I went to a fundemental Bible Believing Church and I can tell you that I don’t want that experience again. They took the scriptures and used them to mean what they wanted. The word of God was used to beat you down not lift you up.

Maybe you need to also add this type of fundamental church in your definition.

Fundamentalism has become to many what a church or people are against, and too often framed in a worldview that is not true to Scripture, I believe. An example of that is a dualism which practically denies the good in God’s world and in culture, even though fallen.

There are so many issues that trouble me about Christian fundamentalism, I have to admit. Some of that is unresolved for me. Part of my fundamentalism is to emphatically declare my unity with all churches and people who are in Christ, as well as the oneness I have with all- as a sinner saved by the grace of God in Christ.

Jesus used a sword of a different kind- ‘The Word’ to combat the advances of His enemy and to overcome the evil one. Therefore, as His followers we are fundamentalists too!

Having been forgiven of our sins we ‘go and sin no more’ (Rev 18:4). We love God and shun evil, we go into the world to preach and teach His pure unadulterated word (Acts 20:27) but do not thrust it down people’s throats, we constantly judge ourselves in the light of His word but are not called to judge others, we live in this world but do not get conformed to its ways and wisdom, we love the people in this world but we do not love the world, we love our enemies but hate our ‘enemy’, we love our fellow sinners but do not compromise with sin, we socialize with unbelievers but do not get unequally yoked with them.

We are indeed a peculiar people but we are not long-faced crazy Christians, we are zealous of good works but we are not religious zealots, we obey His Word to the letter but we are not Bible-thumpers, we are religious in visiting the fatherless and widows but we are not religious nuts, we hate all forms of ungodliness but we are not hate-mongers. We fully believe in the radical ways of Christ and to tolerate anything that is not from God in order to be “part of the spirit of the age” is sheer hypocrisy.

The term “fundamentalism” came into existence at the Niagara Falls Bible Conference which was convened in an effort to define those things that were fundamental to belief. The term was also used to describe “The Fundamentals,” a collection of twelve books on five subjects published in 1910 by Milton and Lyman Steward. These two brothers were concerned with the moral and spiritual decline they believed was infecting Protestantism, and sought to restore the historic faith by stating the five fundamentals of the faith: (1) Literal inerrancy of the scriptures;(2) The virgin birth and deity of Christ; (3) the substitutionary view of the atonement; (4) the bodily resurrection of Christ; (5) The imminent return of Christ.

I believe that this helped define biblical Christianity in a day where the Bible was being undermined.

I guess the problem comes when the term fundamentalist is applied to anyone who would use any means to persuade others of these views and to those of non-christian faiths who are extremists and who seek to destroy those not of that faith.