Fundamentalism Defined
BIGS - Bahai in *Perfectly* Good Standing
Thanks for reposting this message. I hope you don't mind my adding
it to my website. Since I'm was worried that some people might not
read through to the part focusing on bahai fundamentalism, I've taken
the liberty of reversing the order of the two sections:
http://members.fortunecity.com/bahaicensorship/Fundamentalism.htm
--
Frederick Glaysher
The Bahai Faith & Religious Freedom of Conscience
http://members.fortunecity.com/bahaicensorship
"Nima Hazini" <lotu...@wxc.com.au> wrote in message
news:9ped0s$2hf$1...@gnamma.connect.com.au...
> The 9 typologies of Fundamentalism (according to the high 'doyens' of
> Fundamentalism studies in the Academy, Marty/Appleby):
>
> 1) Fundamentalism mounts a protest against the marginalization of religion
> in secularizing societies.
>
> 2) Fundamentalism *selectively* reshapes the religious tradition (i.e. it
> may represent itself as a restatement of the essence of the religion, but
in
> fact it picks
> and chooses from the tradition) and it accepts some aspects of modernity
> while rejecting others.
>
> 3) Fundamentalism sees the moral world as divided sharply into good and
> evil.
>
> 4) Fundamentalism emphasizes the absolutism and inerrancy of its
scriptures
> (and thus rejects Western critical academic scholarship on that corpus).
>
> 5) Fundamentalism has a millennialist emphasis.
>
> 6) Fundamentalism has an elect, chosen membership.
>
> 7) Fundamentalism draws sharp boundaries between the saved and the sinful.
>
> 8) Fundamentalism maintains an authoritarian, charismatic leadership
> structure.
>
> 9) Fundamentalism has strict behavioral requirements for its people.
>
>
> In another important work on the fundamentalist phenomena in
> Christianity, Judaism and Islam, i.e. _The Defenders of God: The
> Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age_ (Columbia SC: 1995),
> Professor Bruce B. Lawrence of Duke University (Religious Studies) points
> out that,
>
> Fundamentalism is the affirmation of religious authority as holistic and
> absolute, admitting of neither criticism nor reduction; it is expressed
> through the collective demand that specific creedal and ethical dictates
> derived from scripture be publicly recognized and legally enforced (p.
27).
>
> Earlier he pointed out,
>
> Fundamentalism is shaped both by its interaction with modernity and its
> reaction against modernism. It is a two-way, not a one-way, exchange. It
> affects "secular humanists" as well as their fundamentalist opponents. And
> it is an exchange that has taken place, and continues to take place, on a
> global scale, drawing into its orbit all religious traditions not just
Islam
> [Judaism or Christianity] (p xiv).
>
> Later on he notes,
>
> ...Fundamentalist challenges have arisen in several traditions. One could
> locate cadres that are Sikh or Buddhist, _Baha'i_ [he references Denis
> Maceoin's "Baha'i Fundamentalism and the Western Academic Study of the
Babi
> Movement"] or Hindu (p. 6).
>
> On pp. 100-101 Lawrence delineates the common "traits" of fundamentalists:
>
> 1. Fundamentalists are advocates of a pure minority viewpoint against a
> sullied majority or dominant group. They are the righteous remanant turned
> vanguard, and even when the remanant/vanguard seizes political power and
> seems to become a majority, as happened in Iran in 1979, they continue to
> perceive and project themselves as a minority.
>
> 2. Fundamentalists are oppositional. They do not merely disagree with
their
> enemies, they confront them. While the evil Other is an abstract sense of
> anomie or uprootedness, it is located in particular groups who perpetuate
> the prevailing "secular" ethos. Fundamentalists confront those secular
> people who exercise political or judicial power. Often they also confront
> "wayward" religious professionals [or percieved "wayward" scholars or
> intellectuals].
>
> 3. Fundamentalists are secondary-level male elites. They claim to derive
> authority from a direct, unmediated appeal to scripture, yet because
> interpretive principles are often vague, they must be carried by
charismatic
> leaders who are invariably male. Notions of a just social order in Iran,
or
> a halakhic polity in Israel, or a Christian civilization in America
require
> continuous, repeated reinterpretation. In each instance what seems to an
> outsider to be arbitrary retrieval of only some elements from a common
past
> is to fundamentalists the necessary restoration of an eternally valid
divine
> mandate. And it is a mandate mediated through exclusively male
interpretors.
>
> 4. Fundamentalists generate their own technical vocabulary. Reflecting the
> polysemy of language, they use special terms that bind insiders to each
> other, just as they prempt interference from outsiders. Halakha for Jews,
> shari'a for Muslims, [the "covenant" or "infallibility" for Baha'is], and
> "creation" for Christians represent...[four]...terms, each of which would
be
> open to several interpretations but which fundamentalists invest with
> particular meaning that exceptionalizes, even as it appears to validate,
> their ideological stance.
>
> 5. Fundamentalism has historical antecedents, but no ideological
precursors.
> As Marc Bloch warned, one should never confuse ancestry with explanation.
> Though the antecedents of fundamentalism are varied and distant -
Maccabean
> revolt for Jews, the Protestant Reformation for Christians, the Wahhabi
> revolt for Sunnis Muslims, the martyrdom of Husayn for Shi'is -
> fundamentalism as a religious ideology is very recent. It did not emerge
in
> Protestant America until the end of the last century. It has only become
> apparent in Judaism during the last fifty years, and since it represents a
> delayed reaction to the psychological hegemony of European colonial rule,
it
> could only occur in majoritarian Muslim countries after they had become
> independent nation-states, that is, in most instances, after World War II.
>
> The discourse of Liberalism (as opposed to Fundamentalism) makes the
> following set of assumptions,
>
> 1. Discursive dynamicity (i.e. liberal discourse) is the product of a
> continuous process of rational discourse.
>
> 2. Rational discourse is possible even among those who do not share the
same
> culture, religion, belief system nor even the same ideological
> consciousness.
>
> 3.Rational discourse can produce mutual understanding and
> cultural/philosophical consensus, as well as sometimes agreement on
> particulars.
>
> 4. Consensus permits of stable social arrangements, and is the rational
> basis of the choice of coherent strategies.
>
> 5. Rational strategic choice is the basis of improving the human condition
> possibly through collective action.
>
> 6. Liberalism as such can exist only where and when its social and
> intellectual prerequisites exist.
>
>
> What is Baha'i Fundamentalism
>
> "The first major ideological characteristic of fundamentalism, is a
reaction
> against the marginalization of religion in secular societies. Among
Baha'i
> fundamentalists, this reaction takes the form of a belief in a future
> theocracy, in which they expect Baha'i ecclesiastical institutions to take
> over the civil state, and which differentiates them from Baha'i liberals
and
> moderates. The belief appears to be rooted primarily in oral traditions
> attributed to Shoghi Effendi and letters written on his behalf by
> secretaries, since although he does speak of a future Baha'i
> commonwealth in his published works, its character remains vague. Hand of
> the Cause John Robarts reported his version of a long conversation with
> Shoghi Effendi expatiating on this idea (Robarts 1993). Some Baha'is
> believed that he held that a melding of religion and state would not occur
> during the thousand-year dispensation of Baha'u'llah himself, but only
> toward the end of the Baha'i "cycle," of some 500,000 years (Hofman 1953).
> There are two problems for Baha'i fundamentalists. The first is that
> Baha'u'llah's own writings, and those of `Abdu'l-Baha are frankly
> anti-theocratic. The second is that in Baha'i law, oral traditions are
> supposed to be discounted in favor of written texts. Fundamentalists thus
> tend to hew to generalities when explaining their belief, lacking
scriptural
> support.
>
> The second feature of fundamentalism is selectivity. Fundamentalists
> select and reshape aspects of the tradition, all the while asserting that
> they have recaptured its pristine essence. They are also selective in
> their responses to modernity. They embrace some aspects of it (such as
> certain types of technology), while vehemently rejecting others. Baha'i
> fundamentalists engage in all three types of selectivity as well. They
> frequently make a claim to be engaging in traditional practices that are
in
> fact innovations, and can do so with some success because the history and
> texts of the Baha'i faith are relatively little studied and authorities
> have often actively suppressed historical sources. We have already
> mentioned the problem that theocratic beliefs are unscriptural. That is,
the
> scriptural tradition in the Baha'i faith strove for a separation of
religion
> and state as a way of making room for liberty of conscience for Baha'is in
> Shi`ite Iran (McGlinn 1999, Cole 1998c:17-47). In his Treatise on
Leadership
> of the early 1890s `Abdu'l-Baha said that religious institutions,
including
> Baha'i ones, are never to intervene in affairs of state or political
matters
> unbidden, and that whenever in history they have done so it has resulted
> in a huge disaster. (`Abdu'l-Bahain Cole 1998a). He clearly envisaged the
> state and religious institutions as complementary, "like milk and honey."
>
> Baha'is, including Baha'i fundamentalists, have for the most part embraced
> modernity. They have a vision of building a peaceful global society and
for
> the most part have a positive view of technological advances. Still,
> the selectivity of Baha'i fundamentalists toward modernity can be
witnessed
> in the severe misgivings that some of them have expressed about the
> Internet" or such issues as democracy and the separation of religion and
> politics.
>
> Fundamentalist Baha'is put special emphasis on moral Manichaeanism. They
> see the world as comprised of a small cadre of those "firm in the
Covenant."
> They....admit a larger number of Baha'is who are "infirm" but
> perhaps not dangerously so. They worry about smaller numbers of "liberal"
> or "dissident" Baha'is who [they believe] attempt to "undermine" the
> Covenant.
>
> Baha'i fundamentalism puts great emphasis on the absolutism and inerrancy
> of scripture. This belief is quite widespread but not universal. It is
> tested most fiercely with regard to issues such as evolution.
`Abdu'l-Baha
> maintained, in Sufi and Neoplatonic fashion, that human beings have always
> been a distinct species and that human beings are not animals, insofar as
> they are endowed with a soul. He also argued that the morphological
> similarities between humans and apes might be merely functional (e.g,
sharks
> and porpoises resemble one another but are not immediately related), and
> maintained that "the missing link" would never be found. These
> assertions have foundered against the DNA revolution, which has found that
> humans, chimpanzees and bonobos share 98 percent of the same genes and are
> clearly closely related. During a discussion of his statements on
> evolution, a typical poster to SRB wrote, "Dear all, On the topic of
> evolution: Clearly we should understand as clearly as possible what
> 'Abdu'l-Baha says on this subject. Because we believe His statements on
> matters pertaining to the Revelation of Baha'u'llah and all of creation
are
> infallible, we must be clear about what it is we believe, or are
accepting"
> (SRB 6 July 1997).
>
> Baha'i fundamentalists emphasize belief in an imminent catastrophe they
> refer to as "the Calamity" (Smith 1982). One contributor to a
Baha'i-only
> list wrote, "I would like to open a discussion on a subject which many of
us
> are somewhat unwilling to address - namely, the impending (year 2,000)
> calamity which is supposed to create grave upheaval (literally) not only
> here in California, but also on the East Coast, and other parts of the
> world . . ." (Pers. Comm, March 14, 1994).
>
> Fundamentalist Baha'is have an authoritarian view of how the Baha'i
> "administrative order" should function. There is a great emphasis on
> obedience. The typical logic of Baha'i fundamentalists roots obedience in
> the legitimacy of authority, disallowing a rational examination of the
> substance of a command or an inquiry into whether the body giving the
> command has the "constitutional" prerogative to give it. In this way,
> arbitrary commands by Baha'i bodies are made to be an either-or
proposition.
> If one accepts Baha'u'llah, one accepts his administrative order, and must
> obey whatever it orders one to do, whether one agrees in
> conscience or no. Rejection of the command, ipso facto, represents a
> rejection of Baha'u'llah (Semple 1991). Thus, fundamentalist Baha'is
> secretly consider liberals and some moderates "not Baha'is" at all because
> they do not demonstrate sufficient willingness to immerse their wills in
the
> authority of the Baha'i administration.
>
> Fundamentalist Baha'is believe that Baha'i institutions such as the local
> assembly or the NSA can be divinely guided, and that the Universal House
of
> Justice is infallible. The technical terminology in Persian is not
> unambiguous, and Baha'i texts make distinctions that this approach
> disregards. Contemporary Baha'i fundamentalists avoid thinking
> constitutionally about such issues, asserting the infallibility of the
House
> of Justice in an undifferentiated manner. [One] American Baha'i and
mystery
> writer...wrote, "The Guidance and infallibility of the Universal House of
> Justice are assured and promised. We are specifically directed, as an
act
> of faith, to offer instant, exact, and complete obedience to Baha'u'llah's
> House of Justice. We are warned of the dire
> spiritual dangers inherent in ignoring this directive, and we are
admonished
> to be vigilant, firm, and uncompromising in our loyalty, support,
obedience
> and love for the this Divinely Ordained Institution."
> (Talisman9 Archives, 23 May 2000).
>
> Fundamentalist Baha'is view "the member's time, space and activity" as "a
> group resource, not an individual one" (Almond et al. 408). In some
> communities enormous pressure is put on individuals by fundamentalists to
> "teach the faith" or proselytize others. Some more liberal (or just shy)
> Baha'is report being extremely uncomfortable with this pressure and cite
it
> as a reason they became inactive or withdrew from membership. Constant
> appeals are also made for Baha'is to donate money, to "give till it
hurts,"
> and most of these donations appear to go to monumental building projects
at
> the Baha'i world center in Haifa or to bureaucratic purposes at the
National
> Baha'i Center in Wilmette. The Baha'i administration appears to do almost
> no charity work (measured as a percentage of their budget), especially for
> non-Baha'is. Although Baha'is do not have a distinctive form of dress,
they
> do have special ritual forms of prayer, and they fast in the Muslim way.
> They are under surveillance for behavior that might contravene Baha'i
law."
>
>
>
>
>
Nima Hazini
"BIGS - Bahai in *Perfectly* Good Standing" <patric...@liberty.com>
wrote in message news:wBSB7.199724$K6.96737102@news2...