Bennett / New Keywords list-Lisa Final Proof page 19 15.2.2005 7:24pm
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism Widely used as a pejorative term to designate one’s fanatical opponents – usually religious and/or political – rather than oneself, fundamentalism began in Christian Protestant circles in the eC20. Originally restricted to debates within evangelical (‘‘gospel-based’’) Protestantism, it is now employed to refer to any person or group that is characterized as unbending, rigorous, intolerant, and militant. The term has two usages, the prior one a positive self-description, which then developed into the later derogatory usage that is now widespread. As a phenomenon, fundamentalism is a specific cultural, religious/ideological, and political formation only possible in later capitalism. Since the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the term has gained a much wider currency, mostly derogatory. Thus, those believed responsible are Islamic fundamentalists, whereas the USA itself has been designated as politically fundamentalist (Ali, 2002). Israel’s suppression of Palestinians is driven by fundamentalist Jews, while the Palestinians themselves are also fundamentalists. Often, fundamentalism is synonymous with terrorism, or at least has become in popular usage the basis for terrorism. Another significant usage is in neo-liberal dismissals of positions deemed non-pragmatic: feminist fundamentalism and environmental fundamentalism are the most common. In these cases, fundamentalism is interchangeable with ‘‘fascist.’’ The assumption is that anything that threatens liberal, Western culture and society is by definition fundamentalist. The associations of irrational commitment, fanaticism, militancy, and terrorism make fundamentalism a useful term. It allows a dominant Western culture and society, aggressively led by the United States, to demonize its opponents as irretrievably antagonistic to the hegemonic values of ‘‘freedom’’ and ‘‘democracy.’’ The term provides a justification for the violent oppression of those who oppose such values. However, the use of ‘‘fundamentalism’’ is itself an imposition of a term that comes from within Western Christian culture. Thus, the way in which opposition is characterized within Christianity becomes a way of dealing with opposition in other situations, whether religious, political, or cultural conflict. Such usage is both an example of an effort to understand opposition and an attempt to deny the viability of that opposition. The term began as a positive self-description, whose history lies in American Protestantism (Marsden, 1980). It was first used in 1920 by Curtis Lee Laws in the Baptist journal Watchman-Examiner: he speaks of those who ‘‘do battle royal for the Fundamentals,’’ those who believe and defend what were newly identified as the fundamentals of the faith. He was referring to a series of 12 pamphlets, published between 1915 and 1920, that isolated particular Christian doctrines, defending them against the inroads of theological modernism and liberalism: the inerrancy or literal truth of the Bible, the virgin birth of Christ, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, his bodily resurrection, the reality of miracles, Christ’s deity, and the second coming of the savior at the end of history.