If we can think of the local fundamentalist pastor as a sort of Major General in the Lord’s army, then the fundamentalist Evangelist is rather like a bomber pilot who is called in to drop an explosive load and then flee the scene at top speed. Or he would be like that if bomber pilots stuck around long enough to collect a love offering from their targets before skedaddling.

The job of the fundevangelist is three-fold.

First there is the entertainment portion in which the evangelist plays a weird instrument, does a ventriloquist act, performs Gospel magic, or splits a watermelon on the assistant pastor’s stomach with a sword. In fundy evangelism showmanship is a must. It’s not enough to quote the entire book of Romans from memory — It must be done standing on one foot and juggling hymn books or there’s no point.

Second, the evangelist’s job is as teller of folks tales: this is known as “speaking evangelistically.” These includes the famous evangelist fish story and stories of revival meetings that were planned for a week and were so spirit-filled that they ended up lasting two months. The ability to spin a good yarn is paramount.

Last of all, the speaker is there to root out the seeds of corruption, sin, and worldliness in the church. If the church isn’t particularly sinful or worldly the evangelist may be called upon to invent new and creative sins to prick the collective conscience of the congregation such as informing everyone that a man parting his hair in the middle is a sign of latent homosexuality or that owning unicorn statues will invite demons to take up residence in your living room furniture and hide your car keys.

And for all this work the evangelist is awarded love offerings from the fundamentalist church congregation. It’s not bad work if you can get it.

Today’s Fundy Website of the Week is brothermike.com. Less than 1 second into viewing this website most of you will be able to guess exactly why this one made the grade.

Be sure to check out the story of how Bro. Mike was EXILED FROM BILLY HAMM’S BAPTIST BIBLE FELLOWSHIP PASTORS E-MAIL LIST. It’s a tale sure to thrill and inspire.

By the time a fundamentalists graduates high-school and Bible college he or she has heard roughly 17,436 messages on how to find God’s will — a topic surpassed only, perhaps, by sermons on fleeing youthful lust. Divining God’s will on such matters as which college to pick and which person to marry is a very sneaky and subtle thing that is very easily missed if one isn’t careful. One wrong step can lead to absolute destruction.

Consider this cautionary tale. “I was supposed to be a missionary in Botswana and instead I totally misunderstood the Holy Spirit’s leading and went to Brazil instead. After spending 20 years sharing the gospel there I realized that all those souls won and churches started should never have been.” Such stories are as heartbreaking as they are commonplace. Heed their warning well.

If you are ever in doubt as to what the perfect will of God is, the answer is to consult the Holy Spirit — who is conveniently located inside any local fundamentalist leader. You’ll never have to wonder what do to again.

Perhaps nowhere does the phenomenon of claiming non-revelatory non-charismatic divine leadings happen more frequently then when a fundamentalist pastor stands up to preach and informs the crowd that his message tonight comes straight from God for reasons totally unbeknownst to the speaker.

Here is a quintessential exemplar:

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Notice how the evangelist says that God is leading him to preach a message next week but that God may change His mind sometime before next week.

If you’d like to listen to the rest of this sermon entitled “Why Isn’t Someone Yelling Rape?” (which actually includes the use of the phrase “as frustrated as a bald-headed hippy” ) you can find it here

Is your preaching powerless? Are your sermons stillborn? Do your rabid rants require rejuvenation?

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These courses have been crafted by master alliterator Donald Cantrell himself who not only studied at Tennessee Temple University and Covington Theological Institute but also just recently received his “Doctorate in Expository Alliterated Preaching” from CFEBP.

It’s amazing that we live in an age where technology can make such resources so easily available.

If you’ve ever heard a train whistle as you’re lying in bed late at night and the first thought through your mind was “The Rapture!”, you may have been a fundamentalist.

To be sure, a fascination with the Rapture is hardly unique to fundamentalists. If nothing else, the wildly popular Left Behind series written by two very non-fundamentalist types attests to that fact. But the fundies have especially honed the skill of using something as glorious and anticipated as Christ’s return to terrorize the living bejeebers out of people.

“When Christ comes back, what will he find you doing?” is the ever-present question. One is forced to wonder whether fundamentalists think that Christ can’t see what everyone is doing right now and will have to actually show up in the flesh to set things straight. The fact that those sinners then be made perfect and get to avoid judgment is sort of forgotten in all this.

The worst of this is the notion that when the Rapture happens there may be people who will be unsaved and die in Tribulation fire because a fundamentalists shirked his duty and didn’t witness. Our sovereign God is evidently quite hampered by such human shortcomings. And to make things worse, fundamentalists teach that once the Rapture happens there will be no more chance for repentance for anyone who has heard the gospel. This is all found in Scripture somewhere or another but it’s hard to pin down just where.

As for all the Rapture-deniers out there, it’s likely you aren’t even saved and won’t know what hit you when that great trumpet blows and your airplane crashes because your pilot has been whisked away. Enjoy!

This one happens to be from PCC.

For those times when the “weaker brother” or “appearance of evil” aren’t the right tool to force a person to follow the fundy’s rules, there is one final tool that can be put into use to apply the needed pressure: whipping out James 4:17. (for those of you who are not fundies that passage reads “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”)

The trick here is making sure that the “him that knoweth” is always a fundy leader since he alone is qualified to define what GOOD is. The argument is made thus:

1.  Sunday School is good.
2. You have not signed up to teach Sunday School this year.
3. You are in sin until you sign up to teach a Sunday School class.

It’s clear at a glance that this method of coercion has more uses than duct tape. What other seventeen words could give someone the power to draft free labor for everything from washing the church vans to bringing popsicles to VBS?

Funny how the rest of the stuff that comes before the word “therefore” in the verse doesn’t really get brought up in these conversations. It must not be that good.