Fundamentalism

Why is it that words have their meanings twisted about?  For example - Fundamentalism.  It seems to mean "adherence to strictly orthodox religions" but if you look at the root word - fundamental - then that means "basic, serving as foundation; essential; primary; important".  So how come adding an 'ism' to the end of the word totally changes the nature of the word?  And more importantly, gives adherents to a religion the right to go out and kill people who believe differently to them?  I thought true fundamentalism is a return to the basis tenants of a belief, a return to it's original simplicity.

In the aftermath of the actions of two so called fundamentalists there have been calls for anyone who is not a Christian to be ejected from Britain, as so-called Christian country.  There have been Mosques attacked and damaged and calls for the death sentence to be re-instated.  One that is hardly Christian, hasn't any one in this so-called Christian country heard of 'turn the other cheek'?  Two that is just going to add fuel to the fire.  Most Muslims just want to be left alone to do their jobs and raise their families in peace, rather like most Jews or most Christians for that fact.  But going to of the way to make their lives difficult is just going to encourage a proportion of their youths to take up the fundamentalist banner.  There we'll have another killing or another bombing.  What's going to follow?  More Mosque burning?  That will just give rise to more so-called fundamentalists and soon enough we are going to be have our very own version the Northern Ireland/Southern Ireland troubles.  Do we really want that?  I sure don't, thank you very much for the offer but no thanks, particularly in the light of the fact that this 'fundamentalism' meaning that you go out killing people of other faiths is a misuse of the language any way.

If you start to read the Bible, particularly the gospel of John, in the Jerusalem translation, then you start to realise that Jesus was a fundamentalist but in the meaning of the word 'one who believes in fundamentals' i.e. a return to the basic tenants of the Jewish faith encapsulate in the Ten Commandments.

There are branches of the Christian faith that hold to the tenant of that 'if you have faith in Jesus Christ then you have no need of the law' (law meaning the rules and regulations laid down in the Bible).  They normally back this up in the next sentence by saying that any one who does not believe in Jesus Christ can't get into heaven.  To me that is only a short step away from becoming a crusader and really starting up the so called religious wars again.

However, a little research presents a very different view upon the above statement.

In the Letter to the Galatians (2: 15-21 for those who are interested) Paul writes: "So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no-one will be justified."  This is the quote most of the Christian branches who say 'we don't need the law' use to justify their point of view that all you need is faith in Jesus to get into heaven, that if you believe in Jesus all your sins will go unnoticed.  But if you do some research into the time and the events when Paul wrote that letter you find that Paul might have been writing about something slightly different.

When Christianity started out, to begin with it was only Jews who believed in him.  Then it started spreading to the Gentiles (i.e. non-Jews).  The Jewish Christians continued to observe all the holy days and feast days and food laws of the Jewish customs, the Gentiles, having no knowledge of them, did not.  This led to division in the church because it is awful hard to invite a fellow Christian over to have a meal if you don't know how to prepare the food so he will eat it (Example, in strictly orthodox Jewish customs it is a damnable sin to eat cheese and meat in the same meal).  That in turn led to a belief that there was a 'better' sort of Christian, at which point it wouldn't have been long before the forced conversions and killings started.

Therefore, it is now believed that what Paul meant by 'by observing the law no-one will be justified' is that the Jewish laws of food-laws, sacrifices and so on, which where just leading to divisions and arguments within the church, rather like the divide between Christian and Jew that exists today.  By church I mean the people who share a belief in God.  It has been speculated that the reason the Gospel of John is rarely used in many of the Christian branches is because John's gospel emphasises the church to mean not some fancy building or power structure but to mean the people who share the belief in Christ.  In other words church as not a place to go to but a thing to be.

Also, it has been taught, maybe without realising what was being taught, that God is our loving Father (fitting, don't you think, that I'm writing this on Father's Day) and it is said, I believe in either the Psalms or Proverbs: "don't be angry when God disciplines you.  God only corrects those he loves."  It is said that "that greatest cruelty is to deny a children discipline" and I agree with that.  I have many people say that they don't realise at first when they meet me that I am Autistic.  I can say now that it is because of the discipline that my Mother gave me when I was a child.  I learnt that if I threw a temper tantrum then life became painful.  Mother never left a bruise but she could make my butt sting like the billy-o.  I learnt that there were boundaries that I should not cross.  Disciplining me like that meant that I could grow up into the self disciplined adult I am now.

However, how are you to discipline a child if there are no boundaries?  Would not God have given us a few boundaries so that we don't hurt ourselves, if he is the loving Father we are taught he is?  In that way Jesus Christ was definitely a fundamentalist, in that he encouraged a return to the basic tenants, the Ten Commandments, of the Jewish faith and summed all ten up in the Commandment 'love one another as I have loved you'.

As for the belief that only Christians can go to heaven?  Well, I'll quoted a bit of the Bible there as well: "that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men and especially of those who believe." (First letter to Timothy 4: 10 if you want to look it up) Not 'Only of those who believe' or 'exclusively of those who believe' but 'especially of those who believe', which says to me that all good people have the chance of good to heaven, it's just those who believe have a slightly easier time of getting there.  And I count any one who believes in God as a believer, after all Christ said 'my Father's house has many rooms' and if God wanted us to all be the same he would have made all as tins of baked beans.