Blood at the root

If you were talking to a group of particle physicists and mentioned the word ‘fundamentalism’, they would assume that you were referring to Isaac Newton (who kept his belief in alchemy a well-guarded secret). To stem-cell researchers fundamentalism would mean going back to Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood. Post-Darwinians wouldn’t pass the time of day with Creationists.

Over six millennia of civilisation, fundamentalism was not only not a dirty word; the concept was the plinth, the fundamental basis, the trunk of the tree on which a system of beliefs was built and from which other branches grew. Saul of Tarsus, post-Damascus, was accused of violating the fundamentals of Christ’s teaching, but it was St Paul, not Jesus nor the upside-down- crucified Peter, who established the Catholic Church as we know it today.

Marx turned Hegelian fundamentalism (dialectics) on its head and no one batted an eyelid. Communism, while it flourished, was a religion in all but name. The charge of ‘revisionism’ was levelled against all its opponents by that arch spin-doctor Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, as if by simply using the word it was enough to condemn the accused, without benefit of due process. The Sophists were reviled for this crime too. New Labour eschews fundamentalism as much as Old Labour grasps it to its bosom. Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, is only the latest arena of this battle between authentic and ersatz. The examples are endless, as Ian Paisley no doubt does not know. The intellectual difficulty here is that without the fundament there could be no offshoots: you cannot rebel against or re-interpret a vacuum.

It is against this background that Malise Ruthven’s book must be viewed. I was not aware that he was an anglicised Irishman, which is apposite, given his subject.