Putting the FUN back in FUNdamentalism

I’ve been called a fundamentalist about four times. At least I’ve been called a fundamentalist about four times to my face. Perhaps this word has been used to describe me in my absence more often. And I’ll admit it doesn’t bother me. Perhaps the only thing that bothers me about being called a fundamentalist is that the word gets used by so many people who don’t really even know what the word means. Indeed, the word has changed its meaning.

For some people, "fundamentalist" means an angry person who uses an allegedly divine book to justify being mean to women and killing people. I am not sure this definition of "fundamentalist" is a good descriptor for me. The book whose divine claims I accept, the Bible, is certainly filled with a lot of violence. It also has a lot of things to say about gender roles that are not only countercultural in our own time and place, but were also radically countercultural in the times and places in which those passages were written. But the terrorism that I find myself commanded to practice within my holy book is the kind of terrorism that turns the other cheek, prays for persecutors and loves enemies. In a time in history where everyone, left and right, is using anger, slander, and verbal and physical violence to defeat "the enemy," the kind of terrorism Jesus calls us to will go unnoticed on the evening news - but it moves mountains for the broken and hurting.

For other people, "fundamentalist" means "not very smart." A "fundamentalist" is someone who just isn’t smart enough to realize that the Bible uses a lot of poetic and even metaphorical language to make its points. Sometimes people prefer to call this kind of fundamentalist a "literalist." Here, however, the argument can get convoluted. If I read about "the shadow of God’s wings" and think that the Bible teaches that God is a giant bird, then yes I am probably missing the point of the poetry I am reading. But if I read a passage about Jesus miraculously feeding a crowd of five thousand from a single boy’s lunch of bread and fish and take that passage literally, then I might be taking the foolish risk of believing in physical miracles but I am not misunderstanding the story I am reading. Indeed, if I took the passage as a symbolic lesson on sharing, THEN I would be missing the point of the story. This is why the older meaning of "literalist" meant that one took each passage according to its LITERARY meaning – poems are poems, visions are visions, history is history, etc. In that older sense, you could call me a "literalist," and thus a "fundamentalist."

But when the term "fundamentalist" was first coined in the early 20th century, the term just meant that a person did not believe that Christianity needed to be re-invented for the modern mind. Modern man might not believe that dead people come back to life, but historic Christianity has always confessed Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead. So to affirm the Resurrection is to affirm a "fundamental" of the faith. In this original sense, I am a fundamentalist – and so are many Christians who would never call themselves fundamentalists. And the reason I can joyfully affirm this and other truths is that by believing them I have found an anchor for my soul, a solid rock on which to build my life. To quote Jesus Christ, I have found the Truth and the Truth has made me free.

Mike Ivaska is associate pastor at Vashon Island Community Church, located on Cemetery Rd. across from Chautauqua Elementary. Services at VICC are held every Sunday at 10am. Mike blogs (almost) weekly at www.vicc4life.com/blog.