Reflections on fundamentalism Dr. Hollander named three forms of fundamentalism we can find in today’s branches of Christianity: “Neotraditionalist culture-crusader Catholicism, Martyrological faithful-remnant Orthodoxy, and Apocalyptic christo-nationalist Protestantism.” These kinds of “fundamentalism” are more often opposed to ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. He posed a good question at the end of this lecture: does ecumenism have anything to offer in response to fundamentalism? Well, would fundamentalists listen at all to people promoting ecumenism? Is there a common goal we can establish together? It’s probably the same goal that we are promoting through the ecumenical movement: that the Gospel of Christ be proclaimed throughout the world. Now, obviously we have very different ideas of what that should look like, and maybe our priorities in evangelization look very different. Moreover, Dr. Hollander’s question itself presupposes that fundamentalism is a problem to be...
Fundamentalism Continued: In the 8th grade, a classmate said Catholics can't be Christians because we call ourselves "Catholics" first and not "Christian." In college, I met a sweet student on the girl's floor above me that believed with conviction the world is 6,000 years old and God only made dinosaur bones to give people something to wonder about. She also prayed publicly and very genuinely with gratitude thanking God for everything. I thought her ideas were absurd, but I couldn't dislike her either and admired her prayer life. At a younger age (I'm now 45), I didn't think fundamentalists were bright enough, or even now self-aware enough, to compile a list of how they see themselves. This list was presented to us on the last day of class. But first, our professor said " fundamentalism and ecumenism are born in the same moment. They are both orientations toward the modern world ." I'm still undecided on whether I agree. Can someo...