Constitutional Fundamentalism

As the first order of business, the 112th Congress began the new term with a reading of the US Constitution. In what reminded me of a litany of passage readings, some 140 members of Congress took the podium to read their section.  The ritualization of the reading seemed very much like the reading of Biblical passages in churches across the America.

The exercise reminded me of a religious ceremony in another sense as well.  Just as fundamentalist Christians read the Bible literally and demand that others do as well, Constitutional fundamentalists demand a literal interpretation and a strict adherence to the original intent of the writers whom they revere as Saints.  But the Constitution poses a problem for Fundamentalists. The "sacred original" texts speaks of human servitude and only counting some people as three-fifths of a person. In an effort to whitewash history, the Constitutional originalists read an edited version of the Constitution.  Similarly Fundamentalist Christians ignore sections of the "literal Word of God" describing them as anachronisms such as many Mosaic Laws.  

Often the literalists express a fear that if some part of the Bible isn't (literally) true, then the whole book must not be true. This theology ignores the poetic beauty of Biblical language with many allegorical interpretations and lessons available. Likewise, strict originalism forgets the Constitution as a living document to be read and applied for our own times. 

This is the problem with Fundamentalism. Too many contradictions pop up in the philosophy- theologically and politically. It ignores some ugliness of our past even when explicitly written in the "sacred" documents. Discussing our tortured past can help us correct our social, religious, and political problems in the future.