Fundamentalism
I am surprised that a couple of individuals in particular, who I note have subscribed already to this blog, did not pick me up on my post: “Struggling with Scripture”. In that blog I associated the literalist and fundamental perspectives, when in actual fact, the two are completely different - though the fundamentalist may not agree. Although the fundamental outlook claims a literal interpretation, it is, of course, nothing of the sort. There is really no such thing as a “literal” interpretation - we always bring as much to the text as we take from it; meaning is mediated to us via our context and culture.
In this respect, I believe it is instructive to consider other readings which originate from individuals who do not share our faith position – that is to say, the presuppositions which we bring to the text. These interpretations look very different. Richard Dawkins attempts such a reading in his recent book: “The God Delusion”. Dawkins writes:
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal , filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Those of us schooled from infancy in his ways can become desensitised to their horror.1
Dawkins draws conclusions radically different to that of our own although he is reading from the same bible. His interpretation is coloured by a whole different set of presumptions. If I “try on” Dawkins’ perspective and look at the text through his glasses, I can see why such a reading might make sense for him. My interpretive presumptions though, are very different.
For one, I do not only consider the Old Testament. For me, both the New Testament and the Old Testament are part of the same book. I cannot read one without the other. The God of the New Testament shapes my understanding of the god of the Old. Clearly though, my reading is an interpretation. I gloss over contradictions - including the radically different image of God painted in each of the testaments - and further, I amplify and attenuate aspects of scripture to better fit my understanding of God. That is, I bring a considerable amount of myself and my context - my tradition, theology, faith, etc – to the text and this informs my understanding. And this I do, in the most, subconsciously until someone like Dawkins stops me short.
I see no problem in that. I am on a journey and I have become part of a story. I reflect on all that has gone before, as well as what I believe God is telling me in the present, and this no doubt, colours my understanding of him and his word. I believe this is all part of his inspiration for the present, and happens through a kind of osmosis due to the faith environment I inhabit - the Christian community in which I am an active member.
The problem occurs when we consider our interpretation to be the interpretation and we do not recognize this process taking place. In such circumstance the conversation ends and God can no longer speak in the present. Fresh engagement with our context and Scripture is no longer possible. The vibrant, dynamic word of God becomes a static law – inflexible and oppressive - and instead of fulfilling our calling as servants of the Most High, we become slaves of tradition.
Thank God for divinely inspired biblical contradictions. The best antidote to fundamentalism is scripture itself. Contradictions, woven into the weave of the text, resist all such readings and force us to accept that our interpretations are exactly that. We must humbly accept that our understanding of him and his word will always fall short of him. We are part of a story which began in the Old Testament and is continued in the New. Our understanding of God is not what it was and who knows what it will become. Christ revealed God to be someone very different to those who expected him in the first century, and my understanding of him today is very different to that when I first met him.
God please keep my mind open and may I never ever get to that place where I think I have you sussed!
- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam, 2006) 31 [↩]
6 Responses to “Fundamentalism”
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isc
Said this on May 2nd, 2007 at 10:45pm:Well… you associated the two and conflated the two, but didn’t equate the two, so I didn’t pick up anything amiss, AJ! And am I a poet?
On Protestant Christian Fundamentalists’ literal interpretation of the Bible (I stress “Protestant”, as this, after all, is what they are…), I do like James Barr’s old comment (dating back to 1977, before all that postmodernism got so popular (for how long…?)) that:
“What is the point at which the fundamentalist use of the Bible conflicts with the use of it by other people? The “plain man”, asked this question, will commonly say that a fundamentalist is a person who “takes the Bible literally”. This, however, is far from being a correct or exact description. The point of conflict between fundamentalists and others is not over LITERALITY, but over INERRANCY. Even if the fundamentalist sometimes say that they take the Bible literally, the facts of fundamentalist interpretation show that this is not so. What fundamentalists insist is not that the Bible must be taken literally, but that it must be so interpreted as to avoid any admission that it contains any kind of ERROR. In order to avoid imputing error to the Bible, fundamentalists twist and turn back and forward between literal and non-literal interpretation. The dominant fundamentalist assertions about the Bible, namely that it is divinely inspired and infallible, do not mean that it must be taken literally, and are not so interpreted in the conservative evangelical literature; what they mean and are constantly interpreted as meaning, is that the Bible contains no error of any kind - not only theological error, but error in any sort of historical, geographical or scientific fact, is completely absent from the Bible. In order to expound the Bible as thus inerrant, the fundamentalist interpreter varies back and forward between literal and non-literal understandings, indeed he has to do so in order to obtain a Bible that is error-free.” (”Fundamentalism”, p.40).
I think that there are a lot of people about who have a lot of “demons of the past” that they need to be exorcised, resulting from a background in one of the manifestations of Christian fundamentalism. What is all the more sad is that so many of us care deeply about the issues that our background has instilled in us, but that processing that care in a vibrant, thinking, creative and (when it comes to putting it into practice) effective way is stilted by being held in thrall to old debates and hang-ups. I hope that we can put all that away and move on.
As far as I can see, the Bible never claims for itself the title “Word of God” - that title is only ascribed by implication to Jesus. And that being so, I’m happy to aim to focus on him as the supreme locus of revelation, as presented in the Bible and in the context of the biblical material around that and informed by Christian tradition. I agree that we always have to be aware that we are products of our conditioning (as AJ says), but I have to believe that we are not therefore prisoners of our conditioning - because if this is the case, then what I believe now is no less “conditioned” and solipsistic than the fundamentalist ideology that we’ve left behind.
Hostages to fortune aplenty in what I’ve just said for AJ to get stuck into. Does he need to get out more?!
isc.
Deb
Said this on May 3rd, 2007 at 12:48pm:In answer to the last comment, I do believe Andy may need to get out more!
I have assured God many times that I would be a much better Christian if I were alone on a desert island or left alone to read books and think, but God keeps assuring me that interacting with people is for my own good (sometimes not theirs!).
And no Andy, talking with people via a blogsite doesn’t necessarily count as ‘interaction’!
AJ
Said this on May 4th, 2007 at 7:42am:Hey Guys, thank you for your comments.
ISC…
How did you guess you might have been one of the individuals I was referring to in my post
I really liked the James Barr quote. Although I am not sure the Fundamental perspective is all about demonstrating the inerrancy of scripture, it certainly gives an insight into the Fundamentalist mindset and makes very clear their interpretation is anything but literal. You have been recommending this author to me for some time now; I will be off to Amazon the moment I finish updating this blog, to buy a book or two!
With respect to “demons”, I think you may have a point and I might have a few more to exorcize but I hope – and I like to think – that I have also moved on. I don’t want this blog to be all in the negative and I certainly have a lot of positive ideas which I wish to develop. That said though, I do think it is also a positive thing to voice a distinction and emphasize that Fundamentalism does not equate to Evangelicalism – something which conversations with you made me realize. In that respect, conversations such as these (in this blog) engage - all be it in a very small way – our tradition and, perhaps, especially because the Fundamental perspective is so vocal at the present time, it does not hurt for us to do so even if it does risk sounding a little negative.
On your last point, regarding as you put it, being “prisoners of our conditioning”, I have a lot to write which I will save for future blogs. Just to say quickly here though, the word “prisoner” is too strong for me, as I do not mean to imply, as such, that our context restricts our liberty to that degree but that it certainly shapes our options – but no more limiting than the rest of our cosmic situation!
I will look forward to your critique on future blogs.
Deb…
I think you may have misunderstood my motive for putting this blog site together. It is certainly not intended as a substitute for real authentic Christian fellowship but I do hope that in some way it will expand horizons and enable conversations beyond my immediate context. Sometimes we can get in a position where we believe our perspective – formed within our own Christian communities – is all there is, when the reality is that God is doing a whole heap more.
As for reading, I cannot agree, if you are suggesting I should read less. Reading is another great way for us to climb out of our immediate context and see a bigger picture. As Christians – and, I think, as human beings – we have a tendency to universalise our own experience and assume that that is all there is on offer. This is never-more-so the case than when we come to speak of God. Choosing to engage with different (in terms of their background, Christian experience or otherwise) people directly – or indirectly through literature – is a great way to regain a correct perspective. The moment we begin to believe that our experience of God is all there is, I believe, we risk our faith turning stagnant.
Thank you both, again, for your comments and critiques – please keep them coming.
isc
Said this on May 5th, 2007 at 2:36pm:Ahh - this thing’s working again and I can post to the right area…
AJ, you’ll love and want to disagree fundamentally (!) with James Barr, as he was a mainstream biblical scholar and not at all “postmodern”. But reading him was like a breath of fresh air (one of many). He helped me to see a features of the the intellectual substructure of conservative evangelicalism/fundamentalism that I’d not even noticed before - and still was basing areas of my faith on without realising it. This was even though I’d uncovered a lot of that system (maybe the more overt aspects) by then and moved on - having long since realised that accepting the conservative evangelical scheme of interpreting the Bible and understanding Christianity is to accept a particular and ideological reconstruction of Christianity not necessarily the heart of the faith itself. He was a world authority on the Bible and Biblical interpretation at the time and the stuff about fundamentalism has been helpful to very many people in their journey out of it.
Anyway, anyway. I found the following website around the same time, and reading it is free! Its initial account of a journey through growing up evangelical/fundamentalist was eerily close to the later end of my experience before I started to work things out for myself. You may find the same. Unfortunately (I think, at least) this bloke has ended up as part of the Jesus Seminar and I think he calls himself a humanist these days rather than a Christian. Still: here it is. I think it’s interesting. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/beyond_born_again/index.shtml
AJ
Said this on May 5th, 2007 at 3:31pm:ISC, glad site is working again for you now. Your other post which you wanted to include here can be found by following this link.
isc
Said this on June 8th, 2007 at 9:24pm:You may find this interesting. It’s written by Alistair McGrath’s wife and was recently published in the Guardian. I have to say that I read it and let out a little cheer for common sense. Here it is:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2093753,00.html#article_continue