No room at the inn
David French considered the nature of fundamentalism in the New York Times on Sunday. It is not clear why this and why now, but having lived near Bob Jones University for many years, it caught my attention. It’s not his first swing at fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is dangerous, French believes (gift link):
If you’ve ever encountered true fundamentalists, you know why. When you combine eternal stakes with absolute certainty, it produces the kind of people who are happy to be cruel in the name of God.
I’ve long said that fundamentalism is not about the content of what you believe but how. Thus, it’s not unique to religious faith. Fundamentalists are rigid, dogmatic, judgmental, uncompromising, black-and-white thinkers. You probably know a few.
To the fundamentalist, disagreement is proof of apostasy. But it can be even worse than that — if you’re wrong, then you might lead other people into error, and that makes you dangerous.
That’s one reason fundamentalists of all stripes are often such zealous censors. A fundamentalist can see every person who’s wrong as a kind of Patient Zero in a potential pandemic of paganism. And don’t think for a moment that fellow believers are spared the fundamentalists’ ire. They’re a chief target. They have no excuse for their errors, and they receive the most vitriol of all.
As fundamentalism is not about what you believe but how, fundamentalists of the secular variety show up on the left as well, as French explains:
Perhaps you’ve met them — the people who define themselves through their individual politics, who show a kind of sneering contempt for dissent, and are very, very concerned with who is platformed and who is not.
French takes his last Sunday column before Christmas (and before the Dec. 25 release of Vol. 2 of “Stranger Things” Season 5?) to consider “the upside-down kingdom of God” and how different Jesus’ life and ministry is from “the will to power that has consumed so many Christians.”
In the upside-down kingdom of God, religion is still dangerous, but the danger has flipped. Fundamentalist faiths make religion dangerous to others, the nonbelievers and heretics who must be made to yield.
But Christianity properly lived is dangerous to Christians. It’s dangerous to people who refuse to hate those they are told to hate, to people who refuse to oppress, to conquer, to exploit — even when they’re told to conquer in the name of God.
I hadn’t thought of Trumpism as a kind of fundamentalism, more of a cult, but that’s what the passage above suggests. Perhaps it’s a distinction without a difference. That’s what makes the fusion of evangelical Christianity, Great Replacement xenophobia, and a kleptocracy “controlled by technology oligarchs through captured media” such a threat.
It’s not just MAGA that’s enduring some schism these days. When that old-time religion meets that old-time xenophobia, something is going to give. People of performative faith (the kind Jesus condemned) and people of authentic faith are at odds.
“At the Southern Baptists’ annual convention in June,” the New York Times reports, delegates “held a vote on dismantling the Southern Baptists’ public policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which has spearheaded action on immigration for the convention.”
Elizabeth Dias and Shannon Sims write:
The group narrowly survived, but its leader was effectively pushed out, and in September it broke ties with the Evangelical Immigration Table, a coalition of prominent evangelical groups that it helped start 13 years ago to focus on reform efforts, which had rankled the Baptists’ conservative wing. The acting president said the E.R.L.C. had decided to take a “more independent posture on our immigration-related work,” according to Baptist News Global.
The developments suggest a shift from the denomination’s annual meeting two years ago, when delegates approved a resolution imploring government leaders for “robust avenues” to support asylum claimants and “to create legal pathways to permanent status for immigrants who are in our communities by no fault of their own, prioritizing the unity of families.”
“Just because the loudest people are saying that [immigrants] are not welcome doesn’t mean there isn’t a very large contingent of churches out there that care deeply for those that are down and out,” said Dale Huntington, the pastor of City Life Church in San Diego.
But many Baptist leaders French contacted refused comment on the mood shift or did not respond. He observes, “the denomination has also taken a rightward turn in recent years, and some leaders privately worry that speaking out will cause backlash from the more conservative flank.”
There’s a chill in the air that’s more than seasonal. Mary and Joseph couldn’t find room at the inn. Many of their son’s followers can’t find room in their hearts.
Happy Hollandaise, everyone.