EPILOGUE
In the Western imagination today the dominant image of a fundamentalist is that of a dangerous fanatic, always male, usually Christian or Islamic. In one hand he grasps a holy book; in the other he may hold a Kalashnikov. He treats scripture as inerrant, and wants to impose it on others. Christian fundamentalists may rest content with ordering their households and communities, but Muslims seek to subjugate the whole of society to God's law.
This is the ‘frontstage’ of fundamentalism, the image which is circulated by mass media, and which helps create what it depicts. It is not ‘wrong’, any more than a caricature is wrong, but it is highly selective, and leaves out as much as it includes. Its focus falls on what is most immediately threatening to those who seek to contain it: violent masculinity of an irrational kind that threatens peaceful societies and seeks to undermine liberal democratic values; scriptural interpretation that rejects established religious authorities and scholarship.
As this volume suggests, however, fundamentalism includes a great deal more. The majority of fundamentalists are not adult males, but women and children. Only a minority wish to establish theocracies, and very few resort to violence. Fundamentalists certainly have distinctive ways of interpreting the scriptures, but few spend most of their time doing so – they have other things to do all day. As Karen Armstrong notes, an unfortunate consequence of ratcheting up the difference between fundamentalism and other forms of religion, culture and sociality is ultimately to render it alien and inexplicable. How on earth could anyone hold such implausible beliefs or do such terrible things? The frontstage image can explain neither the appeal of fundamentalism nor its ability to retain loyalties; it has to resort to discredited explanations like ‘brainwashing’ and ‘radicalisation’.
As Martin Percy suggests, the academic study of fundamentalism has a closer relationship to the frontstage image of fundamentalism than it might like to admit. It has often treated fundamentalism as wholly other, a bounded phenomenon which can be captured by a timeless definition. It has expended great effort in critiquing how fundamentalism reads scriptures, has paid most attention to men, and devotes great attention to the few who employ violence.
Again, none of this is ‘wrong’, but there are other studies and approaches that can broaden the picture. This volume shows that the study of fundamentalism is now a mature field involving many disciplines, and dealing with many different regions and religions. In its breadth and scope it helps to bring into focus not only the frontstage of fundamentalism but also the neglected backstage, and in doing so helps us see both in a clearer light.
A Visit to the Backstage of Fundamentalism
To introduce the backstage, let me begin with the research which first made me aware of very different faces of fundamentalism from those I had heard about. My dawning awareness came in the early years of the new millennium when I was part of a team inspecting a fundamentalist Bible College in the American Midwest. I followed this up with more intentional research amongst fundamentalist Christians in Britain and the southern United States in various spells after that and, in 2014, carried out more limited research with ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel. My growing understanding of fundamentalism was also deepened by reading some of the excellent studies of fundamentalist communities, many of them ethnographic, which are discussed in this volume.
I immediately became aware that one of the most striking features of such communities, almost irrespective of the kind of religion involved, is their commitment to a deep domesticity, and the premium they place on hierarchical domestic orderliness. Home and family are absolutely central for both women and men – and of course children – and I found that their attachment to ideals of Godly domesticity helped to explain a great deal about the appeal of fundamentalism, as well as about the ways in which it sustains and perpetuates itself.
Speaking to sophisticated young Israeli men who had emigrated to find work in the United States but returned regularly to their native city of Haifa about why they maintained strong connections with ultra-Orthodoxy, for example, I discovered the theme of the ideal, pure and unsullied family to be recurrent. Though these young men lived in the United States, they did not wish to conform to its liberal values – ‘I sleep in LA but I live in Israel’. They wanted to establish ‘proper’ families, in which their children would be raised pure and uncorrupted by the modern West. They sought for their children the sort of simple pleasures they had themselves enjoyed in Israel, and wanted to avoid their being spoilt by computer games and an excess of expensive toys. ‘We have no smart phones in my house, they are only for work. My boys play hide and seek and games like we used to’. These young men were intent on creating homes and family lives which were purer, more wholesome and orderly.
I experienced for myself the pull of the large, orderly, warm, stable family when meeting fundamentalists in the United States. As a visitor it was undeniably pleasant to visit their tidy, cared for, welcoming homes, homes, which were always magnificently decorated according to the season and festival of the time. There would be home-baked goods on the table, inquisitive children all round, cheery conversation and lavish hospitality. Women spoke positively of the safety that came from living in such a stable environment, relatively secure from threats of divorce, single-motherhood and poverty facing many women in ‘secular’ America. They pitied their secular sisters whom they viewed as pressured to take paid work, vulnerable to marital instability, and unrecognised for their true dignity and worth as wives and mothers.
There was also a great deal of mutual support between neighbourly households and members of the same church, and a lot of shared activities like picnics and other family gatherings. In mixed gatherings, there was nearly always informal segregation of the sexes. Even in the home men had their own ‘dens’, tasks, and hobbies. Although families usually went to church together, women were generally more pious, and several men told me that it was their wives who spent ‘most time with Jesus’. My own status at the time as an unmarried professional woman caused a fair bit of confusion about where I belonged; I often ended up an honorary member of the male rather than the female clusters, but remained an object of somewhat concerned curiosity to both.
Business and money-earning often has a family dimension as well, though this varies across different religions. Amongst Christians men are usually the breadwinners, whereas in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities women are more likely to be employed in family businesses to support their husbands in full-time study of the scriptures – an arrangement that is possible in countries like Britain and Israel because of the additional support given to large families by state welfare.
Reproducing the family is a major concern for religious, personal, and economic reasons. Motherhood is women's primary role, and families are often large. Children are socialised from an early age to become good wives or husbands, their innocent minds set upon the roles they must one day inhabit and the duties and responsibilities that will fall on them – above all on boys – to form their own Godly households. All the communities I studied were wary of entrusting their children to ‘secular’ forms of education, and preferred to home school or send children to schools that would offer Godly instruction.
This domestically-focused religion is part and parcel of an ordering of authority in which men are heads of household, women their indispensable life-long companions and partners in the task of parenting, and children are under the authority of father, mother and other adults. The family is a primary focus of loyalty, with intimacy outside it being largely restricted to gender-segregated groups, or to family-to-family relations. Sexual intimacy outside of marriage is strictly forbidden, even though it does, of course, occasionally occur. The image of paternal authority – of a father who exercises responsible ‘headship’ over his family – is pervasive. It is applied to God as much as to man, to politics as much as religion, to piety as much as domesticity, and it is perhaps the central element in the symbolic logic of fundamentalism.
Although it is dangerous to generalise about the God(s) of fundamentalism, the paternal theological theme came through in my own research, particularly amongst Christians. For both men and women God ‘the Father’ was both authority figure and loving and caring parent. His sovereign, encompassing power and care were absolutely central to their personal and social lives. It was the Father God who gave the blessing of children and entrusted parents with their care, and the Father who delegated paternal authority to men, and maternal care to women. God was in control, and would take care of all things, even when His ways seemed mysterious. ‘There are rules’, a Haredi Jew told me, ‘and if we live by the rules everything will be OK, and if we don't it all goes wrong.’ The benevolent divine purpose, encompassing self, society and world, and linking one's own life directly to God's purposes, provided an explanatory, sheltering and sustaining undergirding to the whole of life, and is a further element that helps explain fundamentalism's appeal.
It is therefore a mistake to dismiss the ‘private’ backstage of fundamentalism as secondary to the ‘public’ frontstage. Each depends on the other. Almost all the chapters in this volume note how fundamentalism is distinguished by its acute critical angle towards ‘modernity’, its sharp differentiation. As well as being marked by more frontstage features like the authority accorded to literal scriptural interpretation, this difference is lived out every day in families, businesses, gendered identities. When fundamentalists lash out at ‘secular modernity’, it is very often the difference from their own domestic orderings that they focus upon: unruly and spoilt children; drunk and sexually promiscuous women; divorce and family breakdown; a deficit of care and concern for the elderly; lack of respect and deference to elders; the malign influence of feminism; rampant homosexuality – all signs of wilful departure from the natural order of things that a just and loving God has ordained.
Back to the Frontstage
One of the clearest themes of this book is fundamentalism's constitutive relationship to modernity – even when it repudiates it most fiercely. Peter Neumann spells this out in detail. Rather than being rooted in religious and theological traditions, and traditional ways of living, interpreting scripture, and worshipping God, it is a reflex from within modernity which partakes – both knowingly and unknowingly – of many features of the modernity it rejects. Older forms of religious separatism and sectarianism also rejected ‘the world’, or particular aspects of the world, but not the secular-modern world – and by no means always in favour of the family (rather than asceticism and sexual abstinence, for example).
It follows that different fundamentalisms can be differentiated by the different versions of modernity they reject and the different visions of the Godly society they embrace. For ultra-Orthodoxy, as discussed by Laura Janner-Klausner, it is the modernity that created the death camps and sought to wipe out the Jewish people that is repudiated, and the decimated Hasidic Judaism of eighteenth century eastern Europe is recreated. For American Christian fundamentalism, it is liberal, multi-cultural, ‘gay-loving’, hedonistic and cosmopolitan America that is the object of revulsion, and an idealised frontier society that lies at the heart of their understanding of Godly society. As James Dunn, Martyn Percy and many others show, what all fundamentalisms reject is modernity's historical and historical-critical sensibility. There is no sense of the path-dependent contingency of things, nor of context-dependence and limitation, still less of any kind of historical progress. Fundamentalist time is telescoped into a perfect past to which the present seeks to relate directly, until such time as it is fully realised by God.
It is no surprise that fundamentalists are wary of modern forms of education, and particularly of the humanities and social sciences with their integral sense of history. The rejection of evolution is part of the same instinct. Applied scientific and technical subjects have more appeal, and it has been noted how, for example, spokesmen of Islamist fundamentalism are often doctors, engineers and technicians. The view of the world as governed by timeless laws is acceptable to fundamentalism in a way an historical or evolutionary account is not. Here again we see fundamentalism's modern roots, for it is a religious version of positivism, rooted in positivism's early twentieth-century heyday, and sharing its commitment to unitary, non-context-dependent, publicly-accessible truth.
This frontstage account of God's timeless laws is shaped by the backstage reality of fundamentalist life. Fundamentalists' distinctive ways of reading scripture have a dialectical relationship to domestically-inflected oppositions to ‘secular modernity’. Thus opposition to (a particular construct of) modernity frames the way in which scripture is interpreted, and the way in which scripture is interpreted frames the way in which modernity is constructed. To give an example, many fundamentalists believe that the scriptures are not just strongly pro-family, but strongly pro-the-kind-of-family-they-uphold, and that some of the most inviolable scriptural injunctions are – for example – those concerning sex and marriage. They therefore justify their familial piety on scriptural grounds, and ground fierce opposition to homosexuality, sex before marriage, and female authority in the sort of a literal reading of the plain sense of scripture that James Dunn discusses. But the way scripture is read is in turn grounded in the kinds of family structure it supports. (In saying this, I take for granted that all the scriptures of the world's religions are open to very different readings – much of the New Testament, for example, being indifferent or hostile to family structures and relationships.) There is therefore a circular and mutually-reinforcing social-scriptural mode of construction in fundamentalism, a loop into which it is extremely difficult for any other considerations to break in, whether they are scriptural or social-experiential. This is how fundamentalism retains its plausibility; on its own, its dogmatic frontstage would be incredible, but allied to the everyday lived realities and reinforcements of social and domestic life, it makes much more sense.
Though portrayed as timelessly true, fundamentalist readings of scripture are distinctively modern in their individualism and their de-traditionalised character – indeed it is this which generates the sense of timeless truth in the first place. For most fundamentalism, scripture speaks to each individual without the necessary mediation of a priest, tradition, or special learning. It speaks directly and plainly, and even works miracles – in the hearts, minds and lives of those who hear and obey. This is a different approach from most pre-modern scripturally-based forms of religion, which give special authority to learned exegetes and an endlessly developing and highly complex tradition – or competing traditions – of interpretation. Many forms of fundamentalism, including much Christian and Islamic fundamentalism dispense with such tradition completely. Authority resides in the space of encounter between God/scripture and the individual. Even when tradition retains a higher level of respect, as in ultra-Orthodox Judaism, the modern-individualist tendency is apparent in the way that the majority of ultra-Orthodox men wish to become learned interpreters, rather than leaving that task to a tiny elite.
By considering fundamentalism outside the more scriptural religions, however, this volume also reminds us why fundamentalism does not depend upon a certain way of reading scriptures. As Julius Lipner explains in relation to Hinduism, other factors such as the differentiation from modernity and from competing religious traditions, and commitment to certain sacred symbols, spaces and moral orders, may be as important. Fundamentalisms draw very clear, non-negotiable, lines in the sand. What is good and Godly can be defined not only by scriptures, but by sacred symbols, holy places, charismatic leaders, and various imagined forms of ethnic purity, all of which are made real in backstage instantiations.
With its wide-angle lens on fundamentalism, the book also reminds us that although separation and differentiation are defining marks, they take very different forms in different religions. Differentiation is a basic stance of fundamentalism, but its forms and outworkings vary hugely, and are further complicated by age, gender and other internal differences. Peter Herriot explains this both in relation to individual and group identity, and how they are constructed, defended and maintained. Strict separation is actually quite rare in fundamentalism. Selective accommodations are more common, combined with clear boundary lines and fierce critique of what lies outside them. Several contributors show how accommodations are common in relation to modern technology and aspects of local and global economies and business practice. An alternative differentiating stance is the attempted co-option, takeover and transformation of aspects of the modern world, including competing forms and institutions in the worlds of both religion and politics. These may lead to frontstage, foregrounded attempts at conquest and armed struggle, and/or to terrorism and destruction.
As Herriot and others remind us, fundamentalists are not only opposed to their wider societies, they are often even more vigorously opposed to competing ‘liberal’ forms of religion, particularly those close to them. Thus fundamentalist Christians despise and oppose other kinds of Christians, the ultra-Orthodox shun other forms of the Jewish faith, and so on. But the critique is always that these forms have conformed too closely to the modern secular world, have ‘sold out to it’. They have taken over its liberal individualism and exchanged the clear teachings of God for a wishy-washy fudge with secular modernity.
Threat
The final issue with which the volume deals, though more peripherally, is the threat of fundamentalism. A backstage–frontstage approach helps us to consider the issue in the round. For all its fiery rhetoric and denunciation of what lies outside, most fundamentalism is peaceful. As Laura Janner-Klausner notes in relation to Jewish fundamentalism, the quietists are just as important as the activists. And most activists do not resort to violence, but try to bring about change within the context of law and order. Given the priority that is given to establishing safe and orderly households and communities with robust forms of ‘policing’ by way of social sanctions and more powerful internalised, emotional, and religious ones, fundamentalism could even be viewed as making a positive contribution to social order. Certainly, forms of completely separatist fundamentalist community, like ultra-Orthodox Jews, are financially supported as well as tolerated in many Western and other countries.
The view that fundamentalism is inherently dangerous makes the mistake of taking the frontstage image as a true reflection of the whole, or of thinking that holding certain ideas necessarily leads to certain kinds of action. As Ed Husain acknowledges, however, the study of Islamic radicalisation has led to a consensus that there is no such ‘conveyor belt’ to violence. Many additional factors have to come into play, including above all socialisation into networks of violence. Outside of communities that live with violence – such as those in Palestine – fundamentalist communities may actually serve as a protection against terrorist violence, partly because of their close watchfulness over all members of their community, their ability to contain separatist views, and their appeal to accepted religious authorities to counter interpretations which sanction the use of violence.
Nevertheless, as Husain insists, whilst a fundamentalist ideology does not necessarily lead to violence, it can provide a powerful motivation and legitimation for it. Belief in unique possession of the truth can support contempt or hatred for all outsiders, a crusading zeal to convert them, or to an urgent desire to eliminate or subordinate them in order to establish Godly order. Moreover, the belief and practice of male headship can slide into a justification of masculine domination of subject and ‘weaker’ people, and a sense of obligation to guide and control others. The central importance of appeals to machismo, and associations of masculinity with violence, have been noted as important factors in radicalisation. None of this constitutes a ‘natural’ development of fundamentalism, but these are elements within it which enculturation into violence can play upon (as it can upon secular ideologies of various kinds, of course). The attachments of fundamentalism to both nationalist projects (like Zionism or Hindutva), or global-imperial ones (like an Islamic caliphate) are also significant factors.
As with all escalations of violence, the violation of boundaries may lead to violence and, once violence erupts, people are forced to clarify those boundaries, choose sides and defend them. Again, there is nothing necessarily religious, about this, and similar remarks can be made of football hooliganism. What fundamentalism can add are political and sometimes economic grievances and goals, sometimes tied up with ethnic factors, plus support from scriptures including the idea of a divine destiny. Combined with heroic individualism and the paraphernalia of secular military machismo, this can have deadly outcomes.
As to ways of countering the threat, as Herriot and other contributors note, the most counter-productive way to deal with fundamentalists is to attack them. Given that fundamentalism depends upon a strong dichotomy between us and them, and views secular modernity as inherently opposed, denunciation by perceived agents of the latter just strengthens its resolve, hardens its boundaries, and proves its sense that ‘they are out to get us’. One effect of the circulation of frontstage images of fundamentalist violence, particularly in relation to terrorism, is to ‘big it up’ and make it seem more heroic and exciting to precisely the sorts of men who are likely to be attracted. Similarly, the joining up of the dots of varied fundamentalist groups to produce a unified global threat oversimplifies and exaggerates what it seeks to contain.
Whilst terrorism and violence have to be dealt with proportionately, stigmatising all fundamentalism is dangerously counter-productive, and an unfortunate consequence of dwelling too much on the frontstage and ignoring the more human and humanly-understandable backstage. This also has the effect of drawing such a sharp line between fundamentalism and other forms of religion and sociality that fundamentalism comes to seem entirely alien. The more challenging but more truthful approach to which this volume points us, is acknowledgement of human and religious continuities as well as differences. For fundamentalists share a great deal more with their fellow moderns – and the leaders of more mainstream religions – than either might like to admit. Like many of ‘us’, many of ‘them’ are keen on nice houses, large fridges, well-behaved children, stable family units, male leadership, good household finances, and more control over their own destinies.
If we think of fundamentalism as a spectrum, which joins it to the larger religious communities fundamentalists seek to purify (with Orthodox Judaism, popular Hinduism, mainstream Protestantism, etc.), we also see more clearly the responsibility that ‘mainstream’ religious leaders have, and the influence they can wield. One of the interesting stories of recent times is the way in which many of these leaders have been pulled away from liberal religion and towards the (liberal end of) the fundamentalist spectrum in recent decades. A robust defence of tradition-based, democratic and liberal forms of religion has diminished, and the liberal direction of travel of many of the world's religions in the 1960s and 1970s has been replaced by retrenchment, especially in relation to issues of gender, sexuality, scriptural authority and dogmatic definition. Whether this has aided or moderated the influence of stricter forms of fundamentalism is a moot point. It has certainly led to a conflation of the secular with ethical liberalism, and the religious with ethical conservatism, and led much of the media to tar religion in general with the brush of fundamentalism.
Of course in saying all this, and in moving from backstage to frontstage, I have also shifted between empathetic insider and critical outsider. In relation to fundamentalism, neutrality is not an option. Either you are one of ‘them’, or you are one of ‘us’. Either you are part of God's timeless and true order, or you are a dupe of the modern world. From a fundamentalist viewpoint, most people accept uncritically the modernist soup in which they swim. Only the saved have been caught by God, pulled out from its murky swirling waters, and placed on solid ground. By reminding us of the broader canvas of fundamentalism, its backstage as well as frontstage, we can understand this outlook and its appeal. To understand and even to empathise is not to be uncritical, it is the basis for appropriate critical appraisal and well-judged practical action.