What is Fundamentalism?

The lovely Andrea has been in a discussion with some people regarding some aspects of Christian thought practice in which the word “fundamentalist” has been thrown around a lot. I’m going to expand on a post I made at Matt Jones’s Blog.

The term “fundamentalist” is certainly part of the cultural zeitgeist, what with the rise of conservative Christianity in the US and fanatical Muslims doing their best to destroy Western civilization. The problem is, it’s an emotionally loaded term that means many things to many people. If we’re going to have a real discussion, we need to be precise in our terminology.

In order to discuss fundamentalism, we need to distinguish between the “literal” meaning of the word, and its use as a technical term describing a certain historical trend or movement.

It certainly sounds good to say “I believe in the fundamental truths of Christianity.” However, when I use the term “fundie”, I’m thinking of a particular attitude that is characterized by spending immense amounts of energy on irrelevancies, supported by self-righteous isogesis, in order to be able to feel good about oneself while ignoring the massive real problems in the world.

This movement was formalized in the publication of The Fundamentals in the 1910’s. I am inclined to agree with those who suggest that its roots lie in southern slavery and racism — if you concentrate furiously on petty sins, you can ignore the far greater evil that surrounds you.

This is why “fundamentalist” is a perjorative term to so many. It’s frustrating to see all this energy spent on utterly peripheral issues when there are so many suffering and unsaved people all around the world. In my opinion the only “fundamentals” of the faith that matter were nicely summarized in the Nicene Creed, and all else is a matter of taste.

This is also why the term can be applied to Wahhabist Muslims who favor verses in the Qur`an like 2:191 (“And slay them [unbelievers] wherever ye find them.”), rather than 2:190 (“Begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors.”).

People who voiciferously condemn birth control (and Harry Potter, and the Horseless Carriage) would still keep women in virtual economic and intellectual slavery.

People like Crystal “Is Higher Education Appropriate for Women?” who automatically say “I believe in the authority of the Bible” are a clear example of this kind of thinking. What they uphold is a particular interpretation of the Bible that is often out of sync with the thrust of orthodoxy. The first step in geniuine reflection and dialogue on these issues it to acknowledge that we’re fallible humans reading fallible humans’ translations of the Bible, so our interpretations are always at least two steps removed from the reality of the Bible.

The church’s historical opposition (it seems ironical to me how US fundamentalists, who otherwise view Rome as the lair of Antichrist, parrot such a Catholic doctrine) to birth control is based on an erroneous interpretation of Genesis 38. Onan’s sin was not in preventing conception per se, it was in denying his brother’s wife the economic security of children who could care for her in her old age. To suggest that women now should be kept in a permanent state of morning sickness is to limit their economic, social and intellectual potential, and thus itself a sin.

And the argument that “I’m just going to leave it up to God” is a clear cop-out — an abject abdication of the free will that we have as a part of the Imago Dei. When I go out walking in rainy Vancouver, is it a sin to carry an umbrella? Shouldn’t I rather trust God to decide whether or not I get rained on? We make choices to modify our circumstances all the time, exercising a power given to us by God for our good.