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Fundamentalists and Their Enemies
American liberals are uneasy with any religious beliefs that do not support their own ideology.

By James Hitchcock

Is religious fundamentalism a bad thing? “Enlightened” opinion insists that it is, but the terrorist attacks on the United States have produced odd inconsistencies.

Correct opinion still thinks that what is called fundamentalism in America—Protestants who believe in the literal understanding of the Bible—is a bad thing. The term is also used for the Muslim terrorists we now confront, but in the latter case political correctness is not so sure.

When Timothy McVeigh blew up the courthouse in Oklahoma City, liberals warned that his action was inspired by irresponsible attitudes rooted in fundamentalism, only degrees separating him from Jerry Falwell, so that followers of the latter were required to bear some responsibility for the actions of the former.

I cannot recall any instance when a leading liberal has solemnly warned the public to be tolerant of Christian fundamentalists—not to tar them with the brush of extremism. There has been no hand-wringing over the possibility that an anti-fundamentalist reaction might curtail the rights of religious believers.

Liberal ambivalence
But beginning on September 11, some liberals have offered only perfunctory condemnations of the bombing of the World Trade Center and have moved to continued exhortations to greater understanding of faiths not our own.

The beliefs of the Taliban with whom we are now at war—extreme subordination of women, the death penalty for adultery and homosexuality—logically ought to fill liberals with loathing. Why then is there this liberal ambivalence? The answer, I think, is that some people are caught in a self-constructed trap of cultural relativism. The centerpiece of their philosophy is the claim that Westerners are arrogant and insensitive toward other cultures and that we should humbly try to broaden our outlook, letting other cultures serve as critics of our way of life.

Faced with outrages like those perpetrated by the Taliban (outrages against fellow Afghans as well as against Americans), multiculturalists cannot admit the fallacies of their position. Thus condemnations of Taliban extremism have to be wrung out of them, and they change the subject as rapidly as possible, to the real or alleged failures of American society. For some the possibility of attacks on Muslims in the United States is more real than the attack on the World Trade Center or anthrax being sent through the mail.

People of this mindset regard only Christianity as a truly dangerous religion, precisely because it is the chief religion of the West. Conservative Christians are treated as more dangerous than Osama bin Laden because they are Americans, and any cultural victories they win are worse than physical destruction wrought by the Taliban.

What is fundamentalism?
The term “fundamentalism” was coined by American Protestants about a century ago to express the obligation to remain faithful to basic biblical doctrines. More recently it has been turned into a smear word for any religious position deemed too dogmatic or aggressive.

Sometimes the critics talk as though it is simply dogmatic certainty and aggressiveness which are objectionable and people ought to be properly diffident about their beliefs. But militant feminists or environmentalists, for example, are never accused of these sins—are in fact admired for their dedication.

A standard criticism of fundamentalists is that they believe literally in biblical texts written centuries ago, which cannot be applied directly to modern times. But if a Christian professes to take literally the words of Jesus concerning love of enemies, if he becomes a pacifist, he will not be condemned for slavish adherence to an ancient text but praised for his integrity.

All of which goes to show that most of the criticism of religious fundamentalism is motivated not by its sense of certitude, or by its methods, but simply by the fact that it teaches the “wrong” conclusions, especially about sexual behavior. As is often the case, the attack on fundamentalists as “narrow-minded” is really a complaint that they do not share their critics’ viewpoint.

James Hitchcock, a frequent contributor to CWR, is a professor of history at St. Louis University whose weekly columns are published by several American diocesan newspapers.

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