The Dangers of the Reductionist Religion of Fundamentalism

My friends, today will be a busy day so I wanted to share a few thoughts about religious fundamentalism in it’s various forms. Now I want to say up front this is not an attack on God or people that believe it God, or in what God they choose to believe in for either their eternal salvation or just getting through life. Instead it is some observations about fundamentalist, or absolutist belief systems that allow no room for doubt or that any other view of God might have some measure of truth and how some groups use political, police and military power, even terror to impose those views on others.

It occurred to me a few years back that many Christians, among them Evangelicals, certain Reformed types, Fundamentalists, and even some conservative Roman Catholics practice a reductionist form of the Christian faith. It is a form that woefully short changes those that embrace it. Now I am speaking very general terms right now and the subject probably needs to be fleshed out some for each particular form. I probably will do that sometime soon, but let me continue.

What I have observed is that the richness, the history, the intellectual achievements, and the diverseness of the Christian experience, whether it that of the mystics like Hildegarde of Bingen, the patristic theologians such as Basil, Origen or Gregory of Nyssia, the scholastics such as Anselm of Canterbury who penned a philosophy that I much admire, “faith seeking understanding” the reformers such as Martin Luther, those of the awakenings such as John and Charles Wesley, the humanists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, those of the enlightenment such as Schleiermacher, and Kierkegaard, the Neo-Orthodox of the early part of the Twentieth Century like Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Emil Brunner and Paul Tillich, or the Catholic reformers leading up to and following Vatican II like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hans Kung, Yves Congar, Bernhard Haring, and Andrew Greeley, and the Theologians of Hope led by Jurgen Moltmann.

This list is certainly not exclusive by any means. However, the one common thing about these men was that they understood their faith in the context of the society, history, culture and learning of their day. They used reason informed by faith and wrestled with subjects that are for the most part denied to the reductionists of Christian Fundamentalism. The fact is that most fundamentalists of any stripe tend to disregard history, science, philosophy and other disciplines that seek to interpret the world and instead place their own understanding of God, their scriptures or creeds above all others. Various groups of Christians, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus and other religions all do this, even some Atheists and other Secularists are not immune. It is a reality of many people’s need for certitude in a world that is full of too many troubles and contradictions.

Christian fundamentalism in its various forms reduces the faith to a small set of absolute principles from which no deviation is allowed. As I mentioned there are different forms of this, but in a sense adherents to any version of Christian Fundamentalism treat the Bible, their Statement of Faith, catechism or Creed as a sort of “tech manual” that provides quick solutions to those that “know the truth.”

By this I mean is that when there is a really difficult question that requires critical thinking, reasoning and nuance, instead of wrestling with it they throw out a Bible verse or a credal type statement to shut down the person asking the question. I think I remember the classic line that I heard when I was in high school: “Jesus is the answer, what was the question?” The sad thing was this was not a joke, the person who said it meant it.

Now I admit for some people a simple faith works well, that is human nature, but when religious leaders present the faith in such reductionist and absolute terms they impoverish their followers and end up driving off those who ask the hard questions. These are questions which cannot be answered by the shibboleths thrown out by these leaders because they are not easy, and defy attempts to simplify them. This is because they often deal with existential matters and the mysteries of human life and nature.

The fundamentalism in all it’s forms reduces life to a dualism in which one is either on God’s side (that is whoever’s God) or not in which all life’s questions are resolved by faith or religion. I would dare say that most of people’s most difficult questions, issues and needs are not religious at all and that is why so many people reject fundamentalism, either because they see the fallacies inherent in such inflexible systems of belief, or because they experience disappointment in those groups when the ideal of God presented, either as individuals or the community does not match reality.

As for as what people believe as individuals or within their religious communities that does not bother me one bit, even if I disagree with them. I fact I think the discussion of religion should be allowed in the public square. However, I believe that to discussion should include everyone, not just which religious group has the most power in government or influence in society.

The problem that I see is when such groups, regardless of what God they believe in decide to impose their beliefs on others through the power of the government, and for that matter even use their beliefs to silence others in the public square. The danger is when any such group decides it is superior, that it’s leaders have a lock on the truth, are “anointed” or whatever term they call it, hear directly from God, authoritatively speak for God and then use that to suppress dissenters or control unbelievers through the power of the state, of in the case of the new Islamic State, the power of military conquest and terror.

In fact the leaders and followers of such groups almost practice a form of Gnosticism, where if you have the right understanding of “the truth” you are superior to those that do not. Since God is the ultimate trump card in any argument those who believe they have the direct line are the most dangerous.

In spirit, this reductionist understanding of faith is ultimately destructive and when people take it to its logical end use it to justify the most heinous crimes against their fellow human beings. What we see with the Islamic State is really no different than other fundamentalist religions with absolute control of their society do to unbelievers. The ultimate choice for those under their rule, is to “convert or die.”

Christians have done this numerous times since Christianity became the state religion of the Empire under Constantine, and Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants have all exercised that option. One only has to look at the persecution of various Protestants by Roman Catholics, the persecution of the Anabaptists by Catholic and Protestant State Churches, the burning of heretics and witches, even in Colonial America, and the persecution of Catholic immigrants from Europe by American Protestants in the 1800s, not to mention the pogroms conducted against the Jews in Europe, the Holocaust, or the extermination of Native Americans in the name of the Christian God.

Moslems have done this too throughout history and in the present,where the Islamic State and other groups like it, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, and Hezbollah among them practice it in its worst form.

It is also part of the earliest forms of Judaism in the conquest of Canaan where God’s command, to put it in the modern vernacular was “kill them all and let God sort them out later.” In fact I remember scandalizing my Old Testament class in seminary by blurting that out. But when I read supposedly Christian apologists defending the legitimacy of what even they refer to as genocide it sickens me.

Likewise it was fascinating thing for me this week was to hear the star of the Duck Dynasty Phil Robertson, a Christian fundamentalist explain that “convert or die” was the choice that the people in the Islamic State should be offered. Others have said similar things and not just in regard to Islamic radicals.

Again, I have no problem who need to believe in a God of absolutes, some people need that and it is a free country. But I think that such beliefs shortchange and deprive them of the richness of faith, life and the mystery of God and faith, even the great mystery of the Christian faith that we proclaim in the celebration of the Eucharist “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” The mystery of God who became man, or as Anselm of Canterbury wrote “cur Deus homo” “Why God Man?” or what Christians call the Incarnation, is central to the the Christian faith.  Like creation and the eschaton is a mystery, as Bonhoeffer wrote and we would be so wise to remember:

“Man no longer lives in the beginning–he has lost the beginning. Now he finds he is in the middle, knowing neither the end nor the beginning, and yet knowing that he is in the middle, coming from the beginning and going towards the end. He sees that his life is determined by these two facets, of which he knows only that he does not know them.”

The fact is that no matter what we say, we do not know and when we make absolutist claims based on our scriptures we have to remember that they as well are shrouded in mystery, but then Eric Hoffer noted “We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.”

The mystery associated with the Canon of Scripture, includes the authorship as well as the contents of scripture. Since we don’t have the original autographs of any book of the Bible, or for that matter any major religions scriptures there is a certain mystery associated with the scriptures. We believe them by faith, just as we do in the existence of God. The reality is that in many cases we don’t know who the actual authors were and even as to when some of them were written.

This might make the Christian Canon of scriptures as well as those of other major religions sources of inspiration, spirituality, sources of good advice, lessons and ethics; but not absolute truth and fact in matters of history, science or anything else we might want them to be. The fact is we believe in God by faith, and we trust scriptural accounts by faith.

However, for those who must claim the Bible as absolute there is a need to prove it, and that need brings about the controversies of “inerrancy” that are part and parcel of Protestant fundamentalism as well as the absolutist claims of others in regards to their scriptures. Sadly, for many, their absolutist understandings of scripture or creedal claims are dogma to be defended to the death and to force upon others, rather than mysteries by which we experience the love and grace of God.

The problem is that such beliefs, even if they are from antagonistic or competing groups are all variations on a theme. They are all variations of the same species of religion, religion that must control or suppress dissenters at all costs, and if given the chance to use the police and military power of the state to succeed when dialogue fails. The only differences these religions have, besides the God that they believe is right, is the matter of degree with which they apply those beliefs. For some they are quite happy with keeping such matters in house and leave outsiders alone. But there are others in every major religion who have a need to impose their beliefs on others using any means necessary, including special privileges for themselves that no other groups get as well as to use the state to persecute, terrorize against or conquer by brute military force those who do not believe.

That is why the Islamic State must be defeated and why we must be ever vigilant at home to such beliefs, no matter what religious group utters them. Sadly the reality is that there are Americans as well as those in Western Europe and other countries

Now I am sure that I have offended some today, but that was not the intention. I believe in a person’s right to believe in anything they chose to believe or not to believe and to defend those rights, while at the same time defending others from anyone that wants to use the state to impose those beliefs on others.

Have a great night,

Peace.

Padre Steve+