It's Saturday. You have time to read a post or two.
First,
I have many friends who struggle to understand why so many people in the Upstate have such odd "issues" of conscience; such a warped view of sin and redemption. I grow more convinced every day that rule-keeping in the name of holiness is far more destructive than most Christians are willing to admit.
I'm not talking about telling your kid not to touch the hot stove; I'm talking about defining holiness via a list of permitted behaviors in an attempt to codify the Law of God. "Defining the lines" instead of walking in the Spirit. In reality, Spirit-walking is much more demanding, because you can't just "toe the line" and think you're OK.
Anyway, ran across this guy's post this morning and it might be helpful for some of you who are trying to understand where the rest of us are coming from:
The God I Never Knew, Part ISecond,
Stuff Fundamentalists Like is a witty parody of
Stuff White People Like, itself a reminder that we majority folks (in the US) often forget that we have our own mass of oddities.
I'll happily admit that Stuff Fundies Like sometimes goes too far, pulling in the most outrageous examples and calling them mainstream. Happily, I didn't grow up in independent BAPTIST Fundamentalism (thank
God), so I rarely viewed some of these abuses of logic, theology, and humanity close-up. But once I got to BJU, I certainly made friends with a lot of people who did ... so there's little on the site I haven't actually heard of already, at least second-hand.
The categories are listed to the right and provide quite a bit of amusement.
I particularly appreciated
Witnessing to PresbyteriansChristian SchoolsGreek (brilliant post)
the
Weaker Brother (great theological point)
Comments (3)
"I'll happily admit that Stuff Fundies Like sometimes goes too far,
pulling in the most outrageous examples and calling them mainstream."
Thanks for the link and the kind words. I'm always a bit surprised to find out people are actually enjoying what I've written.
One of the major problems with fundamentalism is that even those churches that aren't nuts give way too much tolerance to those who are -- as long as they're preaching the 'right' standards, Bible version, etc. etc.
I wish I had a nickle for every time I heard someone in a mainstream fundamentalist church (something which is getting harder and harder to define, btw) say something like "now I don't agree with everything Jack Hyles does, but at least he's out there spreading the gospel and defending the KJV."
So, yes what SFL focuses on could be called the lunatic fringe of fundamentalism. But mainstream fundamentalism is all to tolerant of those who run these asylums. qui tacet consentire videtur
-- Darrell
@Darrell - Oh, definitely! I'm not at all unhappy that you're documenting the fringe. But I want to be fair -- I grew up in a much more moderate Fundamentalism than the wacko people who fought wars over the KJV and refused to listen to anyone except Baptists preach.
I had to go to BJU to meet people from THOSE churches.
But I agree.
I left Fundamentalism after I watched the movement's leaders spend 20 years coddling people who were teaching heresy regarding the inspiration and preservation of the Scriptures.
I had been taught by the flagship university of fundamentalism to 1) separate from unbelief; and 2) stay loyal to the Scriptures themselves above any system made by man. But I watched that school and its supporting churches violate their own dictates. They separated over matters that aren't biblical; and when they had a banner opportunity to REALLY separate over a doctrinal issue ... they didn't.
Not till it was so late that most of fundamentalism is poisoned by a ridiculous, uneducated, erroneous understanding of the orthodox doctrines of inspiration and preservation.
And that's when I left.
The PCA has its issues, for sure, and sometimes acts just as separatist as Fundys ... but at least the battles here are over things that matter.
Best of wishes to you, Darrell!
Grace was what saved you, but it was works that sanctified(see Gal 3:3).
Yup. Good posts those. OK so I lied about quitting after 8 pages of off-topic ranting on FB. LOL.