Biblical Inerrancy in Fundamentalist Movement

The publication of DarwinÆs Origin of Species in 1859 sparked an intellectual crisis for Christians that no educated person could ignore. The focus of the crisis was on the reliability of the opening chapters of Genesis, but the wider issue was whether the Bible could be trusted at all. German higher criticism, which questioned the historicity of many Biblical stories, had been developing for some decades and had become highly sophisticated by the time it became known in the United States after the Civil War. The absolute integrity of the Bible was crucial for American EvangelicalsÆ whole way of thought in the late nineteenth century. When this cornerstone was disturbed, major changes had to be made in the entire evangelical edifice.

To define terms, Marsden offers the following:

[A]n American fundamentalist is an evangelical who is militant in opposition to liberal theology in the churches or to changes in cultural values . . . [They] are not just religious conservatives, they are conservatives who are willing to take a stand and to fight.

ôEvangelicalö became the common name for the revival

. . .
of the Fundamentalist movement of the twentieth century. These Dispensationalists specially oversaw the publication of a paperback series, The Fundamentals, from which the modern movement has derived its name. According to Marsden, Fundamentalist thinking reflects a modern intellectual tradition that dates largely from the Enlightenment, and has close links with the Baconian and Common Sense assumptions of the early modern era. It sees human beings as capable of positive knowledge based on sure foundations. If rationally organized, such knowledge can yield much certainty. Combined with Biblicism, such a view of knowledge leads to supreme confidence on religious questions. This commonsense inductive aspect of Fundamentalist thinking thus represents an intellectual tradition that is alien to most academics. Fundamentalists have the confidence of Enlightenment philosophers that an objective look at the facts will lead to truth. FundamentalistsÆ insistence on the inerrancy of the Bible in scientific and historical detail is related to this early modern way of thinking. Although the idea that Scripture does not err is an old one, Fundamentalists adhere to it partly because they view the Bible as though it were a scientific tr
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Approximate Word count = 2450
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)