What is a Fundamentalist Christian?

Question

I don't live in the States so i've never heard of them until i started comin here. I'm just wanna get an idea from both religious and atheist point of view.

Answer 1

A conservative theological movement that arose in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century in reaction to liberalism in church and society. Fundamentalists identify certain "fundamentals" of the faith that they feel are required in true believers.

These fundamentals include belief in the deity of Christ, the Virgin Birth, the sacrificial death of Christ, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, and the bodily return of Jesus Christ (the Second Coming).

In contrast to evangelicals, fundamentalists are often separatistic. Many fundamentalists follow a dispensationalist interpretation of Scripture.

Answer 2

Fundamentalist Christians...commonly referred to here as fundies...are people that believe in a literal interpretation of every word in the Bible.

They do not believe any other religion has merit, or that any other beliefs can be correct.

While they give lip service to being literalists...they are the first to cross reference and explain away those verses that deal directly with shortcomings in their own lives.

Most are very hypocritical, judgemental...and most have a superiority complex in thinking that all other's are wrong, and they are right.

Bottom line, they believe themselves to be the ultimate authority on scripture...eventhough, God is the only ultimate authority on scripture.

I was raised a fundamentalist..but, am now a moderate. I believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God..but, acknowledge that it was written by humans who brought their own ideas, customs, knowledge and prejudices into their writings. I also ackowledge that parts of the Bible were verbal stories handed down from generation to generation before ever being written down. I do not believe we should interpret the Bible literal in it's entirety...I believe it is a guide book and a history book.

Answer 3

Originally, "fundamentalist Christian" refered to someone who believed all the fundamentals of the Christian faith, as opposed to someone professing Christianity who denied a lot of basic Christian truths. Nowadays, the term is used for quite a different meaning. It now refers to the kind of people who believe that the King James translation of the Bible is the only acceptable translation and who believe that the best method of evangelism is to stand on the side of the street with a megaphone, yelling at people and passing out tracts. Those are not, of course, the fundamentals of the Christian faith, but some people think they are, and they are now the ones called "fundamentalists." If you're curious about the real fundamentals, try the Apostle's Creed.

The original meaning of "fundamentalist Christian" fits me accurately, but what it has come to mean these days has nothing to do with me, or with most Christians for that matter.

Answer 4

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

Answer 5

Fundamentalist Christianity is a movement that arose mainly within British and American Protestantism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by conservative evangelical Christians, who, in a reaction to modernism, actively affirmed a fundamental set of Christian beliefs: the inerrancy of the Bible, Sola Scriptura, the virgin birth of Christ, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

The nature of the Christian fundamentalist movement, while originally a united effort within conservative evangelicalism, evolved during the early-to-mid 1900s to become more separatist in nature and more characteristically dispensational in its theology. Most fundamentalists have strongly opposed the Roman Catholic Church for theological reasons; in recent years there has been limited political cooperation between individuals in each group on certain social issues, such as abortion. However, the relationships between Fundamentalist Christians and Catholics are culturally strained and theologically hostile, due to their strongly divergent views of salvation and Christology.

In my opinion, Christian Fundamentalists are not really fundamentalists, because their views are not like the original views held by Christians since the early church. Rather, it's a new interpretation that holds too much to "literal" interpretations of the Bible.

Answer 6

They believe the bible is the literal word of god. That everything in it is true and unerring, i.e. the earth is only 6,000 years old, etc. Specifically, they believe in 5 ideas:

- the inerrancy of the Bible,
- the Virgin birth,
- physical resurrection,
- atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ, and
- the Second Coming.

What is more bizarre is not that there are a handful of people that actually believe the bible is the literal word of god - with all of its thousands of contradictions and ungodlike behavior, but that there are 30 million Christian fundamentalists in the U.S.! God help us.

Answer 7

It's someone who believes the Bible is the authoritative word on of God, and thus, places belief in the Bible above current things that might contradict it.

So you wind up with Biblical believers who believe that the Bible is right, therefore the dating methods used to date the world are in error, evolution isn't true, etc.

Contrary to popular opinion, they're usually thinking men and women who use science to back up their highly unpopular beliefs and discredit the views they see as contrary to the Bible. This makes their beliefs even more unpopular and subject to ridicule and personal attacks in order to intimdate them from expressing themselves further. Often that simply emboldens them.

Answer 8

I live in the states (New England) and I'd like to know what a "Fundamentalist Christian" is, too. I'm waiting.

Answer 9

Basically they're christians who believe the bible is 100% true and they interpret it literally (even though they do not follow it literally.)

They spend their time picketing and protesting and telling people how they should live their lives instead of focusing on their own lives. They'll exhaust their last breath to preach the word of god to you even if you tell them you don't want to hear it. They swear up & down that they KNOW god exists and jesus exists and that the bible is 100% accurate with no contradictions whatsoever.

They're basically the much more stubborn and naive versions of the common garden-variety christians.

Answer 10

Fundamentalist is a person or a church ( fundemental )that takes the bible as their foundation . They try to follow it the best they can .