The F word

I don't know when I realised I was a fundamentalist, and that I didn't really want to be. But it was sometime in the last year.

Since 9/11 the subject of fundamentalism has come to the fore - specifically Islamic fundamentalism, but inevitably people have compared it with the conservative Christianity of President George W Bush.

It was so easy when I was buried in the Christian subculture. I could just say they had it all wrong, that Bush and the rest of us were different, and leave it at that.

But I've since learned that life is never simple, particularly when we most want it to be! Paradoxically, this realisation made life a bit simpler for me, if a little lonelier.

I used to look at things very black-and-white, and very shallowly. (I'm not even sure shallowly is a word, but it is now!) I was a lazy thinker.

Rather than think through theological, economic, political or social issues, I would just find someone who I agreed with in one area, and agree carte blanche with everything else they believed in. If I knew it, that is. Or if I didn't. It didn't really matter. It was just too much detail.

It got really confusing when two people who I both really admired expressed opposing views, and still worked together. I couldn't get that.

But now I think I'm starting to grow up, and form my own opinions.

But what surprised me was how many people have such strong opinions. I've just started really looking into all sorts of issues - philosophy, theology, politics, economics, etc. - and it takes a long time to really have an opinion after looking at all the issues. Where do these people get off? Or have they done the hard yards?

I don't know; I can only speak for myself that I am decidedly undecided on quite a stack of issues, while in other areas I have, as my friend Adam calls them, Very Staunch Beliefs.

Sometimes the staunchness of those Very Staunch Beliefs surprises me. I guess I am a fundamentalist after all!