I always am kind of shocked by the typical fundamentalist. They usually hold strong to Christian teachings, but all the while they fail to see the very essence of Christianity.
Take their understanding of Jesus, for example. The people who had the biggest problem with Jesus was clearly the fundamentalists of their day. These were people who knew the laws of Moses better than they knew who was poor and needed assistance. They had no problem believing the scriptures. Every word of the Hebrew bible was to be taken literally. This is why it was so easy to be anti-humanist. The ancient Hebrew scriptures was big on an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It talked about being unclean and forced to live apart from society. It talked about justice for breaking the law, and that this law was to be exercised unmercifully. It also talked about those who spoke against the law, and how they should be killed. It even gave rules on how whoever was hung on a tree, was a curse, and that their body should be taken down before sunset (which was the reason that Jesus' cruxifixion was rushed).
Well, today we have a modern version of these people so dedicated to a literal interpretation of the Hebrew bible. No, they don't come around saying that we ought to keep the law of Moses, but they still continue on with their anti-humanist stance. They still cling to the notion that God will order the deaths of infants and animals, and they still think that the sacrifices of the temple will be re-inaugurated after Christ returns (as in the prophetic chapter of Ezekiel 40). Even to claim such kind of nonsense, you would think, would make someone instantly see how foolish they are in their Christian beliefs, but it is not so with the modern fundamentalists.
No, the Pharisees of Jesus' day continue to live on. We don't call them Pharisees anymore. Today they are often called bible believers. |