Sunday, June 12, 2005

Are we fundamentalists?

Back to that fundamentalism debate I had on Thursday. It ran as follows:

Argument 1:
The word 'fundamentalist Christian' is seen by the public at large as referring to a small group of people who believe that it is ok to kill non-believers. As a result it is inadvisable for a Christian to describe themselves as fundamentalist. Since we are called to love our enemy it is clearly wrong to kill them. Thus someone who thinks that we should kill them is not truly a Christian. Whatever we think personally of the word 'fundamentalist' it is not appropriate to use it to describe ourselves if we are a Christian.

Argument 2:
Fundamentalism is an intrinsic part of Christianity - I am a fundamentalist because I believe in absolute black and white truths which can never be taken away from. Liberal secular society objects to fundamentalism because that society allows people to believe anything so long as they don't profess to absolute truths which affect others. It is right for a Christian to allow themselves to be called a fundamentalist because, to quote Paisley 'a fundamentalist is someone whose only foundation is Jesus Christ'. By adopting the word 'fundamentalist' we are challenging non-Christians and bringing truths to their attention.(By the way I have mentioned Paisley quite a lot recently - I don't necessarily think he is always spot on, but he takes strong lines on things so is at least a useful provocateur)

Argument 3: Its enough for us to call ourselves Christians. We don't need to ally ourselves to any other words...

Which is it?

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