"But isn't this just endorsing a wholly outmoded and discredited fundamentalism,
that condition than which, according to many academics, none lesser can be
conceived? I fully realize that the dreaded f-word will be trotted out to
stigmatize any model of this kind. Before responding, however, we must first
look into the use of this term 'fundamentalist'. On the most common contemporary
academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like
'son of a bitch', more exactly 'sonovabitch', or perhaps still more exactly (at
least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on
matters of pronunciation) 'sumbitch'. When the term is used in this way, no
definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would
you feel obliged first to define the term?) Still, there is a bit more to the
meaning of 'fundamentalist' (in this widely current use): it isn't simply a term
of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content,
and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it
more like 'stupid sumbitch' (or maybe 'fascist sumbitch'?) than 'sumbitch'
simpliciter. It isn't exactly like that term either, however, because its
cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend
on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example,
it tends to denote any who accept traditional Christianity, including Augustine,
Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like
Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there
is such a person as God. The explanation is that the term has a certain
indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase 'considerably to
the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.' The full
meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like
'stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of
mine'. It is therefore hard to take seriously the charge that the views I am
expressing are fundamentalist; more exactly, it is hard to take it seriously as
a charge. The alleged charge means only that these views are rather more
conservative than the objector's, together with a certain distaste for the views
of those who express them. But how is that an objection to anything, and why
should it warrant the contempt and contumely that goes with the term. An
argument of some kind would be of interest but merely pointing out that they
differ from the objector's (even with the addition of that abusive emotive
force) is not"