A diverse and inter-denominational (see Wikipedia "List of Christian denominations") conservative religious movement within Protestant Christianity, usually traced back to either 1878's Niagara Bible Conference or a series of pamphlets published in the the United States in the 1910's entitled collectively, The Fundamentals. Arguably, the primary tenant of fundamentalist Christianity is "the inerrancy Scripture"--that is, that The Holy Bible is divinely inspired and wholly and literally true in the plain sense of its words.
Some key tenants following from biblical inerrancy and held by the vast majority of Christian fundamentalists include:
*belief in the Bible as an accurate history (e.g. the story of The Flood & Noah's Ark is historic fact),
*rejection of modern biblical scholarship, that is, scholarship that includes examinations--drawing from textual criticism, archeology, and other disciplines--concerning the Bible's authorship,
*belief in the future bodily return of Jesus Christ ("the Second Coming") and the future bodily resurrection of all Christians,
*refusal to recognize various scientific theories, especially evolution, in favor of a form of biblical creationism,
*adherence to the principle of the subordination of the wife to the husband and women to men,
*belief in a literal Satan, hell, demons, heaven, and angels, and
*anticipation of a future "End Times" --though various schools of biblical interpretation concerning End Times exist in fundamentalist Christianity. (e.g. Dispensationalism)
Fundamentalist Christianity has a tradition of separatism and movements for doctrinal purity--resulting in numerous denominations and independent congregations--a noteworthy degree of cultural isolationism, and an apoliticism that has ebbed and flowed throughout fundamentalist Christianity's history. Until the later part of the twentieth century, fundamentalist Christians were found almost exclusively in the United States.
(see TheocracyWatch.org "Fundamentalists")
usage. Also "Christian fundamentalism," "Christian Fundamentalism," "Fundamentalist Christianity." Christian fundamentalism differs from evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, and as terms, no one of the three is synonymous with either of the other two.
historical note. From its beginnings in the 1970's, the Christian Right drew heavily from Christian fundamentalist ranks in the United States, and several fundamentalist Christian leaders were critical to the Christian Right's birth. Fundamentalist Christians had been largely politically inactive since the anti-fundamentalist backlash following the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial's verdict (see Wikipedia Scopes trial) that upheld a ban on teaching evolution. But political activism was reawakened in the 1960's and 1970's, especially by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling (see opinion Roe v. Wade) overturning all bans on abortion.
