fundamentalism

Definition

The tendency to reduce a religion to its most fundamental tenets, based on strict interpretation of core texts.

Etymology

From fundamental + -ism. First used in the 1910s by American Christians.

Example Sentences

• "Recent books by philosopher Roger Scruton (1999, 2000) and music educator Robert Walker (2007) may be interpreted as a last desperate gasp of this form of musical fundamentalism or neoconservativism—the kind that tells the masses what is "good for them" on the grounds that they lack adequate bases for judgments on their own […]"

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