Fundamentalist Christianity

:This article concerns the self-labelled Fundamentalist Movement in Protestant Christianity. For other kinds of fundamentalism, please see the main article, Fundamentalism.

Brief history

A number of evangelicals in the 19th century prepared the way for the movement. American evangelist Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899) and British preacher and father of dispensionalism John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) among others propounded ideas and themes carried into fundamentalist Christianity. There is no single founder of fundamentalism.

Related Topics:
Evangelicals - 19th century - Dwight L. Moody - 1837 - 1899 - British - John Nelson Darby - 1800 - 1882

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The term fundamentalist, in the context of this article, derives from a series of (originally) twelve volumes entitled The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth. Among this publication's 94 essays, 27 of them objected to higher criticism of the Bible, by far the largest number addressing any one topic. The essays were written by 64 British and American conservative Protestant theologians between 1910 and 1915. Using a $250,000 grant from Lyman Stewart, the head of the Union Oil Company of California, about three million sets of these books were distributed to English-speaking Protestant church workers throughout the world.

Related Topics:
Higher criticism - British - American - 1910 - 1915 - Lyman Stewart - Union Oil Company

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Important early Christian fundamentalists included, Baptist pastor William Bell Riley, the founder and president of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, who was instrumental in calling lawyer and three-time Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan to act as that organization's counsel in the famous Scopes Trial. Moody Bible Institute had mainstream appeal, through its presidents, R.A. Torrey, and James M. Gray. The theological views of theologian Cyrus I. Scofield represented fundamentalism's antagonism to figurative interpretation, especially as it was used by fundamentalism's liberal opponents to deny basic elements of the Christian faith, such as the virgin birth or the bodily resurrection of Christ, and it was through his Scofield Reference Bible that dispensationalism gradually gained strong adherence among fundamentalists.

Related Topics:
William Bell Riley - World Christian Fundamentals Association - William Jennings Bryan - Scopes Trial - Moody Bible Institute - R.A. Torrey - James M. Gray - Cyrus I. Scofield - Scofield Reference Bible - Dispensationalism

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The rise of dispensationalism is an important development distinct from the roots of the movement. In particular, dispensationalism played no part in the Old-time religion, as typified by the likes of southern Methodist revivalist Samuel Porter Jones, an elder associate of Bob Jones, Sr., founder of Bob Jones University, who later adopted dispensationalism. B. B. Warfield and J. Gresham Machen were key players in the fundamentalism-modernist controversy but wrote against dispensationalism from the standpoint of the Princeton theology, which many regard as the intellectual roots of the movement before it came under the influence of dispensationalism.

Related Topics:
Samuel Porter Jones - Bob Jones, Sr. - Bob Jones University - B. B. Warfield - J. Gresham Machen - Princeton theology

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As the movement developed, premillennialism, dispensationalism, and separatism began to overwhelmingly characterize the most popular leaders, which also had an effect on the way that evangelicals as a whole were perceived by outside observers. Dispensationalism's literal approach to the Scriptures was increasingly seen as a main protection against the gradual degradation to theological modernism.

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