The article aims to identify the nature and the essence of religious fundamentalism, i.e. the invariant of fundamentalism in relation to a particular religion, that unites various types of religious fundamentalism. The article substantiates the idea that the nature of fundamentalism is rooted in the archaization type of the social and cultural response to transformational processes of modernism. Fundamentalism is the archaization that has an aggressive character, aimed not at adapting tradition to social innovations, but at conflict with modernity. Religious fundamentalism is a specific response of religious groups to modernism and the secularization associated with it. Fundamentalism, as a product of modernism, uses its achievements to design social life, principles of which it finds in the fundamental texts of religious tradition. The identification of the nature of religious fundamentalism in various social and cultural transformations of the beginning of the 20^th century allows us to conclude that fundamentalism has not a religious and not political, but the socio-cultural nature. It means, firstly, that fundamentalism can be not only in a religious form; secondly, that the essence of fundamentalism does not lie in political processes, but it accepts a political form. The predominant expression of modern fundamentalism in the political form is caused politicization of religion in the second half of the 20^th century. In this regard, the article points out ineffectiveness of the struggle with religious fundamentalism exclusively in the field of politics.

Key words: religion, fundamentalism, social and cultural nature, modernism, archaization, modernization, secularization, tradition, political form

DOI: 10.22250/20728662_2023_1_65

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About hte author

Sergey N. Astapov – Dr. Sci. (Philosophy), Professor, Head of Department of Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies, Southern Federal University; 105/42 Bolshaya Sadovaya str., Rostov-on-Don, 344006, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.