Fundamentalism – Characteristics

Based on research of different fundamentalist traditions Marty and Appleby come to the following definition:

[… ], fundamentalism has appeared as a tendency, a habit of mind, found within religious communities and paradigmatically embodied in certain representative individuals and movements, which manifests itself as a strategy, or set of strategies, by which beleaguered believers attempt to preserve their distinctive identity as a people or group, Feeling this identity to be at risk in the contemporary era, they fortify it by a selective retrieval of doctrines, beliefs, and practices from a sacred past. These retrieved `fundamentals’ are refined, modified, and sanctioned in a spirit of shrewd pragmatism: they are to serve as a bulwark against the encroachment of outsiders who threaten to draw the believers into a syncretistic, areligious, or irreligious cultural milieu (1991, 835).

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The first characteristic of fundamentalism is an opposition to modernity, especially to the developments in science, growing individualism and the significance of autonomy, and liberal morality. The reaction of fundamentalists is described in terms ranging from reaction via defense and opposition to fanaticism. Fundamentalists are often pictured as fanatical, and sometimes militant religious people, who try to impose their faith on others and try to take power over nations. However, the way in which fanaticism displays itself ranges from violence to assemblies and proselytizing within the limits of the law (Marty and Appleby 1991, 814). It is therefore better to say that fundamentalism is a strong defense or opposition by people who feel their identity threatened by the dominant modern culture. Their defense, reaction, or opposition consists of returning to the premodern readings of the Bible. Their reaction is foremost one of restoring the past rather than participating in the progress and change of modern times.

Second, fundamentalism can be described as a heteronomous habit of mind. Stanley Benn (1988) describes a heteronomous person as someone who lives by a nomos, which is not fully his own, because he has adopted it without critical examination. The person has not subjected the nomos to a rational critique and has not tested it “by the resources of a wider tradition available to him” (196, see also 177, 195). The heteronomous person is capable of giving independent judgments, but the nomos by which he deliberates is the one he has “simply introjected uncritically and unexamined from his social milieu…” (177). A heteronomous person is not prepared to recognize or even to contemplate beliefs, opinions, or scientific evidence as challenges needing to be met by reasoned counterarguments, at least as rigorous as those he would deploy in disputes within the framework of the system he accepts (195, 196).

Another interpretation of heteronomy is not related to the genesis of, but to the habit of, the mind itself. In this interpretation a person can make an autonomous decision to lead a heteronomous life, in which he follows the rules of others without question, by, for instance becoming a member of Opus Dei. The heteronomous habit of mind of Christian fundamentalists can be coined more precisely. Fundamentalists abide by God’s or the Bible’s law. Their heteronomy is more accurately described as theonomy.

A third characteristic is that fundamentalists have “a strong commitment to absolutism” (Falwell 1981, 175).5 In Percy’s words: “fundamentalists deny the ambiguity of truth…. Truth emerges as an exclusive concept, with no space for error, alternative interpretation or appropriate ambiguity” (1996, 13). According to Falwell (1981), fundamentalists tend to approach things with a totally black-or-white, right-or-wrong perspective (175, 183). Fundamentalists have a strong commitment to the truth found in the Bible and in the words of the leaders. “It is this love for Jesus that drives FundamentalistEvangelicals to cling to the truth of Scripture beyond all the rational arguments of all the critics of all time” (9; see also Hunter in Ammerman 1988, 7). Fundamentalism is extremely sensitive to any self-criticism and Falwell argues that fundamentalists should be aware of this potential weakness, claiming that constructive self-criticism is vital (179).

Fourth, fundamentalists make a strict distinction between themselves as true believers and other believers. Based on their absolutist convictions they take an exclusive and intolerant stance against others (de Knijff 1994, Beck 1996). “Fundamentalists are convinced that their differences from others make them superior not only because they have something better, but because theirs is the only truth, the only right way to live” (Ammerman 1988, 7; Velema 1997, 52, 53). Being saved themselves, they automatically outrank anyone who is unsaved (Ammerman 1988, 197). Absolutist convictions lead to feelings of epistemological superiority.’ This is also evident in their stance with regard to other persons. However, these feelings do not necessarily lead to feelings of ethical superiority, though there are fundamentalists for whom this is the case.

It is also characteristic for most fundamentalist groups to have a passionate missionary zeal. They try to save the unsaved by building churches, preaching on street corners, and knocking on people’s doors. There seems, then, to be a twofold relation towards nonbelievers. Fundamentalists have feelings of superiority, because they know for sure that their faith and way of life make them better and they have feelings of responsibility toward nonbelievers that leads them to want to save people by converting them to the one true faith.

from http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3783/is_200104/ai_n8945567