defining fundamentalism
Daniel Larison has given us a characteristically smart post on the difference between religious conservatives and fundamentalists. I commend it to you. “Fundamentalist” is one of those words, like “literalism,” that has been abused beyond any reasonable chance of recovery. (If you read that post you'll see why I think that Larison is wrong on one point, the identification of fundamentalism with literalism.) But if you’re determined to use it, you should first read the parsing of it by the eminent philosopher Alvin Plantinga, in his book Warranted Christian Belief:
We must first look into the use of this term ‘fundamentalist’. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like ‘son of a bitch’, more exactly ‘sonovabitch’, or perhaps still more exactly (at least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on matters of pronunciation) ‘sumbitch.’ When the term is used in this way, no definition, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would you fell obligated first to define the term?) Still, there is a bit more to the meaning of ‘fundamentalist’ (in this widely current use); it isn’t simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it more like ‘stupid sumbitch’ (or maybe ‘fascist sumbitch’?) than ‘sumbitch’ simpliciter. It isn’t exactly like that term either, however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation that the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase ‘considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.’ The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like ‘stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine.’
Heh.
— Senescent · Jan 29, 03:15 AM · #
in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God.
if i take plantiga on the face of it, he’s wrong. dawkins et. al. are careful to distinguish fundies from non-fundies, the reason being that they consider fundamentalists the more “authentic” christians.
— razib · Jan 29, 04:06 AM · #
Two of the students in my dorm back in the 70’s were from churches identified as Independent Fundamentalists (a kind of Baptist), by denomination. They felt positive, even proud, of the designation. No shame in standing to the right of a community of marginalized Mennonites.
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From writings of Madeleine L’Engle:
I, too, am a fundamentalist, though the word is too often used pejoratively, to describe anybody who disagrees with a particular brand of Christianity. I believe the fundamentals of the faith. … I do care about the fundamentals, which to me are the rock of love on which I stand, the Love that was great enough to create not only the magnificence of the starry sky but each one of us—the Love that will never let us go until we become what our Maker wants us to be.
* * * * *
I associate Christian fundamentalism with a degree of inflexibility, sometimes a lack of experience in dealing with shades of gray. I also associate it with trustworthiness and clarity, comfort in knowing where a person stands. (Which is to the right of me.)
— Julana · Jan 29, 01:45 PM · #
I have always considered fundamentalism to be a literal reading of the Bible (or other religious or political authority). It seems to me that if someone does not believe that there is any scope for interpretation of a text or for placing it in its temporal or cultural context, then that is fundamentally inflexible and is fundamentalism in its pristine form. it is clearly not simply a religious concept; in far left politics for example, the enthusiasm for schism over conflicting readings of Trotsky, Marx and whoever is amazing to behold. As Julana commented above, it goes with a lack of flexibility and a strong certainty; most of us are with Lord Melbourne’s words ‘I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything.’
— Richard T · Jan 29, 03:00 PM · #
Razib says: dawkins et. al. are careful to distinguish fundies from non-fundies, the reason being that they consider fundamentalists the more “authentic” christians.
Yup. This dichotomy allows the secularists to agree with “authentic” Christians, viz. the devastating impact of scientific (evolutionary) insight.
— JA · Jan 29, 06:15 PM · #
One of the real problems with the word “fundamentalism” is that it originally referred to a specific movement in Christianity in North America, a specific group of people, but the word came to be used to describe anyone whose beliefs resembled those of the Fundamentalists, and now it’s used as Plantinga says, as a pejorative that doesn’t really have any connection to the original Fundamentalists, except for the fact that most people would call Fundamentalists fundamentalists.
The confusion is sort of like if we called everyone who believed in baptism a Baptist. (Apparently a worry for the translators of the New Revised Standard Version, as they decided to refer to the prophet preparing the way for Jesus as “John the Baptizer”.)
The first chapter of Christian Smith’s book American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving (one of the most comprehensive interview and survey studies to date of the beliefs held by Christians in America, with a focus on evangelicals) has a very nice historical survey of the Fundamentalist and Evangelical movements explaining how they do and don’t relate to each other.
— Michael Straight · Jan 29, 08:55 PM · #
IIRC, one of ‘The Fundamentals’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals)
defined back shortly after 1900 was indeed scriptural literalism.
Now, of course, ‘scriptural literalism’ for most (christian) sects doesn’t mean exactly that (e.g., shalt thou kill? some verses say yes, others no).
— Barry · Jan 29, 09:16 PM · #
It seems to me that both fundamentalism as well as cultural conservatism suffer from overt attachment to a given position. “I’m right” and “you’re wrong” positions leave little room for the openness that Christ, Buddha, and many of the other prophets used to inspire traditions.
— Michael McAlister · Jan 29, 11:09 PM · #
“It seems to me that both fundamentalism as well as cultural conservatism suffer from overt attachment to a given position.”
Do you mean “excessive” attachment? I’m fairly certain you don’t mean “overt.”
— Ethan C. · Jan 30, 12:10 AM · #
@ Mike McA: I’m really resistant against these kind of statements. In general, who doesn’t take an “I’m right, you’re wrong” stance on at least some issues? From your statement I can conclude that you don’t have a lot of “openness” towards fundamentalists and cultural conservatives.
In the specific, cultural issues don’t lend themselves to anything much more nuanced than “I’m right, you’re wrong.” Take gay marriage, where the basic stances are that it should be allowed, or it shouldn’t. Any sort of compromise position tends to leave both sides cold. Note also that it is not only the conservative side of the issue that takes an “I’m right, you’re wrong” stance.
— Blar · Jan 30, 03:41 PM · #