No fundamentalist sermon would be complete without illustrations. In fact, by sheer volume, illustrations appear to be the most important part of the message. The ability to tell compelling stories is what separates mere speakers from the masters of the preaching craft. When this really becomes important is when the topic turns to teenage rebellion. These are the cream of the illustration crop.
The most important thing about the “rebellious teen” illustration is that it must end badly. It must end so badly that no teen in their right mind will ever, ever, ever go out and do whatever it was that the kids in the story did. Nothing is off limits here. Decapitation, electrocution, cannibalism, accidentally killing ones whole family, small children being eaten by animals…the more gore the better to drive the point home and scare the teens straight.
It’s a miracle that any non-fundamentalist teen makes it to adulthood. It’s a regular bloodbath out there. Ignore the warnings at your own peril.
Hmmm…this one reminds me of those Heaven’s Gate’s/Hell’s Flames productions. A bunch of kids get killed trying to beat a train. Another group all die at once taking illegal drugs. Nothin’ like a little horror to guilt you into “believing.”
To be fair, neither of those things are good ideas, even an atheist would agree. 😉
Having a IFB pastor for a father, attended a fundy school from K-college, and having worked at a fundy camp for 4 years I don’t know how many times I heard the story about the long haired rebel who refused to come down the aisle, even though he was obviously under conviction, and so he left the camp/church/youth activity/revival service still a long haired rebel on his way to hell. Of course the next day the preacher was devastated to learn that this same kid had been killed in a car accident on the way home and of course the tape/cd (depending on what year I was hearing the story) was stuck on AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. Of course at that point most of the kids listening had no clue who AC/DC was.
AC/DC? Are you sure it was a car crash which killed the beastly little sinners and not electrocution?
How about the man who refuses to obey the Lord’s call to the mission field because he thinks it will be dangerous? He stays home instead, and one day a poisonous snake falls out of a tree onto his young child and bites him, fatally. Nothing bad could possibly have happened to that child if the missionary would have just gone to a third world country in the middle of a civil war.
Okay. For the sake of other lurkers scouring the archives I have to complete this story. Here’s the version I heard:
A man and his wife come home from the jungle-y mission field when they have children, because they feel that it’s too dangerous there. They live with their two sons in a mobile home. One day, their older child comes running into the house talking about “the worms” that are biting it. It turns out that he’s gotten into a nest of baby rattlesnakes under the porch. The Dad chucks him in the car to head for the hospital, but he’s leaving in such a hurry that he accidentally runs over his younger son, killing him. Seeing all this from the doorway, the pregnant wife has a heart attack and dies right then and there. The older son, of course, dies from the snake bites.
No. Joke. This has always made me sick.