Notes From "The Battle for God" - Karen Armstrong

Fundamentalism – whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim – rarely arises from a battle with an external enemy. It usually begins, instead, as an internal struggle in which traditionalists fight their  own coreligionists who they believe are making too many concessions to the secular world. The fundamentalists will often instinctively respond to encroaching modernity by creating an enclave of pure faith.

Pentecostalism can be seen as a grassroots rebellion against the modern cult of reason.

The astonishing achievements of scientific rationalism had made the idea of god incredible and impossible for many Westernized people, since it had gone hand in hand with a suppression of the old mythical consciousness. 

Fundamentalism is a spirituality that reveals almost ungovernable fear which  can only be assuaged by the meticulous preservation of old boundaries, the erection of new barriers, a rigid segregation, and a passionate  adherence to the values of tradition. 

Fundamentalists in all three of the monotheistic faiths are in a revolt against the pragmatic logos that dominates modern society to the exclusion of the spiritual, and which refuses the restraints imposed by the sacred. But because the secular establishment is so powerful, most have to confine their revolt to small symbolic acts. 

Liberal slant

Open ended questions that require students to draw their own conclusions – statements about religions other than Christianity statements that they construe to reflect negatively on the free enterprise system  - statements that they construe to reflect positive aspects of socialist or communist countries (e.g., that the Soviet Union is the largest producer in the world of certain grains) any aspect of sex education other than the promotion of abstinence – statements which emphasize contributions made by blacks, Native American Indians, Mexican Americans, or feminists – statements which are sympathetic to American slaves or are unsympathetic to their masters – statements in support of the theory of evolution – unless equal space is given to explain the theory of creation. 

We cannot be religious in the same way as our ancestors in the premodern conservative world, when the myths and rituals of faith helped people to accept limitations that were essential to agrarian civilization. We are now oriented to the future – and those of us who have been shaped by the rationalism of the modern world cannot easily understand the old forms of spirituality. However hard we try to embrace conventional religion – we have a natural tendency to see truth as factual, historical and empirical.       For those who see reason as providing a path the sole path to truth – this is a principled and honest position.