First, the book offers inconsistent working definitions of religious
fundamentalism. In chapter two, Crowley suggests that fundamentalists are those individuals who commit violence against political opponents: "I can imagine no amount or quality of rational deliberation that would convince people who kill abortion doctors, tie a dying gay man to a fence, or drag an African American man behind a pickup truck to 'understand' the situations of their victims so thoroughly that they desist from such practices" (p.
To help the reader locate in the historical context, the book begins by introducing some of the key issues related to religious
fundamentalism and to Christian
fundamentalism in particular.
I questioned Dann's triumphant closing note at the end about these painful excursions in faith: "Only by leaving
fundamentalism will they regain the integrity and joy of their faith" (p.
Throughout the meeting's many events--plenary sessions, discussion groups, workshops and independent activities--the participants explored the various aspects of
fundamentalisms evident in our lives today, forces that exercise all forms of violence, discrimination and exclusion, with a disproportionate impact on women and girls.
While evangelicals thrive within the tradition of classical or historical Protestantism in the United States, when their ancestors less than a century ago invented
fundamentalism, they were creating something new out of what looked like and was advertised as "the old-time religion." Most Protestants in the nineteenth century had called themselves evangelical, and guidebooks to American religion tended to equate evangelicalism and Protestantism.
These literalist and proto-pragmatist approaches to reading, represented respectively by the evangelicals and by More, resonate powerfully in our own time, and Simpson frames his history with the contemporary dichotomy of
fundamentalism and liberalism.
Seat takes care to review the history of
fundamentalism in America and to differentiate the current phenomenon from the one that began as a movement to preserve and/or to restore true Christian faith.
The challenge is in confronting and dismantling what I call "sexual
fundamentalism." Because after all is said and done, the post-fundamentalist formation will certainly reflect sexual
fundamentalism, unless that is addressed centrally.
"All of this is what I would call the new '
fundamentalism' of our age and any kind of
fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous, because it allows no room for disagreement, for doubt, for debate, for discussion," he said in his Christmas message.
Yousseff Choueiri intimates that
fundamentalism is a common denominator in Islamic historiography for revival, reform, and radical groups.
This is a solid contribution to the historical study of
fundamentalism and the South.
He said: "We are seeing the resurgence of biological readings of race and racial difference, the rise and rise of religious
fundamentalism."
