Jesus among other religions – Fundamentalism Sunday, February 18, 2007 – Rev. David Tinney Text: Romans 1:16-25 Theme: Fundamentalism is a distortion of the three Abrahamic faiths and is a fearful response to encroaching secular culture, technology, and tolerance of offensive beliefs. I have saved the most controversial sermon of this series on studying other religions for the end. The fact of the matter is, if I were to try to speak from the viewpoint of one of the adherents of this belief I would never have done this series at all. I would never have asked you to embark in a journey where you might discover truth in another belief system, or asked a leader of another faith to come and speak, or worse to use my position of authority to suggest that there are many ways of understanding God and not just one. The belief system that I am going to talk about today is predominantly a distortion of three of the world faiths – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Fundamentalism represents a growing segment of each of these religions that is growing more strident, more vocal, more violent, more dangerous, and more difficult to understand. My goal in this sermon is not to present Fundamentalism as the lunatic fringe that should be pushed to the sidelines of society and ignored. Regardless of what you might think of Fundamentalists, regardless of how distorted you might view their theology, they are real players on the world’s political chessboard. In many ways they have become some of the overactive combatants and you and I are watching. My goal is to examine four aspects of Fundamentalism. First, I would like to look at what all fundamental groups have in common, how they developed, and what drives them. Second, I would like explore their shared belief of embattlement. Each of the Fundamentalist groups in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam feel they are locked in a cosmic battle for God. Third, it is imperative that we try to understand how each of the groups can justify the distortion of the original doctrines and beliefs of the religion they want to protect – or to state it more simply how does one justify killing or terrorism in the name of the God of love? Finally we need to figure out how we live together under God’s love and not be destroyed in the battle for God. It is hard to know when Fundamentalism actually began. If you take the basic definition of Fundamentalism, which is a “return to the fundaments or basic of one’s faith,” then one of the first examples of Fundamentalism could be the day Moses returned to camp after receiving the Ten Commandments and found his fellow exiles worshiping the golden calf. You know the story. It was a colossal “come to Jesus” meeting without Jesus. Moses reminds them of God’s laws, they destroy the image of Baal, and there is a purging of the unfaithful. Another example could be the discovery of the Torah scroll in the ruins of the first Temple as King Josiah’s men are rebuilding the second Temple. As Josiah read the scroll and the laws he realized how far the Israelites had strayed and he repented and they had a great spiritual revival as they returned to the basics. Even though these are examples of going back to the basics or foundations of one’s faith they do not include one of the key components of Fundamentalism - being birthed in fear. In her book “The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism,” Karen Armstrong begins her history lesson in the year 1492. What happened in that year? You are right Columbus sailed the “ocean blue” or discovered the new world or even more important discovered the world was not flat. Around that time Nicolaus Copernicus proposed that the earth was not center of the universe and a few years later Galileo used a telescope to prove his assertions. The crusades in the Middle East had failed to rid the world of Muslims or convert Jews to Christianity so the Catholic Church felt besieged. Out of fear they responded with a cry to return to the fundamentals. But it was more than an intellectual and spiritual return. It was a battle cry. The Spanish Inquisition tested for witches, sorcerers, magicians, and heretics. Scientists had to recant their findings. Muslims and Jews were executed or deported from European soil. Armstrong points out dozens upon dozens of fearful responses throughout history for Jews, Christians, and Muslims but I would like to skip over them and move to the twentieth century where Fundamentalism got its name and new energy. In the early 1900s the traditional Christians of our country felt that they were losing ground and influence to modern scientific thinking that included such heresies as Darwin’s theories of evolution. In 1920 a Baptist journalist by the name of Curtis Lee Laws wrote in a pamphlet that it was time for the Fundamentalists to do royal battle to preserve the faith. The name stuck and so did the notion of doing battle. Many of us in this room remember back to the 1970s and Jerry Falwell’s call for the Moral Majority to rise up and do battle and reclaim the Christian heritage of our country. Others like the Bakers, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, Sayyid Qutb, Osama bin Laden, and Jakob Frank have added their names to the list of generals in the battle for God. Even though fundamentalist movements would differ in their understanding of which God they were battling for, they have more in common then they would ever care to admit. Each fundamentalist movement claims an absolute truth that is presented in their sacred scripture. This scripture is the authentic and literal word of their prophet or god and demands rigid obedience. No person has the right to reinterpret the sacred scripture or to disagree with it. There is always an intolerance of other views and the feeling that culture or secularism is trying to distort truth. If you listen to the text that was read today from Paul you can hear Paul talk about God giving us the truth but humankind has traded it away and distorted it. For Christian Fundamentalists the essential truths usually include: the inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible, the literal seven day creation of the world, the virgin birth, the atonement by sacrifice of Jesus, the physical resurrection, the second coming of Christ, the exclusive Kingdom with only one entry point in Christ, the historic accuracy of all stories and miracles in the Bible, the proper hierarchical order and authority of man over woman, and a list of human behaviors that will always remain sin no matter what culture tries to do to change them. Fundamentalists movements are predominantly led by males, embrace dualism, believe they are part of a cosmic battle, resent the evil culture and its permissiveness, demonize the opposition, and believe that God will intervene and destroy all those who are evil and establish His Kingdom once and for all. Key to understanding Fundamentalism is the awareness that the adherents believe they are faithful warriors engaged in a cosmic battle for God. The notion of jihad is not the sole property of the Muslims. Each of the three faiths has fundamentalist followers who believe they must put on the armor of God, engage the enemy wherever they find him, her, or it, and battle Satan’s forces and prevail at all costs for the future of the world depends on them. This is not a soft, cuddly theology. Jesus is not friend but fellow warrior. Listen to the words of Randall Terry, the Founder of Operation Rescue, which is a fundamentalist anti-abortion movement as he addressed some of his followers. “I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good... Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty. We are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism.1” These are not words and images that the mainline Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths are accustomed to using to inspire people in their spiritual journeys. But they are images very real to those who feel they are engaged in battle. Let me help you recall one more image. On September 11, 2001 Muslim terrorist destroyed the World Trade Center towers and a portion of the Pentagon killing more than 5,000 people and destroying our sense of security forever. We will never understand the motivations of every person involved but we can understand the message they were trying to send because of their targets. The Twin Towers, and for that matter the Pentagon, are perhaps the two greatest visual representations of American culture. The Pentagon represents the military might that rivals any power of this world. The Towers represent power, wealth, strength, and pride. They stood like the Tower of Babel in Genesis, a story that was shared by Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike. The Tower of Babel was an affront to God and illustrated humankind’s attempt to become more like God. It had to be destroyed. The Muslim fundamentalists picked their target well and wanted to send a message to the world that US culture was contaminated by evil, was a visible affront to God, and needed to be destroyed. When the towers collapsed you and I stood in stunned silence. We could not understand. But our fundamentalist sisters and brothers got the message loud and clear. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell both said the destruction was a direct result of America’s sin and was a judgment of God. Bin Laden and other Muslim fundamentalists called it a victory against the Great Satan. Our President described it in black and white, good versus evil terms and eventually used it as a launching pad for a war against the Axis of Evil. He has stated that we are on a mission from God to rid the world of extremists and those who work for evil. The problem with this kind of fundamentalist, black versus white, good versus evil, dialogue is there is an absence of gray. Both sides assume righteous positions, become warriors for good or for God, ignore and dismiss any dissenting opinion, and push on with the mission. When you believe that God or Allah or whatever you call your god is your Commander in Chief then you don’t need logic, or pluralistic dialogue, or evidence and fact to guide you. Fear becomes the chief motivator. Accomplishing the mission is paramount. The end justifies the means and in nearly every case of extreme fundamentalism the adherents are willing to abandon the core tenets of their faith in order to accomplish their mission. How does a Christian, who worships the “Prince of Peace” and the God of love, justify blowing up abortion clinics, or murdering clinic workers? How does Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish fundamentalist who gunned down 29 Muslims in the Great Mosque of Hebron in 1994 justify that he enjoyed bacon and eggs for breakfast that morning? How does Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker of the first plane flown into the Towers, justify that he was drinking vodka and was a borderline alcoholic?2 How does Ted Haggart, one of the nation’s leading Fundamentalist preachers who has spoken out so vociferously about the evils of drugs and homosexuality, later admit that he had been engaged in both for years? There is a huge and frightening disconnect that comes from three forces at play within each fundamental movement. The first is fear. At the root of every fundamentalist movement is the firm conviction that life as they know it is endanger, in fact to the point of annihilation, and there is an enemy (secularists, liberals, Jews, Muslims, Americans, Christians) ready to destroy them. They become paranoid and see every action by the outside world as aggressive. They read any attempt at reconciliation or compromise as a threat and retreat even father into their isolated worlds. Theology motivated and rooted in fear ALWAYS ignores love, mercy, and faith. The second force is the abandonment of reason and mystery. Theology developed in a battle or military setting takes a strange turn. In the military when an officer gives an order the soldier obeys without questioning. In Fundamentalism sacred texts are treated in the same manner. Every word, no matter how it was written in the original form, becomes unreasonably authoritative. One does not question. Reason is left at the door. You are told what to think and believe. I firmly believe that religion is a mix of mystery and myth, truth and reason. There are stories in our Bible that are mythical or allegory that were never intended to be taken literally but were to explain the nature, personality, and will of our God. To constrain these stories, to try to force these stories into literal fact destroys not only the story but an invitation to explore their mystery. When you or I are asked to surrender reason, logic, science, and mystery we miss out on the true beauty of faith, relationship, and intimacy. There is a disconnect between our heart and our mind and that disconnection leads eventually to disconnected behavior. We were told to love our God with ALL of our heart and mind. When the heart and mind are at odds with each other then people will murder, will assassinate, and will fly airplanes into buildings in the name of a God of love. Finally there is an understanding in each fundamentalist movement that we are pawns in a greater conflict between good and evil, or God and Satan. Each movement looks forward to the end of this earthly struggle and a future time of judgment of the wicked, redemption for the faithful, and where the divine will rule and church and state will be unified and justice will prevail. Many adhere so strongly in this vision that they not only believe they will be rewarded for their role in the struggle, but they will deserve a special honor if they hasten divine intervention. When I came to the end of each of my other sermons on other faiths I tried to point out a truth or a particular tenet or discipline within each faith that might help us in our faith journeys. I am not going to do that today. Fundamentalism is based on fear and is therefore a distortion of each faiths foundation of love, grace, mercy, and justice. The best that we can do is understand our Fundamentalist sisters and brothers and not be afraid to invite them in a journey to discover their fears and their disconnection between head and heart. We can also be aware of the many ways we can get drawn into political and theological agendas of fear. You and I are called to love our Lord with all of our heart, strength, mind, and soul and our neighbor as ourselves. We cannot live those two commandments that are essential to our faith and essential to living together on this planet if we abandon parts of it to fear. 1 Randall Terry, Founder of Operation Rescue quoted in The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana. 8-16-93 2 Karen Armstrong, “The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism,” Random House Publishing, NY, NY, 2000, p. ix. --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ Fundamentalism Page 1