Campus Ministries: Catholic Ministries
FUNDAMENTALISM
Many of the Christian groups active on college campuses have a strong fundamentalist bent. We hear on the news about the troubling activities of various kinds of fundamentalist sects in different parts of the world.
WHAT IS FUNDAMENTALISM?
Modern day fundamentalism is an extreme reaction to the complexity and immorality of today's world. The knowledge and technology explosion has left many people confused and afraid. Their understandable longing for security leads some to look for a way to cut through the complexities of modern life and reestablish fundamental truths. Fundamentalists try to satisfy their "lust for certitude" by oversimplifying things, by making a passionate commitment to a part, and sometimes to a distortion, of the truth.
Christian fundamentalists believe that they find the truth they yearn for in the literal interpretation of the Bible as the only guide to Christian living, in being "born again" through a conversion experience of accepting Jesus Christ as one's personal Savior, and in baptizing only adults. The Old Testament's traditional strictness of the Law and Commandments is emphasized more than Christ's forgiving, all-embracing love. Christian fundamentalists confidently claim to find easy answers to all of life=s difficult questions through a simplistic understanding of the Bible.
FUNDAMENTALISTS AND THE BIBLE
Far from being a mere answer book, the Catholic Church reveres the Bible as the record of God's saving Presence among us. The Bible is a collection of very old books, written under divine inspiration in ancient languages by many different human authors over a long period of time. The literary style and purpose of each book reflects the particular time and place in which it was written. Biblical scholars study the historical and cultural context of each book so that, thousands of years later, we can better understand each book's message. The various books of the Bible were not all meant to be understood literally, but make use of a variety of ancient literary styles to teach important truths of salvation.
Fundamentalists disagree. They reject modern Protestant and Catholic scholarship about the origins of the Bible. Rather than trying to understand the historical situation in which the books of the Bible were written and the literary styles they employ, fundamentalists believe that their English translations of the Bible must be understood literally, that is, the surface meaning must be accepted as true, word for word. Unlike Catholics, many fundamentalists believe that the Bible is meant by God to faithfully teach not only the way to salvation, but science and history as well. Unlike Catholics, many believe, for instance, that the Bible teaches that God created the universe in literally seven days, and that evolution is Biblically impossible, no matter what modern science may say. Fundamentalists are afraid to acknowledge the legitimate place of our God-given gift of reason and science in studying and interpreting the Bible correctly.
Fundamentalists claim to interpret the whole Bible literally. In reality they do not. While rejecting the Church's right to do this, each group takes it upon itself to decide what is literally true in the Bible and what is not. There are many different fundamentalist groups, and they disagree among themselves as to what the Bible teaches. While they all say that the Bible is to be followed exactly, each group decides which verses to follow exactly. Theirs is an enthusiastically literal, but very selective, reading of the Bible. For example, the Bible says in Matthew 5:27-30 that if one's eye or hand leads to sin, it should be cut off and thrown away. Have you ever met a fundamentalist who interprets these verses literally?
THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH
For all their love for the Bible, fundamentalists have little understanding of how its various books originally came to be written and collected into what is now known as the Bible.
Which came first, the Bible or the Church? Jesus never wrote a book, and never told anyone else to. Rather, what Jesus did was to establish the Church, a community of people who believed in and followed Him. This community of followers already existed, met together to share the Lord's Supper (Acts 2:42), grew astoundingly, and gave their lives as martyrs, for decades before the New Testament was ever written. The first generation of Christians had no New Testament at all, but they were the Church then, just as we are now.
No where in the Bible does it say which books should be included in the Bible. There were many, many letters and gospels in circulation. It was hundreds of years before the Church decided which of them were genuinely inspired by God and should be included in the Bible. To accept the Bible, but not the Church, is to accept the fruit, but not the tree.
The Holy Spirit inspired the Church to preach the Good News of our salvation, to eventually write the New Testament, and to preserve it (along with the Old Testament) for many centuries by the manual copying and recopying of Biblical manuscripts. The Bible is the Church's Book. She wrote it, cherished and proclaimed it. The Church grew and flourished long before the 15th century, when the invention of the printing press first made it possible for the Bible, which the Church had so faithfully preserved, to then be reproduced in large quantities and made available to everyone.
No where in the Bible does it say that the Bible alone is the only guide for Christian living. The Bible cannot stand apart from the Church. A stranger could pick up your family photo album and try to figure out who and what is being depicted. But only your family can authoritatively interpret it. Similarly, only the Church can authoritatively interpret her Book, the Bible.
As the very end of St. John's Gospel notes, no one book, not even the Bible, would be able to contain all that Jesus did (21:25). Jesus Himself said that there were many things He wanted to teach His followers that He had to leave unsaid (Jn 16:12f). But that's why He sent the Spirit to guide His Church. As new situations and concerns arose, it was the Holy Spirit that guided the young Church through unchartered waters (Acts 15:28). And so it has continued for almost two thousand years. Under the Spirit's guidance, from mustard seed beginnings in Biblical times, the beliefs and life of the Church have continued to develop and grow (Mt 13:31f).
Christian fundamentalists, for all the honor they give God's Word, have strayed in their understanding of the Good News because they are cut off from the ancient, living faith of the Church, which is needed to interpret the Scriptures. "There are certain passages in them," as St. Peter forewarned, "hard to understand. The ignorant and the unstable distort them...to their own ruin" (2 Pet. 3:16).
FUNDAMENTALISTS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Many fundamentalists are well intentioned and receive much support from their faith. But most, if not all, are either openly or subtly hostile towards the Catholic Church. Some simply do not understand our sense of church history and authority, the community of saints and the sacraments. Others harbor deep traditional animosities towards the Church, identifying Her with the Antichrist.
Tolerance of other religious heritages, and respect for every person's freedom and obligation before God to follow his or her own conscience, do not tend to be strengths of fundamentalist groups. They can be quite narrow-minded and judgmental. Texts they do not take very literally are Biblical injunctions not to judge or condemn others (e.g., Lk 6:36, Rm 14:4). Many fundamentalists believe that everyone who does not follow their particular norms and understanding of Scripture, even if through no fault of their own they have never even heard of Jesus, will be damned to hell.
An amusing tale is told about a fundamentalist woman who became dissatisfied with her church, so she started her own church. But only her servant Marcia joined her in her new church. Once she was asked whether she actually believed that only she and Marcia were going to heaven and that everyone else in the world would be going to hell. The woman thought for a moment and replied: "Sometimes I'm not too sure about Marcia."
We as Catholics believe that our Church was founded on Peter and the Apostles by Jesus Himself, Who promised that "the jaws of hell shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16:18f). We believe that we are connected to Christ, the head, through His body, the Church (Col 1:18). But we also respect other people's beliefs, traditions, and consciences. We do not presume to judge anyone's heart, but leave that to God alone. Everyone can be saved through Christ's sacrifice on the cross. Catholics and non-Catholics alike are all judged by what is in our hearts, by how honestly we seek to understand right from wrong, and by how well we live according to our consciences. In the only place in all the Bible that describes how we will be judged, Jesus makes it clear we are all judged by how conscientiously we put our love into action (Mt 25:31ff). Growing in love is what true religion is all about (Jm 1:27).
Are there any Catholic fundamentalists? Some Catholics also react extremely to the constant changes, uncertainties, and loss of values in modern life by seeking black and white certitude. Such Catholics search for simple solutions in a rigid and ahistorical interpretation, perhaps not of the Bible, but of selected Papal or other Church pronouncements. But as Catholic Christians are encouraged to think critically. Jesus came to take away our sins, not our minds.
FUNDAMENTALISTS AND POLITICS
Christian fundamentalists tend to be right-wing in their politics. As a result, many people think, mistakenly, that all Christians, including Catholics, must also be very conservative politically. Not so. Like fundamentalists, Catholics are greatly concerned about the erosion of family life, sexual immorality, and abortion. But, unlike fundamentalists, Catholics are also very concerned about changing society in order to promote justice, peace, and equality, and about the desperate plight of the world's poor. Unlike Catholics, many Christian fundamentalists are leagued with Israeli nationalists in denying to Palestinians, many of who are Christians and Catholics, any rights in the Holy Land.
Fundamentalism arises from a person's general approach to life. Not all fundamentalists are Christians or even religious. A fundamentalist's unyielding adherence to rigid doctrinal and ideological positions may find expression in his or her social and political, as well as religious, attitudes.
Violent fundamentalists are those who believe that the "rightness" of their cause justifies even the most heinous of crimes. They are right, and others have no rights. Whether "religious" and secular, down through the ages violent fundamentalists have been responsible for terrible atrocities--crusaders slaughtering Muslims, inquisitors torturing heretics, Nazis gassing Jews, communists annihilating counterrevolutionaries, capitalists tyrannizing the poor. One of the World Trade Center bombers, Nidal Ayyad, had been a student right here in New Jersey. When fundamentalism is not tempered with humility and compassion, it can be very dangerous. "For the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor 3:6).
Ronald Stanley, O.P.
For additional articles relating to this topic:
THE BIBLE ALONE?
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
A CULT ON CAMPUS: THE INTERNATIONAL CHURCHES OF CHRIST
GOD IS DEAD
IS ORIGINAL SIN ORIGINAL GUILT?
THE PASSIONATE CENTER
