Fundamentalism

“The hour is coming when anyone who kills you will claim to be serving God; they will do this because they not known the Father or me.” (Jn 16:2-3)

We see how true this statement of Jesus is. Fundamentalism even in the name of religion is on the rise. Besides tribalism, culturalism, regionalism and other group biases, fundamentalism in the name of serving God is a sad reality in our world. Wars and violence in the name of religion are becoming common.

Jesus says that this phenomenon of religious fundamentalism is due to ignorance of the true: “they have not known the Father or me.” Even being a Christian you can become a fundamentalist, if you truly do not known the Father or Jesus Christ. The greatest sin one can commit is to be on the surface, to be superficial. Superficiality has to be fought on all levels. Before we point a finger at others’ superficiality, we need to discover in ourselves if there are superficial attitudes. If don’t deal with them or remove them, we too can be superficial which leads to fundamentalism.

Love is not love unless it is free. If we don’t want our love to become manipulation we need to know God more and more deeply. We need to allow him more and more in our lives. Prayer and reading the Word of God are ways to deepen our knowledge, and interiorize what we know about God.

As Henri Nouwen says, “People who pray stand receptive before the world. They no longer grab but caress, they no longer bite but kiss, they no longer examine but admire.” Prayer makes us attentive and sensitive to others. We can become more and more relevant only when we truly pray.

For this, we need the Spirit of truth to be convinced of divine things. We need to ask and beg for God’s help, which is never far away.