Context (including genre) matters a great deal, and quite frankly, American fundamentalist interpretations don't usually take into account the first-century Jewish context the biblical writers wrote in. Remember, the biblical writers wrote as Jews in a particular place and time, to other Jews (and a few Gentiles) in particular places and times.
What we have in the Gospels is not Jesus speaking, but his faithful eyewitnesses' accounts of his speaking. We have no indication that Jesus had twenty-first century American Christians in mind when he was preaching, nor that 'he expected us to be able to figure it out' without any research into the context of his first-century Jewish culture--nor should we expect first-century Jewish culture to transliterate perfectly into our own twenty-first century American experiences.
You are correct that the context is critical, especially to the audience and the occasion of the write.
Bit you apparently don't know many American fundamentalists. Or you are defining the term very, very tightly.
The first rule of exegesis for any commentator is to look at the original context. And whatever conclusions or extrapolations any theologian may draw, the ones I see generally do their best to deal first with the context in its original state.