The core of his essay is rooted in a decade old study sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, known as The Fundamentalism Project. The study identified five characteristics applicable to every type of religious fundamentalism:
- The fundamentalists' agenda starts with insistence that their rules must be made to apply to all people, and to all areas of life.
- Men are on top.
- Education must be controlled by controlling textbooks and teaching styles, deciding what may and may not be taught.
- Fundamentalists spurn the modern, and want to return to a nostalgic vision of a golden age that never really existed. Several of the scholars observed a strong and deep resemblance between fundamentalism and fascism. One scholar suggested that it's helpful to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism.
- Fundamentalists deny history in a radical and idiosyncratic way.
Loehr's essay covers a lot of liberal / conservative ground. Moving toward a conclusion, he attempts to divine why the traditional liberal / conservative balance has been ignored by the rising tide of religious fundamentalism:
Over the past half century, many of our liberal visions have been too narrow, too self-absorbed, too unbalanced. This imbalance has been a key factor in triggering recent fundamentalist uprisings. When liberals don't lead well, others don't follow. And when society doesn't follow liberal visions, liberals haven't led.
I enjoy reading expert validation of my own uneducated viewpoints -- because this tells me that my own ideals and viewpoints are at least grounded in some modicum of common sense. "Liberals haven't led." This is exactly the theme I've been hammering on for the better part of the past week or so. However, in writing the above passage, I think Rev. Loehr glossed over the real problem in dissecting the marginalization of the liberal agenda. He totally misses and fails to account for the natural tendency of liberals to seek compromise, while the current breed of neo-fundamentalist conservatives tend toward a scorched earth policy in the quest to fulfill their agenda.
In othe words, there is absolutely no desire on the part of fundamentalists for "balance". And based on the results of the past election, they figure that Gee Dub owes them.
The culture war continues apace.
