Is it possible to get along with fundamentalists?
an interview with Martin E. Marty
by Camille Colatosti

From 1987 until 1995 religion scholar Martin E. Marty and his colleague, R. Scott Appelby, directed the Fundamentalism Project, a scholarly survey of fundamentalist movements in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism. With U.S. news reports full of talk about "Muslim fundamentalists" and "extremists" following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and U.S. retaliatory military strikes against the Taliban and the Al-Qa'eda network, Marty's perspective on the nature of religious fundamentalism has been in great demand. Marty, who has written over 40 books, is a University of Chicago professor emeritus, a Lutheran minister and a senior editor of The Christian Century. He has served as the editor of Context since 1969.

The Witness: What led you to become involved in the Fundamentalism Project?

Martin E. Marty: I did not initiate the Fundamentalism Project. I didn't ask for it, but was offered it by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Mass. This is one of the oldest scholarly foundations in the U.S. It began under John Adams, the second president of the U.S. The Academy received the largest grant in its history -- $3 million -- to use for any international project of its choice. The Academy chose fundamentalism around the world.

This was 1987. The project was completed in 1995. At the start, it was a decade after the Iranian Revolution, something that U.S. leaders didn't understand. This was a revolution motivated by fundamentalism. The U.S. Department of Defense said, essentially, that they had monitored everything in Iran but religion, and so they were completely unprepared for the revolution. They thought, wrongly, that religion had no power in the modern world. When the project began in 1987, fundamentalism had also become an important component in American politics with the religious right or the Moral Majority.

My colleague Scott Appelby and I designed a project that was scholarly, not ideological. Our purpose was to provide information for people of state, religious people and lay people. We wanted to increase understanding.

In 1995, when I finished the project, I addressed the annual meeting of the Academy. I told them, "We were frightened when you asked us to do this." We were frightened that the Academy was investing all of this money and we were investing all of this energy in a phenomenon that would be momentary and then just disappear. Some thought that the Academy could have done a huge project on U.S.-Soviet relations, but it's good that that choice was not made since that would now be irrelevant. The Academy could have selected a project on the apartheid system of South Africa, but it's good that the Academy did not choose that since that is also irrelevant today. No one could have foreseen that what the Academy chose would have been so relevant. I would like to say that it's too bad we're still relevant -- but we seem to be becoming more and more relevant each day.

An American fundamentalist According to Martin E. Marty, co-director of the Fundamentalism Project, Rev. Jerry Falwell, 40 years ago, criticized Martin Luther King, Jr., and said that it was sinful for the church to be in politics. Now, he says that it is sinful not to be. He, like all fundamentalists, believes that he has to do battle for the Lord. In his now infamous and much retracted commentary on the September 13, 2001, 700 Club, Falwell indeed positioned himself again as one doing battle for the Lord. Of September 11, 2001, he stated, "I really believe the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'you helped this happen.'" Apologizing for his comments a few days later, Falwell insisted that he blamed "no one other than the terrorists" for the attacks on the U.S., but he also stressed his "deep concerns...over America's sharp spiritual decline during the past generation. Over 40 million unborn babies have been aborted since Roe v. Wade. We have expelled God from the public square and the public schools. We have normalized an immoral lifestyle God has condemned. American families are falling apart. Because of our national moral and spiritual decline during the past 35 years, I expressed my personal belief that we have displeased the Lord and incurred His displeasure ... I blame no one but the hijackers and the terrorists for the horrific happenings of September 11. But I do believe God's protection of us as individuals and as a nation is dependent upon our obedience to His laws." -- by Camille Colatosti

TW: Did you accomplish what you set out to accomplish by studying fundamentalism?

MM: We began studying fundamentalism in 13 religions and by the end we studied 23. We figured out what fundamentalism is about, where it comes from, its limits, its threats and promises. We gave people a marker by which to measure fundamentalism.

Many ask, "Why look for common features of fundamentalism?" American fundamentalists say, "Don't link us with Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden."

I tell them, it may be unfortunate, but there are links. I should say that no fundamentalist took part in the research project. Most fundamentalists resist the idea of comparison. Each fundamentalist group thinks it is absolutely unique.

The word "fundamentalism" came from the West. It was a term that originated in the 1920s in U.S. Protestantism. But even though the term originated to describe a particular political situation, we do believe that you can understand phenomena -- any phenomena -- only when you compare them to others. There are many kinds of fundamentalisms, but when we compare them, we begin to understand them.

TW: What are the common features of fundamentalism?

MM: Here is Marty's canonical version of the six features of fundamentalism:

First, all fundamentalism took rise on soil that was originally conservative or traditional or orthodox. I've never found one that began in a liberal or open culture or in a liberal religion. Never once have I found a liberal religion that turned fundamentalist. Now, an individual might turn from liberal to fundamentalist. A suburbanite in Detroit might go off to college and be recruited by Campus Crusade, but I never saw an entire culture turn from liberal to fundamentalist.

Second, though fundamentalism takes rise on soil that was originally conservative or traditional or orthodox, fundamentalism is not traditional, nor is it conservative, nor is it orthodox. Fundamentalism might cultivate the appearance of conservativism -- of, say, old-time religion -- but it is not conservative. In the U.S., fundamentalists may drive Jaguars or win the Miss America pageant.

People who are conservative or orthodox tend to be kind of passive. The Amish, for instance, are the most traditional Protestants in the U.S., but they want to be left alone. They don't evangelize.

Third, fundamentalist people discern something that is a threat to their way of life. In Iran in the 1970s, for instance, people from Europe came to Iran. They brought goodies and modernism and Iranians didn't want it. Young Iranian women chose to wear traditional clothes not because their mothers did, but because their mothers didn't. Their mothers had accepted some elements of modernity that young people saw as a threat to their way of life.

The fourth element of fundamentalism is that it is a reactive movement. It reacts against modernity, however that modernity is described. It might be described as diversity, hedonism, or whatever. Fundamentalists are evangelicals who got mad.

Fundamentalists believe that they are acting for God. They would betray God if they were not stirred up to act. They believe that they have to know the infidel and do battle against him.

The fifth feature is that fundamentalists are not tolerant but they are modern. They adopt the latest in technology. Fundamentalist movements often outpace modern liberal movements in the use of computers, loudspeakers and artillery. They may preach against technology but they adopt it. Much has been made in the media of the fact that Osama bin Laden is wearing a very high-tech computer watch. He is very much at home with modernity.

Finally, fundamentalists also see themselves as reaching toward the fundamentals of their faith, but they are selecting those features that best help them react and fight for the Lord against modernity or whatever the enemy is. Fundamentalists take these "fundamental" elements literally. Each fundamentalist group thinks it is going back to a perfect moment and a perfect text. They seek perfection and they believe that perfection once existed. They think of themselves as focusing on fundamentals, but really they are being very selective and finding what in their faith best suits their aims.

Fundamentalists will pick strange things that must be taken literally. Ninety-nine out of 100 scholars of Islam would say that those texts that Osama bin Laden is quoting are very marginal. It would be as if Jews and Christians would say that the most important book of the Bible is Judges and the most important verses are those where Yahweh says to kill.

TW: Does fundamentalism always lead to extremism and violence?

MM: We chose to use the word "fundamentalism" rather than "extremism" or "fanaticism" because "fundamentalism" is not as judgment-charged. In the midst of the fundamentalists, though, there may be extremists. For example, in the midst of all pro-life people in the U.S., there are some who say that abortion clinics are guilty of infanticide. Therefore, they reason, they might blow up a clinic or shoot a doctor because that is the right thing to do, the only way to save those babies from being murdered. Most pro-life people would say, "We would never do that. That is not where our belief leads," but for some, this is exactly where it leads.

TW: Where in the world does fundamentalism pose the biggest threat?

MM: It poses the biggest threat in two places and the least in the third.

First, fundamentalists pose the biggest threat within the Islamic world itself, largely because there was never a separation of church and state, or a separation of religion and government. The threat in the Islamic world is when fundamentalists believe that their government is not pure enough. For instance, in Egypt, fundamentalists killed Anwar al-Sadat and would like to kill President Hosni Mubarak. The guns of Islamic fundamentalists are not just trained on the West, but also trained on non-fundamentalists in their own state.

In Turkey, for example, a modern state, now fundamentalists are rising and they would like nothing better than to bring down the non-Islamic, secular government. Fundamentalists may be most dangerous when they are purifying their own territory.

Secondly, fundamentalists pose a large threat to outside territories or governments that they see as a threat to their own world. Fundamentalists, for instance, want not only to purge Islam of enemies within, but they also want to eliminate the infidel who is the alternative. In many cases, this is the West, beginning in Israel and continuing across the industrialized world.

In other parts of the globe, outside of the Islamic world, religious ethno-nationalism -- not what I would call fundamentalism, but a tribalism inflated by religious claims -- fuels conflict. Take Chechnya. This is not a highly Islamic nation, but in its nationalist fight for independence from Russia, Chechen forces started putting green ribbons on tanks. Green is the color of Islam, but the ribbons were a nationalist symbol, not a religious symbol.

In many parts of the world, there are extremist movements that are religiously informed but aren't necessarily fundamentalist. This is true throughout most of Africa.

Fundamentalists are least dangerous in a pluralist society. In the U.S., we can have hundreds of thousands of fundamentalists, probably millions, but they have no military power. Bob Jones University doesn't have artillery. They might speak in strong language, but they don't turn militarily militant.

In a pluralist society, things take care of each other. If you want to win in America, you need a coalition -- you need to include some secular people, some Catholics, some Jews. A pluralist society forces fundamentalists to pull in or tone down their fundamentalism.

Fundamentalists in the U.S. may be a threat to what I cherish, but if six out of seven Americans aren't fundamentalists and the fundamentalists win in some way, it's our own hard luck because they have a zeal for organizing and we do not.

TW: Can you shed light on the particular version of fundamentalism represented by Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and the Al-Qa'eda network that bin Laden is said to lead?

MM: I am not an expert on Osama bin Laden, but I like to describe him using a vivid metaphor: He hijacked Islam. The hijackers of the planes that hit the World Trade Center got on the planes and rode those planes in their intended direction for a while. Then they shifted the direction, turned those planes for their own purposes and used those planes to bump into something and cause great and terrifying destruction. The same could be said of bin Laden and his relationship to Islam. He follows Islam for a while, and then he turns it, shifts it for his own destructive ends.

His is a very strange reading of the Koran. He is not orthodox. He picks and chooses the passages he wants for his own aims.

We could also compare him to the Ku Klux Klan. This organization is a fundamentalist extremist version of American Protestantism. They wear crosses on their robes; there is a Bible at every meeting. Yet, they killed African-Americans; they hated Jews and Catholics. The vast majority of Protestants, of course, would say that the Ku Klux Klan doesn't represent me. Likewise, the vast majority of Muslims say that bin Laden does not represent them.

TW: What responses to fundamentalism, or signs of resistance, are most promising?

MM: Head-on, formal resistance against them from within a religion is rather ineffective. If you are in a room with strong Protestant fundamentalists, you could argue from now until the year 2010 and you won't counter them or win them over. I'm not a fatalist. There are a lot of ex-fundamentalists out there, but, in general, a counterforce won't convince them. People for the American Way [a grassroots, activist group that presents public-policy information to counter the religious right] was organized against fundamentalism, but People for the American Way is not trying to convert fundamentalists. The organization is trying to present an alternative in order to prevent people from joining fundamentalist movements and from being convinced by them.

If there were alternatives in the Islamic world, fewer people would join fundamentalist movements. By alternatives, I don't just mean alternative ideas. I mean that we should reduce poverty. We should look at American foreign policy and see how this contributes to poverty. Alternatives that removed people from poverty and gave people more options would keep the fundamentalists from being alluring and would minimize the damage that they can do.

TW: Can you elaborate on the ways that American foreign policy contributes to the power of fundamentalism?

MM: If there weren't poverty, there would still be a fundamentalist reaction to the West, but it would be much more marginal than it is now. Globalization selectively increases poverty and the U.S. fuels globalization. Without poverty, there would still be fundamentalism; there would still be people who don't like the separation of church and state, who don't like free speech. If we tried to close the gap between the haves and the have-nots, the fundamentalists wouldn't stop, but the people they recruit would be less likely to join.

Many fundamentalist movements are led by well-off, well-educated people like Osama bin Laden, but the troops are people without jobs, people who have no hope and so are vulnerable.

American foreign policy's tilt toward Israel has exacerbated these things. Americans are so heavily committed to Israel that the U.S. has been unmindful of what Israel does to Islam. The fundamentalists can see enough fault in our foreign policy that they convince people that the U.S. is out to get to them.

[Editor's note: According to Ian S. Lustick, in his 1994 edition of For the Land and the Lord, the Gush Emunim (the bloc of the faithful), which increased power and influence after the 1967 war, believes, as is common to fundamentalist organizations, that it has: "a cosmic imperative to radically transform society through direct political action. ... Of decisive importance to Jewish fundamentalists is their belief that contemporary political developments are part of an unfolding cosmic drama that will determine, depending on the willingness of Jews to act decisively on its behalf, whether God's redemption of his people Israel, and of the whole world, will or will not soon reach its completion. ... The Jewish fundamentalism movement, and the settlers in the territories who have been its spearhead, have emerged as the greatest obstacle to meaningful negotiations toward a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace settlement."]

TW: How should people respond to the violence created by fundamentalists who choose terrorism?

MM: I don't know anyone who knows a way by which the threat of terrorism can end. As cheap as technology is today, terrorism is always a possibility. What this means for me as an American -- or all of us -- is that we are now aware of it and we have joined the human race. Throughout history and across the globe, people have lived with terrorism. In feudal society, the lord of the manor could come and rape one's wife at any time. In India, a tidal wave can come and wipe out your whole community. People who live under tyrannies know that they might hear that knock on the door in the middle of the night.

Most people of the world, throughout history, have endured this and lived and made love and raised children. We can't win everything. We can't acquire the means and manner of the fundamentalist who looks at others only through gun-sites.

In Christian language, we need to have realistic hope. We need to be realistic about the risks we face, but we need to make sure that we are not overwhelmed.

Camille Colatosti, who lives in Hamtramck, Mich., is Witness staff writer.