Fundamentalism is dangerous. It does not matter if it is Christian fundamentalism, Hindu fundamentalism, Jewish, Muslim, or the atheistic fundamentalism like that which was espoused by Chairman Mao. Fundamentalism is dangerous because of the propensity to create “in” and “out” groups based upon a person’s adherence to or rejection of the fundamentalist dogma espoused by the leaders and followers of whichever fundamentalist movement is causing problems in a particular place. A right wing fundamentalist Hindu murdered Mahatma Gandhi, fundamentalist Muslims like those in the Taliban or ISIS wreak violent havoc against those who don’t believe as they do, fundamentalist Jews are cheering Netanyahu’s genocide of Palestinians, and even Buddhists have been violently fundamentalist at times as they have in Myanmar.
Closer to home, right wing fundamentalist Christians have perpetuated two ‘dangerous D’s’ as theological concepts that are frightening and have led to violence – dispensationalism and dominionism. I grew up with dispensationalism and it was terrifying for a lot of people, myself included. Dispensationalists believe in the theologically spurious notion of “the end times” and the “rapture.” Because of people like disgraced charlatan Mike Warnke I had rapture anxiety into my early thirties, frightened out of my wits and traumatized by the notion that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t live up to the expectations of Southern Baptist or Church of Christ notions of what a Christian man should be. That meant I would obviously get “left behind” when the rapture happened. That would mean that I would have to live through the “tribulation” and then almost certainly spend eternity in hell because I had been left behind in the first place. Balderdash.
The danger of dispensationalism goes far beyond the type of religious trauma I, and many others, experienced as a result of believing in it (prior to learning that it is utter nonsense and it is not actually supported by the texts that make up the Bible). That religious trauma inflicted by absurd readings of scripture is bad enough to send dispensationalism to the dustbin of theological ideas, but the most horrifying aspect of it is that there are dispensationalists in the U.S. actively trying to foment their fever dream version of Armageddon by starting World War III in the Middle East. As Dr. Diana Butler Bass tweeted on January 3, 2020, “I don’t want to worry y’all, but Trump’s evangelical advisors – those who will be praying with him at his rally today -mostly believe that the Bible predicts a war between Iran and Israel before Jesus returns to rapture them in advance of the end of the world.” Those evangelical leaders are aided by dispensationalists within the U.S. government who help drive foreign policy and who are hoping they can facilitate the second coming of Jesus by using Jews as pawns while starting a war that will kill millions of people. The people claim to be pro-Israel, but not out of respect for Jews and Judaism, but rather because they misinterpret the Bible’s apocalyptic literature in dangerous ways. Yikes.
Dominionism is also exceptionally dangerous. Christian dominionists, most of whom are theonomists and Christian nationalists, have a different view of eschatology – the theological views about the end of the world – that is different than the “pre-tribulation dispensationalist” rapture fever dreams mentioned above. Dominionists believe that Jesus won’t return until Christians establish Christian theonomic governments all over the world. Theonomy means “God’s law” and dominionists like Gary DeMar, Doug Wilson, David Barton, et al, believe that Mosaic law – i.e. the Torah – should be the civil and judicial law of the United States, as well as in other so-called “Godly” nations. Only creating governments based on extremely conservative Calvinistic readings of the Bible will lead to Jesus’ return according to Christian dominionists. These theological views are also spurious and come from terrible interpretations of the Bible, including lifting the entire Torah out of context and applying it to people for whom it was not written for. Dominionism leads to violence as we saw on January 6, 2020 when Trumpists, including many flying the Christian nationalist’s flag, stormed the capitol in a violent attempt to overthrow the U.S. government. It is as Frederick Clarkson has said, “a Christian supremacist agenda.” (1)
It is imperative that people of faith and of no faith at all band together to prevent religious extremists from spreading their hateful, violent, and democracy destroying agendas regardless of party affiliation. It means that people of conscience must demand an end to the was on Palestine and hold the current president, members of Congress, and church leaders accountable for supporting a genocide in Gaza. It means that anyone who cares about democracy and human rights needs to vote religious extremists like Mike Johnson, Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, and Doug Mastriano out of elected office. It means that people of faith must fall back on orthopraxy – right practice – rather than orthodoxy – right belief – and live out love of neighbor and the golden rule rather than insist on everyone rigidly adhering to a particular belief system. Jesus placed a great deal of emphasis on love of neighbor and the golden rule. So should we as we reject fundamentalist extremism, here and in our names abroad.
My latest book can be found here. Theological Musings Volume 1
The Tattooed Theologian 