A Fundamental Fear of Fire:
Terror Management Theory and Fundamental Christianity
by Jacob Oblak
The Psychology of Religion
Professor Raymond Lambert
December 11, 2011
Few topics produce anxiety like the topic of death. When confronted with the reality and inevitability of death, most people have internal fears and anxiety associated with those thoughts. In fact, historical study suggests that this anxiety is inherent to all of humanity. Indeed, psychologist Ralph Hood explained that “we humans do not take kindly to death…[but] repress, deny, shun, and withdraw where possible from reminders of death” (Hood, Hill and Spilka 184). German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, known for his investigation of human motivation, said that “the fear of death is the beginning of philosophy and the final cause of religion” (Durant 328). Christian Fundamentalists, like most people in the world, would readily agree that their death is inevitable. However, their intense fear of absolute death results in their condemnation of non-believers to hell, manipulative practices, and conformity that isolates them from dissent and suppresses contradictions.
Admitting death’s inevitability and proximity poses no problem for fundamentalists. However, this admission comes with major caveats. Christian fundamentalists present a choice: either you get saved by believing correctly, or God will send you to hell. More succinctly, these fundamentalists teach that there is no need to fear death as long as you have received Jesus as your savior. This dichotomous presentation stems both from viewing of death as the worst punishment and from a fear of death. When the God of the Old Testament was displeased with people, he most often killed them (Meredith 121-123). In the New Testament, Paul views death as the enemy (I Corinthians 15:26, NKJV). Jesus even argued that losing limbs was better than eternal death in hell (Mark 9:43, NKJV).
The fallacy of wishful thinking (claiming an argument’s veracity because things would be horrible if it were not so) often emerges as a response to fear of death. Fundamentalists claim to base their beliefs on the Bible, and many of their arguments for why Christianity is correct stem not from logical and reasonable persuasion, but from fear of death. A prominent argument propounded by Paul, to whom most fundamentalists attribute nearly half of the New Testament, posits that if Paul’s teachings about Christ were untrue, Paul’s “message has no meaning and your faith…is nonsense and sin still has you in its power. Then those who have died as believers in Christ no longer exist. If Christ is our hope in this life only, we deserve more pity than any other people” (Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, NKJV). Paul’s fear of cessation of existence, or absolute death, provides the ultimate foundation for his belief in Christ’s salvation.
In their groundbreaking Psychology of Religion, Hood, Hill and Spilka suggest that an inability to accept the reality of death could be the cause of fundamentalists’ insistence on heaven and hell, saying that “the idea of total termination is rightfully terrifying to most people; hence the need to convince oneself that life never really ends (Hood, Hill & Spilka 185-188). Fundamental Christianity compounds their fear of mortality by introducing punishment after death: hell. A prominent theologian for Christian Apologetics Research Ministries, a well-known evangelical Christian organization, states that “hell is a real place. It is not mere unconsciousness. It is not temporal. It is eternal torment. Perhaps that is why Jesus spoke more of hell than heaven and spent so much time warning people not to go there” (Slick). Fundamentalist Christianity often employs this belief during sermons and revivals to pressure non-believers into accepting Jesus as their personal Savior. As one fervent fundamentalist puts it, “only 1% of the population is truly born-again. This means that 2,328 people enter into Heaven each and every day. And sadly, 230,548 people plunge into hellfire each and every day… It's Jesus or Hell” (Stewart). This form of manipulation of human fear and anxiety runs rampant throughout fundamentalism.
Indeed, one of the most famous sermons in Christian history, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards, finds its way into many sermons in fundamental churches all over the world. This sermon focused solely upon this premise: for the “unconverted persons [without] Christ,…that lake of burning brimstone is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air” (Edwards). Many fundamentalist Christians fear death more than anything else simply because they cannot be certain they have lived a life worthy of a Christian. Their ultimate fear is finding themselves at the judgment seat of Christ, being counted as one who was deceived, and being cast away as an unbeliever (Matthew 25:31-46). And many fundamentalists suppress this fear by repeating Paul’s argument that their beliefs must be correct; otherwise, their life would be vain and their death would be final.
To remove the natural anxiety of the thought of death as far from consciousness as possible, fundamentalists must first ignore any contradictions, inconsistencies, or fallacies both in the Bible and in their interpretation and application of it. For instance, fundamental Christian theologian Charles Ryrie, in his Basic Theology textbook for many fundamentalist universities, addresses the question of the Bible’s authority by arguing that “the only way the Scripture can lose its authority is if it contains errors, but Christ taught that the Scripture cannot be broken. Thus He must have believed it did not contain errors….Who can say he fully follows the Lord without accepting His teaching concerning the inerrancy of the Scriptures” (Ryrie 106). This specific example of a priori reasoning clearly shows the avoidance of real questions or real discussion as to the veracity of the holy books in question. Indeed, Ryrie begins his writing by admitting that his trust in the authority of the Bible “is a basic presupposition” (ibid 16). Therefore, his efforts in later chapters to prove that assumption are mere circular reasoning.
Indeed, fallacies abound throughout fundamentalism’s arguments for their doctrines and for the Bible. Ryrie exemplifies multiple fallacies in one quote:
If I come to the Bible with confidence that its words were breathed out by God and are therefore without errors, and if that confidence has been buttressed by years of proving the Bible totally reliable, then I won’t be shaken by a problem and I certainly will not conclude that it is in error. But if I think that there can be errors in the Bible, however few or many, then I will likely conclude that some of those problems are examples of errors. And even if there is only one, I have an errant Bible” (ibid 108).
The overall fallacy is one giant bogus dilemma, as he presents readers the choice between two opposites: either the reader accepts Ryrie’s proposed explanation for the inerrancy and authority of the Bible, or the reader must conclude that errors exist and that the Bible is not authoritative. Missing are viable alternatives. One could ostensibly believe the Bible is inerrant and come across error, or one could believe in the possibility of errors, search for errors, but never find one.
Additionally, Ryrie claims to have proved the perfection of the Bible by years of never having found an error. Ryrie’s inability to find an error illustrates the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, which philosopher and logician Madsen Pirie described as an “appeal…to ignorance” that “is committed when we use our lack of knowledge about something in order to infer that its opposite is the case” (Pirie 92-3). Incidentally, Ryrie’s reaction to a potential error shows his a priori reasoning process as he intimates that his prior belief in inerrancy will dismiss the problem. Ryrie has so insulated himself from the very possibility that his view might be incorrect that his illogic poses no threat to his faith in his systematic understanding of God. Biblical contradictions raise no questions as to the Bible’s historicity or accuracy; they merely show the world’s attempts to undermine his faith and his ardent avoidance of the thought of total cessation of being.
The fundamental Christian has already sidestepped those potential contradictions, obvious logical flaws, and subsequent mindfulness of death with a foolproof method called the belief perseverance effect. Faced with new facts that contradict existing beliefs, fundamentalists like Ryrie simply dismiss those new facts with a priori reasoning. According to PhD Psychologists Shiraev and Levy, this approach is “not rational at all. Specifically, when our beliefs are being challenged, we a prone to feel that we personally are being challenged...[and] we tend to cling to our beliefs, sometimes even in the face of contrary evidence” (Shiraev and Levy 85-6). As one prominent fundamentalist pastor, Ernest Pickering, argued, “The Bible presents a faith which, while not irrational, is not the product of human reason, nor sustained by it” (Pickering Pickering Pickering
A priori belief perseverance precipitates this godliness, and fundamentalists apply it to questions regarding science as well. Without delving into the various arguments surrounding creation and evolution, one need look no further than Ryrie’s analysis of the question to know that further discussion is pointless. Ryrie argues that “whatever truths science may uncover can never be accepted as absolute truth” (Ryrie 206). No matter what verifiable scientific facts might be presented to the fundamentalist Christian, regardless of the topic, the Christian has been coached by pastors, theologians, and spiritual leaders in fundamentalism to reject scientific practice outright. In this way, those leaders maintain control over their constituents, because no outside facts are permitted to cloud the thinking of their followers.
Fundamentalists avoid their anxiety over their imminent death not only by refusing to consider alternatives to their views, but also by striving for conformity through isolation from dissenters and by suppressing any apparent contradictions. The immense pressure placed on both prospective converts and existing members intensifies with the threat of hell as the alternative to belief. This exemplifies an extreme version of the normative influence, which “leads people to conform because they fear the consequences of appearing deviant” (Kassin 227). This normative influence bringing conformity shelters fundamentalists from the alternative of death. To avoid pondering the possibility of their wrongness, many have separated themselves from that very possibility, for the anxiety created by the consciousness of impending death can be profound.
Pioneer psychologists and researchers Solomon, Pyszczynski, and Greenberg found that salience of death greatly affected Christians’ view of other people. They conducted studies in which “mortality was made salient to half of the subjects,…[and] mortality salience led to more positive evaluations of the in-group member (the Christian) and more negative evaluations of the out-group member (the Jew)” (Greenberg, Pyszczynski & Solomon, 1990). This intergroup bias surfaces in most social issues confronted by fundamentalism. Since in-group/out-group bias is difficult to avoid in any circle, its presence alone might not be problematic if many in fundamentalism were fighting bias.
However, this bias does not merely occur in random sections of fundamental Christianity; intergroup bias, like belief perseverance, is mandated by their doctrine. Fundamentalists use the term separation instead of bias. Ernest Pickering argued that if someone “is teaching error and he cannot be persuaded to the truth, he must be excluded from fellowship” (Pickering Pickering
The intergroup bias resulting in total separation from opposing ideas is foundational to Christian fundamentalism. Fred Moritz, the executive director of the fundamental Christian Baptist World Mission, argues that “a militant spirit…is a necessary, greatly misunderstood, and oft opposed part of our faith and heritage” (Moritz 97-8). The militancy and separation required by fundamentalists isolates the followers of fundamentalism from dissent or people who disagree. All outsiders are cast into the category of unsaved, thus enforcing fundamentalism’s out-group homogeneity bias through detaching themselves and their fellowship from those out-group members. Many such Christians will quote Jesus’ admonition that “he who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad” (Matthew 12:30, NKJV) and apply it to anyone who disagrees with them on any matters of importance. This false dichotomy merely further separates the fundamentalist group from what is often termed the Other.
Professor Lilia Melani, of Brooklyn College, defines the Other as “an individual who is perceived by the group as not belonging, as being different in some fundamental way….The group…judges those who do not meet that norm…as the Other” (Melani). Such segregation and separation often results in prejudice: “the Other is almost always seen as lesser…inferior…less intelligent…or immoral” (Melani). Indeed, such prejudice frequents fundamental Christianity. Homosexuals are viewed as out-group and the Other. Famous fundamental Christian pastor John MacAurthur authored a book called Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong, and he argues that “gay and lesbian desires are…‘unnatural,’… [and] a person who is homosexual (gay or lesbian) or effeminate is not a true believer no matter how passionate their claim… [and] have an unresponsive and hostile heart when it comes to the truth” (MacAurthur 98-9, italics in original). The foundation for his denunciation of the gays who disagree with his view of truth rests on the term unnatural. This naturalistic argument lies at the very heart of their intergroup bias. Shiraev’s and Levy’s study on critical thinking outlined the naturalistic fallacy quite succinctly, citing Scottish philosopher David Hume’s research into the is-ought problem. As they point out, “our personal values can bias our thinking…when we equate our description of what is with our prescription of what ought to be” (Shiraev and Levy 82).
The fallacious nature of fundamentalists’ argumentation slows them only slightly. For set against the foundation of isolation from such opposing ideas or viewpoints, members of fundamentalist groups rarely encounter strong opposition, thereby avoiding their fear of mortality almost entirely. This avoidance of critical opposition creates some cognitive dissonance as bible-believing fundamentalists wrestle with biblical examples of persecution that early Christians faced. This often results in fundamentalists intentionally looking for persecution wherever they can find it, sometimes through their own invention or instigation. Moritz believes that “impending persecution” justifies “contend[ing] for [the faith] at any cost” (Moritz 101), and in the Bible Peter warns that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12, NKJV). Christians find such persecution at the hands of liberals who somehow refuse them the right to even say the word ‘Christmas’ (Gibson 1) or liberals who promote a “‘gay agenda’ in our postmodern era” (MacAurthur 98). Fundamentalists’ search for persecution yields persecution, which essentially creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their “expectations create reality” (Shiraev and Levy 74), and they believe that they are being persecuted. This in turn comforts them, because Jesus explicitly states that his followers “will be hated by all nations for [Jesus’] name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9, NKJV). Their comfort through persecution directly alleviates their fear of complete cessation of life and their fear of meaninglessness.
Fundamentalists fear the absolute cessation of consciousness so greatly that they go to great lengths to condemn non-believers to hell, ignore contradictions and opposing facts, and enforce conformity. Their methods are psychologically manipulative, as they rely heavily on mental control and fallacious reasoning. Their constituents remain isolated from those who would disagree, and fundamentalist leaders strictly enforce this separation. Sadly, this psychological, mental, and spiritual abuse merely compounds the eventual anxiety that will be produced when a fundamentalist does finally, truly consider death. They find ingenious ways of avoiding these death thoughts and putting them off indefinitely. As noted philosophical psychologist Ervin Yalom says, “Every person must choose how much truth he can stand” (Yalom 277). Apparently for fundamentalists, their choice involves only their preexisting suppositions. Other truths are simply too much.
Works Cited
Durant, W. (1977). The story of philosophy. New York
Edwards, Jonathan. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Calvin College .
Gibson, John. The War on Christmas. New York
Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1990). Evidence for terror management theory ii: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,58(1), 308-315. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1990-14626-001
Kassin, S., S. Fein, and H. R. Markus. Social psychology. 7th. Boston : Houghton Mifflin College
MarAurthur, John. Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong. Eugene
Melani, Lilia. "The Other." Core Curriculum 10.07; The Emergence of the Modern . Brooklyn College Bloomington
Moritz, Fred. Contending for the Faith. Greenville : Bob Jones University
New King James Bible. Nashville
Pirie, First. How To Win Every Argument; The Use and Abuse of Logic.. New York
Ryrie, Charles Caldwell. Basic Theology, A Popular Systematic Guide To Understanding Biblical Truth. La Habra
Shiraev, E., and D. A. Levy. Cross-cultural psychology, critical thinking and contemporary applications. 4th. Boston : Pearson College
Slick, Matthew. "Hell." Christian Apologetics Research Ministries. Carm: Christian Apologetics Research Ministries, 2011. Web. 10 Dec 2011. .
Stewart, David. "Billions of People are Going to Hell!." Jesus Is Savior. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec 2011. .
Yalom, I. D. New York
14th General Assembly. "APOSTASY AND ECCLESIASTICAL SEPARATION." PCA Digest. 1985: 52-72. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. .
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