What is Fundamentalism? (Redux)

As I indicated last month (here), this year I am planning to update my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism (2007) and to re-publish it at year’s end. In that connection, here are highlights from the (slightly) updated first chapter.

Beginnings of Christian Fundamentalism

In the first main section of the chapter, I explain that fundamentalism was originally “a sincere movement to preserve or to restore the true faith.” That is, it was not militant—and it certainly was not political as the Christian Right has been in recent years.

Even though there were some precursors, the actual beginning of what came to be called fundamentalism was the publishing of twelve small books between 1910 and 1915. The overarching title of the twelve volumes was The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth.

In June 1920, the Northern Baptist Convention held a conference on “The Fundamentals of Our Baptist Faith” in Buffalo, New York. Writing about that conference in the Baptist publication The Watchman-Examiner, C.L. Laws, the editor, proposed that those “who mean to do battle royal for the fundamentals shall be called ‘Fundamentalists.’”

Laws’s proposed term seems to be the first public use of the word “fundamentalist.”

Changes in Christian Fundamentalism

During its first 25 years, from 1915 to 1940, there was a considerable shift from being the kind of “mainstream” movement it was in the beginning to being a separatist and a more militant movement.

The Scopes Trial of 1925 marked a definitive change in attitudes toward fundamentalism—thanks mainly to the daily newspaper reports written by reporter H.L. Mencken of the Baltimore Sun. By the end of that “trial of the century,” for most in the general public, and for many even in the churches, fundamentalism was largely discredited. 

The picture is a scene from "Inherit the Wind," a movie about the Scopes Trial.

For the next several decades, then, fundamentalism was “alive and well” only among the militant “biblical separatists.” Four of the most influential proponents of this new type of fundamentalism were J. Frank Norris, J. Gresham Machen (to whom I referred in a recent blog article), Bob Jones, and John R. Rice.

Of these four, Norris (1877~1952) was the most colorful—and the best example of militant fundamentalism. Barry Hankins of Baylor University published his biography of Norris under the title God’s Rascal.

Hankins writes, “While some became militant because they were fundamentalists, Norris became a fundamentalist, in part at least, because he was militant by nature” (p. 176).

Earlier in his book, Hankins states: “Militancy was the indispensable characteristic of fundamentalism—the one that distinguished fundamentalists from other conservative evangelicals” (p. 44).

In this regard, it is important to remember the words spoken before 1925 by the early anti-fundamentalist leader Harry Emerson Fosdick: “All Fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are Fundamentalists.”

Shifts in Terms for Fundamentalism

Because of the negative connotations of the term fundamentalism, in the 1940s under the leadership of Carl F.H. Henry, among others, a group of “moderate fundamentalists” formed the National Association of Evangelicals and the movement came to be known by the name “neo-evangelicalism” instead of fundamentalism.

Gradually, the “neo-“ part of the new term was dropped, and conservative Christianity came to be known as just evangelicalism. Still, there were differences in their ranks: there were those who were more progressive, such as people like Jimmy Carter. Time magazine declared 1976, the year Carter was elected President, as the “year of the evangelical.”

Unlike the more progressive evangelicals such as Carter, there were still many conservatives who formed a large part of that wing of the church—and so it remains today. Accordingly, “conservative evangelical” is now largely a synonym for “fundamentalist.”

The Need for More Intrafaith Dialogue

Moderate and liberal Christians have increasingly emphasized the importance of interfaith dialogue. Locally, the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council was formed in 1989 by Vern Barnet (who, I am happy to say, is a Thinking Friend and regular reader of this blog).

“To develop deeper understanding within the community of each other’s faiths and traditions, and to foster appropriate bilateral and multilateral interfaith dialogue and interaction” is the first goal the GKCIC presents on their website.

Here is the second of their five goals: “To model spiritual and religious values, especially mutual respect and cooperation, in a society often intolerant of cultural and religious diversity.”

These are good goals, ones that would be shared by most groups and individuals who work for interfaith dialogue anywhere.

EthicsDaily.com is a division of the Baptist Center for Ethics, an organization founded in 1991 by Robert Parham. BCE launched EthicsDaily.com in 2002 and posts news, columns, editorials and other content each weekday.

(I am also happy to say that from time to time EthicsDaily.com posts my slightly revised blog articles, the last one being on March 29 as you can see here.)

On January 5, BCE Executive Director Parham posted “Prioritize Interfaith Engagement in 2016—The Baptist Way” on EthicsDaily.com. It is a good article, and anyone interested in interfaith dialogue would find it helpful, whether Baptist or not.

I am completely in favor of interfaith dialogue, especially in ways articulated by Parham in the article just cited. But I have come to think that there also needs to be m ore emphasis upon and concerted attempts at having intrafaith dialogue.

Conservative/fundamentalist Christians are not inclined toward having much dialogue of either type, for reasons I won’t go into here. Neither do moderate/liberal Christians seem to have much interest in having dialogue with the former. Some on both camps, sadly, often make denigrating and condescending remarks about those in the other camp.

Some liberal Christians, it seems, would much rather have dialogue with Buddhists and Muslims than with conservative/fundamentalist Christians. That is partly because dialogue with the former is mostly with well-educated, mild-mannered, tolerant people.

On the other hand, there is a stereotype that most conservatives/fundamentalists are ignorant, boisterous, and intolerant. Make no mistake about it: some of them are just that. But there are people exactly like that in other religions also.

All Buddhists and Muslims are not like the fine people in those religious camps who participate in the interfaith councils. But neither are all conservative Christians and evangelicals as ignorant and as intolerant as some we see in the public media.

There are, unquestionably, some conservative/evangelical Christians who are well-educated and good thinkers. Why shouldn’t moderate/liberal Christians be as willing to engage with them in dialogue as they are with those in non-Christian religions?

There are, of course, some examples of good intrafaith dialogue. I think, for example, of Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (1989) by David L. Edwards and John Stott as well as Clark Pinnock’s Crossfire: An Evangelical-Liberal Dialogue (1991).

Pinnock begins his book by writing, “The major division in modern theology is not between Catholics and Protestants anymore but between liberals and evangelicals.” And he goes on to say that “the polarization is often so extreme that it is rare for evangelicals and liberals to talk with each other, much less try to understand one another in a sympathetic way.”

That was 25 years ago, and the situation is probably worse now. So, isn’t there a crying need for more intrafaith dialogue? I, for one, certainly think so.

The Role of Government

Some people whose opinions I value greatly took exception to my posting about what’s wrong with liberalism. They raised good questions and made some legitimate criticisms in their comments. There were also some debatable statements made. For example, one person saw a problem with my “reinforcing of a simplistic dichotomy” between conservatives and liberals and presenting the two sides as caricatures.

StudentNewsDaily.com is a non-profit current events website for high school students. Most who read this blog have been out of high school for a long time, but let me share how that website describes a major difference between liberals and conservatives. To me this seems to be a fair and helpful description of opposing positions, one which is simple but not simplistic as well as one which depicts real differences and not just caricatures.

According to their analysis, conservatives “believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defense.” They also believe that “the role of government should be to provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals.”

On the other hand, liberals “believe in government action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all,” and that it is “the duty of the government to alleviate social ills and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights.” They also believe that “the role of the government should be to guarantee that no one is in need.”

In the political sphere, people have to come down on one side of this divide or the other. It is not really possible to be in the middle—unless that is a rather broad position encompassing various viewpoints, which it can and probably should be.

The conservative position was clearly articulated by President Reagan in his 1981 inaugural address. He declared that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” It seems that Reagan’s statement is now widely supported by the majority of the current members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Yet, the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, as I have previously emphasized, speaks of that document being drafted in order to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, [and] promote the general Welfare.” (The latter phrase refers to the “well-being” of people, not just what is popularly called welfare today.) If, or when, people are in need, discriminated against, exploited, etc., how could government action to correct those ills be a problem—except for those causing such problems?

So while I do believe liberals and conservatives need each other and need to work together for a broad and radiant center, I have to come down on the side that seems to be most concerned for the general welfare of the most people. And while liberals must be careful not to think they can or will be able to solve all social problems, shouldn’t one major role of the government be “to alleviate social ills” to the greatest extent possible?

We Need Each Other

Recently I have written both about what’s wrong with conservatism and what’s wrong with liberalism. There were no doubt conservatives who disagreed with my posting about conservatism and liberals who disagreed with my posting about liberalism. And there may well have been some who disagreed with both.

It is certainly all right to disagree with ideas that you think are wrong. At the same time, there needs to be careful consideration as to what is being said, and then when there is disagreement, that needs to be expressed in a respectful manner. I am grateful that those who post comments on this blog do it respectfully.

Now I am writing to emphasize that we need each other. I am not talking about the way that is portrayed in a song with that title by Sanctus Real, the Christian rock band. Their song was quite popular in some circles in 2008, and the lyrics are actually quite good.

Rather, I am emphasizing here how conservatives need liberals and liberals need conservatives. That is true whether we are speaking of theology or politics. Some of you may agree in general with this idea, but you may also wish there weren't so many on the other side.

My father used to tell about a man he knew who complained about there being so many Democrats in Worth County where he lived. When someone asked the man, “Don’t you think there ought to be Democrats?” he replied, “Sure, there should some Democrats. There just shouldn’t be so d*** many of them!”

Probably some of you think there shouldn’t be so d*** many liberals or so d*** many conservatives. But we need each other. And we need to listen to each other. We need each other in order to realize that issues are seldom as simple as we too often think.

We all have a tendency to believe that our ideas are completely right and the ideas of those who hold differing views are completely wrong. But it is only fundamentalists, whether on the right or the left, who think they are absolutely right and those who have differing views are absolutely wrong. And it is fundamentalism on both sides that is polarizing (and paralyzing) our country.

Everyone realizes, of course, that a bird or an airplane needs two wings to fly. Can we take that as a hint about how in both theology and politics there needs to be both right-wingers and left-wingers?

It is also true, of course, that for a bird or an airplane most of the weight is in the middle, between the wings. Is that also a hint about how in both theology and politics there needs to be more emphasis on the “radiant center” rather than on one wing or the other?

What’s Wrong with Conservatism?

Recently I received an e-mail from a woman asking me to explain “what the qualifications are that label a person a ‘Right Wing Conservative.’”

In my response I said that I do not have any different understanding of “right wing” or “conservative” than from what can be found in any standard dictionary. But I went on to share the self-description given by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Here is what they say on their website:

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

Most of that sounds quite good, doesn't it? Certainly there is a lot that we want and need to conserve. So what’s wrong with conservatism? Or why would I criticize those who claim to be conservatives?

One online dictionary gives this as the first definition of conservative: “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.” So think about it. Conservatives generally want to preserve existing conditions and to limit change—unless it means going back to things as they used to be.

But consider some conservative positions from the past, positions which were (or are) all on “the wrong side of history.” (And I am not implying that these are, or would have been, positions supported by the Heritage Foundation, except for the last example given.)

It was the conservatives (the loyalists) who supported King George III of England rather than seek independence for the Colonies in the 1770s.

It was the conservatives who wanted to maintain slavery in this country in the 1860s (and in the decades before).

It was the conservatives who wanted to keep women from having the right to vote in the 1910s (and in the preceding decades).

In the twentieth century, it was the conservatives who opposed Social Security and then Medicare and Medicaid for the elderly and the needy.

In 2010 it was the conservatives who opposed universal health care so that at least most of the 50,000,000 Americans who did not have health care insurance would be able to have it.

Conservatives have wanted to conserve much that is good, and for that I commend them. But conservatives have also opposed much that is good, and that is why I criticize them.

So what is a “right-wing” conservative? On the Heritage Foundation website, they make this appeal for new members (and for funding): “Become a Member: Donate to Heritage – Join Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and more than 710,000 conservatives in fighting liberals and advancing conservative principles as a Heritage Foundation member.”

From this I think it can be said that right-wing conservatives are people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity who see their mission as “fighting liberals.” And much of the rhetoric of those and other right-wing talk-radio hosts, as well as of many who extol them, seems repulsive to those of us who long for a civil society.

Note: I plan to post “What’s Wrong with Liberalism?” next.