The Battle for Words One way to look at religious beliefs is to say that all religions are talking about the same thing, the only real conflicts involve what words to use. I think that there is something to this, and as much as I want to reclaim the word 'Christian' to mean something other than 'Fundamentalist,' I see there are Fundamentalists who want complete control of the word.
Problem is, once you release a word, do you have control over it? This person who wrote to Jonah Goldberg at the National Review tries to define 'Fundamentalist' but misses a few things in his defense. There are ten things that the Fundamentalist movement claims must be believed in order to be Christian. Already they redifine Christian to mean Fundamentalist. What they wanted to do was solidify their faith against the "attack of modernism." So far from defining the historically accurate, they created a way of looking at the Christian Faith in a new way, previously impossible before modernism took hold.
The Fundamentals, as they were called, are along the lines of "The Bible is the inerrant word of God"; "Moses wrote the Pentateuch"; "Atonement Theology is the only Theology"; and such. They are all backed up by scripture, but they are also contradicted by scripture.
This anonymous person (presumbably Mr. Goldberb simply did not print the person's name) claims that the Five Points of Faith are in the Nicene and Apostles Creed. His five: 1) the inerrancy of scripture; 2) the virgin birth of Jesus Christ; 3)the substitutional theory of atonement; 4) the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ; and 5) Christ's imminent bodily return to the world.
First of all, niether creed mentions the Bible. Sure, they say "On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures", but that doesn't mean that any variation of the Christian Bible is being referenced her. I've always understood that phrase to refer to prophecies in the Hebrew Bible. This has nothing to do with the inerrancy of Scripture. They have to work hard with wordplay and logical conundrums to justify the places where the Bible contradicts itself.
The Virgin Birth: this has been long established that 'virgin' is a poor translation of the word used for 'maiden' or 'unmarried woman' which implies virginity, but so does "my kindergarten-aged daughter." I don't fight the virgin birth thing. Jesus is not diminished by having a real human father, just like the rest of us.
The Substitutional Theory of atonement: Bunk. I'm not going to get into that here. It's a big subject.
The Physical resurrection: Here's one that I do believe in, sort of, even though the creeds don't describe it as a physical resurrection. I believe that in the afterlife we will percieve ourselves in bodies, because that's what were used to. I believe we learn many things about God and the universe after death, and we will shed our need for the illusion of a physical body.
Christs imminent return: The history of the afterlife is long and intriguing. It's on my list of things to research. Right now I don't know if I believe that we are judged at the moment of death (or shortly after death) or if we sleep until the end of the world, or if we just watch the world continue until the end of time. The third would be my preference. I'm a big fan of the future, I'd love to see it.
Are the Five Points in the Creeds? No. Is Fundamentalism Christianity? No.
And don't get me started on the argument that 'fundamentalism' should not be applied to Islamist extremists who are doing a very good job of killing Iraqi's.  ¶ 8:38 AM