Fundamentalism

By George Elder, 4/29/25

Full disclosure: I was a fundamentalist Christian from the womb until my early twenties. My family belonged to the Assemblies of God Church, a charismatic version of strictly conservative or fundamentalist Christianity—and we attended three times a week. I also disclose that this intense form of the religious life eventually collapsed for me, and I entered upon a time of great distress. A long Jungian analysis with Edward Edinger—himself raised by fundamentalist Jehovah’s Witnesses parents—helped me to answer an insistent question, “What was that all about?” It also gave me a whole new way to be religious.

There is nothing inherently wrong about fundamentalism. It means holding to fundamental principles—something essential at any religion’s origins. As a religion develops, however, and becomes more sophisticated, accommodating to culture in order to contribute, it often loses touch with its basic principles. It is then that fundamentalism means reforming or getting back to basics. It is an essential part of the history of all religions.

That dynamic can be observed in the history of Christianity for more than a thousand years. But in 16th century Europe, the “re-formation” instigated by Martin Luther was so radical that the Church declared him a heretic while he, in turn, declared Roman Catholicism to be the apocalyptic Whore of Babylon. They split, irrevocably.

The issue was salvation—being in right relationship with God—and Luther said it was entirely a gift from God (sola gratia), good works having no effect. He said, too, that the medium of that grace was the Bible (sola scriptura), not the Church’s rituals or the priests’ ministrations. These positions were actually personal, being Luther’s own experience as he transformed rather suddenly from a depressed, often anxious, constipated monk who hated his judgmental God to being “altogether born again.”

The “Protest-ants” who followed Luther could not agree on what he meant or should have meant and split into different denominations, although tolerantly co-existing. By the beginning of the 20th century, however, many conservative Christians in the United States felt that their mainline denominations had become too accommodating to culture. Thus opened a broader split between “fundamentalists” and “modernists” that is still with us.

At issue was how to respond to the scholarly “higher criticism” that detected strands of text weaving together the first five books of the Bible by different hands over long periods of time. Clearly, it was not composed by Moses, as the pious claimed. Geologists were calculating the earth’s age millions of years greater than the Bible’s five or six thousand years, while paleontologists were recovering the bones of dinosaurs never mentioned by scripture. Closer to home, biologists had come upon evolution—rather than Creation—as the origin of our human species.

At issue, too, was how to respond to America’s increasing secularization that these discoveries were encouraging.

The historian John Fea describes the liberal Christian response:

These so-called “modernists” rejected the historic doctrine of original sin, celebrated the inherent goodness of human beings, embraced higher criticism, believed that the essence of Christianity was found in service to others rather than in a born-again experience, and understood God “as creator” through the science of Darwinian evolution. (Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump, 105)

The conservative response, on the other hand, was to name the “Five Fundamentals” of Christian belief from which there can be no wavering:

1. The Bible’s infallibility since verbally inspired by God—from which it follows,

2. Christ was born of a Virgin

3. Christ’s death atones for sin to make salvation possible

4. Christ was resurrected bodily and will come again at the End of time

5. Jesus’ miracles on earth are historically accurate

At some point, traditional Christian morals were added to these beliefs from which true Christians or fundamentalists must not waver.

In my church in the 1950’s, that meant not only obeying the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule but also no drinking or dancing, no make-up, no pre-marital sex, and no television or movies. When I occasionally turn on TV today to see “my people,” I am a little shocked to find them on television and even owning the channel, finding the women with lots of hair and make-up, and drums and guitars in the background that I was told were instruments of the Devil. Are they wavering?  

Despite or because of WWI and the Roaring Twenties that followed, then the Great Depression—and despite WWII and the prosperity that followed that catastrophe—fundamentalist Christianity did not get much traction in the United States. Billy Graham became a popular conservative preacher, but of a milder sort called “evangelicalism” (from New Testament Greek, euangelion, “good news,” “gospel”).  

It was not until the 1960’s and 70’s, in the wake of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and anti-war protests, the sexual revolution and the glorifying of drugs that a large swath of the nation had seen too much social upheaval, too much loosening of traditional values, and too little of the “old time religion.”

The arch-fundamentalist Jerry Falwell, Sr., would provide what was missing in his “Old Time Gospel Hour” radio ministry, then in his television ministry—expanded miraculously by cable and satellite. Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson would do the same with more of a charismatic flavor, discovering as well that satellite TV could be a very large “revival tent.”  

In 1979, Fallwell founded the “Moral Majority,” an organization and a movement that was deliberately named not to sound too Christian (the Five Fundamentals merely assumed). It gave recognition and voice to anyone disturbed by the moral decline of the nation. And there were millions—if not actually a majority of Americans—who preferred “traditional family values” (i.e., who were against homosexuality, abortion, women working outside the home, etc.) and were opposed to “secular humanism” (i.e., evolution, big-bang theory, etc.).

What was truly shocking about this religious organization, however, is that it was deliberately political. It aimed to deliver votes, specifically Republican votes, but only to the right candidates over whose selection the Moral Majority would have some say.

Falwell had once been a racist, proving from scripture that God demanded segregation, but now said he was wrong. He did not add that he had just also said that the Word of the Lord requires subjective interpretation—that is fallible. Falwell had also preached that ministers and their congregations should not get involved in politics, i.e., civil rights marches and the like, since true Christians are called to be “in the world but not of it.” Now he counseled worldly involvement in politics since a change in the hearts of those in government—enough of them “born again”—would be the only way to save America.

As an organization, the Moral Majority would eventually cease. As a movement, it would grow and become a decisive voting bloc in presidential elections.  

Looking at this history psychologically, we must remind ourselves what is at stake, namely, “salvation.” For Jung, that means a “vital link” to the collective unconscious, the source of psychological energy and meaning. Religion provides that link with its “eternal images” that come up from our depths (i.e., are “inspired”) and reflect it. When a tradition drifts from this cultural function, “fundamentalist” forces will be activated to repair the link—and if that is not possible, a new religion will form . . . over time.

It so happens that Christianity began to fail in the 16th century. Luther did not cause it—reducing the sacraments from seven to two—but merely made its weakness visible. The religion would continue to “die” until the end of the 19th century when Nietzsche announced, “God is dead.” Again, the prophet-philosopher did not cause this break in the “vital link” but merely stated what was already true: that Western culture no longer looked vertically to the supernatural but horizontally toward the human and the natural.

That means the recent clash between Christian “fundamentalists” and “modernists” is pointless. The fundamentalists are correct to criticize mainline denominations for underestimating human sin and for becoming merely social and social-work organizations. That is not religion. But the fundamentalists do not see that they themselves are trying to live inside a world view that has disappeared—God is no longer above us in Heaven, and the Devil is no longer beneath us in Hell. Those metaphysical projections have collapsed. And the real reason America is becoming more secular and morally shabby is because traditional religion no longer works.

Fundamentalists know this, unconsciously, which accounts for their defensive attitude—their self-righteousness and the complaint that “Christians” are under attack at the very height of their political power. Needless to say, becoming a political-action organization is not religion either.

But, then, we are in the midst of a major cultural transition instigated by the archetype of the Apocalypse residing in the collective unconscious. (See my Post, “Apocalypse Now”) About this long drawn-out difficult process, Edinger said in an interview:

the vast majority will regress to more primitive modes of functioning. We’ll see a great resurgence of authoritarianism and a religious regression to fundamentalisms of all kinds. But for those that have enough consciousness to recognize such movements as primitive and atavistic, they won’t be able to ascribe to that. . . . (An American Jungian, 228)

They may even ask the question: What is this all about?