Just what are Right Wing Christian Fundamentalist?

[Freedom_from_Chains]

It gets bantered around a lot here as to just what a Christian fundamentalist in today's world is and I must admit that even I sometimes have difficulty identify the concept even though I had the unfortunate experience of growing up in a fundamentalist church. However, one thing I am absolutely sure of is that they pose the greatest threat to the freedoms that Americans have historically enjoyed in this country, and with their recent successes in the body politic they pose more of a threat than Al-Quedia will ever pose.

It concerns me that many Democrats here just really don't seem to understand how dangerous these people are and then rationalize them as neanderthals and quirks of nature, that is a serious mistake in light of how organized they have become in recent decades. At any rate I found this definition on the net today and I thought it pretty comprehensively describes what the Christian fundamentalist movement is in America today and that I would share it and the related article that goes with it.

Defining Fundamentalism: Given the many disparate uses of the concept, it is not surprising that fundamentalism has not been easy to define. Several recent works are helpful in developing a conceptual understanding of the phenomenon. Three important works are examined here:

Bruce Lawrence, Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age
Lawrence defines fundamentalism as " 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 ."

Lawrence argues that fundamentalism is a specific kind of religious ideology. It is antimodern, but not antimodernist. In other words, it rejects the philosophical rationalism and individualism that accompany modernity, but it takes full advantage of certain technological advances that also characterize the modern age. The most consistent denominator is opposition to Enlightenment values. Lawrence believes that fundamentalism is a world-wide phenomena and that it must be compared in various contexts before it can be understood or explained with any clarity.

Lawrence ends his general discussion by listing five "family resemblances" common to fundamentalism. 1) Fundamentalists are advocates of a minority viewpoint. They see themselves as a righteous remnant. Even when they are numerically a majority, they perceive themselves as a minority. 2) They are oppositional and confrontational towards both secularists and "wayward" religious followers. 3) They are secondary level male elites led invariably by charismatic males. 4) Fundamentalists generate their own technical vocabulary. 5) Fundamentalism has historical antecedents, but no ideological precursor.

The Fundamentalism Project, directed and edited by Martin E. Marty and Scott Appleby (see bibliography below for publications resultling from this project)

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences funded a multiyear project that brought scholars from around the world together to study Fundamentalism. Ultimately they produced 5 volumes containing almost 8,000 pages of material. Admitting some difficulty with the term, the project opts to use it anyway for a variety of reasons. Essentially, they argue that it is commonly accepted, here to stay, and the best term anyone can come up with for this phenomena. The last chapter of volume 1, Fundamentalisms Observed, discusses the "family resemblances" found in the various chapters.

These family resemblances include:


religious idealism as basis for personal and communal identity;
fundamentalists understand truth to be revealed and unified;
it is intentionally scandalous, (similar to Lawrence's point about language -- outsiders cannot understand it);
fundamentalists envision themselves as part of a cosmic struggle;
they seize on historical moments and reinterpret them in light of this cosmic struggle;
they demonize their opposition and are reactionary;
fundamentalists are selective in what parts of their tradition and heritage they stress;
they are led by males;
they envy modernist cultural hegemony and try to overturn the distribution of power.

(con't) http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/fund.html

[Union Thug]

1. Think Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger...

Or Cotton Mather, I suppose. That sums it up much better than the article.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

2. Yeah, but how many people even now who they are,

including Cotton Mather who is part of our country's history?

[tonkatoy57]

3. Funny you should mention this

I am reading Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy and last night I began the section on the ascendancy of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Phillips describes fundamentalism along the same lines as your cited references but maybe his definition cuts to the chase a bit quicker. For his purposes he says fundamentalism possesses three traits; a belief that a sect's members are "in covenant" with God and are God's special, chosen people, a believe in biblical inerrancy, and they discount scientific advances that conflict with their religious belief system.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

4. Yeah, he is just parring down his focus,

but check this out. I found this on one of the links off of the page I cited and if this doesn't sound like some of the rights people today.

Billy Sunday was yet another spokesperson who helped discredit fundamentalism. A "professional baseball player turned evangelist," his antics in the pulpit did much to undermine the public's respect for the new movement. "He had no use for the 'bastard theory of evolution' or for the 'deodorized and disinfected sermons' of 'hireling ministers' who had given up the old faith to please their liberal parishioners." Sunday preached a "masculine "muscular" Christianity which equated salvation with decency and manliness. He proclaimed, "the man who has real, rich, red blood in his veins instead of pink tea and ice water," was both a real Christian and a real American. Sunday believed Christianity and patriotism were one and the same, just as "hell and traitors are synonymous." He and those who sympathized with him helped make popular the slogan "Back to Christ, the Bible, and the Constitution."

http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspectives/twentyone.html

[GeorgeGist]

5. arrogant fools come to mind...

[NAO]

6. Academic considerations aside, they are everywhere

All you need to do to observe them in a naturalistic setting is get out the Yellow Pages, look up "Churches" and look for ones that have ads that say things like "Bible Based" or "Scripture Centered".

They are deeply isolated from both rational secular criticism of Biblical literalism AND any positive portrayals of the Democratic Party or liberal/progressive ideas.

They have fashioned elaborate theological justifications for right-wing social, economic, and foreign policy.

They educate their children in "Christian Academies" where Bible and Right Wing Politics are taught in the same classrooms.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

7. but the concerning thing is that most people don't realize to

what extend they have been able to do that out and just how deep into the political structure they have gotten. It has been a hundred year plan they have had in the works that has now come to fruition.