The first song on this recording has been previously featured here but the real jewel starts at about three minutes in…
Monthly Archives: October 2010
Power Shifts
Fundamentalists ain’t what they used to be. Fundamentalism is exactly the same as it has always been.
Once upon a time, fundamentalism as a movement embraced a wide-flung and surprisingly diverse group of people. While standards and holiness (especially involving alcohol) were a big deal, they were not by far the biggest deal. In the days before the fundamentalist college was ubiquitous, many leaders were educated by Methodists or Presbyterians and these denominations were generally acknowledged to have at least some orthodoxy left in them. Bible Version debates were unheard of and the broader Christian culture often lined up with the fundamentalist ideals making the fundamentalist not so far outside the mainstream.
But here’s what happens…
Meet Pastor Joe. Pastor Joe is (at least comparatively) a fairly reasonable and well-spoken fundamentalist. As his camp in fundyland lurches to the fringe, he tries to speak out in a reasonable fashion against the growing craziness of standards and separation he sees around him. Of course, other fundamentalists mark him as an apostate and separate from him. Joe doesn’t want to completely abandon his theological roots so he leaves to become a Southern Baptist or Non-Denominational pastor with baptistic leanings.
This has two effects. 1)Fundamentalism loses a voice of reason and ends up a little crazier and more perverse as a whole 2)Whatever movement Pastor Joe joins gains a very right-leaning member and becomes a little more fundamentalist.
Inevitably, those who Joe left behind in fundamentalism attack even more of their own and those victims too decide to follow brother Joe into greener pastures.
Repeat the process a few thousand times and you end up with a fundamentalist movement where the lunatics are demonstrably running the asylum. You also end up with elements in the SBC and elsewhere that are increasingly voicing familiar old fundamentalist themes.
Meet the new Baptists, same as the old Baptists.
Theatrics
(This video was converted from some very low quality RealMedia video, hence the terrible quality)
Video Games
Reasonable Rhetoricians
On this site we often focus on the preachers and teachers within fundamentalism who are shocking and perverse. The bullies, the screamers, the jokesters, the criminally insane, and so on. Truth be told, these are really not the most dangerous people within fundamentalism because although their presentations will gather a certain number of loyal followers they will inevitably turn most people off with their unusual antics.
In fact, the most dangerous of all fundies is the one who gains your trust with reasonable-sounding words and a smile. He is no less a fundamentalist than the crazy variety but he masks his rhetoric in pleasantries and humor. He speaks in soft tones and cajoles rather than confronts. Beware, a man can smile and smile and be a villain.
One such fundamentalist is defender of Creationism — and more recently convicted felon — Kent Hovind. He’s a man who (if you didn’t know anything else about him) you can listen to for a few minutes and instinctively feel you can trust. This just goes to show that your instincts should be locked away somewhere safe where they can’t hurt you.
Consider this video…
He sounds so reasonable and so easy to believe…right up to the second where he endorses a book full of distortions and half-truths by a woman from the lunatic fringe of fundamentalism that is anything but reasonable.
Some days I miss being that trusting.