Originally posted by Knight
Well.... one thing is for sure... there is no consensus regarding Christian fundamentalism.
And I am becoming more certain that I would like to redefine the term "fundamentalist" for myself (since I consider myself a one).
Yes, I could see how that might be the case.
I consider myself an artist, and if I was seeing people on the news being called artists, or calling themselves artists, blowing up buildings and otherwise destroying people's lives and property for some ideology or other, I would definately be either defending the term "artist" against those people, or finding a new term to describe myself and renouncing these "artists" as criminals, thugs and murderers.
I don't think any of us would want to find ourselves associated with this kind of insane self-righteous violence. As you know, I think the problem is even deeper than just the association by terminology. I think that there is an association by ideology, too. And that would require an even deeper self-searching than were it just name-association. I think that many of the ideas that have inspired this horrible self-righteous violence that we see in those "fundamentalists" on the TV news is also aparent in the more moderate Christian "fundamentalists" that we see all around us. And if I were one of those, I sure do hope that I would have the courage and integrity to do some VERY serious soul-searching about my own "fundamentalist" ideals.
I'm definitely not accusing you or anyone here of anything, I'm just saying that a lot of the same beliefs that motivate those Muslim fundamentalists that we see on TV and that we all love to hate these days are shared by many Christian fundamentalists very close to us. And I find this an extremely sobering thought. Don't you?