Who are the fundamentalists?

Fundamentalist seems to be a growing category of people these days. The terms "religious right" and "fundamentalist" are used too often to criticize mainstream Christian beliefs, in my opinion. Big-time blogger Andrew Sullivan summarizes how he sees fundamentalism in America:

Yes, fundamentalism as a mindset can extend beyond the purely religious to the secular as well. Hence the notion that all critics of Bush are, by definition, liberals. And what unites the fundamentalists from James Dobson to Benedict XVI is that they alone define priorities. For today's fundamentalists, everything in the Bible is literally true and there is no way to pick and choose from among them. Of course, they do pick and choose - look at how civil divorce is now pretty much fine among evangelicals. The same is true of Benedict's record: he has vastly expanded those areas of "faith" that are non-negotiable. The point here is that fundamentalism is a circular system where power and authority count more than reason and dialogue. That's why it poses such a threat to liberal democracy; and why it must be countered before it becomes a cancer to the very possibility of a liberal society.

I've also seen the term fundamentalist often used for Islamic radicals who seek to transform society into a Taliban-style theocracy. So is James Dobson equivalent to Osama bin Laden? Who are the fundamentalists, exactly? Here's how the American Heritage Dictionary defines it:

1. A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.
2.
1. An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.
2. Adherence to the theology of this movement.

OK, this sheds a little light on things. I think the first definition describes me pretty well, except that I don't see myself as intolerant or unconditionally opposed to secularism. Yes, I'm opposed to abortion-on-demand because I think it's murder, but since when has anyone been tolerant of murder? Yes, I'm opposed to secularism when it denies God, and I don't think a society should cut religion out of public discourse altogether. We're not France, after all. So am I a Christian fundamentalist? I recently wrote a post about BusinessWeek's coverage of U.S. megachurches, in which Pastor Rick Warren described most evangelicals as apart from Christian fundamentalists. He said this:

Q: For all the talk about evangelicals these days, there's a lot of confusion about who they are. How do you define evangelicals?
A: Evangelicals have three characteristics: They believe that the Bible is literally God's word. The second thing they would say is that Jesus Christ is who He says He is: He claimed to be God. The third would be that we have a responsibility to pass this good news on to other people.

Q: Are you a fundamentalist?
A: No. Fundamentalists tend to be more reactionary than evangelicals. Fundamentalists think the golden age is the 1950s. Just as the Amish have decided that a certain period in the 1800s was a golden age, the fundamentalists would be happy to go back to the Eisenhower Administration. But they are a much smaller group than evangelicals.

That's interesting. I think Warren here is defining a Christian fundamentalist political movement rather than a blanket term including Osama bin Laden, as Sullivan seems to imply.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, as this post was more of an observation than an argument. But I have a couple points to make, based on what we've read: First, I think liberals such as Andrew Sullivan need to educate themselves about what he labels "fundamentalist" Christian beliefs. I propose he is just applying the fundamentalist label to pretty normal Christian beliefs, which he might not really understand. Second, I think Christians need to make a clear distinction between "rigid adherence to principles" as applied to themselves and intolerance of what others are doing. Yes, we have a right and moral obligation to advocate our views in a democratic society, but at the same time we should respect other's right to do the same. We should also keep in mind the example of Jesus, who certainly did not let His fundamentalism get in the way of showing love to the lost.

I also found the Wikipedia entry on Christian fundamentalism to be interesting, but we should note it's been marked as disputed (surprise, surprise). Here's the informative part about Christian fundamentalism in politics. It's good to read.

See an example of the overuse of the fundamentalist label by some liberals. This particular person groups these people under the fundamentalist heading: Rick Santorum, Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Jeb Bush, Ralph Reed, Dennis Hastert, Ken Starr, Bill Frist, Zell Miller, Rupert Murdoch, Sun Myung Moon, Bob Jones III, Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, William Renquist, Antony Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Richard Pearle, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, Tom Delay, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Francis Schaeffer, John Calvin, Charlton Heston, Mel Gibson, Chuck Colson, Newt Gingrich, Kim Il Jong, Yassir Arafat, and many, many more!