questions about terminology
Amy Z
lupinesque at yahoo.com
Fri Jul 18 19:06:55 UTC 2003
Kathryn wrote:
> A fundamentalist basically follows the religious book of their
> religion without worrying too much about the two thousand (in the
case of
> christianity) years of theological arguement that has happened
since. This
> is not necessarily a bad thing.
<snip>
> While there is absolutely nothing wrong with fuindamentalism it
tends to be
> used to mean intolerant small minded bigot. While I have no idea
what your
> friend's associate meant by the term that is pretty much what the
mass media
> means by it.
Off the top of my head:
I think of fundamentalism as something in between these two, though
where I got the definitions that float vaguely in my head, I couldn't
say. Fundamentalism bespeaks a certain rigidity about adhering to
the received texts and "original forms" (this point is highly
debatable, IMO) of the religion, and as Kathryn says, that isn't
necessarily bad (though it is far from my cup of tea). It is true
that the term gets used unjustly.
I think of "evangelical" as having more to do with worship
style . . . what www.shipoffools.com calls "happy-clappy" (see
Mystery Worshipper: http://www.shipoffools.com/Mystery/). OK, don't
hit me--I *like* happy-clappy worship! My dictionary tells me
evangelicals also believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and an
emphasis on personal salvation. Take that with a grain of salt--what
do dictionaries know about the gazillion forms of religion? And then
there's that evangelism bit--when I use the term I tend to mean
churches that put a high value on reaching out and converting people.
"Conservative" and "liberal" aren't political but theological labels,
meaning more or less the attitude toward change and adaptation to
culture. Liberals tend to embrace change in liturgy and ritual,
question the inerrancy of the Bible because of its embeddedness in a
particular time (and because of sincere doubt about its origins),
and/or believe that revelation continues to this day (and in many
forms, and in many traditions . . . depends how liberal you are).
Conservatives tend to value older forms of ritual and liturgy, be
hesitant about changes in the church, and believe that revelation was
closed with the creation of the Biblical canon.
So a member of a liberal church may be conservative politically and
vice versa, though there's a lot of overlap between theological and
political liberalism, or theological and political conservatism. I
do know that some politically-conservative members of my
theologically-liberal tradition get a bit irritated with the way we
describe ourselves as "religious liberals" all the time. As a
political liberal, I guess I'd feel a little exasperated having my
church described as "religiously conservative" all the time, even if
it were true. But the words apply differently to theology and
politics. In the US, conservative (theologically) Christians have
become a huge political force, with enormous organizations that are
part religious body, part political action committee; they started
out with issues that have obvious theological roots, such as
homosexuality and abortion, but moved on to issues that are dear to
politically-conservative hearts but don't necessarily come from the
teachings of Jesus, such as low taxation and the abolishment of
public education.
The whole question of religious change is an odd one. There are
always "let's get back to the time of Jesus" movements, and they are
not at all limited to what we would consider conservative traditions;
e.g., there have been many Christian communistic experiments where
the residents of a small communal farm would try to live as the
Christians of Acts did, sharing all of their property, etc. (there
was a bumper crop of these in the 19th century US).
Most "conservative" Christian groups in fact harken back to a
particular period that occurred long after Jesus--the golden age
varies from sect to sect. E.g., while I think Kathryn put it very
nicely, it's clear that modern-day fundamentalist Protestants most
certainly do follow some of the theological arguments generated by
the church in the past 2000 years, since they are, well, Protestants,
a mega-sect that wasn't invented until the 16th century. If they
want to be *really* conservative they ought to be Roman Catholic, or
Orthodox, or whatever one calls the early Christians who were
floating around Corinth and such before what turned into the Catholic
Church was established. And are they more conservative or more
liberal than the Christian pacifist who bases his radicalism in the
life and death of Jesus himself?
None of these terms has a fixed dictionary definition that each
person who describes him/herself by it would agree wtih (heck, try to
get 5 Christians to agree on a definition of "Christian"). I think
the most important thing about them, actually, is that they have
multiple meanings and are not at all easy to sum up.
Amy Z
More information about the HPFGU-OTChatter
archive