I was chatting to a friend about someone who had “de-converted” from Christianity, and I lamented that he had not been able to see past his fundamentalist upbringing. My friend said, “But aren’t we fundamentalists too?”

It depends on what you mean by “fundamentalist”. The word goes back to a series of Christian pamphlets called The Fundamentals, published in the early 20th century. They were written in response to a rampant liberalism that was sweeping through the church and denying basic Christian doctrines. The pamphlets affirmed things like the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, and the inspiration of the Bible. Those who agreed with the pamphlets were nicknamed “fundamentalists”.

If that is the meaning of “fundamentalist”, then yes, most of us in Sydney Anglican land would fit the bill.

But words are tricky things; they won’t stand still. They twist and turn and shift. Hardly anyone uses “fundamentalist” in this original sense anymore. The word no longer has a simple meaning. And when we look at churches that identify themselves with this label, we notice a few things that might make us uncomfortable.

These churches tend to be premillennialist, they are usually “young earth”, they often have a bizarre devotion to the KJV, they are frequently pentecostal, and they tend to be suspicious of any kind of subtlety or sophistication in theology. Perhaps most significantly, fundamentalist churches usually believe in a radical separation from the world, and they are especially down on popular culture. They don’t like beer and wine much, either.

I doubt many of these churches would recognise fundamentalism in the Sydney Anglican diocese. And given all the negative baggage the word carries, I think we should be quite happy to ditch this particular label. Are we fundamentalists? I say no.