Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Savonarola is the apt analogy - the only question is who's going to be burned at the stake.

For several years I have been warning other Jews who are Republicans that they had no idea of what the Fundamentalists had in store for us - LeHaye being my main coincidental indicator, now joined by Gibson (while Catholic, his views are more in line with other Christian Fundamentalists than not). Their support of Israel is not pro-Jewish, but rather a raging anti-Semitism - they want us all to either convert or die for not doing so. The fact that they want us all to return to Israel has nothing to do with any pro-Semitic stance - it's a condition precendent to the second coming.

We have ignored this for all too long (viz. Kristol) and I fear that Krugman is right that New Zealand is the place to be in the coming decade or two.

Would someone pls. define "Christian Fundamentalist" for me. What are the criteria?

I'm also interested in why people, especially Jews, were so offended by The Passion. I saw it, and didn't find it particularly anti-Semitic. The animus directed at the film puzzles me.

Definition of Fundamentalism (of any religion):

The view that any belief is heretical if in any way it is a change from the original version of the religion (i.e., that the only true religion is the original one as defined by the earliest holy books), and that the words of the book(s) are to be followed literally, which leads to the absolute certainty that anyone who does not believe as the believer does is both wrong and deserving of no consideration as a fellow human being (unless, of course, the non-believer is willing to change beliefs, in which case the non-believer is saved - or disposed of in the process).

From this flows the belief that any non-believer deserves to be eliminated. Thus we have eons of history of religious wars (no matter that they may have other causes, which are hidden behind the religious disagreement), and various other genocides in the name of religious belief.

Read your Eric Hoffer.

NOW she figures this out...and I thought that, along with her husband and son, she was supposed to be an intellectual.

Charles

Ah, those intellectuals with their inquiring minds poking their noses into just about everything.
Some grounds are just sacred. They stake their inquisitive minds on that...and do we suffer.

Any one hear LeHaye on Terry Gross' Fresh Air last week? It was a re broadcast, and it scared me even more the second time I listened. I was struck by the fact that 50 million copies of the "Left Behind" books have sold world wide. And I couldn't help wondering if the presidents education inititave "No Child Left Behind", has any relationship to the books by LeHaye.

Nanute - a stroke of genius!

Those who know more about the religious right than I do keep saying that there are tons of hidden messages in Bushie pronouncements, and you've found one where we've all been blind to it - in plain sight.

Congratulations.

I am an evangelical Christian, support Israel, and don't for one minute believe that LeHayne et.al.'s view of the end of the world is supported by the bible. I don't really care where Jews live; but, there was a holocaust, the state of Israel was established by the United Nations (a very small transfer of populations, if you will, compared to others that happened as a result of WWII) and the Arabs never have-- and do not to this day-- given any real, trustworthy, assurance that they accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.

People can read the LeHayne books and not agree with them, or some readers might think they are just good stories and have no particular theological views at all. Those who do take such things seriously are called dispensationalists, and there are at least three varieties of them. I'm not in any of those camps, and neither is George Bush, for that matter, who is often tarred with that brush. (He is a main stream, middle of the road Methodist.) Jews get justifiably upset over being stereotyped, and so do evangelical Christians; even those who don't flinch at being called fundamentalist don't necessarily have the views that the liberal media says we do.

The belief that all who are not Christians are going to Hell is consistent with what is called supersession. Again, this is a view that is not accepted by all evnagelicals. In fact, the richest trend in evangelical scholarship in the last two decades has been the appreciation of Jesus as a Jew and what that meant in first century Palestine, and hte consequences of that for today's believer. You might look at the popularity of scholars such as N.T. Wright, now the Anglican Bishop of Durham, to see how rich and diverse some of these trends are. We are all sinners, and if God lets any of us into heaven, it is through his infinite Grace. Again, please think twice before stereotyping all of us.

By the way, where I am from, Tennessee, the accepted definition of fundamentalism is the belief that the bible is literally true and without error. I believe that it is, but only as regards spiritual matters; I have fundamentalist friends who believe that it is historically accurate in every respect. Not one of them has ever expressed any belief that I should be eliminated becauxe I disagree with them, contra Fatbear. Perhaps they haven't told me to my face in the more than 50 years I have known some of them, but as we seem to feel free to fight about everything else I kind of doubt it.

As for Mel Gibson, I understand that he is part of a Catholic sect or cult, whatever one wishes to call it, that refuses to recognize Vatican II or the legitimacy of the current Pope.

Please be more discriminating with the tar brush.

Dan -

First of all, I specifically left "evangelical" out of my definition (and also any reference to Christianity), as I know quite a few Christian evangelicals (some have even tried to convert me) and do not find them all to necessarily be Fundamentalists. Also, no one will argue (or at least not me) that there are some Fundamentalists who are not as harsh as others, just as not all late 15th century Catholics were Savonarola. But the underlying assertion that one is blessed by the only true belief is still present in all pure Fundamentalism; what you seem to be saying is that some Fundamentalists might not grab the pitchfork at the first chance.

The definition was meant to hold across religions (some Jewish Fundamentalists are as intolerant as others), and, like most definitions of this sort, may well be proven by the (few? in the totality) exceptions.

"I'm also interested in why people, especially Jews, were so offended by The Passion. I saw it, and didn't find it particularly anti-Semitic. The animus directed at the film puzzles me."

Here's a selection of articles on the film:
http://www.uncc.edu/jdtabor/passion.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0224-01.htm
http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/reviews/gibson_cunningham.htm
There was a good New Republic Online article, but now they seem to want you to pay for it:

https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20040308&s=wieseltier030804

Fatbear,

I fear that fundamentalist, as you use the term, has become an all too encompassing epithet. I live in one of the most heavily "churched" areas in the country. You can't hardly throw a rock and not hit a Southern Baptist or some sort of Pentecostal. Yet, I know very, very few people who fit your description. The pitchforks around here are fairly rusty.

These questions are for any evangelical Christians. Are fundamentalists the same as evangelicals? Can either believe in evolution? Can Catholics be either? Please excuse my ignorance, but I'd really like to know

Fatbear,
A stroke of genius? I think it was more like an agnostic Epiphany. If I am right, wouldn't it be a fair question for someone in the media to ask the president if there is a connection?

Dan -

I hope you throw the rock with love.

No one is using the term pejoratively. There was an open request for a definition; I stand by the definition I gave, which is that Fundamentalism is the belief exclusively in the "as received" original texts of a religion, and that it is used for the purpose of excluding (and frequently against) anyone who is not a "true believer." If I emphasized too heavily the prediliction to violence, I did not mean to tar you with that brush, but I stand by the statement that Fundamentalism is all too often used as an excuse for violence against others.

I frequently express my hostility to the Christian political right and to the Armageddon Christians (dispensationalists). I really think these people are cruel, ignorant, and dangerous. If there are other fundamentalists and evangelicals who don't fit the description, perhaps I'm unfair to them. But the political Christian right is a big negative factor in this country, as far as I'm concerned.

I have a particular animosity to weakly-Christian political conservatives who are savagely right-wing in their politics but pretty lax and indulgent when it comes to applying Christian standards to their own behavior. They assume Christ's forgiveness for themselves while being pretty hard on others.

Brad quotes:

"The joker, of course, is that the principal religious message is that if you are not born again and have not personally taken Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are almost certainly damned."

I know this is the official line, and has been since time out of mind, though it doesn't make a lick of sense to me -- and, I suspect, to Brad and most of his readers.

I forced myself to go see The Passion, fully expecting to walk out of the theatre, based on the reviews.

Instead I found myself blown away. The historical Jesus -- forget about the theological one -- is a representative symbol of all the blood and sacrifice of countless generaions that has gone into building up the capital stock of our civilization.

It was a soul-destroying process, no doubt about it, and I suspect that Fascism and Communism were both some of the twisted debree caused by so much human suffering.

Still, it's a lesson of infinite value to realize the price that has been paid to make our civilization possible -- if only to make us careful not to fritter away our capital base in a fit of absentmindedness, as in irresponsible deficits and negative personal savings rates.

Who in their right mind would want to take that trip again?

JRossi--
"Are fundamentalists the same as evangelicals?"

I do not know any fundamentalists who do not also say they are evangelicals. Many Evangelicals would say they are not fundamentalists.

"Can either believe in evolution?"

If you add up all the geneoligies in hte Bible, I think you'd figure that the world was created 4,000 or so years ago. I guess there are some people who believe that, I don't know any of them. Today, re: evolution, I think that the real debate is whether there is a divine role in whatever process has been at work in the creation of life as we know it, and/or, if there was, how detailed God's involvement was. As opposed to evolution, at least as associated with Darwin, the terms you hear opposed to it are such as intellignet design, and creation science. I think if you got a group of people together from a cross section of fundamnetalist/evangelical congregations, you would find a diversity of opinions. For me, it is enough that the early church fathers figured out a long time ago that the creation narrative in Genesis was allegorical, because it confliceted with the science they knew fom the Greeks. St. Augustine wrote that the creation was ongoing, and that there would even be new species created.

"Can Catholics be either?"

Well, I would never have thought to call a Catholic a fundamentalist, but I have read some intra-Catholic debates of late where the term is tossed around as a pejorative. Most fundamentalists (and any number of evangelicals) have some real problems with what they see as beliefs that are not based on scripture, for example, purgatory. (Though Catholics will cite chapter and verse saying that it, and other beliefs challenged by Protestants, are indeed scriptural. These issues have been debated since the Reformation, and though there are some substantial efforts being made to bridge the gap between evangelicals and Roman Catholics, I suspect that true reconciliation is a long way off.) Catholics certainly claim to be evnagelical, and I suppose they are. I don't see much evidence of that except from the laity. The Roman Catholic Church has a real problem recruiting people for vocations (i.e., priests and nuns; certainly in the past they have been very evangelical (for example the Jesuit Missions in the new world.)

It is also ironic, given support for his movie among many Christians, that as a traditionist Catholic, Gibson believes non-Catholic Christians, not just Jews, will fail to gain eternal salvation:

Gibson: "There is no salvation for those outside the Church," he said. "I believe it." He explained, "Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She's a much better person than I am. Honestly. She's, like, Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it's just not fair if she doesn't make it, she's better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it."
Source: The Jesus War, by Peter J. Boyer, The New Yorker, September 15, 2003

full article available at http://www.wcnet.org/~bgcc/gibson.htm

Fatbear,

Yes, fundamentalism can be used to excuse violence, but sometimes it can be used to cover up what is really going on. Were the Crusades a result of fundamentalism, or was reliigon used to cover up what economic and geo-political motives that had nothing to do with religion?

I suppose your definition as a reflection of Hoffer's view is correct, it has been a long time since I read him. I think mine, i.e., that fundamentalism requires, or espouses, a view that the Bible is literally correct, spiritually and historically, is more reflective of what the use of the word means in practice at this point in 21st century American discourse. I think hte first use of the word in a religious context was in the early 20th century and was used by conservative Protestants to distinguish themselves from liberal theologians. I know that it can be used in a broader sense, as you do; there is nothing per se wrong with that, it jsut strikes me that it can be too loaded a term.

I can't help but recycle my entry in Elton Beard's Himmelfarb haiku-ithon (http://www.busybusybusy.com/b3_arc_04_0301.shtml#Mar704400PM)

Yes, Jesus loves you
But stop rocking the boat. Oy!
Useful idiots

My apologies to the faithful and the literate.

Dan -

It's been quite a time since I read Crusade history, but I faintly remember it. There were reasons that went beyond religious fanatacism, but the First was a result (directly) of a call from the Pope to help the Eastern Empire, as the Islamic Turks were already in Asia Minor threatening Constantinople, as well as the Fall of Jerusalem in the late 11th century. No doubt part of it was the fall-off of trade port control that was caused by the rise of Islamic power, but I do remember that the folks in Constantinople (who remained much closer to the "front line"), weren't too much in favor of the later Crusades and were constantly bothered by the dirty hungry violent mob that came coursing through from the west, especially as the Crusaders viewed the Eastern Empire as a partysight, and had this habit of looting, raping, pillaging and stealing everything that wasn't nailed down - not to forget that they thought the Easterners should feed them and their horses, even if starvation of the natives resulted.

But it couldn't be all bad, as it gave us The Maltese Falcon.

I find it helpful to consider that religions, all religions, are 'man' made and I mean that literally. I know the faithul will take issue with this and I mean no offense. It's just that it is suspicious that in the world of religion women don't quite have the same status as men. Would God (conveniently male) be so biased as to give short shrift to half the human population? So the next step in this way of understanding is a recognition that religion is a human construct meant to give structure to spirituality that takes place within a historical context. This is where the distortions creep in. The core ideas that spawned the religion become contaminated by the fray of competing pre-existent forces and even by the effort involved in attempting to set the new ideas apart. Inevitably religion becomes the result of all to human foibles and goes off on many tangents. What is sad is that there are those who wield religion (their own version of it) for agendas, often cruel and destructive, that have nothing to do with its original higher purpose.

I find it interesting that many of the same people who find Gibson's movie problematic feel the movies like 'People versus Larry Flint', 'Natural born killers' or 'Trainspotting' deserve constitutional protection. Depictions of drug use, pornography, prostitution, murder, torture - anything and everything is an artistic creation. Christianity is a danger though.

As many of the above comments have pointed out, not all religious sentiments are the same, and for this reason, not all religiously inspired behavior is the same. Different people can and do draw different lessons from the same "sacred" texts. This is fine as far as it goes; quietists are easier to get along with than crusaders. And yet it is appropriate for secular rationalist humanists to actively oppose all religion with a broad brush. Any code of behavior that is not based on reason is only one war, or depression, or charismatic preacher away from a nasty re-interpretation (which will of course be billed as the original, infallably correct interpretation).

Technically the moment that one asserts that they are working from any given set of axioms and primatives in an effort to deal in any formalizable way with philosophical and/or theological issues, one has established ones "fundamentals", and hence has become a 'fundamentalist'. This is as true of 'christians' as it is in the land of Marxists, or anyone else in the classical judeao-christian-islamic-marxist continuum.

I think I would restructure Dubblblind's basic effort a little so that we make sure to 'properly lay the blame' where it belongs in a way that will allow people to understand and be able to deal with their own 'understanding' of religion, both their own and others. Few americans are willing to 'hold the line' on 'the sin of cain' or 'ham' as a basis for arguing that there must be laws that mandate the separation of the races as was still popular in some so called 'christian fundamentalist' circles into the 1970's.

So while we agree that there are those who 'wield religon for agendas' - a part of the problem there includes all of the so called 'psuedo science' that has been put forward over the last 30 years in the areas of sociology and psychology, and Economics, and been as 'religiously weilded' to advance agenda items as well. So we all get to deal with the basic problem of how exactly do we deal with building a backdrop for the next "maltese falcon" film noir revival a couple thousand years from now.

Oh, those evil fudamentalist Christians! Everything bad that happened in history is their fault. World War I, no, wait, than the Communism. No, Communists killed most of the priests, than World War II - yes, those Japanese that attacked Perl Harbour. No, not them, than Nazis. No, they also sent many priests to the concentration camps. It must be Saddam than. He is a hidden fundamentalist. Good that we have him in prison now.

My criticisms of fundamentalists and politically conservative Christians, and I think most such criticisms, are based specifically on the activities of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, Ralph Reed, and hundreds of lesser lights in American politics during the last 20-25 years, together with their followers. I think that my criticisms of these men and their followings are deserved, and I'm no more inclined to moderate them than they are to moderate their criticisms of people like me.

This isn't imaginary stuff. If the shoe doesn't fit, no one has to wear it. It has nothing in particular to do with the crusades or the Japanese internment.

People who agree with Falwell, Robertson, et. al, will of course disagree with me; I can only expect that. However, I am not guilty of bigotry or prejudice. They play hardball and so do I.

"Christianity is a danger though."

TPOTX isn't "Christianity", it's Jesusporn.

Re "No Child Left Behind" — the slogan was appropriated from the Children's Defense Fund's original version: "Leave No Child Behind."

Dan —

If you live in an especially churchy place, then there's not much call for tolerance of the un-churchy in your midst. That might account for the rusty pitchforks.

Another quote from the Himmelfarb op-ed:

> One remembers now why David Hume and other
> luminaries of the Enlightenment were wary of
> religious "enthusiasm." Some of us, in recent
> times, have come to respect, even welcome,
> religious enthusiasm -- to welcome it in the
> public square as well as in church. But not
> if it were to take this form, exploiting
> violence, ferocity and sadism in the cause
> of religion.

Sooner or later, if you run with scissors, someone's eye gets put out; and sooner or later, if "religious enthusiasm" is welcomed in the public sphere, someone will be burnt at the stake.

It's shocking to me that intelligent people don't (or pretend not to) know this. Basic knowledge of the history of desert monotheisms makes it all too clear, and she was a professor of history....

Several points:

1) "Fundamentalism" is a term derived from the early twentieth century, when a set of conservative American protestants published a list of (seven?) "fundamentals" of belief. A number of these were parts of the creeds and would have been common to just about all orthodox Christians. One point which was _not_ was the literal inerrancy of the Bible, and that has come to be the distinguishing mark of the "fundamentalist". By this yardstick, Catholics are not fundamentalists, as they have always accepted a degree of allegorical interpretation of parts of the Bible.

2) There's a wide range of possibilities regarding the interaction of Christians with the public arena, ranging from isolation as with a number of anabaptist sects, such as theAmish or the Mennonites, or the developing trend among some Evangelicals towards having their own independent subculture, to engangement with public matters with an emphasis on principles promoting tolerance, to those who believe that the secular authorities ought to be at least coequal with and at most subordinate to the Church (Genevan Calvinism, old-fashoned Catholicism). There are other mixes as well -- the subordination of the Church to the state in Byzantium was not a particularly secular subordination. Most mainstream Christianity these days in the West has come through several centuries which has driven into the centre of awareness the need for tolerance, even among the relatively conservative* denominations.

I wouldn't think that many of the old Crown and Altar types are left, even in a republican form, nor that they have much real share in public discourse in North America. Generalizations about the role of "Christianity" or "religion" in the public square tend to come to grief against particularities that run in any number of directions.

Nor is "enthusiasm" necessarily aligned with any of the above -- the standard book on religious enthusiasm was by a _very_ orthodox Catholic (Mgr. Ronald Knox) who took a rather jaundiced view of it as a general phenomenon, and that distrust runs as a thread all the way back to the Church's confrontation with the Montanist heresy.

*"Conservative" isn't necessarily the best epithet. In North America, there tends as a matter of fact to be a rough alignment between orthodox protestants (i.e. those who would accept the Chalcedonian definitions) and the conservative politically, but there are also large numbers of outliers, especailly as one moves towards the Catholic end of the scale, who are orthodox and traditionalist in their religious beliefs but socially liberal in other ways, e.g. in matters dealing with labour and distributive policies.

"Can either believe in evolution?"

If you add up all the geneoligies in hte Bible, I think you'd figure that the world was created 4,000 or so years ago. I guess there are some people who believe that, I don't know any of them. Today, re: evolution, I think that the real debate is whether there is a divine role in whatever process has been at work in the creation of life as we know it, and/or, if there was, how detailed God's involvement was. As opposed to evolution, at least as associated with Darwin, the terms you hear opposed to it are such as intellignet design, and creation science. I think if you got a group of people together from a cross section of fundamnetalist/evangelical congregations, you would find a diversity of opinions. For me, it is enough that the early church fathers figured out a long time ago that the creation narrative in Genesis was allegorical, because it confliceted with the science they knew fom the Greeks. St. Augustine wrote that the creation was ongoing, and that there would even be new species created.

------------------

Dan, it's nice that you and your friends appear to be intelligent Christians, but that is not the issue. The issue is that there ARE people in the US who are trying to teach creationism and suppress the teaching of evolution, just as there are people in the US using the Bible to justify treating homosexuals as untermenschen. Neither does anyone believe that, if the people pushing these agendas were to get their way, they would stop at these two demands.

ogmb wrote: TPOTX isn't "Christianity", it's Jesusporn.

Maybe. Gibson looks sincere. But if it is than why people that did not complain about 'Pulp Fiction' complain about 'TPOTX'?

Folks, you are very brave when fighting a paper tiger. There is one group of fundamentalists that presents a serious and immediate danger. Arguably some of it is our own fault, but they want to come and kill you - not annoy you by their Holy Book thumping. Maybe they would be a better focus for your righteous wrath.

Fatbear - it seems as though your definition of fundamentalism would extend even to non-religions, as well. Any viewpoint which lays claims to be a comprehensive worldview necessarily excludes other viewpoints. Just what might a non-absolutist worldview look like exactly? The second you start to define what one is, then aren't you excluding other viewpoints that don't share those characteristics?

I prefer to use the word "ideology" where you're using "fundamentenalism," only because I think the real feature is not the absolutist worldview, or even the faith component, but the way in which the viewpoint functions psychologically and sociologically for the person. Hoffer's excellent on this, though.

Dear a:

You argue,

"Those evil fudamentalist Christians! Everything bad that happened in history is their fault . . .

history didn't start last week, but most of history is the story of man seeking freedom from religion or from those who exploited religion for their own purposes.

very little of history is not the fault of religion. Consider, only briefly, race and slavery in America. Since at least the American Revolution, the South wraped slavery and Jim Crow and segregation in religion. Why, if not, are we still having burnings black churches?

Dan's view is, from the evangelical perspective, correct, though. Fundamentalism is a technical term coined during the early 20th century describing certain orthodox Protestant Christians' response to the rise of modernism and theological liberalism. They responded to some of the Continental theologies (I've forgotten the exact details of who was saying what), like some variants of neo-orthodoxy and early liberalism, by pressing for roughly five key, non-negotiable "fundamentals." They were things like the Virgin Birth, the infallibility of the bible, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, the resurrection, and the second coming. Those things were championed as being the "fundamental" components of true, orthodox Christianity, and were emphasized as such precisely because of the emphases of liberalism and neo-orthodox theologians (ex, Barth). In time, I think fundamentalism evolved a little bit to become more of the caricature it is now, but originally, it was a bit more sophisticated.

That's why I think the better term is probably "ideology" and not fundamentalism. Fundamentalism, for one, limits the discussion to only talking about faith matters, which I think is a mistake. The same kind of behavior and phenomenon Hoffer described is found in atheists as it is in Christians. Hoffer spends as much time dissecting Marxist, National Socialist, Fascist and Zionist communities as well as explicitly religions ones. But when we think of fundamentalism, most of us will immediately think of Islamic terrorists and Jerry Falwell, and that obscures the point, as well as pisses people off.

Moe Levine wrote: Since at least the American Revolution, the South wraped slavery and Jim Crow and segregation in religion.

Uh, that's a little strong. For example, http://uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/newman_transformation.html :

"Religion was a cornerstone of abolitionism throughout the Revolutionary and early national periods. As David Brion Davis has argued in Slavery and Human Progress (1984), liberal religious thinkers continually broadened the antislavery struggle in Anglo-American culture."

Many people like to wrap things they do into religion but faith is rarely the real reason for doing them. Consider the founding of the modern Israel: Jews were telling each other "Next year in Jerusalem" for 2,000 years but there was little actual immigration. Only when a group of people started working towards creating a state, the process really started. And even than some people said that God leads the Jews there and some said that God is against it.

A Disneyesque visual....

Bush as Donald Duck discovering the sorcerer's wand and commanding the Chinese brooms to march.
Except he takes it one step further, commanding *the world* to march to the same tune as well.
"Onward Christian Soldier, marching as to war."
Shoving his neo-liberal pitard up the wazoo "of the people, by the people and for the people."

The *average* American is broke and in debt to the mortgage companies and the plastic makers. With the decline of the US$, and US producers taking full advantage of price hikes, it's now the *majority* of all Americans who are not just indentured servants, for indentured servants were freed as journeymen after seven years. No,
right now, today, the *majority* of Americans are wage *slaves* to corporate-governance elites that control by 96 to 4 the National Income, and just sunk that last basket into deficit spending.

March Madness. These are the times our founding fathers spoke about. Right now, today. !March!

a -- I'm perfectly capable of thinking that something I disapprove of deserves constitutional protection. In fact, there's no real point to constitutional protection, in my opinion, UNLESS someone disapproves of it.

Julian:

Do you strongly disapprove that the following movies were made: 'Trainspotting'? 'Pulp Fiction'? 'Kill Bill'? 'Silence of the Lambs'? 'Caligula'?

I think many people have a quarrel with Gibson not because he made a bad movie or because he promotes crucifixiions. They do not like it that he made a strong movie promoting Christianity. I think that if someone is an enemy of the Christianity (or religion in general), they should just say so.

I swear, Christian Fundamentalists are the whipping boys of the new millenium. Stop me if you've heard this one:

Eminem=good, Pat Robertson=bad, some passenger on a public bus prosletyzing the Green Party=good, airline pilots preaching during flights=bad, waving a protest sign=good, waving an American flag=bad.

Moe -

I have two words for you - William Wilberforce.

--

Anyhow, thanks for the definitions of fundamentalism. It's interesting. The reason I asked is because I am an evangelical protestant who believes in the inerrancy and authority of the Bible. I also believe in the exclusivity of Christ. So I guess I would be considered a fundamentalist under fatbear's definition because I strongly believe that my convictions flow from a literal interpretation of the bible. I, however, don't feel led to eliminate non-believers. I'm even against proselytizing, although I think that all Christians should evangelize in a loving and prayerful way, primarily through relationship building.

At the same time, like Zizka, I am no fan of the Jerry Falwells, the Pat Robertsons, or others of that ilk (which includes the president). I think the politicization of Christianity does a disservice to Christ, especially when groups like the 700 Club are so single-minded and sometimes unloving in their pursuit of moral reform through the political process. I am all for moral renewal and the instillment of virtue in the U.S., but I think a more powerful statement is a consistent, sincere, and loving modeling of Christ in day-to- day living. And I guess I could in part forgive the 700 Club's commitment to moral reform if it were equally committed to eradicating poverty and inequality, creating fair international trade environments, working to address issues of race, and fighting for just foreign policy.

I don't think a literal interpretation of the bible is what ails Christianity - the problem is that the bible is not taken literally enough. Christian fundamentalists take the passages on moral and sexual purity and add to them, while ignoring the passages regarding the care of "the alien, the orphan, and the widow."

Liberal interpreters of the bible also tend to pick and choose. They play up Christ's moral teachings, his love and compassion, while downplaying his central message - "I am God in the form of man. My mission is to save mankind from sin. I am the only way to salvation!" Christ sought repentance from people so that they could spend eternity in communion with him rather than going to hell.

I know that in liberal-democratic Rawlsian America, exclusivity and comprehensive doctrines are bad things. One shouldn't make judgments about people's lifestyles. One shouldn't say that one religion is right and others are wrong. It's okay to say there is an afterlife, but it's wrong to say that anyone is going to hell. Many intellectuals, especially liberal ones, not only find such claims unpleasant - they deem such claims, in and of themselves, as bigoted and anti-intellectual.

Poisoning the well in such a way is extremely effective because it eschews real discussion of why such claims are bigoted. In my view, when it comes down to it, the real reason people are anti-absolute morality/anti-God/anti-comprehensive doctrine is not because an absolutist view is unreasonable or intellectually untenable, but because it places limits on freedom, and freedom, when it comes down to it, is valued more highly than truth.

Luke, do a little research on the "historical" Jesus. You'll find that he doesn't exist.

Jimbo wites: I don't think a literal interpretation of the bible is what ails Christianity - the problem is that the bible is not taken literally enough...Liberal interpreters of the bible also tend to pick and choose. They play up Christ's moral teachings, his love and compassion, while downplaying his central message - "I am God in the form of man. My mission is to save mankind from sin. I am the only way to salvation!"

The Zen Buddhists, who have a specific interest in direct spiritual experience, have an expression about religion that is aimed at their dogmatic Buddhist brethren but applies equally to all religions: "It is like a finger pointing at the moon." Christ's message, in my view, was and is meant to be symbolic not literal. When you get caught up in literal interpretations of the bible all you see is the finger.

Brad,

I'm not sure what you mean by "a Machiavellian use of religion." Machiavelli held Savonarola in little regard: remember "a prophet unarmed"? A more "Machiavellian use of religion" would be based on the Roman model, in which religion served the state, as it did for the ancient Romans. He writes at more length on this in the Discourses.

Also, Savonarola had no "puppet masters." He was a populist preacher who arose in opposition to the faltering Medici regime, and held office when the Medici were expelled. He was his own political master.

The only possible connection between Savonarola and Gibson (or Kristol) is the extent of their religious fervor. He is not a particularly apt historical parallel to the current "Passion" hubbub.

--Don MacDonald

Don,
John DiIulio, the former head of the White House's "Faith-Based and Community Initiatives", used the term "Mayberry Machiavellis" to describe Bush officials. It is now something of a vernacularism.

jimbo:

I would define "fundamentalism" as the "belief" in the lack of any need for interpretation and application. In this sense, the term can be transferred from its original context in American Evangelical Protestantism and applied to other doctrines- and not just religious ones, but to secular ones, as well: e.g. "free market fundamentalism", Marxist fundamentalism- (formerly known as vulgar Marxism)-, or scientistic fundamentalism. But to return to its original Christian context, let's suppose that the Bible is literally the word of G-d, the same that it says created the world in the first place. Then is it not precisely a divine language? What would make one believe that it can be understood literally in terms of ordinary human language, leaving aside that it is a compilation of texts from different times and sources and that the notion of a purely literal human language is a non-starter to begin with? Inevitably, the effort to read the Bible and make it cohere in accordance with a single doctrine requires some considerable feats of interpretation, often of a fairly tortuous nature.

Now I don't mean to impugn your beliefs. You seem to have a sincere, considered and decent grasp of the Christian religion, as far as I can tell. I would take it that at the core of Christian religion are the consciousness of sin and the imitation of Christ, with the understanding that the latter is an impossible injunction, since the fellow is said to be divine, after all, which brings one back to the former. But what in the matter puts that at odds with "liberal-democratic Rawlsian America"- (as if that were an empirical description)? Is it not the case that your religious faith is a personal free choice and is contingent upon and "grounded" in that choice? And does it not then require of you that you interpret it and apply it in a living praxis, that includes, though is not confined to, nor absorbed by, the social and political context in which you live, which would include others who make different choices for different praxes? Granted the bias toward "negative freedom" in standard liberal doctrine may not accord with your sense of the nature and purport of human freedom and responsibility, (as would be the case with my own different quite view of things). But the acknowledgement that religious faith is crucially a matter of free personal choice would seem to temper its absolutist and exclusivist claim. And whatever the other tenets of your faith and the mode in which you interpret and apply them, it would seem that their claim for "truth"- (which I don't think is the secure possesion and monopoly of anyone and I don't mean that in a relativist sense)- can not absolve them of their responsibility for freedom.

As far as the literal interpretation of the Bible goes, it's impossible. For example, both the prophets and John in Revelation write in highly figurative language, yet fundamentalists rely on this books. (In fact, a lot of the dispensationalist doctrine relies on extremely abstruse interpretation.) Furthermore, the Old Testament is partly still in effect and in part has been superceded, but there's nowhere in the new testament that enumerates the changes.

Fundamentalists always cherry-pick their favorite verses and put them at the top of a heierarchy, and then interprets the rest to fit. One that springs to mind: "It is better for a man never to touch a woman, but it's better to marry than to burn". This is pretty unambigious: men should be celibate priests if they can, but marry if they can't. But I'm sure that there's a LOT of Protestant interpretation.

I haven't seen Gibson's film, but put me on the list of those who disliked Pulp Fiction a lot.

Tarantino is apt, because Mel’s film sounds like “Kill Jesus, Vol. 1”

“religion is, by and large, a force for good... what I find so disquieting is the coarsening of religious sensibility...” --Himmelfarb

Himmelfarb’s comments are beside the point, except to those who pocket religion as a social-intellectual construction. The Himmelfarb-Kristols are of course just such kinds, so here the emergence of contradiction and hypocrisy over long years of rationality is to be expected, and we proceed to a more important subject. The real story with Gibson’s movie is different: a beginner has wrongly accentuated the physical suffering in a religious story, and may therefore lead others astray.

The problem is, all mystical paths from every religion describe a period of apocalyptic torture, occuring just before ego-death and ascendance to god-consciousness. Torture, physical, actually happened in Jesus’ story, and that fact is a regular source of confusion.

That is because in the Christian path, “Jesus” performs three different functions: (1) the example of his life is a model of purification for the beginner, (2) the death-and-resurrection is a very close physical metaphor for the mystical transformation, and (3) the archetype may be called upon for salvation, to overcome the extraordinary fear of death at the moment of ego-cessation. (While this tripartite function of its founder is rather unique among religions, Christianity is hardly privileged in its excellence; the Vedanta, for example, has a clearer and sturdier metaphysics.)

Almost all people do not in fact follow their religious paths through to the apocalyptic death of ego, but instead take on the belief-systems--expressed in words, Bibles, whatever--as effective buttresses to their own insidious egos working in tandem with the religious yearning. And they may go on to write whole libraries full of partial understanding. But whether or not they believe that theirs is the literal truth (fundamentalism), or that many truths coexist (relativism), or that it’s necessary to preach it to others (evangelism), or that it’s not possible to know (agnosticism), or indeed that God does not exist (atheism)--all of these postures are paths curtailed at rather the same formal level of error, i.e. in a new and rather ridiculous re-solidification of the ego.

(The initial reason, by the way, that people believe that theirs is the only truth, is not to exclude others, but because one’s own ego is almost impossible to fight, and often needs the strong counteractant of an exclusive belief. But the fact that people usually stop developing there, and go on to weekly churchgoing as the culmination of experience, is one of the great tragedies. All god-realized mystics in every tradition, without exception, male and female, have indicated that exclusive belief is finally discarded. Of course, quite a few have been killed for this.)

Gibson, at the very beginning of his own religious journey, has had the money and ability to make a misapprehended and incomplete expression of a wordless truth. Since he stayed within the storyline, he won’t be burned at the stake. But because misapprehended and incomplete, given the total subject matter and the serious need for its application, the film may be inappropriate and even misleading to other beginners. The legions lining up at the box office do not alter this. If Gibson continues to search for a real path, he will one day have to apologize for making something so misshapen. However, the fact that he may collect a quarter of a billion dollars from this thing sadly will not help him and indeed may militate against it.

Lee A.:

Some of us do maintain a residual, sentimental attachment to rationality and are not ready to trod the mystical paths of the perennial philosophy. After all, after the extinction of the ego, does the world go away, even as we are blissfully unencumbered by ipseity? I would think that the value of the breakdown of the rigid, defensive structures of the ego is that it allows for the re-formation and new growth of more flexible, other-directed ego-structures. If that is a "re-solidification" of the ego, then it is perhaps because some solidity, if not downright stolidity, of the ego is functionally necessary, not to mention that we are all exposed in our bodily nakedness- which is to say, we do tend to regard ourselves in part as objects and there is some good reason for that half-witted idea. If some of us choose to forgo the experience of ego-death, which one suspects is not all that deadly, then it is perhaps out of an attachment to this world, which refuses to abandon it, as an evasion of the otherness of others, to which we are exposed and bound in this world by the force of its obligation. Human desire may be ultimately unfulfillable, but there are ways of dealing with our fatal limitations and finding our way in the world other than by positioning ourselves outside the realm of otherness. Realism, to be sure, is not the be-all and end-all of everything, but realism, at least of a certain sort, is one of the basic postulates of reason. One should be wary of forgoing the services of rational understanding and its implicature. Wordless, unspeakable truth may, after all, turn out to be the absence of truth and the refusal of the compulsion to speak in one's own name.

Gee, we're getting off point a little. As probably the only one here who's made his living slaving away in the biz (Hollywood) as a producer and director, I'd just like to add that to expect anything but a race to grosses to motivate my breathren is to expect a miracle.

http://billmon.org/archives/001222.html

And, as for Fundamentalism, the link above is to Bilmon's excellent note about the unfortunate death of the Southern Baptists in Mosul. A true tragedy, but also a pointer to how Bush is playing right into the hands of the Islamic terrorists.

Rationality leads to the mystery of wave-particle duality, i.e.finally to the acceptance of a contradiction, as must any otherness. Christians resolve their duality by Trinity, which of course they copped from Plotinus.

As long as we know the limits, an argument is impossible. That's okay too.

As to the brethren in Hollywood, if Bush had any sense he'd send Jack Valenti to Baghdad AT ONCE, to organize and finance an all-Iraqi production of "MOHAMMED!" It's got commerce, sex, poetry, speaking in tongues, great crowd scenes, politics, intrigues, battles. The Prophet's story is truly the most amazing dramatic material on the planet, and nobody in Hollywood ever touched it.

Such a production would unite the Iraqis, put blessing on the accursed Americans, and show the planet once and for all that Bush really knows what he's doing, and that our kulture will conker the woild!

"Tread the mystical paths of the perennial philosophy"? When I was learning terms _philosophia perennis_ referred to Aristotelianism, had very little to do with mysticism at all, and was about as rational in approach as you could get.

James:

I do believe the term was used by Catholic Aristotelians. My reference was to the likes of the French Catholic philosopher turned Sufi mystic Denon, who effectively reduced all religious traditions to a single esoteric doctrine, which he so termed.

Lee A.:

"Rationality leads to the mystery of the wave/particle duality, i.e. to the final acceptance of a contradiction..."

I'm no expert, but I had thought these were alternate mathematical descriptions that applied depending on which precise question one was asking. At any rate, they are part of the effort to penetrate and understand the fine deep structure of matter and energy, rather than an effort to arrive at an ultimate mystery. Nor do I think rationality applies only to physical science, nor necessarily culminates there. It applies to other domains and other dimensions.

"... as must any otherness."

I was not aware that the otherness of the other, as the non-manifest intentional source of the actions and expressions of an other, was a contradiction to my existence, rather than, as the condition of language, "something" I must relate to and allow for in order to at all exist as a human self, no matter how we tend to resist its acknowledgement and fail to be open to its reception, due to our "natural" egotism.

"As long as we know the limits, an argument is impossible."

I am aware that it is pointless to argue with or for a "grammatical" remark, since it only serves to remind of something that is perfectly obvious about the workings of our language and understanding and the only point in raising it is if some one has overlooked the obvious and as a result gone astray and fallen into perplexity. E.g., "sensations are private" is perfectly obvious, unless some one mistakes it as a metaphysical statement conveying some mysterious property about our sensations. But do we necessarily "know" the limits? And are those limits necessarily fixed, once and for all?

john c. halasz:

I used “otherness”, perhaps incorrectly, to refer to the incessant dichotomizing and polar oppositions which rationality generates, in order to proceed. A good primer here is Aristotle, or Hobbes’ metaphysics. For example, things either “are”, or they “are not.” Wave particle duality “exists” because over decades a long string of reasoning in tandem with experiments led to it.

By “knowing the limits”, I meant, as you say, a clear understanding of the line beyond which a discourse at any chosen moment starts to nonsense. Of course for many things, that line could move: those limits could be beaten back by new knowledge, or new being, or both. Maybe wave-particle duality will be subsumed tomorrow or the next day by some simpler scheme. My guess is that the new theory will eventually lead to new contradictions, or co-existing alternate descriptions, because there’s been no end to them in the history of the world, so far.

In this sense, I guess I believe that rationality will never map the universe, or cover the whole, although it continues to develop and grow. Can there be a rational reason for this? I’ve yet to study Whitehead...

The mystic teachers are talking about a process very different, however, which is that rationality must be (temporarily) “disconnected” (as in stopped or subverted) in order for being to grow. The method here is the practice of “no-mind” (Buddhism) or, perhaps less efficaciously, a fervent belief in a mystery, such as the Trinity, which breaks rationality down, koan-style. In the tradition, ego (which is a newer word for it) is a constraint on growth of being, and one of ego’s chief props is rationality.

After all is said and done, you get rationality back, to use without ego. (Despite this, we will no doubt have lost our scientific readers, by now!) “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.” But the lesson of the eternal incompleteness of rationality remains. And mystics may then choose to reposition themselves in service to the world (which I think is the stance of a “bodhisattva”). They need not choose to abandon it.

In this sense, I guess one of the standing limits to rationality is that it cannot conceive of, initiate, or even accurately describe any change in being, whatsoever. A less lofty example: before your ever tasted alcohol, could you describe what it actually felt like to get drunk? Similarly, mystics resort to saying things like: can you imagine a state of consciousness that is as far above waking consciousness, as waking consciousness is above sleep?

"Rationality leads to the mystery of wave-particle duality, i.e.finally to the acceptance of a contradiction, as must any otherness. Christians resolve their duality by Trinity, which of course they copped from Plotinus."

Oh for crying out loud. There is no "mystery of the wave-particle duality". The mystery is why this canard persists; and the fact that it does tells us something about our society, but little about physics. In spite of whatever hippy physics books you may have read, physics does not give you carte blanche to assume that your pot-addled "insights" are somehow valid.

Lee A.:

Insomnia.

Better. Though our economist friends think its all hand waving. And I would think an incompleteness theorem is pretty much standard issue for all card-carrying rationalists, nowadays.

Logic is coeval with substantialist metaphysics. "Metabasis in allo genos", "change in the essence", new emergence, yes, these were the issues and problems that at least in part motivated Whitehead's recourse to process in place of substance.

I was playing the strict Halakhist. And Maynard thinks you should lay off the dope.

As far as I can tell, there still is a mystery of the wave-particle duality. No particular conclusion can be drawn from it. Or maybe, like an indirect proof given two contradictory propositions, anything whatever can be proved with it.

A lot of the solutions offered to dilemmas (e.g. the Copenhagen interpretation) seem simply to be agreements not to ask any further questions. George Spencer-Brown claims that Russell agreed that his solution to the self-reference paradox was a makeshift of that type. Prigogine says that that's how the three-body problem was dealt with, and Mandelbrot reported that the Bourbaki people became angry at his attempts to understand fractals. (Rene Thom, whose star has waned, also reported that the same kind of resistance to catastrophe theory).

While dilemmas of this type don't get a justification of non-scientific belief, but you do weaken some of the ideology and common sense grounded on an overoptimistic and excessively rationalistic misrepresentation of what the results of science actually are.

Literal interpretation - doesn't it mean nothing more than taking the text to be true, given certain hermeneutical rules like genre, audience, etc.? So, we interpret Revelation of John differnetly than a Pauline epistle, because the former is purposefully cryptic and coded, while the latter is not. To take something literally doesn't require you throw out all rules of interpretation. It just means reading the text in light of the author's intention, following agreed upon hermeneutical devices.

Maynard, "mystery" was a poor choice of words. We're running two different discussions here: one about science, where concepts get revamped (here my favorite "fizzy hippicist" is Heisenberg)--and the other discussion is about recent dualities manifested by the likes of Gertrude Himmelfarb and Mel Gibson, who still have a way to go...

john, is incompleteness another stated limit? No "mystery" there either, except why almost everyone once assumed that mathematics were rationally more complete! But what do you mean by "strict Halakhist"? Staying within bounds of the concepts from a single religious tradition?...

Zizka, do you think Rene Thom's problem was that topology does not predict exact time and place? I'm always wondering about science's continuing failure to precisely-and-repeatedly predict complex systems (i.e. multiple-compartment models), such as wilderness food webs, global climate, macroeconomies, etc. It's a mystery to me...

further to the Fundamentalist point, and especially about those fine "churched" people in TN that Dan was citing:

Tenn. County Wants to Charge Homosexuals

Associated Press

DAYTON, Tenn. - The county that was the site of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" over the teaching of evolution is asking lawmakers to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature.

The Rhea County commissioners approved the request 8-0 Tuesday.

Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals from living in the county.

"We need to keep them out of here," Fugate said.

The vote was denounced by Matt Nevels, president of the Chattanooga chapter of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

"That is the most farfetched idea put forth by any kind of public official," Nevels said. "I'm outraged."

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas' sodomy laws as a violation of adults' privacy.

Rhea County is one of the most conservative counties in Tennessee. It holds an annual festival commemorating the 1925 trial at which John T. Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution. The verdict was thrown out on a technicality. The trial became the subject of the play and movie "Inherit the Wind."

In 2002, a federal judge ruled unconstitutional the teaching of a Bible class in the public schools.

Lee A:

"strict Halakhist"- no, since I'm not Jewish. I meant the ethico-legalistic side of religion rather than the mystical. And I was arguing for attachment to the world, which the Jewish religion is a good deal better at than the Christian. (Please allow for an occasional glimmer of irony amidst all the earnestness and rancor.)

By science failing to predict complex systems, did you mean their existence or their dynamics?

scott cunnigham:

Hermneutically speaking, one interprets words in texts. "Authorial intention" could only be an inference from that. Even if the author were at hand to explain his intention, he could get it wrong. After all, it would be another text. The injunction that one interprets with regard to the fullest possible truth is a good and basic hermeneutic meta-rule. But something has to be meaningful, before it can be judged true.

To give an example of the problem with literal interpretation, it says in one Gospel ( Mt12:30, Lk11:23), "He who is not with me is against me", and in another Gospel (Mk9:40Lk9:50), "He who is not against us is for us." Just try to provide a "literal" interpretation of that, since it is after all a matter of the privileged Authorial intention. (I'm not saying that this matter is especially difficult to reconcile; I am saying it requires a distinction between the letter and the spirit of the text, which some interpreters of the Bible oddly forget.)

As far as prediction goes, Prigogine says a lot about that. My opinion is that reality about a very low level of complexity is all unpredictable in the physicist's sense (i.e., not exactly and reliably predicatble, or mechanical). What you get from that is historical systems within which novelty is produced and the past is different than the present. Somebody above mentioned process philosophy and I think that process philosophy deserves more attention.

john h.-

Thanks for your reply. It's thought provoking - you made some good points.

First, I misspoke - I am not a fundamentalist. I believe the bible requires interpretation, and that many sincere Christians disagree on issues such as predestination, baptism, dispensationalism, eschatology, creationism, and a host of others. Yeah, so I agree with you, the bible is subject to interpretation. I also agree that the bible is simplified for mankind, and even this simplification is often beyond the greatest, most devout, and most committed human minds.

At the same time, I believe the New Testament, apart from books such as Revelations that were not intended to be read literally, is an accurate historical document. I believe that Jesus actually existed, performed miracles, claimed that he was God, showed compassion to those who were marginalized and vulnerable, preached repentance and salvation, and was crucified, died, and was resurrected. I don't believe any of that was symbolic or was intended to be taken as symbolic.

So I guess when I said I took the bible literally, I was responding to those who claim that Jesus' life, his claims to divinity, and his death and resurrection were symbolic. A figurative interpretation of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection emasculates Christianity because they are the crux of Christianity.

I don’t completely agree with your conception of the core of Christianity. Yes, a consciousness of sin is important, as is the imitation of Christ. The core of Christianity, however, is Christ. That is, Jesus is God. God is holy, which means he is set apart from man in every way. Man is sinful. But thankfully, God is also loving and graceful. To reconcile God’s sense of justice with man’s sinfulness, God must exercise his wrath. Jesus is the perfect sacrifice – he is the Father’s Son and was sent to earth as a man – and because he is fully God he is without sin, because he was fully man he could take man’s sin on himself. Because he was fully man he died a bodily death, because he is God he defeated death. With Christ's death and resurrection, God’s sense of justice and sense of grace were perfectly satisfied, and man was offered salvation. Man only needs to have faith in Jesus to claim salvation.

So consciousness of sin is important, and yes, Christians seek to imitate Christ – but not as an end in itself – the purpose of sanctification is to be set apart from the world and to become closer to God. Sanctification is worship. It isn’t about being morally good (but moral goodness will be an ancillary benefit if a Christian is sincere) – it’s about building a deeper and more intimate relationship with God. The ultimate end of man is to worship God by enjoying forever.

And I agree with you when you say that it is impossible to completely imitate Christ. Yet still, we are commanded to imitate Christ. We are also commanded to love our enemies, to never lie, to never covet our neighbor’s wife or possessions, and so on. Why does God ask us to do what we cannot? Well, I believe that such injunctions are a reflection of God’s perfect character. They show us how far we fall short of God’s standard. Man cannot be perfect – that is why Jesus’ death and resurrection was necessary – he imputed his holiness on us, and imputed our sin on himself. We are not expected to be perfect - we are called to repent of our sins, and seek God through Christ. In Christ we are made perfect in God’s sight.

As far as my comment on liberal-democratic Rawlsian America, I guess I was referring to Rawls’ idea that in a liberal-democratic society, comprehensive doctrines can be infringed upon in the service of maintaining a liberal-democracy. I also got the impression that in the long run, Rawls wanted a liberal-democratic ideal to supplant comprehensive doctrines altogether. I am not saying that liberal-democracies are completely bad – they’re the best governments humans have. I agree that personal choice is a part of liberal-democracies. I couldn’t openly worship Jesus in North Korea – so I’m really thankful - but I also think and feel that liberal-democracies are a threat to religion. They aren’t impartial. Included in the Rawlsian notion of public justice is finding a common ground that all “rational” people can accept. In finding that common ground, many of the most important features of many comprehensive doctrines, whether deliberately or not, become eroded. Sure, one can argue that they are only eroded in the public sphere, but I think the erosion carries to the private as well.

I’m not sure if I understand your point regarding choice tempering exclusivity and absolutism. Would you please explain in simpler language? Why would choice temper exclusivity and absolutism? What exactly do you mean by temper? And I’m also not sure if I understand what you mean when you say, “truth cannot absolve [the tenets of my faith and how I interpret and apply them] of their responsibility to freedom.” When you refer to responsibilities of freedom do you mean being held accountable for one’s actions? As a Christian, I believe that I am held accountable for my actions and that other Christians and non-Christians are held accountable for their actions.

I apologize for my ignorance - I am a humble MPP student - my only exposure to Rawls was in an ethics class I took last semester.

jimbo:

Well, that was a fairly articulate and even a bit eloquent testimony to your faith and I think you are "perfectly" entitled to your faith and don't begrudge it to you one bit. I, of course, am not a religious believer and so address these issues as an outsider. Making sense of religious belief from a purely "rational" perspective is difficult, no matter how broad a conception of sense one holds and no matter how "liberal" the allowances one makes, in the face of the insistence of the religious that they mean their beliefs "literally". This has, of course, strained the received tradition both pro and con, both inside and outside, and you yourself show signs of reacting to such strains. That stated, when I said that religious faith was "grounded" in the freedom of personal choice, I was existentializing a bit; I meant that such faith is not based on rational considerations- as if it could be "proven"-, but amounts to a personal commitment. Even if such terms are not to your taste or liking, I think you'll admit that, if you conceive of your faith, in more orthodox terms, as a response to G-d's call and commandment, it is up to you whether and how you respond to such a call. I don't regard religious faith per se as rational or irrational, but rather as non-rational. To view the world as G-d's creation, for example, is not to offer a causal account of the existence of the world, but to adopt a certain spiritual attitude toward it, including all its creatures, oneself included. To view such a tenet as a causal account of things, as does "creationist science", is to, in effect, regress to the level of pagan idolatry, which worships a blind conformity to natural forces, in the place of the ethical estrangement of G-d's commandments. And since I am an unbeliever, I would historicize the existence Of Yoshua bin Yosef from Nazareth a good deal differently than you do. I would see him as a Jew and, as such, would view his mission, his kerygma, in ethical terms, as a preachment of radical charitable love beyond the Law, from which guilt accumulates, unto the compassion and mercy of the forgiveness of sins. That the "kingdom of G-d is at hand" would not just refer to far distant and transcendent or supernatural occurences, but occurs each time an act of such radical charitable love is achieved, however unsustainable its prospect may be. But that is an impossible injunction and perhaps requires a transcendent or supernatural agency. Such a view may not accord with the Protestant, Augustinian orthodoxy you articulated with respect to the communion with G-d, but, in fact, such a communion is possible only transcendently, beyond the veil of death, which famously is the "wages of sin", so there is not really here an escape clause from this world.

But the hazards and ambiguities of this world will not be vanquished or made to disappear through the profession or confession of religious faith. One may believe that one will and should be held accountable morally for one's actions, even transcendently,- and moral judgment always falls upon one's own head, which view of morality I don't think is at variance with Christianity-, but this does not specify how one should apply one's moral judgments. One must act within the world and snickering at the putative damnation of others or importuning them to endorse the narcissism of one's own religious beliefs will not do to vindicate one's salvation or to redeem the community of the faithful. It is here that I would take issue with your claims for exclusivity- (much as I dislike the semantic valencies of that word)- and would substitute the word "totalization" in its place. To act in this world requires beliefs other than religious ones and one can not claim responsibility for one's actions without addressing their worldly context. It is here that I think exclusivist and absolutist claims must needs be tempered. (And the separation of church and state did not originate with our Constitution, but was articulated two millenia ago in the story about the Roman coin.) Inevitably, life in today's world means interacting with people of different beliefs, whether secular or religious. And that your religious faith can absolve you, wash you clean, of such "contamination" would be superstition rather than the acceptance of moral responsibility.It is not simply a matter of the social environment permitting the practice of your faith, as North Korea does not. (And thankfully, no one posting here knows what living in North Korea is like.) It is a matter of perceiving that the "truth" which "sets you free" may be perceived differently by others and, no matter how much you may feel that your freedom is the commandment and gift of grace, its responsibility is borne by yourself alone, in an equal recognition with that of others. Though your faith may entail a sense of the dependency of your freedom on G-d, it is equally a personal choice that you uphold. If you feel that this is an "erosion" of your faith, then that is a part of the accepted burden of your faith. (It is not called faith for nothing; faith is precisely not something that is guaranteed one, absent all risk and anxiety.) In particular, I would argue, from a secular point of view, but also in the interests of faith, that faith is not something that should be instrumentalized for political purposes. That Christ was persecuted and that the early church elaborated a martyrology should not be elaborated into a fantasy of persecution where none exists. I think that would be precisely a tragic misrecognition of the Gospel message. (When I said that nobody has a monopoly on truth, perhaps I should have added that nobody has a monopoly on bigotry, either. It was your rather mistaken, if not projective, accusation of bigotry that perhaps set me off on this tangent.) It is often recited that the Christian believer is to live in this world, but not be of this world. But I think that perhaps that is a mistaken interpretation. He/she can only be of another, transcendent world by passing through this one.

Well, that is about the best I can do here and now. Perhaps you should have pity one my sins.

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Again, thanks for your response.

1) I agree that a leap of faith is a supra-rational commitment. In my case, salvation was a result of Christ drawing me to him. However, I became more open to God when I discovered that Christianity is in many ways a logically coherent and reasonable religion; that Christ's life, death, and resurrection (at least an empty tomb) are historically well-documented; and that science is unable to do a good job of explaining creation without conceding an initial cause.

2) I also agree that the "hazards and ambiguities of this world will not be vanquished or made to disappear through the profession or confession of religious faith". As the apostle James said, "Faith without works is dead." The fruit of true faith is works. And I think that Christianity has a pretty good provenance of addressing many of the hazards of the world. I also admit that many atrocious things have been done in the name of faith, and such occurrences sadden and anger me. I'd argue that the atrocious things that have been done in the name of faith were just that - "faith" was used as a cover to do bad things. True faith, however, will necessarily produce good works. Absent such good works, it is unlikely that the faith is real.

I also believe that becoming a Christian doesn't make the world black and white. There are plenty of complex issues in the world that require prayerful discretion and consultation with the word and others. I don't view the bible as an answer key to all of the world's problems. But faith, the word, other believers, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they all help to orient and guide my life.

3) I was little thrown off by your statement - " . . . but this does not specify how one should apply one's moral judgments. One must act within the world and snickering at the putative damnation of other or importuning them to endorse the narcissism of one's own religious beliefs will not do to vindicate one's salvation or to redeem the community of the faithful . . ." - I agree that it is wrong for Christians to be cavalier about the damnation of others. I'm not sure how inclusive your use of "snickering" is. I apologize if you feel that I have been in any way disrespectful. I also agree that "snickering" or "importuning" do not vindicate salvation. Salvation is a result of God's grace. It is not merited. Any real Christian who personally disparages non-Christians or believes that evangelism or proselytizing contributes to salvation is wrongheaded. As I said before, good works are the fruits of faith. The purpose of faith is to become closer to God, to find one's fulfillment in God.

4) Regarding your assertion that living in this world requires beliefs other than religious ones, I need clarification. What do you mean by a religious belief and a non-religious belief? Why must I think like a believer in one situation and like a non-believer in another. What about Christianity do you find incompatible with being a good citizen?

5) I was also puzzled when you said that religious faith cannot absolve me from the "contamination" of secular and other religious beliefs. I don't understand that statement. However, I will say that I am a Christian first, and a U.S. citizen next. My allegiance is to Christ first, then the fellow faithful, and then the rest of mankind. That being said, I am eager to learn what others think and believe, to experience a diversity of cultures, and to live peacefully with and befriend those who are different from me in lifestyle and belief. I am also happy to honor the laws of the U.S., and will use only legitimate and legal channels to protest against laws I deem to be unjust. I don't think any of that is incompatible with what the bible teaches - in fact, the bible teaches Christians to engage the culture - to live in it but not be of it - and I believe many Christians live in such a way. And by the way, the story of the Roman coin was told by Christ - "Then render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's (Matt 22:21)." When you said that living in this world requires non-religious beliefs, what would you add to what I listed above?

6) I agree that faith shouldn't be instrumentalized for political purposes, at least to a certain extent. That is, faith shouldn't be a means to a political end. However, I believe one's political actions should be informed by one's faith. Otherwise, William Wilberforce wouldn't have worked so hard to end slavery in Britain. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wouldn't have worked so hard on behalf of civil rights.

7) I was really puzzled by your statement that the persecution of Christ and the early church is being used to fuel a contemporary fantasy of persecution where none exists. Do you believe that I am guilty of this? The statement does not hew with my experience as a Christian in the U.S.

8)You said: "When I said that nobody has a monopoly on truth, perhaps I should have added that nobody has a monopoly on bigotry, either. It was your rather mistaken, if not projective, accusation of bigotry that perhaps set me off on this tangent." I don't think I made an accusation of bigotry. I said that many intellectuals consider claims of exclusivity and absolutism as inherently bigoted. I wasn't directly replying to anyone's post. I was simply making an observation based on my own experiences.

jimbo:

I obviously can't answer all of your questions and I can only address them across a divide of my own differently structured beliefs. And I would assume you would have others, peers or elders, with whom you could discuss these issues. That stated, I will state that I am an atheist/indifferentist, which means: 1) that I don't believe in G-d, as a transcendent being beyond this world and 2) that I believe it is the same world and the same human existence for believers and unbelievers alike, the difference being a matter of interpretations, which, whatever the force of circumstances and whatever the sources one derives one's beliefs or interpretations from, are fundamentally a matter of free and responsible choice.

I have no disagreement per se with your points 1 and 2. As for point 3, my comment was not a personal accusation, but a comment about what in your terms I think would be called sin or corruption. And I don't believe that religion is any more immune to such things than any other human belief or endeavor. As for point 4, non-religious beliefs would comprise anything from ordinary cognitive considerations or common sense matters to recognitions of other's beliefs to specialized knowledge or understanding that may, depending on the precise and particular context, enter into moral deliberations, even if those deliberations are also informed by your faith. If you accept that you are morally accountable for you actions- and that means that you accept the risk that your actions can fail or even put you in the wrong, inspite of the best of intentions- then these other non-religious considerations must be part of the equation. This goes back to what I termed "totalization". If you think that religion provides all the answers that you need and gives you an infallable certainty, then you are using religion as a defense against living in the world. And though there are differing interpretations among different sorts of Christians about this, I would maintain that the Christian believer, according to what I understand of the religion and what sense it can make to me, must pass through this world, if he or she is to at all attain the next. And I don't think at all that religious belief disqualifies one from good citizenship. I think, to the contrary, that religion has a perfectly legitimate contribution to make to politics and the public sphere at the level of civil society, but not at the level of government policy. It was your apparent objection to Rawl's attempt to articulate a framework of common citizenship that brought this whole discussion up. As to point 5, though it repeats something of point 4, anyone's loyalties and allegiances are complex and divided between public and private matters. But that is precisely the valuable recognition contained in the notion of democratic citizenship. I would not presume to tell you exactly what to believe or whom to be loyal to. Nor would I accept to be dictated by you or anyone else on such matters. What I would expect is that we both accept that we live in a mixed condition and recognize and acknowledge each other in those terms. As for "contamination", I think we all tend to defend our own beliefs and our own territory and fear the differentness of others. I think, if you would want an example of the destructive lengths to which that can go, you could consider the history of American racism. Point 6 raises no objection with me, except to note that politicizing religion is a strong force in the contemporary political situation, to which us secular folk respond to with some dismay. This is not to say one's faith should not inform one's political judgments, any more than other sorts of ethical beliefs should be excluded from the same. That would be to denature the very concept of political judgment. But it is to say that the political realm should not be used to enforce religious beliefs, which I think belies the true nature of religious beliefs as a free acceptance, as well. As for point 7, well, you did begin by complaining that your "absolute and exclusivist" beliefs were regarded as bigoted, to which I initially responded that, not only does the freedom of your political environment allow for your beliefs, but, in some sense, such freedom is in accord with the essential nature of religious belief as a free acceptance. Religious faith has at times lent persons great moral strength to face down persecutors and succor the afflicted. But they did not do so by claiming that they were being persecuted. Finally, as to point 8, if you would stop being so damned humble and actually read and interpret better, I was saying that secular people can be just as bigoted in their own way as religious folk. Such bigotry no more licenses one's own belief that it excuses the exclusive claims of others.

I will add as my own point 9, that religious faith, or any other form of committed belief, is not a finished product but an ongoing agonal struggle. But in today's world, it necessarily takes place in a highly pluralistic social context. And it is a mistake to regard such pluralistic context as simply the result of the will and willfulness of individuals, as some sort of relativism that results from the privileging of freedom over truth- (as if these were necessarily mutually exclusive values). Individuals also necessarily exist within social structures, which largely determine and necessitate this pluralistic context. The functional differentiation of modern economies with their advanced division of labor, the structural differentiation of modern social institutions, the advances of modern science, the disappointments and tragedies of modern history and the complexity of our cultural heritage in the modern world all contribute to the formation of this pluralist context. If you asked what else do you need to "know" about the conditions in which moral deliberation, judgment and action occur, no matter how faithfully informed and guided, then it is that this pluralistic context will always accompany your actions and your accountability for them, so long as you are still in and of this world.

jimbo:

Just to add two more points.

It may be that the faith that you accept enjoins a sense of dependency on G-d. That would be the case in the Augustinian tradition of Christianity especially. But I think it would be a shame if such an acceptance of dependency on G-d were to foster an illusion of self-sufficiency with respect to others.

I think that you should put it out of your mind that there exists a caste of people called "intellectuals" who are somehow determinative of things. If there is such a caste of people, then only in their wildest dreams are they determinative of how things go or how they should be, or what the "correct" interpretation is. That would be their vanity. But intelligence is a more or less widely distributed attribute and does not belong to any one group or interpretation.