A fundamental problem? Thinking Aloud by Simon Barrow
Just how influential is fundamentalist Christianity in mainstream public life in Britain today?
David Modell’s Dispatches film, In God’s Name, broadcast on Channel 4 on Monday 19 May 2008, gave a chilling insight into the thought-world and tactics of groups most people (including the vast majority of believers) would regard as extreme and alarming. But it left viewers with little background in such matters relatively uninformed about where they fit into the wider picture, numerically, politically or religiously.
For those who didn’t see it, the ‘fly on the wall’ style documentary observed a number of people (including Andrea Williams of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship and Stephen Green of Christian Voice) in action, lobbying for their causes. It also visited a recognised faith school openly teaching creationism. The programme describes these as “well funded and politically active Christian groups… [attempting to] convince MPs to base laws on biblical beliefs… Followers believe abortion and homosexuality should be illegal,” that Islam is based on deception and hate and “that the law of blasphemy should be strictly enforced.”
Modell followed Ms Williams as she lobbied Tory peer Norman Tebbit - unsuccessfully, as it happens - to table an amendment in the Lords to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, and as she resourced the much criticised Commons campaign by Nadine Dorries MP to seek to cut the 24-week time limit on abortion. “These laws reject God, and any rejection of God is the work of the enemy, Satan”, she declared.
Meanwhile, Stephen Green, who came to public attention when those involved in the Jerry Springer the Opera television broadcast received physical threats in relation to names and details published (and subsequently withdrawn) from his website, appeared to predict a “war” with Islam in Britain in the near future. This is something he is now desperately trying to back-peddle on.
The numbers game
In terms of numerical strength, it is important to realise that extreme Christian groups are relatively small. But they have a much larger satellite of those who sympathise with some of their causes, and are prepared to work with them - ranging from the Daily Mail, to a handful of MPs, to fellow lobbyists. Many are now wising up, however.
The LCF claims a membership of 2,000, but they do not require a subscription fee and this figure includes students and those who might be regarded as on the edges of the profession. I know Christian lawyers who have barely heard of the group and are appalled by its views now that they have. Mainstream Conservatives, too. As with a number of hard-line evangelical groups using the word ‘Christian’, some of LCF’s core convictions would exclude most Christian believers and quite a large number of evangelicals, as well.
Just as the word ’secular’ has partly been hijacked by the anti-religious, so the term ‘Christian’ is one that can be used to give credence to a multitude of minority views. Even the BNP has had a try at this not so long ago. It is perhaps significant that Joel Edwards, outgoing head of the Evangelical Alliance, chose to use one of his final statements to distance his constituency from the “eccentric” groups highlighted by Dispatches - including Ms Williams, recently profiled in the Church Times, whose comments he suggested were “naïve and controversial”, and Mr Green, who he dubbed “an extremist”, adding: “[t]he kind of fundamentalism shown by Stephen is not growing in the UK. Unfortunately, the oxygen of publicity provided by the media has exaggerated his influence.”
Hijacking the agenda
Edwards is right in this. The BBC, in particular, has frequently given Green and his tiny group Christian Voice a platform out of all proportion to its size and influence, presumably because they think it makes “good TV”. They started to do this because they came to believe, wrongly, that he was responsible for the 50,000 letters of complaint that poured in over Jerry Springer, mostly before it had been broadcast.
In fact it was London-based Premier Christian Radio that first raised the concern, and they have also condemned his tactics and views, as have pretty well all major Christian leaders. A former Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church colourfully declared: “Christian Voice has the right to express its extreme views, but it is as representative of Christian opinion in Britain as the Monster Raving Loony Party would be of mainstream political parties - and far less entertaining.”
It is also misleading to suggest, as one of David Modell’s interviewees did in an otherwise useful follow-up article in the Daily Telegraph, that because a number of those shown in his programme can be identified with Pentecostalism, and Pentecostals are a large and growing segment of British religious life, ergo Pentecostals are likely to share their views. Similarly, the notion that evangelicals are largely fundamentalist is quite wrong. This week, Jim Wallis, a leading US religious figure, is meeting with politicians, journalists and faith groups in Britain. Yet he represents a noticeably progressive and influential variant within this sector.
Meanwhile, Modell highlights an important incongruity. ‘[W]hile listening to [a Christian] depiction of Islam as a dangerous fundamentalist belief [I realised] he could be describing the beliefs of the Christian fundamentalists I’ve met. He says these crazed fanatics believe any non-believer is destined only for hell (check). That they must convert all non-believers to their belief (check). That they think society must be built on their beliefs alone (check). Ms Williams doesn’t see the irony. She is continuing to try to impose her narrow beliefs on the rest of society.”
There is, of course, all the difference in the world between propagating and living by one’s beliefs within civil society (no matter how objectionable others may find them) and seeking to legislate them into general force through parliament and the legal system. Here, the hard-liners are meeting with a distinct lack of success and are likely to continue to do so.
None of this is a reason for complacency. It has been estimated that around 50 government approved faith schools reaching a couple of thousand children are amenable to creationism. Hard-line groups in the Christian camp are indeed well-funded and have links with the religious right in the USA, including the Alliance Defence Fund (ADF), which has had a significant effect in blocking equalities legislation, for example. Predictions of a ‘culture war’ may sound somewhat alarmist, but as the remaining vestiges of the cultural and social hegemony that Christianity has enjoyed in Britain continue to be eroded, and as misguided anti-religious voices continue to blur the boundaries between mainstream and extreme belief, the antics of the fringe are likely to increase in number and volume.
Wrapping up
But there will also be a reaction in an opposite direction. And it is very important that the voices of thoughtful believers as well as non-believers are heard in the debate. Not out of some arcane attempt at balance, but because in the end it is not ideological atheism that can drive out ‘bad religion’, but the refusal of people of faith to allow their communities and convictions to be hijacked by a minority whose claims to historic precedent and to an interpretative monopoly of sacred texts are demonstrably false - as my briefing paper on that much misunderstood beast called ‘fundamentalism’ seeks to show.
[...] well, Simon Barrow writing today on The Wardman Wire has a more thoughtful and contextual piece. It’s worth the [...]
That was a good piece. I have always found definitions of ‘fundamenatlism’ to be problematic. Many prominent sociologists, such as Giddens, give the old definition of fundamentalism as something to do with ‘literalism’ or other characteristics that seem to sweep different and often different religious phenemona. I think many sociologists don’t do or can’t do religion, maybe it is a secular habitus thing (amongst many). I found the check list you quoted for religious fundamentalism to move towards social attitudes rather than abstract theology [which is a minefield] (though both do interrelate). However, I found many points on the check list not that convincing. For example, many traditional theologies, like Catholic and Eastern Othodox, do believe in principle that there is no salvation outside the church. Yes, some maybe saved, but it is in spite and due to them being non-believers. There has been some modifications on the creed, since Vatican II, but the creed remains even if nuanced. The same case can be made about certain traditional Islamic and Jewish doctrines (for example the opinion of Maimonides). Then there is the issue of enforcing religion in society, a problematic point, as some traditional rabbinic courts (even the modern Orthodox) to the Islamic Shar’iah courts are the only form of family law in many middle-east countries. Yet these courts are run by traditionaly trained rabbis and jurists.
I believe the problem lies in the nature of religion, or religions that have a living tradition that is passed down. The term or label ‘fundamentalism’ is a recent development, an attempt to understand religion whilst considering the forces of modernity. Religious traditions that exist today will always be in tension with these forces, and often the case is that those who cling on to how their religion was understood by their ’sages’, ’saints’ or ‘ulama’ would be considered by today’s standards as being ‘fundamentalist’. This is because religions traditions are essentially a pre-modern phenomena.
For example, in Islam there is the idea of ‘Ghaloo’ or going into excesses in terms of understanding and the practice of Islam. The Khawarij is an oft cited example. Yet the understanding of medievel jurist of this phenomena bears little resemblence with the idea of ‘fundamentalism’ or how it is understood as a modern social phenomena, as if it is an epistemic break. Even groups like Al-Qaeda, which are likened to the Khawarij sects, have no resemblence to the Khawarij in theology (other than the use of violence for political ends, but the justification for violence differs starkly between them). Many of these venetrated figures, from mainstream Sunni and Shi’a schools, again would hold opinions that would be categorised as ‘fundamentalist’. The same case can be made regarding Catholic saints and Jewish rabbis. Where is the cut off point? While post-enlightenment modernity has shifted the goal posts, resulting in huge structural pressures on the religious of today, can it be said that ‘bad religion’ is usually an errant understanding of tradition/scripture and despite tradition or mainstream communities of faith?
My point is that groups that are defined as ‘tradionists’ and ‘fundamentalists’ can and often do carry similar opinions and attitudes. This makes the whole idea of understanding a distinct phenomena called ‘fundamentalism’ to be deeply problematic, especially as it is uses a yardstick that is normative. My personal opinion is that the boundaries between mainstream and extreme belief are indeed blurred, and we should consider that. I think social scientists can use conceptions that can sieze from being explanatory and become ideological. Maybe this observation can be made for secular atheists to the liberal end of the religious (even if well intentioned).