Can You Domesticate Fundamentalists?

The term “fundamentalist” derives from an episode in the history of American Protestantism. In the early 1900s a group of conservative Protestant theologians published a series of books on what they called “Christian fundamentals”, written in opposition to the liberalism that had encroached on the religious scene. As far as I know, it was liberal critics rather than proponents of these writings who first spoke of “fundamentalists”–that is, the designation had an undertone of disapproval. It still does: “Fundamentalists” are “those other guys”–reactionaries, fanatics, adherents of obsolete orthodoxies. I would prefer a less pejorative usage–to designate individuals who profess the absolutely certain truth of their particular worldview. Fundamentalists may then be religious or secular, defined not by their specific views, but rather by the manner in which these are held. Understood in this way, fundamentalists are indeed a significant phenomenon, with far-reaching political implications.