Will This Make Sense To Fundies?

[Rev R]

I can't handle it, either, in real life. I steer clear of fundies where possible and avoid talking religion when with fundies if possible. This seems to be working fairly well. There's not too much open evangelization in the area where I live. For this I am very grateful. It was feel very unsafe going out if things were otherwise.

That is probably the best approach for the blood pressure. The best one can hope to do is provide the opposing view, and offer the truth in place of the misconceptions and propaganda. Keep doing what you do.

 

I think there is no hope and that other ways have to be found. These "other ways" is what I am looking for and seeking both with my studies and with my forums and website and whatever means occur to me.

Open and honest communication will become possible when the conversion agenda is dropped and they can come to the table not as "soldiers of God" and superior to us heathens but as open minded and rational equals. Admittedly, that might be too optimistic a view.

 

Hey, nice way of putting it. Might be new ammunition for my next argument with these folks. When/if the opportunity arrises I might ask: Just why all this worry about the afterlife; what's wrong with living now? Only problem is I know the answer ahead of time. There is a genuine fear of landing in hell if one does not profess to believe the right things while living in this life. It is unutterably sad.

Use it as you will. It was a response to the argument "what if you had the cure for cancer?" that I have seen fundies use from time to time to support evangelism. It seems as if life to some people is like punching in at a job they hate. They have been promised a beach front condo in Tahiti and are just counting the days until retirement. I don't get how anyone could be happy like that.

 

Yesterday I didn't even sign in here. Was busy working on my thesis. I'm studying fundamentalist leaders. Right now I'm doing an author of the 1800s. I chose to present his reality sympathetically. It's so sad it nearly breaks my heart. He's a thorough-going Calvinist. You can read his concept of God here. This is the homepage. You'll have to go into the links. Cookie Cutter Christians is what occurred to me after summarizing his first volume. There's three of them to go through. They're all online but you probably don't want to read them. If you do, let me know and I can give you the link.

 

Sure I'll give it a shot...though I might prefer your thesis.

 

There is wisdom in your words.

I am flattered.

 

The only religion with which I have any level of familiarity is Christianity. And when they have created enough unhappiness and conflict the time is ripe to apply the all-time, time-tested and proven remedy: Jesus Christ and him crucified. Only in and through him can we find the peace we so much covet. So the line goes. But first, we must create the need and niche so that we can appreciate the help he can give. Makes me want to scream.

I'm not that familiar with Christianity. When I was young I went to sermons, bible study, Sunday school, VBS. No matter how passionate someone got, I never could accept it as being anything more than stories like I was checking out of the school library. Noah's ark, David and Goliath, Lazarus, all of them paled in comparison to Athena's birth, Hound of the Baskervilles, and the Crisis on Infinite Earths. I was a very independent minded kid.

 

I got older and folks around me got a little more into the whole salvation bit, but I could never see how washing your hands of "sin" in blood was a good idea. I suppose being an outsider comes naturally.

 

I can understand why you want to scream. I find myself in that predicament when these folks get riled up.

[R. S. Martin]

Sure I'll give it a shot...though I might prefer your thesis.

 

My thesis is a lo-o-o-ng way from being fit to be seen and it won't be posted here when it is done. This is not to say that nothing could be arranged via pm. But here is the link to Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology. You're looking at about a thousand pages of dull dry reading.

 

Here's the Wikipedia article on Hodge. In its bibliography I found some more sources that are helpful in understanding him. My prof approved the sources. I'm tickled pink. All this talk about wikipedia not being reliable. I'm not using wiki's article as an authority but I am using the sources that article used.

 

By the way, Hodge is only one of the fundy leaders I am studying for this thesis. Falwell is another. The third is a Canadian who is probably not all that well known. What impresses me is that every one of these guys demonstrates a really warm loving heart. Yet some of us see them from the outside as cold-blooded monsters. This is something I've been struggling with re my own people--this two-sided mentality. If you agree with them, you're beloved and blessed. If you disagree with them, you'll either be ignored or damned.

 

Open and honest communication will become possible when the conversion agenda is dropped and they can come to the table not as "soldiers of God" and superior to us heathens but as open minded and rational equals. Admittedly, that might be too optimistic a view.

 

Rev R, I agree completely with you on this. My question is, in which millennia do you expect them to drop the conversion agenda and to come to the table as open-minded rational equals rather than superior to us heathens? The way I see things at the moment--given the nature of Christianity, when they drop the conversion agenda, they cease to be fundamentalist Christians. They may still be orthodox Christians but not fundamentalist.

 

I may have missed something but here is a list of the basic items orthodox Christians believe:

• Affirm creation by God.
  
• Affirm Bible as Word of God.
  
• Affirm Jesus as Son of God.
  
• Affirm salvation through death and resurrection of Jesus.
  
• Affirm End of World/Time when all humanity will be resurrected.
  

So far as I know, in addition to the above, the following are tests of membership for most fundamentalists:

• Belief that creation happened in some version of the six-day doctrine.
  
• Belief that all the key figures in the Bible such as Noah, Moses, Joshua, Paul, and the other disciples were historical people. (I don't remember ever hearing of a person who did not believe otherwise, but I would guess anyone questioning these people's historicity would come under serious suspicion and scrutiny.)
  
• Belief in the Virgin Birth of Christ
  
• Belief in the historicity of Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension.
  
• Confession of one's sinfulness and experience of the new birth
  
• Belief in salvation through faith in Jesus
  
• Belief in a literal heaven and a literal hell (resurrection of the dead is presupposed), the belief that all who do not trust in the shed blood of Christ for their salvation will go to hell. This includes all who never heard the name of Jesus due to the misfortune of birth. Hence the missionary fervor.
  

This is their version of Christian love--the responsibility to their fellow humans to keep them from dropping into hell. Cain asked God, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Obviously, he was. Ezekiel clearly demonstrates that yes, we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. Jesus commands his followers to "go into all the world" and "preach to all creatures," and tells about how the rich man ended up in hell because he did not do all in his power to help the poor; in other words, works do count. Paul instructs his people to admonish deviants in order to bring them back to the fold. Revelations has the tribulation to give sinners one last chance to repent and escape hell.

 

That is the way fundamentalists understand the Bible. This is not the orthodox understanding. Do you see why I ask in which millennia you expect the fundies to drop their conversion agenda? Hell as a lake of fire is more real to them than anything that can happen to them in this life on this earth. That is the level of conviction we are dealing with. That is why people will compromise their very lives rather than displease their god.

 

Back to their two-sidedness. Herein lies the secret, I think. In their fervor to save souls from the furnace of hell they will forgo anything and everything, including love of family and friends. Nothing can ever compare in importance to eternal welfare of souls. In order to save souls, they must demonstrate love, and they do feel genuine human feeling insofar as they dare to allow themselves to feel it. One's natural human love for one's child or friend or other relative must never over-ride one's concern for that person's soul's salvation.

 

I found something in the Westminster Catechism (that Hodge uses as foundational for his faith) that chills me to the bone and it's supported by Scripture. Here's a cut and paste from my paper as it stands at the moment:

Charles Hodge operates by the Westminster Larger Catechism (ST I:376). He obeys its command not to be “bold and curious searching into [the Lord’s] secrets (Larger Catechism, Answer 105). The Proof Text for this portion is Deuteronomy 29:29 as follows:

 

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to observe all the words of this law.[1]

 

 

[1] All Scripture reference is taken from the Revised Standard Version unless otherwise indicated.

 

Westminster Larger Catechism. Online at http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html accessed Sept. 12, 2007

 

Apparently, asking questions about truth is biblically condemned. I did not know that but I do know that a lot of my family seriously disprove of my penchant for questioning absolutely everything. Consequently, some time ago I did what must appear from my sister's perspective as writing my own death sentence. I cannot have the family writing me all those guilt trip or conversion letters. Finally I called my one sister and argued that she should trust the Holy Spirit to convert me. I assume she saw right through that trick--it was a way to use her religion to get her off my back. In effect, I was writing my own death sentence. Had she agreed to go with me through all the intellectual gymnastics necessary to understand my convictions I would have gladly helped her to understand, but none of the family was listening to me anymore. They had already written me off many months earlier.

 

All they had needed to know was that I was investigating other religions, more specifically paganism. I had one meeting with one individual and I read about two or three books. It was not right for me but I never told them. I felt they did not deserve to know. They had already written me off as an atheist. Never mind that Paganism is not atheism. I still believed in a god...I wasn't sure. But not in the God that led the Israelites out of Egypt, who they believe is also the Father of Jesus Christ. This wasn't good enough for them.

 

But is this really about religion, or is there something more going on here? Back in March this year, our mother died. In their religion, based on their understanding of the Bible, unbelievers cannot eat at the same table as the preacher for a formal meal at a funeral. This meant that I could not eat with my siblings for my own mother's funeral. I was already hurting far too much because of all the rejection; there was no way I could attend the funeral if I was not allowed to eat with my siblings. I did go to the viewing twice. The second time, my brother crossed all cultural boundaries and hugged me. In our culture, adult men and women don't hug outside of marriage. He asked me, "Can we look forward to seeing you tomorrow?" I asked, "Can I eat with you?" He broke down and cried. He said something about "You know the rules about church membership..." I informed him that I had not revoked membership at a certain church I had attended about eight years earlier. On that technicality the deacon allowed me to eat with my brothers and sisters and father.

 

I was at the funeral and observed family dynamics with Mom absent. Being a stroke victim, Dad was in a wheelchair and my brother made sure Dad was near the coffin in the churchyard as the congregation filed past, according to custom. Normally, the bereaved family stands near the coffin for this event. For some reason, only my brother and Dad and I were near the coffin. The rest of the entire clan stayed back. They were in the general area, but there was an open space between them and us. Not even my brother's wife and children were with him. I am the only atheist in the entire clan so far as I know. All the others of our immediate family are members in good standing of the church into which all of us were born. I don't know what caused the division or why.

 

I did discipher over the following days and weeks that my siblings, and perhaps even the deacon and his wife, were not all of the same mind as to whether or not I should have been allowed to eat with the family. At stake is obedience to God as they understand it, keeping the church pure and undefiled, being a light to the world, not to mention being guilty of my "unbelief" by association, i.e. eating at the same table with me, whom they consider a sinner.

 

It's in 1 Cor. 5. The sin Paul is talking about is a man having sex with his father's wife. I am not having sex with my parent of the opposite sex, and they know that. Verse 11 is more inclusive and lists the following sins: sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. He says not to eat with such a person. I don't do those things. In Verse 12 he says not to judge those who are outside; I am outside but they still judge me. And they judge me for not believing the right things. Like I mentioned above. It is their turf and I have to play by their rules.

 

All of this to show how absolute are their rules, how uncompromising their beliefs, even when it comes to closest kin and loved ones. Their understanding of God rules. And I suspect sometimes they get a bit confused whether it is God or their own prejudices. They are, after all, very much human beings with human feelings. I think when humans subject their true feelings to superior motives, these feelings go underground and resurface in ways quite contrary to otherwise noble intentions. Thus we get all the hatreds and jealousies and backbitings and infightings ad infinitum.

 

Sorry, this got rather long. It's just that I've been thinking on some of this stuff recently. Trying to make sense of some really painful stuff.