Fundamentalism

There's the dreaded word. It conjures up images of uneducated bigots, backward Bible-thumbing preachers and the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini. But it's a bad rap.

'Fundamentalism' is really akin to Lewis's 'mere Christianity' discussed earlier, or the rules of faith in the early church; it means adherence to the fundamental facts - in this case, the fundamental facts of Christianity. It is a term that was once a badge of honour, and we should reclaim it.

At the end of the nineteenth century, evolution and the new higher biblical criticism began to challenge biblical authority. This assault affected even great theological institutions such as Princeton Seminary, which, though once orthodox, began questioning fundamental doctrines such as the Virgin Birth and inerrancy of Scripture. Meanwhile, a lively social gospel was also surfacing. Strong in good intentions, it was weak in biblical doctrine and orthodoxy.

So a group of theologians, pastors and laypeople published a series of volumes titled "The Fundamentals". Published between 1910 and 1915, these booklets defined what had been the non-negotiables of the faith since the Apostles' Creed:

1.the infallibility of Scripture
2.the deity of Christ
3.the Virgin Birth and miracles of Christ
4.Christ's substitutionary death
5.Christ's physical resurrection and eventual return.

These were then, as they are today, the backbone of orthodox Christianity. If a fundamentalist is a person who affirms these truths, then there are fundamentalists in every denomination - Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, Brethren, Methodist, Episcopal .... Everyone who believes in the orthodox truths about Jesus Christ - in short, every Christian - is a fundamentalist. And we should not shrink from the term nor allow the secular world to distort its meaning.

An excerpt from "The Body" by Charles Colson.