Fundamentalism is a term that originated in the United States. Early in the 20th century, Protestant groups adopted the designation to differentiate themselves from forms of liberal Protestantism and secularists (Jones, 2010). The recent coinage of fundamentalism suggests that its development is related to modernity, and while fundamentalist movements are characterized by their commitment to traditional belief-systems, they are often highly innovative adaptations to the modern experience. In this paper, the relationship between fundamentalism and modernity will be analysed; first by elaborating the concept of modernity and then reviewing the theoretical literature on the defining characteristics of religious fundamentalism, which will be tied together with two specific case studies: Protestant fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism. It will be shown that religious fundamentalism is a defensive strategy employed in response to the uncertainties and rapid shifts of modernity.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
“[T]he United States also has undergone a less sanguine transformation: its citizens have become remarkably less civic, less politica...
-
A short Goodreads Review of Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima that I wrote a little while ago. I have to say – I do not quite get the adorat...
-
Western Marxism has often laid considerable stress upon the ideology of modern capitalist societies. This focus upon ideology stems from ...
-
“[A]nd each day hundreds of new orphans, Arabs and French, awakened in every corner of Algeria, sons and daughters without fathers who w...
-
And then the day came, When the risk to remain tight In a bud Was more painful Than the risk it took to blossom. - An...
-
The emergence and consolidation of the Tokugawa Bakufu between 1600 and 1603 marked the end of continual military conflict, which had en...
-
The relationship between the indigenous people of Australia and their native lands are essential to their traditional culture. The coloni...
-
In The Rebel , Albert Camus locates Karl Marx within a 19th century tradition which attempted to “substitute, everywhere, the relative f...
-
The following quote relays an anecdote with regards to Piero Sraffa and his influence upon Ludwig Wittgenstein. I’ve hear of a similar story...