The fundamentalist war against Satan is as unceasing as it is uninformed. The field of conflict is so often located in such unlikely places that one has to wonder if Satan has even been told that he’s supposed to show up to fight.  Satan is evidently much like the Taliban who are known to win a strategic battle against the American way of life every time someone buys a smaller car, skips a vacation, or eats a salad. You may not even know you’re playing, but you’re losing just the same.

Allowing children to attend a secular college? The hordes of hell advance in dread array.

Canceling mid-week service? Christians tremble in fear as the fiery host drives back the faithful few.

Discontinuing your door-to-door outreach? You can almost see devil spiking the ball and doing an evil endzone dance of glee.

Gird your loins and prepare to do battle in whatever patch of lentils your pastor has chosen to defend. Maybe this time the devil will actually show up.

Edited to add: There are more great designs over at Blog on the Way

Nick “Action” Claxton (I am honestly not making that name up) evidently thinks there are quite a few in his.

It’s always so much fun to rail on other people’s sin.

Since its inception, the primary purpose of the automobile has always been to provide venue for pastors to lose their testimonies. It may also (as a strictly secondary function) provide some modicum of useful transportation.

It is a well known fact in fundamentalism that even the most restrained and moderate of people lose all self-control once they set foot in a motor vehicle. Unless carefully monitored, riding in a car with a member of the opposite sex can lead to fornication, drunkenness, and head-on collisions with trains — possibly all three at the same time.

In the interest of preventing these unfortunate occurrences, the following rules should be observed by any fundamentalists who intends to travel by automobile.

- Pastors should never enter a car with a woman. Ever. If that means leaving her to be eaten by wolves then so be it. Your ministry is too important to risk.

- If two people who are dating should happen to need to travel together for sanctioned ministry purposes such as traveling too and from Bible college, they must travel in no smaller vehicle than a 15 passenger van and be seated for maximum separation distance between them. Please consult the following chart:

- If two people are currently pretending not to be dating so they can sit together on the long, long missions trip to Mexico they must be separated at all times by the width of a King James Bible (Wide Margin, Oxford Press, 1769 edition, 3rd printing).

- Chaperons shall be strategically placed in the vehicle in such a manner that all hands, feet, elbows, and knees are in plain view at all times. If a chaperon is unavailable this task may be relegated to a child who has demonstrated great alacrity in the tattling department.

- Every trip shall begin with a prayer in which the driver shall make it clear to all within earshot that the continued safety of all passengers from accident or freak avalanche depends on the above rules being kept with utmost vigor.

Observe these rules well and it may be possible to keep the inevitable vehicular orgies to a bare minimum. And keep an eye out for those oncoming trains.

If you still think that prohibition was a pretty swell idea that was working great until liberals ruined it for everybody…you might be a fundamentalist.

Here’s Marc Monte, fundamentalist pastor (and SFL commenter) to break it down for us:

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

Is that a man or woman? I'm so confused...

Today, for your listening enjoyment is Randy King expounding for us the doctrine of women sans pants.

Sorry to disappoint Randy, but a little research would have revealed that if you go back in history the pants “controversy” was addressed as far back as 13 November 866, when Pope Nicholas I wrote to King Boris I of Bulgaria in response to a question about whether Bulgarian women should wear dresses instead of trousers:

‘Whether you or your women wear or do not wear trousers neither impedes your salvation nor leads to any increase of your virtue’ (‘sive vos, sive feminae vestrae, sive deponatis, sive induatis femoralia, nec saluti officit, nec ad virtutum vestrarum proficit incrementum‘ – Patrologia Latina, CXIX, 1002;).

Which, of course, only goes to demonstrate the complete moral bankruptcy of the Roman Catholic Church.

This quote sums up the state of fundamentalist rival camps so very well that I decided to post it here without further comment.

One of the many things that trouble the Independent Baptists is our camp mentality.Somehow or another, through the desire to be separated and consecrated, we’ve ‘separated’ and ‘consecrated’ ourselves into our own independent camps. For instance; there’s the Shouting & Running The Aisles Camp, and the Non-Shouting & Running The Aisles Camp; then there’s the Southern Gospel Music Camp and the Bluegrass Gospel Music camp, and in opposition to them we have the Conservative Music Camp; and let’s not forget the camp that says it’s OK to have a Mission Board, and the Camp which thinks Mission Boards are of the Devil; the Anti-Horn-Rimmed Glasses Camp; or how about the Camp that allows the use of bass guitars & drums in the church, and the opposing Camp who cuts off fellowship with all such; and then the Camp who teaches that every believer should remember the very day and hour of their conversion, and the Camp who teaches that it’s not necessary; and of course the Get Rid Of Your TV Camp side by side with the TV is OK camp. Space constraints limit me from mentioning the Seminary Trained & the Anti-Seminary Campss, the Textus Receptus Camp, and the KJV1611-Only Camp; the Anti-Bus Ministry Camp; the Harold Sightler Camp, the Anti-Mustache Camp, the Ruckman Camp, the Hyles-Anderson Camp; the 1-2-3-Repeat-After-Me Soul-Winner Camp, the Anti-Divorced & Remarried Minister Camp, etcetera, etcetera.

The Errors of Independence, Mitch Allman

Well said.