ABSTRACT
A highly conservative approach to religious belief, characterised by a return to the supposed fundamentals of the religion, and a rejection of modern theories of scriptural interpretation. The term was originally applied to conservative Protestants in
North America in the 1920s. Between 1910 and 1915 two California oil millionaires funded the publication and distribution of The Fundamentals, a twelve-volume work that sought to restate the fundamental tenets of the Christian religion. At the core of this restatement lay the ‘five fundamentals’ adopted by the general assembly of the (northern) Presbyterian Church in 1910: the absolute and literal truth of the Bible as a work inspired by God; Christ’s virgin birth; Christ’s supernatural atonement for human sins; his physical resurrection; and the authenticity of the gospel miracles. This return to fundamentals can readily be understood as a reaction against more liberal theologies and approaches to scriptural interpretation, and not least to those approaches to interpretation that reject the possibility of any notion of ‘literal’ interpretation (see hermeneutics). Beyond an approach to scriptural interpretation, Christian funda-
mentalism also has important consequences for the social and cultural practices of the believer. Typically, precisely because the fundamentalist holds to the absolute truth of their own position, as one that is divinely inspired, their moral and political values may be characterised by an opposition to liberal values of pluralism, individualism, and free speech, but also to the equality of women. Such attitudes may be seen to reflect a nostalgia for a supposed period of perfect religious faith and practice, for example to an Arcadian early Christian church, but also a millennialist focus on the imminent end of the world and last judgement. Opposition to other religious and secular belief systems may entail
a commitment to taking violent action against them, in the need to fight the evil of non-belief or heresy. Examples of violent action by Christian fundamentalists are relatively rare. This may be because Christian values typically already have a place in the broader Western society to which the fundamentalist belongs, and if the fundamentalist does not retreat from the secular world, then he or she may effectively exploit existing democratic structures to exert pressure on policy-makers. The mobilisation of conservative Christians by the Republican Party prior to the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections, as well as the role of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority as a pressure group, are illustrative of this. However, violence has been associated with fundamentalists’ opposition to abortion.
