“Who would like to share a word of testimony this evening?”

Testimony time in a fundamentalist church is an experience unlike anything one could hope to find in the outside world. It’s equal parts performance art, spiritual posturing, and the kind of long winded delivery that you might expect after mistakenly asking your hypochondriac great-aunt how she’s feeling today. It is, in short, a wonderful and awful spectacle to behold.

Testimony time has many functions. For example, it’s one of a few times when women and divorced folks get to be heard in the church without being accused of preaching. “I’d just like to thank God for the lesson he taught me this week which I’d like to share with all of you. Let me read you a few verses and then after I tell my story I’ll share a poem that I wrote…”

The Biographical testimony is also a popular one usually involving a description of the horrific sin that the teller was involved in “years ago.” The main point to note here is that while some sins are acceptable to talk about in fundy churches (“I used to be such a drunk…”) some are simply not (“I used to be so gay..”).

Another variation of the testimony is the “Bragamony” which is used for establishing the church pecking order by allowing contenders to matching stories of spiritual prowess. In this struggle for dominance, the timing of the testimony is vital. It’s important not to go first lest your story be outmatched by those following and quickly forgotten. Fall into that trap and you may have to postpone until mid-week service with a considerably smaller audience and must less impact.

“If no one else has a testimony to share let’s turn in our hymnbooks…”

Thanks to Mel, Jennifer, and many others who suggested this topic.

Tim Challies has posted scans of a book named Soul-Winning Made Easy and subtitled (The Encounter Method) by C.S. Lovett. It’s a step by step illustrated guide to getting people saved.

From the book…

The controlled conversation technique is something new in evangelism and represents a real break-through in soul-winning. Older methods, dealing with excuses, seek to convince a prospect of his needy condition and humble him. … The new method ignores excuses and completely side-steps the explosive area of religious debate. Modern soul-winners have discovered that it is unnecessary to change a person’s mind before introducing him to Jesus. If he can truly be made aware of Christ waiting at the door of his heart, his responsibility becomes most clear. This makes soul-winning a positive ministry requiring fewer skills. Actually, it is a new frontier which allows Christian obedience to become fun!

Check out all of the scans.

I personally heard this illustration from evangelist Ron Comfort…

Once upon a time, an atheist scientist discovered that there was ‘lost time’ in the cosmic record. Through some unspecified process he learns that several hours have just gone missing. His Christian friend told him he would discover the reason for the lost time in the Bible. After reading the stories of Joshua and Hezekiah the atheist realizes that the Bible is true. He falls to his knees and is gloriously saved.

Well…you guessed it. It’s just not so.

Regardless of the amount of time involved, the discovery of a “missing” period of time remains implausible. If the sun had indeed stood still for a day a few millennia ago, we would have no way of determining that fact through astronomic observations today. We have no frame of reference, no “cosmic calendar” or “master clock” to check against to see if we’re overdrawn at the Bank of Time. The concept described here would be like giving someone a non-functioning clock and asking him to determine how much time had elapsed since the clock had stopped running. One could note the positions of the hands on the dial and make a reasonable guess about what the time of day was when the clock stopped running, but without knowing whether that time was A.M. or P.M., and without knowing the calendar date on which stoppage occurred, one could not possibly make any reasonable estimate about how long ago the clock stopped.

http://www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.asp

From time to time one of my dear fundy friends (yes, I do have a few!) informs me that I am much to negative on this site.

With that in mind, I’d like to share a sermon by one of my favorite fundamentalists on a topic that he loved very much.

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“Worldly people know what Christians should act like better than Christians do. They know when you’re not living like a Christian!”

This is an oft-repeated bit of fundamentalist lore and like most fundy lore it contains a smidgen of truth…but only a smidgen. Surely most unsaved people would say that Christians shouldn’t shoot people in cold blood or steal from their employer but that’s not generally the point that the fundy is trying to make.

Indeed, many fundamentalists seem to think that deep down most unsaved people really think that women should only wear skirts, that the movie house is a wicked place, and that the J.C. Penny catalog is just as bad as pornography. Yet even though the unsaved know all these things are evil they just purposely ignore their own better judgment and do them anyway. It’s just like the days of Noah minus the fountain of youth water vapor.

Since the unsaved person has all these fundamentalist values emblazoned on their conscience, a Christian who breaks any of the legion of fundy rules might drive them away from Christ. After all the lost person KNOWS what the Christian should be doing and they’ll think they’re just a hypocrite and never listen to the gospel ever again! And all this because in a moment of weakness a Christian wanted to see the latest Disney film in surround sound.

For shame.

Fill in the blank…

If ___________________ you might be a fundamentalist.

A few to get started…

If you’ve ever had your pastor sign your Bible…

If you’ve ever heard a testimony where someone got saved by reading the Living Bible, and you started wondering if they are really saved after all…

If your children rarely get to watch the end of a movie because someone said a bad word…

If you still think there’s a pretty good chance that Gorbachev is the Anti-Christ…

If you’ve ever worn culottes to the beach…

If your wife has to wear a homemade camouflaged skirt down to her ankles when she goes deer hunting with you…

If your pastor counts pregnant women twice when reporting church attendance…

You are probably a fundamentalist.

(Thanks to the fine folks over at PCCboard from whom I borrowed liberally)

The great thing about the Internet is that it brings a great diverse group of people together to collaborate, talk, and share information. Unless, of course, you’re a fundamentalist. They don’t generally like having to interact with diversity preferring rather to create their own enclaves of Christianity.

With the growing popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, it was only a matter of time until an enterprising fundy decided to provide a much cleaner, more wholesome alternative — and try to make a little cash in the process. By this shall all men know that ye are His disciples, that ye form your own exclusive clubs and keep the sinners at bay.

Newly on the scene to stand in this internet gap is Edify One Another an IFB social networking site which states “As Independent Baptists, God has burdened us to create a place online that was separated from the world, but utilize the cutting edge technological advances to promote spiritual growth thru the fellowship of the saints online.” Finally an answer to the question “What Would Hyles Download?”

The best part? You can access to all of this for only $9.97 per month!

Online separation: only the holy may click here.

“If you stick a frog in a boiling pan of water, he’ll try to jump out. But if you stick a frog in a pan of cold water and gradually heat it up, the frog will sit there until he boils to death.”

This charming bit of folks lore is used to show us that if we accept even a little wordiness into our lives that we’ll soon be boiled to death in a steaming pot of apathy. Whether or not that’s actually the case, there’s one small problem with the illustration…it’s completely bogus.

From Snopes.com

The legend is entirely incorrect! The ‘critical thermal maxima’ of many species of frogs have been determined by several investigators. In this procedure, the water in which a frog is submerged is heated gradually at about 2 degrees Fahrenheit per minute. As the temperature of the water is gradually increased, the frog will eventually become more and more active in attempts to escape the heated water. If the container size and opening allow the frog to jump out, it will do so.

Let the child realize that you are simply representing God in the execution of the punishment. …

Sometimes spanking should leave stripes on the child. …

During the formative years, yea, the infant years, the child should be spanked. As soon as his is old enough to walk away from his parents he should be spanked if he does not walk where they say he should walk. … Parents should not have to remove vases and delicate glass ornaments from living room tables. A house need not become disorderly and full of riots because a baby has come. Start early in disciplining the child. …

The [spanking] ritual should be deliberate and last at least ten or fifteen minutes. … It should be a ritual dreaded by the child. He should not only dread the pain but the time consumed in the ordeal. …

The punishment should always be far in excess of the pleasure enjoyed by doing wrong. …

Never give a child that for which he cries. The baby who cries for attention and gets it will become a child who cries for a toy and gets it…

The spanking should be administered firmly. It should be painful and it should last until the child’s will is broken. It should last until the child is crying not tears of anger but tears of a broken will. As long as he is stiff, grits his teeth, holds on to his own will, the spanking should continue. …

After the spanking tell him why you did it. While he is still crying have him sit down. …

Happy is the child who feels the security of such punishment.

— Jack Hyles
How to Rear Children (1972)