Religious Fundamentalism

Religious Fundamentalism

What is fundamentalism? Review this quote from Thomas (1996:288-289):

Fundamentalist movements especially produce dialogic discourse that contrasts a golden age with the alienation of current life (Bakhtin, 1981). But this discourse has little to do with actual causation. Moreover, these movements use the mythic past to create action strategies geared to the modern world.

Remember the two quotes I presented earlier this semester? There is George Orwell’s quote “Those who control the past control the future.” Orson Welles said “Those who control the present, control the past.” The past is important in religious rhetoric. It helps define a people as a group. David Barton noted that fundamentalism creates walls to “keep the heathens out.”

According to Sharlet (2006:35), “The first pillar of American Fundamentalism is Jesus Christ; the second is history; and the fundamentalist mind the two are converging.”

The Concept of Fundamentalism: Its Origins and Uses

The rise of fundamentalism, a recent phenomena, was in reaction to the threat many people felt from modernity. But what is modernity? Peter Berger suggested that modernity is characterized by abstraction rather than concreteness, future-orientation, individualistic, liberated, and secular.

Millennial Movements

Millennial movements challenge mainstream ideology. For example, the Book of Revelations (John) was almost not incorporated in the early Church’s canons because many leaders worried that the books futuristic prophecies would lend themselves to abuses by those seeking power. It should also be pointed out that this version of Revelations was chosen over The Apocalypse of Peter, a more popular text of the period (Geddes, 1959).

Some other points to consider about Millennial Movements are:

• Many Christians take a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations. Specifically, they
• believe in a second coming
• Preparing and isolating group from outsiders, especially secular society
• Millenial movements tend to arise in times of extreme hardship and oppression. Indeed, the Book of Revelations (John) was written during such a period.

The Timeline

Fundamentalism arose in the late 19th-early 20th century to counter the perceived rise in secularism, liberalism, and biblical high criticism.  Many biblical scholars at the time were starting to question the origin, authenticity, and meaning of biblical scripture.  This endeavor became known as biblical high criticism because it questioned the very foundation of religious thought versus normal criticism that did not question the literal interpretation of the scriptures.

Many people do not realize that fundamentalism emerged in the north but expanded to the south, especially during the WW II era.  In 1878, James Brooks wrote a 14 article creed about dispensational millennialism. Remember dispensational means phases and millennialism refers to end-time belief (Apocalypse). Dispensational millennialism is the prevailing form of Christian millennialism.

See more dispensational millennialism charts at http://members.citynet.net/morton/charts.htm

Between 1881 and 1897, a number of groups split away from Methodism such as Church of God (1881), Christian and Missionary Alliance (1887), Church of Nazarene (1895), and Church of God in Christ (1897). All these sects subscribed to fundamentalist notions.

What are the Protestant “Fundamentals?” Between 1910-1915, “The Fundamentals” were published. To be a fundamentalist Christian, one had to accept the following:

Biblical inerrancy	Immaculate conception
Substitutionary atonement	Christ’s resurrection
Second Coming	Christ as a deity
Original sin	Salvation by faith
Rapture

In 1919, The World Christian Fundamentalist Association met. Two outcomes emerged: fundamentalism as a name was accepted and members focused their efforts against liberal theology and Darwinian evolution. In 1924, Presbyterians brought heresy charges against Henry Emerson Fosdick, who argued that the believe in “virgin birth was not essential to Christianity (Time, 1924).” Two years later, the Scopes Trial in Tennessee made fundamentalist the object of scorn for a few decades. The movie Inherit the Wind was based on the trials also known as The Monkey Trials.

See a clip about The Scopes Trial

In 1947, the Supreme Court reinforced the separation of church and state. Perhaps because of this decision, Bob Jones University was founded amid fears by Bob Jones Senior of the influence of secular colleges and universities. During 1949-1950, Billy Graham’s revival meetings caught the imagination of many Americans wherever they toured.

According to Sharlet (2006:40), “It was Brown [vs. Board of Education], along with two decisions in the early 1960s striking down school prayer, that led to fundamentalism’s embrace of history as a redeeming creed. Thomas (1996:290-291) wrote, “Schools usually have become the battleground because no other institution was so central to the project of modernity.” Two historical figures would serve as icons in this fundamentalist reinterpretation of history–Sergeant York and Stonewall Jackson.

The 1970s-80s saw the appearance of Jesus Freaks and the election of Jimmy Carter, a born-again Christian. This was also a time when the Moral Majority and other similar organizations, formed and influenced the American political scene. The elections of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, were in no small part due to these groups efforts.

As my family was settling down in Arkansas in the early 1980s, I watched with fascination as many of that state’s leaders decided to rehash a newer version of the Scopes trial. Louisiana was trying to do the same thing. Both attempts were unsuccessful.

In the 19990s-2000s, the fundamentalist Promise Keepers was became very popular. The Kansas school board tried its hand at creationism but were voted out of office by the parents. Wedge issues such as abortion and homosexuality were used to the advantage of political candidates aligned with fundamentalist Christianity.

Jewish Fundamentalism

The group Eda Haredim has many parallels to Christian fundamentalism and American political conservatism. Another group known as Gush Emunim practice their faith in all aspects of their lives, see no separation between Zionism and being Jewish, and tend to dislike Arabs.

Islamic Fundamentalism

Like many Christians, many Muslims have responded unfavorably to modernity. Muslims have had a long history of striving to realign the faith to some set of “fundamentals.” Unlike Christian and Jewish fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism has been much more political. Thomas (1996:294) wrote: “Fundamentalism within Islam grew and shifted goals from civil society to gaining power in the State.”

The Future of Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism of all religious stripes will continue on into the future. That future will be harder, though, as macro trends such as modernity, globalization, and moderation become more commonplace throughout the societies of the world.

Something to Ponder

Does orthodoxy make a person a better citizen? [1]

• Ratio of ultra-Orthodox jaywalkers in Israel to secular jaywalkers: 3:1 [2]
• Percentage of born-again U.S. Christians who have been divorced: 35 [3]
• Percentage of other Americans who have been: 35 [4]
• Chances that the divorce of a born-again Christian happened after he or she accepted Christ: 9 in 10 [5]
• Estimated number of young Christians in 1995 who had pledged to wait until marriage for sex: 2,500,000 [6]
• Estimated percentage who waited: 12 [7]

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[1] Originally in Harper’sIndex, April 2005

[2] Tova Rosenbloom, Bar Ilam University (Ramat Gan, Israel)

[3] Tova Rosenbloom, Bar Ilam University (Ramat Gan, Israel)

[4] The Barna Group, Ltd. (Ventura, California)

[5] The Barna Group, Ltd. (Ventura, California)

[6] Peter Bearman, Columbia University (NYC)

[7] Peter Bearman, Columbia University (NYC)

Sources

Herdahl, Lisa. No Date. “Ecru, Mississippi Letter to ACLU.” American Civil Liberties Union.

MacGregor, Geddes. 1959. The Bible in the Making. 1st ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott.

Staff. 2001. “Born Again Adults Less Likely to Co-Habit, Just as Likely to Divorce.” Ventura, California: Barna Group.

Staff. 2005. “Harper’s Index.” Harper’s Magazine, February.

Staff. 2009. “The Porn Pardox.” The Week, March.

Thomas, George M. 1996. “Cultural Analysis of Religious Change and Movements.” Sociological Inquiry 66:285-302.