What is a Fundamentalist Anyway?

By William Dudding @ http://reformingbaptist.blogspot.com/

Someone recently asked me to tell him the difference between a fundamentalist, and evangelical, and a liberal. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this, when there shouldn't be. I was having breakfast with an evangelist friend a few months back when I was at the Masters Mens Conference in Fresno. I mentioned something about checking out International Baptist College too see if they had a distance learning program. He said to me: "Naaw, you don't want to bother with them, they're liberal." Oh wow, that was a strong accusation!

First, let's define a fundamentalist:

1. He believes in the whole Bible (Genesis through Revelation) is Divinely inspired by God, it is without error, sufficient, preserved, and authoritative on ALL matters of faith and practice.

2. He believes in a literal six-day creation of the world and rejects evolution or theistic evolution.

3. He believes in the doctrine of original sin. Adam as our first father failed to obey God and passed down sin to all men plunging them into eternal punishment.

4. He believes in a literal heaven and a literal hell with real literal fire.

5. He believes in the Deity of Christ. Jesus Christ was all God and all man at the same time. He is the second person of the Trinity as the Son of God the Father.

6. He believes in the virgin birth of Christ. Jesus was never conceived by human seed, he was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. Thus, God is His Father, not Joseph the carpenter.

7. He believes the sinless life of Christ. Jesus was tempted at all points yet without sin. He was able to be the new Adam because He was able to fulfill mans obligation to God in total obedience for the first Adam who failed.

8. He Believes in the Substatutionary Death of Christ. When Jesus died on the cross, He took our punishment on Himself in our stead. He suffered the wrath of God for our sin.

9. He believes in the bodily resurrection of Christ. Jesus was dead for three days, and on the third day, He rose from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit with a glorified body, thus conquering death.

10. He believes in salvation by grace through faith in Christ.

11. He believes that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the sinner upon salvation so that he is in justified in God's sight.

12. He believes in a blood atonement as the only adequate payment for sin. Jesus' blood being that perfect blood that can only atone fully and effectually for sin.

13. He believes in the security of ones salvation. When a person is truly born again, he cannot ever be lost again.

14. He believes in the miracles and supernatural accounts of the Bible to be true and accurate.

15. He believes in the evangelization of the lost worldwide through the preaching of the gospel.

16. He believes in separation for apostasy and worldliness. I'll say on this point, this is one of the key differences between today's fundamentalist and today's evangelical. Fundamentalists will not cooperate with apostates or those who tolerate them. We reject worldliness and carnality in our lives and churches. We also refuse to cooperate in union with other Christians who are in disobedience to separation from the world.

17. He believes in a literal second coming of Christ to rule and reign upon the earth.

So, there we have it. Those are the bare essentials....the FUNDAMENTALS. A person who believes these is a fundamentalist. The original books called The Fundamentals written in 1909 can be found here . Take a look for yourself. If you're a historic fundamentalist, then you shouldn't have a problem with my stand. When we become more concerned about the survival of the fundamentalist movement than we are about the truths of that movement, then we have become no different than any other "-ism" that's out there.