His entire premise: I have seen crazy stuff like this…So glad we aren’t like this at all! He got to frame every subject using off-the-wall examples from other churches.

He was too scared to actually name the book for fear people would actually buy it and read it for themselves and see the obvious.

Having already read the book, I knew the truth. My fundy church WAS ABUSIVE and was described very well in that book.

This is the history of the whole world. In the Garden of Eden, man enjoyed constant, submissive, liberating, safe, secure fellowship with the most awesome and “compelling” Personality, Who was his life.

Once they rejected the Author of Life, they are stuck looking for another source, since it is NOT given to man “to have life in himself”.

So where do you go when you reject the Ultimate? We’ve been searching for Him ever since, but in all the wrong places.

In his heart, man knows that he needs that KIND of Relationship. But he has systemically and categorically rejected that PARTICULAR Relationship in which he was originally created.

So he’s stuck trying to enter into that KIND of relationship with…well, with himself, really. But he does not have life in himself, and is therefore insufficient, “living” in (and eventually manifesting) death. Only too late (except by the grace of God) does he discover his insufficiency and it’s Solution.

But — praise the Lord — in His love for mankind, God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him.”

To this end, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.”

The solution to fundamentalism (and to the world!) is not opposition per se (although I do enjoy this website ), but introduction — (re)introduction to the “compelling Personality” of the Lord and Giver of Life.

For our Life is found in communion with the Father in the Son by the Holy Spirit. And we ourselves must first continue in community with Him, if we, as the Body of Christ by the Spirit, are to continue His ministry of reconciliation.

To be honest, this is something I NEVER saw in fundamentalism (at least, the IFBx branch). There, it was all about how many “souls saved,” how much Bible reading, how loud the singing, how much “sacrifice for God.”

In Holy Orthodoxy, on the other hand:

“We have seen the True Light!
We have received the Heavenly Spirit!
We have found the True Faith, worshiping the undivided Trinity, Who has saved us.

Let our mouths be filled with Thy praise, O Lord, that we may sing of Thy glory;
For Thou hast made us worthy to partake of Thy holy, divine, immortal, and life-creating Mysteries.
Keep us in Thy holiness, that all the day we may meditate upon Thy righteousness. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”

HUGE difference!

Now to Him Who sits on the throne, the Existing One, our Life, be honor, and glory, and dominion, and power, both now and ever, unto the ages of ages. Amen. +

I do think that you’ve described a “sin common to man” as it were. Hyles worship, Obamamania, etc… are all examples of folks gravitating to compelling personalities. I suspect that integral to the human condition is our desperate need for certainty.

Also, just as everyone has a theology whether they consciously explicate their choice or not, everyone has an epistemology. The fundamentalist epistemology has been well-described by Marsden (see above comment) as Baconian rationalism.

Anywho, the whole “fundamentalist” psychosis thing breaks down. Richard Hofstadter, Daniel Bell, et al, proposed the idea after WWII but it just doesn’t do justice to the theological complexity and cultural vitality of broader fundamentalism in the early 20th century.

Narcissistc leaders deliberately misuse the language to mislead and confuse people so as to maintain control. Fundamentalists have an unusual need for certainty and are drawn to anyone who states a position with bravado. It does not matter that it makes no sense, what matters is that the leader projects an image of power and the follower feels safe and secure within a group of like-minded people who will not rock the boat.