Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism is a religious movement found in at least three of the globe's major religions: Islam, Judaism, [Page 412]and Christianity. As a movement, it is marked by a literalist understanding of and strict adherence to the central religious texts of a given faith (Koran, Torah, and Bible). It includes a deep discomfort with modernity, studiously ahistorical notions of its own religious history as well as the role of religion in a given society, and a fierce intolerance for those who do not believe similarly.

Fundamentalism arose in these three religions as a response to modernity and the changes it wrought upon traditional societies. In the United States, fundamentalist Christianity is a uniquely American variant of Protestant Christianity that emerged in reaction to Darwin and the emerging literary and historical scholarship on the Bible's roots. Protestant Christians, particularly those living in the South, were shocked by the possible theological implications wrought by the work of Charles Darwin. Equally shocking was the historical and literary scholarship by the late nineteenth century “higher critics,” who concluded that the Bible was written by various and largely unknown authors who provided contradictory accounts of ancient events. Both intellectual developments severely undermined the Bible as a repository of historical and scientific fact. Distressing as these were, by the twentieth century, many mainline Christians concluded that the Bible contained neither scientific nor historical truth, but continued to hold that the Bible presented theological truth.

Other U.S. Christians, however, could not reconcile their theological worldview to either Darwin or the higher criticisms. In response, a series of tracts titled The Fundamentals: A Testimony to Truth, were published between 1910 and 1915, establishing the articles of faith for the newly named fundamentalist Christians. The writers stressed the necessity of being “born again,” embraced Biblical literalism (i.e., the Bible is all truth: theological, historical and scientific), focused on missionary work, rejected the scientific method, and attacked both Roman Catholicism and Mormonism as heretical. Finally, fundamentalists were to be apolitical, unlike their more progressively minded Protestant brethren.

With the exception of the events surrounding the 1920s Scopes trial and the politics of evolution, most fundamentalists shunned political involvement, and many refrained from even voting during the first half of the twentieth century. Instead, fundamentalists concentrated their energies on building countercultural institutions, such as Bible colleges and institutes, private religious schools, elaborate mass media networks, and local church communities.

A number of events, including the desegregation of public schools (and the larger civil rights movement) and the banning of state-sponsored religious practices, triggered a reevaluation of the doctrine of political noninvolvement. However, what ignited sustained political interest of fundamentalists was the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade (1973), which legalized abortion. Furthermore, there was explosive growth in fundamentalist church membership and increased interest by the public. From the 1970s on, the national Republication Party also aggressively courted fundamentalists, whose conservative values were, as yet, an untapped resource for the party.

Fundamentalists gained further political legitimacy when evangelical Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976. Catherine Lugg wrote in 1996 that the Carter presidency prompted other fundamentalists to enter the political arena, especially after his policy decisions conflicted with the political expectations of his religious brethren.

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