Post tagged with fundamentalism

  • Fantasy for fundamentalists or, how to defend Harry Potter to the conservative Christian

    August 03rd, 201101:18 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    A reader named RB has offered a comment and question concerning our favorite magician, Harry Potter: "I really appreciate your blogs on Harry Potter and your goal to challenge typical evangelical thinking. It needs done. I'm wondering what your opinions are on sorcery being used within a story (as in LOTR, Narnia, and Harry Potter). I have no p...

  • Should we really interpret the Bible literally when possible?

    July 26th, 201110:53 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    In my previous article I focused on a common hermeneutical principle among fundamentalists. I called it the "literal when possible principle" (henceforth LPP) and I noted an example from it in the writings of John Walvoord, one of the preeminent fundamentalist scholars of the twentieth century. I then presented four arguments against it. Unfortunat...

  • How fundamentalists undermine the authority of scripture

    July 25th, 201110:53 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Christian fundamentalists like to trumpet the authority of scripture over all things. Unfortunately the way that fundamentalists read scripture tends to undermine that authority. The key problem is that fundamentalists widely subscribe to a hermeneutical (that is interpretive) principle that the text should be interpreted literally when possible. T...

  • “Is J.K. Rowling a witch?” and other vile fundamentalist Christian gossip

    July 19th, 201103:18 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I am not as interested in defending Harry Potter as three blog posts might lead you to believe. But I am interested in critiquing the rampant fundamentalist anti-intellectualism that Mark Noll critiqued so adeptly in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. And I am really interested in exposing the pharisaical underbelly of fundamentalist Christianity...

  • The Pornographic Harry Potter? On the near impossibility of reasoning with Christian fundamentalists

    July 17th, 201107:55 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Note: This article was originally published at www.randalrauser.com When I was in Rio last month I found myself in the back of a cab on my way to the conference at which I was to speak. Unfortunately, when we arrived I discovered that the cabbie didn't accept credit cards and I had no Brazilian money. To complicate matters further, the poor fellow...

  • How dare religious zealots blame Haiti for its misery

    January 18th, 201011:58 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I took upon myself a most modest task. Critique the monstrous claim of Pat Robertson that the terrible earthquake that has decimated Haiti was a result of God's providential judgment on the nation. Apparently Robertson has more support among conservative Christians than I had wanted to believe. Four of the respondents in the thread came out actuall...

  • Why is it so hard to deconvert a "faith-head"?

    September 02nd, 200912:26 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Richard Dawkins has been accused of being a fundamentalist. He takes issue with the charge: "No, please, it is all too easy to mistake passion that can change its mind for fundamentalism, which never will." So Dawkins is not a fundamentalist because he remains open minded. Pardon me for being skeptical, but does anybody really believe that it is a...
Advertisement
About this blog
An exploration of faith, knowledge, reason and doubt (with the occasional trite pop culture reference thrown in for good measure).