Today we are hearing more and more negative responses toward those whom we brand as fundamentalists. The very word itself seems riddled with connotations of heretics burned at the stake or severe persecution and damnation of those in opposition to those branded as such.
Really the word ?fundamentalist? comes from the word, ?fundamental? which means ?serving as a foundation or basis or primary or necessary principal? (The Scribner-Bantam English Dictionary, page 373).
Therefore, a person who considers himself or is called a fundamentalist has certain beliefs and principals that govern his everyday life. This in itself can be either or good thing depending on whether or not that person?s fundamentals work for good or bad.
I myself am a fundamentalist when it comes to being a believer in God. How can I not be when I believe God?s Word is true and desire to follow it? The Bible is full of fundamental statements and doctrines that a believer must follow if he or she is to be pleasing unto the Lord. How can a believer be true to God when His Word commands us to abstain from moral wrong doing, be it sexual sins or ignoring the poor, needy and widow in our midst.
How can we ignore the plight of souls who, according to God?s Word, are doomed to hell if they don?t accept Christ as Lord and Savior. All these things are fundamental beliefs of the true born again Christian.
Even when practicing the basic sciences, one must be a fundametalist as there are fundamentals in science-- law of conservation of matter, water boils at 212 degrees, theory of relativity, a square equals the width times the length, etc, etc.
Even a good accountant has to be a fundamentalist in his job by observing the fundamentals of accounting. So you see in some area of our lives we are going to be fundamentalists, whether we like it or not.
If you dig deep enough you will find all people to be somewhat fundamentalist in nature be they Christians, Muslims, atheists, agnostic, Communist, Socialist, Democrats, Republican, pro-life, pro-choice, liberal or conservative.
So let?s stop giving the word, ?fundamentalist? a bad name. Let?s face it we all need to be fundamentalists one way or another. Let?s hope by doing so we will have good fundamentals to go by to make us outstanding fundamentalists in what we say, do and act in our lives.
I hope by reading this editorial it will give all of us some insight to the meaning of the word and help us to stop judging others so severely in this matter. Really it is not labels that matter but rather what is inside us that counts.
