The Species of Fundamentalists
The word Fundamentalist has gone through three phases of meaning. In the first phase (ca. 1920s–1940s), it meant something specific: someone who believed that the “five Fundamentals”—the inspiration of the Scriptures, the deity of Christ, the historicity of the New Testament miracles (especially the Virgin Birth and the bodily Resurrection of Jesus), the necessity of atonement by the shedding of Jesus’ blood, and a personal, future Second Coming of Jesus—are doctrines both true and essential to faithful Christianity, and that people (and denominations) that have rejected them are apostate.
Then, in the second phase (ca. 1950s–1980s), the most anti-intellectual, anti-cultural, legalistic, and self-righteous members of the group co-opted the name, leaving their fellow Fundamentalists (original sense) to be known as “Evangelicals.” A Fundamentalist then became someone who practiced second-degree separation (separating not only from liberals but also from other faithful Christians who were not as separated as he was).
The word is now in the third phase: mainly a term of abuse, it is applied to any serious religionist of whom the speaker disapproves. To understand the meaning of the word, you have to know not only who is using it, but also when.
We must learn to live by and for the truths that the Fundamentalists (first sense) stood for without emulating the attitudes of some of their successors (second sense) in doing so; otherwise, we will deserve to have the third sense applied to us.
Donald T. Williams is Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College. He stays permanently camped out on the borders between serious scholarship and pastoral ministry, between theology and literature, and between Narnia and Middle-Earth. He is the author of fourteen books, including Answers from Aslan: The Enduring Apologetics of C. S. Lewis (DeWard, 2023). He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
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