Honest question

[I <3 Abraham]

I don't particularly understand what makes someone a "fundamentalist". It seems like the term has been mushed together with christians who have strongly conservative domestic politics. The only way I have heard fundamentalism described is that yall are supposed to read and interpret the bible literally and take it as fundamentally true (hence the name). Is this correct? And if so, what does it mean to interpret a book so filled with parables literally? Hope you can clear this up, God bless.

"The folly of God will put our wisemen to shame"

Augustine

[ksen]

I don't particularly understand what makes someone a "fundamentalist". It seems like the term has been mushed together with christians who have strongly conservative domestic politics. The only way I have heard fundamentalism described is that yall are supposed to read and interpret the bible literally and take it as fundamentally true (hence the name). Is this correct? And if so, what does it mean to interpret a book so filled with parables literally? Hope you can clear this up, God bless.

"The folly of God will put our wisemen to shame"

Augustine

"Fundamentalist" is a term coined by a group of men led by J. Gresham Machen in the early 20th century to defend the inerrancy of Scripture.

Today the term is used for those Christians who hold to the Bible as the sole rule of faith.

As to how we "literally" interpret parables we take them in context recognizing what kind of literature they are. A better term for how we interpret the Bible would be the Historical-Grammatical method.

I hope this helps some.

[I <3 Abraham]

"Fundamentalist" is a term coined by a group of men led by J. Gresham Machen in the early 20th century to defend the inerrancy of Scripture.

Today the term is used for those Christians who hold to the Bible as the sole rule of faith.

As to how we "literally" interpret parables we take them in context recognizing what kind of literature they are. A better term for how we interpret the Bible would be the Historical-Grammatical method.

I hope this helps some.

Thanks for helping: parables were just an example this historical-grammatical method is (I think) the answer I was looking for. Could you say more about what this method is? Thanks again and God bless.

[Sevryn45]

I don't particularly understand what makes someone a "fundamentalist". It seems like the term has been mushed together with christians who have strongly conservative domestic politics. The only way I have heard fundamentalism described is that yall are supposed to read and interpret the bible literally and take it as fundamentally true (hence the name). Is this correct? And if so, what does it mean to interpret a book so filled with parables literally? Hope you can clear this up, God bless.

We interpret Scripture with Scripture, you have literal, symbolic and prophetic interpretations which would be taken in context with Scripture to determine if the Verse was to be take litterly, symbolically or prophetic.

I hope that answers your question, easy question to answer I wish more people came here to ask us cause majority of the people out there think we just pull versus out of context.

[e=mv^2]

FYI: The term "Fundamentalist" came about after the name of a set of books called "The Fundamentals". A bit down on the page in the fundy forum there is a link to the book on the web.

[Ssm117]

We interpret Scripture with Scripture, you have literal, symbolic and prophetic interpretations which would be taken in context with Scripture to determine if the Verse was to be take litterly, symbolically or prophetic.

I hope that answers your question, easy question to answer I wish more people came here to ask us cause majority of the people out there think we just pull versus out of context.


If this is the true meaning of fundamentalism, then shouldn't every Christian be a fundamentalist?

[e=mv^2]

That is the tip of the iceberg. Not all Christians are sola fide. Not all christians are sola scriptura. Not all christians are inerratists. There is alot more to it than that... you really need to have a look at "The Fundamentals (http://www.xmission.com/%7Efidelis/volume1/volume1.html)" in order to understand.