The Rise of Fundamentalisms and the Concept of Sin

Abstract

Studies • volume 106 • number 422 183 The Rise of Fundamentalisms and the Concept of Sin1 Megan Loumagne Where are we? Conceptual artist Barbara Kruger’s piece entitled ‘You Are Not Yourself’ was created in 1982.2 The piece depicts the face of a woman in distress reflected in a shattered mirror, the accusation ‘you are not yourself’ overlaid on top. Kruger’s work has been highly acclaimed and heavily awarded, with installations in prominent art galleries around the world, and this image in particular captures something significant about the experience of life in an age of posts – post-modern, post-religion, post-structuralist, post-colonial, posteverything . It connotes pain, fragmentation, loss, disorientation, violence, uncertainty about identity, and more specifically, uncertainty about even the possibility of being able to understand one’s identity. Perhaps an even more apt slogan for this image would be, ‘You can’t know if you are yourself’. The anxiety evoked in the viewer mirrors the anxiety of the contemporary mind that cannot find anything reliable upon which to ground hope rather than despair as a fundamental orientation to existence. Thisinteriorfragmentationanddisorientation,causedbyavarietyofseismic shifts in philosophical, economic, sociological and scientific factors leads manyinourtimeto‘profoundfeelingsofalienationandnon-belonging’.3 Even though we live in the era of globalisation and electronic inter-connectedness, this has, it seems, paradoxically heightened rather than ameliorated feelings of loneliness and isolation. This pervasive sense of alienation, the lack of belonging and identity, the uncertainty and disorientation, are significant both for the consideration of the rise of fundamentalisms, as well as of contemporary developments in doctrines of sin. If Kruger’s image captures something significant about where we are, how did we get here? What does it have to do with doctrines of sin and with the Church more broadly? And how can we understand the rise of fundamentalisms? While there may be significant overlap among various fundamentalist The Rise of Fundamentalisms and the Concept of Sin 184 Studies • volume 106 • number 422 movements around the world, I focus on the example of fundamentalism within North American Protestantism because of its significant visibility in the media and the general public through figures like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and the extreme fundamentalist activities of Westboro Baptist Church.4 There are certainly important connections to be made between North American Protestant fundamentalism and other fundamentalisms, but that task lies beyond the scope of this essay. Due to limitations of time and space, and because of my desire to avoid caricaturing fundamentalisms as one monolithic category, which wouldn’t reflect the complexities of reality, I primarily focus on North American Protestant fundamentalism. Additionally, this article does not pretend to present an exhaustive study of as controversial and complex a topic as fundamentalism. It simply seeks to illuminate some of the complexities of the relationship between fundamentalism and Christian reflection on sin, and to propose some considerations for contemporary theological reflection on sin in a time when fundamentalist movements are perhaps gaining renewed momentum. Relevant philosophical developments Understanding the rise of fundamentalism within North American Protestantism in all of its complexity would require a detailed analysis of the myriad factors – including wars, social movements, economic issues – that led to it. However, for the purposes of this paper, I focus mainly on philosophical and theological developments. To begin, I distinguish the term ‘fundamentalist’ from ‘conservative’ or ‘traditionalist’, following a similar move made by Martin Marty and R Scott Appleby in their encyclopedic eight-year study of various fundamentalisms around the world.5 While both conservatives and fundamentalists have a concern for orthodoxy, the term ‘fundamentalists’ refers to those who view themselves and their religious beliefs as under attack by the broader culture around them, and who are willing to engage in battle in a variety of different ways to defend what they perceive as religious truth. As Marty and Appleby describe, ‘Fundamentalists see themselves as militants . . . [they] begin as traditionalists who perceive some challenge or threat to their core identity, both social and personal. They react, they fight back with great innovative power’.6 This is not meant to imply that fundamentalists or religious people more broadly are not ‘under attack’ in some legitimate ways in our time, and Megan Loumagne...