Fundamentalism?! I Hate that Word!

"You're a fundamentalist!" It seems that label has been applied to many religions of late. Sects of Hindus, Christians, and Muslims bear that heavy label. But what is fundamentalism? Is it something good or bad?

Today's schools scream we need to get back to the fundamentals, "the 3Rs", Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. If fundamentals are the basis of something why has it become a dirty word to throw around? The answer is simple. There are people who do not like clear guidelines.

When Christians are accused of being Fundamentalists it is in the sense that they take they Bible as the unadulterated Word of God. The Bible according to Christians doctrine is infallible, there are no errors in it. This faith in the Bible as being God's written message to mankind brings firm convictions in what is morally correct, after all a book that is a written message from a living God to his created beings, you and I should hold some weight. This is the horror of the label Fundamentalism. It is that those who believe that the Bible should be considered the "end all be all" for Christian believers. Those who believe like this don't accept any substitutes. They don't accept additions or substitutions. You won't find a homosexual as a pastor of a "fundamentalist" church. But then, they won't except a heterosexual that is having sex out of marriage either.

So what is in the title/label "Fundamentalist?" In truth it is a statement that the accused is a "Bible Believing Christian.'" Now, if you were to say on TV that the Bible believing Christians do not accept sex outside of marriage, it does not carry the venomous weight of the statement, "The Fundamentalists don't accept sex outside of marriage."