Fundamentalism
Please post your comments and suggestions for this article.
Comment by marknw on September 27th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
(correction, replaces the one above, if possible, thank you)
Dearest Editors
I respect your efforts to create this encyclopedia.
In the name of intellectual honesty and truth, I think you owe it to your readers to add a section to this article entitled “Unification Fundamentalism.â€
This section could inform your readers that the Unification doctrines and teachings also have a history of being interpreted literally and historically by its followers.
The Unification Church is also vulnerable to its own kind of hatred and violence that can spiral out of control as a result an unchecked extreme fundamentalist/literalist/historical interpretation of scriptures.
The Unification doctrines and scriptures can also be interpreted internally, allegorically, metaphorically and symbolically, like other religions, and the members can be lifted up and enriched by that approach.
It would seem to me that this is a proper roll for an encyclopedia – to moderate extreme views through good scholarship.
A religion does not need to be interpreted literally in order to be valuable and taken seriously.
As Jesus spoke in the Bible in Luke 17:
“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation … Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.â€
Respectfully and sincerely,
Mark W. Clevenger
Comment by Gordon Anderson on October 8th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Thank you for your comments. Some revision was made based on them, however while Unificationists are subject to many of the same fundamentalist tendencies as other religions, it is not, at the present time, considered a major force compared to those religions discussed in the article, and would require discussion of too many other religions/denominations in a similar category for an article of this nature.
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