Fundamentalism: Curiosities

One of the curious aspects of fundamentalism is that its adherents are passionately committed to the written word as it is written, while refusing any evidence from the history of the bible, from the history of religion, the history of fundamentalism, and from the study of literature. It is as if, excuse the comparison, but the written Word has become their personal God and they cannot stand, and will not study any evidence that reveals that their own understanding of the bible could be faulty or limited.

The Bible, according to the fundamentalists, must be taken as it is, without understanding the current version of the Bible went through some 300 + years of development of understanding of many books, concerning which were inspired and valid for the early Christian community and which were not. That ultimate decision was not made until the 4th century, and then it was made by Roman Catholic authority for the entire Christian community and accepted totally, until the reformers in the 16th century made a different decision. In other words, the Bible we have today, except for a few books that the Protestant reformers threw out, is essentially a Catholic bible, decided upon not until 367 A.D.

Fundamentalists consider the Bible as a Fax from God, though they will often deny the metaphor. Yet they refuse to consider the history of the Bible and that it is not simply a book but a library of books of many types of writing, genres, or literary forms.

Fundamentalists refuse to consider that the authors of the books of the Bible were humans, each of whom was sinful as we all are, and each of them limited by the understanding of the culture of the time. For example, the Apostle Paul accepted slavery, as did the entire Christian world at that time, and for another 19 hundred years. It was accepted partly because the “Bible said so,” but also because the entire Christian world, including popes and Protestant leaders had always accepted that the Negro race was inferior and not capable of full equality to the white man.

Fundamentalists also refuse to accept that which every student of literature knows that the Bible contains many forms, many genre, of writing or literature. Further, if you misunderstand the literary form, you misunderstand the meaning. You will mis-use the Bible, and more importantly mis-use the authority of God. Not only for your own life, but in a readiness to judge others as further from the Light than you are.

A curious example of this closed-mindedness, of what I call a stealth idolatry, is the fundamentalist practice of insisting early to know what is the content of your belief. If you do not accept that you are fallen, in need of a savior, and have accepted Jesus as your savior, they will often refuse to engage in any talk about the Bible with you. They have concluded that you have rejected the main and absolute tenet of Christian faith and are not only warped but likely to warp them if they engage in any conversation with you.

This, I propose, is totally contrary to the practice of Jesus who never demanded his listeners affirm him as their savior before engaging in conversation or willing to be present to them in food, drink and even party at weddings.

Finally it is worth noting that the exchange of conversation, for the fundamentalist, must always be textual, arguing texts, their text against your text, their text against your words, determined in advance that their text proves you and your position wrong. If you do not agree that their text is proof of the righteousness of their point of view, they will soon withdraw from any exchange, because they are convinced that you are denying the Word of God.

In fact, you are simply denying their use of the Word. However they are so utterly attached to their own meaning of the Word, that they cannot imagine or agree that anyone else should see the light differently than they do.

Therefore, it is never useful or helpful to argue scripture with a fundamentalist, never useful or heuristic to exchange texts with a person who believes that every word of the Bible is the Inerrant word of God. It is not even charitable, because should you succeed in drawing that person out of that closed box in which they live, you are undermining their faith. Because their faith is based upon the Inerrancy of every word in the Bible.

This is a challenge today for believers of all sorts. Because politicians and preachers, often with little or no accredited seminary training, are willing to appeal to “family values” supposedly well rooted in a fundamentalist or literal view of the Bible. An example of this is the issue of homosexuality, which I shall discuss at another time here.

I dare to call Fundamentalism a “stealth idolatry,” because it is a readiness to judge others, all others, even Christians of different persuasions, and certainly Jews, not only as mis-informed, but resisting God’s grace which they alone possess.

Once we use the gift of faith to judge the outcomes of other’s faith, we are guilty of the sin of pride and arrogance, of assuming that our gift gives us the right to judge another as further from God than we are.

The essence of Jesus message was to love God unconditionally and our neighbor as ourselves, and to find Him in our neighbor in particular wherever that neighbor was hurting. We who hold that view are called bleeding heart liberals by our conservative brethren. Could it be because we liberals believe the gospel has a mandate about loving whereas our conservative brethren are convinced the gospel is about personal salvation. If they BELIEVE rightly they are saved.

That attitude, I propose, is the core hidden Christian heresy of today. It is a “Cheap grace,”“ not the costly grace Bonhoeffer described in his Cost of Discipleship writing. It is one reason we have a billion and half Christians attending church every Sunday (Jesus never said “Go to Church to worship me”) with so little effect on the world, our rampant consumerism, greed, prejudice, destruction of the environment, blind patriotism and addictive behavior.

Most churches are interested in membership and money. The building and filling it, and expanding it. Tithing, for example is not a New Testament teaching but it is often strongly urged upon believers today by many preachers. The New Testament norm is far more extensive than tithing. It is stewardship: everything we have belongs to the Lord, and it is for our use. Our use, to share with others.

It should be finally noted that the criterion of what was inspired and what was true revelation has traditionally been the Christian community as a whole. It took the early Christian community several hundred years of probing and discussion and living before defining that Jesus was the co-equal son of God, the second person in the Trinity. Cardinal Newman pointed out in his monograph on the Development of Doctrine that the laity may at times preserve the authentic Christian doctrine while the papacy is in error. This latter fact of history is something Catholic conservatives also ignore in their wanting to refer all things to papal authority believed to be infallible. Fundamentalists of all stripes are often simply oblivious of Christian history, and prefer to remain so.

BE WELL!
Paschal Baute, July 30
"Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth,
How can we keep from singing?" - hymn.