Time in fundyland is neatly sliced into three categories as follows.

The Glorious Past

The Glorious Past encompass everything from the time that Noah put the dinosaurs on the ark up through the time when our old senior pastor still ran the church and had dinosaurs running the music program. These were the days when things were done right. The biggest sin anybody committed was chewing gum in church and those people were summarily stoned to death. It was the era when missionary stories still happened in real life instead of just on flash cards. People were white, women were silent, and life was good.

The Glorious Future

This time will come only when fundamentalists end up running things. The jury is still out on whether that’s done by sweeping into office on the Republican ticket or by coming back to earth and just killing all the infidels in a post-Tribulation bloodbath. Either way the fundies are really excited about the prospects. A good time will be had by all (except the infidels).

The Present Conflict

Life in the present isn’t like it was in the old days so we’ll spend our days working to usher in the glorious future instead of wasting time on the present world. Don’t bother with art and music and culture, it’s all going to burn. There is only one mission and that is to swell the ranks of fundamentalism and prepare the troops for battle. Payday will be someday but not now. Life now is mostly pain and drudgery as well it should be. As it is written: He hath given us all things richly to enjoy the promise that some other day we’ll have fun. To the work!