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To be sure, some people raised in this world, who did not enter it of their own free will, find it oppressive. But do we really think everyone who lives in the fundamentalist world is walking around on the verge of breaking up under the pressure and weight of an excessively demanding and oppressive faith? There may be those who do live that way (and if so, it is hardly exclusive to Christian fundamentalism: the tendency exists within fringes of every kind of group). But I suspect that fundamentalists find in their world more safety than danger, more comfort than oppression.

One other thing gives comfort to fundamentalists: they believe they live in obedience to God, and they know that such obedience will invite public acrimony and even persecution. Fundamentalists believe they have a lot of great company in the hall of saints.

The lifestyle of Christian fundamentalism may seem oppressive to an outsider who champions current notions of tolerance and free living, but adults who enter that world do so willingly. There they find a community that gives them a secure faith and a clear idea of how to get through life on this sin-stained planet. Given the aimlessness of many in this generation, this understandably could give a lot of people purpose and meaning.

It is possible that popular perception has led to hasty generalization and caricature. Ask yourself: What misperceptions and generalizations do people have concerning your way of life? Could it be that some could misread your life and wonder how you could possibly have any joy as a committed, Bible-believing Christian?

I am not a fundamentalist, and I am not looking to become one (though my confessing Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life is enough for many outside evangelical circles to call me one). My taste in music and my desire to interpret and shape culture as a theologian likely would cause me untold grief in the more conservative corners of the church. Nevertheless, I acknowledge without hesitation that fundamentalists are a part of my Christian family and they deserve my understanding and respect.

Vincent Bacote is a visiting professor of theology at Wheaton College in Illinois.

Don't miss today's related book excerpt, "Fundamentalism Revisited," by Fuller Seminary President Richard J. Mouw.

Read a short bio of Bacote from Wheaton College.

Here's a list of Bacote's publications, including: "Coming to Terms with My Otherness," from Re:generation Quarterly (it also appears in The Best Christian Writing 2000) "Called Back to Stewardship: Recovering and Developing Abraham Kuyper's Cosmic Pneumatology" for the Journal for Christian Theological Research, and "Say Amen, Somebody," from ChristianityToday.com.

Read The Atlantic Monthly's take on some of the differences and similarities between evangelicalism and fundamentalism in "The Opening of the Evangelical Mind."

For a candid breakdown of the denotative and connotative definitions of fundamentalism, click here.

Christianity Today ran two articles on Fundamentalism, "The Secret History of Fundamentalism" and "Modernism's Moses."

An entire issue of Christian History was devoted to Fundamentalism, including:

Fundamentalist Internet | The people, conferences, and organizations that made up the fundamentalist family.

A Return to Bondage | Fundamentalism's most gifted theologian critiques liberalism.

The Rise of Fundamentalism: 1870-1950

Here We Stand | A fundamentalist historian answers the critics of fundamentalism.

An Army of Conservative Women | Women played a surprisingly prominent role in early fundamentalism.

Right Jabs and Left Hooks | All fundamentalists fought with modernists—but not for the same reasons or in the same way.

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November 13 2000, Vol. 44, No. 13