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, Lawyers, and other such folks are noticeably absent from the church rolls and their tithes are noticeably absent from the church budget. As a result of this lack of funds, these churches often rely on a workforce of very poorly paid employees to take care of the ministry. Woe unto you if you’ve spent six years in school to get a Masters Degree in Education at an unaccredited fundamentalist college. At the local fundy school (the only place you’re qualified to work) that effort will probably net you church staff housing, no insurance, and less pay than you might get working at the local McDonalds.

To compound this problem, — and for reasons more political than doctrinal — many fundamentalists are deathly opposed to welfare of any kind. The claim is that if the government is helping you then they get the credit instead of God getting the credit. The idea that maybe God uses the government to help folks sometimes has evidently never dawned on them.

This lack of funds combined with an inability to seek help from any other source (not to mention threats that leaving this glorious ministry will ruin God’s will for your life), combines to create a class of indentured servitude with people who are too literally too poor to escape the cycle. Add to this the bellowing of preachers who blast their lackeys for even daring to inquire about how much money a ministry position might pay and you end up with a very sad situation indeed.

It’s all fine and good to be told that slaving away for sub-minimum wages is laying up treasure in heaven. One has to wonder if it’s inconceivable that it might be possible to get both treasure in heaven and a decent dental plan down here on earth in the meantime.

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 wee bit of a cultural gap there. But cultural context is for liberals and feminists, amen?

After all, the Proverbs 31 woman is the perfect example of  a keeper at home. Yeah, she bought and sold goods but that was a…uh…home based business! And all that stuff about her traipsing around buying and selling real estate is…um…well, I’m sure it’s a lot more complicated in the original Hebrew and a fundamentalist pastor can set it all straight if given half a chance.

Turns out there are a lot of women doing all kinds of stuff in the Bible: Deborah, Lydia, Priscilla, Phoebe, Mary, Tryphaena, Typhosa and Persis to name a few. And other than being judges, businesswomen, deaconesses, and apostles, I’m sure none of them would ever have dreamed of putting on shoes and leaving the house.

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 want to see a fundamentalist squirm, ask him if his church has the biblical office of deaconess.

The rules regarding what women can do are many and complex. Not only must married women submit to their husbands but unmarried women may need to submit to their boyfriend, unless the boyfriend is in contention with the woman’s father and then of course the person who makes the final decision is…her male pastor since he is submitted to by everybody anyway.

As with any fundamentalists rule there is a great degree of nuance. For example, women can teach Spanish to men but not Greek or Hebrew to preacher boys. Women missionaries may teach men as long as the men’s skin is at least 3 shades darker than her own. A female fundy may also lead a teen choir in song but not an adult congregation. She can make meals for the church covered dish supper but not serve out the crackers and Welch’s for communion.

If you believe that the only reason Deborah was chosen to be a prophetess was that there weren’t any men available to do the job, you might be a fundamentalist.

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 spanked if he does not walk where they say he should walk. … Parents should not have to remove vases and delicate glass ornaments from living room tables. A house need not become disorderly and full of riots because a baby has come. Start early in disciplining the child. …

The [spanking] ritual should be deliberate and last at least ten or fifteen minutes. … It should be a ritual dreaded by the child. He should not only dread the pain but the time consumed in the ordeal. …

The punishment should always be far in excess of the pleasure enjoyed by doing wrong. …

Never give a child that for which he cries. The baby who cries for attention and gets it will become a child who cries for a toy and gets it…

The spanking should be administered firmly. It should be painful and it should last until the child’s will is broken. It should last until the child is crying not tears of anger but tears of a broken will. As long as he is stiff, grits his teeth, holds on to his own will, the spanking should continue. …

After the spanking tell him why you did it. While he is still crying have him sit down. …

Happy is the child who feels the security of such punishment.

— Jack Hyles
How to Rear Children (1972)

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 3:16 in a foreign language. As a reward for doing these things (and not necessarily for doing them well) the missionary is then allowed to sell tapes and CDs of his family’s musical feats on the back table after the service.

There is another type of musical family that is modeled more along the lines of the von Trapp family. These are families with large numbers of children who consider traveling and performing to be their mission. It’s not easy get this act going for the simple reason that it requires having a large family. Two musical kids are hardly worth driving to see unless they’re really exceptional but by the time you’re up to seven musical children it’s a phenomenon, and twelve children barely have to have any musical talent at all to attract a crowd.

There are other costs to be considered too. Matching outfits for all those kids don’t come cheap. Not to mention the cost of transporting them from place to place. Thankfully, people are usually generous with their love offerings to musical acts.

In fact, missionaries are often thrilled to find out that a “big name” in the family musician trade is going to be present that week for the simple fact that they help boost the offerings. Man shall not live by flute solos alone.

Be sure to stop by the display table in the back.

(thanks to Don for bringing back many memories for this post.)

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 a book about why he didn’t want to date anymore. For some reason, this book was widely accepted in fundamentalist circles where some touted it as gospel and declared it the “Biblical way.”

Using the biblical model for finding a wife, the parents of the bride and groom are the key decision makers in who their children marry. The advantage is that this eliminates emotionally painful breakups and purges out the leaven of mates who are not quite up to fundy snuff. The disadvantage is that rounding up the livestock needed to pay the bride’s dowry is a messy business. The week-long wedding feasts are also very expensive. But, if a fundamentalist is going to set out to do things the Biblical way, he can’t pick and choose which traditions he wants to follow.

Matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match…

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 kids is a lot of work and very expensive. That’s why fundamentalist fathers take only the best paying jobs like assistant Christian school gym teacher or church handyman. Getting the group discount at parks and museums is just an added bonus.

Of course, having a large family does present some difficulties too. People will stare and ask silly questions like “are these all yours?” (as if someone would willingly drag nine of someone else’s kids through Walmart). Children do accidentally get left at stores and gas stations. And going out to eat can require more planning and expense than the Normandy Invasion.

It’s not all bad, however. there are advantages too. For example, not every teenager gets the privilege of  learning to drive in a fifteen-passenger van. And if all the kids learn a musical instrument, there’s a lot of opportunity for traveling performance ministries.

Why settle for any less than a quiver full?