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Introduction Roots Qf Contemporary Protestant Fundamentalism

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Introduction Roots Qf Contemporary Protestant Fundamentalism CHAPTER ONE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO PROTESTANT, CHRISTIAN AND ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISMS CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM Introduction Christian Protestant fundamentalism I is based on a history of cyclical religious awakenings and revivals reaching back to the Reformation. In the USA it was the Great Awakening of the 18th century and the revivals of the 19th that prepared the ground,2 but there were similar revivals in England and other Protestant European countries. This study focuses mainly on American fundamentalism as it is the largest and most influential of contemporary Christian fundamentalisms. American fundamentalism is the driving force of the world wide phenomenon, as it predominates in both numbers and resources. At the same time it impacts and lives in symbiosis with similar movements around the global Christian world. 3 Roots qf Contemporary Protestant Fundamentalism The roots of Protestant fundamentalism lie in the response of Conservative Protestants (Evangelicals) to the encroachments of the Enlightenment and of secularism on the Protestant churches at the end of the 19th century and during the early years of the 20th century. During this period modernist liberal theology penetrated the establishment of main­ line Protestant denominations, initiating doctrinal controversies and a struggle for the control of the churches and their institutions. Fundamen­ talism was the specific conservative Protestant reaction to the growing influence of modernism, perceived as denying the uniqueness and author­ ity of the Christian revelation. The movement sought to defend the essential doctrines (fundamentals) of Christianity against the attacks of I \Vhile this study concentrates on Protestant fundamentalism, it is important to note that there are movements in Catholicism and Orthodoxy which may be labeled fundamentalist too in spite of many differences to the Protestant variety. 2 William Martin. 1996. With God on Our Side: The Rise qf the Religious Right in America, pp. 3-5. 3 Steve Brouwer, Paul Gifford, & Susan D. Rose, eds., 1996. Exporting the Ame11Can Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism, pp. 1-6. Also George M. Marsden. 1980. Fundamentalism and Culture: The Shaping qf TlEentieth-Centul)' Evallgelicalism, 1870-1925, pp. 221-222. 24 CHAPTER ONE modemistic thought. 4 It was also a response to the alienating upheaval of accelerated industrialization and urbanization of that period:' Fundamentalists claim that their belief in the essentials of the Christian h'lith, especially the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, is the traditional and orthodox Christian view, prevalent in the early church and dominant until modem times~they are simply retuming to tradi­ tional biblical orthodoxy.6 Contemporary American fundamentalists also claim to be inheritors of the worldview of the puritan Founding Fathers mediated through the Evangelical revivalism which dominated 18th and 19th century American culture with its emphasis on individual conver­ sion, piety and voluntarism. 7 Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism 'Vhilst some observers see Fundamentalism as a movement parallel to and separate from evangelicalism, it is better to view modem Fundamen­ talism as the conservative wing of Evangelicalism which in turn is the conservative wing of Protestantism. 8 Pentecostalists and Charismatics form a distinctive group within Evangelicalism and its fundamentalist wing. They accept fundamental­ ist inerrancy views of scripture and tend to a premillennial view of eschatology. Their unique doctrinal contribution is their stress on an empowering baptism by the Spirit after conversion, and on the avail­ ability of charismatic gifts for all beiieversY I Gcorgc M. Marsdcn. 1991. Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, pp. 7-9; FrankJ Lcehncr. 1990. "Fundamcntalism Rcvisited", in Robbins & Anthony, eds. In GOdf We Trust, p. 85; Wade, C. Roof. 1986. "Thc New Fundamcntalism: Rebirth of Political Religion in Ameriea", in Hadden & Shupe, eds., Prophetie Religions and Politics, p. 19; David \V. Cloud. 1995. "Fundamcntalism, lVIodcrnism, and Ncw­ Evangeliealism", in 0 Ti'mothy, Vol. 12, Issue I, 1995, Oak Harbor, \VA: \Vay of Life Literaturc. j Ninian Smart. 1987. "Thrce Forms of Religious Convergcnee", in Antoun & Hegeland, ecls., 1987. Religious Resurgenee in Iflam, Olristianiry, and Judaism", pp. 224-225; Naney T. Ammerman. 1991. "North Ameriean Protestant Fundamentalism", in Martin E. Marty & R. Scott Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Observed, pp. 12-13. I; Hans Kung. 1995. Christianiry: 7he Religious Situation qf Our Time, pp. 636-637. 7 Simon Coleman. 1996. "Conscrvativc Protestantism, Polities and Civil Religion in the United States", in David \Vesterlund, ed., 1996. Qyestioning the Secular State, p. 30; Marsden. 1980. pp. 223-225; Leehner. 1990. pp. 82-87. Il Ammerman, 1991, pp. 2-3; Oliver Barclay. 1997. Evangelicalism in Britain 1935- 1995, pp. 12--14. Barclay distinguishes between Conservative (or Classical), and Libe­ ral Evangeliealism in Britain. Conservative Evangelieals are "those who maintain the doetrine of the reliability, sufficieney, and final authority of the Bible ... " Liberal Evangelieals are ''those who while they maintain some of the other typical Evangelieal emphases, do not maintain, and often repudiate, the total reliability of the Bible ..."; See also Harriet A. Harris. 1998. Fundamentalism and Evangelicals, pp. 1-4. 9 Ammerman. 1991. pp. 3-4. .
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