Well, I’m sorry that I appear to be a fundamentalist to you. That is something I SERIOUSLY regret. If I have any fanatical belief at all, it is in the right to be left alone. Anyway, did you have anything else?
Regards.
Testy.
Yes, I think that would be a better definition, Polycarp had something similar and you’re both right, there are better terms to describe these folks. The trouble is, as Polycarp pointed out, the term “fundamentalist” has been hijacked by fanatics.
Best regards and thanks.
Testy.
First of all, you are certainly correct in that not all “fundys” wish to impose anything at all on other people and that “fanatic” would have been a more correct term. I do believe that most people understood which ones I was pointing at but precision is always a good thing. S As I mentioned in a previous post, the fanatics seem to have hijacked the term “fundy” to describe themselves.
And yes, I also agree that a simple belief in Biblical literalism is not something to pillory a man over. After all, it is a BELIEF and someone should not be forced to justify it or prove it to anyone at all. I DO wish that more fundamentalists, in the sense used by youself and Polycarp would identify their beliefs as such rather than as a devine revelation, but that’s really neither here not there.
As an oh-by-the-way, may I abbreviate your handle in some way? LOL
Anyway, thanks for the clarification and education.
Testy.
Well, thanks for your input, but I believe that anyone who is a candidate in a political campaign is a politician. He/She may or may not win but that doesn’t stop them from being politicians. By your logic, Both George Bush (the older one) and Jimmy Carter were politicians at one time but then stopped being politicians when they lost. I can’t really see this one.
Thanks and Regards.
Testy
Thanks for the assistance on the cites.
They were the best I could lay hands on as I am presently living in a theocracy, This has a few drawbacks, heavy censorship being one of them.
All the best.
Testy.
I think the problem is what is your definition of a ‘fundy’, is it someone who believes the bible is literally true or is it someone who wants to establish a theocracy. I am sure there are those who do want to establish a theocracy just as there are those who want aliens to run our government. These people have no influence at all in politics and are no threat. To lump people like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell in with them without evidence is wrong. If the question is are the people who want to set up a theocracy wrong, the answer is obviously, but the question was are ‘fundies’ a threat.
I think of Pat Robertson as a politician because he once ran for office and is currently heading a political organization, the Christian Coalition. His goals and the goals of his organization are well known and do not include theocracy or any of the other things mentioned before. Sure he wants people who agree with him in charge of the GOP, just as McCain want people who believe in Campaign Finance Reform in charge of the GOP, Patricia Ireland wants feminists in charge of the Dems, Sierra Club wants enviromentalists in charge of the Dems. All political organizations want people who agree with them on issues in charge, that is not nefarious, that is democracy.
Looking back it was the “fundys (of ALL types)” that led me to beleive the OP was referring to all fundamentalists and trying to equate the religuous right with Islamic fundamentalists. If all he meant was the lunatic fringe who are advocating a theocracy in the US then he was right.
A politician who espouses the Reconstructionist thought: Gary Bauer. Serious candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination this past election. In a leadership role in the Family Values movement, working closely with James Dobson. Promoter of the ex-gay ministry Exodus.
Pat Robertson: seriously sought the Republican Presidential nomination in the past.
I don’t have the book Stranger at the Gate, Mel White’s autobiography, here with me, and cannot provide accurate cites from memory. But I’d ask you to accept my word that he does specify Robertson, Falwell, and others as involved with the Reconstructionist Movement, on the basis of close personal contact with them in the past. His statements would be the evidence you call for, IMHO – since I am fairly confident of his willingness to speak the truth regardless of what it may cost him; he’s proven this with his personal activism – on both sides of the fence.
I am personally acquainted, in real life and online, with people who sincerely believe in God as seen in Christ from a fundamentalist perspective, and who do not take the sorts of stances the Reconstructionist Movement does. And they are, in general, good people. Not all of them are everyone’s cup of tea, but they are caring, decent human beings. I think I’ve given sufficient evidence of where I stand on matters religious and with relation to freedom on other threads here. And I draw a very clear distinction between people whose commitment to Christianity happens to take the fundamentalist view and the people who take the attitude that God’s law – as they understand it is suitable for enforcing on everyone by civil means – including those who do not agree in matters of faith with them.
That would include me. Because my understanding of the Man Who said “My kingdom is not of this world,” “Love your neighbor as yourself,” “The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath” and “Judge not, lest you be judged” precludes any connection to what they call “Biblically focused Christianity” – and I call New Testament Pharisaism.
Have any of these people in their public pronouncements advocated a theocracy?
No, I don’t consider you a fundamentalist, but your actions seem to be exactly those that you abhor.
You don’t see the dichotomy of what you are saying here? On one hand, Funies are a threat, so all of society should discourage fundamental religion, ignore those who are believers and deride them as much as possible.
The reason we should do this to them is becasue they seek to control how we all interact and want to set-up rules they believe in, whether we like those rules or not. They get around this reluctance on our part because they believe it is the best thing for us.
So in response, you want to set-up different rules (hating fundies) and change the way we interact because YOU know what is good for us all.
How is this not the EXACT same thing you want to do? State-wide discouragement of fundamentalism where it becomes PC to not be devout and giving you the ability to discourage religion and promote atheism?
SOCAS aside, America is definitely a “religously-supported” gov’t.
Deriding them seems to cross that same line.
I tend to make it a habit:)
Are you guys CRAZY???
Gary Bauer was never a serious candidate for the Republican nomination. Neither was Hatch or Keyes. Even McCain was only barely a serious candidate. Those three guys (and Falwell) just ran to get a broader audience for their ideas. They are fringe candidates who are only seeking to act as magnets and slightly pull the mainstream party a couple of inches (at a time) in their direction.
We were in no more danger of electing Bauer than we were of Mondale or Dukakis:)
First off, both Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed have explicitly disavowed the most extreme positions of the Christian Reconstructionists in some of their books (i.e., the calls for theocracy and “theonomy” or Biblical law). Nonetheless, the hard core Reconstructionists do seem to have influenced the more mainstream Religious Right. Both R.J. Rushdoony and Gary North have appeared on Pat Roberton’s 700 Club. One interesting group is something called the Council for National Policy, whose current or former members have included everyone from Gary Bauer, Tom DeLay, Jerry Falwell, Trent Lott, Ed Meese, Oliver North, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly, to R.J. Rushdoony, Gary North, and Reconstructionists Howard Ahmanson and Howard Phillips. (As you can imagine, left-wingers view the CNP about the same way certain right wingers look at the Trilateral Commission.) Another interface between the Reconstructionists and the more conventional Religious Right was the apparently now-defunct Coalition on Revival, which united such more conventional conservative evangelical figures as Tim LaHaye, Jack Van Impe, Duane Gish, and Josh McDowell with Reconstructionists Rushdoony, Gary North, Colonel Doner (his name, not a military rank), and Russ Walton. Again, most of the more conventional religious right figures backed off from COR when it came out just what sort of people they were getting cozy with. Rushdoony was also reportedly instrumental in founding the Rutherford Institute, although I don’t believe the Institute is currently controlled by the Reconstructionists. he state chairwoman of the Georgia Christian Coalition is evidently a Reconstructionist or Reconstructionist sympathizer, who regularly hobnobs with local Reconstructionist activist Gary DeMar, and who has used the Georgia Christian Coalition website to advertise Reconstructionists conferences in Atlanta featuring Rushdoony and prominent Reconstructionists Andrew Sandlin and Brian Abshire. More recently, I’ve seen suggestions that Marvin Olasky, seen as one of the architects of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism”, and a sort of “policy guru” to the new President, is some sort of Reconstructionist sympathizer or crypto-Reconstructionist. (See also this article.)
And I have here a list of 101 card-carrying Reconstructionists–that’s 42 known advocates of theocracy–in the Department of War… Okay, so I try not to become some sort of left-wing McCarthyite about this. And I haven’t even gotten into the whole Washington Times/Sun Myung Moon thing, which is a whole different ball of wax. And, you know, those Reconstructionists are big on the Old Testament, right? And, while they are Protestant Christians and therefore reject the “ceremonial laws” and the sacrifices and so forth, I know Rushdoony has sort of semi-defended the dietary laws, and some sort of weird Armenian Christian Old Testament-derived practice involving splashing blood on doorposts or something, and the Old Testament has lots of stuff about sacrificing livestock. You see where this is going, right?
CATTLE MUTILATIONS!!!
Seriously, I don’t think all the members of the Religious Right are closet Reconstructionists, and I would certainly hesitate to label Gary Bauer as a Recon, but I do think Reconstructionism has had an undeniable influence on the “mainstream” Religious Right in this country.
I would recommend the book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy by Frederick Clarkson for a balanced look at the more extreme fringes of the Theocratic Right in this country and their connections to the better-known Religious Right movements.
MEBuckner: on your site, you took a quote from Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid- whoever he is- and implied that it was the official position of Islam. Don’t you think that is misleading?
“The mission of the Christian Coalition is simple,” says Pat Robertson. It is “to mobilize Christians – one precinct at a time, one community at a time – until once again we are the head and not the tail, and at the top rather than the bottom of our political system.” Robertson predicts that “the Christian Coalition will be the most powerful political force in America by the end of this decade.” And, “We have enough votes to run this country…and when the people say, ‘We’ve had enough,’ we’re going to take over!”– [Boston, Rob. The Most Dangerous Man p85] (emphasis mine)
“It is interesting, that termites don’t build things, and the great builders of our nation almost to a man have been Christians, because Christians have the desire to build something. He is motivated by love of man and God, so he builds. The people who have come into (our) institutions (today) are primarily termites. They are into destroying institutions that have been built by Christians, whether it is universities, governments, our own traditions, that we have… The termites are in charge now, and that is not the way it ought to be, and the time has arrived for a godly fumigation.”-- [Pat Robertson, New York Magazine, August 18, 1986] (emphasis mine)
“I don’t know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.”-- [George Bush] (see this thread discussing the validity of the quote)
“I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.”-- [Randall Terry, Founder of Operation Rescue, The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 8-16-93]
These are all quotes by public figures involved in politics (more commonly known as politicians), who have clearly stated their belief that the USA should be run under theocratical rules. Just to prevent further weaseling, a country run by theocratical rules is called a theocracy.
The first quote by Robertson shows a clear intent for Christians to “take over” the country and “run” it, although I will agree that he does not advocate violent overthrow of the government here (just “fumigation” of the “termites” infesting it :rolleyes: ). (I’m not sure who besides Christians he thinks is currently running the country, but that’s another discussion.;))
Do you need something further, puddleglum?
gnawing my way to the top, one splinter at a time
Where on my site do I imply that Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid’s position is the “official position of Islam”? “Islam Question & Answers” is the name of the web site from which that particular Q & A was taken; I think it’s fair to say that the quotation represents the official position of “Islam Question & Answers” (www.islam-qa.com), which is all that I think any reasonable reader would infer. That particular position may also be the position of other persons, organized groups, institutions, or sovereign states (e.g., the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), but I don’t actually say so anywhere. As far as I can tell “Islam” has no “official positions”, since Islam is not a single unitary organized entity.
It would probably make more sense to add a note to the effect that Bishop Mark A. Pivarunas and The Religious Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen are sedevacantists who do not accept the authority of the current Pope, are not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and do not represent the official position of the modern Roman Catholic Church, just in case anyone is unable to follow the links provided and figure that out for themselves. Of course, my quote is actually from an essay denouncing the policies of the most recent Popes, including the current Pope, as having abandoned the True Faith, which should be a clue right there. I also don’t have any notes pointing out that the views of Michael Wagner are not those of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or for that matter of the Presbyterian Church in America, or the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, or even the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, and in general I’m not sure how far I want to go with disclaimers about who does or does not speak for whom beyond my general disclaimer at the bottom of the page.
guys- if you want to call reactionary “religous right” crackpots “politicians”, go ahead. But- the point is- none of them are actually IN office. And, very likely- none will ever be in an important office. So- what makes them “dangerous”? Their fanatic beleifs? Well, there are fanatics on every streetcorner & on every soapbox. There are still COMMMUNIST canditates for office- who want to overthrow capitalism. There are Libertarians radicals who want to get rid of the entire structure of government, and use the Constitution to light their (now-legal) dope-pipes. There are still some technocrats around. But none of these are dangerous- because none of these represent enough voters to elect anyone to any important office what-so-ever. Including the reactionary Religous Right. You CAN call Robertson a politician if you want- but the fact remains- his campaign was a joke, and Nader had as good of cahnce of being elected. And Nader is a fanatic also, who would be dangerous in Office.
And again- the Religous Reactionary Right is not nessesarily “Fundie”. Fundamentalists are not nessesarily Right Wing reactionaries (in fact- Jewish “Fundies” are often Liberal Democrats). So- “Fundies” are NOT what you are worried about. What you are concerned about is the fanatic reactionary Religous Right. So- call a spade a spade.
Well, I have no problem using terms like “Religious Right” when appropriate, as opposed to “fundamentalist”, which in this case isn’t accurate–not all fundamentalists are supporters of the Religious Right. I agree that Pat Robertson isn’t going to be elected President; the danger lies in that mainstream politicians will pander to small but well-organized groups on the fringes. Robertson does have influence within the Republican Party–just ask John McCain. Of course, mainstream politicians aren’t going to pander to some pressure group to the extent of officially declaring the U.S. to be a theocracy and mandating death to all heretics. (Or, for that matter, to the extent of outlawing internal combustion engines or abolishing the U.S. Senate.) However, there are real dangers that well-organized pressure groups can get their way on specific issues, which in the case of the Religious Right could compromise gay rights, abortion rights and other reproductive freedoms, damage public schools, and so forth. The solution is for the pressure groups on the other side to keep pointing out what loons these people are, so that pandering to them becomes too much of a liability for any viable mainstream candidate to want to incur.
Thank you, ME- well said.
The thing that scares me about the direction politics and religion in the world is going is that fundamentalists of all stripes in all the major religions of the world are making a lot of noise and in some cases succeeding in taking over governments - such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran’s Islamic Republic, and the Hindu nationalists in India (who were elected in and will one day be elected out, one hopes). Even in the Catholic Church, Pope John XXIII and his reformist ways are but a distant and vague memory. (The mere fact that this man was Pope almost, almost got my paternal grandfather, a very anticlerical man, to rejoin the Catholic church 40 years ago. Didn’t quite do it, though.)
Maybe I’m paranoid, but it does seem that everywhere you look, you see fundamentalist/fanatics bent on converting the world to their outlook. The Taliban are obviously a very extreme case, but they are a very bad nightmare for those of us who wish for a world that would move more in the direction of tolerance.
The Ryan:
I don’t know why, but this is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while. Actually made me laugh out loud. Thanks. 
This is both my first visit to the boards and my first post (lions, anyone?). pantom’s post really struck a chord - I am relieved that I am not the only one feeling a wee bit paranoid these days. Paranoid doesn’t cover it, some days I am frankly terrified. Islamic fundamentalist/fanatics and Christian f/f’s seem to have the same agenda. Both are trying to gather all freedom to themselves and leave none for those who believe differently.
I had a very polite young man at my college explain to me earnestly that when the USA was finally a Christian Nation Again (yes, in caps) women such as myself would no longer be “forced” to go to college. He didn’t say whether we would no longer be “forced” to receive decent medical care, or “allowed” to be stoned in the streets, but I can’t help but think he was looking at a certain fundamentalist controlled nation with a nod of approval.
The only difference I see between a cult and a religion is that cults only kill off their own members, religions try to kill off everyone else’s.