In 2011, the indie alternative group Arcade Fire won the Grammy Award’s Album of the Year for their work titled The Suburbs. They are the first indie group (meaning independent of a major record label) to have that distinction. Besides being great music, the album speaks of the modern world, especially as realized in North America (Arcade Fire is Canadian). The heart of the album for me comes with a slow mournful song, Sprawl I (Flatlands). The first stanza starts with the lyrics:
Took a drive into the sprawl,
To find the house where we used to stay,
I couldn't read the number in the dark
You said, “Let’s save it for another day.”
The French sociologist Emile Durkheim wrote about searching for “the house where we used to stay.” He studied the freedoms of our modern life, our social, religious, and cultural liberties. Here in the United States, we have taken autonomy to a level never before seen. Mobility is an American right. A symbol of this is Arcade Fire’s winning the top Grammy as just an indie group. We celebrate those who come from humble beginnings and attain greatness. We tell our children they can be whoever they want to be when they grow up. On top of unlimited achievement, we have severed ties with cultural roots. We prize our diversity, protecting minorities and extending rights to diverse religions and interest groups, but as a nation and a people we maintain no cultural or religious identity. Durkheim was not criticizing these efforts; they should be done. But he said these freedoms come at a cost, and that cost is alienation.
I took a drive into the sprawl
To find the places we used to play
It was the loneliest day of my life
You're talking at me, but I'm still far away
Religious fundamentalism is a reaction to this alienation. People search “to find the places we used to play.” They crave something heavy to anchor their lives; something that won’t change; something to serve as a reference point. The infallibility of religious texts and their sacred laws become the answer. Not because there is any special evidence that the texts are infallible or the laws are sacred, but because we want them to be so. In North America, biblical infallibility is the doctrine of choice. In the Middle East, where populations are still dealing with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, it is the absolute authority of the Koran and Sharia Law. But the causes and the affects are similar.
Let's take a drive through the sprawl
Through these towns they built to change
And then you said “The emotions are dead”
It’s no wonder that you feel so estranged
I see the challenge for faith in the 21st century as how to answer this growing estrangement. These towns are sure to change. Jobs will be lost, companies will fail, and even countries can go bankrupt. The feelings of alienation will only increase. But what response will be offered by the religions of the world? Will we resort to fundamentalism, or will we deal honestly with reality? And do we really understand how much the answer’s worth?
The last defender of the sprawl
Said “Where do you kids live?”
Well, sir, if you only knew what the answer's worth
Been searching every corner of the earth.
Marj, on Facebook, says fear is what causes religious fundamentalism
Steve, on Facebook, said, ” I think fear is right on. I also believe that the fear comes from an inability to cope with complexity and ambiguity. Thus in the fudamentalists mind ideas become compartmentalized amd simple answers to complex questions are devised to avoid the ambiguities that naturally exist in life.”
Thanks Marj- What do you think they are afraid of?
Thanks Steve- That’s a good point. A fundamentalist view becomes the refuge from modern complexity.
Ryan, on Facebook, says “It seems to me that ignorance coupled with strong feelings can often cause fundamentalism (assuming the pejorative understanding of the term).”
Ryan- What do you think causes the strong feelings, and is it willful ignorance or something that can be helped with better communication from religion professors about the nature of the Bible?
I follow Karen Armstrong in Battle for God in thinking Religious Fundamentalism ironically enough arises from an acceptance of enlightenment categories as the only categories of truth. It is a reductionism of human experience. These limited and failed notions of truth then have to be defined as if the world worldview dependent on it. This why I think listening to all stripes of fundamentalists: Christian, Musllim, Hundu and recently Atheist fundamentalists have a similar tone and style in their arguments, eerily so.
Thanks Earnesto- great comment. I agree that its eerie about the similar tone between the different fundamentalist groups. What do you think is driving the common churchgoer at the neighborhood fundamentalist church? Do you think they are going there because of these enlightenment notions of truth, or is there something basic to their experience that causes them to seek this reduction of human experience?
Bruce –
I think the subject matter lends itself to strong feelings, just as things like abortion and homosexuality lend themselves to strong feelings and emotions. This is especially true given the family/almost gang-like nature of Christianity (or religions in general).
In many cases it is likely willful ignorance and laziness, but I imagine that many are also honestly so. Thus, I do believe it can be helped with more education. I should also add that when I say “fundamentalist” I don’t necessarily mean evangelical Christians who hold to things like inerrancy and such, since I know some very smart and educated evangelical believers.
When I say fundamentalism, I am including Evangelical Christians who hold to biblical inerrancy. I agree that there are some very smart and educated evangelical believers, and I am trying to understand why they would believe such a thing when it is clearly against all the evidence. As Bart Ehrman would say, every religion professor at every Ivy league school would adamantly disagree with biblical inerrancy. The church fathers did not teach biblical inerrancy. The Middle Age scholastics did not believe in biblical inerrancy. It is a modern aberration. Therefore there must be something that has changed in modern society that is causing them to close their eyes to the evidence to the contrary.
Yesterday at our pastor lunch gig a friend of mine articulated the problem by defining three spheres of debate: Dogma, Doctrine and Opinion. Many Christians don’t know the difference between the three and will divide and fight and die on the issues that should be open to disagree. Many churches drop the ball on this clarification and thereby breed strands of fundamentalist posture and thought. Innerancy is one of those matters. Claiming infallibility is a way of arguing your point from a closed case. How can any true communication take place in that arena?
Let me add that it’s the idea of biblical inerrancy that’s turned many away from Christ, and I think that’s sad.
Thanks Eric, I agree!
Bruce –
I would caution that even if inerrancy is a recent view with respect to the belief system as a whole, this does not mean that it is incorrect. To make such a conclusion based on when it was adopted would be to commit the genetic fallacy. However, if you are correct, I would grant you that it is strong evidence that the Bible was not intended to be infallible.
An evangelical believer, however, generally takes inerrancy to be a corollary of inspiration, and inspiration was definitely a view held from the beginning.
I have to wonder, though, if the Bible is “divine” or an account of the divine, why wouldn’t we expect it to be infallible? By granting that it is fallible, you seem to undercut any reason why one should take it seriously in the first place.
Thank you for your comment, but I disagree with you completely.
For your first point, I do not see a genetic fallacy. My point was that over two thousand years of Christian history, believers did not seem to need an inerrant Bible to believe that the message was true. Why do we need it now? It is an aberration of Christian history. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Bible was intended to be inerrant, as you say. The Church fathers did not see this evidence, the Scholastics did not see this evidence, and the biblical critics today certainly do not see this evidence.
For your second point, inspiration and authorship are not the same thing. I see no reason why inspiration would necessitate inerrancy. God is not the author, humans are the author through inspiration. Do not confuse these two concepts. Inspiration does not necessitate inerrancy. The fact of human authorship would seem to me to actually necessitate errors, unless you believe the human authors were somehow perfect gods?
For your third point, you seem to be committing a false dichotomy, saying either the Bible must be inerrant or we shouldn’t take it seriously at all. Are you saying that truth must be black or white? That is the whole problem with fundamentalism, is that fundementalists see the world in black and white. Remember Thomas after the resurrection. He said unless he could put his fingers in Jesus’s nail holes and in his side he would not believe. It is the same with those who demand a perfect Bible before they can believe. They say along with Thomas, “unless I have a perfect Bible, I will not believe.”
Bruce –
I said it would be a genetic fallacy if you were drawing the conclusion that inerrancy is false *because* it is a relatively new belief. This would not follow. But if you aren’t making that argument, then that’s fine.
I would, however, caution you to be careful when claiming that there is no evidence whatsoever for inerrancy, since much of Christian apologetics and philosophy has devoted itself to just this evidence. You may contend with whether it is good evidence or not, just as I might, but it seems slightly disingenuous to make such a sweeping dismissal.
I’d say we need an inerrant bible because otherwise there is nothing to recommend its being divine or true. It simply blends in with the rest of the manifold religious texts. Why on Earth would God, with all “His” power, bother to make or endorse or what-have-you a fallible text that is indistinguishable from any other plain ol’ human devised mythology? If the Bible cannot be trusted in some parts, why should one trust it in its overall message? Its uniqueness and force are simply lost. Now, that may not be a problem for one who already believes, such as yourself, but what good is a fallible “divine” book to a skeptic?
I agree that inspiration and authorship are not equivalent. Part of this depends on how you define “inspiration”. Evangelicals take “inspiration” in a way that implies inerrancy, whereas I am guessing you define “inspiration” differently.
As for the false dichotomy, I think you have misunderstood me. When you say “either the Bible must be inerrant or we shouldn’t take it seriously at all” you are quantifying over all people. Certainly people who already believe it will take it seriously and believe that they should, but why should a skeptic? Sure a skeptic could take it “seriously” in the sense of being important literature, but why in the world would a skeptic, or someone from another faith be motivated to believe it more than literature or fiction? Why should one believe it to be true?
I will say that truth is *indeed*, 100%, black and white, by nature, by necessity. Truth is binary. A proposition p is either true or it is false. There is no middle ground. On this matter, the fundamentalists have it right. That doesn’t mean everything is as easy as black and white in life, since matters are often quite convoluted. Nevertheless, in principle, the truth of the matter can be parsed out.
Maybe this point got lost somewhere along the way…
Until the invention of the printing of press the only Bible that people had, had been artistic paintings and statues that decorated various churches.
This is because literacy was not common among common people prior to the 1500s. Arguably, one of the main reasons why the Protestant Reformation was so effective was because of the invention of the printing press.
The word “Bible” itself is taken from the same word in Greek that Bibliography comes…in proper usage The Bible simply means Library of Books.
Modern ideals of fallibility and errancy were foreign to the ancient church. Given that literacy wasn’t common until the invention of the printing press implies these terms and concepts had little signifance.
The classical theological view defined the Bible as sacramental. The whole idea of a sacrament is a physical object able to communicate grace and enlightenment. Now because the reformers placed primacy of authority on apostolic teaching as found in Scripture, is what partly changed the sacramental view of the Bible. In turn elevating the Bible into something much higher then previously defined.
Enter fundamentalism…
In Protestant Christianity this was but one of many post reformation movements.
In the 1700 and 1800s there were various restoration theological movements that arose across North America. They all had one thing in common. Ideally, they agreed that the early church somehow lost their way and now TRUTH was being restored.
This is how the Latter Day Saint Church began…as well as the Jehovah’s Witnesses; Christian Science; Seventh Day Adventist and so on. These groups are all post reformation, restoration movements within the larger umbrella of Christianity.
One of these restoration movements (for a lack of a better term) were the Revivalists…this is the group that develop the kind of theology that Christian Fundamentalism of today has borrowed (the Rapture idea, Biblical Infallibility, and so on).
Why did it go like that?
The simple answer is because of a human desire that seeks to preserve a sense of the sacred in the midst of the profane.
With the on slot of modernity and industrialization; combined with not understanding the Bible as sacramental and Christianity fragmented into extra-Christian traditions. Competing with one another for genuine authenticity: is what most likely caused Christian Fundamentalism as we know it today….
….At least this is my take on the discussion. What do I know…how’s it going everyone
Hello Rob- Great to hear from you. Thanks for your insightful background above. You said it much better than I could.
I think Jesus had a fair amount to say about his own fundy friends:
“You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life.” (John 5:38,39)
I was saved by an encounter with Jesus through prayer, I never thought the bible saved me, but it did explain me.
Great comment Eric!
I found this interesting. It comes from a chapter titled: On Believing that the Scriptures are Divinely Inspired, written by Thomas Crisp, a prominent Christian philosopher who studied under Plantinga.
“Secondly, as to what I shall mean by the claim that the Bible is ‘divinely
inspired’: I assume that to say of the Bible that it is divinely inspired is to say,
among other things, that it has been authored by God and that, by way of its
sentences, God asserts various propositions. (There’s more to it, of course. He
asserts propositions by way of its sentences, true enough, but he also heals our
affections, warns us against sin, encourages us, directs us, comforts us, and
more. I assume though that inspiration of the scriptures is at least a matter of
God’s communicating various propositions by way of its sentences.) This
raises many questions. In what sense was the Bible ‘authored’ by God? Can we
really make sense of the idea that God asserts propositions by way of the sentences of the Bible? Isn’t that way of thinking passe´, fundamentalist, or
otherwise suspect? To whom does God assert these propositions? Who’s the
audience here?
I haven’t much to say about these questions. I take it that God authored the
Bible in the sense that he arranged for the inscription of its sentences and that
he intends to assert various propositions to us by way of these sentences. As to
how he arranged for their inscription, I’ve nothing to say here other than that
he seems to have employed a multitude of methods. As to whether we can
really make sense of the idea that God asserts propositions by way of the
sentences of the Bible, it seems to me that we clearly can and that arguments
to the contrary are underwhelming.”
Thanks for posting that quotation.
Hi Bruce…
Thanks for the encouraging feedback. How’s it going