Crapanzano

The author states that in societies such as Fundamentalists there is a constant war being waged for the control of meaning and power saying that this conflict is hidden by "the theory of interpretation itself, one that stresses its objectivity or, for that matter, its divine inspiration" (Crapanzano 8). What the Fundamentalists try to control is uncontrollable because of the very nature of their interpretation of the Bible. For truly, how can they control the meaning of a text that is supposed to be taken for word. Ironically, Crapanzano says such control cannot be acknowledged because of the nature of the interpretation. Literalism in religion is the idea that the text should be interpreted semantically rather than pragmatically. An interesting quote: "For the Fundamentalists, these are associated with man's fallen condition, with promiscuous flights of imagination, and with his propensity to manipulate meaning for his own depraved purpose. For the literalist lawyers and judges, it is a way of controlling meaning, stabilizing the law, and promoting social order and continuity" (16). How can a religion that claims to prevent manipulation of meaning for depraved purposes do so by reading an age old text literally? The Bible is an interpretation itself because thinking is interpretation. One can't even argue for the most part that Biblical writers were possessed by the Holy Ghost because the Bible contains details of customary life such as tax regulations. As Jakobson points out, "the cognitive level of language not only admits but directly requires recoding interpretation, that is, translation" (Linguistic Aspects 433).

Why was this religion so fast growing in America? I think that the basis of the religion at first seems clear: the Bible is God's word and in the words of Ralph Barnes who references the fall of Eve: "Now they were created in perfection. They had minds which had not been tainted from the curse and fall. And yet they were subject to corruption and they were subject to error, because they did not listen to God." Through this argument, Barnes creates an analogy of The Fall with Fundamentalism today. The argument is striking and powerful but such an argument is an interpretation in itself, a controlled one that leads to a concrete point.

It doesn't make any sense - when the Bible was written, television and evolution did not exist. How does Fundamentalism condemn these things when "the word" was written by mortal men who lived in a time where none of this existed? I agree with the Masowe more because they understood that perhaps the Bible was no longer applicable to them in the context of new society. Speaking as a person who attended a lecture called "Why Are People Unhappy" to realize it was an evangelical recruitment (though not Fundamentalist) I find it very offensive that Fundamentalists use tactics such as a friendly Jesus and salvation to cover up for the fact that it is a limiting religion - one that says to accept all, but only if they reform themselves.