Fundamentalism

‘Anyone who takes their religion seriously has got to be a fundamentalist.’

Evaluate this view with reference to the two fundamentalist movements you have studied [30marks]

It would certainly seem to be the case that someone claiming to be a fundamentalist

would be someone who takes their religion seriously. Even if one were to assume that

not all religious people do take their religion seriously it is not unreasonable to say that

someone who chooses to accept or move into to an aspect of their religion which is not

exactly main-stream must mean that they are taking their religion seriously since they are

taking a stance which moves them into a separate group within the wider embrace of the

religion and this would probably not happen if the person was not carefully considering

their religion. Fundamentalism also requires that one understands and accepts the

absolute authority of the scriptures, again a decision which has to be taken. But the

issue here is also whether taking religion seriously means that one must become a

fundamentalist. In almost all religious groups which have become labelled as

fundamentalist are minorities within the religion and thus if this statement were to be

correct it would mean that the majority of people involved in any particular religion do not

take their religion seriously since they are not fundamentalists and this clearly is not the

case. However there is some evidence that those who are fundamentalists can

sometimes adopt a view which might well suggest that they are indeed the only people

who take the religion seriously.

Chabad Lubavitch is an Hassidic group within Judaism which is often considered to be

Fundamentalist although within Judaism this would not necessarily be the case.

Orthodox Judaism generally maintains that it continues the appropriate traditions and

practices which mean that it is indeed Orthodox and thus the concept of fundamentalist

is almost alien. However, when we consider the Chabad Lubavitch movement we...