Monday, December 13, 2004
Fundamentalism's fundamentals followup...
Responding to an earlier post of mine titled: "Fundamental fundamentalism; and stuff like that" | Saturday, December 11, 2004 - back here: Link - or scroll down page a couple of days...
John McKay - archy and American Street - writes a followup to my post and clarifies some points that I made (or tried to make) better than I did, I think, and emphasizes a couple of important details that I did not hit upon. For instance:
This emphasis on faith over works not only agrravated tensions between the Protestant Fundamentalist faithful and the more liberal mainstream Protestant denominations but helped fan the flames of anti-Catholicism as well. The Fundamentalists wing contending that any stray from a strict inerrant reading of Biblical text (as defined by Fundamental doctrine) and the doctrine of salvation through "faith" alone, the Redeemer , "truth in the absolute truthfulness of every statement that comes from God, (divinely inspired and recorded in the Bible) amounted to apostasy on the part of those embracing liberalization or modernization within the church, and, ultimately, povided a useful cultural and political wedge when applied to issues and arguments taking place within society as a whole.
John concludes the post with what I was attempting to get at in my earlier post. Although I think he sums it up a little more neatly than I did:
OK, thats all for now on this subject. Go read archy for the full context.
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John McKay - archy and American Street - writes a followup to my post and clarifies some points that I made (or tried to make) better than I did, I think, and emphasizes a couple of important details that I did not hit upon. For instance:
During the Progressive era, the dissidents in American Protestantism also objected to the social gospel of secular good works. Mainstream Protestantism, in those days, was involved in actively promoting secular liberal social programs.
This emphasis on faith over works not only agrravated tensions between the Protestant Fundamentalist faithful and the more liberal mainstream Protestant denominations but helped fan the flames of anti-Catholicism as well. The Fundamentalists wing contending that any stray from a strict inerrant reading of Biblical text (as defined by Fundamental doctrine) and the doctrine of salvation through "faith" alone, the Redeemer , "truth in the absolute truthfulness of every statement that comes from God, (divinely inspired and recorded in the Bible) amounted to apostasy on the part of those embracing liberalization or modernization within the church, and, ultimately, povided a useful cultural and political wedge when applied to issues and arguments taking place within society as a whole.
John concludes the post with what I was attempting to get at in my earlier post. Although I think he sums it up a little more neatly than I did:
I think this is the problem the liberal/Democratic/blogger left has with religion. It's not that we are anti-religious or anti-Christian; it's that the right has succeeded in portraying everything we say as such. [...] This is a painful indicator of how successful the right has been in fragmenting the left over the last 30 years.
OK, thats all for now on this subject. Go read archy for the full context.
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