Dwight Longenecker Maligns Fundamentalists?

New blog on the kid : Is "Vatican II" in Continuity with Trent and Vatican "I"? · Creation vs. Evolution : Agreeing with the Biblical World View · Dwight Longenecker Maligns Fundamentalists? · Pete Vere Understimates Fundamentalism of Fathers · Can Six Days or Eve from Side of Adam be a Metaphor?

Let's begin why he touches the issue.

There is an essay this week by a fellow called Mike Lewis at a website called Where Peter Is which states that there are two kinds of Catholics now–“ecclesial” and “fundamentalist”

Are Conservative Catholics Fundamentalists?
https://dwightlongenecker.com/are-conservative-catholics-fundamentalists/

Now, he feels that his position (I presume like sceptic of Amoris Laetitia and supportive of Cardinal Burke, but it is some time since I checked his blog) was by Mike Lewis misrepresented as "fandamentalism".

Let's continue on how Dwight Longenecker (not calling him father, not due to misreading Matthew, but due to not being sure of his valid ordination) himself uses the word:

Now, of course, it is a dirty word–associated with racism and terrorism, the Ku Klux Klan and jihadis who behead little children in public.

And:

“Fundamentalist” has nothing to do with conservative Catholics. The term was coined by Biblical literalists.

To be fair, there are some conservative Catholics on the lunatic fringe who could properly be termed “fundamentalist”. I’ve engaged with some traditionalists who really are racist, anti-semitic, ultra right wing, geo centrist conspiracy theory nut jobs.

I am one trad he has engaged with, can by some definitions be described as anti-semitic (like Father Kolbe and like Karl Lüeger, not like Hitler or Bormann, please note), as ultra right wing in the sense of supporting some historical fascisms (Franco and Salazar, Dollfuss and Schuschnigg were and are on my "acceptable" list - some reservations against the former two have turned up since my teens), and am into Geocentrism and some versions of conspiracy theories (consider Henry Makow to be fairly accurate on some points, as well as Lyndon LaRouche).

But his first word was "racist" and that I am not. He could have been referring to my stance on immigration, but he might perhaps call that rather "xenophobia" (and it's a mild one, or was to recently, I have not expressed very radical antiimmigrant stances and some are still distasteful to me). Or he could have spoken of someone else, also geocentric, or been putting me (as geocentric) and the other (as racist) in the same bag. Or he could have maligned me.

But he certainly seems to malign Fundamentalists. He brings up "some traditionalists who really are racist ..." (and the rest of the list, but racist first) the sentence after saying "who could properly be termed 'fundamentalist'".

And for some reason, he mentions Ku Klux Klan before he mentions Jihadis.

So, how did Ku Klux Klan come along and land among Fundamentalists?

I do not have a very intense contact with Alt Righters who might be described as White Suprematists, but I have had some.

They do not applaud Biblical literalism. The position "Adam was not the first man, but the first Jew" (contradicting the fact that a lot of non-Jews, like Egypt - Mizraim - and much of Ethiopia - Kush - and like Greeks descending from Javan, are all described in Genesis 10 as descending from Noah and therefore as per Genesis 5 from Adam) - that position is fairly common among them, as is the position that Cain found his wife among pre-Adamites. Except for those who totally ditch the "Jewish" or "Semite" tradition and consider me a Crypto-Jew or a race traitor because I accept it.

One explanation can be that some in Nigeria are comparing Ku Klux Klan to Boko Haram.

FUNDAMENTALISM RACISM COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN KU KLUX KLAN AND BOKO HARAM
June 24, 2017 / olufunkeogunnaike
https://olufunkeogunnaike.wordpress.com/2017/06/24/fundamentalism-racism-comparative-study-between-ku-klux-klan-and-boko-haram/

How Boko Haram is comparable to Ku Klux is not very hard to figure out : both are violent movements, risen against what at least appears to most as the legal government, and a third comparison would be the Camorra of Naples and the Mafia of Sicily. All three involve taking a conscientious objection against the legal or apparently such government to a violent and (in two cases, but perhaps not the Boko Haram one) secretive, omertà based sabotage of this government.

How Boko Haram is "fundamentalist" is also not hard to figure out : it has a fundamentalist reading of Islamic rules.

But the rules enforced by Mafiosi or Ku Klux are not Catholic or Southern Protestant religious rules, they are actually rules of older secular régimes. Not sure whether Mafia is for Angevins or for Bourbons, but they were against the house of Savoy, and Ku Klux are for reviving the Confederacy : note, the loyalties are not necessarily in themselves bad, Confederacy (in 1860), like US (in 1776) could have been a slave side in a conflict of the past, without remaining a slave side in a future conflict. Restoring Bourbons or Angevins to the Two Sicilies may ultimately be a great idea. But the mode of operation is being secretive and carrying out lynchings and murders, as well as taxing illegal and double taxing legal business. This is evil.

Now, Ku Klux, as said, are not Biblical literalists. So, therein they differ from Boko Haram who are Qoranic ones. Calling Ku Klux Klan fundamentalists because Boko Haram are fundamentalists is like calling the shrimp a mammal because, like whales, they are in the broad sense "fish" and whales are also mammals. In a US and White Anglo Saxon Protestant context, "Fundamentalist" more properly has to do with the history of the word there, as pointed out by Dwight:

The term was coined by Biblical literalists.

So, are now Biblical literalists going to suffer for the crimes of Boko Haram, Breivik and Ku Klux Klan? It's like letting a poor Jew suffer for a conspiracy by the Rothschilds.

If there is a thing which can be called "racist" (in a wider sense than the strictly biometric one) it is judging someone from his demographic, someone else in a negative or oneself in a positive way.

It would be kind of "racist" to call oneself a perfectly orthodox Catholic on the ground that one is Hispanic and therefore from a Catholic demographic. It would be kind of "racist" to consider someone a probable or even certain Nazi because he is German.

In a similar sense it would be kind of "racist" to consider Biblical literalism as Ku Klux Klan related because both have deep roots in some of the US states that were formerly Confederate. Or to consider Ku Klux Klan as Fundamentalist on that ground.

Dwight is guilty of a similar fault:

“Fundamentalist” has nothing to do with conservative Catholics. The term was coined by Biblical literalists.

The Biblical literalists in question about a century ago were in fact Protestants, or Baptists (some of them holding to Baptist Continuity theory would dispute being Protestants, since that theory involves them not coming from Reformation : in sober historic fact, they do come from Reformation, but unlike Lutherans and Zwinglians not at first hand). That does not mean Biblical literalism as such is Protestant (or Baptist). It would be more correct to consider Evolution and Old Earth compromise as Protestant, because at least Old Earth comes from progressive Protestants even earlier, like Lyell and Cuvier - who was, yes, a Protestant).

The Council of Trent which condemned Protestantism, and the Council of the Vatican in 1869 to 70 which condemned a few more Protestant errors never condemned Biblical literalism. Therefore it is doctrinally incorrect to consider this as a Protestant error. It is also historically so, since a Conservative Protestant may take his stance on issues which he shares with Conservative Catholics : as is the case now on abortion issue, as was the case a few decades ago, against Communism, and it was also the actual case with the Biblical literalists, who were approaching the Catholic Church, like the Magisterium of St. Pius X, by being Biblical literalists.

So, I would say Dwight Longenecker does malign Fundamentalists, but I'll give him a chance to answer this.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Ember Friday of Pentecost
25.V.2018