For the aspiring fundamentalist preacher boy here is the end-all of instruction manuals for how to succeed in the ministry.

A few nuggets of wisdom from this book:

Do I? It’s like he’s reading my mind! What a great pastor I could be if I weren’t messing around with people all day long!

It’s also a great way to catch them wearing, listening to, and smoking things that they oughtn’t be. Score!

You know you’re always right, and soon they’ll know it too!

Man, why didn’t I think of that? How do you counsel? Just don’t!

There is so much more but I’ll let you have at it on your own.

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Thanks to reader GuessWho for this classic example.

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.

The “lunatic fringe” of fundamentalism is never quite as far away from the “mainstream” as those who claim to be the mainstream would have you believe. Since guilt by association is a favorite game of many fundies, I’ll beg your indulgence while I try my own hand at it for a moment.

Consider Tony Hutson, son of former Sword of  the Lord editor Curtis Hutson. A few minutes spent listening to the Tony Hutson One-Liner Podcast will reveal a slew of crazy rants that attempt to pass for preaching. Don’t miss the story on apologetics that ends with a recounting of an alleged conversation where Curtis Hutson tells Tony “boy, you’re even more ignorant than your mama.” Um…amen?

Yet for all of this craziness, he still maintains close ties with Sword of the Lord. He has a listing at the top of their Tenessee Church Directory and routinely preaches at SOTL conferences. Meanwhile, the Sword of the Lord has grown increasingly close to none other than the “mainstream” fundamentalist organization Pensacola Christian College who from all accounts puts quite a sum of money into keeping the Sword afloat. To emphasize that tie, SOTL Editor Shelton Smith will be preaching at the PCC Campus Church from Jan. 18-22 of this month. There is no stronger endorsement in fundyland than letting a man fill your pulpit.

Hutson->Smith->PCC. Is there really a “mainstream” of fundamentalism when crazyland is never more than a hop skip and a jump away? Discuss amongst yourselves.

If you’ve ever heard your pastor use the word’s “touch not the Lord’s anointed” to refer to…himself, you probably have been a fundamentalist.

It is the great irony of fundamentalism that after having decried the centralized control of the Roman church, fundamentalist churches each hasten to set up their own local pope who speaks to them ex cathedra on matters of Scriptural interpretation and practice. Based on the passages most often used to justify this dominance, one can only assume that the local church pastor fills the roles of prophet, priest, and king with a generous helping of apostle thrown in for good measure. Not bad for a position where the only entrance requirement is an invisible “call” to preach.

Since the fundy pastor says he will be called to “give an account” for the minutest details of the lives of those under his care, it only stands to reason that nothing is outside of his purview. Some of the more extreme will even say that since the authority of the church stands above the family, the pastor is responsible for the decisions made in each home down to where each child goes to school and whom they marry. Resist this “man-of-god” at your own peril; the pastor may not have she bears to do his bidding but he does have a deacon board.

Of course, most fundamentalists will tell you that we are all merely sinner saved by grace and that the ground at the foot of the cross is all equal. Some parts are just a bit more equal than others; and evidently some also come with a direct line to God’s will for everyone else’s life.

It’s been a while since our last dose of Schaap so here we go…

Right out of the bat we have too many SFL’s to count.

- Do you think they have enough American flags on the platform?

- We’re all familiar with the “table in the back.” Cash and checks accepted.

- Hey! My Life Was On Unshackled! How Cool Is That??

- Give to the building project! We only have 20 days! (What happens after that isn’t quite clear)

And that was just the warmup…

Since the last post wandered down to Penascola, FL, I figured we’d go up just a few blocks from PCC to the former stomping grounds of creationist speaker and writer Kent Hovind (until the feds threw him in jail for tax evasion that is). There must be something in the water down there…

A little background: The Campus Church (Pensacola Christian College’s church that most staff and students are required to attend) recently lost its third pastor in five years leaving long-time resident professor and vice-president Dr. Joel Mullenix to fill the pulpit.

In the most recent telecast of Sunday’s morning service, Dr. Mullenix dispensed such a classic example of all that’s wrong with fundamentalist preaching that I could not help but put it here. Without further ado, I give you the SFL summary of “Pictures of Laodicea from Mount Sinai” broadcast December 6th.

After a brief intro explaining that the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 are representative of seven church ages and that we are now in the last age of Laodecia, the good doctor dives right into the drawing seven parallels between Mt. Sinai and our current church age. They are as follows:

1. The children of Israel waited 40 days and nights for Moses to return. This is just like the current church waiting for Jesus to return in the Rapture. And if we really believed that he was coming back and rapturing us all we’d live a lot differently than we do.

2. Aaron didn’t stand for the truth at Sinai. Neither to Neo-evangelicals, Neo-orthdox folks, or basically anybody else with Neo in their name. Mark and avoid them.

3. The Children of Israel used music that sounded like the sounds of war. THIS IS JUST LIKE ROCK MUSIC IN THE CHURCH! (No, I’m not kidding, listen to it for yourself).

4. Israel was naked just like the church in Laodeciea. Which reminds us that people no longer dress up and wear their best clothes for church. Because that’s exactly like being naked. Right.

5. Idolatry made the people claim they were worshiping God while doing the world’s work. Just like people today who live and worship like the world does and call it God’s work.

6. God was angry at Israel and wanted to destroy them. LOOK AT ALL THE HURRICANES, NATURAL DISASTERS, DISEASES, AND PLAGUES THAT HAVE NEVER, EVER HAPPENED BEFORE EVER EVER EVER. IT’S ALL BECAUSE WE’VE ALL GONE LIBERAL IN OUR CHURCHES. God is obviously angry at us too. Turn or Burn.

7. God moves away from the people just like Jesus is found outside the church in Revelation 3. Evidently he’s standing out there because he doesn’t like the music inside. Oh, and doctrine too. And other stuff.

Conclusion: Who is on the Lord’s side? Are you on the Lord’s side? Well are you? Then please stand to your feet. No, really. Stand up. Are you standing yet?

I for one am not only standing, I’m saluting too. One wonders what preacher boys learn in Homiletics classes at PCC other than how to properly use hairspray. I’d also like to take this opportunity to invite those who claim that SFL only covers the lunatic fringe of fundamentalism to explain to me how this sermon from a mainline fundy organization fits into that theory.