Neil Godfrey, principle author of the website vridar.org, belonged to an ultrafundamentalist church in his youth, as did I. He is also a political progressive, as I am not. In a recent comment on Trump's supporters, he noted some similarities between them and the cult to which he once belonged. While I don't disagree that the similarities exist, I don't think they are as unique to one end of the political spectrum as Godfrey seems to think.
Referencing a previous essay, Godfrey identified the following commonalities among others. (1) They are counter-modernist. (2) They are “generally assertive, clamorous, and often violent”. (3) They are a chosen or otherwise special people. (4) Them employ public marks of distinction. (5) They believe theirs is the only true religion. (6) They believe in "an inerrant holy book, prophet or charismatic leader to whom literal obedience is mandatory."
These are indeed characteristic of the sects to which Godfrey and I once belonged, though they were very different sects. I was a Oneness Pentecostal, while he was a member of the Worldwide Church of God. Each claimed to be totally Bible-based, but they otherwise had little in common. Each believed that the other was headed straight for hell.
We have both changed our thinking about a lot things since we left our churches. Like me, he is now an atheist. Also like me, he has come to doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person. And, I am not now accusing him of having reverted to any of his earlier errors. I intend none of this "He hasn't really changed as much as he thinks he has" crap. But, for whatever reason, I suspect he has failed to notice some key similarities between the people with whom his political sympathies lie and the people whose religious beliefs he once shared.
Taking his points in order:
1. The left is not obviously anti-modern. Much of its rhetoric is post-modern, though, and postmodernism rejects much of what was regarded as modern until recently. Conventional fundamentalism began in the early 20th century as a movement within American evangelical Christianity primarily to oppose what was then called modernism, which was a product of the European Enlightenment. Today's fundamentalists are no less opposed to postmodernism while continuing to reject the earlier modernism. But progressivism also rejects the Enlightenment, though for superficially different reasons than fundamentalists do. Superficially, because at root they have the same problem with it. Enlightenment values are inconsistent with dogma, and progressives have become as dogmatic as any Christian fundamentalist.
2. The current demonstrations, ostensibly against racially motivated police violence, are certainly assertive and clamorous. In some places they are also often violent, and this observation is not contradicted by the liberal press's usual assertion that they are "mostly peaceful."
3. Most progressives don't claim to be taking orders from any deity, but they do implicitly claim an otherwise privileged status. They seem to think they have somehow acquired a degree of moral insight enabling them to discern the true thoughts and feelings of all who disagree with them. They seem to think they are gifted with a knowledge and understanding of important truths that have been rejected by all people but themselves.
4. Public maSeptember 30rks of distinction serve to advertise one's tribal membership. They say to co-tribalists "I'm one of you" while saying to all others "I don't belong among you." This is exactly what virtue signalling does. Not that that is all it does. Public marks of distinction never have only one purpose. But they do have the purpose of both reinforcing and conspicuously exhibiting tribal identity.
5. Fundamentalism came to be called that because its foundational texts were a set of books called The Fundamentals, published in 1917. It presented a set of doctrines that, according to its authors, any person had to believe in order to be saved from spending eternity burning in hell. Deny any of them and you're not really a Christian, and if you're not a Christian, then you will burn in hell. Secularists cannot threaten anyone with hell or any other divine retribution, but they have ways of making the present life hell for anyone who questions any of their political doctrines, such as the irrelevance of our evolutionary history to a proper understanding of our present behavior.
6. Progressives don't treat any book quite the same way Christian fundamentalists treat the Bible, but they do attribute something like inerrancy to any scholarship that they think justifies their doctrines. It's not that they say their authorities are incapable of error. It's that they deny the moral acceptability of questioning anything their authorities say. Without saying a word about divine revelation, they treat these authorities' pronouncements as if they were divinely revealed. There is hardly a relevant difference between saying "They cannot be wrong" and saying "You may not suggest that they could be wrong."
All this is why the war has begun, and why it seems likely to start escalating on the day after the election, no matter who the winner is. The avoidance of extensive bloodshed will require compromise, and people with attitudes like these will not compromise. As far as they are concerned, there can be no acceptable outcome to this conflict short of total victory for their side.
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(This page last updated on Oct. 22, 2020.)