Revisiting Fanaticism in the Context of Wasaṭīyyah

Fanaticism is derived from the Latin word fanum, which refers to sacred placesof worship such as temples or other consecrated sites. The complete term fanaticusmeans “to be put into raging enthusiasm by a deity.”2 In the modernsense, a fanatic is simply an individual who goes to an extreme, is overly zealousor unreasonably enthusiastic regarding an issue, idea, opinion, or action.These ideations do not have to be of a strictly religious nature, but may alsobe in regard to a personal or private matter or a larger political, social, or economicissue. Despite the broadness of its contemporary application, it is mostcommonly used in its traditional sense of religious zealousness, intolerance,and violence.In today’s literature fanaticism stands not for the content of any particularreligious position, but for a mentality and attitude that can attach an attitudeof radicalism, rigor, and extremism to the content of any ideal or ideology.According to the Cambridge Dictionary, it refers to a person “holding extremebeliefs that may lead to unreasonable (actions) or violent behavior.”3 One featureof this mentality is the “religious assurance of the establishment of beliefthrough dogmatic and moral legalism, often founded on a fundamentalist positivismin matters touching revelation.”4“Fundamentalism” (uṣūlīyah), on the other hand, is originally a Protestantterm developed in the early part of the twentieth century to refer to Christiangroups that believed in the Bible’s inerrancy, as opposed to those who soughtto make scriptural changes to accommodate the modern world.5 It is somewhatredundant in the Islamic context; however, some scholars have been trying tounderstand the connection between Islam and fundamentalism.6 Theoretically,the great majority of practicing Muslims are “fundamentalists” because theybelieve that the Qur’an remains unchanged from its initial revelation. Therefore,the following analysis will mainly focus on the concepts of fanaticismand wasaṭīyah from a comparative perspective that emphasizes their recentdevelopments and connections to Islam ...

Applying the Vagueness of Language: Poetic Strategies and Campmeeting Piety in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Methodist studies of the last four decades have insisted that Methodism be seen as a distinctive intellectual tradition with its own integrity. These studies have corrected the excesses of an earlier experiential interpretation. Although some may still characterize Wesley's Christianity as “almost totally devoid of intellectual content,” the subjects of Wesley, of Methodism, and of the American Holiness Movement can now no longer be reduced to merely an unreflective warm-hearted piety. Current studies have especially highlighted several distinct Wesleyan theological developments. These include the displacement of election and predestination by a religious assurance from the witness of the spirit, the tension between salvation by holy living and salvation by faith alone, an emphasis on vital Christian experience in theological reflection, and especially the development of a Protestant understanding of Christian perfection or holiness. As Henry Rack states, Wesley “softened the hard edges of Calvinism” with an Arminian accent and moved the center of Protestantism so that justification became “the door into the pilgrimage of holiness” rather than the Lutheran cradle or the Calvinist promise. Wesley's prominence in Jaroslav Pelikan's history of Christian doctrine indicates the growing acceptance of this Methodist intellectual history.

Apostles to the People

“The message of these expansive evangelists was simple and direct. Christian faith, they all agreed, whatever its personal rewards in terms of religious assurance, also promised education, health, and social progress to all sorts of deprived and oppressed peoples. In our less romantic age, we may smile at this simplistic creed, sugar-coated with token benefits, thinly hiding a political and economic policy of western imperialism…But it would be futile to impugn the motives of these apostles to the people. Their record of astonishing achievements is available for all to examine.”