The Glory and the Power: The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Modern World / Edition 1

by Martin E. Marty

Overview

A study of fundamentalists examines the social and political influence of world-wide movements.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807012178
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	12/31/1992
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.50(d)

Editorial Reviews

Something rare: a fair-minded assessment of religious fundamentalism. In this companion volume to a three-part PBS series, Marty and Appleby aim to dissipate the fog of ignorance that surrounds the average understanding of fundamentalism. . . . A useful guide to what is proving to be . . . a historical movement at least as important as Marxist-Leninism. —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Fundamentalist religious movements, assert the authors, are ``innovative . . . usually dynamic'' and ``constructive in spirit.'' In this evenhanded study, which is the basis of a PBS series, Marty, professor of Christianity at the University of Chicago, and Appleby ( Church and Age Unite! ) attempt to steer a middle course by refusing to portray fundamentalists as paragons of unreason. In their definition, fundamentalists, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, seek to remake the world by selectively retrieving doctrines and practices from a presumed sacred past. Yet the authors concede that fundamentalists ``need enemies'' and ``demonize opponents.'' After discussing Bob Jones University, an evangelical school in South Carolina, and Operation Rescue, the U.S. anti-abortion movement, they move on to examine Gush Emunim, the Jewish settler movement active in Israel's West Bank, Egypt's Islamic militants bent on aligning government with religious orthodoxy, and resurgent fundamentalist groups from Iran to India and Africa. Photos. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This insightful work serves as a companion to a series of PBS and NPR documentaries aired in June 1992. It includes quotes from filmed interviews not only with Christian fundamentalists (from such groups as the Moral Majority and Operation Rescue) but also with members of the Israeli group Gush Emunin, who are attempting to settle occupied territories, and members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The authors discuss the movements nonjudgmentally, providing keen insights into fundamentalism as a sociological phenomenon. They see these movements as thriving rather than falling into the disarray suggested by Michael D'Antonio's Fall from Grace ( LJ 12/89). Recommended for general readers.-- Richard S. Watts, San Bernardino Cty. Lib., Cal.

Library Journal