] New Age movements attempt to revive -- or create anew ] --pre-Enlightenment ideas about magic, alchemy, ghosts, ] and whatever else practitioners can glean from a record ] for the most part expunged by institutional Christianity. ] ] Christian fundamentalism, meanwhile, is the child of the ] Enlightenment, a functionalist view of faith that%u2019s ] metaphorically %u201Cscientific.%u201D It's scripture as ] read by a cranky engineer who just wants to know how God ] works. The Bible, for a fundamentalist, isn%u2019t ] powerful literature demanding our ever-changing ] discernment; it%u2019s an instruction manual. And ] fundamentalists think that's a good thing. From Gibson blog The Revealer: Our Magical President |