The difference between devout and fundamentalist

Rick Salutin writes a very insightful article in today's Globe and Mail about how fundamentalism is a form of secularization.

I tend to agree. I do consider myself to be, in my own flawed way, quite devout, because I think about faith all the time and devote myself to understanding what life is about from the religious perspective.

But I am not a fundamentalist. And I do not use the word fundamentalist in the pejorative sense necessarily. When I assert that I am not a fundamentalist, I mean simply that I think some important religious truths reveal themselves in our lives outside the canons of scripture, and even outside of church buildings.

This is part of Salutin's point. He writes, "The point of most religion is not to shift all meaning to a heavenly realm, but to sanctify aspects of life on our level while remaining connected to a 'higher' realm. That is what most ritual, prayer and acts of goodness intend. They happen here but have meaning on that other level."

And this is where I agree. I love the beautiful passages of the Gospel of John where Jesus is speaking to his disciples after the last supper, and en route to Gethsemane. In the 17th chapter, He says, "And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are... They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world."

As Christians, we are both here and not here. We are saved by Jesus, and thus do not belong to this world, but are destined to and property of the next world. But we are in this world, and must do our good in this world.

Anyway, not to rant on too much, but Salutin's article was very insightful. :-)