The “emergent” or “emergence” movement in the visible church began as an opposition to Right-Wing Conservatism or “Fundamentalism” in the Southern Baptist Convention that took over that denomination beginning in the early 1970’s and becoming mostly successful in 1980’s and 1990’s. Of course, that movement into “right-wing” conservatism was in response to an earlier push in the denomination that was taking it to the left into liberalism. The result was “fundamentalism.” Since this ministry has existed I have been called many names by angry people who disagreed with the message here. One the “emergents” liked to throw at me was, “you are just a “fundamentalist!” However, I have also heard the term used in a positive way.
If we are honest and think through things like this from a Biblical perspective, a Christian world-view, we should come to understand that to some being a Christian fundamentalist is a positive thing while to others it is the next thing to being a self-righteous Pharisee. Also, this word is used in the news media in a negative context to describe religious people who commit acts of terrorism or retreat from society into cultic communes. The emergents, as do all Christian liberals, view fundamentalists with anger and resentment. They view them as backward and mired in dead religiosity. However, is that what fundamentalism is?