Monthly Archives: October 2010

Family

Romance (A Letter From CampMeetingGirl)

130 Comments


Darrell,

I just wanted to drop you a line and say that I have met a very nice
young man. His name is Titus. He is an older brother of a friend of
my brother, Uriah. We are the same age and he is in graduate school
at The Conservative College. He is getting a Master’s Degree in
Pastoral Theology. His mother was sick when he was in high school and
when he graduated, it was God’s will that he go to a local Junior
College for two years. He was able to be available to help his mother
and father out. His time there doesn’t seem to have turned him into
an atheist, so I am thankful for that. I have heard that it can be
hard to resist the pressure from all the communist student
organizations at those state institutions.

He came to visit his brother who is doing some work with a local
evangelist while he saves money for school (Uriah also works for this
evangelist on his website store). While Titus was here, he and I (and
all my other brothers, of course) went to get ice cream, ride go-carts
(I am so glad I finally sewed that long black skirt and could wear
it!), visit the zoo, and attend church. We even got to share a
hymnal. He is an honorable man so he did not try to hold my hand
under the hymnal, like I’ve heard of some other boys trying to do.

He is back at school and has asked if he could write me. I told him
yes. He says it will probably be through the snail mail because he
wants his letters to be saved for posterity. I think that is so
romantic. He talked to my Father and asked if it was okay to write me
and that his intentions were to get to know me. Courtship via mail.
Father agreed that this was probably the best thing to do.

Titus is very cute. He is tall and has green eyes. He has never had
braces on his teeth, but you can’t even tell! They are as straight as
anything!

In between the ice cream and go-carts, we got to talk a little about
finding the right one. We had a lot in common in that area. Neither
one of us has dated anyone and we think that it’s akin to divorce to
date and then break up. I told him that my one goal in life is to be
a happy homemaker. He smiled and said that would be his goal for me,
as well. I think he means that he is very serious about getting to
know me and courting me!!!

Anyway, I just remembered that I had said in the little questionaire
that I wasn’t courting anyone. Well, now I am.

Blessings to you in the name of our Lord (and Savior) Jesus Christ,
CampMeetingGirl

Odds and Ends

Baptism Decisions

113 Comments

Note: I am not against baptism nor do I wish anything but good for this particular young lady. The process of walking the aisle with a baptism decision and proceeding immediately to the dunk tank is one that I find of cultural significance in fundamentalism and I think it’s worth documenting here.

Doctrine, Outreach

“What if?” Guilt Trips

260 Comments

“For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been!”~John Greenleaf Whittier

“What if?” is a very special kind of fundy guilt trip because comes from nowhere, contains nothing but imagination, and can be used on anybody about even the most innocent of activities. Consider…

What if instead of buying that candy bar you had instead given the money in the missions offering? What if that very dollar was used to print the tracts that went to deepest darkest Africa and converted the local medicine man to Christianity and caused revival to break out across the entire continent? But alas, you chose the candy. So now we’ll never know.

What if instead of sleeping in on Saturday you had spent an extra hour praying for your lost family member? What if that snooze button was all that was standing between their soul and eternal damnation? A little sleep, a little slumber, and now you’ll always have to wonder if you could have done more. You probably could.

What if you had dug deeper, pushed harder, or fought better? What glorious opportunities may have been had! What souls could have been won and empires built! But alas, poor craven soul that you are, you did not.

Guilt trips on the Subjunctive Highway. They’re a thing of beauty.

Odds and Ends

Arguments

203 Comments

For all their love of contention, a good number of fundamentalists rank as some of the most inept arguers in the world. This debating deficiency stems mainly from their inability to either care what their opponent really believes or actually address it with integrity. Why bother listening to someone who is certainly wrong? Just wait for them to take a breath and blast them with “the truth.”

In order for an honest dialog to take place, each side must be willing to at the very least admit that his understanding of his opponent’s position may have been mistaken. Here are the common stages in the Arguing with Fundies process…

Assertion
Yes, the facts gathered third-hand via scrawled notes taken from an evangelist’s sermon illustration back in 1987 may be slightly less than accurate. Never fear, if you repeat something long enough and loud enough then it starts to sound true. Full speed ahead and into the fray! Just. Keep. Repeating. Yourself.

Annoyance
Keep talking and don’t ever stop talking as you just allow a stream of words to flow out of your mouth in such a never ending cacophany of sound that the person listening finally gives up and decides that anything else — up to and including watching daytime television — would be a better use of their time than listening to one more sentence, one more word, one more syllable of this never-ending tirade on whatever long-since forgotten and probably less than useful point is being made. If I’ve got more words than you it means I’m winning, right? Right?

Accusation
If mere strong assertions are not enough to win the argument, the fall back position is inevitably to question the motives of your opponent. Does that non-fundamentalist dare imply that the fundy’s music standards are not really based on Scripture? THAT’S ONLY BECAUSE HE WANTS TO DANCE TO THAT GODLESS ROCK MUSIC! The key here is to assume certain facts are true about any non-fundamentalist without bothering to ask.

Affected Affection
Some fundamentalists may just end the conversation with a blast of accusation and then march away. But for the older and more experienced fundy there is one more approach: tell them “we only hate you because we love you.” Indeed, the fundy only fights with others because he cares. He prays for them. He sheds big slobbery tears for them. He’d like to give them a big old hug — if they would just repent and admit that fundamentalists are right, that is. Fundamentalists only love the sinner for what he could become, never what he is.

I would add that I’ve had a few rare thoughtful discussions with fundamentalists who were not obviously spending the entire time I was talking thinking of their next retort instead of actually listening. It’s an exceptional thing.

Doctrine, Standards

Cognitive Dissonance

384 Comments

To be a fundamentalist one must master the art of ignoring the illogical and absurd. Consider these bits of doublethink…

We believe that Calvinism is a hindrance to evangelism…we also believe the Spurgeon and Edwards were the instruments great revivals.

We believe that praying written prayers is vain repetition…we also believe that praying the exact same words over breakfast every morning is a necessary and meaningful experience.

We believe that since canon of Scripture is closed, the Holy Spirit no longer gives direct revelation to people…we also believe that the Holy Spirit gives traffic directions and investment advice.

We believe that the Scriptures are the sole authority for our faith and practice…we also believe that Christian standards of dress and music somehow were all discovered centuries after the Scriptures were finished and include things not addressed therein.

We believe that every man has soul liberty and that every believer is a priest…we also believe that the pastor has complete authority to override that liberty any time he sees fit.

We believe that liberals have purposely corrupted our public school systems and lowered our education standards for their own political ends….we also believe that these semi-illiterate students are perfectly capable of understanding a four-hundred year old translation of the Scriptures.

We believe that the reason our church isn’t growing quickly is that the world is getting worse and worse as the end times approach and men’s hearts wax cold…we also believe that our soul winning program has broken records every year for the last 20 years.

We believe that good will always overcome evil…we believe that evil will always overcome good.

Feel free to add your own examples below…