Comments on: Feeling Bad

By: headnotbowedeyeswideopen

headnotbowedeyeswideopen — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 05:15:57 +0000

It reminds me of the Sunday/church scene in the movie “Pollyanna”.

By: Jenni

Jenni — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:18:42 +0000

http://frenchizal.blogspot.com/2010/12/guilt-o-meters.html

By: Clint

Clint — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 05:18:19 +0000

This strikes a real chord with me, Darrell. My parents and close family (who still attend a strict IFB church, though not one was extreme as many parodied here) spend their Sundays looking mournful and beaten down. It’s amazing to see how this kind of preaching is equated with “good hard Bible preachin’”. There’s such a measure of self-flagelation mixed in! Sickening to see people enjoying their own spiritual abuse!

By: tigersharksteph

tigersharksteph — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:02:39 +0000

To this day I have a hard time dealing with my own self worth becuase for most of my pre-teen and teen life I felt as though I was dirty and unclean and unworthy and just worthless. “we are but filthy rags to the lord”, I swear I heard that every time i was in church and I beleived it. No matter what I did it would never be good enough, and the smallest sin would cut me off from god. I was in constant fear that I hadn’t confessed enough and that god couldnt hear me. I dont even believe in god anymore and I still sometimes feel like I cant measure up.

By: BASSENCO

BASSENCO — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:30:54 +0000

Well, my original pastor preached it, and preached it well. But that was 35 years ago. My first fundy church was the best. But as I have wrestled with the fundies over the last ten years, I find many either dismiss repentance outright, or they replace it with the counterfeit of “making a decision” in order to be right with God. Of course, repenting over listening to the Carpenters vs repenting over hating gays are two different outlooks on repentance, as well.

By: Darrell

Darrell — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:42:05 +0000

That post isn’t about salvific repentance but rather the ‘confession of sin’ that fundamentalist believe they have to do in order so God doesn’t stop listening to their prayers. Along the same theme is ‘keeping short accounts’
http://www.stufffundieslike.com/2010/03/keeping-short-accounts/

The point of most fundamentalists services it would seem is to look deep into one’s soul and find some undiscovered filthiness to mourn at the altar. Condemnation, feeling guilt, and emotional release is the entire point of the exercise.

by the by I’ve heard repentance preached in many fundamentalist churches. It all depends on which camp you happen to be traveling in.

By: BASSENCO

BASSENCO — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:13:12 +0000

Repentance? Boy, my experience is different from yours! Many fundies don’t even believe repentance is essential for salvation. When did you last hear a fundy preach repentance (apart from a Free Presbyterian. And even they are selective about it: Repent of going to movies but no need o repent of fervent hatred of Catholics.)

Fundies want decisions: neat little statements they can use for their service metrics from week to week, but I cannot even recall the last time I ever heard a fundy preach repentance.

By: Staci

Staci — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:20:14 +0000

My experience with fundyism is a little different. I spent my teen years in a stuffy, formal, and highly legalistic IFB church. The audience was upper-middle class and more educated than average. In that church and in Christian school and Bible college, there was no forum for the display of honest emotion. You never got too happy or too sad. I almost drowned in that shallowness.

By: John

John — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:11:35 +0000

Of course, the opposite extreme mounty hinted at is that…bless Gawd… you’ve got to be full of happiness all the time, and smiling constantly …or it looks like you’ve been ‘sucking on lemons’, which was hard to do because your spirit tends to be grieved every Sunday as you sit through the same points for each sermon…standards, soulwinning, standards, tithing, standards, KJVO, standards…etc.

By: mounty

mounty — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:15:09 +0000

Ow. Maybe a little extreme for most churches, but definitely not unheard of. Insiders know the key here is to be happy but somber at the same time. One of my friends, whenever he goes to a church, asks the folks, “Are you happy you’re saved? Then let your face know!” Self-imposed “suffering for the Lord” attitudes where every silver lining means there’s a huge cloud somewhere amount to nothing more than self-centered asceticism – basically you’re denying that you’re truly been forever forgiven through Christ and instead you need to atone for your sins by being miserable your whole life.