Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00341)

Dear Theos-talkers,

This is excerpted from a 2002 post on a Baha'i list, describing the 
way individuals with clearly fundamentalist attitudes in several 
different movements deny that they are in fact fundamentalists. 
I'll follow up with a post on how to identify fundamentalism...

the party-line denial that there is any such thing as a
fundamentalist Baha'i. Moreover, let me flesh out the statement that
very very few fundamentalists will admit to being that. Closest to
home for me, there is a large contingent of Theosophists who are
scriptural literalists, dogmatists, dismissive of academic 
scholarship on their history, aggressive and vituperative towards 
other Theosophists who take a more liberal view. The targets of 
their aggression and vituperation have been calling them 
fundamentalists for many years, and the aggressors consistently deny 
that there is any such thing as a Theosophical fundamentalist. The 
ARE was taken over in 1999 by a faction of Christian scriptural 
literalists, end-times fanatics, with an agenda of "cleaning up" the 
bookstore, library, ARE Press, conferences, and magazines of 
insufficiently orthodox content. Many members and staff were 
outraged, calling their objectives and tactics fundamentalist. Many 
others defended them, denying that such a thing as a Cayce 
fundamentalist was even possible. So in the two movements I know 
best, the 90s have seen a rise in fundamentalist aggression against 
liberalism seen as the "enemy within," and a rise of liberal protest 
against fundamentalist agendas. The fundamentalist Theosophists and 
ARE members not only deny that they are fundamentalists, but that 
they could *possibly be*-- and insist that the term is purely an 
insult devoid of empirical content. You can give them hundreds of 
pages of quotes on exactly what fundamentalism is, from sources like 
Karen Armstrong or Martin Marty, and they won't engage that 
information. They'll just ignore it and keep insisting that there 
are no fundamentalists in *their* movement and that all conflict 
over fundamentalism has been caused *exclusively and entirely* by 
those liberal malcontents making baseless accusations.

PS-- The largeness of the fundamentalist faction in Theosophy is 
rather hard to determine. I *hope* it isn't large and that Internet 
discussions are not representative of the general population of 
Theosophists.

Paul