If you’ve left fundamentalism, the challenge to day is to tell us where and what you are now. Maybe you’ve got a new denominational label, maybe you’ve decided to abandon labels all together, or maybe you’re just plain confused.
It’s rather difficult to leave somewhere without ending up somewhere else. Share a bit about your greener pastures.
Here, in excerpts, evangelist Dwight Smith delivers some of the standard fundy fare on the oft addressed topic of bitterness. (Because if you really loved Jesus and were busy winning souls you wouldn’t have time to notice what jerks your fundy brethren are)
Discussion question: how exactly does one “plunge their hurt beneath the blood”?
For all of their aversion to the evil in popular culture, fundamentalist preachers still somehow manage to bring it up fairly frequently in their sermons — often in unintentionally humorous ways. For whether it’s a warning against a TV show that went off the air ten years ago or rantings about the evil lyrics of “that rapper fellow, Snoopy Dog Dog,” the fundamentalist pastor rarely gets the details of his target exactly right.
In fact such is the regularity of these mistakes that one almost has to wonder if these flubs are intentional. For when the pastor is too accurate in his observations the obvious question is: “where is he getting his information?” Is there a designated person deemed spiritual enough to spend hours in a bunker deep below the church watching reruns of Will & Grace looking for sermon fodder? If there is no good Christian is watching, listening, or reading this the worldly filth he’s preaching against, then how does he know about it at all? We certainly know that he doesn’t keep unsaved friends around who might fill him in on what’s popular.
If you’ve ever spent 30 minutes trying not to laugh while listening to someone preach against the evil rock and roll of “The Jonah Brothers,” you might be a fundamentalist.
The fundamentalist community has strong walls and high gates to protect itself against the world around it. In order that fundies may soil themselves as little as possible with the evil that lurks outside the sacred bubble, they attempt as much as possible to replicate every facet of secular life in fundamentalist hues inside this shell.
In short, the fundamentalist organization will attempt to become everything to you who are held in its dread sway. They are your church, your employer, your schools, your social sphere, your sports team, your library, your music publisher, your landlord, and oh, so much more.
This creates the happy circumstance where, to many people, leaving fundyland means not only losing your church but also your children’s education, all your family friends, your job, and maybe even your house. Many are those who grunt and sweat under a weary life in fundamentalism because they have no idea where they would go or how they would live if they left.
How do you get a job in the outside world if you know nobody there and your qualifications only exist inside the fundamental sphere? Would you risk consigning your children to the deviltry of public schooling if leaving your church meant that they could no longer attend the one they are in now? How do you make friends of the evil people in the cold, cruel world?
Hopefully one day you’ll find out that the pay is better, the people are nicer, and life is so much sweeter outside those walls. The only difference between a castle and a prison is whether you’re trying to keep the people out or in.