By Gudrun Kugler - from MercatorNet.com
Critics of religion often warn against the danger of fundamentalism. Without doubt, many philosophical convictions and worldviews carry a risk of exaggeration and narrow-mindedness that may result in political extremism. But that is equally true of secularist movements – perhaps even more than for religious ones. It is therefore regrettable to observe how the term “fundamentalism” is being turned into an instrument of demagoguery by certain secularist movements, which themselves are much more extremist than any of the religious groups they are targeting with such critique.
With such labels extreme secularists seek to discredit the very idea that religious believers should have the right to manifest their belief through practical observance. In that sense, they term as “fundamentalist” any genuine religious belief (that is, any belief that has practical consequences) and attempt to subvert the right of all citizens to act according to their conscience.
An example of this tactic came to the attention of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe recently, in the form of an unsolicited submission from a group calling itself the European Humanist Federation (EHF) to the European Commission research project, RELIGARE. The purpose of RELIGARE is to explore adequate policy responses to religious and cultural diversity as a social reality in Europe. The purpose of the EHF, however, seems to be evict religion from the public square and seriously curtail the freedom of citizens to act according to their religion and their conscience.
There are two important points that seem to escape the “humanists” attention: firstly, that decisions of conscience (such as “conscientious objection” against abortion and euthanasia) are usually based on well-founded reasoning rather than on religious belief, and, secondly, that, even if the conscientious objection were religiously based, there would still be the “right to manifest one’s religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”. This is explicitly recognised as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This is not to discount the risks of (religious and secularist) of fundamentalism. But there is a need for all participants in this debate to understand what fundamentalism is, and what it is not. The term has its origin within the Protestant community of the United States in the early 20th century, where those who disputed certain irreducible theological beliefs (the “fundamentals”) were considered to stand outside the Christian community.
Today, the term “fundamentalism” describes a blind and uncritical observance and a disregard of facts in favour of one’s faith or ideology.
This reproach does not hold true with regard to mainstream Christianity. The basis of Christianity -- as, for example, laid out in the authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church -- is generally not an interpretation of Scripture in which every word must be taken literally, but a living tradition which integrates divine revelation, classical philosophy and modern science.
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