mattmattmattmattv

Erm, my first name four times and then my last initial.

matt

mattmattmattmattv

I already bought The Battle for God, but I think I'm gonna take it back and trade it for A History. The whole premise, that fundamentalism is a new thing, seems like B.S. to me. They used to burn people as heretics for looking the wrong way at a priest. If Armstrong doesn't call that fundamentalism, then I think the whole book must be a bunch of semantics. I'm not interested in reading a book whose sole purpose is to prove that it's author's own definition of fundamentalism is more correct than the popular definition.

David Bowden

While there's more to Battle's thesis than semantic BS, I can't fault you for deciding to read A History first.

Context is important here, and A History can certainly provide that. It will explain why Armstrong sees fundamentalism as a fairly recent, social and politically reactionary element in western religion. There's always been abuse of "heretics" at the hands of "orthodox" believers; but fundamentalism as a movement... well, I'll let Armstrong explain it herself.

If, after reading what she has to say there, you are still interested in learning more about her perspective on fundamentalism, you can always pick up Battle. I think you'd enjoy both, but History is almost certainly a better starting-point.

I know of a couple of other good books specifically about Christian fundamentalism; if anyone's interested in that, let me know.

-Wanderer

Pomp

Book discussions usually belong in Media & Popular Culture. I'm sending this there.

This thread can now be found <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=48&t=000809" target="_blank">here</a>.

[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: Pompous Bastard ]</p>