Although the word "fundamentalist" is often used in contempt towards Bible believing Christians, fundamentalism can be a good thing or a bad thing. A fundamentalist is just simply someone who goes by the fundamentals of their belief system. Someone is not a Christian at all if they don't go by the fundamentals of Christianity...and if they are not going by the fundamentals of Christianity, then they are simply going by the fundamentals of some other belief system, unless they don't really believe what they claim to believe. So everyone is a fundamentalist one way or another if they have a belief system that they truly believe in. Even if someone is an atheist, they still have beliefs, and they go by the fundamentals of their beliefs unless they have secret doubts about it. So whether or not someone is a fundamentalist is clearly not the issue. The real issue is what fundamentals they go by. Yet the word "fundamentalist" has now become a pejorative that many people throw around in order to marginalize anyone who disagrees with their worldview, just like the name "Christian" was first given to followers of Christ by their critics (See Acts 11:26). History repeats itself as Christ's true followers are continually marginalized and persecuted by those who are "of the world" (John 15:19). The word fundamentalist is commonly used to scorn biblical Christians more than anyone else, and this often appears to be an attempt to obscure the real issues. If you are preaching your beliefs, yet not going by the fundamentals of those beliefs, then you are simply not practicing what you preach. In that case, you are either a fundamentalist or a hypocrite.

While the term "religious fundamentalism" is often used to describe something that someone views as a threat (including biblical Christianity), Christianity is in fact not about being religious, but it is simply a relationship with God...something that every man-made religion in this world lacks. Religion is something that man has come up with, but God did not come out of the minds of man - He created us! So I think he deserves some respect for that. It is God who has the final say - not me or anyone else (See my article titled God's Word is The Final Word). So I think we ought to find out what He has to say rather than just merely following man's ideas and speculations, and that is all I am asking here. I am not trying to push anything on anyone, but I am just simply asking people to follow God alone.

Christian fundamentalists are also regarded as people who take the Bible literally. As one who goes by the fundamentals of Christianity, I take the Bible literally when it is meant to be taken literally, but that does not mean that I take everything in the Bible literally. Anyone who knows the Bible should know that there are clearly some places in the Bible where it is meant to be taken literal, and there are other places where it uses figures of speech to help us better understand profound spiritual truths. But I have continually found that those who do not know the Bible are only people who do not seem to grasp this. They may have read a few verses here and there, but it is always obvious to me, through their own words, that they have never really studied the Bible with an open heart and mind. The fact that many people accuse Bible believing Christians of taking everything in the Bible literal only reveals their ignorance of what we believe in the first place, as well as their ignorance of the Bible. Many of them are simply not thinking for themselves, but they are going by what they have heard man say about those "narrow minded fundamentalists" (Check out what Jesus Himself said about the "narrow way" in Matthew 7:13-14 and Luke 13:23-24.)

Biblical Christians are often thought of as people who should be more open minded. However, while many people are so proud of being more "open minded" than those who disagree with them (sometimes without even knowing what the person who disagrees with them believes), it is plain to see that their minds have been so open to everything that they have really been CLOSED to the idea that something might be right and something else wrong. A non-Christian Chicago philosophy professor named Allan Bloom has even wrote a book on that subject titled "The Closing of the American Mind". It is about the closing of the American mind through openness to everything! I am not going to tell anyone to follow a philosophy professor. I only hope that people will follow God alone rather than merely following the teachings of any mere man or women... but I am just making the point that the contradictory post-modern mindset in America is so obviously irrational that anyone can see that, including those who are not Christians.