Modern Christian Movement

Christian Fundamentalism is both a movement and a code of rules, referring to the adherence to the religion and scriptural article of beliefs (http//www.sullivan-county.com/news/index.htm, 2003). Nowadays, the marge is often corrupted to specify extremists and terrorists, who attack multi heathenishism, state and the basic concepts of family planning. The present paper is designed to discuss the movement and the underlying doctrine in details and comp atomic number 18 it to the similar Muslim and Judaist phantasmal movements and trends.The Modern Christian Movement emerged in the beginning of the 20th century in response to modernism, industrialization and the following reformations of social life towards democracy (Appleby et al, 2003). The five fundamentals of Christian belief that were enumerated in a series of 12 paperback volumes containing scholarly essays on the Bible that appeared between 1910 and 1915. Those included 1) Biblical inerrancy 2) The divinity of Jesus 3)The Virgin Birth 4) The belief that Jesus died to redeem humankind 5)An expectation of the Second Coming, or physical return, of Jesus Christ (www.sullivan-county.com, 2003).Furthermore, the tracts contained the reproof of technological progress and modern theology and insisted upon the return to the initials, i.e. to the first century, when agate lineal Christianity was spreading. The whole Bible was declared inerrant, in contrast to the other Christian movements, which refuted received parts of the Gospel. Furthermore, fundamentalists had true hostility to those who didnt share their beliefs up to the last point, as they alleged thither was nothing redundant or useless in the Bible (Appleby et al, 2003), as the scriptures should have been viewed as instructions rather than edifying stories and narratives.The followers of the movement also believed in the sixth-day Creationism and therefore rejected the whole evolutionary science. More importantly, they asserted that Bible should no t have been interpreted, as it had to be understood literally, without searching any mystic contexts, as the scriptures were written specifically for mundane peoples understanding (Appleby et al, 2003 Armstrong, 2001).Furthermore, fundamentalists prioritized faith over virtuous lifestyle, whereas the last mentioned was nevertheless to correspond with the exact fundamentalist teachings. It also needs to be state that fundamentalists viewed human being as basically sinful and violent Because Calvin, Luther, and Augustine all see humans as depraved and born into sin produced a truly negative outlook on humanity. Also their idea of the elect creates an attitude that they are somehow chosen to a higher place all others. This puts them at odds with mainline or liberal Protestant churches that reject the Augustinian notions of human depravity (www.sullivan-county.com, 2003).The history of the movement itself is also interesting and controversial. In the early 20th century, the discipl es of the fundamentals began to pull in churches and denominations in the United States and United kingdom (Appleby et al, 2003). In 1910, the northern Presbyterian Church proclaimed the five aforementioned principal pillars. In 1919, the Worlds Christian Association was found, and W.Riley agreed to head it. In 1920, the term fundamentalist was first used by Curtis Lee Laws, but the contemporary fundamentalists perceived the term ambivalently, as it sounded like a conceptually new religious movement (http//mb-soft.com/believe/text/fundamen.htm, 1997).Due to the penetration of liberalism into a depend of American churches, fundamentalists began to criticize wide the transformation and peculiar democratization of Baptist and Protestant churches. Furthermore, they rejected and even attempted to curb the contemporary efforts to re-interpret and reformulate the biblical teachings, and were themselves most consistent with the content of the King James Bible, published in 1611(Armstrong , 2001 Appleby et al, 2003).Church struggles occurred in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church, and even in the southern Presbyterian Church, but the grand battles were fought in the northern Presbyterian and northern Baptist denominations. Machen was the undisputed leader among Presbyterians, joined by Clarence E.Macartney (mb-soft.com, 1997).Consequently, a number of organizations were created on the basis of the reformed Baptist and Presbyterian churches, which began to utilize the five fundamentals the fundamentalist Fellowship (1921), the National Federation of the fundamentalists of the Northern Baptists (1921) and the Baptist Bible Union (1923).The unions developed their own policies in such issues as ordination of clergy ad education, and a number of particularly enthusiastic preachers denied the importance of literacy and declared Bible as their only reader in the course of training (Armstrong, 2001 mb-soft.com, 1997). Approximately at the same fo urth dimension the fundamentalists began to interfere with the policies of public schools, specifically, with their curricula which included Darwinian evolution as a mandatory subject (Appleby et al, 2003).Since the 1940s, the fundamentalists split into two groups, the first one accepted the term fundamentalism and began to run to some extent separatist policies, whereas the second camp regarded the term as humiliating and positioning the followers of the movement as narrow-minded fanatics. The latter group, as one can understand, wished to expand the influence over Protestant churches and therefore declared their teaching as evangelical. This group soon softened their hard-line Christian belief and gradually accepted the contemporary liberal ideas, expressed by a number of Protestant Church executives.Towards the late 1970s, there was a peak of the fundamentalists popularity, as during Ronald Reagan campaign (Appleby et al , 2003), they were able to find answers to the most troubl emaking issues like economic and social crises (in fact associated with the Vietnam War, but the adepts of the movement manipulated with the yield of the populations moral and optimism and stated the contemporary mentality was erroneous). They identified a new and more pervasive enemy, secular humanism, which they believed was responsible for eroding churches, schools, universities, the government, and above all families.They fought all enemies which they considered to be offspring of secular humanism, evolutionism, political and theological liberalism, loose personal morality, socialism and communism (mb-soft.com, 1997). Thus, they employed the most powerful PR tools to influence public consciousness and arranged a number of protest actions, including the picketing family planning centers, certain education institutions and scientific laboratories in attempt to undermine the repute of the mentioned organizations (Armstrong, 2001).Such religious activists as Jerry Falwell, pat Robe rtson and Hal Lindsey appeared on TV-screens as often as very popular politicians or the president and continued to encourage citizens to react from technological advancements, democratic ideology the most radical fundamentalists even tried to curb immigration and force foreigners of different faith to leave the United States.The Fundamentalist Movement of the 1990s and the new millennium is still strong, but the organization has become much more secluded. Nowadays, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has launched a new project that encourages scholars in the United States and around the world to study fundamentalism (http//religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/fund.html, 1998). They also theorized the religious doctrine and outlined the its basic characteristics, which include the manifestation of religious truth which must not be secreted, religious idealism as the major aspect of fundamentalist identity and demonization of any movements which diverge from the doctrine.F urthermore, fundamentalists jut out themselves as part of a cosmic struggle they seize on historical moments and reinterpret them in the light of this cosmic struggle they envy modernist cultural hegemony and try to overturn the distribution of power (religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu, 1998). Appleby also discusses the major characteristics of the organized movement and stated and its primary course is the increase of the popularity of Christian religion.Furthermore, the members of the movement are selective and reject specific aspects of technological progress rather then modernity in general the organization itself has an elect or chosen rank sharp group boundaries charismatic authoritarian leaders and mandated behavioral requirement (ibid, 1998). As one can understand, Christian fundamentalism has a lot in commons with Islam and Judaism, especially in terms of the structure of the movement.For instance, both Orthodox Judaist and Islamic fundamentalist movements have the same organizational characteristics and regard themselves as the participants of a cosmic struggle. This trend, however, is not very notable in Judaism, whereas the most hard-line Muslim leaders (of radical organizations like al-Qaeda) wage true war against otherwise-minded, and, similarly to Christian fundamentalists, demonize anyone who dares scrap the teachings from the Holy Scriptures perceived as central. Judaism has always been less radical and its fundamentals are more related to the controversy over the origin of the Torah, which, as most Orthodox Judaists hold, derives actually from deity rather than from humankind (Armstrong, 2001).Judaist Fundamentalism also includes Laws of Rabbinic decree to better enforce Torah law (e.g. the prohibition of alimentation/cooking mixtures of milk and poultry) these laws are held to be created by the rabbis and are divinely inspired (Armstrong, 2001, p. 385) and observes Rabbeinu Gershoms prescriptions concerning the ban on reading letters, ad dressed to another person, the misadventure of divorcing a female without her compliance and the regulation of eating habits.Islamic Fundamentalism refers to Sunni Islam, which recognized the Koran, Haddith and Sunnah and accordingly rejects the Shia laws. Similarly to the Christian Fundamentalism, the corresponding Islamic teaching includes the notion that the problems of the world stem from secular influences. Further, the path to peace and justice lies in a return to the original message of Islam, combined with a scrupulous rejection of innovations (Armstrong, 2001, p. 396).Technological progress is also partially rejected in the Judaist Fundamentalism for instance, the Torah teaches that human face should not touch blade, thats why Orthodox Jews avoid employ razors and wear long beards. On the other hand, the Christian Fundamentalism has one unique feature, Messianism, which is not emphasized in the other two doctrines, as most Judaists do not view Christ as an influential r eligious person, whereas the concept of Gods son is absent is Islam.As one can understand, fundamentalism is to not bad(p) extent synonymous to conservatism. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that the contemporary fundamentalist movement are based not purely upon the religious doctrines, but also on the aspects of PR, promotion and, if necessary, violence and compulsion. Furthermore, all of them enclose considerable restrictions upon human daily activities, in Islam, for instance, practically all daily routines have certain algorithms moreover, all of them challenge humanism and the principles of individual freedom, imposing personal responsibility and accountability to society or community (especially in Judaism) instead.Reference listSullivan Country Resources. (2003). Christian Fundamentalism exposed. visible(prenominal) online at http//www.sullivan-county.com/news/index.htmReligious Movements Homepage. (1998). Fundamentalism. Available online at http//religiousmovemen ts.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/fund.htmlBelieve Web-Resources. (1997). (Christian) Fundamentalism. Available online at http//mb-soft.com/believe/text/fundamen.htmAppleby, R., Almond, G. and Sivan, E. (2003). Strong Religion. Chicago University of Chicago Press.Armstrong, K. (2001). The Battle of God A History of Fundamentalism. New York Ballantine Books.