A couple of months ago, I had an email exchange with a “young earth creationist.” He claimed that our Earth and its lifeforms were created by God between about 10,000 and 6,000 years ago. I replied that his “young earth creationist” perspective has already been strongly contradicted by established scientific data that puts the age of Earth at around 4.54 billion years. He proudly told me he was a devout fundamentalist Christian and not a “progressive liberal Catholic” like me.

The word “fundamentalist” was first used in print in the United States, in 1920, by the prominent American Baptist pastor Curtis Lee Laws (1868-1946), who was the editor of The Watchman Examiner, a national Baptist newspaper. Laws proposed that Christians who were fighting for the fundamentals of their faith should be called “fundamentalists.” But the term “fundamentalist” was not applied to other religious traditions until around the time of the Iranian Revolution in 1978-79.

In general, all fundamentalist religious movements arise when people are confronted with an unsettling disruption of their “normal” way of life. Sensing societal chaos, they develop strong feelings of anxiety and fear about losing control over their lives and losing personal and group identity.

Regardless of the religious tradition to which they belong, all fundamentalists follow certain patterns:

• Religious ideology is the basis for their personal and communal identity.

• They insist upon one statement of truth that is inerrant, revealed, and unchangeable

• They see themselves as part of a cosmic struggle between good and evil.

• They seize on historical moments and reinterpret them in the light of this cosmic struggle.

• They demonize their opposition.

• They are selective in what parts of the religious tradition and heritage they will stress.

Although we have not usually thought of Roman Catholics as fundamentalists, the term can be applied to some contemporary Roman Catholic individuals and movements. Catholic Fundamentalists consider themselves upholding purer beliefs and religious practices than regular Catholics.

An important book about U.S. Catholic fundamentalists, published this year, is Catholic Fundamentalism in America (Oxford University Press) by Mark S. Massa, S.J., who is professor and Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. Professor Massa examines the motivations and the tactics of U.S. Catholic fundamentalists who have propagated an alternative universe of Latin masses and scorching rhetoric aimed at overthrowing post-Vatican II ‘liberal’ Catholicism.

Religious fundamentalists place such a high priority on doctrinal conformity and obedience to doctrinaire spokespersons that they end up sacrificing values basic to all the great religious traditions: love, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, and caring. When Christian belief becomes highly fundamentalized, churches start to become repositories not of grace but of grievances. They become places where something like tribal identities are reinforced, fears are nurtured, and aggression and nastiness become part of their holy cause.

In their overwhelming seriousness about “their” religion, fundamentalists do not hesitate to intervene in political and social processes to ensure that society conforms to the values and behaviors required by their fundamentalist worldview. This can then turn into militancy and attempts to pursue their vision with violence, force, and warfare. In this process their agenda then moves to override the well-being and lives of the people they are trying to influence.

Fundamentalism appeals for a variety of reasons:

• For people who feel unimportant or insignificant, fundamentalism says you are important because you are God’s “special messenger.”
• For people who are fearful, fundamentalism says “you can’t be saved without us…join and be saved.”
• For the confused, fundamentalism says one doesn’t have to think about doctrine nor even be educated in it. Just believe what fundamentalism teaches.
• Fundamentalism makes the fundamentalist feel good about himself or herself. It is self-stroking.
• Fundamentalism justifies hatred of one group of people for another, because it believes that God hates those who do not conform to the fundamentalist worldview.
• Fundamentalism appeals to people burdened by guilt and shame because it exempts them from responsibility for situations or actions that cause guilt and shame. Fundamentalism says…if you are one of us, you are OK.
• Fundamentalism excuses people from honest self-examination; and it justifies their prejudices, zealotry, intolerance, and hatefulness.

What does one do about fundamentalism?

• The best way to confront the narrow vision of fundamentalism is through broad-based education that emphasizes critical, analytical thinking skills.
• Broad-based education emphasizes the importance of gathering evidence and then proceeding to conclusions. Fundamentalists work in the opposite fashion. They begin with their conclusions and then search for arguments to support them.
• We need to establish channels for dialogue and support those institutions that promote multi-cultural knowledge and understanding.
• We need to courageously work against ignorance and speak-out about dishonest or faulty information. And speak-out about those who advocate and publish it.
• We need to humbly realize that we too are still on the road to discovery. We cannot fall into the trap of many fundamentalists who have become self-centered know-it-alls.

I conclude this week’s post with a Raymond E. Brown quotation mentioned in his obituary by Myrna Oliver, in the Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1998. Raymond E. Brown (1928-1998), the eminent Catholic biblical scholar, died at Saint Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, California on August 8.

“Truth is always complicated by the human envelope in which it is enclosed. It is not only an intellectual problem, but one at the heart of the Gospel itself. It was not sinners who turned Jesus off. It was the righteous religious types who felt they had all the answers.”

• Jack

 Email: john.dick@kuleuven.be