Peter Cameron “Fundamentalism and Freedom” (Doubleday; Sydney: 1995.)

p 6 the following features of Fundamentalists- a distrust and fear of freedom …

p. 10 ff They will be fearful in the face of any challenge to their security and brutal in their reaction; they will seek to bolster their security by persuading others of its validity.; and those others will be persuaded because of their own increasing sense of insecurity in the modern world. …Fundamentalists need an enemy; an enemy both gives them their own identity and unites them. …they stand for nothing positive at all – simply obedience to rules and the condemnation of those who break them. … it is a religion of fear which proceeds by intimidation. … Fundamentalism … thrives on protective stupidity. …fear in the face of any challenge to the status quo; … brutality in suppressing dissent;

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From Os Guiness “Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals don’t think and what to do about it” ( Baker Books; Grand Rapids:1994)

p. 143 A fourth misconception concerns the idea tht thinking Christianly is a form of uniformity – in other words, that if we all think Christianly we will all think the same way. Whe this happens, the goal of thinking Christianly collapses into a frantic search for the one particular correct way of thinking or acting. The result is he fallacy of “particularism”, the uniformity of a particular “Christianly Correct” way of thinking. …[particularism] denies two requirements of thinking Christianly that oppose all uniformity: the importance of diversity and the fact of human fallibility.

p. 143 – 144 For another thing, applying the idea of uniformity is disastrous because it leads inevitably to legalsim and judgementalism. There is only a short and easy step from “This is the Christian way” to “There is only one Christian way” to “Anything different from this Christian way is not Christian” to “All those who differ fom my way are not Christians”.

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C Edward Baker “The Church’s Neurosis & 20th Century Revelations” (Rider & Co; London; 1975)

*[I have replaced his use of ‘S. Paul” meaning Saint Paul with “St. Paul” for easier reading.]

p. 37 – The writer of the Epistle of John said ‘ There is no fear in love,’ and that is true. It comes out very boldly in Jesus’ story of the prodigal son.

p. 38 – …biblical fundamentalists. Their obscurantism and their inability to look historical facts in the face mark them out as very insecure people who need some outward token of infallible authority because they lack an inner authority adequate to control their deep confusions and fears. Psychotherapy constantly produces evidence that this narrowness of view-point and tendency to bigotry covers an unfortunate tug-of-war between instinctual drives and super-ego authority, issuing in obsessive symptoms.

p. 43 – Much of the urgency manifested by the church is prompted obviously by fear, and not least fear of change.

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Robin Skinner & John Cleese “LIFE …and how to survive it” – (Methuen; London:1993)

p. 270 – 271

John: So a religious idea will be interpreted by a person in a way that fits in best with their existing psychology?

Robin: Yes, and it can therefore support them in functioning at the best level they’re capable of, given their limitations. … Well, take people functioning at the least healthy level first. They’ll understand religion as a collection of rules, of rewards and punishments, of threats and promises, all enfoced by a powerful and frightening God.

John: The extreme black-and-white thinking found in young children?

Robin: That’s exactly what it is. The thinking of such people has got stuck at that level, and though it’s normal in a very young child, it’s obviously unhealthy in an adult. … John: And how is God experienced?

Robin: He’s seen as a terrifying, domineering, bad-temprered dictator, who wants everyone to spend heir time admiring him and telling him how marvellous he is. … So naturally people holding this view feel they have to do lots of things to keep Him sweet, so that He won’t get into a bad mood and blast them with thunderbolts, or boils, or rivers of blood.

p. 287

John: Well, everything that you’ve been saying implies that [Fundamentalism] is a manifestation of a fairly low level of mental health, doesn’t it? For a start, Fundamentalists call for a literal interpretation of scripture, and as we saw when we were discussing secular values, focusing in on the letter of the law is a characteristic of the less healthy. In addition, wise people tend not to exhibit literal mindedness, so it seems singularly inappropriate to assume that this is the vein in which great spiritual teahers are speaking. Then again, whether we’re talking about Christianity, Islam, Judaism or Hinduism, the values of Fundamentalists seem aimed at making themselves feel better by placing all negative and destructive emotions in people with different beliefs, and enjoying the golden glow of self-justification that results. … You know that simile: ‘As rare as a Fundamentalist who loves his enemy.’ … the Inquisition did largely miss the point of ‘Love Thy Neighbour’, didn’t they? Wasn’t burning heretics ‘worse’ than being tolerant towards them? …

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Peter Cameron “Heretic” (Doubleday; Sydney: 1994)

p.18 One of the great services which Freud did was to draw attention to the element of guilt and neurosis in religion.

p. 52 .. Christianity is a religion above all of freedom. Because freedom is a prerequisite for everything else. You cannot love without freedom, you can only have fear. You cannot have growth without freedom, you can only have obedience. … There is in fact a New Puritanism on the prowl in our society, and it has to be resisted.

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