FUNDAMENTALISTS. – Two distinct meanings are given to this term.
I. – The first denotes those Protestants who, concerned about the multiplication of sects and doctrines, have sought to establish a certain number of “fundamental” principles that are common to the greatest possible number of “Churches.” They have attempted to divide the fundamental principles into several categories, grouping in the first
II. – The second meaning of the term indicates a recent movement, especially widespread in the United States, whose followers, in clear opposition to rationalist and modernist tendencies, accept as fundamental certain truths, such as the inerrancy of Holy Scripture, the reality of the miracles attested by the Bible, the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of Christ, as well as the possibility that He could have taken upon Himself the sins of mankind. These fundamentalists, who are—at least in a certain sense—the Protestants least distant from Catholicism, are sometimes tainted by “Adventist” errors and believe in millenarian eschatology.