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The Concept of Global Fundamentalism A Short Critique Simon A. Wood The concept of fundamentalism as a global rather than merely a Protestant phenomenon has been a controversial topic for at least three decades, particularly since the publication of the Fundamentalism Project (edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby) in the 1990s. Yet one point acknowledged by most scholars who write about fundamentalism is that the concept is—or has been—somewhat vague. Scholars have disagreed, however, on whether it is necessarily or inherently so. Very broadly speaking, fundamentalism is defined in terms of resistance to modern “threats” or opposition to modern secularism. Beyond that, it is difficult to pin down precisely what the words fundamentalism and fundamentalist mean, and this difficulty is the object of this book. Several scholars have observed that the general designation of fundamentalists as religiously committed people who uphold “fundamentals” is not, in itself, particularly useful, or that it is premised upon what may appear to be a rather circular argument: fundamentals are the doctrines or practices that fundamentalists uphold; fundamentalists are people who uphold fundamentals. This differs from the more limited and specific designation of fundamentalism as a subset of Protestantism. In the early twentieth century fundamentalists can be identified as a group of North American Protestants who upheld certain fundamentals that, in their view, modernists were forsaking. These include biblical inerrancy and adherence to what was taken as the literal meaning of certain critical passages, such as those referring to the resurrection. Fundamentalists certainly did not read all of the Bible literally. In this context what is signified by fundamentalism is reasonably clear: a trend within American Protestantism embodied by those who held to such principles as set out in a 126 :: Simon A. Wood series of pamphlets entitled The Fundamentals. Several decades later, in the 1970s, fundamentalism identified the movement led by Jerry Falwell and like-minded Protestants. At that time Falwell described himself as a fundamentalist.1 The considerably more ambitious concept of fundamentalism as a global phenomenon can be traced to the late 1970s or early 1980s. At a 2009 conference marking the thirty-year anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, historian Evrand Abrahamian observed that early Western reports on Khomeini’s rise referred to him as other than a fundamentalist.2 The notion that a Muslim could be fundamentalist had yet to gain much currency. Fairly quickly, however, Western observers began to suggest that fundamentalist was an appropriate term with which to label Khomeini and other leaders of what became known as the Islamic revival. There are two important corollaries to this development. First, whereas Khomeini’s unforeseen success had rather dramatically caught Western observers off guard, fundamentalism was seen as a concept that might help people to understand it. Reviewing the Fundamentalism Project, Earle H. Waugh noted that Khomeini “forced the hand of the academic establishment.”3 In view of the Imam’s achievement many came to feel that prevailing theories on religion’s role in modern society—the general outlines of secularization theory—were in need of some revision. Three decades on, Khomeini’s catalyzing influence endures.4 The concept of fundamentalism, then, has significant implications for wider issues concerning religion’s station in the modern world. Second, the description of Khomeini as a fundamentalist implied that there was some manner of familial relationship between the Imam and Protestant fundamentalists such as Falwell. That is, differences notwithstanding, if the same word labeled the two, there must be substantive similarities between their agendas. If Khomeini was an Islamic fundamentalist, then he stands in relation to Islam as does Falwell in relation to Protestantism. This notion of similarity has been elaborated in the Fundamentalism Project, and more recently in books by Gabriel A. Almond, R. Scott Appleby, Emmanuel Sivan, Malise Ruthven, Karen Armstrong, and others. These authors argue for similarity through the rubric of “family resemblances.” The case they advance is straightforward: however different Protestant and Islamic fundamentalists may be, they can be shown to belong to the same “extended family ,” one that also includes Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucianists, and others.5 A helpful summary of this case is provided in Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World by Almond, Appleby, and Sivan. This book outlines the genealogy and properties of fundamentalism, updating the Fundamentalism Project and condensing its five heavy volumes into less than three hundred pages. It posits such fundamentalist family resemblances as a dualistic black-and-white “enclave culture,” reification, selective retrieval and...

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