Can churches endure without fundamentalists?

[Gandalf]

From what I've seen, fundamentalists would seem to make up much of a church's administrative manpower. By this, I'm referring to the guys who work in the Vatican. Or those organisations that promote Christianity on the internet, in universities, and so forth.

If a trend were to emerge in which fundies no longer joined churches or acted on their behalf, would Christianity survive in anything resembling it's present form? Would we see some great reformation as reasonable people took the reins? Would they just crumble?

[Bounty]

Depends on how you define "fundamentalist". I can see various churches surviving without the blowhard televangelist types, but of you expand the definition to, for example, anyone who believes in theistic evolution or an active participating god, you won't have many people left.

[Spacebeard]

A Unitarian-Universalist "fundamentalist" would be almost an oxymoron, since that church has few if any fixed beliefs. Yet the UU church still has a central organization, student organizations at universities, and national publications and conferences. I think many of the people who work for national religious organizations, or volunteer for a local church, do so more for the sake of the religion's rituals and ceremonies than their central beliefs.

However, without any fundamentalist ideologues, I imagine most religions would lose their political power and a lot of their influence over the personal lives of their followers. A church without fundamentalists would probably be essentially a social club with a bewildering array of private rituals, a charitable arm, and the power to carry out marriages and funerals.

[Superman]

Certain screwed up personality types are attracted to certain screwed up kinds of churches.

Some churches would, some would not. Since some fundie churches are made up entirely of fundies, it makes their existence dependant on them.

[RedImperator]

To judge by plummeting attendence and membership numbers for mainline Protestant churches, and the historical cycle of fundie churches starting as tiny cults, getting big by poaching membership from moderate churches, moderating their views, and then losing their membership to the next batch of fundie churches, the answer is pretty clearly no, at least in the United States.

[Lagmonster]

To judge by plummeting attendence and membership numbers for mainline Protestant churches, and the historical cycle of fundie churches starting as tiny cults, getting big by poaching membership from moderate churches, moderating their views, and then losing their membership to the next batch of fundie churches, the answer is pretty clearly no, at least in the United States.

I imagine that a religion survives periods of enlightenment or apathy simply due to a core of ignorant fanatics, though. They probably play a role in the underlying foundation of every religion.

[The Shadow]

I think as the educational system declines, fundamentalism grows. The cure to religious fundamentalism is a policy of quality education. America's schools are garbage, so fundamentalism in this country is on the upswing.

[RedImperator]

To judge by plummeting attendence and membership numbers for mainline Protestant churches, and the historical cycle of fundie churches starting as tiny cults, getting big by poaching membership from moderate churches, moderating their views, and then losing their membership to the next batch of fundie churches, the answer is pretty clearly no, at least in the United States.

I imagine that a religion survives periods of enlightenment or apathy simply due to a core of ignorant fanatics, though. They probably play a role in the underlying foundation of every religion.

But ignorant fanatics tend to jump ship when churches liberalize (they also jump when churches become more hierarchial and ecumenical and lose their focus on a "personal relationship with God", which also tends to happen with fundie churches as they grow). What you're left with are those who stay in the church out of family tradition and the enlightened liberal Christians who believe in what the liberalizing church is doing. Unfortunately, neither group is very large or very zealous.

Look at the Episcopalians. Once upon a time they were the dominant religion in the American south, while the Methodists were ignorant Bible thumpers and the Baptists were just plain crazy fuckers in the woods. They were pretty hardcore, too, especially by today's standards. Now they're as hierarchial as the Roman Catholic Church and extremely liberal--and an insignificant and shrinking minority. The Methodists are hemorraging members for the same reason. If there's a schism between the American Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church and the American church becomes significantly more liberal than the Church of Rome, you can expect the same thing to happen to it.

I think liberal Christianity is metastable. It doesn't fullfill the primal hateful needs that fundie Christianity does, it doesn't explain the universe in a rational way like athiesm does, it actively discourages zealotry and aggressive evangelism so it doesn't grow very fast, and it encourages an open minded viewpoint. Liberal Christians, as a rule, drop either the Liberal or the Christian at one point or another.

[Admiral Johnason]

I think as the educational system declines, fundamentalism grows. The cure to religious fundamentalism is a policy of quality education. America's schools are garbage, so fundamentalism in this country is on the upswing.

I disagree. Fundies tend to harm the education system by screaming how bad it is and how it detracts from the Bible. They cause the decline.

[Lagmonster]

But ignorant fanatics tend to jump ship when churches liberalize (they also jump when churches become more hierarchial and ecumenical and lose their focus on a "personal relationship with God", which also tends to happen with fundie churches as they grow). What you're left with are those who stay in the church out of family tradition and the enlightened liberal Christians who believe in what the liberalizing church is doing. Unfortunately, neither group is very large or very zealous.

There's a case of conflicting perspective here. From the fundamentalist point of view, they aren't jumping ship, nor has their church ever died - it's the non-fundies who left the faith first as far as the fundies can tell, and the fundies simply regroup under the same banner with a different name, in essence trying to preserve the same intimate core church they've had for a thousand years, so I argued that religion - itself not an evolving philosophy - bleeds liberalism when it tries to be accepted as mainstream and modern thousands of years out of date.

Nevertheless, you seem to be right when you say that a church that tries to become mainstream dies when the fundamentalists refuse to themselves merge with the mainstream and return to their roots.

[Superman]

I think as the educational system declines, fundamentalism grows. The cure to religious fundamentalism is a policy of quality education. America's schools are garbage, so fundamentalism in this country is on the upswing.

I disagree. Fundies tend to harm the education system by screaming how bad it is and how it detracts from the Bible. They cause the decline.

No, they probably don't. They can harm it, sure, but, like Carl Sagan said, the reason Creationism is so accepted in this country is because most people don't realize the most basic scientific truths. Everytime these statistics come out, they're always along the lines of "70% of the public doesn't know that dinosaurs and humans lived in separate eras."

Most don't understand basic science or how to think critically. Throw religion into that mix, and you get ignorant fundies.

[Admiral Johnason]

I think as the educational system declines, fundamentalism grows. The cure to religious fundamentalism is a policy of quality education. America's schools are garbage, so fundamentalism in this country is on the upswing.

I disagree. Fundies tend to harm the education system by screaming how bad it is and how it detracts from the Bible. They cause the decline.

No, they probably don't. They can harm it, sure, but, like Carl Sagan said, the reason Creationism is so accepted in this country is because most people don't realize the most basic scientific truths. Everytime these statistics come out, they're always along the lines of "70% of the public doesn't know that dinosaurs and humans lived in separate eras."

Most don't understand basic science or how to think critically. Throw religion into that mix, and you get ignorant fundies.

Then I am wrong. But if they are fundies, then how will education work? They could just blot out anything they here that isn't in the Bible. Ignorant people can be educated, but fundies have a (bad and broken) system in place.

[Superman]

Then I am wrong. But if they are fundies, then how will education work? They could just blot out anything they here that isn't in the Bible. Ignorant people can be educated, but fundies have a (bad and broken) system in place.

You're right, and that probably just means that there will always be a class of people, hopefully never again the majority, who are basically stupid, emotionally driven and screwed up. I really do believe that the potential for being a fundie does not exist in everyone, or even the majority of people, but for those who are well... we just try to shut them up and educate everyone else.

The sad thing is that they have a right to raise kids, isolate them in "home" school, expose them to daily propaganda, and cram their own beliefs, which basically amount to a neurosis, down their (kids’) throats.

[Admiral Johnason]

Then I am wrong. But if they are fundies, then how will education work? They could just blot out anything they here that isn't in the Bible. Ignorant people can be educated, but fundies have a (bad and broken) system in place.

You're right, and that probably just means that there will always be a class of people, hopefully never again the majority, who are basically stupid, emotionally driven and screwed up. I really do believe that the potential for being a fundie does not exist in everyone, or even the majority of people, but for those who are well... we just try to shut them up and educate everyone else.

The sad thing is that they have a right to raise kids, isolate them in "home" school, expose them to daily propaganda, and cram their own beliefs, which basically amount to a neurosis, down their (kids’) throats.

Throughout American history, thye do tend to pop up and gain power, then decline when the shit hits the fan and people realize that their crap doesn't work. Then when the smole clears, they rise up and say that the reason for the crisis was the enlightened people. It makes me wish that Jesus would just show up on some televangelist's show and tell the fundies that they are totally wrong and that they have pissed him off. Then I snap out of my daydream and hear some idiot that I will burn in Hell.

[Superman]

Didn't Ghandi say something to the effect of, "I love Jesus, it's the Christians I can't stand?"

[Admiral Johnason]

Didn't Ghandi say something to the effect of, "I love Jesus, it's the Christians I can't stand?"

One of the many reasons that I think he's one of the greats men in modern history.

I like most Christians, but as a fan of the enlightenment and science (I totally abandoned the first half of Genesis and all of Revelations) I am hated by most fundies. Ironically, I found myself enjoying most of Catholism and I find the RCC agrees with me for the most part (I believe that gay people aren't sinners and should be allowed to marry and I think birht control is great.)

[RedImperator]

Fundamentalism is a perfectly natural reaction for people to have when they feel like the world is rapidly changing into something they don't recognize and don't understand, or when they feel powerless in the face of overwhelming forces in society--there's a damn good reason the average rank and file fundie is poor and fundamentalism's deepest roots in the United States are in the areas with the deepest poverty. There's a cycle in American history of fundamentalist revival (though, to be accurate, what we're really talking about is evangelical Protestantism, which isn't the same thing as fundamentalism, a late 19th century school of theology) and decline, but in places like Appalachia and the inland Deep South, it's never died out. Poor education, charlatans and hucksters like Pat Robertson, and plain old-fashioned bigotry feed the beast, but fear and poverty seem like the root causes of it.

This cycle will hit a downswing soon (if I had to guess, fundamentalist evangelical Protestantism's open alliance with the Bush Administration and the current GOP leadership is going to blow up in its face when the Republican Party collapses under the weight of the corruption and criminal incompetence of those same leaders and administration), and you'll see a decline in fundamentalism in the middle class. But it will always be present in places where faith is the only source of hope people have.