Sermon for 2 May 2004, 1^st Unitarian Church of Alton,, Illinois

Ronald J. Glossop

I. Introduction

A. "The Fundamentalist Agenda" is the title of an article by Dr. Davidson Loehr in the UU WORLD for January/February 2004. The note at the beginning of that article indicates that he is the minister of the First Unitarian Univeralist Church of Austin, Texas. It also adds the somewhat puzzling note that "he considers himself a religious liberal but not a Unitarian Universalist." One must ask, "So why is he a UU minister?" But let's look at what he says.

B. I want to review that article and then add some of my own observations about this issue of the nature of religious fundamentalism.

II. Reverend Loehr starts by referring to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Trade Towers and Pentagon carried out by Muslim fundamentalists. He notes three characteristics of the perpetrators of that event which are similar to those displayed in the comments a couple of days later by Christian fundamentalists such as Jerry Falwell.

A. First, they hate liberated women and all that is associated with them such as their being able to work outside the home and consequently no longer being so economically dependent on men.

B. Second, they hate nonorthodox sexual orientations and life-syles, especially homosexuality, and this is directed at least as much toward men as women.

C. Third, they hate individual freedoms that allow people to move away from the rigid simple beliefs which they are certain are true.

D. To illustrate his point, Loehr notes that on The 700 Club program just days after the 9-11 attack Jerry Falwell said, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestye, the ACLU, People for the American Way--all of them who have tried to secularize America--I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

III. Reverend Loehr then shifts to discussing the 1988-1993 interdisciplinary study of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences known as The Fundamentalism Project. This study by over 100 scholars from many different countries discovered that all the fundamentalist movements have five common characteristics.

A. They all claim to have rules handed down from God that are to be followed by everyone in the society. Thus they make no distinction between rules for those of their own religious group and what is to be required of everyone, that is, they don't acknowledge any separation between church and state.

B. The second common feature of fundamentalist movements is their belief that men are and should be on top. Men should make and enforce the policies of the society while women are to be wives, mothers, and homemakers.

C. Thirdly, there is only one right view of the world and one right set of rules for behavior, so the next generation must be indoctrinated about these right rules and restricted from learning about other views or even knowing that other views exist.

D. The fourth similarity is that fundamentalists spurn modern views based on open inquiry and democratic values. They harbor a nostalgic view of the past where men are in control, women are subservient, there is one set of rules which everyone must obey or suffer from strict control by police and the military, and education is tightly controlled by those in authority to make sure that no questioning of authority is encouraged or even permitted.

1. Loehr notes that some scholars have noted a similarity between religious fundamentalism and fascism because of their anti-democratic, authoritarian, and repressive views. He seems to agree with the suggestion that fascism should be viewed as a kind of religious fundamentalism.

2. I understand the basis of this notion that there are some similarities between fundamentalism and fascism, but I think that it overlooks their important differences. It is this ignoring of crucial differences that has led some people to think that Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party might have some connection with Osama ben Ladin and Al Qaeda. Both groups are authoritarian and anti-democratic, but their frames of reference are very different. Fundamentalists are supernaturalists. They believe that God has given them special revealed knowledge which is not available to non-believers. They seek God's blessing for acting in accord with His commands. Their framework is eternity, and they believe that being a martyr for a divine cause is desirable. Fascists like Hitler and Hussein have a very different outlook. They believe in earthly power. They seek to advance the political power of the group to which they belong. They are militant nationalists who don't like others challenging their political power. Their framework is history, and their aim is to be admired by other men because of what their group is able to accomplish because of them. The fascists have the very sense of history which the fundamentalists lack.

E. In fact, the fifth point about the similariities among religious fundamentalists is precisely that they all "deny history in a radical and idiosyncratic way." They are very much aware of how culture shapes the current social world. They are aware of it and hate it because the curent flow of culture driven by the growth of knowlledge is against their own values. They realize that modern scientific discoveries are undermining their beliefs in the centrality of humans in the big scheme of things and their dogmatic certainty that truth never changes. Yet they refuse to note the impact of the cultural context of their own scriptures. They refuse to acknowledge that these ancient scriptures contain ideas from an ignorant era when people did not know that the Earth goes around the sun, that the sun is just a star closer then other stars, that the Earth has not always been inhabited by humans, or that disease is caused by bacteria and viruses. To quote Loehr, "What they don't want to see is the way culture colored the era when their scriptures were created."

IV. Having reviewed these similarities among religious fundamentalists, Loehr pauses to repeat the crucial point that these observations apply regardless of which particular religion one is examining. Religions are built on the view that there are some important eternal verities which at least some humans can come to know by supernatural means. Once writing is available these verities can be captured and preserved for posterity. But this religious fundamentalist mentality does not seem to depend on various religions having "learned" it from each other. Some other explanation for the widespread fundamentalist viewpoint is required.

V. Loehr thinks that he has discovered the basis of this religious fundamentalism in the biological nature of humans, who like other primates and many other mammals, are sexually dimorphous territorial animals where the males are physically stronger than the females and the "alpha males" control the group. The values and behavior of religious fundamentalists are essentially the values and behavior of alpha males.

A. According to Loehr "what conservatives are conserving is the biological default setting of our species, which has strong family resemblances to the default setting of thousands of other species. This means that when fundamentalists say they are obeying the word of God they have severely understated the authority for their position. The real authority behind this behavioral scheme is millions of years older than all the religions and all the gods there have ever been. It is the picture of life that gave birth to most of the gods as its projected champions."

"Fundamentalism is absolutely natural, ancient, powerful--and inadequate. It's a means of structuring relationships that evolved when we lived in troops of 150 or less."

1. But I believe that Loehr is getting carried away here by his thesis. He is failing to distinguish religious authority from political authority, and he is focusing only on those religious traditions that champion male superiority. Some religious traditions have emphasized the role of females and Mother Earth. Some religious traditions have focused on assisting the weak and unfortunate. He is also mixing defense of the home territory with defense of the group against outsiders.

2. Futhermore, Loehr somewhat carelessly shifts from discussing religious fundamentalism to discussing the relationship between conservatives and liberals. But in doing this he is ignoring the fact that not all conservatives are religious fundamentalists, and not all religious fundamentalists are political conservatives. Many are, but not all. A considerable number of Republicans are concerned about the large amount of influence religious fundamentalists have in the party.

3. He also ignores the changing cultural setting of humans from the precivilized state before the agricultural revolution to the situation after it where protection of physical territory becomes more crucial, where control of the government is more formally institutionalized in the hands of men, and where women's role is more confined to the physical home and taking care of children inside that home.

4. Loehr discusses women getting the right to vote as a cause championed by liberals. But could this change have occurred before the industrial revolution regardless of religious fundamentalism or conservative vs. liberal viewpoints? There were no democratic governments and voting, and it was only after the introduction of machines that the physical strength of men became less important.

5. On the global level, the transformation from agrarian, authoritarian societies to industrialized, democratic societies began in northern Europe and North America in the 18^th centuries. In the 19^th century it spread to the rest of Europe, Japan, and Oceania. In the 20^th century that transformation began to spread to the rest of Asia, to Latin America, and finally even to Africa. In the 21^st century we are seeing the beginning of a global society where all humans have the chance to think and act as free persons participating in the governance of the global community. The cultural context is changing for everyone. Authoritarian institutions controlled by males only are giving way to more democratic institutions, and women no longer confined to the home and only taking care of children.

6. But some people are enemies of this progress, often because of their commitment to some particular religion or ideology into which they have been indoctrinated while young.

a. Note the existence not only of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious fundamentalists but also the Marxist and Nazi ideological fundamentalists. The former are stuck in the 7^th century while the latter are stuck in the 19^th and 20^th century.

b. But all these anti-modernists oppose open inquiry that might lead to new ideas about what is true and about what is good. Often they fight fiercely because they realize the increasing threat to their narrow view of the Truth as people become more educated and open-minded to change.

7. We need to remember, however, that there are also those in the more educated parts of the world (like some of our own national leaders) who would like to promote their own "tribal" interests and the present dominance of their own elite group rather than allow real freedom of thought about religious and political issues and the possibility of some kind of democracy at the global level, not just within countries.

B. Although Loehr has departed from his theme of religious fundamentalism, I think that he makes a good observation with regard to conservativism and liberalism, namely that conservatives want stability and security for their own group while liberals want to "enlarge our understanding of who belings in our in-group." He rightly notes that "society is a kind of slow dance between the conservative and liberal impulses."

C. But then he argues that "liberals must remain in contact with the center of our territorial instinct. . . " and that "fundamentalist uprisings are a sign that liberals have failed to provide an adequate and balanced vision."

1. But these are two different things. I believe he is mistaken when he says that liberal visions need to keep "one foot solidly in our deep territorial impulses," but that he is right when he says that we need to preserve the balance between "our conservative impulses and our liberal needs" for more humaneness.

V. Yes, we need a balance between conservative and liberal impulses, but the liberal ones (the extending of empathy to all other humans) are as much a part of biological human nature as the conservative ones. The situation with regard to religious fundamentalism and the desire to limit knowledge to what is found in some ancient texts, however, is quite different. We need to adamantly promote education and the expansion of human knowledge and never yield to those who refuse to acknowledge that our understanding of the world can expand and that their own limited "divinely inspired" view of "the Truth" may be mistaken.