Religious Fundamentalism - A Philosophical Perspective
RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM AND SOCIAL ORDER A Philosophical Perspective Domenic Marbaniang, Ph.D. Paper presented at the National Seminar on Religious Fundamentalism and Social Order, Andhra University , February 26-27, 2010. Forty four years after the publication of Harvey Cox ’s The Secular City that celebrated “the progressive secularization of the world as the logical outcome of Biblical religion” ( Newsweek ) [1] , we almost feel the bones of religious fundamentalism cracking under the pressure of secularization. At the same time, however, the Hegelian dialectic holds ground as both refuse to be crushed by either; and any compromising stance only begets another rival; to the effect, that it can be said that fundamentalism is never a phenomenon that may be extinguished. The term “fundamentalist” was first used by a Baptist journalist in 1920 as a badge of honor for those Christians who championed the cause of the Fundamentals , or set of beliefs such as the inerrancy of Scriptures