Reviewed for The Toronto Star, Toronto, ON. Libby Stephens, Religion Editor. July 13th, 2004.

FUNDAMENTALISM: The Search for Meaning, by Malise Ruthven. Oxford University Press: Toronto, ON. 2004. 253 pages. Hardcover. $28.95. Cdn. ISBN 0-19-284091-6.

Reviewed by: Wayne A. Holst

For those to whom the Bible and the religious prescripts are beyond the law there is no need to say anything further.

- Israeli Fundamentalist Jew, Rabbi Ben Nun God promised the land of Israel to the Jews thousands of years ago... It was given to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob... And God is not going to let anybody take it away from them. - American Fundamentalist Christian, Pat Robertson

The Qur'an does not claim that Islam is the true compendium of rites and rituals...beliefs and concepts.... Nor does it say that Islam is the true way of life for the people of Arabia... No! Very explicitly, for the entire human race, there is only one way of life which is Right in the eyes of God and that is al-Islam.

- Pakistani Fundamentalist Muslim, Sayyid Abu Ala Mawdudi

Here is a concrete example of fundamentalism expressed blatantly and confrontationally. Here are statements coming from persons claiming to speak for God - with all of the dangerous regional and global ramifications.

These, and similar quotes appear in Islamic scholar Malise Ruthven's timely book Fundamentalism: The Search for Meaning.

Normal people, the world over, react with a great unease and frustration to this strong rhetoric. Given the massive, universal tensions and embattled insecurities of our times this is scary stuff.

Many of the author's fundamentalist contributors speak from within their respective, ultra-right and entrenched Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions. "Divine entitlement for the Chosen Ones" is a doomsday theme permeating the radical religious fringe of contemporary Abrahamic religion.

Ruthven believes that, in spite of their disparate and competing claims these religious factions nevertheless share certain common characteristics. He calls them "family resemblances."

The author goes beyond the three religions of Jerusalem. He enlarges and refines his study to show that fundamentalism also influences contemporary Buddhism, Sikhism, and Hinduism.

Two universal characteristics of the entire radical, religious right-wing are a literalist (preferably "inerrant", "containing no errors") reading of sacred scripture and a deadly blending of religion and politics.

Until recently claims like these would not have caused much of a stir, internationally. Little fur flew so long as such rhetoric was trapped in a vacuum of geographic and ideological isolation. But that is no longer the case. Today, political conflict inspired by extreme religion in any particular part of the world is likely to affect people everywhere.

Lethal fundamentalism is not confined to a religious base, however. Mircea Eliade, an influential twentieth century American (with Romanian background) scholar of religions, believed that secular and religious nationalism had much in common. They both shared many characteristics like doctrine, myth, ethics, ritual experience and social organization.

One example is Israel where modern Zionism expresses itself in both religious and non-religious forms.

In our chaotic times, the prospects dim for human survival when the world is poisoned by this kind of defiant intransigence. That is reason enough to search for clarity and direction from intelligent analysts like Ruthven. And he offers it skillfully.

The author assesses our current confusion by combining his Western heritage with a broad grasp of Islamic history, politics and religion. In slightly more than 200 crisply argued pages, Ruthven writes an accessible and insightful discourse on the origins and future prospects of modern fundamentalism and its global impact. The author believes his multi-faceted, contemporary subject represents an important transitional phase in human history which is not likely to become a permanent state of affairs. And, despite the fact that he uses most of his text to describe the negatives of a complex, deeply-troubling subject, he ends the book with a certain cautious optimism.

Choosing selectively from massive amounts of data he discusses the nature of human differences, the snares of literalism, controlling women, fundamentalism and nationalism. Through it all he helps us understand what is happening and what could take place to improve the situation.

Fundamentalists believe that there is only one way to know and believe something. Moderns, however, experience and understand meaning in ways that differ from the past.

The main problem with interpreting a sacred text literally lies in the assumption of the believer in inerrancy that words can be understood separately from the hearer or reader's presuppositions about their context, meaning or intent. The original subjects of scripture were people of their times quite different from our own. Hard fundamentalists resist modern scientific criticism and insist that for God's Word to be timeless and eternal it must be understood in the same way today as it was in its original setting.

Fundamentalism gives purpose and meaning to history. That can be a good thing. Fundamentalists also collapse into literal history the founding myths and energizing visions of their great religious traditions. Therein lies a profound weakness.

Fearing the inroads of modern scientific methods that challenged the inerrant claims of Christian truth more than a century ago, both Protestants and Catholics responded defensively. The conservative quest of the former for an inerrant Bible was matched the conservative need of the latter for an infallible pope.

Patriarchal religion is making a recovery in some places. India, for example has been struggling to confront modern problems by reverting to Hindu-based religious traditions. The ancient practice of sati is a case in point. This dubious ritual (whereby a widow sacrifices herself upon her husband's funeral pyre - an action banned by the British colonial government in 1829) has more recently been making an iconic recovery. For extreme Hindus, however, sati is an "act of spiritual sacrifice" and is very difficult to eradicate.

Until the mid-1970's it was widely believed that politics was breaking away from religion and that as societies became more industrialized and progressive, religious belief and practice would be restricted to private thoughts and activities.

By the early 1980's, however, it was becoming clear that religious activism was far from being confined to more "traditional" societies like many within the Islamic world. Newly politicized movements linking religion with the state were occurring in virtually every major faith tradition.

The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe has seen a marked resurgence in public religiosity and a return to traditional religion. Russia and the United States provide examples of this. Parts of Latin America and Africa appear to be assuming new church-state arrangements.

Where is all this leading us? Ruthven offers some reason for hope amid our present confusion.

"It seems fair to state that Protestant fundamentalism is a dangerous religion," says Ruthven. "Their fantasies have a dangerous impact on public policy."

The "ideology of progress" much-vaunted by modernism has been replaced by post-modernism's "opening up of public space for religion." This could be a good thing. But what kind of religion will fill the prevailing vacuum? Healthy, chastened religion. Reformed, restored expressions of all the great spiritual traditions, seem the obvious direction to go.

America's religiosity is also a problem. "But the solution is also American," he says. Separating the powers of church and state, an American invention, is the solution to current dilemmas facing many of the world's nations and religions.

The call for religiously-inspired freedom still runs with the grain of universal popular aspirations. Islam will continue to resist Western influence, either American hegemony or Russian imperialism, he believes. But the power of modern technology may be working in America's direction and Islam will be profoundly influenced by the democratization of information.

"In the age of satellite broadcasting and the internet, pluralism and diversity of choice are no longer aspirations," he concludes. Ultimately, freedom can triumph over the confinements of narrow ideology. __________

Reviewer's bio: Wayne A. Holst is a parish educator at St. David's United Church, Calgary. He has taught religion and culture at the University of Calgary.