Description
Book SynopsisThis penetrating book sheds light on the psychology of fundamentalism, with a particular focus on those who become extremists and fanatics. What accounts for the violence that emerges among some fundamentalist groups? The contributors to this book identify several factors: a radical dualism, in which all aspects of life are bluntly categorized as either good or evil; a destructive inclination to interpret authoritative texts, laws, and teachings in the most literal of terms; an extreme and totalized conversion experience; paranoid thinking; and an apocalyptic world view. After examining each of these concepts in detail, and showing the ways in which they lead to violence among widely disparate groups, these engrossing essays explore such areas as fundamentalism in the American experience and among jihadists, and they illuminate aspects of the same psychology that contributed to such historical crises as the French Revolution, the Nazi movement, and post-Partition Hindu religious practi
Trade ReviewThe Fundamentalist Mindset captures well a timely discussion that beckons the reader to further research and reflection. * Claude Barbre, Journal of Religion and Health *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements i Preface iii Martin E. Marty Introduction 1 Charles B. Strozier and David M. Terman Part I: What is the Fundamentalist Mindset? 9 1 Definitions and Dualisms 10 Charles B. Strozier and Katharine Boyd 2 Theories of Group Psychology, Paranoia, and Rage 18 David M. Terman 3 The Apocalyptic 41 Charles B. Strozier and Katharine Boyd 4 The Charismatic Leader and the Totalism of Conversion 60 Charles B. Strozier, Katharine Boyd, and James W. Jones Part II: Motivations for Violence 71 5 The Paranoid Gestalt 72 David M. Terman 6 The Apocalyptic Other 97 Charles B. Strozier 7 Triggering the Fundamentalist Mind: Having Control Under Control 111 Bettina Muenster and David Lotto 8 Fundamentalist Faith States: Affect Regulation and the Attachment Relationship to God 126 Daniel Hill Part III: Christian and American Contexts 139 9 Eternal Warfare: Violence on the Mind of American Apocalyptic Christianity 140 James W. Jones 10 Opening the Seven Seals of Fundamentalism 164 Charles B. Strozier 11 The Unsettling of the Fundamentalist Mindset: Shifts in Apocalyptic Belief in Contemporary Conservative Christianity 188 Lee Quinby Part IV: Global and Historical Contexts 212 12 Motivations for Jihadi Violence 213 Farhad Khosrokhavar 13 Ordering Chaos: the Nazi Millennialism and the Quest for Meaning 238 David Redles 14 The French Revolution and the Paranoid Gestalt 273 David P. Jordan 15 Hindu Victimhood and India's Muslim Minority 304 John R. McLane Conclusion: A Fundamentalist Mindset? 336 James W. Jones
