Think Again: Fundamentalism

For all the current focus on fiery Islamic extremists, religious fundamentalists are not confined to any particular faith or country, nor to the poor and uneducated. Instead, they are likely to spring up anywhere people perceive the need to fight a godless, secular culture -- even if they have to depart from the orthodoxy of their traditions to do it. In fact, what fundamentalists everywhere have in common is the ability to craft their messages to fit the times.

BY R. SCOTT APPLEBY, MARTIN E. MARTY | JANUARY 1, 2002

"All Fundamentalism Is Religious"

Yes. It's true that many sorts of groups share basic characteristics of religious fundamentalists: They draw lines in the sand, demand unconditional obedience from the rank and file, expend enormous energies maintaining boundaries between the pure and impure, build impenetrable dogmatic fortresses around "the truth," and see their version of it as absolute, infallible, or inerrant. Indeed, some may be tempted to seek manifestations of "secular fundamentalism" in Marxism or Soviet-era state socialism, in the many virulent strains of nationalism in evidence today, or in the unqualified extremism of ideologically driven revolutionary or terrorist movements, from Peru's Shining Path to Germany's Baader-Meinhof gang. In a similar vein, one might speak of "scientific fundamentalism" to connote the assumption, held by many modern scientists, that empirically based knowledge is the only reliable way of knowing reality.

But we hesitate to call such secular groups "fundamentalist." They may call upon followers to make the ultimate sacrifice, but unlike the monotheistic religions, especially Christianity and Islam, they do not reassure their followers that God or an eternal reward awaits them. The absence of a truly "ultimate" concern affects how such secular groups think about and carry out their missions, and the belief in heaven or paradise serves as a very different kind of framework for and legitimation of self-martyrdom in the monotheistic religions.