I don’t know if anyone else is noticing this in the school system here in the U.S. but recently and at steadily increasing numbers since i’ve grown up (I finished high school this year) there have been a lot more hardline Protestants and Catholics then before and “Luke-warm Christians” have been less numerous as well. I don’t know if this is the result of the Mega-Churches and Protestant Evangelicals or just a general shift from the steady degradation of morality since the 70’s. Thoughts?
Laudetur Iesus Christus.
All Catholics who understand the Faith are, “fundamentalists,” in the original, narrow meaning of that word. As I understand it, this concept arose when certain Protestant thinkers tried to define the minimum beliefs on which they would insist in order to acknowledge a given, “version of doctrine,” to authentically represent the gospel. Technically, since the Church teaches each and all of these proposed, “fundamentals,” any believing Catholic would meet this criterion – of course, since one of the unspoken criteria was probably understood to be opposition to the Catholic Church, the original Protestant thinkers would probably not acknowledge that Catholics are, “fundamentalists,” in this sense.
Of course, since this idea was minimalist in conception, it is inherently inconsistent with the faith of the Church. All of the doctrines of the Church are organically united and none can be, “dispensed with,” in the manor of the Protestant notion of, “mere Christianity.” Nevertheless, the fact that the organic unity of the Faith demands that each of the, “fundamentals,” be believed results in a certain resonance between, “fundamentalist theory,” and Catholic doctrine.
In a sense this consonance is unfortunate, since, “fundamentalism,” is inherently incomplete and therefore incoherent. It cannot hold together under the light of careful reasoning. However, being a significant reduction of the gospel message, it may have a character like Islam or Rabbinic Judaism, being a sufficiently self-consistent reduction so as to gain a sort of solidity which will bear up for a long while under the less rigorous test of time. In the span of our life times, this may make it tenacious.
So, in this broad sense your suspicion seems logical. The Church is certain to endure, resting on the foundation of Truth. “Fundamentalism,” is liable to endure temporally because of its compact conceptual structure. All other less stable forms or, “systems,” of belief are likely to come apart relatively quickly in comparison to these two – and in comparison to Islam and Rabbinic Judaism.
It may be that you are noticing the playing out of this logic.
Pax Christi nobiscum.
John Hiner
I am not aware, and perhaps others also, what these fundamentals are supposed to be. Thanks!!! :tiphat: