I've just now read this article from the opening post. It seems overall to me like a positive move has been made. After going through the items listed, I get the gist of it I think. Still, they are really hard on a fundamentalist approach. Hopefully that does not mean the Church discourages taking a look from a fundamentalist perspective, because you can learn a lot that way.
I don't really like fundamentalism. I think it is a social problem, a bad habit, bad attitude and a bad exegetical position.
Although yes, there are some really nice people among the Fundie camp. But I would just rather that they were more natural in being who they presented themselves to be and "more human."
As for the rest of the Fundie camp . . .
. . . and before I continue, let me say this. We all have our different conceptualisations of fundamentalism, and you may say that what I describe as fundamentalism is just a straw man argument, but the phenomenon is what it is, and you will discover what I mean by "fundamentalism" as you read what I say.
What disturbs me about fundamentalism is that it is driven by slogans, banners and bumper stickers. It is a bunch of zealots and fanatics that have an inflexible way of thinking, whose words and ideas are always the same and who always chant the same slogans. They make heavy use of cliches and this cliche-saturated rhetoric just makes me cringe.
The Fundies who aren't nice people are divisive and demonise and vilify anything that is different to the way they think. They believe that anything that does not adhere to their core principles is a sign of disloyalty.
To the malign Fundies, anyone who doesn't believe as they do, the non-Fundies who are adherents of the same religion, have no respect for their religion. They believe they take their religion more seriously than the non-Fundies, which is offensive and insulting to the non-Fundies.
Anything that goes against what they have been taught, against ideas established in their respective communities comes from demons. They will debate anything except core principles. They are afraid to think outside the box.
Their beliefs aren't based on reasonableness. It's based on fear.
Christianity is about liberation and freedom. Fundies, however, especially the malign ones, are slaves of ideas established in their respective congregations, ideas that they believe are absolutely divine.
The "truth" for Fundies is that they don't have true liberation or freedom. Nor do I consider it to be true loyalty or respect for the Christian written tradition. I believe there are ways to be loyal and respectful of tradition even while changing one's way of thinking. Some things can change whereas other things can stay the same. Fundies aren't willing to change at all.
Fundies are a cynical group with conspiracy theories that anything that is unfavourable to their cause is evil, a source of evil or comes from the devil. They are quick to assume that bad things that happen are due to supernatural/cosmic and not human influences. It's not a very healthy mindset.
