The challenge to act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with God

Chris Sidoti*
August 2003

To challenge religious extremism Christian “fundamentalists” must speak up on the fundamentals of justice, tenderness and humility, Chris Sidoti argues

For many years, but especially since the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 and the Bali bombing on 12 October 2002, public discussion has focused concern on fundamentalists in the context of terrorism and violence more generally. But are the perpetrators of these outrages properly called fundamentalists?

The Macquarie Dictionary defines fundamentalism as belief in fundamentals. It defines a fundamental as an essential, essence, base, key, original. Calling religious and political fanatics “fundamentalists” is a corruption of language and a betrayal of those who adhere to the fundamentals among which, for Christians, are justice, tenderness and humility.

So let’s call these religious and political fanatics what they are, not fundamentalists but extremists.

Extremism in religion and politics

In an age and world denounced by some religious leaders as secular, there is irony in the increasing, spreading practice of marriage between religious and political extremism. Mary Robinson, when United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, described this well in an address on 27 February 2002.

For most people in the world, religion, spirituality and belief contribute to enhancing the inherent dignity and worth of every human person. Religion, however, is sometimes used and abused to fuel hatred, superiority and dominance. The politicisation of culture and religion creates an intolerable environment. The rise of religious intolerance, especially Islamophobia, is a cause of serious concern.

The media and Western leaders speak often about this phenomenon in relation to Islam. We know about the extremists in Iran and Saudi Arabia and about the Taliban and Al Qaida. But it is also the experience in all the other great faiths. Hindu extremists run the Government of India and Jewish extremists run the government of Israel and in both cases they’ve definitely got nuclear weapons already. Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka have prevented reconciliation with the Tamil minority for decades and in Burma they support the military dictatorship.

There are Christian extremists too. In the United States, for example, they are numerous and powerful. The United States has a secular constitution but at times it comes close to being a theocratic state. God is invoked to underpin political and ideological positions in everyday discourse far more than in any other Western country. All the currency proclaims “In God we trust”. The president regularly calls for God’s blessings on his enterprises, no matter how contrary to the Christian scriptures they might be and he calls on the American people to pray for him and his endeavours. The United States is not only approaching a theocracy. It is increasingly an extremist theocracy. Some 100 million Americans describe themselves as “born again Christians”, although of course not all “born again Christians” are extremists. According to a recent study of beliefs concerning creationism and evolution, around half the American population believe literally in the Genesis account of creation (no doubt oblivious to the fact that there are two quite inconsistent accounts of creation in Genesis) and another fifth of the population say they “don’t know” but tend towards creationist belief. The United States seems entrenched in policies based on “righteous vengeance”, evident in the highest rates of imprisonment in the world and in the widespread practice of capital punishment, alone among Western nations. Texas, the president’s home state. of which he was governor, has had over 300 executions since the Supreme Court lifted the ban on the death penalty almost 20 years ago. There is now an execution in Texas almost every week.

The Christian extremism in the United States leadership is evident in the language and policy of the last two years. After the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 President Bush proclaimed not merely a war on terrorism but a crusade against terrorism. Now “crusade” has only one meaning for Muslims. It recalls the concerted, persistent Christians attempts over several centuries to destroy Islam. In this context the Western concern with the Islamic word “jihad” is strange. The word, according to Islamic scholars, has many meanings and in fact it refers most accurately to personal struggle against sin. Nonetheless in the West there is panic whenever an Islamic leader, religious or political, uses the word “jihad”. But the president of the United States feels quite free to call the response to terrorism a “crusade”.

This usage can be no accident. It is consistent with an apocalyptic Christian vision that seems to permeate the current US administration. Those who embrace this vision treat not only Genesis literally but also the Book of Revelation. That Book is a vision of the last days and the Second Coming of Christ is truly the stuff of vision, not a text for literal interpretation, let alone for literal implementation. Yet that seems to be the self appointed mission of many of these crusaders. A couple of days ago I received an e-mail about “Iraq in Biblical Prophecy”. It told me that, according to scripture,

Iraq will reign (sic) mass destruction on the human race. The Revelation says that death will rise from Iraq’s Euphrates to rain death on one third of the world’s population in 60 minutes of human history. Neither inspectors nor armies can prevent this – they only delay it.

This vision, of course, is connected with Jewish apocalyptic literature that envisions eretz Israel, the land of Israel, stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. Many Jewish extremists hold literally to this vision. Now the Americans and their Coalition of the Willing are about to take the Euphrates.

When he spoke about the new crusade, president Bush said that in this war “those who are not with us are against us”. This again is an allusion to the Christian scripture, to Matthew (Mt 12:30), but to a particular view of scripture. There are many ways of looking at things.

Ways of looking at things

Religious values affect and are affected by ideological perspectives. Religion and ideology live in a dialectical relationship. They influence what we see, how we see and interpret events and how we respond.

Matthew presents Jesus saying, “Those who are not with us are against us” (Mt 12:30). But in Mark it is “Anyone who is not against us is for us” (Mk 9:40) and in Luke “Anyone who is not against you is for you” (Lk 9:50). These are two diametrically opposed ways of looking at things. Which approach is right? Do we act democratically and accept the one that has two supporters out of the three? We have to choose.

This is where true fundamentalism is important. Some would choose from within the framework of their ideology, their politics. We should choose on the basis of fundamentals. Which perspective is consistent with the essence, the essentials, the base, the key of our beliefs?

We in Sydney saw a recent example of this very act of choosing in comments made by the Rev Phillip Jensen, at his installation as the new Anglican dean of Sydney. He spoke about truth and religious belief, affirming that Christianity has and is the truth. He’s a Christian, so fair enough. But he went on to describe the status of other beliefs, calling them “monstrous lies and deceits of Satan”. He said they were traps of Satan that caught believers. Was he right?

From within the Christian tradition there are two ways of looking at things. Non-Christian religions may be “monstrous lies and deceits of Satan” or they may be partial revelations of truth. Non-Christian believers may be entrapped by Satan or they may be aspirants to truth, pilgrims moving towards God, divinely guided, even if not yet quite there. We Christians believe that we have the fullness of truth and revelation in Jesus Christ but does that mean that others have no truth at all? The God of Christians is also the God of Muslims and Jews. The way of peace of the Christian Francis of Assisi and Martin Luther King is also the way of peace of the Hindu Mahatma Gandhi, the Buddhist Dalai Lama and the Baha’i Bahá'u'lláh.

While I have spoken of extremism in non-Christian faiths and in non-Catholic traditions within Christianity, I should add that we Catholic Christians have our extremists too. Fortunately these days we do not have the same aggressive, violent extremism that is seen elsewhere, although we have had more than our fair share of violent extremists during our long history. Perhaps that reflects the universalism that “catholic” means. We are forced to be more pluralistic and therefore more tolerant because of our claims to universality. But we do have the present Pope and the present Archbishop of Sydney. One of the ironies about contemporary Catholic extremism is that it is predominantly directed internally, towards other Catholics, rather than externally towards non-Catholic Christians and non-Christians. But within the Church we still have inquisitions, purges and dogmatic thought police.

So there are different ways of looking at things. Is that glass half full or half empty” Are you with me or against me? Do you have no truth because you do not have the full truth? There are different perspectives, different ways of looking at things, and we have to choose. This is where fundamentals come in. If we are to avoid extremism, then we must let our fundamentals be the judge of what is right. We must let the fundamentals guide our choice.

What our fundamentals require

But first we must re-claim fundamentalism. I announce tonight that I am a fundamentalist Christian. It’s well past time for the New Fundamentalists to speak up.

Our fundamental values are expressed throughout scripture, rarely better than in Micah.

This is what God asks of you, only this: to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
Justice, tenderness and humility require acceptance, respect, love and peace. The challenge of Micah is to proclaim and live these values in a world increasingly controlled by extremists, religious and ideological extremists, between faiths, between denominations or traditions within faiths and within faith communities.

This week the world is at the precipice as the extremists contend, at the cost of ordinary people, as always, who struggle to survive amid the turmoil. No matter what happens the only winners will be the extremists, Christian, Muslim and Jewish. Tonight more than ever we are challenged to proclaim our choice, our alternative perspective, our fundamentals.

May the God of our common parents Abraham and Sarah, the God of Jacob, Moses and David, the God of Mary, Peter and Paul, the God of the prophet Mohammad, blessings be upon him, and his followers, the God revealed in fullness and truth in Jesus Christ, look on us all with compassion.

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Edited excerpt of address to Spirituality in the Pub, Waitara, 19 March 2003.