Demons From An Ancient World

Western Fundamentalism

The noun fundamentalism has become a pejorative term.  In the West it has connotations of ignorant, uneducated, and of ancient and extreme beliefs, along with simplistic, superficial, and thoughtless lifestyles. "Fundamentalism" does not have a direct opposite.  If one were to complete the sentence, "I am not a fundamentalist, I am a(n) xxxxx" no noun springs to mind.  Maybe nouns such as "liberal" or "progressive", or adjectives such as "openminded" or "enlightened" or "sophisticated" or "educated" would go part of the way.  Fundamentalism, for good or ill, has now become inextricably linked to backwardness and primitive ignorance.

In Western Christian circles "fundamentalism" was a term coined by authentic Christians around the nineteen thirties.  It was a movement to identify the fundamental doctrines and teachings of the Bible in the face of widespread and rapid defalcation away from the true faith.   However, because the culture was quickly shape-shifting into Unbelief, the term quickly became one of contempt.  In the wonderfully enlightened scientific age, who would believe in ex-nihilo creation by God any longer, since Science "proved" all reality came into existence by chance.  And so it rolled.

The Genuine Article Versus The Cheap Knock-Off

Will The Real Islamic Believer Please Stand Up

The term "fundamentalism" is most often used pejoratively, referring to thoughtless, narrow-minded bigots.  Thus when discussing secularists, a fundamentalist within that particular broad church, would be one who railed against all religions that were not consistently based on the one true faith of secularism.

The term Islamic fundamentalists refers to those adherents who take the fundamental doctrines, precepts, principles and praxis of that religion seriously.  But the term is like putty.  Within a short time Islamic fundamentalism has also come to mean narrow-minded, bigoted fanatics.  Is this fair?

The House of Islam (Dar al Islam) is any area where Islamic law prevails.  However, many Islamic nations care little for Islamic law.  A classic example would be the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia.  The ruling family of Saud lives in many cases in extreme opulence.  It practises many things forbidden in Islam: wine, women, cigars, and song.  It's leaders are educated in the West and are in many ways thoroughly Westernised.  The House of Saud is anything but fundamentalist.

This is the reason Osama Bin Laden--while interested in tearing down the Great Satan (the United States)--was more preoccupied with throwing out the apostates ruling Saudi Arabia.

Knowing the Enemy, Part I

Ships Passing in the Night

We have observed before on this blog that the West is failing miserably to understand ISIS--President Obama failing worst of all.  There are a number of reasons for this.  Firstly, the West is secularist and materialist in its philosophical, ideological and religious outlooks.  It projects its world-view onto other hearts and minds around the globe.  When these folk fail to live up to Western expectations, but rather live other philosophies and religions, Western leaders bemusedly scratch their heads.

Secondly, the Commentariat and the ruling classes in the West (as part of their secularism) despise other religions as ignorance personified.  The West's "selfie" view is that it has shrugged off the coils of superstition, gods, heaven, hell, and eternity.  There is only matter, which is both brute and blind.  Any suggestion otherwise is regarded as pre-scientific and pre-rational.  Any other view, except the West's, is ignorance personified.  Thus, the West views religious people (Christians included) as uneducated, untaught, and ignorant.  They are, therefore, primitive and superstititious. 

Thirdly, the West has a confused understanding of "fundamentalism" (which in the present Western lexicon is a term of contempt).

Stupid, Crazy, Ignorant and Dangerous

No Surprises

Secularism represents the most intolerant bigotry in the West.  Its megaphone is the media.  It consistently casts its opponents--religious believers, usually Christians--as ignorant and dangerous.  But that is its only consistency.  In all other ways it is hypocritical. 

Rodney Stark describes the syndrome:

Misguided Primitive Christians

Caesar is Lord After All

So all those Christians who laid down their lives in the circus arenas of Rome were deeply mistaken. True, they were faithful to what they believed, but their theology was bad. Extremist, actually. One might say they were fundamentalists and, as we all know now, fundamentalism is the greatest threat facing any society.

Rome periodically engaged in pogroms against Christians; thousands were killed. The church hailed them as martyrs at the time--but the church now knows differently. We are a bit more sophisticated. Our theology has matured.

Primitive Christians stupidly forced a confrontation with Pax Romana. Rome practised freedom of religion in the public square. Actually its multi-culturalism and commitment to religious pluralism was prodigious. Provided one's fundamental loyalties to the State remained firm, one could believe and worship as one chose. It was a most advanced proto-modern Western society. Rome deeply respected liberty of conscience in religious matters.

All one had to do was take a bit of an oath, offer a civil sacrifice, and make a profession of faith along the lines of "Caesar is Lord". Then you were free to believe and do as your conscience dictated. But primitive Christians were fundamental extremists. They had a narrow sectarian argument along the line of Jesus being Lord; therefore, whilst they were more than willing to be co-operative citizens, they were not prepared to take the required oath of state loyalty. To vow "Caesar is Lord" was to deny that "Jesus is Lord", apparently. How persnickety was that!

A lot of lives could have been saved if only the primitive church had had the benefit of a more mature and sanguine theology. Such as the one that thankfully operates in New Zealand today. We, in the modern church, understand that tolerance is a Christian virtue--probably the most important virtue of all, since tolerance is a manifestation of love, and well, God is love. So love must be God. So God is tolerance. And tolerance must be God. Therefore, it is profoundly Christian that tolerance is the highest civic virtue in our modern Western multi-cultural societies. So much so that if any today were to question the higher ethic of multi-culturalism and religious-belief-system pluriformity they would be proscribed, ridiculed and rejected as fundamentalists, and deservedly so.

It was really good to see that at the civic "day of mourning" in Christchurch last week the churches were not just represented, but were front and centre. Clearly the civil authorities have achieved a wonderful "Pax Romana", if you would permit the anachronism, the envy of any Caesar. The whole nation stood to worship a god--a god called "No-name"--a god with enlightened multi-cultural pluriform attributes so that we could all pour out our hearts to the "whatever-you-conceive-him/her/it-to-be god". Granted that's a bit of a mouthful of a moniker, but that's what the state requires, and not only is Caesar Lord, but he has to be this way if we are to be a tolerant multi-cultural religiously plural society--which is really a Christian society, after all. The thing celebrated was how we are all one with Christchurch, even though we all believe so differently. Well, actually those differences are trivial. Those early Christian martyrs were foolish fundamentalists. Thank god we have moved on.

It was great to see the Christian Church actively involved and front of stage. We noted how scrupulously careful many of the Christian officiants were to remove any reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. Quite right. How powerfully they were able to extend the greatest commandment of inclusive tolerance to all when they read from the Bible. Yes--that same Bible which the early Christians used. Now it is true that the rabid Apostle Paul, a fundamentalist of fundamentalists, actually wrote in that Bible that no-one can say "Jesus is Lord" and mean it, except by the power of Holy Spirit at work in one's soul. Now this sort of implies, to be fair, that if anyone is ashamed or reluctant to say "Jesus is Lord" and live it out publicly, then the Holy Spirit is not at work in them. But that's just Paul with his rabbinic Phariseeism talking.

Thankfully at times Paul rose above his Phariseeism. A more enlightened Paul also wrote those words which were so meaningful to so many people gathered at Hagley Park in Christchurch, namely "Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness? . . . For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God. . . ."

Now, granted that the actual phrase Paul wrote read "shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" but the Christian leaders were quite right to expunge that, since this was a civic occasion and we were not gathered to be sectarian in any way. We were all there in the name of the "whatever-you-conceive-him/her/it-to-be god" which is the only god acknowledged by Caesar today and therefore the only real god we should acknowledge as well--particularly on a civic occasion.

And as for Hayley Westenra singing Amazing Grace--well, didn't that send the old goose-bumps rising. All that stuff about "through many dangers, toils, and snares" and "grace will lead me home". Poor repentant slave trader, John Newton would never have imagined that his hymn of celebration of sectarian Christianity would have been liberated from its original narrowness and partisan sentiments and be employed in such a wonderful pluralistic civic occasion. Truly, our religion is what Caesar says it must be--and we are OK with that.

It is so heartening to be in our more enlightened modern age when we Christians have moved on from those primitive Christian fundamentalists. It is a great pity that their misguided zeal led them to their deaths, but things like that happen when you are not enlightened. We modern Christians were uplifted to see Christian officiants front and centre in Hagley Park. We felt good about ourselves. To be accepted and honoured by Caesar--well, it's not to be sneezed at.

As for that Lord Jesus Christ--well he died on a cross, so he would be used to such a humiliation as being excised from His own Scriptures. He would not mind. He would probably have been embarrassed by the over-scrupulous fundamentalism of those primitive Christians anyway. We know that we are, and that Jesus, if he is anything, is tolerant of our feelings. So he probably thinks what we think anyway.

Thank god--that one with a long name--we have moved on to a more civic and modern, and enlightened religion. We feel so comfortable. The god-with-no-name has led us home.

The Inevitability of Evolutionism's Demise

Only the Fit Survive

OK, so we know that evolutionism is a religion--in fact, the established religion of our day. Being an established religion, with universalist pretensions, it seeks to pre-interpret all reality according to its precepts. Often times this degenerates into downright idiocy--but there you go.

Phillip Longman is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation and Schwartz Senior Fellow at the Washington Monthly has recently provided us with a classic of the genre. He argues that evolution explains why the godliest survive! Yes he does. We kid you not.

Longman has understood that religious people reproduce after their own kind, and their reproduction is abundant, on the one hand, and powerfully conforming of their children to grow up and live according to the tenets of their parent's religion, on the other. This, says Longman, is explained by evolutionism: religion is enabling people to survive. (He gracefully elides over the chasm in his argument: these same religious people believe [rightly] that evolutionism is a false religion and an idolatrous fantasy, so the survival of the godliest is going to result in the rejection of evolutionism as a false religion and an unscientific crock of roughly the same hue as alchemy.)

To be sure, in countries rich and poor, under all forms of government, birth rates are declining across the globe. But they are declining least among those adhering to strict religious codes and literal belief in the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran. Indeed, the pattern of human fertility now fits this pattern: the least likely to procreate are those who profess no believe in God; those who describe themselves as agnostic or simply spiritual are only somewhat slightly less likely to be childless. Moving up the spectrum, family size increases among practicing Unitarians, Reform Jews, mainline Protestants and “cafeteria” Catholics, but the birthrates found in these populations are still far below replacement levels. Only as we approach the realm of religious belief and practice marked by an intensity we might call, for lack of a better word, “fundamentalism,” do we find pockets of high fertility and consequent rapid population growth.

The online article publishes this rather neat photo, entitled "Quiverful":

Not only do the faithful bear more children, their offspring are more likely to continue in the faith of their fathers.

When confronted with the fact that they are being outbred, secularists often respond that many if not most children born into highly religious families will grow up to reject the faith of their fathers — such is the assumed allure of freedom and individuality. This thought comports with the life experience of the many members of the Baby Boom generation, who shook off the bonds of traditional authority in the 1960s and 1970s, and who cannot imagine why the rest of humanity will not eventually catch on and catch up.

Arguing against this proposition, however, are some stubborn demographic facts. Among fundamentalist families, it turns out, the apple does not fall far from the tree. And the more demanding the faith, the more this rule applies.

Only five percent of children born to the most conservative Amish, for example, move on to other faiths or lifestyles. The defection rate is higher among New Order Amish, Mormons and other comparatively less demanding fundamentalist communities, yet they still hold on to the majority of their children. Moreover, what defections they may experience are more than offset by converts, with the net flow favoring conservative faiths, according to poll data gathered by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Thus we see 21 percent of converts leaving liberal and moderate denominations for more fundamentalist ones, and only 15 percent going the other way. There are many swirls and currents that affect us all as individuals, but between higher fertility and more successful indoctrination, the main demographic tide of history is clearly flowing in favor of fundamentalism.

This dynamic sets us a demographic time bomb for the current established religion of secularist evolutionism.

. . . even if religiously fundamentalist families only have a few more children than secular or religiously moderate counterparts, and they can keep those children holding on to fundamentalist faith and values (especially related to child-bearing), the passage of generations will greatly magnify their numbers and influence. Similarly, secularists and others who choose to have only one or two children, and who pass those values on to their children, will, over time, see their population decline precipitously.

But don't worry, the demise of secularist evolutionism as a result of a demographic time bomb only serves to "prove" the validity of evolutionism itself. We, however, have another explanation: those who hate Me, love death says the Lord (Proverbs 8:36).

It is precisely at this point that we are faced with one of the greatest ironies of modern human history. Evolutionism asserts the world has by chance hard-wired its own survival into the DNA of life. This secularist man-worshipping faith has achieved dominant pre-eminence over our world. It is partly right. The entire creation is indeed hard-wired, not just for survival but for a teleological glory that is so great and glorious, it yet remains indescribable. But the wiring comes from the will, purpose, and gracious plan of God. Those unfit for such glory are passed by and perish from the earth. They do not survive. But those fit for the glory that is to be revealed succeed and prosper and multiply and expand. They do not merely survive, they triumph.

But the fit and the unfit are marked not by genes--although as this article points out, genes are not unaffected by unfitness and fitness--but by faith or unbelief in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of the world. Those who repent and believe are made part of the regenerated and redeemed human race with Christ at its head. They not only survive, but prosper and inherit the entire earth. This is the ultimate survival of the fittest: but it is Christ Who makes fit, not "Nature".

Evolutionism distorts a fundamental teaching of Scripture. When unbelievers accept its teachings and embrace its idolatry they consign themselves to non-survival, to death. They are excised from the glorious end that all human history is irrevocably heading towards.

Evolution is therefore true, but not as evolutionists know it, Jim.

Secularism in the Twilight

The Mermaids Sing, But Not to Me

It's always amusing and gratifying when Unbelief has gnawing doubts about its so-called emerging ascendency. A profound belief in the inevitable triumph of the cause has always proved deeply motivational to all chiliasts. Secular humanists have been no exception.

For the past forty years or so the ideology of secular humanism has included a belief in the inevitable triumph of its cause. The West was becoming progressively more secular, less religious; scientific rationalism would inevitably reign supreme. It was just a matter of time. The tide of history was running strongly down secular main street. But no longer, it seems.

In a recent article in the New Humanist, entitled, Battle of the Babies, Caspar Melville captures the gradually emerging despondency amongst the secularists. A prescient few are starting to realise that, far from achieving ascendency, their anti-Christian ideology is going to fail.

The reason: non-secular fundamentalist groups (by which is meant anyone whose religious beliefs are held sufficiently seriously that they actually shape one's life) are reproducing well above their replacement rate, whereas secular humanists are (demographically) a dying breed.

His article is based on an interview with "political scientist Eric Kaufmann, a reader in politics at London’s Birkbeck College, and the author of the new book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, out in March from Profile Books." Kaufmann is "joining the dots", as it were, between the undeniable fact of far higher birth rates amongst serious religious people in the West, and the demographic death spiral amongst secular humanists.

What Kaufmann is arguing is that the secularisation thesis, the assumption that modernity leads inexorably to a lessening of religious belief and a day when we are all rational humanists, is wrong – at one point Kaufmann approvingly quotes Rodney Stark and Roger Finke’s view that this is “a failed prophecy”. Further he is saying that there is something about our current form of liberal secularism that contains (here’s another headline) the seeds of its own destruction. Since the birth rate of individualistic secular people the world over is way below replacement level (2.1 in the West), and the birth rate of religious fundamentalists is way above (between 5 and 7.5 depending on sect), then through the sheer force of demography religious fundamentalism is going to become a much bigger force in the world and gain considerable political muscle. Literalist religious conservatism is being reborn and we secular liberals are the midwives.

In this view, secular humanism is self-destructing. The first reason is that it is narcissistically individualistic. Children are "rug-rats" which spoil the indulgent lifestyles of the secularists. Secondly, the toleration ethic in secular humanism means that it tends to indulge fundamentalists, not oppose them up front. In former days, he notes, governments went to war to deal with religious zealots, such as Mormons. Hardly acceptable today, he admits somewhat wistfully. Finally, and in our view, by far the more serious reason is that secularism has nothing "big" to live for any longer. It is a broken down ideology which is unable to stand for much any longer. It no longer has any "big ideas".

These three things mean that secularism is anaemic and weak in the face of people with fundamental religious beliefs.

The article notes that committed Christian groups and movements in the United States are linking together fecundity and larger families, with a longer term plan to make the United States part of a new Christendom. This agenda is identified as being "sinister".

What can be done? Well, firstly there could be active policies to restrict people having lots of children.

“Well, I don’t think we want to get in a population footrace. It may be necessary for secular people to have slightly more children but it would be nicer if we could get fundamentalists to have fewer children.” A strangely authoritarian notion to fall from the lips of a self-confessed liberal. “Yes,” he admits, “imposing restrictions would be condemned as discriminatory. But there are carrots as well as sticks."

Secondly, there is the option of converting the Christians.

Another scenario he imagines in his conclusion is that secularism might start to do a better job of winning over the children of religious fundamentalism. But at the moment he sees no statistical sign of this, and he seems gloomy about the prospect. Why? “Part of my argument is that religion does provide that enchantment, that meaning and emotion, and in our current moment we lack that. This is the challenge for secularism: can it come up with such an ideology?”

To my mind this looks a worrying prospect. Counter religion by producing a new kind of secular enchantment? Doesn’t it also betray a lack of conviction about the values that underpin our current society and the appeal they might hold for anyone who comes into contact with them?

Secular enchantment? Good luck with that. The only enchantment it will ever have is the age-old enchantment of sin itself--and that will not get any traction amongst truly converted Believers. Secular humanism is now world-weary. It has nothing left to live for, as one of its cheerleaders has noted:

Kenan Malik undercuts the scaremongering that so often accompanies discussion of demography by suggesting that we already have a powerful weapon against the trends, if only we could see it. “What has eroded,” he argues, “is faith in the idea that it is possible to win peoples of different backgrounds to a common set of secular, humanist, enlightened values. And that is the real problem: not immigration, nor Muslim immigration, but the lack of conviction in a progressive, secular, humanist project.”

What Kaufmann and Malik are certainly in accord on is the need to displace the multicultural “celebration of difference” model of toleration with one that contains a far more robust sense of common values and a far more stringent rejection of reactionary fundamentalism. “We need a stronger sense of liberal values,” Kaufmann told me. “We should answer back to all fundamentalisms.”

But secularism and values are always uneasy bed-fellows. Values have to be based upon something other than brute matter. Go too far down that track, and the foundations of secularism crumble, and it ends up looking more and more as it truly is--just one more faux-fundamentalist religion, albeit one lacking any cultural power.

Kaufmann wants to give a final bit of advice to salvage the cause: secular humanism needs to find common ground with "moderate" religious people (by which is meant, religious people who keep their religion strictly private and to themselves, and who have eschewed bringing their religious beliefs with them into the public square.) New Zealanders will recall that this was attempted recently by the Labour government under Helen Clark. It failed miserably, as one would have expected. Such folk are really just secularists in drag. Their cultural enervation is already complete.

(S)ecularists might need to collaborate more with religious moderates – find common cause in the way fundamentalists are doing. “The issue is not belief in God, but organised religion, especially fundamentalism. Non-believers can still have a rich conversation with moderate people who believe in God. You can’t have a conversation with a fundamentalist.”

If Kaufmann admits that his scary headlines somewhat belie the provisional nature of his findings, he has an answer: “I am trying to force a certain rethink of the idea that we are moving naturally toward secularism. To shake up our complacency and, perhaps, stir up some debate.”

Secularists may well be shaken by his book, but will they be stirred?

We believe secularists will be neither shaken, nor stirred. Once its inevitable attendant narcissism has captured the soul, one's attention span can only have an ever diminishing half-life.

Welcome to the world-weary existence of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Meanwhile, the people of God will go from strength to strength because Zion has already been established as the greatest, above all mountains.