Religion-ists

Matthew has a good post here. Excerpts a letter to Andrew Sullivan that Sullivan posted on his site which criticizes his [Sullivan's] neologism: Christianist. Christianist is meant to parallel Islamist and sometimes Sullivan seems to use the Christianist term interchangably with fundamentalist, which as Matthew and the reader point, is a major mistake.

The original use of the term fundamentalist comes from a Protestant American academic context. Northern American cities by the way. When so-called liberal European historical critical methods of scholarship were introduced into American Protestant seminaries, certain scholars got together and published a list of "fundamentals" of the [Protestant] Christian faith.

These fundamentals, that the theologians argued must be believed for true faith/proper doctrine included things like Jesus' death as a literal atonment for the sins of the world; his actual birth from a woman who had never had sexual relations, etc. etc. That is a fundamentalist in its specific original context. Now no one is a pure fundamentalist in the sense that there is no Christian, however much they may argue to the contrary, who takes every word in the Bible literally.

It's impossible; there are two many contradictions. For example, there are two creation stories in the book of Genesis. If someone claims they take the Bible literally ask them about this oddity. I guarantee you'll find if you just press them non-literal readings. They will try to combine the stories, sometimes intelligently sometimes rather less so. Or they may say something wise like, "well the story is really more about God's love and fidelity and purpose in creating than actual details." That would be true, but not literal.

If the person is a creationist and believes that creation is only 6,000 years old--that number and that mindset is actual quite alien to the Biblical text itself. The father of the 6,000 year old hypothesis is St. Augustine, 4th century Church theologian. Again, not particularly literal.

So-called fundamentalist Christians don't follow Levitical prescriptions on kosher food, public stonings, and [usually] women having their heads veild and not speaking in public worship.

So a fundamentalist Christian really should only mean somebody who says that there are fundamentals and list what those are and why they have them. Or more broadly, every believer should be honest about which are their fundamentals (God is love for example) and which are not (homosexuality is always evil).

The application of fundamentalist to Islam and other religions more broadly adds all sorts of other layers that muddy the waters. Again remember that originally a fundamentalist did not ever claim that s/he took the whole Bible literally, as it has come to mean both those pro and con the idea, just that there were certain fundamentals they articulated they believed had to be adhered to. And those fundamentals did invovle physical-literal readings of what are otherwise legends, myths, hero stories.

In Islam, this is a different ball of wax altogether. Some have said that every Muslim is technically a "fundamentalist" in the sense that for orthodox Islam the Quran as dictated by God through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad is word for word God's speech.

Now that doesn't really line up to well with the assertion that there are certain fundamental propositions that one must adhere to for correct faith/doctrine as with Protestant fundamentalism. In Islam, there is not much by way of questions of correct faith. In Islam, the believer must confess that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God's Prophet. That God is greater "Allahu akbar" and that God is totally one (tawhid) and to place anything else before God is idolatry. And then practice the Five Pillars of the Faith: pilgrimage, charity to the poor, praying daily, fasting during Ramadan, and the confession of faith outlined above.

For Christianity the faith is in the Word of God made Flesh (Jesus Christ) who is depicted in the words, little w, of Scripture. It is a religion of faith in the Gospel message--the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Islam is a religion of faith in the Word of the Quran. Though one could argue that every Muslim is a fundamentalist--either in a good or bad way--traditional Islam has never said that the Quran itself automatically teaches us what it means for the believers alive today.

So even Islam realizes the word has to be interpreted.

The notion of Islamist is a political-moral-legal construct. It is a product of those who in the modern world have sought to [re]establish a political and social order based on the Quran, hadith, and sharia (Islamic law). Again the notion has many connotations and context determines. Is a particular Islamist one who advocates violence or not in installing this Islamic regime? Are they are Shia Islamist or Sunni? Do Islamists have seek women's empowerment as interpreted through Quranic exegesis and Islamic history or not? Do they believe in democracy or not?

Generally the word refers to the most negative of Islamists, which is a shame I think. It has skewed conversation and I think political policy (e.g. immediately cutting off all funding to Hamas) and not seeing how to separate "moderate" Islamists from radical extreme ones.

In the negative light, the term Christianist then can only properly be applied as a political term. Hence bringing fundamentalism in is a bad notion. Because plenty of people can (and do) believe that they are fundamentalists and take much that is mythos as rational description and believe that, for example, their physical bodies will actually be raptured up into heaven at some pre-determined point. But such a person who may feel the current age of our world is fallen does not necessarily seek to overthrow it or set up his/her own competing political reality. They may seek to overturn through democratic measures in a pluralistic society rules they feel violate their norms--e.g. abortion. Most of the American Christian fundamentalists fall into this category.

The term Christianist, as I see it, only properly addresses those of typically a more extreme bent who seek to establish what they conceive of as a Biblical/Christian political order. Theologically this is a stream known as "dominion" theology, sometimes called Reconstructionism.

Dominion theology sees the world as having fallen into the power of Satan as a consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve. God, this theology claims, needs agents to take control of key institutions in society--media, government, education--in order to help build up God's alternate kindgom in which Jesus will arrive prior to his establishment of his physical 1,000 year reign (millenium) on earth. Called pre-millenalism. Christ comes back pre (before) the (litearl) millenium. Got that?

Dominion theology is depicted in the new documentary Jesus Camp. For a variety of odd historical reasons, mainly the translation of the Scofield Bible Commentary (Scofield was a premillenial dispensationalist). It has made huge inroads in Pentecostalism and certain evangelical sects.

So these groups would I think qualify as "Christianist." Insofar as they seek to create a political theocratic structure, are set against a modern, pluralistic secular order such as the United States, with its freedoms of speech and diverse religious expression. Or no religion at all.

Again, they area minority, though the ideas have circulated in wider contexts--through LeHaye's Rapture novels, for example. The most important Dominionist is Pat Robertson. That's why he got into media and ran for president--because that is what his religious beliefs are. [Aside this form of theology is not accepted in Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or mainline Protestant churches.]

But when the term Christianist gets applied to Pro-Life evangelical Christians who say that the law is against God, then it loses any real meaning. I vote with my conscience, which is Christian--at least as I understand that and others like me--but I'm not advocating an overturning of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights for a theocracy.

Plus Christianist as related to Islamist does not capture, I think the deeper class political divisions. Extremist Islamists are against the modern political social order because it threatens their way of life and because it has oppressed their people. American Christianists often talk a nice game, but frankly live, thrive, and survive on the very "Beast" they seek to slaughter.

Again, to me what is more important than specific labels is getting to the theological/political nuts and bolts of what groups are promoting/believe in.

Matthew ended his post with this question:

It seems the kind of argument that we should really be having is this: If we aren't to take the Bible literally, how then is the Bible still relevant to our lives?

That is really the question. Next post, I'll give a response.