Fr. Cyril Hovorun,
In
this paper, I want to explore the phenomenon of fundamentalism, which
has become an inalienable part of contemporary religious discourse.
First, I want to chart the origins of the fundamentalist movement in
antimodernist Protestantism and its parallels in the Roman Catholic
sphere, and to look at its development in the later twentieth century.
In the second part of the essay, I will examine the rise of Orthodox
fundamentalisms in various forms and the recent development of Orthodox
fundamentalist politics, especially as this has developed in the
Ukrainian conflict.
Early Fundamentalism
The
fundamentalist movement began with a collection of leaflets, “The
Fundamentals: A Testimony of Truth,” published in twelve volumes in
Chicago between 1909 and 1915. (1) On July 19, 1920, Curtis Lee Laws,
editor of the Baptist newspaper the Watchman-Examiner, used the term fundamentalist
for the first time in print, with none of the pejorative connotations
it would later have. Before the World War I, fundamentalism focused on
polemic with modern biblical criticism and Darwinism, but after the war
it opened a wider front against modernity in general. The rhetoric of
the fundamentalists began to feature military metaphors of skirmishes,
battles, and crusades against modernists. Sometimes they did what they
said, and applied physical violence.
The early fundamentalists
presented modernism as a different sort of religion. In 1923, J. Gresham
Machen (1881–1937), a professor of New Testament at Princeton
Theological Seminary, wrote that liberalism was a new religion,
different from Christianity:
The present time is a time of
conflict; the great redemptive religion which has always been known as
Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious
belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith
because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology. This modern
non-redemptive religion is called “modernism” or “liberalism.” (2)
Early
fundamentalism came to understand itself as embodying a Reformed spirit
of protest, no longer against Rome, but against modernism.
Fundamentalism
pushed forward against modernism with the so-called Scopes trial in
1925, during which the state of Tennessee prosecuted the schoolteacher
John Scopes for teaching evolution. The prosecution was represented by
William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate and an
outspoken fundamentalist, while the defense was mounted by a lawyer from
New York, Clarence Darrow, who also engaged scientists and theologians.
Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, but this was a Pyrrhic victory:
the trial discredited the fundamentalist movement. The media, mostly
from the north of the United States, used it as an opportunity to
stigmatize fundamentalism as aggressive and behind the times, which was
only partially true. After 1925, the conflict between progressives and
fundamentalists became polarized as a highbrow-lowbrow, north-south,
urban-rural rivalry.
Early fundamentalism was not uniformly
received, and the fundamentalist-modernist opposition caused splits in
many Protestant churches throughout the United States. At the same time,
it facilitated interdenominational alliances, such as the World
Christian Fundamentals Association (WCFA) founded in 1919, in which
ideological conservatism became more important than the doctrinal
differences between denominations. The WCFA nevertheless failed to
create a sustainable supradenominational structure on the basis of
ideology, and in the 1920s and early 1930s, the moderate fundamentalists
reconciled with their denominations. The more militant fundamentalists
reappeared in 1941 to found the American Council of Christian Churches
(ACCC), a radical alternative to the ecumenical Federal Council of
Churches. In 1942, the more moderate National Association of
Evangelicals (NAE) welcomed those who chose not to follow strict
fundamentalism. Harold J. Ockenga, who cofounded the NAE, coined the
term “new evangelical” to describe a moderate fundamentalism that firmly
upheld the faith while engaging a wider intellectual and social agenda.
Postwar Fundamentalisms
In
the late 1970s, these moderate “neo-fundamentalists” or
“post-fundamentalists” continued their work defending the “fundamentals”
of Protestant Christianity, while also relying on secular intellectual,
social, and media instruments. They joined forces with a variety of
conservative Christians, including Roman Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
and Mormons. Thus far, fundamentalism had been regarded as an
exclusively American phenomenon. The term was coined in the U.S., and
the movement developed mostly there. But the word began to be applied
more widely after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, when the word was
first used in a non-Christian context.
In the mid-1980s, the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences funded a study of fundamentalism
with as broad a scope as possible. The project, led by Martin E. Marty
and R. Scott Appleby, resulted in the publication of five volumes
demonstrating that fundamentalism extends far beyond the Protestant
milieu and is present in all religions. (3) The study established that
fundamentalisms are alike in defending the core of their beliefs while
also identifying threats to their “fundamentals.” Appleby identifies
these threats as:
religious plurality, which transgresses the
traditional religious boundaries and penetrates religious
enclaves; relativism, which has become an outcome of the globalization
and liberalization of the societies; the “divided mind” of modern
persons, who perceive themselves as belonging to multiple incompatible
domains; secularization. (4)
As Richard T. Antoun has
remarked, “the ethos of fundamentalism, its affective orientation, is
one of protest and outrage at the secularization of society.” (5)
Paradoxically,
however, in wrestling with secularization, fundamentalism itself
becomes a secular and secularizing phenomenon. It becomes an instrument
of the self-secularization of the Church. As Appleby writes:
Herein
lies a defining irony of fundamentalisms: these self-proclaimed
defenders of traditional religion are hardly “traditional” at all…
Fundamentalists have little patience for traditionalist or merely
conservative believers, who attempt to live within the complex and
sometimes ambiguous boundaries of the historic tradition.
Fundamentalists, by contrast, are “progressives” in the sense that they
seek to mobilize the religious tradition for a specific temporal end
(even if the final victory is expected to occur beyond history).
Involvement in politics, civil war, liberation movements and social reform is central to the fundamentalist mentality: religion is, or should be, a force for changing the world, bringing it into conformity with the will of God, advancing the divine plan. In this aspiration fundamentalists are little or no different from other “progressive” religious movements for social change and justice, including the Latin American proponents of liberation theology. (6)
Involvement in politics, civil war, liberation movements and social reform is central to the fundamentalist mentality: religion is, or should be, a force for changing the world, bringing it into conformity with the will of God, advancing the divine plan. In this aspiration fundamentalists are little or no different from other “progressive” religious movements for social change and justice, including the Latin American proponents of liberation theology. (6)
Despite
its breadth, the Fundamentalism Project paid little attention to
hierarchical churches such as the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches,
where fundamentalism has specific nuances. In Protestant churches, where
fundamentalism may be supported widely, it still cannot be converted
into an obligatory policy, because there is no one hierarchical center
to impose it. But in hierarchical churches, if the leadership embraces
fundamentalism, it becomes a mainstream—effectively official—doctrine.
As
in the Protestant world, the early decades of the twentieth century
were the heyday of Roman Catholic fundamentalism. The “culture war”
against modernism was not marginal, but a mainstream phenomenon. Pope
Pius X condemned “Modernism” as heresy in two documents issued in 1907,
known as Lamentabili and Pascendi, and in 1910 he
introduced an “Oath against Modernism” for all bishops, priests, and
academics. Modernism remained anathema until the Second Vatican Council,
which, while reconciling the “Modernists,” provoked a new wave of
Catholic fundamentalisms.
One such movement features nostalgia for
the Council of Trent and the ethos of the Counter-Reformation.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and his Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) became
the embodiment of opposition to the Second Vatican Council. This
movement tends to oppose “liberal” popes, such as Francis, and
implicitly or explicitly doubts papal authority when this authority
supports what seems (to the fundamentalists) to be liberal apostasy. The
Lefebvrian brand of Roman Catholic fundamentalism is the counterpoint
to another form, which ascribes to the popes an ultimate and
unconditional authority, beyond even the definitions of the First
Vatican Council.
Orthodox Fundamentalisms
All
fundamentalists in all traditions seek unquestionable sources of
religious authority. As we have seen, for fundamentalist Roman
Catholics, the pope is one such authority, but there are also
“visionaries” who are believed to receive direct messages from Jesus
Christ or the Virgin Mary. The cult of charismatic spiritual authorities
plays an even more important role in Orthodox fundamentalism, which
often appeals to “elders” (gerontes or startsi). Roman
Catholic idolatry of the papacy and Protestant biblical absolutism have
been absent in the Orthodox Church, but the impulse to which they give
expression is present nonetheless in what might be called gerontolatria
(elder-worship). Obedience to a spiritual elder is undoubtedly an
important part of the Orthodox tradition, which generally works in a
positive way. From the time of the figures of the early Christian Apophthegmata
up to modern-day personalities such as John Krestiankin in Russia or
Païsios the Hagiorite in Greece, elders have played and continue to play
an important role in nurturing the faithful and edifying the Church.
However, as with any institution of human authority in the Church, the
practice of obedience to elders is vulnerable to mistakes and abuses.
One such form of abuse of starchestvo (the cult of the elder) is known as mladostarchestvo,
the cult of the young elder, in which an inexperienced and immature
person plays the role of a spiritual authority and develops a kind of
personal absolutism or gerontokratia (elder-rule). Such persons often promote other kinds of fundamentalism among their followers.
Another
form of Orthodox fundamentalism focuses on the fathers of the Church.
On the one hand, it is difficult to overestimate the significance of
“the fathers” in the life of the Orthodox faithful. Orthodox Christians
believe that the Church fathers constitute the most reliable magisterium
of the Church and this attitude shapes the characteristic identity of
the Orthodox and forms how we like to differentiate ourselves from other
Christians. When patristic authority is abused, however, it becomes
patristic fundamentalism. The Orthodox then begin to treat the writings
of the fathers as absolute authorities, without any reference to their
historical context or any recognition of their human limitations.
Paradoxically, patristic fundamentalism often misrepresents the fathers
(in the same way as fundamentalism in any tradition effectively
disrespects the sources it claims to be authoritative) by treating them
selectively and tailoring their writings to a contemporary ideological
agenda.
A further form of Orthodox fundamentalism relates to the
way in which we Orthodox express ourselves most authentically—through
liturgy. This form of Orthodox fundamentalism, which can be branded as
“ritualism,” functions at the level of popular individual piety and can
also manifest itself through organized sectarian movements. The two most
well-known fundamentalist liturgical movements are the so-called Old
Believers and the Old Calendarists.
The Old Believers (who are more correctly called Old Ritualists—staroobryadtsy rather than starovery)
came into existence in the seventeenth century in opposition to the
liturgical reforms of the Patriarch Nikon of Moscow. The movement was
concerned with more than just reforms of how to cross oneself (with
three fingers instead of two) or how many times to sing alleluia (three
times instead of two times), which are its most oft-repeated questions
of interest. The staroobryadchestvo became the locus of social
protests and expressed some of the divisions in Russian society at that
time. Nevertheless, it is still remarkable that these social protests
took the outward form of a struggle over the minutiae of ritual.
Liturgical purity and traditionalism were placed at the very center of
the movement.
A more recent movement of ritual fundamentalism is
expressed by the so-called Old Calendarists, who emerged in the 1920s at
approximately the same time as Protestant fundamentalism in the United
States. The pretext of their appearance was the adoption by some local
Orthodox Churches of the civil Gregorian calendar, which replaced the
older Julian calendar. The Church of Greece in particular faced protest
movements, which eventually separated from the mainstream and appointed
their own hierarchy. Like the Catholic SSPX, they effectively became
sects, which would probably have joined an alliance with other
fundamentalist churches, surpassing doctrinal divides, if they had not
been anti-ecumenical on principle. For many Old Calendarist groups,
ecumenism has become a signature of modernism. In order to differentiate
themselves from Orthodox churches that participate in ecumenical
activities, these fundamentalist jurisdictions have adopted names such
as the Genuine Orthodox Christians (Gnēsioi Orthodoxoi Christianoi) and the True Orthodox Churches (Istinnye Pravoslavnye Tserkvi). These groups often rebaptize those who join them from the “ecumenist” jurisdictions that they consider to be heretical.
At
the core of the quarrels regarding ritual, the calendar, and ecumenism
is a conservative agenda that opposes liberalism. Sometimes Orthodox
fundamentalists do not hide their ideological preferences, and openly
join the culture wars in other contexts; they jump into the trenches in
which Protestant fundamentalist groups have been fighting for decades
and become their unqualified allies. These new relationships between
Orthodox and Protestant fundamentalists resemble the attempts to create
transdenominational fundamentalist alliances on the basis of common
conservative social values in the 1930s and 1940s. But this flirtation
is plainly bizarre. Orthodox fundamentalism challenges, in every
possible way, American dominion in the world, which is in fact a
political priority for Protestant fundamentalism. For Orthodox
fundamentalists, their anti-modernist agenda is also strictly
anti-Western. It is, in fact, as anti-Western as the Western
fundamentalists are anti-Eastern, whether this sentiment is applied to
Muslims in the Middle East or Asians in the Far East. Furthermore, these
unholy alliances enable American Protestant neo-fundamentalists to turn
a blind eye, for instance, toward Russian aggression against Ukraine,
despite the fact that their brothers and sisters have suffered and even
died as a result of this aggression. When there is a chance to promote
their political agenda, the blood and pain of others do not stop
ideological fundamentalists, as they have not stopped, for instance,
Franklin Graham from praising Vladimir Putin. (7)
Orthodox Fundamentalisms and Politics
It
seems that many Orthodox fundamentalists are excited by the reign of
Putin and his activity in eastern Ukraine. Orthodox fundamentalism is
much at work there. Many fundamentalist ideas have been translated into
political action in the quasi-national entities of the so-called
People’s Republic of Donetsk (DNR) and the People’s Republic of Luhansk
(LNR), which have been designed and constructed with the support of the
Russian Federation. These entities clearly feature elements of religious
fundamentalism as a strong ideological motivation. Quite a few
separatists are driven by the ideology of the “Russian world” (Russkiy mir)
which has been crafted as a substitute for Soviet ideology. Post-Soviet
fundamentalism is one reaction to the transition from the Soviet
political system to a liberal democracy. In Russia, this fundamentalism
has exploited the social inertia that followed perestroika and
has given it a religious motivation. It encourages a reverse drift of
the Russian political system back to the USSR. Such a system is being
restored in Crimea and the DNR and LNR. The war that adherents to the
ideology of the “Russian world” wage in east Ukraine is both
anti-liberal and anti-Western. It is a war for the USSR, and a form of
revenge for defeat in the Cold War. They consider Ukraine, which has
chosen democracy and integration with the West, to be their enemy.
The
DNR and the LNR have absorbed a number of Orthodox activists who
profess what became known in Ukraine in the 2000s as “Political
Orthodoxy.” This movement was identified and explicitly condemned by the
synod of bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 2007. At that
time, Political Orthodoxy activists marched with icons in the streets of
Kyiv, under banners bearing slogans against NATO and the West. In the
war with Ukraine, some of these same activists took weapons into their
hands and began killing Ukrainians for the very same slogans. For
instance, Igor Druz’, a protagonist of the “Russian Spring” in Donbas,
had previously been an active participant in the marches of Political
Orthodoxy, but with the outbreak of war in Ukraine, he became one of the
ideologues of the “holy war” against Ukraine, with a
Kalashnikov in his hands. In support of his cause, Druz’ likes to refer
to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and invokes other classic figures of
global fundamentalism. The example of his case demonstrates how short
the way is from ideological agenda to political activism, including the
most brutal forms, in fundamentalist groups.
The political
activism of fundamentalists can easily pass over into terrorism. It has
been noted among scholars that fundamentalist activism is by nature
separatist. It tries, when it can, to create enclaves, where its ideas
may be implemented without opposition. This is precisely the motivation
behind the DNR and the LNR. They are enclaves separated from the rest of
Ukraine in which the ideals of the “Russian world” are to be
implemented. These ideals have been celebrated by modern Russian writers
such as Zahar Prilepin and Sergey Shargunov (a son of the conservative
priest from Moscow, Fr. Alexander Shargunov), who have praised the DNR
and the LNR as utopias where the true Russian soul may thrive.
In
reality, however, these utopian enclaves have turned quickly into
dystopias, embodying the worst of the Soviet past, including gulags,
propaganda, and militarism. According to the reports of the
international organizations, media, and social networks, the only line
of thinking tolerated in the DNR and the LNR is the one officially
propagated by its military leaders. People are afraid to express
disagreements openly. The Soviet phenomenon of stukachestvo
(the reporting of dissenting words and thoughts to organs of state
security) is now widespread in the territories of the DNR and the LNR.
Some members of non-Orthodox Christian denominations have been killed,
tortured, or forced to leave. Nor are all members of the Russian
Orthodox Church tolerated there, but only those who subscribe to the
doctrine of the “Russian world.” Thus, a number the Orthodox priests who
doubted the official line and expressed pro-Ukrainian views had to flee
the occupied territories. Coercion has become a common practice; those
who do not obey face incarceration or forced work for the good of these
“People’s Republics.”
The worldview propagated in the DNR and the
LNR is dualistic. It sees the world in black and white. On the dark side
of this world are Americans, Europeans, and Ukrainians, who dream of
the destruction of the bright side of the world, which consists of the
people of the DNR and the LNR, the Russians, and their allies, including
far-right and far-left groups throughout the world. Putin is presented
as the universal president of this bright side of the world. This view
is enforced by violence, propaganda, and fear, and many inhabitants of
the region, including their leaders, consider themselves to be encircled
by invisible forces plotting against them. This kind of dualism and
paranoia proceeds directly from the fundamentalist mindset.
Conclusions
I
have presented the Ukrainian situation in some detail here as one
example of the direction of travel of fundamentalism in the Orthodox
world. The DNR and the LNR are a laboratory in which religious
fundamentalism can be seen fully unfolding as political fundamentalism.
And the result is scary. There are, of course, many other areas in which
the fundamentalist tendency of some members of the Orthodox Church has
begun to take effect. I have briefly surveyed this phenomenon with
respect to gerontolatria, patristic literalism, and resistance
to ritual development. As a whole, this situation should urge the Church
to a greater concern over fundamentalism as an ideological standpoint.
The first task is to recognize the innovative presence of fundamentalism
in the midst of the Church. Fundamentalism cannot be eliminated
altogether. Instead of tolerating and even encouraging fundamentalism,
however, the Church must work to contain it. If we are unable to do
this, Orthodox fundamentalism unleashed will surely lead us to yet more
of the crimes against humanity that are now occurring in Ukraine.
(1) R. A. Torrey and A. C. Dixon, The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008).
(2) J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (New York: Macmillan, 1923), 2.
(3) Martin E. Marty & R. Scott Appleby, The Fundamentalism Project (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991–1995).
(4) R. Scott Appleby, “Fundamentalisms” in: Robert E. Goodin et al., A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), 405–6.
(5) Richard T. Antoun, “Fundamentalism” in: Bryan Turner, The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)
(6) R. Scott Appleby, “Fundamentalisms,” 407.
(7) See http://conservativetribune.com/graham-picked-obama-putin/. Accessed November 1, 2015.
(2) J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (New York: Macmillan, 1923), 2.
(3) Martin E. Marty & R. Scott Appleby, The Fundamentalism Project (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991–1995).
(4) R. Scott Appleby, “Fundamentalisms” in: Robert E. Goodin et al., A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), 405–6.
(5) Richard T. Antoun, “Fundamentalism” in: Bryan Turner, The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)
(6) R. Scott Appleby, “Fundamentalisms,” 407.
(7) See http://conservativetribune.com/graham-picked-obama-putin/. Accessed November 1, 2015.
This article first appeared in The Wheel, Issue 4 (Winter 2016). To view a PDF of the original print article, please click here.