The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (814 page)

(Jap.). Communal recitation of
s
tras
in Zen monasteries.

 
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Fu-lu (pai)
.

Apotropaic
talismans in religious Taoism (especially
cheng-i tao
,
t‘ai-ping tao
, and
wu-tou-mi tao
).

 
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Fumie
.

Japanese flat image of a Christian symbol, usually the crucifixion, designed to be stepped on. Suspected Christians were required to step on the representation to prove that they were not believers.

 
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Functionalism
(accounts of religion which focus on the functions which religion serves)
:

see
SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
.

 
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Fundamentalism
.

In general, a description of those who return to what they believe to be the fundamental truths and practices of a religion. It can thus be applied to this attitude in all religions (e.g. the resurgence of conservative Islam is sometimes called ‘Islamic fundamentalism’). But this use is often resented by such people, because of its more usual identification with those, in Christianity, who defend the
Bible
against charges that it contains any kind of error. More specifically, it denotes the view of
Protestant Christians
opposed to the historical and theological implications of critical study of the Bible.
To avoid overtones of closed-mindedness, Christians in the Fundamentalist tradition often prefer to be called
Conservative Evangelicals
.
The word (Arab. equivalents are
salafiyya
and
u
liyya
) is used of Muslims, when it refers to those who assert the literal truth of the
Qur’
n
and the validity of its legal and ritual commandments for modern people.

 
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