THE SCARY GOD OF FUNDAMENTALISM

 by Adam Harbinson

There’s something about fundamentalism that’s comforting and disturbing at the same time. Fundamentalists can trace their roots back to about a hundred years ago when a group of wealthy American Christians published and distributed three million copies of a twelve-volume book entitled, The Fundamentals: A Testimony of the Truth.

Fifty years earlier Darwin’s The Origin of Species was published, undermining the traditional belief; ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ These American Christians thought they should counter ‘Darwin’s devilish deceit’ by setting in stone once and for all, exactly what it is that Christians are expected to believe.

Therefore, fundamentalism can be comforting because ‘experts’ have told us what we must believe, so we don’t have to think for ourselves. Cold facts become the strong walls of our castles, a place where we look for security in a world of shifting sands and moving goalposts.   

But fundamentalism can also be disturbing. Because our identity is tied up with our beliefs, any suggestion that we might be wrong can be taken as an attack on our integrity, so we stop up our ears, and remove any possibility of new revelations. The result is denominationalism, sectarianism, strife and exclusive groups who believe they have a monopoly on truth. 

But is this sufficient reason to make us want to run a mile from fundamentalism? Firstly, while there’s a place for legitimate authority in the church, no one has the authority to tell anyone what to believe – not ever. Whenever you see Jesus devolving authority it’s to heal the sick and cast out demons, not to control the beliefs of the people. The biblical model is to present the truth, but never to stuff it down another’s throat. So if anyone ever tries to tell you what to believe, steer clear, he’s probably a fundamentalist!

However, the most dangerous aspect of fundamentalism is its mistaken emphasis on belief. It leads to legalism, judgementalism, and in extreme cases people are prepared to die, or kill for their beliefs. That’s why blood ran in the streets of Ireland for thirty years, and it’s why the morgues are filled in Gaza and Baghdad. The problem is this; beliefs separate, faith unites. But what’s the difference?

A crowd of people was following Jesus one day and he seemed a bit annoyed with them, he suggested that they were only following him because they’d had their stomachs filled the previous day. But they protested, ‘What must we do to do the works God requires?’ And Jesus said, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.’

The fundamentalists have taken that word ‘believe’ and have built an entire theology on it. To them a believer is one who has all his facts neatly wrapped and packaged, but their interpretation is diametrically opposed to the meaning Jesus intended.

The god of the fundamentalists is pleased only when you tick all the right boxes, have all the correct answers, when you’re squeaky-clean. But Jesus doesn’t see it like that at all, for to ‘believe in the one he has sent’ is to entrust your spiritual welfare to him – nothing to do with having impeccable doctrines.

All he asks from us is that we trust him, that’s faith, and you can’t get all sanctimonious when you’re not relying on yourself for your salvation, can you?