If the government tells any church what to do, people lose freedom of religion. If any church tells the government what to do, people lose freedom of religion. If anyone gains the power to enforce your own religious beliefs by law, you will regret it, because the moment the people who disagree with you outnumber your supporters, they will use the precedent you established to enforce their own religious beliefs on you. Continue reading
“Fundamentalist” is a term sometimes used to refer to anyone who is intolerant of other’s beliefs. Fundamentalism is “not so much an ideology as it is an attitude, an attitude of intolerance, incivility and narrowness,” says Walter Shurden, professor of Christianity and director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Mercer University. “It is an attitude that says, ‘We have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and we are going to impose it on you and control the system so that you will have to knuckle under to it.'” As anyone who has ever attended a meeting of two or more activists can attest, that attitude can be found at all points on the political and religious spectrum. Continue reading
Fundamentalism is a religious movement, a theological & philosophical stand, a political and social force. I regard it most basically as a particular variety of psychological development. Fundamentalists of all religious and political varieties share the same character traits. It is the psychological character of the fundamentalist that is at the root of the ideological interpretation termed “fundamentalism,” not an intellectual or spiritual concept. Continue reading