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SnowStar Axial Magazine

AXIAL is the SnowStar Institute's magazine. It is published three times a year: fall, winter, and spring, and features articles from leading scholars and thinkers, submissions from SnowStar members, and news about developments and goals of the SnowStar Institute of Religion.

AXIAL Winter, 2003
Lloyd Geering
©SnowStar Institute of Religion.

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Why Fundamentalism Can Be Harmful.

(Lloyd Geering)

Introduction

"Fundamentalism has suddenly become a matter of concern for everyone, whether or not they are personally religious. It affects education in science and history; it affects political elections in some countries, and through this it affects international relations; it may affect the question of whether mankind survives far into the twenty-first century. Therefore, if people want to understand the world in which they live, they may find it necessary to understand something about fundamentalism." So wrote the Scottish Old Testament scholar James Barr in 1982. But what is Fundamentalism? The word derives from a series of twelve booklets entitled 'The Fundamentals' which were published between 1909 and 1915 and distributed freely to every Protestant minister in the English-speaking world, by the courtesy of two Protestant laymen of the Southern States. The intention was to counter the spread of liberal religious thought, believed by the publishers to be undermining the eternal Christian truths. The booklets reaffirmed the infallibility of the Bible, the deity of Christ, the Virgin Birth, miracles, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the substitutionary view of the Atonement.

They also attacked not only the new biblical criticism and Darwinism, but also Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Science. By 1920 the term 'fundamentalist' was being used to refer to all whose religious convictions were expressed in these booklets. The publication of the series led to fierce theological battles in seminaries and churches between the fundamentalists and the liberals. The battle received great publicity over the famous Scopes Trial of 1925, when a schoolteacher was tried and convicted for teaching biological evolution in a Tennessee school.

The Prophecy of Kirsopp Lake

In 1925 the very liberal New Testament scholar, Kirsopp Lake, wrote a book entitled The Religion of Yesterday and Tomorrow in which he made a prophecy of where the debate would lead. In his view the denominational divisions of the church had already become obsolete; he said the real divisions cut right across the denominations and consisted of the following three groups:

(1) The Fundamentalists. Kirsopp Lake judged such people to be strong in conviction but spiritually arrogant and intellectually ignorant.
(2) The Experimentalists (Radicals). These were willing to shed the supposedly unchangeable dogmas in order to explore new forms of the Christian faith, relevant to the new intellectual climate. Lake judged these to hold the key to the future of Christianity but acknowledged that because they had no firm belief structure it was difficult for them to establish a viable identity.
(3) The Institutionalists (Liberals). These still constituted the main body of the church. They were strongly critical of the Fundamentalists but also regarded the Experimentalists with dismay. They opted for a middle way, clinging to a watered down version of the traditional dogmas.

The third group, thought Lake, were trying to be both loyal to the old and also receptive of the new but they were often being led into dishonesty and double-talk. Then Lake made this very striking prophecy: 'The fundamentalists will eventually triumph. They will drive the Experimentalists out of the churches and then reabsorb the Institutionalists who, under pressure, will become more orthodox...The Church will shrink from left to right'.

That is a very remarkable prophecy for it generally describes the current state of affairs in the mainline churches today. In 1925 the Protestant churches were much more liberal, relative to the intellectual climate around them, than they are today. The Fundamentalists were a minority in 1920 and had to fight hard to maintain their position. Today they often form the majority. Rigid fundamentalists claim that the fundamental Christian truths are unchangeable and are embedded in an infallible Bible. The assertion of the absolute inerrancy of the Bible has been called biblical literalism. But fundamentalists are literalists only when and where it suits them to be so. They are usually literalists when it concerns the Second Coming of Christ, the Resurrection as an historical event, the existence of eternal punishment in Hell. But when Jesus tells a man to sell all that he has and give to the poor, fundamentalists usually turn to a figurative interpretation.

What is more, fundamentalists are happy to ignore those sections of the Bible (particularly in the Old Testament) which do not interest them, as well as passing very lightly over the various contradictory statements. While Protestant fundamentalists often claim to be Bible-believing Christians, they do not treat it uniformly as of divine origin but are very eclectic, fastening on those passages which are particularly attractive to them. In other words they are looking at the Bible through the tint of their own glasses, which effectively eliminate from sight what they do not want to see. Thus they impose on the Bible their own prior convictions. Yet this is the very fault which they attribute to biblical critics, arguing that modern biblical criticism imposes man-made ideas and theories on the eternal Word of God. But, as Barr points out, 'Fundamentalism is the imposition upon the Bible of a particular tradition of human religion, and the use of the Bible as an instrument of power to secure the success and influence of that religion'. This is illustrated by the fact that fundamentalists can also violently disagree with one another as to how particular passages are to be read and interpreted.

The Common Currency of Fundamentalism

What all fundamentalists have in common is not a set of specific beliefs but an attitude of mind. It is the conviction that they possess knowledge of the absolute truth, of which they have become the divinely ordained guardians. This conviction gives them a feeling of extreme confidence and they become crusaders, bent on spreading the Truth as they see it.

It is because fundamentalism is primarily based on an attitude of mind and is not identifiable with any one set of beliefs, not even one set of Christian beliefs, that the word has greatly widened in usage since the time when it was first coined. Fundamentalism is no longer seen as peculiar to Christian Protestantism. It is becoming increasingly common to speak of Muslim fundamentalists. Wherever there is evidence of a vigorous but blind commitment to something as an absolute, whether in Christianity, Islam or Hinduism, we encounter the phenomenon of fundamentalism.

The fundamentalist attitude of mind is most likely to flourish in those religious traditions which set great store on a canon of Holy Scripture which is thought to express the divinely revealed truth. The Middle Eastern traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, therefore, are the most likely environments for the flowering of fundamentalism. What is too little appreciated is the fact that the word 'fundamentalism' (only eighty years old) refers to a modern phenomenon. This is less than obvious simply because fundamentalists, by making their claims on the basis of the Bible, see themselves as the champions of ancient truths. This claim, by its very subtlety, often deceives even non-fundamentalists, who feel themselves placed at a disadvantage, since fundamentalists appear to claim the high moral ground.

In the pre-modern period Jews, Christians and Muslims were not fundamentalists even though they each gave their respective Scriptures all due respect. They honoured and used their Scriptures in a cultural and religious context which was in no obvious conflict with their Scriptures. This meant that the words of their respective Scriptures could be acknowledged as self-evidently true. This is no longer the case, for the advent of modern culture has changed all that. Let me put it this way. A loyal but perceptive Muslim said to Wilfred Cantwell Smith. 'Muslims no longer believe in Allah in the way our forbears did. Today Muslims believe in Islam'. Similarly we may say, that fundamentalists believe in the Bible more than they believe in God. To all intents and purposes the Bible has become their God. This was not the case in the pre-modern world.

Funadmentalism as Superstition

It is for this reason that religious fundamentalism may be said to be a modern phenomenon, and not simply the conservation of past tradition. Another way of putting this is to say that in the pre-modern world the honouring of Holy Scriptures made eminently good sense. To do so in exactly the same way in the modern world is superstition. I use the word 'superstition' in its technical meaning of 'any belief or practice which survives the death of the cultural context where it was appropriate'. In this sense we need have no hesitation in referring to fundamentalism as a widespread modern superstition.

Now some superstitions are relatively harmless and people should be left free to practise them if they wish. In any case, most of us still have our own private little superstitions and are in no position to be too judgmental about those of others. But superstitions can have their dangers and some are more dangerous than others. Let me now briefly refer to the dangers of fundamentalism.

First, it is dangerous to the fundamentalist. It is a form of self-imprisonment. Fundamentalism produces a closed mind and has the capacity to restrict the eyesight to tunnel vision. Fundamentalism takes away one's freedom to think for oneself and hinders mental and spiritual growth. It prevents one from becoming the mature balanced, self-critical person that each of us has the potential to be. Fundamentalism, far from being the guardian of religious faith, is a seductive trap from which Christian faith, at its best, has always offered a saving path to freedom. In its most extreme form fundamentalism leads to fanaticism (readily seen today in Muslim suicide bombers). It is salutary to remember that the word fanatic is derived from the Latin word fanum, meaning a temple. The fanatic was a person who believed himself to be wholly inspired by divine power. Fanatics are quite impervious to reasoning and will stop at nothing to achieve their ends, passionately believing them to be not their ends but those of God. This tendency to fanaticism is everywhere present in Christian fundamentalists. It is shown in the way they are absolutely sure they know the mind and will of God on any subject which particularly concerns them. To the outside observer, it seems that what they call the mind of God is actually their own conviction or prejudice which, unconsciously, they have projected on to God. And having done so, they can then promote their own ideas by appeal to the very highest authority. They need only point to a verse in Scripture to clinch the identification of their mind with the supposed mind of God. The fact that they have unconsciously made the selection of what suits them in Scripture and ignored anything to the contrary usually escapes them entirely.

All this means, secondly, that fundamentalism is a serious danger to the very religious tradition out of which it has come, whether Judaism, Christianity or Islam. It is sadly ironical that fundamentalism, which sees itself as the guardian and preserver of Christianity, now constitutes one of Christianity's chief obstacles to growth and development. Fundamentalists usually reveal a very inadequate knowledge of religious history. They assume that what they are attempting to guard goes back to origins and that there has been no basic change since then. They are causing the living Christian tradition to ossify and to suffer from arrested development. Even a sketchy understanding of Christian history shows that what became the classical form of Christianity underwent a series of changes at various points in its past.

Thirdly, fundamentalism, once it is seen to be a modern form of superstition, turns out to be in complete conflict with the main burden of the very Bible of which it claims to be the guardian. In the ancient world in which the Judeo-Christian-Islamic paths of faith came to birth, it was not unbelief to which the founding prophets directed their attention but overbelief. They asserted that people believed in far too many gods. So the founding Jewish, Christian and Islamic prophets became iconoclasts. They destroyed the idols or tangible things which people put their trust in. That is why the second commandment is a commandment to abandon idols. 'You shall not make for yourself any graven image, or any likeness of anything which is heaven, or earth or under the earth, You shall not bow down to it or serve it'. When one replaces (the invisible) God with any visible, tangible thing, even though it be the Bible, it is this commandment which is being infringed. Fundamentalists have raised the Bible into a tangible idol. They are doing what Aaron did in forging the golden calf when they were afraid Moses was leading them to a disastrous unknown future and they longed to return to the fleshpots of Egypt. Fundamentalism, therefore, is not the true guardian of Christianity; it is its polar opposite, Christianity's chief enemy.

Lastly, there are some areas in which fundamentalism may be judged dangerous in that it could contribute to the end of humankind. At the height of the cold war, for example, fundamentalists in the United States were not only giving their whole-hearted support to America's policy of stock-piling of nuclear weapons but they began to look forward to the coming nuclear holocaust with joyful expectation, They saw it as the heralding of the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of his Kingdom. The nuclear holocaust held no fears for them personally for they firmly believed that they would be raptured (that is, taken up into heaven to join the Lord) and from the heavenly dress circle would have the best view of the destruction of others. It is not only in their support of nuclear war that fundamentalism poses a threat.

What to Do

The great issues facing humankind in the coming centuries are what are commonly called 'Green Issues' - overpopulation, ruthless exploitation of the earth's resources, massive pollution and so on. Some people, such as Arnold Toynbee, have traced some of our coming problems to certain elements in the Judeo-Christian tradition, elements which are particularly prominent in fundamentalism. Fundamentalists have regarded 'the earth as merely a temporary way station on the road to eternal life. It is unimportant except as a place of testing to get into heaven. In this evil and dangerous world, one's duty is to pass through unspotted by the surrounding corruption. The earth was put here by the Lord for his people to subdue and to use for profitable purposes on the way to the hereafter.' These words were uttered by James Gaius Watt, Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Interior. On the basis of them he advocated giving developers unlimited access to controlled parks and natural resources.

Fundamentalists tend to take quite literally such words of the Bible as - 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over everything living things that moves on the earth'. This fact brings them into conflict with the concerns of conservation and the sustainable use of the earth's resources.

What should we do about fundamentalism? There are three choices.

(a) We can ignore them and do nothing.
(b) We can attempt to dialogue with them.
(c) We can be more aggressive and iconoclastic.

Both church and society have tended to take the first option. Should they not be left free to hold the beliefs and live the life-styles they choose? There is much to be said for this, provided their fundamentalism does not bring harm to others. Only in very extreme cases, as in the Jonestown phenomenon, can we be sure they are also harming themselves and even then it may be too late to intervene. When fundamentalists themselves become aggressive, either on a personal level or on a question of social policy, this first option may have to be abandoned.

Then we turn to the second option of attempting to convince them of a more fruitful path. But how successful can one be in genuine open dialogue? Fundamentalism by its very nature tends to build up an invisible wall of protection against all external threat and gives fundamentalists a kind of immunity to all thoughts which are in conflict with their beliefs. The certainty they hold of their position tends to make them dogmatic and even arrogant.

The third option - the aggressive and iconoclastic attack - is certainly better avoided when one is dealing with people on a one-to-one basis but it may have to be employed when fundamentalists are collectively promoting a cause which is dangerous to society or detrimental to the religious tradition it claims to be preserving. Jewish fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalists and Muslim fundamentalists, all do their own respective causes great harm, and their fellow-religionists should perhaps be spelling this out more clearly, even though they are often reluctant to do so.

Conclusion

It is ironical that fundamentalism emerged as a counter to modernism, which it saw as its chief enemy; yet fundamentalists have failed to realise that what they embrace is itself a modern phenomenon and one which may be called a religious aberration. However, as James Barr has said, 'Fundamentalism as a movement will last a long time and will constitute a powerful influence upon religion and society for many decades to come'.