The fundamentalist self-isolation is the polar opposite of ecumenical openness in Church life and theological thinking. Fanatical adherence to past achievements in their fixed form, as well as reluctance to creatively adapt theological language to the demands of the day, tends to paralyse the Church’s interaction with the world and prevent the release of its transformative potential. This is precisely why the phenomenon of fundamentalism so often becomes the focus of attention for contemporary Orthodox theologians and religious scholars.
In 2020, Fordham University Press published a collection of papers titled Fundamentalism or Tradition: Christianity after Secularism. Greek theologian Nikolaos Asproulis made a significant contribution to this common scientific endeavour with his article, bearing the eloquent title “‘Orthodoxy or Death’: Religious Fundamentalism during the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.” This paper by Asproulis is significant because it clearly distinguishes between the characteristics of secularisation processes (1) in Greece, where there is still a close connection between the Church, national ideology, and political propaganda, and (2) in the rest of the EU as well as the United States.
To explore the topic more thoroughly, the scholar makes a distinction between two types of fundamentalism: Abrahamic (or theological) and syncretic (or ethnoreligious). Asproulis also argues that the modern Church has fallen into a ‘premodern captivity’, which means idealising archaic thought patterns that are irrelevant in today’s cultural landscape.
In the conclusion of his review #9 of Nikolaos Asproulis’ article, Fr. Andrii Shymanovych presented his own reflections on the Greek theologian’s attempts to identify fundamentalism as the most destructive heresy in the history of the Church and his efforts to find valuable seeds in contemporary secularisation processes. The text of the review is available at this link:
