A Comparison of Religious Fundamentalism: A Legal Hermeneutic Analysis of Characteristics in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Interdisciplinary workshop organized by the Forum for the Comparison of Legal Discourses of Religions (RdR)

Religious fundamentalism, as a distorted normativity of religious traditions that can be instrumentalized in certain political situations, is first and foremost a hermeneutical problem. Fundamentalist interpretations of religious traditions and politics are then linked in a reciprocal relationship. Political constellations provide a context in which distorted readings of tradition flourish, which in turn reinforce and intensify them.

Using historical and contemporary case studies (e.g. certain developments in religious Zionism, Christian fundamentalism and nationalism as well as in political Islam), the workshop will analyze what characterizes a fundamentalist interpretation of traditions and how this is related to politics.

The workshop serves to analyze and specify these connections with regard to the legal discourses in the traditions.

Registration until October 31, 2025.

To the program