Abstract
It is difficult to imagine a more timely book. This small but nuanced text provides a thought-provoking analysis of fundamentalist inclinations in religions, cultures, and even in ourselves. Arbuckle’s examples of fundamentalism range broadly—some readers may well bristle at finding their own political, sociocultural, or religious positions cited as examples of fundamentalism. This is undoubtedly intentional; A. takes every opportunity to challenge the assumption that fundamentalism is an error peculiar to the irrationally religious Other. Perhaps most helpfully, A.’s discussion of the significance of myth and ritual includes experiential reflections designed to enable readers to recognize their own pained reactions when systems of meaning and order are threatened.
The chapter devoted to Catholic fundamentalism provides an excellent overview of developments and tensions in contemporary Catholicism and is particularly suited to a Catholic undergraduate class or parish study group. Any general Western audience will benefit from reading A.’s clear yet detailed chapter on the diversity of global Islam, especially as A.’s presentation attends to the historico-cultural contexts of the various fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist forms of contemporary Islam.
This book is an excellent text for any college course or parish group that wants to understand modern fundamentalism and its prevalence in the world today. The promised pastoral response is found in the concluding chapter, which proposes habits and attitudes that counter fundamentalist inclinations in one’s self, in others, and in the broader culture. Parish groups will find this concluding chapter especially helpful as it outlines a Christian spirituality for our time.