I have been called a "fundamentalist" by fundamentalist Christians yet it is utterly impossible for me to be a fundamentalist.
A Christian fundamentalist believes:
1. FIRST SET
(1) the inerrancy of Scripture,
(2) the Virgin Birth of Christ,
(3) Christ's atonement for our sins on the cross,
(4) his bodily resurrection, and
(5) the objective reality of miracles
... later changed to .........
2. SECOND SET
(1) the inerrancy of Scripture,
(2) the Virgin Birth of Christ,
(3) Christ's atonement for our sins on the cross,
(4) his bodily resurrection, and
(5) the teachings of premilenialism
I hold to none of those beliefs and have deconverted from Christianity.
Another definition of a Christian fundamentalist:
The most pronounced characteristics [of fundamentalists] are the following:
(a) a very strong emphasis on the inerrancy of the Bible, the absence from it of any sort of error;
(b) a strong hostility to modern theology and to the methods, results and implications of modern critical study of the Bible;
(c) an assurance that those who do not share their religious viewpoint are not really 'true Christians' at all.
- James Barr "Fundamentalism" (SCM Press:1977) p.1
I don't hold to any of those beliefs either.
Yet another definition of a Christian fundamentalist:
Fundamentalists have no time for democracy, pluralism, religious tolerance, peacekeeping, free speech, or the separation of church and state." - Karen Armstrong "The Battle For God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam" (Harper Perennial: 2000 p. ix
I support democracy, pluralism, religious tolerance, peacekeeping, free speech and the separation of church and state. I don't fit that definition either.
The dictionary definition of fundamentalist:
fun·da·men·tal·ism
n.
... 1. A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.
2.
a. often Fundamentalism An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.
b. Adherence to the theology of this movement.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
I also don't fit that description as I have deconverted from fundamentalist Christianity, have no fundamentalist principles whatsoever and am a secularist.
By all the above definitions one who doesn't hold these beliefs cannot strictly be a "fundamentalist". I hold none of them.
Furthermore is the etymology of the word "fundamentalist" which again refers to none of my characteristics whatsoever ....
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fundamentalist
1920 in the religious sense (as is fundamentalism), from fundamental + -ist. Coined in Amer.Eng. to name a movement among Protestants c.1920-25 based on scriptural inerrancy, etc., and associated with William Jennings Bryan, among others. Fundamentalist is said (by George McCready Price) to have been first used in print by Curtis Lee Laws (1868-1946), editor of "The Watchman Examiner," a Baptist newspaper. The movement may have roots in the Presbyterian General Assembly of 1910, which drew up a list of five defining qualities of "true believers" which other evangelicals published in a mass-circulation series of books called "The Fundamentals." A World's Christian Fundamentals Association was founded in 1918. The words reached widespread use in the wake of the contentious Northern Baptist Convention of 1922 in Indianapolis. ...
The original opposition to fundamentalist (within the denominations) was modernist. ...
Applied to other religions, especially Islam, since 1957.
from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=fundamentalist
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There are many other non-fundamentalists who likewise are told by Christian fundamentalists that they are a "fundamentalist". You should dismiss such name calling as it is only deluded Christianese private terminology that means nothing in the real world.
