Whenever someone apostatizes and leaves the old paths, fundamentalists will inevitably assign someone the blame. There will be an informal postmortem, inquest, and a whispered placing of the blame on someone’s shoulders for having led this soul astray. More often than not the culpability is rested on the shoulders of the fundamentalist parents. It is [...]

Nothing can chill the blood in the veins of an ex-fundamentalist than the words “Hey, honey, your fundy relations are coming for dinner.” The time spent with your fundamentalist relatives can be the some of the most painfully awkward hours of your life. The steps to the intricate dance of fundy social interaction are complex [...]

Undesirable consequences of wives going out to work a. Since she is bringing home part of the income she will want a voice in how it is spent. b. Children to a babysitter — no discipline. c. Contact with other men at work — temptation, flirting, unfaithfulness and divorce. It is no accident that the [...]

If you’ve ever made $ 11,000 per year working in a ministry, while supporting a wife, three children, and a dog and then had the senior pastor you work for tell you that taking government assistance wasn’t “trusting God”…you might have been a fundamentalist. Fundamentalist churches are generally not full of professional, high-income members. Doctors, [...]

Fundamentalists no longer literally keep their women barefoot and pregnant  (or at least not barefoot) but they do tend to want to keep them at home. After all, “keepers at home” is what Paul said, right? Of course, he also gave rules for how a man should treat his slaves, so there may be a [...]

Women have little official voice in fundamentalism. Look at any list of famous fundies and names will exclusively be male. (Those men will also all be white but that’s a topic for another day.) Women serve a few functions within the fundamentalist church including Sunday School teacher, nursery worker, and piano player. If you ever [...]

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 [...]

In fundy churches, the most common type of traveling musical family is the missionary family. The traveling family musical act is a mainstay of the fundamentalist missionary endeavor. If a missionary is to be a success on deputation and furlough he or his family must sing, play an instrument, and be able to quote John [...]

Although many fundamentalists still let their teens date (translation: “sit next to someone of the opposite sex in youth group or church”) many like the idea of courtship instead. The trend towards courtship became very popular a few years ago, when a single charismatic-leaning Calvinist teenager who was living in a basement decided to write [...]

Fundamentalists take the command to “be fruitful and multiply” very seriously. After all, the best way to make sure there are always a supply of young fundamentalists is to grow your own. The Amish have successfully used this technique for centuries and fundies are big fans too. Having a family of seven, twelve, or sixteen [...]