Why fundamentalism will fail

(HT to Polycarp).

This is a fascinating article posted at the Boston Globe. After reading through it I found myself pondering on the implications for future generations, if Jesus tarries. Those that read here know I have no use for the terms fundamentalism or fundamentalist, as they are used today. Whatever it once denoted in Christian circles, (when younger, to me it plainly meant the belief in the infallibility of God’s word) today it has taken on a wide scope of definitions: especially the term fundamentalist:

US Military Dictionary: fundamentalism: n. 1. a form of Protestant Christianity that upholds belief in the strict and literal interpretation of the Bible, including its narratives, doctrines, prophecies, and moral laws. 2. strict maintenance of ancient or fundamental doctrines of any religion or ideology, notably Islam.

fundamentalist; n. & adj.
Modern Christian fundamentalism arose from American millenarian sects of the 19th century, and has become associated with reaction against social and political liberalism and rejection of the theory of evolution. Islamic fundamentalism appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries as a reaction to the disintegration of Islamic political and economic power, asserting that Islam is central to both state and society and advocating strict adherence to the Koran (Qur’an) and to Islamic law (sharia), supported if need be by jihad or holy war.

So as far as its use within the Church today, unless the term were to return to what it use to mean: unmovable faith in the basic doctrines, and the infallibility of the Word, (which I can’t envision happening) it’s failure is something I would applaud. It’s become a “tainted term”…and not because it denotes followers of Jesus.

Why fundamentalism will fail
A seemingly unstoppable force is being undone from the inside

quote..

IN 1910, A COHORT of ultra-conservative American Protestants drew up a list of non-negotiable beliefs they insisted any genuine Christian must subscribe to. They published these “fundamentals” in a series of widely distributed pamphlets over the next five years. Their catalog featured doctrines such as the virgin birth, the physical resurrection of Christ, and his imminent second coming. The cornerstone, though, was a belief in the literal inerrancy of every syllable of the Bible, including in matters of geology, paleontology, and secular history. They called these beliefs fundamentals, and proudly styled themselves “fundamentalists” – true believers who feared that liberal movements like the social gospel and openness to other faiths were eroding the foundation of their religion.

Protestant fundamentalism was not an isolated impulse. The same tendency had already appeared in Catholicism; beginning with Pius IX, who issued his famous “Syllabus of Errors” in 1864, most popes severely condemned all liberal Catholic efforts. Muslims hate having the word “fundamentalist” applied to them, considering it a foreign term. Nonetheless, when some 19th-century Koran scholars sought to rethink their faith in the light of science and democracy, an angry opposition resisted these new ideas. Then, as European colonial powers tightened their grip on the region, other thinkers, like the Egyptian Sayyed Qutb, scorned any such reform efforts as imperialist pollution.

The expansion of religious fundamentalism in recent decades has been notable, as people around the world have sought certainty in the face of dizzying change.

In the second half of the 20th century, old-time religion drew Americans jarred by their country’s setbacks in Korea and Vietnam, or disoriented by the civil rights movement and youth revolt of the 1960s.

In Europe, American-style fundamentalism failed to make much progress, but highly conservative Catholic parties and groups, sometimes called “integralist,” gained strength in some countries.

In the Muslim sphere, as oil funneled immense riches to the elite, it also drove hordes of village people into angry urban poverty. When secular solutions failed them, many were attracted to the promise of a more equal society based strictly on the Koran.

As the 20th century ended and a new one began, fundamentalism has taken on more formidable shapes, both politically and religiously.

Though most of its adherents work through spiritual and educational channels, the small minority that turn to violence have caught the media’s attention. If some seem ready to die for faith, others are ready to kill for it, gunning down abortion doctors in church, hijacking planes, and exploding bombs at weddings.

For plenty of thoughtful people, fundamentalism has come to represent the most dangerous threat to open societies since the fall of communism.

However, the truth is that for all its apparent strength, the fundamentalist sun is setting on all horizons.

Throughout the Muslim world growing numbers of people are becoming impatient with violent groups that, in the name of Allah, seem capable of killing but incapable of producing jobs, food, or health care. Observers on the ground report that popular support for the jihadist wing of the Taliban is falling off as it fails to address the real life problems that afflict people in Afghanistan.

Dr. Audrey Kurth Cronin, a professor at the National War College in Washington and author of a new book, “How Terrorism Ends,” says, “I think Al Qaeda is in the process of imploding. That is not necessarily the end. But the trends are in a good direction.” In Iran, the fact that the clerics have resorted to beating and imprisoning their critics reveals the shakiness of their hold.

In America, the religious right, which started as a crusade, is becoming a niche.

Randall Terry’s Operation Rescue, which stages demonstrations at abortion clinics, has just announced that it is nearly bankrupt. The shrillest TV evangelists are losing audiences to more moderate “evangelical-lite” preachers. Fundamentalist congregations are ceding ground to Pentecostals and mega-churches, which embrace a wider social agenda and teach the spiritual authority – not the literal inerrancy – of the Bible.

THE VARIOUS MOVEMENTS we lump together as “fundamentalist” differ from one another, but they bear some family resemblances. Each reaches back selectively into its own tradition and exhumes some text or rite or pattern, declaring it to be the bedrock of faith.

For Protestant fundamentalists, it was a righteous society in which, they believed, a verbally inspired Bible had held sway. For Catholics, especially after Vatican II, it was the Latin Mass, the symbol of a changeless authoritative tradition. For Muslims it was the short era of the “rightly guided caliphs” who led Islam immediately after the death of the Prophet, before disunity shattered their community and outsiders warped their civilization.

But fundamentalist movements share another quality. They are inherently fractious, and this is one reason for their broad decline.

When your view of reality is the only acceptable one, you cannot compromise. Almost from its inception, American Protestant fundamentalism split into warring factions. Its bellicosity toward “liberals and modernists” was quickly turned on fellow fundamentalists who were seen as not tough enough on the enemy. Since the Bible told them not to be “unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” the question of with whom one could properly associate became deeply vexed. The most ardent partisans seceded from their denominations, and soon began to quarrel about whether they should even fraternize with their fellow fundamentalists who wanted to remain in their previous churches..

The fundamentalists organized new seminaries to protest the older ones they thought had become “modernist,” but soon these new institutions split over fine points of doctrine.

Similarly, the modern religious right, the political arm of fundamentalism, foundered on its inability to compromise or build coalitions. Local branches of the Christian Coalition became furious with national office staffers for cooperating with others in order to pass legislation.

The same fragmenting logic eats away at Jewish “land fundamentalists,” who base their claims to the West Bank on a literal reading of the biblical book of Joshua (“conquer and settle”). They despise the Jews who disagree with them even more than the Palestinians whose terrain they claim. Some ultra-orthodox Jews still refuse to accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel, since only the Messiah is supposed to reclaim the Promised Land…

More- full article here

People and/or cultures appear in history to go through seasons of extreme shifts–many times appearing to almost occur over-night. Like a pendulum, they swing from one extreme to the other, never seeking balance. The Church is no exception, as it has had its own “extreme movements” in the past. Some, over the last 2,000 years may have indeed been sent by God, but for the most part they were man-made. The extreme religious-right in America, was a man-made movement. It was neither centered upon Christ, nor was it a movement which resulted in the gospel being spread, and people ultimately coming to salvation.

If the author is correct, it will be interesting for those of you younger to watch which way the ‘pendulum’ swings next time within the Church: my prayer is you don’t become entangled with it.

And also, again if he is correct, what the implication of other religion’s  “fundamentalist” groups failing will result in.

After the most recent season of using extremist groups, I can only imagine how the prince of this world will use it.

Satan likes to keep God’s people (and the people(s) of the world) unbalanced or in a state of imbalance; and doesn’t care which direction the pendulum is swinging.