Confronting Radical Religious Fundamentalism
By Scott Walker

On September 11, 2001, our nation was attacked by a radical fundamentalist cult who claim to be of the Islamic faith. Through their acts of unprecedented terrorism, thousands have lost their lives and our country has been plunged into grief and anger. As a result, our political leadership has joined ranks and vigorously declared war on a yet unidentified enemy.

In addressing this event as a Baptist minister, it is not my responsibility to speak of political response or military tactics. The intricacies and complexities of such situations elude me. However, it is my responsibility to address some of the religious and theological implications of our present moment. Today I want to focus on what I believe is the primary enemy of global peace and religious freedom. Allow me to introduce this subject through a personal memory.

Several years ago Beth and I were enjoying some days of vacation touring the New England states. Driving along the coast of Massachusetts, we stopped at a quaint antique shop and I soon struck up a conversation with the owner. He was a distinguished looking man in his mid-sixties and I discovered that he had recently retired as a senior professor of international studies at an Ivy League university. Without revealing my identity as a minister, I asked him a leading question: “what do you think is the primary danger facing our world today?”

Without hesitation he quickly responded, “The greatest danger to international peace is a mounting spirit of radical religious fundamentalism encroaching upon many of our world’s religions. It is a potent and virulent evil that can undermine freedom and destroy humanity behind the guise of religious zeal.”

As I heard this experienced scholar’s words, I knew that I was listening to truth. It is my strong belief that the spirit of radical religious fundamentalism is destroying the spirit and the teachings of Jesus in our world today. The end result is the loss of peace, the loss of liberty and freedom, and the loss of thousands of precious human lives.

Now, for a moment, let us ask this question: “What is radical religious fundamentalism?”

Traits of Radical Religious Fundamentalism

The first thing that we must understand is that the seeds of radical religious fundamentalism may be found in all of the world’s major religions - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism - and many other smaller sects and cults. Radical religious fundamentalism is a pernicious mind-set or world view that can take roots in any religious system. Though each brand of religious fundamentalism has its unique beliefs and characteristics, there are at least five traits that are usually present in most forms of radical religious fundamentalism.

Distrust of Change

In most fundamentalist mind-sets there is a high distrust of change and emerging modern trends. There is a fear of anything that might question or alter long held religious or cultural traditions. As a result, a desire often arises to return to an idealized and glorious past. This is seen among radical Islamic fundamentalists such as the Taliban in Afghanistan who want to revert to the seventh century world of Muhammad. Such sentiment can also be found among many fundamentalist Christians who would like to remain in the premodern agrarian world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and shield themselves from what they refer to as “modernism.”

Such distrust of change and an inordinate desire to uphold the bastions of tradition often positions radical fundamentalists on the defensive. They feel like they must protect themselves from the world. Therefore they manifest a desire to either control the status quo or to withdraw and become cultish.

Absolute Literalness of Scripture

A second trait of radical religious fundamentalism is a belief in the absolute literalness of scripture. For instance, in the thirty-first chapter of Numbers we read of God speaking to Moses and saying, “take full vengeance on the Midianites.”

The Israelites then massacred the Midianites — men, women, and children — in the name of God. An absolute literal interpretation of this passage can be that God condones genocide to accomplish His perceived purposes. Such literalistic interpretations shaped the attitudes and the mores that allowed Christian Crusaders to slaughter Muslims by the thousands and inspires the twisted fury of Islamic jihad today. The question is not asked, “How do the compassionate teachings of Jesus reinterpret the Old Testament?” Rather, all scripture is to be taken literally.

Fear of Academic Freedom

Because of a need to protect traditions, control thinking, and do battle with science or “modernism,” there is frequently among radical religious fundamentalists a deep distrust and fear of academic freedom. Rather than seeing education as an opportunity to explore your greatest thoughts and ask your deepest questions, education is seen instead as a process of indoctrination. The purpose of education is not so much how to openly inquire about truth as much as it is how to memorize and assimilate the traditions and beliefs of one’s culture or religion.

Lack of Toleration

Inherent within radical religious fundamentalism is a lack of toleration of others different from yourself and your religious beliefs. When two Baylor graduates were arrested and imprisoned in Afghanistan for sharing their Christian faith with others, a lack of religious toleration was exhibited by a fundamentalist Islamic government. And, when religious fundamentalists came to power in the Southern Baptist Convention, they soon decreed that they would not tolerate theological diversity within the Southern Baptist family.

Many of you who are gathered in this sanctuary today live in America because years ago your European ancestors were persecuted for their religious beliefs. There was a total lack of toleration for diversity of belief within the Roman Catholic Church as well as many Protestant bodies. Such lack of tolerance led to much cruelty, bloodshed, and loss of life. As a result, Baptists, Jews, Quakers, French Huguenots, and many other religious groups came to America seeking religious freedom and liberty. They sought to escape a spirit of radical religious fundamentalism that allows no toleration of diversity of belief, no freedom of religion.

Merger of Religion and Government

Finally, in most nations dominated by a spirit of radical religious fundamentalism there is a merger — an unhealthy marriage — between religion and government. This unhealthy union ultimately distorts religion and destroys government. Such mergers of government and religion can be seen in John Calvin’s Geneva of the sixteenth century, the Puritans in New England, radical Zionism within Israel, and the Islamic governments of Afghanistan and Iran. This same mind-set and ideology are often seen and espoused by some adherents of Christian organizations such as the Moral Majority in the United States. Some American Christians are even proclaiming today that a concept of the separation of church and state was never intended by our founding fathers.

We must be reminded today that Baptists are people who have championed the absolute separation of church and state and have paid for this freedom with our blood. Our Baptist ancestors experienced the evil that comes when governments are used to carry out the will of radical religious fundamentalist regimes. There is no room for toleration. Only a spirit of rigid uniformity can abound. The end result is suffering and destruction and loss of the freedom that is found in Jesus Christ.

The Danger of Radical Religious Fundamentalism

The ultimate threat of radical religious fundamentalism is that it becomes dangerous to society at large. In Afghanistan today the Taliban government has killed and imprisoned hundreds of their fellow Afghans who disagree with their rigid and harsh religious standards. Based on their absolute literalistic interpretation of the Koran, they have degraded and enslaved women and made their lives miserable. Women have been publicly executed for what is seen as lack of modesty or perceived immorality. Radical religious fundamentalism merged with public government has ultimately resulted in the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, and attack upon the Pentagon, and the disruption of world peace.

In the seventeenth century a Frenchman by the name of Blaise Pascal was a brilliant mathematician and a devout Christian. A Roman Catholic, he witnessed the infighting between various orders of the Catholic Church and watched the brutal persecution of French Protestants. Filled with despair at how radical Christian fundamentalism had distorted the teachings of Jesus, Paschal wrote these words in his journal: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” Paschal is right. History bears an ample witness that some of the greatest crimes and tragedies have been perpetrated in the name of God by radical religious fundamentalists who demanded that the whole world live by their terms and for their purposes.

An eighteenth century English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was the son of an Anglican minister. Growing up under the roof of the Church of England he had witnessed the results of the terrible religious wars and persecutions within England. Coleridge once said, “He who begins by loving Christianity more than truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity and end in loving himself better than all.”

Though his remark is cynical, it reflects a truth that all of us need to hear. We can get so caught up in our own religious agendas that Christ is removed from the center of our lives and replaced by our own pet initiatives. The result is the distortion of Christian faith and human suffering. Radical religious fundamentalism is usually characterized by placing our own agendas yin the center of our lives and marginalizing Christ to the periphery of our awareness.

In conclusion we must see that when radical religious fundamentalism evolves into a cult of hatred and destruction, strong preventive action must be taken by the rest of the world. The United States has taken such action this week to lead a coalition of nations to defeat the purposes of radical religious fundamentalism currently expressing itself within a renegade cult of Islam. In my opinion, our nation can respond in no other way.

However, as we respond through military force, we can never allow our actions to be based on blind nationalism, revenge, or macho knee-jerk reactions. We cannot become fundamentalists ourselves and with our new found anger and zeal lose our sense of love and brotherhood for others. We cannot abandon our sense of toleration for people who are different from us. And we cannot jeopardize our Baptist principle of the separation of Church and State.

Today we must be reminded that as America goes to war to protect the liberty and freedom of our world, each of us has one loyalty that is higher than being Americans. And that loyalty is to Jesus Christ. In the midst of international turmoil we must not forget that we are Kingdom people committed to an ethic of compassion and peace.

In the midst of the horrors of World War One the great Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, addressed these words to the Christian world:

“We Christians [who are engaged] in war are called to the hardest tasks: to fight without hatred, to resist without bitterness, and in the end, if God grant it so, to triumph without vindictiveness.”

This week a coalition of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus have been called to restrain the power of radical religious fundamentalism that has invaded our land and killed thousands of our citizens. It is my opinion that we have no other choice than to forcefully resist such evil. However, we must be clear who our enemy is. Our enemy is not people of other religious faiths. Our enemy is not people of other nationalities. Rather, our enemy is human minds and personalities which have become twisted and made dangerous by the world view of radical religious fundamentalism.

May God grant us the ability to fight without hatred, to resist without bitterness, to triumph without vindictiveness and to never forget Christ’s love for all people — even our enemies.

April 2002