Biblical literalism in the context of "Fundamentalism"

Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation, and is often pseudoscientific. In its broadest sense, creationism includes various religious views, which differ in their acceptance or rejection of modern scientific concepts, such as evolution, that describe the origin and development of natural phenomena.

The term creationism most often refers to belief in special creation: the claim that the universe and lifeforms were created as they exist today by divine action, and that the only true explanations are those which are compatible with a Christian fundamentalist literal interpretation of the creation myth found in the Bible's Genesis creation narrative. Since the 1970s, the most common form of this has been Young Earth creationism which posits special creation of the universe and lifeforms within the last 10,000 years on the basis of flood geology, and promotes pseudoscientific creation science. From the 18th century onward, Old Earth creationism accepted geological time harmonized with Genesis through gap or day-age theory, while supporting anti-evolution. Modern old-Earth creationists support progressive creationism and continue to reject evolutionary explanations. Following political controversy, creation science was reformulated as intelligent design and neo-creationism.

Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and American Protestants as a reaction to theological liberalism and cultural modernism. Fundamentalists argued that 19th-century modernist theologians had misunderstood or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, which they considered the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Fundamentalists are almost always described as upholding beliefs in biblical infallibility and biblical inerrancy, in keeping with traditional Christian doctrines concerning biblical interpretation, the role of Jesus in the Bible, and the role of the church in society. Fundamentalists usually believe in a core of Christian beliefs, typically called the "Five Fundamentals". These arose from the Presbyterian Church issuance of "The Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910". Topics included are statements on the historical accuracy of the Bible and all of the events which are recorded in it as well as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism that holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between about 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, directly contradicting established scientific data that puts the age of Earth around 4.54 billion years. Events such as Noah’s Flood are described as explaining much of the geological and fossil record. In its most widespread version, YEC is based on a religious belief in the inerrancy of certain literal interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Its primary adherents are Christians and Jews who believe that God created the Earth in six literal days, as stated in Genesis 1. Among the biggest young Earth creationist organizations are Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, and Creation Ministries International.

This is in contrast with old Earth creationism (OEC), which holds that literal interpretations of Genesis are compatible with the scientifically determined ages of the Earth and universe, and theistic evolution, which posits that the scientific principles of evolution, the Big Bang, abiogenesis, solar nebular theory, age of the universe, and age of Earth are compatible with a metaphorical interpretation of the Genesis creation account.

Flood geology (also creation geology or diluvial geology) is a pseudoscientific attempt to interpret and reconcile geological features of the Earth in accordance with a literal belief in the Genesis flood narrative, the flood myth in the Hebrew Bible. In the early 19th century, diluvial geologists hypothesized that specific surface features provided evidence of a worldwide flood which had followed earlier geological eras; after further investigation they agreed that these features resulted from local floods or from glaciers. In the 20th century, young-Earth creationists revived flood geology as an overarching concept in their opposition to evolution, assuming a recent six-day Creation and cataclysmic geological changes during the biblical flood, and incorporating creationist explanations of the sequences of rock strata.

In the early stages of development of the science of geology, fossils were interpreted as evidence of past flooding. The "theories of the Earth" of the 17th century proposed mechanisms based on natural laws, within a timescale set by the Ussher chronology. As modern geology developed, geologists found evidence of an ancient Earth and evidence inconsistent with the notion that the Earth had developed in a series of cataclysms, like the Genesis flood. In early 19th-century Britain, "diluvialism" attributed landforms and surface features (such as beds of gravel and erratic boulders) to the destructive effects of this supposed global deluge, but by 1830 geologists increasingly found that the evidence supported only relatively local floods. So-called scriptural geologists attempted to give primacy to literal biblical explanations, but they lacked a background in geology and were marginalised by the scientific community, as well as having little influence in the churches.

Creation science or scientific creationism is a pseudoscientific form of Young Earth creationism which claims to offer scientific arguments for certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible. It is often presented without overt faith-based language, but instead relies on reinterpreting scientific results to argue that various myths in the Book of Genesis and other select biblical passages are scientifically valid. The most commonly advanced ideas of creation science include special creation based on the Genesis creation narrative and flood geology based on the Genesis flood narrative. Creationists also claim they can disprove or reexplain a variety of scientific facts, theories and paradigms of geology, cosmology, biological evolution, archaeology, history, and linguistics using creation science. Creation science was foundational to intelligent design.

The overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is that creation science fails to qualify as scientific because it lacks empirical support, supplies no testable hypotheses, and resolves to describe natural history in terms of scientifically untestable supernatural causes. Courts, most often in the United States where the question has been asked in the context of teaching the subject in public schools, have consistently ruled since the 1980s that creation science is a religious view rather than a scientific one. Historians, philosophers of science and skeptics have described creation science as a pseudoscientific attempt to map the Bible into scientific facts. Professional biologists have criticized creation science for being unscholarly, and even as a dishonest and misguided sham, with extremely harmful educational consequences.

Dispensationalism is a Christian theological framework for interpreting the Christian Bible which maintains that history is divided into multiple ages called dispensations in which God interacts with his chosen people in different ways. It is often distinguished from covenant theology, the traditional Reformed view of reading the Bible. These are two competing frameworks of biblical theology that attempt to explain overall continuity in the Bible. The coining of the term "dispensationalism" has been attributed to Philip Mauro, a critic of the system's teachings, in his 1928 book The Gospel of the Kingdom.

Dispensationalists use a literal interpretation of the Bible and believe that divine revelation unfolds throughout its narrative. They believe that there is a distinction between Israel and the Church, and that Christians are not bound by Mosaic law. They maintain beliefs in premillennialism, Christian Zionism, and a rapture of Christians before the expected Second Coming of Jesus, who Christians believe to be the Messiah, generally before the Great Tribulation.