Cradle fundies - Were you good or eeeevil?

[notdrinkingthekoolaid]

(11-03-2011 10:46 AM)Discovering Life Wrote:  Drank the kool aid and tried to live up to everyone's expectation of me both real and imagined. College was my first real exposure to other brands of kool aid, we are talking BJU after all. I started realizing that a lot of the externals where just that, externals, they had little to nothing to do with one's actual spiritual condition, not only that but I began to realize they where cultural, not actually biblical. Even after coming to this realization I still kept drinking the kool aid, I just added some sugar to make it more palatable, I wore pants, listened to real music and watched movies but still believed all the legalism. It wasn't until lat year when I learned what God's grace really is that I woke up. Its been a scary and wonderful journey ever since.

I think you just explained how I arrived at my screen name. Are you sure you weren't using my life as inspirational material!

[lucrezaborgia]

(11-03-2011 01:20 PM)dthatcher Wrote:  I think my mom did everything right as far as what it would take to keep your child in the fundy fold. Problem is, once I became an adult, I had enough of a brain to understand fundyism wasn't practical.

You sort of answered a question I want to ask but I'll ask it to the rest too:

What do your fundy peers (family, friends, etc) think of you now? Were you ever saved in their eyes now that you are backsliden or what? Do you scoff at the phrase "I didn't raise you to be like that!"

[dthatcher]

My mom strove mightily to convince me it was only certain fundamentalists that were wrong... but once you see the light and understand the reasons behind the activity you realize that it is just a matter of degree. She tried everything she could think of to keep me in IFB churches which worked for a number of years until I moved away. My dad dropped out of the picture long before I began my trek out of IFB. My mom hasn't had an easy life herself and now she is older, so she isn't one to get on people over differences. No doubt it would be different if my mom was married to a strong IFB guy.

[Presbygirl]

Hypocrite by way of survival. I tried to live out "loud" but at some point you've gotta fly below the radar so your demerits don't find you a "new way of living" because Fundy U is where Your parents want you to go, even though I was footing the majority of the bill. It's complicated.

[Jenni]

(11-03-2011 02:05 PM)lucrezaborgia Wrote:  What do your fundy peers (family, friends, etc) think of you now? Were you ever saved in their eyes now that you are backslidden or what?

I'm getting the impression that they think I would have been fine if I had just kept drinking the Fundy kool-aid and following the rules like everyone else. I am pretty sure they think my departure from Fundyland and my choice to attend a non-Fundy church led to my ultimate downfall. They're pretty convinced that I'm ridiculously backslidden now, and I'm sorry to say that means they'll be tightening their grip on their kids so the same thing doesn't happen to them. I'm surprised they didn't offer me hemlock for "corrupting the youth."

[Papa Bear]

I think you need another choice on this poll. I'm not sure what you would call it, but the best I can come up with to describe myself as a Fundy youngster is "fatally sincere". I tried as hard as I could not only to follow all the 'thou shalt nots', but to go above and beyond, to "Be ye therefore perfect." I fell for the legalist system, but I actually expected it to work. The 'good kids' just automatically did and believed as they were told, and never seemed to notice that this week's truth contradicted last week's truth. The 'bad' kids broke the rules, but they had the sense to keep quiet about it and cynically manipulate the system. I could do neither. While I freely confessed my shortcomings, when the powers that be broke their own rules, I called them out on it. We were constantly reminded that "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper," and "Be sure your sin will find you out."

Silly me, I expected the authorities to live up to the standard they demanded of me! After all, they were older, and kept telling me they were wiser and more advanced in holiness. But pointing out the inconsistencies in leadership is the surest way to be pegged as a rebel, and that taints even your good deeds with wickedness.

So I bought into the system, did my honest best to neither break the rules even secretly, nor hide my sins, and outdid the Junior (and some of the Senior) Pharisees in good works, but was always getting the smackdown for it.

[aisforazebra]

Hypocrite, mostly. I wavered. I bought into a lot of it, but not all, and I went back and forth on how much I believed. A lot of it never sat right with me, but as a pastor's kid, I had to keep up appearances. When I got older and reached my tolerance limit, I caused my fair share of "trouble" (including causing my father to be investigated for child abuse, which unfortunately didn't result in anything).

I wanted to believe in God and Jesus and all of the good things, but I had a hard time reconciling that with the people who were supposed to be representing Him. How I have any sort of faith today is a mystery to me.

[Big Laura]

I was a hypocrite. In high school, I knew I didn't buy into their views, but I also saw that staying on the good side had it's perks.

[HazelEyed]

I was a mixture of hypocrite and good kid. I believed a lot of the things really sincerely, but especially in high school I started sneaking around and doing more and more things that I realized weren't actually bad (although I was forbidden to do them). I wasn't an open rebel, though, and a lot of people thought I was a complete goody-goody.

[Beowulf]

I saw the struggles my older siblings had with my parents, and that started my own doubts. I played along through high school, though, more because I loved my parents and didn't want to cause strife (but somehow I managed to do just that.)

As a young adult I became more rebellious, not because of disagreements with my parents, but because everyone else had these expectations of me BECAUSE I was their son. By that time my parents had mellowed, so it wasn't rebellion against them, exactly.