BY JULIAN CHENDER

In print | November 15, 2007

This column serves as a response to the op-ed and two letters that the Phoenix received in response to my previous column, “Fundamentalism can leave little room for discussion.”

Instead of going through each of the pieces one-by-one, I will respond to them as a whole.

To begin with, I agree that I, in some ways, mischaracterized the Swarthmore Christian Fellowship, and for this I apologize. I mistakenly suggested that the SCF composed the religious right at Swarthmore. This is incorrect. Rather, a number of members of Swarthmore’s religious right attend SCF events. Students of diverse backgrounds and beliefs make up the group — those of the religious right make up part of this diverse group.

It is important to note that while SCF is made up of great diversity in beliefs, the group as a whole professes a distinct belief, one that is fundamentalist. The SCF website declares that there is only one true God and that Jesus Christ alone is the path to salvation. I am not interested in the “image of indoctrinated Republicans that do not care about the environment, do not care about the poor and are terrified of the ‘gay agenda,’” which the term fundamentalism may evoke. The introductory sentence of my previous column was for this reason ill-chosen. Rather, I am interested in belief. In this sense, fundamentalism is a strict and literal adherence to certain beliefs. Religious fundamentalism simply means that “I am right and you are wrong” in the religious arena. SCF’s belief in the one true God and the one true path to salvation falls under the fundamentalist heading.

I am sorry that some people saw me as taking the conversation I recounted in my previous column out of context. In my examination of fundamentalist belief, this conversation seemed quite appropriate. The girl with whom I talked professed fundamentalist beliefs, specifically that all non-Christians go to hell. I then used this to question belief in general, not just Christian belief. (“So many religions include, even if they are not based upon, beliefs — those creeds passed down from generation to generation that are accepted unquestioningly, and which hold no experiential basis.”)

I also did not purport that Christians on this campus - or anywhere - do not get into ethical debates, another misconception that arose last week. In fact, I did not once mention ethics in my column. Furthermore, I do not believe “that refusing to believe anything is the only way to go to heaven.” In the future, I hope that everyone feels free to talk with me about my views (my email address is at the bottom of all my columns), as this might help clear up what I do and do not believe.

In my previous column, I did not claim that Christianity is “accepted unquestioningly”; rather, I noted that many religions include, if not are based on, beliefs, which I define as “those creeds passed down from generation to generation that are accepted unquestioningly, and which hold no experiential basis.” This is not the same as religion being accepted unquestioningly.

It seems that people saw my column as an attack on Christianity, which it was not. My intent was not malicious. Instead, I aimed to question fundamentalist dogma and belief in general, and I used my encounter with the girl from SCF as an example with which to do this.

Julian is a junior. You can reach him at jchende1@swarthmore.edu.

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