Sometimes when I’m wrong, I’m terribly wrong. That’s the case with my understanding of the future of fundamentalism. If you had asked me thirty years ago about the future of fundamentalism, I would have responded that it was a shallow and superficial form of religion based intellectually on ignorance and psychologically on fear and that consequently it was destined to pretty much disappear over the next thirty years.

My television screen on September 11, 2001 disabused me of that facile prediction. Asked by the President of Lake Forest College to be part of a faculty panel the following day, I spent some hours that evening trying to decide what I should say to our student body the next day in the 10 minutes that were allotted to me. I decided to try to throw some light on the tragic events of that day by seeing it as a clash of fundamentalisms: an extremist form of Islam on the one hand and an ultra conservative form of Christianity on the other.

I urged our students on that September 12th afternoon to buy a copy of the Qur’an and to begin to get a correct understanding both of Islam and of Christianity, being careful to see the difference between the healthy centers of these religions and their distorted margins. I stressed the urgency of understanding the choice confronting us: a clash of civilizations (à la Samuel Huntington) or a dialogue of civilizations (à la Mohammed Khatami, Hans Küng, and others). The decisions made by our political administration in the next few days would be critical in indicating which path our country would follow.

The subsequent four years have demonstrated that our administration has chosen the path of the crusader, an essentially tribal mode of response in which we declare a “war” on terrorism rather than initiate a dialogue to understand “why they hate us”. We decried an “axis of evil” thus mirroring the jihadists’ view of us as the “great Satan”. As I heard one Muslim scholar comment recently: “If Osama bin Laden has a wish list, George Bush seems to be filling it item by item.” The invasion of Iraq was an unhoped for plum for bin Laden and for all those wanting to demonstrate the imperialist face of American foreign policy. It has led to a growth of extremism in the Muslim world and has given terrorists a new venue for their militancy.

What was left undone by our administration cried out as poignantly as what was done. There was no massive initiative for dialogue with all factions of the Muslim world, no attempt to bolster a modern Muslim voice to oppose the stridency of the extremists. The tribal language of “us vs. them”, “good vs. evil”, “black vs. white” predominated on both sides of the conflict and little has changed to this day. The agonizing question is whether or not this wrong-headed, four-year course can be changed. It doesn’t seem that this change will come from the top down. It can only come from non-governmental agencies, conscious communities of concerned citizens, interreligious organizations, and courageous and committed individuals. We cannot afford to stay the insane course on which this current administration has placed us. We must walk the road less travelled, the road of deep dialogue leading to justice and peace. Every available voice must be heard crying out and indeed demanding this alternative to an apocalyptic vision that can lead only to planetary disaster.

After reading countless books on fundamentalism and even writing an article about it, my view of fundamentalism has not essentially changed. I still believe it’s a shallow and superficial form of religion based intellectually on ignorance and psychologically on fear. I no longer, however, have the easy confidence of thirty years ago that it will disappear through its own intrinsic inadequacies. I now believe that it must be challenged and that healthy forms of religion must be taught and modeled energetically, tirelessly, and ubiquitously. It’s my hope that Interreligious Insight will always be a voice in that just cause.

Professor Ron Miller is Chair of the Religion Department at Lake Forest College, Illinois. His latest book, Healing the Jewish-Christian Rift, is co-authored with Laura Bernstein, a Jewish Scholar active in interfaith work. He is also Reviews Editor (USA) for Interreligious Insight.