Both of these “movements” or branches of Christian belief are rather modern and both distinguish themselves from mainstream Christianity. There has been a plethora of adds from the Fundamentalist point of view on mainstream media lately so I shall begin with it. The Fundamentalist movement began around the turn of the 20th century as an effort to counteract the rise of what is called the “Liberalist” interpretation of Christian faith which had arisen in modern times and had become the dominant interpretation of mainline Christian denominations, especially among English speaking believers.
Fundamentalism got its name from the title of a series of books called The Fundamentals sponsored by several very conservative Christian business men around 1900 and aimed to counteract the rise of the liberal interpretation of Christian faith called “Modernism.” These books focused on the truth of such traditional doctrines as the Verbal Inspiration of the Scripture, the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and the belief that Jesus’ death guaranteed salvation for those who believe in him.
The Modernist movement, which by then had come to represent the Christian Church in America, offered a more rationalistic and scientific account of the events described in the Bible and traditional doctrinal creeds. The Evangelical movement arose around 1950 in an attempt to establish an interpretive option to both Fundamentalism and Modernism. The key differences between it and Fundamentalism centered around the nature of the inspiration of the Bible and how Jesus’ death and teachings are to be understood.
While Fundamentalists insist that every word of the Bible is divinely inspired and without error, Evangelicals acknowledge a more flexible approach, especially when it comes to scientific issues. Also, Fundamentalists insist on viewing Christian faith and salvation as directly dependent on Jesus’ death and resurrection, whereas Evangelicals tend to take a broader, richer view of these issues. They view the salvation provided by Jesus’ death and resurrection focusing on ethical and cultural terms.
The viewpoints in and behind the various “Christian commercials” referred to above are strictly from the Fundamentalist point of view. No effort is made to establish either the verbal authority of the scripture quoted or the particular view of salvation through Jesus therein emphasized. It is assumed that the Bible speaks the inerrant truth and that Jesus was and is the exclusive divine mediator between God and humans. Indeed, the Bible is quoted as if spoken directly by God, and Jesus’ death is said to have closed the deal for human salvation.
In my view, the chief difficulties with the Fundamentalist view pertain to the total exclusivity of its interpretation of both the scripture and Jesus’ death. The simple fact is that there is no one set of ancient manuscripts upon which to base the Bible itself. Rather, there are literally hundreds of manuscripts of the Bible, and they often contain serious differences. This is not to say that we cannot make out what the main teachings are, but it is to say that no claims can be made for an exclusivist interpretation of even some of its main teachings.
In addition, by and large the Fundamentalist understanding of Jesus’ life and teachings is far too simplistic to account for the depth and diversity of what the scripture clearly says. There are many factual discrepancies in the Gospel accounts, and some of the traditional interpretations of Jesus’ death and resurrection are quite confusing. Each of the Gospels has a different account of how things went at the end of his life.
The Evangelical point of view generally takes such issues into account, whereas the Fundamentalist perspective does not. Presenting the Christian Gospel cannot be a matter of simply saying “Here’s the truth.” A strong Christian faith takes crucial and relevant issues and criticism into consideration and a weak one does not.
In this regard Evangelicals have more in common with a classic liberal point of view than with the Fundamentalist point of view. That is to say, they regard the role of human reason and open discussion as crucial to the determination of what the scriptures, and thus what Christianity, actually stands for.

In 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts at a YMCA school a young physical education teacher named James Naismith found himself frustrated during the winter months because there was no game to play with his students indoors. He spent a lot of time speculating about how to overcome this deficiency but all he could come up with was various forms of dodgeball and touch football in the gymnasium. However, above the gym floor there was a running track and he began to wonder if somehow he could devise a game that incorporated the vertical dimension as well as the horizontal one.
Naismith figured that if he could place the respective goals above the floor it would add a whole new dimension to the students’ games. He borrowed two peach baskets from the janitor and hung them from the edge of the running track, one at each end of the gym. As it happened, the running track was placed exactly ten feet above the playing floor. With an old soccer ball to throw into the baskets Naismith had the makings of a brand-new game. Next, he had to devise various rules that would govern the way the game would be played.
It was not long before he realized that the baskets had to have their bottoms cut out so the ball could be retrieved easily after a goal was scored. Then he made rules about how the ball could be passed and how defenders could not foul the players with the ball. Fouling had to be defined differently from the way it was in football. Before long Naismith had in fact invented a brand-new game which was destined to sweep through the entire world. In fact, by the 1930’s nearly every high school and college in the country had built basketball courts and fielded a team. At first there were strict rules about dribbling, passing, and guarding, but soon these were revised in order to speed up the game and make it safer.
Within a decade Naismith became the first basketball coach of all time and shortly thereafter he became the Athletic Director and Basketball Coach at Kansas University. Soon the game was being played by school boys and college young men all over the country. By 1897 there were hundreds of teams all over the country and soon there were National and State championships every year. It wasn’t long before the Harlem Globetrotters began to tour the world with their crazy but highly effective antics. Today, of course, the game of basketball is a world-wide universal phenomenon.
I myself began to play basketball when I was about ten years old and I did not stop until I was 80 years old. I played on a college team and have played on various faculty teams throughout my teaching career. I’ve had the privilege of seeing many great games all around the country, including a couple of college championships and many, many professional games. In fact, I had a friend who coached in the NBA and I was able to see many of his teams’ games. In addition, I have initiated several basketball camps, one even in my wife’s home country of Finland.
I remember celebrating the one-hundred-year anniversary of basketball’s invention in 1991. It is hard to believe that I have lived through almost all of basketball’s history. With all its changes, in rules and types of players, basketball remains an amazing phenomenon. One can play it by oneself or with others, and it is always open to new ideas and people. A real game for everyone.