The Path of Least Resistance

Last week I said I would speak to the idea of those who are convinced they are right and the dangers associated with that point of view.  It is one thing to believe you are correct.  It is another to insist and force that belief on others, or state that if they do not comply, they will be excluded or perhaps worse.

Fundamentalism will likely always win out.  I don’t say that because I find it a comforting idea or because I believe in the inherent truth or right-ness of fundamentalism.  And fundamentalism isn't limited to conservatives.  Either end of the spectrum has fundamentalists.  I say that because I believe fundamentalism is easy.  Perhaps, next to atheism, fundamentalism is the easiest path of belief (assuming the idea that no belief is easier than some form of belief).

Think, for example, of water.  Or electricity.  The path these two will take is always the path of least resistance.  Belief systems are like dams, rock formations, or in the case of electricity, conduits and wiring that is designed to channel those forces.  Fundamentalism places the least amount of stricture on the ideas of belief and the questions of faith, while often adding into the mix the clause or idea that that which resists must be avoided or eliminated.

While it could be argued that fundamentalism has the greatest amount of strictures in it, it’s basic points are simple.

Part of this has to do with the nature of their arguments.  They are always self-serving.  There is a particular line of thinking found in the Old Testament that states that obedience to God always brings blessing and that disobedience always brings the absence of blessing.  For a fundamentalist, any blessing is from God (cars, homes, wealth – especially wealth, the recovery from sickness), and a lack of blessing is not evidence of disobedience, but it is a “trial” or a test of faith.  However should difficulty befall anyone outside of that belief system, it is simply proof of their disobedience. 

Do you follow the logic (or lack thereof)?  If good things happen to me, I am blessed.  If bad things happen to me, it only means I am being tested.  If good things happen to you, you are blessed.  If bad things happen to you, then it is because you have disobeyed God and must be punished.  The punishment idea seems to only apply to the other, not to the fundamentalist. 

This kind of thinking takes no responsibility other than to prove itself right and someone else wrong.  It is not reflective, save in a narcissistic manner that looks back at the particular faithfulness of the believer and the disobedience of those outside the fold. 

One has to wonder if the fact that we are such a high percentage of water if we are not predisposed to take the path of least resistance – like fundamentalism, violence, or war.  Diplomacy takes work.  Peace takes cooperation and continued conversation.  Fundamentalism requires none of this.  It takes deliberate action to not be selfish. 

Fundamentalism is what leads to fear.  It fosters it, nurtures it, and ultimately creates absolute enemies.  Misrepresenting itself as security, it is a move to protect itself in a totalitarian fashion while keeping everyone else off balance.

Fundamentalists talk about faith being made sight in the sweet by and by – songs focused on death and the hopelessness of the world – but their faith is made sight- it is visible by their very actions and heard by their rhetoric.  While it may begin as an attempt to remain faithful, or to remove oneself from the corruption that is perceived around them (think of the Dead Sea Scrolls or Jonestown), it becomes a wide road to hatred.  In trying to remain faithful, one creates a long list of enemies. 

This attitude is found in the Bible, I have to admit.  But so is its opposite.

In the Book of Job, one of the most cleverly structured writings in the Old Testament, Job is accused of exactly the kind of fundamentalist thinking – his suffering comes from some kind of disobedience.  But, as the beginning of the book tells us, Job has not disobeyed.  Therefore, the fundamentalist thinking itself is wrong, not Job.  The Bible bears witness against this fundamentalism over and over again by providing scenarios where this line of thinking simply does not work.  Jesus responds to the crowds who want to know what sin leads to a man being born blind.  Jesus’ answer is that it wasn't the man, nor was it his parents.  Likewise, Jesus is seen over and over again with “sinners” (a word with an interesting history of meaning).  Why?  Because he isn't there to exclude them, but to be with them – not in sin, but in relationship, which fundamentalism only promotes in a similar fashion to totalitarian regimes who want families to report on those suspected of free thought or subversion. 

The opposite point of view found in the Bible will always gain a foothold when fundamentalism goes too far.  Fundamentalism seems to start as an argument for purity.    It seeks to set a higher goal, a larger goal for the world and for the people, and those who join in are the pure ones.  Yet when it goes too far, it becomes less and less about purity and more about power.  It can become the Nazis.  It can lead to genocide. 

It is there that fundamentalism is reproached by the society that only too late sees where it has been led.  It is there that a higher goal apart from fundamentalism MUST be created.  It is there that a higher ideal apart from fundamentalism MUST be sought.  And it is there that fundamentalism must be left behind.

The question becomes can we and/or will we leave these trappings behind and forge ahead to a new way of thinking about faith and about one another?