Fundamentalism: A movement that arose in the United States during and immediately after the First World War in order to reaffirm orthodox Protestant Christianity and to defend it militantly against the challenges of liberal theology, German higher criticism, Darwinism, and other isms regarded as harmful to American Christianity. Fundamentalism has so far gone through four phases of expression while maintaining an essential continuity of spirit, belief, and method.[1]

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[1] Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical dictionary of theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1984), 433, Print.