There have been much debate on the ideological nature of religious fundamentalism, essentially on whether it should even be considered an ideology in the first place and that if it is an ideology, is religious fundamentalism the new fascism? This literature review will thus review sources that see religious fundamentalism as an ideology and then comparing it to others who oppose so. This literature review also aims to find correlative and/or causal links between religious fundamentalism seen as ideology and religious fundamentalism seen as the “new fascism”. Religious fundamentalism is the insistence of rigid submission to orthodox religious doctrines in relation to modernisation, westernisation and globalisation which transcends all theological…show more content… Christopher Soper is “a set of values, ideas and beliefs” which act as a guide and “give meaning” to the society which adheres to its principles. Ideologies has claims of what and how the world is and what and how the world should be (Soper, 1994). Proponents of religious fundamentalism as ideological argue that religious fundamentalism, especially in recent years, have evolved to become political and aim to over throw current, modern ideological systems like liberalism (Fuller, 2003). Others like Richard T. Antoun in Understanding fundamentalism: Christian, Islamic and Jewish Movements” claims that religious fundamentalism believes that religious fundamentalism is an ideology because it has created “a viable alternative” to modern institutions and ways of life, consciously trying to overthrow secularism (Antoun, 2001). Religious fundamentalism is seen as ideological, according to Emerson & Hartman because they are seen as “reactionaries” and “radicals” who consciously try to gain power and bring societies back to an idealised time of “oppression, patriarchy and intolerance” (Emerson & Hartman, 2006). According to Steve Bruce in “Fundamentalism”, religious fundamentalism is an ideology because it addresses social, economic and political modernisation which limits the role of religion and provides an alternative more orthodox versions (Bruce,…show more content… Heywood however, like the proponents of religious fundamentalism as an ideology, believes that religious fundamentalism has evolved to blur (or rather, ideally remove completely) the lines between religion and politics. However, the fact that that religious fundamentalism is not applicable as a universal model to any state delegitimises its chances to be an ideology. Therefore instead of being an ideology per se, religious fundamentalism is more of a subset of an ideology— religious fundamentalists adopts an ideological model to propagate their religious fundamentalism. For example, the use of autocracy in Iran to propagate fundamentalist Iran. Others use liberal ideals of freedom to overthrow autocratic regimes in the name of religious fundamentalism (Fuller, 2003) seen in Egypt and the Islamic Brotherhood. Some scholars like Iannaccone (1997) go as far as to not only reject fundamentalism as an ideology but reject the idea of the term “religious fundamentalism” altogether. Iannaccone claims that the concept “leads us down a dead-end path” (also echoed by Emerson and Hartman), limiting our understanding of religious fundamentalism. He then suggests an alternative concept called “Sectarian religion” which he defines as