Religious Fundamentalism

In today's Forward Movement wise words were used to describe problems of Religious Fundamentalism. They express my sentiments as well:

The rise of religious and political fundamentalism in recent years alarms me. In general, the trend takes the form of substituting its goal (total control over the lives of everyone it can dominate) for the goal of all true religion-that God should be honored by the human creation's living out his image within us. That image, as defined by Judaism,Christianity, and Islam, is of a God merciful and compassionate, who longs for the salvation of the world from the false gods who encourage cruelty, greed, and arrogance.

Yet these are the very qualities most evident in terrorist groups created in the guise of religion, or the un-Christian hate groups declaring whom God hates. Such are certainly rooted in fundamentals of a kind-the traits of human nature which we know as "original sin." The certainties of the purity police have nothing in common with the "foolishness" of a God who puts himself at the mercy of our sin in order to persuade us of his love for us, nor their violence with the apparent weakness of that strategy.

The foolishness of God is referenced in Forward Movement's quote of 1 Corinthians 1:20-31. God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.