As I chanced to read through Philippians 3 in a moment of devotion, it suddenly seemed to me that those oft-read words had strangely moved and changed as if some Subtle Hand had writ them large upon my own life’s story. And what I read was this:

Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh
also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have as good as anyone:

Dedicated as a baby in a fundamentalist church, son of an Independent Baptist preacher, grandson of an Independent Baptist preacher, a fundamentalist of fundamentalists; as to the rules of conduct, I kept them to the letter (as far as anybody knew); as to zeal, a graduate of a fundamentalist college, a fundamentalist deacon, song leader and Sunday School teacher and uncompromising judge of those I deemed too liberal; as to standards in my music, dress, and language I was blameless.

But whatever gain and prestige I had as a fundamentalist, I now count as loss for the sake of Christ.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing grace in Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of my worthless fundamentalist accolades and count them as garbage, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

And as I read, I wished with all my heart the words were truly true — a lesson long since learned and mastered instead of one so often and so easily forgot.

Christ, save us.

Ok, enough maudlin introspection. Back to the regularly scheduled insanity…

I know some folks probably thought I was exaggerating when I cited root beer in dark bottles as a target of the “Appearance of Evil” rule in fundy land. I wasn’t.

And to demonstrate that point, here’s Bill Lytell (he of the gospel ice cream truck) to set us straight

Fundamentalists love using a cute turn of phrase to “prove” a doctrinal point even when they are far from Biblical.  These rhetorical flourishes are a tried and true method of simply stopping thought dead in its tracks whenever a disagreement occurs.

For example:  ”‘All’ means all and that’s all ‘All’ means.” Patently false…yet somehow strangely compelling.

What’s your favorite fundy doctrinal jingle?

It’s perhaps the bitterest pill for former fundamentalists to swallow to learn to acknowledge that sometimes God sovereignly uses fundies in spite of themselves to accomplish His will in the spreading of some small glimmers truth and the saving of lost souls. Hey, if He can use Balaam’s ass…

Nobody can deny that the abuses in fundamentalism are legion and they are in no way justified even when they come from allegedly good intentions. There can be no excuse given for the battered and broken bodies and spirits of those who have run afoul of the worst that fundamentalism represents. But not all fundamentalists are of such and I’ve also received blessings given by God but passed on through scarred and stained fundamentalist hands; and so have many others.

I like to think that I’ll be with many of my fundamentalist friends and family members again someday in a place where all the errors of fundamentalist theology (and every other ism, schism, sect, and camp) will be behind us. For God is in control of each person’s destiny in, through, and out of fundamentalism. Even as my heart breaks for those who have suffered so much more than I, fundamentalism is part of the path I’ve walked and I’ve gained wisdom from my scars. That being said, the experiences of others are no less legitimate if they are different than mine and some wounds run very deep.

And so I’ll continue on laughing about the silliness, marveling at the craziness, and raising my voice like a trumpet against the harm and injustice found in fundamentalism. And I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice that whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached.

This post concludes the week of fundy love. We will now return to our regularly scheduled inanity, satire, craziness, and all around good times.

The fundamentalist interprets these words to mean that even though a person is saved and has God as his Heavenly Father that any misstep will shut God’s ears to him and leave him without aid or succor in his time of need. Keeping “short accounts” with God is the only way to be sure that He’s listening when we call. (I recommend trying this with your kids too, it’s loads of fun to ignore their cries for help until they remember why you’re mad at them and apologize. Take that, kids!)

Did you fail to walk a mile to return the sixty-three cents that a clerk accidentally undercharged you? Don’t even think about praying for your daily bread until you confess and forsake. Did you have a moment of weakness and curse at a crazy motorist on the freeway? Good luck invoking Divine help if you should crash your car!

The rules of this breakdown in communication are unclear. If a person commits a sin at sixteen and then forgets about it, will God not hear him when he is sixty? Must each sin be named specifically and be brought for forgiveness or is a blanket request of “forgive us for all the other stuff we forgot” sufficient? Best to hedge your bets and repent as much as possible just in case.

The old account may have been settled long ago but according to fundamentalists, we’re still running up quite a tab. Confess  early and often.

Because of this belief that any small slip may result in utter doctrinal catastrophe, to fundamentalists there is no such thing as a minor doctrine. For if your ecclesiology should falter then your eschatology will wobble and your pneumatology cannot be far from total destruction. Like a tower of Jenga blocks the whole sorry mess will come crashing down around your ears. And all because you had the wrong opinion on when the church really started or what apostles do. For shame.

There is a great technique used by fundies to accomplish this kind of escalation: ‘upping the ante.’ Take the issue of gender roles, for example. Not content to merely defend the literal reading of the command to wives to submit, the fundamentalist (and more recently the CBMW folks who have apparently drunk from the same stream) will up the ante by declaring that to ignore this command is to DESECRATE THE RELATIONSHIP OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH! See how that works? From minor doctrine to major doctrine in 0.8 seconds.

You too can play this game of upping the ante. Simply follow these easy steps:

Step 1: Stake out a position on a minor doctrine — the more obscure the better.
Step 2: Tie the minor doctrine firmly to a major one
Step 3. use words like “heresy” and “compromiser”
Step 4: Profit.

In fundamentalist circles there is no greater crime than publicly declaring that there is a problem in fundamentalist circles. Indeed it is far worse to notice that there are problems than to actually be part of the problem. Anyone who aspires to be a naysayer will labeled with the most heinous of descriptors known to fundamentalism: “having a critical spirit.”

The critical spirit (and its cousin “evil questioning”) often shows up in the text of pastoral rants against those who would ask questions such as “If we really had 300 people saved last year, why did our membership only grow because of the two people who came here from the Baptist church down the road?” It’s better to just say “amen!” when the stats are read and not think about it too hard.

Whether it’s poor exegesis, pitiful orthopraxy, or just plain wrong-headed thinking in your church, the fundamentalist solution is simply to ignore it hope it will go away on its own before anybody gets the courage to admit they noticed.  Go thou and do likewise.  And whatever you do, don’t start a vaguely humorous, often long-winded blog to talk about these issues. They’ll just call you bitter and spiteful too.

No commentary needed.