In a way it is almost like the term "politically correct". It bundles up different interests and different motivations and gives it a negative connotation.
Coming back to the difference between orthodoxy and fundamentalism - the need for literalism, which is at the heart of the original fundamentalist movement in the 20th - only came about as a rejection of modernist thought. Until Schleiermacher the literalism of the bible had never been an issue and was theologically irrelevant, this does exactly NOT mean that everybody before him was a literalist, quite the opposite.
Therefore, while orthodoxy goes back to the dogmatic decisions of faith, fundamentalism goes back to one aspect of religous tradition - reinterpreting religion and the religious teachings from that perspective.
Literalism/Fundamentalism is not an "orthodox" belief, it is a way of wanting to get access to history - and a way of interpreting expression of faith.
The traditional understanding of what seems to be described as fundamentalism here, is orthodoxy.
Then I've done a bad job of explaining it. It's not orthodoxy that this is getting at, it's the literalism and the reaction to modernism.
You got me curious. Could you tell mre about how Luther was not literalist? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
His attitude towards the apocryptic writings, (his almost exclusion of the apocalypse from the bible as well as his successful exclusion of the Makkabaer, Tobit etc,) his re - counting of the 10 commandments. there are so many things, that modern literalists would never dare do to the bible, Luther never had any trouble with.
You mean, he translated his own interpretation? In my experience (from battling them for four years), that's exactly what modern creationists do, too - and bin Laden, too. For the former, fitting reality on the Bible and vice-versa, and to interpret the literally read Bible as coherent and without contradictions, involves very 'liberal' interpretations of certain words or sentences, it involves adding theories that aren't in the scripture, it involves a lot of out-of-context quoting. The latter also characterises Bin Laden, I'm told.
His attitude towards the apocryptic writings,
It's in the very word, 'apocryphic'. Luther rejected these by branding them apocryphic, claiming that the Church was corrupted when it decided to include them. (The two books of the Maccabees are integral part of the Catholic Bible.) I.e., in my interpretation he was not non-literalist, he rejected these writings precisely because he didn't saw them (wanted to see them) as holy scripture.
his re - counting of the 10 commandments
My memory is faint, but IIRC it was the original Latin translation that changed 11 commandments into 10. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
So how can Luther make the decision that they are not holy scripture? He cannot make the decision as a literalist, since the canon has no inner unity, like the Qur'an f.e.
It is therefore a theological decision and not a decision based on the letters. It is based on his interpretation of the bible.
The bible as a book does not have an opinion in regard to exclusion or inclusion of individual books.
I kind of covered that already, but to put it more clearly: (a) by blaming the decision to include them on earthy powers who stopped following God, and (b) identify/double-check the latter looking for self-contradictions and discarding text that has them. According to my rusty memory, both of these arguments were used explicitly (but I freely submit that I may have confused Luther with other Protestants).
But, for example, what theological reason could have been there behind taking out the books of the Maccabees?
A further point: there is Luther's famous line about women and booze. But more serious arguments behind that were again literalist: the rejection of these as not Bible-based, based on counter-examples within the Bible.
Finally, a meta-point: something everyone emphasized in the debate is that fundamentalists aren't really orthodox, but introduce something new under the appearance of turning back to orthodoxy. But the other side of this is that this new they bring can also develop into something progressive, as the movement grows older. I contend that that is the case with Luther's reforms - mother-language Bibles, less hierarchic church, booze and women, discussion rather than guidance ended up as the hallmarks of a much nicer form of Christianity. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
That Book II suggests that praying for the dead can free them from purgatory? The world's northernmost desert wind.
But the other side of this is that this new they bring can also develop into something progressive, as the movement grows older.
this would certainly merrit a wider discussion.
However, I am not sure, where after 130 year of the "literal experiment" which brought us fundamentalism and an extreme pietism there is anything but restriction and limitation, that has been brought along. Give me one good example of literalism, in a progressive, modern, liberating understanding of the word "good".
Thou shalt not make railway transport an item of worship?
or
Thou shalt not make extinct the flightless birds?
quickly skipped by Luther....
aptly relevant...
