Everything healthy may become ill. Religion, contrary to what critics such as Freud, Marx, Dawkins and others contend, is part of a healthy reality — the search by the human being for the ultimate reality that gives a final meaning to history and the universe.

That search is legitimate and is found in the oldest expressions of homo sapiens/demens, but it also has unhealthy expressions.

One of them, the most frequent these days, is religious fundamentalism that is also found where a specific form of thinking dominates politics.

Fundamentalism is not a doctrine in itself, but an attitude and a form of living a doctrine. The fundamentalist attitude appears when the truths of a particular church or group are understood as the only legitimate ones, to the exclusion of all others, which are deemed erroneous and therefore have no right to exist.

Those who imagine that their point of view is the only valid one are condemned to be intolerant. This closed attitude leads to contempt, discrimination and to religious or political violence.

The niche of fundamentalism is historically found in US Protestantism of the late 19th century, when modernity arrived not only in the fields of technology, but also in democratic forms of political coexistence and the liberalisation of customs.

In this context a strong reaction arose within the Protestant tradition, loyal to the ideals of the “founding fathers” — all derived from the rigours of Protestant ethic.

The term fundamentalism is linked to a collection of books published by Princeton University — which had close ties to the Presbyterian Church — under the title Fundamentals: A Testimony Of Truth, 1909-1915.

This collection proposes an antidote to modernisation — a rigorous, dogmatic Christianity founded on a literal reading of the Bible, considered infallible and unequivocal in each and every word, because it was regarded as the word of God.

They opposed all exegetic-critical interpretation of the Bible and the application of its message to the present context.

Since then, this fundamentalist tendency has been present in US society and politics. It gained religious expression in the so-called “electronic churches,” that use modern means of telecommunication, covering the country from coast to coast, and that have similar churches in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America.

They combat liberal Christians, those who practice a scientific interpretation of the Bible, accept the contemporary feminist and gay movements and defend the decriminalisation of abortion. All that is interpreted by fundamentalists as the work of Satan.

The political assimilated the religious by marrying it to the political ideology of “manifest destiny,” created after the US confiscated territory from Mexico.

According to that ideology, it is the divine destiny of US to bring to all peoples clarity, the values of private property, the free market and democracy and rights, as asserted by John Adams, second US president.

According to Karen Armstrong in the popular, political version, north Americans are now “the new chosen people” who will deliver everyone to the “Land of Emmanuel, seat of that new and singular kingdom that will be given to the saints of the Highest.”

That political-religious amalgam has led to the arrogance and one-sided vision of international relations found in US foreign policy that is prevalent under Barack Obama.

We find a similar type of fundamentalism in extremely conservative Catholic groups, that insist that “there is no salvation outside of the Church.” They are eager to convert the greatest number of people possible and save them from hell.

Some evangelical groups, especially the charismatic churches with their TV programmes, engage in fundamentalist disparagement, particularly with regard to the Afro-Brazilian religions, because they consider their celebrations to be the work of Satan. This results in frequent exorcisms and even attempts to “purify them.”

Fundamentalism in both Catholic and evangelical groups is most visible on moral questions — they are inflexible on the issues of abortion, same sex unions and women’s struggles for freedom in decision making.

They foster true ideological wars in social networks and the media against all who discuss such questions, even though they are part of the agenda of all open societies.

We have recently had a candidate for the presidency of Brazil, Marina Silva, who adheres to Biblicism — a type of fundamentalism. She insists on a literal reading of the Bible as if the solutions to all problems could be found there.

As Pope Francis put it so well “the Bible, rather than a warehouse of truths, is an inspiring source for beneficial human initiatives. The Bible must be held in our brains to illuminate reality, not in front of the eyes, to obscure it.”

The Brazilian state is lay and pluralist. It welcomes all religions without adhering to any. According to the Brazilian constitution, no given religion may impose its points of view on the whole nation.

Anybody in political authority may have religious convictions, but must govern through the laws, not through these convictions.

There are four Gospels, not just one. They coexist through the diversity of interpretations they give to the message of Jesus of Nazareth — it is an example of the richness of diversity.

God is the eternal coexistence of three divine beings, that through love form one single God. Diversity is fecund.

Leonardo Boff is a Brazilian theologian, writer and Professor Emeritus of Ethics, Philosophy of Religion and Ecology at the Rio de Janeiro State University. This article first appeared in leonardoboff.wordpress.com

Translated by Melina Alfaro.