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Fundamentalism

Upchurch

Papa Funkosophy
Upchurch
Joined
May 10, 2002
Messages
34,265
Location
St. Louis, MO
My wife and I attended a UU class on Fundamentalism that focused on what was and where it came from and when. There was a lot of information that I won't even attempt to relay in total with any accuracy.

The interesting elements to me is that, as a religious movement, it is only about 120-130 years old and started in the northeast at Princeton University by a group of scholars and intellectuals. The term "fundamentalism" originated from a scholarly paper entitled, I believe, "The Fundamentals", that outlined five fundamental principles of Christianity. I'm struggling to remember what they were but they included:
  1. Truth of the virgin birth.
  2. Jesus Christ died for our sins and was resurrected.
  3. The Bible is the direct word of God.
  4. maybe the Trinity.
  5. and something else I can't recall at the moment.

The movement eventually found its way to the south and was more or less taken for granted. It was the woman who taught the class's opinion that the Scopes Monkey trial was a catalyzing event that changed and polarized fundamentalism into the movement that it became today but also, ironically, nearly killed it for several decades.

I don't know this is true pre-Scopes, but of the key of the characteristics of fundamentalism post-Scopes is anti-modernism. They have an idea of a perfect time in the past that they are striving to reach (whether or not such a time ever actually existed). Despite that, they are very early adopters of new technology that allows them evangelize.

It should be noted that while all fundamentalists evangelize, not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. Further, all fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are fundamentalists. Feel free to Venn diagram that to your heart's content.

Another defining characteristic is the feeling of being on the defensive. Fundamentalist philosophy takes the position of being under attack by modern ideas/philosophy/science/etc. As such, they see themselves as being subjugated and oppressed even in communities where they are the majority. Changes to society are seen not as a natural progression but as it falling apart.

Those were the big ones that I can recall off the top of my head. If I ever have my notes with me at my computer, I'll reproduce some of the quotes and references we were given.

Here's a quote I do have with me from Bruce Lawrence's book Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age:
[fundamentalism is] the affirmation of religious authority as holistic and absolute, admitting of neither criticism nor reduction; it is expressed through the collective demand that specific creedal and ethical dictates derived from scripture be publicly recognized and legally enforced.​
 
Upchurch said:
My wife and I attended a UU class on Fundamentalism that focused on what was and where it came from and when. There was a lot of information that I won't even attempt to relay in total with any accuracy.

The interesting elements to me is that, as a religious movement, it is only about 120-130 years old and started in the northeast at Princeton University by a group of scholars and intellectuals. The term "fundamentalism" originated from a scholarly paper entitled, I believe, "The Fundamentals", that outlined five fundamental principles of Christianity. I'm struggling to remember what they were but they included:
  1. Truth of the virgin birth.
  2. Jesus Christ died for our sins and was resurrected.
  3. The Bible is the direct word of God.
  4. maybe the Trinity.
  5. and something else I can't recall at the moment.
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like the Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910
  1. Bible inerrant and inspired by Holy Spook
  2. Unf:Dked birth
  3. crucifixion of Jebus = atonement for sin
  4. the resurrection
  5. Jesus' magic was real

Cooked up by Presbyterians, I believe.
 
I like MdC's version.
It has a certain pithy-ness that just cannot be beaten.
 
Perhaps you wanted this confined to Christian fundamentalism, but I’d just point out that Jewish fundamentalism was the norm up until historically recent times (I believe both the Conservative and Reform movements are less than 200 years old). And though I know less of Islam, my impression is that it’s had fundamentalists from early in its history.

I guess my point is that Christianity didn’t invent fundamentalism, though it clearly invented it’s own brand. It might be interesting to compare and contrast, but I suppose that's another thread.
 
I was going to point out the Christian-centric direction too. I'm wondering if any comparisons were made with fundamentalist movements in other faiths, when those occurred, similarities, differences, etc.
 
Upchurch said:
I don't know this is true pre-Scopes, but of the key of the characteristics of fundamentalism post-Scopes is anti-modernism.
Click to expand...

My understanding is that fundamentalism has been reactionarily anti-modernism -- in the quite literal sense of being a deliberate reaction to the perceived excesses of modernism -- since its inception.
 
I seem to recall that Islam was as adamant about Genesis and other aspects of the Hebrew bible as any modern Christian fundamentalism.
I listened briefly to some Immam or other proclaiming the basics of "young-earth" creationism.
 
Remembering that fundamentalism is not synonymous with conservatism, fundamentalism was specifically a Christian based sect or philosophy until around the 1970's, give or take a decade. Generalizing the term to encoumpass other religions is primarily a western usage. Most other religions would not self-describe themselves as subscribing to a fundamentalist philosophy.

Where it is applied to non-Christian religions, it is usually meant in terms of having defensive, anti-modernization stances on issues.
 
drkitten said:
My understanding is that fundamentalism has been reactionarily anti-modernism -- in the quite literal sense of being a deliberate reaction to the perceived excesses of modernism -- since its inception.
Click to expand...
That was my understanding as well. The Scopes connection was the teacher's opinion. She believed it was first mass-media "assault" on fundamentalism that gave them something specific nation-wide that they could point to as an example of the subjugation.
 
Galileo's father (Vincenzio) "It appears to me that they who in proof of any assertion rely simply on the weight of authority, without adducing any argument in support of it, act very absurdly. I, on the contrary, wish to be allowed freely to question and freely to answer you without any sort of adulation, as well becomes those who are in search of truth"

What he said
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
Perhaps you wanted this confined to Christian fundamentalism, but I’d just point out that Jewish fundamentalism was the norm up until historically recent times (I believe both the Conservative and Reform movements are less than 200 years old). And though I know less of Islam, my impression is that it’s had fundamentalists from early in its history.
Click to expand...

Wahabbism, which I guess is the analogue to Christian Protestant Fundamentalism, is only about 100 years old itself.

Bikewer said:
I seem to recall that Islam was as adamant about Genesis and other aspects of the Hebrew bible as any modern Christian fundamentalism.
I listened briefly to some Immam or other proclaiming the basics of "young-earth" creationism.
Click to expand...

You sure that wasn't Harun Yaha? I did see a Q&A thread about Creation and evolution with a Muslim (though not necessarily an Imam) on another forum and one of his comments was interesting. The Koran says nothing about there being intelligent bipedal hominids, but it does say that God created Adam directly so while they didn't think hominids were fakes, hoaxes, or "fully ape or fully human" they couldn't be part of human ancestry because Adam was directly created by God.

I found this attitide to be slightly more enlightened that your average YEC, but still woefully ignorant and based on faulty premises (holy book is literally true, etc.).
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
Perhaps you wanted this confined to Christian fundamentalism, but I’d just point out that Jewish fundamentalism was the norm up until historically recent times (I believe both the Conservative and Reform movements are less than 200 years old). And though I know less of Islam, my impression is that it’s had fundamentalists from early in its history.

I guess my point is that Christianity didn’t invent fundamentalism, though it clearly invented it’s own brand. It might be interesting to compare and contrast, but I suppose that's another thread.
Click to expand...

As Upchurch, noted, orthodoxy (or conservatism, however one wishes to express it) does not necessarily equal fundamentalism. Since you mentioned Judaism, I'll take your example: simply because the now-familiar progressive movements within Judaism didn't exist does not mean that what did exist was ipso facto fundamentalist. In fact I'd say the opposite held true for most of the post-Temple period, and quite rightly so: a Jewish community that refused to adapt to the changes imposed upon it by the dominant cultures of Christianity and Islam stood little chance of survival. Real fundamentalism as described in the OP has a significant analog in Judaism only since the establishment of Israel as a sovereign state - and then primarily after 1967, understandably.
 
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