Summary
The author made a historical account on how religious fundamentalism came about. He started with the secularization of identity. Through modernity, he said, religious principle was substituted by modern ideologies that lead to the ‘secularized shaping of the world.’ Series of mythologies was created of which one is the ‘mythology of Communism’ to disenchant religion.
He delved into the arguments of Feuerbach, Marx and Lenin on religion, particularly Christian religion, as an ideology that presents a distorted reality. As it is, religion is described as an instrument to oppress people, the working class. This Marxist opposition to religion, as explained by the author, is an attempt to use non-transcendent principles to affect changes in the world. The ideals of the working class is seen as a strong basis for the construction of human identity. Fruza used the case of Marxism to describe the effects of modernity in identity reconstruction by deconstructing religion.
After his discussion on the secularization of identity using the Marxist case, Fruza made a connection on identity crisis and global rebirth of religious movements in the onset of modernity. He believes that the individual and the society have an involvement’ in the process of cultural and religious rebirth’.
He presented the theory of Huntington on ‘the clash of civilizations’ that causes the decline of ideologies. However, Frunza believed otherwise. He said that ‘the new movements that arise on the structure of the great religions are more like religious ideologies that they are like spiritual rebirth movements.’
To clearly distinguish religion and ideological religion, he went on to speak about fundamentalism. He presented the definition of Silberstein that fundamentalism is a mental construct. But he is more inclined with the idea of Marty and Appleby’s ‘family traits of fundamentalism’. These debunk Huntington’s idea that inter-religious conflict does not have ideological features. He showed 2 aspects of fundamentalist movement that supports such claim, 1) the negation of every relativity of specific knowledge to the fundamentalist movement, 2) and refusal to accept any integration or assimilation for relativism. He also identified sources of the negation and refusal – an individual source and a social source.
Finally, the author made assertions to define and characterize fundamentalism. He listed down seven reasons that assert the vitality of fundamentalism in the context of modernity and globalization. He concluded that ‘fundamentalism has a large variety of form from different cultural contexts and religious doctrines’. Moreover, he emphasized that ‘in the context of globalization, conflict between the ideological order and fundamentalist religions follows the opposing polarity of the local becoming global and the global following the trace of the local’.
Critique and Reflections
I would like to start with the discourse whether religion is theological or anthropological, I say, when religion is objectified, then it is considered an anthropological study, or even a philosophical one. Religion is considered as a representation of the imaginary and unreal existence. But, when religion or ideas in each religion or sect is consciously learned and practiced, then it is theological.
Frunza presented the views of Feuerbach, Marx & Lenin wherein they believe that religion as an ideology is being used as a tool for exploitation. Religion, they say, is a tool for exploitation by bourgeois – the ruling class to the proletariats – the working class. With the author’s presentation of Feuerbach, Marx & Lenin’s stand on religion, it clearly presented how these advocates use materialism to explain everything, even those considered as ideological.
On the other hand, spirituality is by faith. It is not by what one sees, by what one hears, literally, but by faith – the belief of the unseen. It may be true that in the earlier periods of the century, religion is used as such. Yet it should not also be used a cause for the curtailment of beliefs, religious convictions. From then on, there are changes that happened, not just in the economic or political arena, but in the socio-cultural area as well, and this includes religion or religious beliefs.
Conviction, belief or faith should also be seen not just on the collective, but also on the personal level. Even in each religion, the Christian religion for example, there are still differences on the understanding and interpretations of the doctrines or principles of Christianity. Fundamentalism, indeed, is a religious idea. However, every fundamentalist movement has a different idea of what spiritual ‘rebirth’ is.
On the remark of Huntington that the non-westerns, the ‘non-civilized people are incapable of producing ideologies,’ I personally find that offensive. It is indeed a positivist view of the West as superior over the other cultures. This is a much distorted view of people’s capabilities and ignorance of cultural differentiations.
Overall, the article provided a comprehensive account on fundamentalism with the discussion of its traits and features. Fundamentalism was presented in a way that it is a malleable structure with its integration to the larger global structure and at the same time, the conflict that arises with its push-and-pull relation to ideological constructs.
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