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The reason I ask is because I think today's fundamentlist may actually be yesterday's puritans.
How can one be a 100% fundamental and not keep the laws of the O.T.?
Everyone says that he or she is fundamentally correct! That is why 'fundamentalism' is completely useless as a descriptive term, and why this thread exists. A physicist is one who practises physics, a democrat is one who believes in democracy, a universalist is one who believes in universal redemption, but all of them will claim to have fundamental truth.
What is a Puritan? (Note the correct spelling.) A Puritan is not one who keeps OT laws, because that is an impossibility. OT laws were given to a small nation in a particular circumstance, for that nation and circumstance, and that nation and circumstance have long disappeared. However, Puritans were very interested in law, for others at least as much as themselves, and were and are regarded as legalists, not so different from the Pharisees who attempted to enjoin circumcision upon the church.
Historically, Puritanism was a successor to Catholicism, which is based on legalism, the 'law' being handed down from the Vatican, displacing the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Reformation was a reaction to the widespread scandals of Catholicism, not just theologically, but materially, because the behavior of friars, priests, bishops, cardinals and even popes could not be reconciled with that of Jesus and the apostles, as men discovered in their newly printed Bibles. The medieval church did not even look Christian, not to even the simplest soul. Luther had one compromise solution; Calvin another, and he decided that his followers would not only adhere more closely to Scripture theologically, they would behave and dress with much greater sobriety- and this legalism was enforced, until populations could no longer stand it, by civil law! However, privately, Puritans maintained a formal religious habit, saying family prayers, vigorously singing Psalms, observing Sundays, taking care to make their supposed righteousness known to all men- and people indeed knew that they at least claimed to be Christians.
So Calvinism replaced Catholicism with a 'cleaned-up' version, that looked Christian. It was Calvinists who made the bulk of the pioneers of early America. Puritan ethos still pervades American society, making an impossible conflict with the pursuit of Mammon that has such apparently ineluctable force in the USA.
But few if any Puritans describe themselves, or are described, as fundamentalists. This otherwise useless term is generally applied to Young-Earth Creationists, the followers of Ken Ham and the like. It is also used by antichrists of Christians as a term of abuse, though less so now than in previous times.
In Christianity it has come to meaofn a conservative bible literalist.
Literalist about early Genesis only. Any other sort of literalism is mainstream, as a great abundance of denominational teaching attests. There is a current trend for internet skeptics to lie about that.
Everyone says that he or she is fundamentally correct! That is why 'fundamentalism' is completely useless as a descriptive term, and why this thread exists. A physicist is one who practises physics, a democrat is one who believes in democracy, a universalist is one who believes in universal redemption, but all of them will claim to have fundamental truth.
What is a Puritan? (Note the correct spelling.) A Puritan is not one who keeps OT laws, because that is an impossibility. OT laws were given to a small nation in a particular circumstance, for that nation and circumstance, and that nation and circumstance have long disappeared. However, Puritans were very interested in law, for others at least as much as themselves, and were and are regarded as legalists, not so different from the Pharisees who attempted to enjoin circumcision upon the church.
Historically, Puritanism was a successor to Catholicism, which is based on legalism, the 'law' being handed down from the Vatican, displacing the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Reformation was a reaction to the widespread scandals of Catholicism, not just theologically, but materially, because the behavior of friars, priests, bishops, cardinals and even popes could not be reconciled with that of Jesus and the apostles, as men discovered in their newly printed Bibles. The medieval church did not even look Christian, not to even the simplest soul. Luther had one compromise solution; Calvin another, and he decided that his followers would not only adhere more closely to Scripture theologically, they would behave and dress with much greater sobriety- and this legalism was enforced, until populations could no longer stand it, by civil law! However, privately, Puritans maintained a formal religious habit, saying family prayers, vigorously singing Psalms, observing Sundays, taking care to make their supposed righteousness known to all men- and people indeed knew that they at least claimed to be Christians.
So Calvinism replaced Catholicism with a 'cleaned-up' version, that looked Christian. It was Calvinists who made the bulk of the pioneers of early America. Puritan ethos still pervades American society, making an impossible conflict with the pursuit of Mammon that has such apparently ineluctable force in the USA.
But few if any Puritans describe themselves, or are described, as fundamentalists. This otherwise useless term is generally applied to Young-Earth Creationists, the followers of Ken Ham and the like. It is also used by antichrists of Christians as a term of abuse, though less so now than in previous times.
Thank you so much for the wealth of info.
You know my first thought was......there is no such thing as a fundamentalist because the standard is too elusive.
We atheists label responders as ""fundamentalist" if they appear to unquestioningly believe even contradictory passages within the bible, or when they sidestep logical discourse when cornered. It has become a badge used by by scientists and confirmed atheists when they are dealing with those who appear to us to abandon logical, educated discourse specifically on biblical inerrancy.
Examples would be those who insist on a literal Noah's Ark, even when it turns out Noah would have to have had about one billion animals on board if no subsequent evolving were allowed. Or people who conveniently deny that such an event would have been catastrophic, and would have left a devastated world unfit to support any life, much less that dropped off at the freezing 15,000 foot level with nothing there but drowned, rotting vegetation and a long migration back home, 6000 miles away, across a few oceans.
Not to get into that tired argument, but just to illustrate: anyone who then says "Well I don't care! It just happened, because I want it have happened!"....
That's a "fundamentalist" to us evil scientists. At least, one definition.
How many of the Laws or what percentage of the Laws does one have to follow to be a qualified and respected fundamentalist?
What's the standard?
There is no percentage to qualify.
What do you believe?
Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior.
He died on the Cross and Rose form the dead.
The Bible is God Breathed.
Name a few for your self.
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