All posts by Darrell

Silent Change

Everything changes — even fundamentalists. But much like any other organization that claims for itself absolute and final authority on, well, pretty much everything, fundamentalists are loath to admit that sometimes they do in fact re-think their stances on things.

One day you’re hearing Steve Green’s music being decried as having crawled from the ninth circle of the underworld. Then suddenly, without warning, your choir is blasting out “Find us Faithful” as if it had been written at least a hundred years ago. The trick here is that nobody in leadership will ever actually come out and say “Hey, guess what? We were wrong about that Steve guy. His music is actually ok.”

Ladies, that skirt had better be down to your ankles…or below the knee…or “at” the knee…or at least at the knee while leaning slightly forward and holding your breath. And if you’re paying enough attention to realize that something is definitely up with fundamentalist hemlines, I’d advise you to also have better sense than to mention it where they can hear you.

And of course, the fundamentalist can absolutely defend every single new nuance of standards directly from the unchanging Word of God. It would seem that even travelers on the old paths have to put up with a certain amount of construction.

Having No Rights


For fundamentalists, the following is the “Christian Bill of Rights”

I. You have no rights.

For unlike the Founding Fathers they idolize, fundamentalists will claim that since our only reward as sinners is an eternity in hell that even once we are redeemed we still have no right to expect any freedoms at all in this lifetime. After all, we’re in the Lord’s Army and soldiers give up all their rights when they enlist. (Well, other than the ones outlined for them in things like the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Geneva Convention but let’s not nitpick)

Life? Only the unborn and old people who liberals want to euthanize have a right to that. Everybody else should fully expect to be a martyr or die of a wasting disease on the battle…er…mission field.

Liberty? Liberty is only the freedom to do ‘what you ought’ so nobody should expect the right to choose anything that’s not in the rulebook. Just shut your face and follow orders, soldier!

Pursuit of Happiness? What are you, some kind of pansy? There’s no happiness in a war! The only happy soldiers are the ones on posters that we use to sucker others to join up. Now pick up that sword and get back into that Sunday School room.

Of course this lack of rights only applies to the unwashed masses who sit in the pews. The commanding officer who fills the pulpit has the right to be followed unquestioningly and make others pay him for the privilege to be told what to do.

You may never ride in the cavalry but you know your place and have zero expectations of making it out of this with your imago dei intact. Yes, sir.