This is a very interesting conversation. As some or perhaps most of you know, fundamentalism is the focus of my study and research. I see fundamentalism as the enemy that fuels terrorisim and the on-going war against it. I see it as narrow and oppressive for the individual whose self-expression deviates from the norm. In my bitterness I find myself wanting to label for time and eternity the church I came from as fundamentalist. Yet it is really hard to just write off a whole community of people I've known all my life.
What some of you express on here about a fundamental Christian being one who lives closely to the fundamental Christian doctrine evokes the feeling I get from my former community. We did not see ourselves as rigid and dogmatic; just as normal human beings trying to make the best of life in preparation for the afterlife. As I see it, this does implicate the oppressive environment in which I found myself. Perhaps it is not necessarily so. This is something I don't know at this point.
I have written quite a number of papers for course assignments on my experience of that church and religion. And I have gotten feedback on some of them from people other than the course instructor. The question has been raised whether it is fundamentalism, evangelicalism, or pietism that I am dealing with. Or perhaps a combination, and if so, exactly what combination?
I've read some sociological literature on fundamentalism. Some of it combines evangelicalism with fundamentalism and some authors differentiate. At this point I have no clear-cut definition in my mind. But I am reading about pietism right now. And I find MUCH of what has passed for fundamentalism in the literature originated in pietism. This raises the question: Is fundamentalism just one more form of pietism?
Hmmmm. This is becoming rather academic for this forum. On the other hand, I have to differentiate between work and play if I can't talk about this academic stuff here. And I don't differentiate. I carry stuff from "play" into work and from work into play. Discussion boards are my play.
So anyway, Wil, every single one of your terms raises academic questions in my mind. And somehow I find it impossible to think in terms other than academic when discussiong categories of religious belief and its impact on everyday life decisions, which in turn translates into social patterns in the religious landscape of North America.
My apologies to those of you outside North America. While I am interested in the global scene, my focus in Canada and the US. In academia, for most intents and purposes I have encountered, Mexico is categorized with Latin America and not with North America.
Hmmm. Canadians are probably the only ones who talk about North America. The Americans don't acknowledge our existence and the Europeans barely notice us, either. My heart always does a special little flutter when an author outside Canada talks about the Canadian situation. I'm never sure if being noticed is positive or negative. I think Mexico belongs to North American from a geographical perspective, but not from a cultural perspective.
Christian. What qualifies as Christian. On one of the boards I'm on I have stopped calling myself a Christian because the only vocal Christians on there are fundy types and there is no way I classify as Christian by any of their standards.
I think from a linguistic perspective, a Christian is a person for whom Christ is of central importance. My mind and thought structure developed inside a strongly Christian environment. Thus, my unconscious thought structure always operates within the Christian theological framework on the level of archaic knee-jerk response.
I've been actively working on replacing whole sections of that framework with beliefs that I find more healthy for myself. I am not sure how successful I am at actually replacing; maybe I end up just building on top of. No matter, so long as I don't have a working definition of Christian I won't know if I am one or not.
This group confirms the idea that has been growing in my mind for quite some time that a new form of Christianity is emerging. I suspect the only reason it can be called Christian is that it grows out of the Christian culture. We don't want to just throw out Christmas and Easter. We don't want to replace the entire theological framework deep inside of ourselves that our ancestors for a thousand years have worked to put in place.
I've seen some really good descriptions of various types of Christianity and other religions at Beliefnet
http://www.beliefnet.com/. This page speaks to our interests
http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/boards_main.AllCategories.asp?Category=57
