Evangelical vs. Fundamentalist (a response to Robin’s post)

I have intended to create a blog post on this topic for a while now because I think we atheists tend to use these terms interchangeably, and they are not quite interchangeable. Many fundamentalists would not want to be called an evangelical, and vice versa. But the reality is that the terms fundamentalist, evangelical and mainline Christianity rest on a continuum, with many people and churches on blurry lines between these terms. My parents were self-identified fundamentalists throughout my childhood, and then switched to a more evangelical church when I was a teenager. This post is only my first-person observations of these groups. I am not familiar with “every jot and tittle” of every point of every denomination’s doctrine. Feel free to post angry comments about how I am wrong about what some sect believes. <sarcasm>

The big issues in this debate are the inerrancy of the bible and cultural conservatism. If you were to set the broad spectrum of Christianity on a right-to-left scale, “fundamentalists” would be on the far right and “mainline” churches (United Methodists, Evangelical Lutherans, Presbyterian USA, etc.) would be on the far left. Evangelicals sit on the middle ground between these two extremes. Continue reading…

Ebert on women and religion

Roger Ebert has an interesting post up about patriarchy and religion, particularly Christianity. He posits that Church teachings are less important than the impulses than underwrite them:

I am not concerned so much with Church teachings, but with the way men’s minds work. To put it bluntly, I believe the world is patriarchal because men are bigger and stronger than women, and can beat them up.

But obviously, keeping the dogma around isn’t helping matters:

I watched the debate last week between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair. Their subject was: “Be it resolved, that religion is a force for good in the world.” The most stimulating thing about the debate was that it was held at all. How often do we ever hear fundamental questions debated in a civil manner between intelligent speakers? Would there be an audience on cable for weekly debates between college teams? In America, debating was the leading intercollegiate sport before the introduction of football.

Blair and Hitchens made points one might agree with, and points one might not. At one point, Hitchens asked Blair a question that hung in the air for a second and went unanswered, because Blair must have had no answer. This was the question:

“Is it good for the world to consider women as an inferior form, as all religions do?”