in advocating contradictory and even hypocritical positions.
Christian fundamentalists often insist that the Bible is infallible in its various prophetic assertions.
Another discrepancy found in the actual recorded words of the Bible is found in Mark 2:26 when Jesus asks the Pharisees if they remembered how David “went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering.” According to 1 Samuel 21, however, the high priest was Abiathar’s father, Ahimelech.
Fundamentalist teachings are criticised by questioning the historical accuracy of the religious texts in question when compared to other historical sources;
Fundamentalism and politics
"Fundamentalism" is a morally charged, emotive term, often used as a term of opprobrium, particularly in combination with other epithets (as in the phrase "Muslim fundamentalists" and "right-wing fundamentalists").
Very often religious fundamentalists, in all religions, are politically aware.
Most "Christian" countries go through a similar stage in their development. The governments of many Muslim countries, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, are Islamic, and include people with fundamentalist beliefs.
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