Fundamentalism or Tradition

Christianity after Secularism

Aristotle Papanikolaou, George E. Demacopoulos

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780823285808
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion, Politics & State

Traditional, secular, and fundamentalist—all three categories are contested, yet in their contestation they shape our sensibilities and are mutually implicated, the one with the others. This interplay brings to the foreground more than ever the question of what it means to think and live as Tradition. The Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, in particular, have emphasized Tradition not as a dead letter but as a living presence of the Holy Spirit. But how can we discern Tradition as living discernment from fundamentalism? What does it mean to live in Tradition when surrounded by something like the "secular"? These essays interrogate these mutual implications, beginning from the understanding that whatever secular or fundamentalist may mean, they are not Tradition, which is historical, particularistic, in motion, ambiguous and pluralistic, but simultaneously not relativistic.Contributors: R. Scott Appleby, Nikolaos Asproulis, Brandon Gallaher, Paul J. Griffiths, Vigen Guroian, Dellas Oliver Herbel, Edith M. Humphrey, Slavica Jakeli?, Nadieszda Kizenko, Wendy Mayer, Brenna Moore, Graham Ward, Darlene Fozard Weaver

FUNDAMENTALISM

FUNDAMENTALISM: NOT JUST A CAUTIONARY TALE

Edith M. Humphrey

Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I lay for the foundations of Zion a stone that is costly, choice, and designed as a cornerstone, one to be honored for Zion’s foundations; and whoever believes on him shall by no means be ashamed.”

Is 28:16 LXX (my translation)

This verse from Isaiah, in its LXX expression, was so important to the Christian community that it is echoed in several places in the New Testament. In its original context, the verse depicts the LORD as promising to renew the covenant with Israel, despite her apostasy and compromised sojourn among the nations. There we hear about the inadequacy of human schemes that in the end have become “a covenant with death” (Is 28:18) for Israel, “for the bed is too short to stretch oneself on it, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in it” (Is 28:20). Over against such short-sighted strategies, the LORD is anticipated as bringing in a surprising era of justice and rest. Early Christians who followed the apostolic rule of faith interpreted this prophetic assurance as a reference to the advent of the Messiah, who was himself the true Temple, and the unique foundation not to be supplanted by any other (1 Cor 3:11). The prophetic judgment in this passage against those who were cherishing false hope made it natural for the earliest Christian preachers to combine it with an earlier word of Isaiah that also used the metaphor of a stone: “But the LORD of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary, and a stone of offense, and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel.… And many shall stumble thereon; they shall fall and be broken” (Is 8:13–15). When Isaiah 28 and Isaiah 8 were thus matched, Jesus was proclaimed as the true foundation that God laid in Zion for the renewal of the world, but also as the LORD himself, who will become, for those who reject Him, the “stone of offense.”

Paradox, then, attends the biblical thread concerning foundations and the one true foundation—the unique divine cornerstone and foundation is also a means of scandal to those who reject him. This nuanced understanding is repeated in the gospels, in St. Paul’s letters, and in first Peter (i.e., Mk 12:10; Rom 9:33; 1 Pet 2:6–8), a spread that testifies to its general proclamation in earliest Christianity.

If late nineteenth-century Christians had been content to identify the Rock as Jesus, then the term fundamentalism may not itself have become the scandal that it has today among Christians (although I remember in my graduate days one professor impugning those more conservative than himself for “Jesus-olatry”). That is, if the foundation had been delineated as the God-Man, then the ism would have implied a concentration upon that Holy One, and not “Jesus plus other things.” But that was not the case. The fundamentals were understood as plural rather than singular, and as doctrinal rather than seen in the divine Person himself. And so, Anthony Gilles puts it, “Fundamentalism connotes a distortion—a hyperextension, one might say—of the fundamentals. Attaching -ist and -ism to fundamental suggests adhering to doctrines for their own sake, without seeing their purpose.”¹ The bed is too short, the covering too narrow! Thus, the conference for which this paper was written centered around a question posed by one of its organizers: “How does a Christian community [for example, the Orthodox or the Catholic] that values tradition operate in an increasingly secularized world without lapsing into fundamentalism?”²

Our first instinct might be to think we know the exact intention and parameters of this question, since “fundamentalism” is common currency. Unfortunately, it is one of those words that evokes more heat than light: Do we mean by it a concentration upon certain beliefs to the exclusion of others? Narrow-minded dogmatism? Sectarian behavior? Rigorous adherence to marginal beliefs and practices? Careless rejection of contemporary ideas and practices? A lack of balance that tends to violence? Or is it a historical descriptor of groups in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century which gave rise to the term? In this paper, I will trace the biblical use of the term foundation, look at those in the early twentieth century who took on the name of fundamentalist (apparently without a sense of the ist suffix as derogatory), and consider a few groups to which the label has been attached today, rightly or wrongly. In performing this biblical, historical, and social investigation, I want to ferret out what we can learn from fundamentalism—both directly and inversely. For I am convinced that fundamentalism has something to say to us, and not simply as a cautionary tale. In the end, I will argue that the main impulses of fundamentalism—to discern and cleave to the fundamentals of our faith in response to social trends—can be salutary.

Biblical and Patristic Foundation

We begin by looking to Scriptures and Holy Tradition for an understanding of fundamentals—that which forms the foundation (fundamentum in Latin, or themelios in Greek). We have seen already, following the metaphor found in Romans, 1 Peter, the parable of the vineyard told by Jesus, and 1 Corinthians 3, that there is properly ONE foundation for the faith. Jesus is the rock rejected by humans but appointed by God, the unique cornerstone: “no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:11). However, a broader examination will show us that some passages do use the term in the plural, with an extension of its meaning. Indeed, in the synoptic gospels, Jesus himself implies that the “foundation” is his words, or better, adherence to them. Consider his concluding parable to both the Sermon on the Plain (Luke) and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew):

Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what that one is like: like a man building a house, who dug deep, and laid the foundation upon rock; and when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house, and could not shake it, because it had been built well. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation; against that house the stream broke, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great. (Lk 6:47–49, cf. Mt 7:24–27)

This parable, like the correction that James makes to a shallow appropriation of Pauline teaching, insists that true faith goes beyond naming a person with honor (“Lord! Lord!”), or holding a tenet intellectually, but puts conviction into practice. In a similar way, Ephesians 2:20 fills out what it means to have Jesus as the foundation, when it speaks of the apostles and prophets as the foundation, and Jesus as the cornerstone. To truly honor the LORD is to see the continuity between him and the prophets, and to understand who he is in the light of the apostolic preaching—he is YHWH in the flesh (cf. Col 1:19). The book of Hebrews takes a different tack, when it implies that the themelios includes elementary teachings and rites: one must go beyond laying “a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, with instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment” (Heb 6:1–2). John the seer picks up on the metaphor, picturing the foundations of the New Jerusalem as inscribed with the names of the apostles and adorned with precious stones (Rv 21:13, 19). The foundations are not bare but include within them many riches for those who inhabit the holy city. Finally, 2 Timothy 2:19 speaks of “God’s firm foundation,” in contrast to those who were teaching heresy concerning the resurrection. This metaphor sets the confident tone for the solemn refrain “the saying is sure and worthy of acceptance” that laces through the Pastorals (1 Tm 1:15; 1:31; 4:8–9, 2 Tm 2:11–13 and Ti 3:8) as preface or conclusion to words regarding creed, ecclesial matters, and godly living.

In light of these passages, it seems that Paul’s urging of Jesus as the sole foundation was predicated by the personality cults which were emerging in Corinth, and the party-spirit that gave rise to the slogans, “I am of Apollos!” and “I am of Peter!” His focus upon Jesus was not intended to create an absolute minimalism but to suggest that if one declared, with understanding, “Jesus is LORD!” all the other pertinent matters for belief, action, and life were implied within that statement. The New Testament, then, sets forth a single foundation, Jesus himself, who was in the beginning with the Father; at the same time, it also uses “foundation” and “foundations” to speak about the teaching of Jesus, the apostles and prophets gathered around Jesus, various early statements of faith, and calls to ecclesial and personal action. There is a oneness and a complexity to the foundation, for it is interconnected with Holy Tradition. Fr. Georges Florovsky calls our attention to St. Athanasius’s first epistle on the Holy Spirit as he spoke to Serapion: “Let us look at that very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the very beginning, which the Lord gave (ἐδώκεν), the Apostles preached (ἐκήρυξαν), and the Fathers preserved (ἐφύλαξαν). Upon this the Church is founded [τεθεμελίωται] ([Quat Ep] ad Serap I. 28).”³

In exegeting St. Athanasius, Fr. Florovsky highlights the interplay of unity and complexity, and connects Holy Tradition with the “foundation:”

This passage is highly characteristic of St. Athanasius. The three terms in the phrase actually coincide: (παράδοσις) [tradition]—from Christ himself, (διδασκαλία) [teaching]—by the Apostles, and (πίστις) [faith]—of the Catholic Church. And this is the foundation (θεμέλιος) of the Church—a sole and single foundation. Scripture itself seems to be subsumed and included in this “Tradition,” coming, as it is, from the Lord. In the concluding chapter of his first epistle to Serapion St. Athanasius returns once more to the same point. “In accordance with the Apostolic faith delivered to us by tradition from the Fathers, I have delivered the tradition, without inventing anything extraneous to it. What I learned, that have I inscribed … conformably with the Holy Scriptures” (c. 33). On an[other] occasion St. Athanasius denoted the Scripture itself as an Apostolic paradosis (ad Adelph., 6). It is characteristic that in the whole discussion with the Arians no single reference was made to any “traditions”—in plural. The only term of reference was always “Tradition”—indeed, the Tradition, the Apostolic Tradition, comprising the total and integral content of the Apostolic “preaching,” and summarized in the “rule of faith.” The unity and solidarity of this Tradition was the main and crucial point in the whole argument.⁴

In St. Athanasius, Fr. Florovsky discerns a single tradition, teaching, and faith that forms the foundation for the church—something “total and integral” that is complex but also wholly unified, for it is summarized in the apostolic regula fidei, or kanōn aletheias, the norm of faith and truth. In speaking of this single “focus (skopos) and character of Scripture,” as interpreted and proclaimed by the apostles, St. Athanasius upholds the “double account” of Christ, both divine and human, which some did not discern in their interpretation of Scripture, since they had rejected the apostolic preaching (Discourses against the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Half Title
• Introduction: Being as Tradition
• Secularization
• Fundamentalism
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Index
• Series List