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Fundamentalism is a movement to return to stricter adherence to founding principles, usually in religion. In comparative religion, fundamentalism can refer to anti-modernist movements in various religions.
In many ways religious fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon, characterized by a sense of embattled alienation in the midst of the surrounding culture, even where the culture may be nominally influenced by the adherents' religion. The term can also refer specifically to the belief that one's religious texts are infallible and historically accurate, despite contradiction of these claims by modern scholarship.
However, groups described as fundamentalist or which describe themselves in these terms often strongly object to the concept because of the negative connotations it carries, or because it implies a similarity between themselves and other groups which they find objectionable.
This is particularly true of 'Christian' fundamentalists, who were the original creators of the term, and who uniquely bore the label, until its popular redefinition by the media in the 1980s. News stories began describing Hezbollah and other Islamic factions as fundamentalist during the troubles in Lebanon. During that time hostages such as Terry Anderson were taken and held for long periods, assassinations were committed, and car bombings were almost a daily occurrence.
Christian fundamentalists, who generally consider the term to be positive when used to refer to themselves, often strongly object to the placement of themselves and Islamist groups into a single category, and resent being labeled together with factions that use kidnapping, murder, and terrorist acts to achieve their ends. Characteristics based on the new definition are also projected back onto Christian fundamentalists by their critics. There is however no objection to the term fundamentalist when used to describe only Christian groups, and objections to the term Muslim fundamentalist are much less strong.
Many Muslims also protest the use of the term when refering to Islamist groups, because all Muslims believe in the absolute inerrency of the Quran, and western writers only use the term to refer to extremist groups. Furthermore, most Muslims in groups which have been labelled fundamentalists also strongly object to being placed in the same category as Christian fundamentalists, who they see as being religiously incorrect, and fail to see the theological distinction between fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist Christian groups. Unlike Christian fundamentalist groups, Islamist groups do not use the term fundamentalist to refer to themselves.
The Associated Press stylebook now recommends that the term fundamentalist not be used for any group that does not apply the term to itself. This would include Christian fundamentalist groups but exclude Islamist groups. Some news writers ignore this recommendation, however.
Although the term fundamentalism in popular usage sometimes refers derogatorily to any fringe religious group, or to extremist ethnic movements with only nominally religious motivations, the term does have a more precise denotation. "Fundamentalist" describes a movement to return to what is considered the defining or founding principles of the religion. It has especially come to refer to any religious enclave that intentionally resists identification with the larger religious group in which it originally arose, on the basis that fundamental principles upon which the larger religious group is supposedly founded have become corrupt or displaced by alternative principles hostile to its identity.
This formation of a separate identity is deemed necessary on account of a perception that the religious community has surrendered its ability to define itself in religious terms. The "fundamentals" of the religion have been jettisoned by neglect, lost through compromise and inattention, so that the general religious community's explanation of itself appears to the separatist to be in terms that are completely alien and fundamentally hostile to the religion itself. Fundamentalist movements are therefore founded upon the same religious principles as the larger group, but the fundamentalists more self-consciously attempt to build an entire approach to the modern world based on strict fidelity to those principles, to preserve a distinctness both of doctrine and of life.
The term itself is borrowed from the "Fundamentalist- ModernistModernism Modernist Christianity and Liberalism is a label applied to proponents of a school of Christian thought which rose as a direct challenge to more conservative traditional Christian orthodoxy. The terminology was coined during the Fundamentalist- controversy" which appeared early in the 20th century19th century 20th century 21st century more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901- 2000 in the sense of the Gre within the Protestant churchThis article is about the Christian buildings of worship. For other uses of the word, see Church (disambiguation . Stanford University. A church is a building used in Christian worship. See also altar, altar rails, confessional, dome, nave, pew, pulpit, ses of the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in, and continued in earnest through the 1920sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s Years: 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 Events and trends Technology John Logie Baird invents the first working t.
The pattern of the conflict between FundamentalismFundamentalist Christianity is a fundamentalist movement, especially within American Protestantism. The term, Fundamentalist tends to have a variable meaning. Historically, and for those who use the name to describe themselves, a Fundamentalist Christian and ModernismModernism Modernist Christianity and Liberalism is a label applied to proponents of a school of Christian thought which rose as a direct challenge to more conservative traditional Christian orthodoxy. The terminology was coined during the Fundamentalist- in Protestant Christianity has remarkable parallels in other religious communities, and in its use as a description of these corresponding aspects in otherwise diverse religious movements the term "fundamentalist" has become more than only a term either of self-description or of derogatory contempt. Fundamentalism is therefore a movement through which the adherents attempt to rescue religious identity from absorption into modern, WesternWesternisation is a process whereby traditional, long-established societies come under the influence of Western (European or American) culture in such matters as industry, technology, economics, lifestyle, food and moral and cultural values. It has been a culture, where this absorption appears to the enclave to have made irreversible progress in the wider religious community, necessitating the assertion of a separate identity based upon the fundamental or founding principles of the religion.
Fundamentalists believe their cause to have grave and even cosmic importance. They see themselves as protecting not only a distinctive doctrine, but also a vital principle, and a way of life and of salvation. Community, comprehensively centered upon a clearly defined religious way of life in all of its aspects, is the promise of fundamentalist movements, and it therefore appeals to those adherents of religion who find little that is distinctive, or authentically vital in their previous religious identity.
The fundamentalist "wall of virtue", which protects their identity, is erected against not only alien religions, but also against the modernized, compromised, nominal version of their own religion. In Christianity, fundamentalists are "Born again" and "Bible-believing" Protestants, as opposed to "Mainline", "liberal", "modernist" Protestants, who represent "Churchianity"); in Islam they are jama'at ( Arabic: (religious) enclaves with connotations of close fellowship) self-consciously engaged in jihad (struggle) against Western culture that suppresses authentic Islam (submission) and the God-given ( Shari'ah) way of life; in Judaism they are Haredi "Torah-true" Jews; and they have their equivalents in Hinduism and other world religions. These groups insisting on a sharp boundary between themselves and the faithful adherents of other religions, and finally between a "sacred" view of life and the "secular" world and "nominal religion". Fundamentalists direct their critiques toward and draw most of their converts from the larger community of their religion, by attempting to convince them that they are not experiencing the authentic version of their professed religion.