Quotes about Fundamentalism

This uncertainty in turn, of course, begets a new and anxious eagerness for certainty: hence the appeal of fundamentalism, which in today's world is not so much a return to a premodern worldview but precisely to one form of modernism (reading the Bible within the grid of a quasi-or pseudoscientific quest for "objective truth

The basic error of fundamentalism is that it overlooks the contribution of the receptive side in the revelatory situation and consequently identifies one individual and conditioned form of receiving the divine with the divine itself.

In this respect fundamentalism has demonic traits. It destroys the humble honesty of the search for truth, it splits the conscience of its thoughtful adherents, and it makes them fanatical because they are forced to suppress elements of truth of which they are dimly aware

If your life is Christ, then your death will be only more of Christ, forever. If your life is only Christlessness, then your death will be only more Christlessness, forever. That's not fundamentalism, that's the law of non-contradiction.

Sometimes people's spiritual ideas become fixed and they use them against those who don't share their beliefs - in effect, becoming fundamentalist. It's very dangerous - the finger of righteous indignation pointing at someone who is identified as bad or wrong.

To summarize, there are three words that characterize this brand of fundamentalism: pride, domination, and exclusion. In sharp contrast, Jesus espoused humility, servanthood of leaders, and breaking down walls between people.

There is nothing more inimical to writing than the spirit of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism abhors the play of signs, the endlessness of writing. Fundamentalism means nothing more or less than going back to an origin and staying there. It stands for one founding book and, thereafter, no more books.

I do not, like the Fundamentalists, believe that creation stopped six thousand years ago after a week of hard work. Creation is going on all the time.

Nowadays many in America seem to regard "Christian" as synonymous with "fundamentalist," an error the media seems bent on perpetuating. The fact that Islam is generally treated with the same ignorance offers me no comfort.

Islamic fundamentalism in its activist manifestation is bad news. Religious fundamentalism in general is bad news. We know about religious fundamentalism in South Africa. Calvinist fundamentalism has been an unmitigated force of benightedness in our history.

When fundamentalism wins, the world enters a dark age.

Within the Christian tradition, fundamentalism arose in the 19th century as an effort to push back against modern' readings of the Bible that suggested everything in the text wasn't true in some literal sense.