Christian History Home > Issue 92 > Who Were the "Fundamentalists"?
Who Were the "Fundamentalists"?
Many people associate this word with religious bigotry and close-mindedness. But in the early 20th century, fundamentalists were simply evangelicals determined to do battle for the faith.
Douglas A. Sweeney | posted 10/01/2006 12:00AM
During the late 19th century, most of the mainline Protestant churches struggled to cope with the rise of modernism (which favored adaptation to modern views and trends) along with scientific naturalism, higher biblical criticism, and spiritual apathy. Hundreds of thousands of evangelicals left the large denominations, forming smaller churches to combat the sins of the age.
The vast majority of evangelicals, however, stayed with the mainline and tried to purify their churches from within. By the early 1910s, they formed a massive, cross-denominational movement for reform based on a common acclamation of the "fundamental," or cardinal, doctrines of Christianity.
The most popular list was "The Five Point Deliverance" of the Northern Presbyterians. The 1910 Presbyterian General Assembly ruled that all who wanted to be ordained within their ranks had to affirm the Westminster Confession and subscribe to five fundamental doctrines: 1) the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, 2) the virgin ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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