This week some thoughts have coalesced in my mind about the nature of American fundamentalism. As far as self-description, a fundamentalist might say, "We simply take the Bible literally and apply it to our lives." How could anyone object to that?
Here are the hidden parts, which are why I don't believe fundamentalism is the best representative of God's mind or for that matter of the Bible:
The Underlying Dynamic
The key feature of American fundamentalism is its failure to distinguish between the context of the Bible and the context of its own origins as an American group. Because it applies the words of the Bible directly to today, it blurs ancient words with early the twentieth century when it originated. As a result it 1) blurs its present with the Bible's past, 2) blurs the Bible's past with its present, and 3) does so largely without realizing the sociology of its own origins.
1. Fundamentalism brings the present into the past.
Fundamentalism does not recognize what it means to say that the Bible was written to ancient Israelites, Romans, Corinthians, etc... The implication is that the Bible was originally intelligible to these ancients, who did not think in our categories. In particular, they did not think within the frameworks of science and history that the fundamentalists of the early twentieth century did.
But the fundamentalist does not see the ancient categories. Because of when fundamentalism was born, things like the fact that the earth goes around the sun were already considered fact. The fundamentalist thus assumes that the Bible also thinks in these categories. Categories of modern science are inappropriately read into the biblical text.
Modern sensibilities of what constitutes truth telling in history or genre are also imposed on the biblical text. No real thought is given to what the standards for such things were at the time the books of the Bible were actually inspired.
2. Fundamentalism brings the past into the present.
At the same time, fundamentalism does not recognize elements of ancient culture in the Bible that do not have the same significance in our world as they did in the biblical worlds. Some groups do not allow their women to cut their hair, for example, not even considering whether this action might have different significance now than it did then.
We think of the household codes of Colossians and 1 Peter where the husband is the head or master of his wife. This structure was exactly that of ancient culture at large and not uniquely Christian in its context. Yet fundamentalist groups do not consider the biblical material on women in relation to its day in order to look for what is uniquely Christian. They look only on the surface statements of the text which are then blindly applied to a different context.
3. Fundamentalism is locked into the time of its origins.
Ultimately, fundamentalism is inconsistent in its direct application of Scripture. When it originated in the early 1900's, it fused the biblical world with the time of its origins. So the issue of the earth going around the sun was not at issue at that time. Accordingly, fundamentalists do not take such biblical language literally. On the other hand, evolution was an issue, so Genesis 1 is taken literally.
In general, issues of literality that were non-issues remain non-issues, while any potential changes in taking biblical material literally are strongly resisted.
Fundamentalism also wed the Bible to a particular sociology of its origins--a sociology that fundamentalists assume is biblical although it is simply a function of the group dynamics of its creation. So fundamentalism assumes a particular militant stance politically. It does not consider other legitimate possibilities for the relationship between Christ and culture.
Fundamentalists assume certain priorities in relation to moral issues, unexamined priorities. The result is that the moral issues of one political party--the Republican party--are unthinkingly assumed to be of more importance than the moral issues of the other political party--the Democratic one.
Indeed, issues that do not map to biblical teaching at all take on a religious authority simply because of the group dynamic. How, for example, is opposition to gun control a Christian issue. It can become one because of the way fundamentalism blurs the Bible with its own sociology. It is no surprise that conservative Christians in other countries like Britain find many of fundamentalism's "religious" values peculiar variations on American culture.
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8 comments:
And I suppose liberals are not guilty of these same things? Yea, maybe the "fundys" did not interpret the Bible the proper way you think they should have, but the Bible did seem to have a reasonable amount of authority in their lives. I wonder if the post modern generation will be able to make that claim?
The question really is...is the text the ultimate arbitrator of "truth"? Understanding that the Bible itself was a product of the Church's desire to create "tradition"....
Tradition is not wrong in any sense, but must be understood for what it is...a sociological and cultural product...Tradition is the "Christ of culture"....whereas reason is the "Christ against culture"...using one's head to decipher between the text's understanding and what today's understanding should be is what this whole discussion is about...
If we believe that Jesus was "speaking within his culture" (Christ IN culture) and that that "speech" was what the Church heralded as "truth", then, we can understand and appreciate a "Christ above culture" in experience...which does not limit one's understanding within a "religious text"....that is what we seek...a living God....And a living God is not confined by cultural and sociological traditions...
In saying this, I am not suggesting that there is some way of living that is "above or beyond" cultural or sociological understandings (for that is how we even communicate...through language)...but that we should not be dogmatic in our cultural and sociological understandings to the point that we "absolutize" culture....and NOT God!!! Thus, hindering understanding the "other" and their "meaning".
Question: In understanding that Jesus was the "Christ IN culture" and that "he came to his own, but his own recieved him not", meaning the Jews...and that he was a "fulfillment of the Law"...even while subverting the Jewish understanding of it, then, is it not about religion at all?
Jesus was a Jewish reformer...a prophet...
This conversation lends itself to a "Christian reformer"...and a Christian reformation...just as happened with Jesus...and in Luther's day when the Church had solidfied, concretized and absolutized the sacraments...and used them for selfish ends...
Jesus and Christianity has been "marketed"...just as the sacraments in Luther's day and the "law"(Pharisaic) in Jesus day! It is about power and politics...
Craig, you raise a good question--how do we discern the lines of continuity and discontinuity? How do we hear God's words for today in God's words for yesterday? You could argue that evangelicalism did the same thing in the 1940's only from a slightly different time and sociology. By liberals I assume you mean those who do not see God's word in Scripture at all either then or now.
The idea of all the Christians of the ages reading these texts and having certain common understandings is a comfort to me. It takes the application of the Bible toward a more fixed content. Then when new things arise, the church as a whole needs to wrestle with them together.
Fundamentalism is a reaction to Schleimacher (sp?) and his understanding of culture. Fundamentalism wanted to protect against dissolving truth to the material realm alone and they understood that to be in the written text. But, what about "living texts"...
I believe that consciousness is the universal for postmodernity's "problem" of the relativity of 'truth"...it is God's image written within...
Science could bring an objectivity without relativizing truth to cultural or sociological understandings...it is a God beyond our limited understandings, which are culturally determined...
Missions cannot go on with questions concerning truth. Understanding that the "history of religions" school is about understanding human experience as it regards religion is understanding the "varieties of religious experience".
Understanding consciousness is bringing the spiritual and material together, so that there is a real or objective understanding of truth. Otherwise, we fall prey to Gnosticism or Atheism...
Just a side note. . .
The marriage of fundamentalism with the Republican party is a somewhat recent phenomenon. Fundamentalist icon William Jennings Bryan was a dyed in the wool Democrat, politically liberal even by today's standards. Most Democrats today, however, would just as soon forget him while most fundamentalists blissfully overlook his political affiliation.
Good piece. As one that was raised inside the fundamentalist camp (and now moved significantly away from it)- I would be interested to learn more about "The Wesleyan Church's" brush with fundamentalism in the 19 and 20th centuries during the fundamentalist/liberal controversy and how it affected doctrine and practice.
Dr. Bence has a presentation of the history of the Wesleyan Church where he maps its course as a series of reactions to various crises of this sort. He argues that the fundamentalist-modernist controversy steered the Wesleyan Church in a somewhat fundamentalist direction. I have argued that it did this more for the Wesleyan Methodist Church than the Pilgrims, and that it was more a matter of educators rather than the bulk of the church.
It's my opinion that this controversy was largely tangential for most on the street Wesleyans, who tended not to be in the center of such debates. Further, the Quaker element of the Pilgrim history tended toward uninvolvement.
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