The Catholic V. Fundamentalist Question

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

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The stir between the strong root of Catholicism in Christianity and its relatively new counterparts among the Fundamentalist ranks of Protestantism has been a growing concern among Western world cultures, especially in the United States. In the midst of technological domination and political anomie in the absence of the Cold War, the issues of lost morals and values, especially Christian values is resurfacing in a major way as we spread our presence and culture all over the world, by television and the internet. Many parties on both ends of the Christian spectrum have also considered this post Cold War era as a time of renewed opportunity to establish a strong and positive presence within the world. For the Roman Catholic church, the greatest issue being faced in the current era is how to reconcile with modernism and beyond this, how to reinterpret their divine mission in order to effectively minister to the modern world rather than shrink back into traditions of chruch infallibility and risk fading into obscurity.

Fundamentalist Protestant groups on the other hand are still a grassroots movement , simply on the rise trying to do everything in their power to be heard and to influence society, American society in particular. In facing the world stage, and new mediums of ultimate human influence such as television, radio, the internet, and easily availible print, these very traditional minded groups are set on a platform of contradiction, or rather subversion; having at their disposal all the resources of mediocrity, in the form of Evangelical television programs, various periodicals, and websites, they fight fire with fire as it were, challenging the slackness of popular culture in its "Devil's values" in their own mediums (Hirsley 8) . Nevertheless, their hardline religious right mentality is fed by their ambition to influence the masses,