Fundamentalism is largely the product of American thought and as such lends itself well to the sort of rugged individualism that we so admire in this country. This picture of the Christian as a lone gunmen is so revered that fundies put “Independent” right in their name. All we need is thee and me and the KJV (and truth be told, I don’t even really need thee).
What this reclusive Christianity means is that a New Testament Bible-Believing Independent Fundamental Baptist assembly is accountable to nobody in matters of doctrinal minutiae or hair styles except their pastor, his old pastor, the president of that pastor’s college, and the staff evangelists from the regional IFB fellowship. Thankfully, the people in this accountability chain do not get involved in the oversight of things like ethical breaches and moral failure. It’s there that being Independent really pays off.
If your ideal of Christianity is a church built on a deserted island then fundyland may just be for you. “Plays well with others” doesn’t even make it onto the fundamentalist report card.
Nice–and totally true. Regardless of how tactful fundies are (and many of them are very nice), in the end, diplomacy and empathy are not things they even think about valuing.
//All we need is thee and me and the KJV (and truth be told, I don’t even really need thee).//
LOL.
On a side note, I know I’m late to the game, but I just was watching through Steven Anderson’s sermons and the whole “I got beat up” ordeal.
nicodemusatnite.blogspot.com
The greatest explaination of Fundyism is found in Plato’s cave.
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/platoscave.html
Socrates was ahead of his time with this quote: “And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves ….”
(pssst, I know I took it out of context…. old fundy habits are hard to break)
@Darrell sorry for double dipping, but isn’t it a bit ironic that for all the independent individualism the fundy movement prides itself on, the movement is actually dependent on group think, assimilation, and strict conformity and adherence to the rules of the cult?
For all their individualism they become the very thing they claim they are against.
@Don It goes along with Fundy Rule #24: “We believe in individual soul liberty — although we’ve never seen a good reason for anybody to actually use it. ”
We’ll tell you that we believe each person is their own priest and that each church is it’s own government but let someone stray from the straight and narrow path of our opinion and out come the slings and arrows.
Two books that I have found that are immensely helpful are:
The Democratization of American Christianity and
Fundamentalism and American Culture
which help show that the modern IFB movement/culture is very much a MODERN American “thing”.
Try explaining this to a IFB Fundy, and their eyes glaze over, or they accuse you of being apostate.
I have read this. Marsden is an excellent resource.
“Fundamentalism is largely the product of American thought and as such lends itself well to the sort of rugged individualism that we so admire in this country.”
So true, when I was at BJU I had a few friends who were Presbyterians. Of course their church polity is completely different from IFB which I grew up in. Both sides would love to argue, but my default always went with IFB. Of course the Presbyterians would always point to how their polity was more like the New Testament. I searched it out but was still torn. Finally I realized why. IFB is very, very American in church Polity. Everyone in the church gets a vote (even if it can be overruled by the pastor or covered up in a swift “all apposed, no great”). In IFB polity it is rough individualism (“no one can tax me without representation…errr I mean rule over our church without representation”). When I finally got out of BJU I joined a church with entirely different polity of both Presbyterians and Baptists. It was at that point I could look more objectively. A friend pointed out the American culture link to IFB and I realized why I kept going back to that (“Hey if it worked for America it should work for the church.”) But that was sort of an ethnocentric arrogant position to take.
Needless to say I’ve sort of changed my mind on the whole thing a bit. I think I like accountability especially seeing how IFB has handled the non-accountability, but I also like it when the local congregation gets a voice and a say. So far I’ve been in two different denoms since BJU with 2 different polities that are different from IFB and Presb…and the only common thing from all of them? They all claim to be more like the new testament church. So which is right and which is wrong? I say none of them…or all of them…or it just doesn’t matter.
Actually, that’s a pretty nice photo you have up there…
An aside: Much of what you write about here is very familiar to me – but I grew up in a fundamentalist/pelagian sect in Africa, and some of their laws make some of these here pale by comparison. Their website – http://www.kwasizabantu.com/
One IFB pastor, when asked *what* could possibly keep him accountable if it’s wrong for anyone in the congregation to question his judgment or talk about his practices amongst themselves, pondered thoughtfully for a moment and answered:
“My Humility”
Wrap your head around *that* one.
I’m still laughing about this post. One church we were in allowed everyone a say. If you agreed, you said “Amen!” If you disagreed, you were supposed to say “Oh me.” No one ever did.
It’s a culture in which no one ever grows up.
@Susan So interesting of you to say “It’s a culture in which no one ever grows up.”
I agree completely, and find it actually very sad that this great idea of a culture of independence for the sake of doctrinal purity transformed over time into a culture with no accountability for leadership. I can’t even make a joke about how sad that is.
I’ll bet the women didn’t have a say in running the church.
In the church I grew up in, the explanation was “if she has a question she can ask her husband, and it doesn’t matter if she has a vote because she would vote with her husband anyway.”
I’m still trying to recover from the nutiness of my fundy upbringing.
I haven’t read the books that Brandon has noted.
My impression is that this independence is at a church level. The pastor is independent (the shepard) and the members of the congregation are dependent (the sheep). They also emphasize the “sheep are dumb” line to ensure that the dependence is complete. The attitude I’ve seen is more “my church against the world” not “me against the world”. The exception is the pastor that does not seem to understand that he is not the church, not even the head of the church.
In my younger days – in a moment of shock rebelliousness – I enjoyed scraping the ‘In’ off the church sign. For a while it read ‘Liberty .. dependent Baptist Church’
@Don – Good point. This is a regular with humanity, though. Whether the concern is political, religious, social, etc… people always become dependent on those of whom they seek approval.
This is precisely why as Christians we are to be disciples of Christ, and not of other men. Let us beware of ourselves and others.
@JimE one of the core beliefs of Baptist theology is supposed to be soul competency or soul independence meaning the individual believer is able to guieded by the Holy Spirit & Scripture grow in grace and spiritual maturity. Obviously it’s pretty hard to find examples of that ever being practiced.
Totally concur w/ this being a uniquely American phenomenon based on the (what I would call faux) history of American Individualists making their own destiny.
If Fundies had a equivalent to “plays well with others”, it would be “reminds others of their sins that needs to be righted”. And I’m sure they’d give themselves all A’s.
Mark:
You probably meant to write “all opposed, no great!’ but given fundism and the meaning of apposition, maybe you didn’t.
Delicious irony. Fundy pastor- accountable to no man. Pope- accountable to no man. Kinda funny.
Yet the one(guess which one) actually preaches against the lack of accountability of the other. Just weird.
I’m going for the comment hat trick. My former fundy church has now included “independent baptist church” in their description. My first thought was no crap. They are known locally for being so independent that they won’t participate in charity fundraisers if the local catholic church is there also. What else should I expect from the church whose former pastor is now the editor of the publication sword of the lord.
My pastor used to refer to his former church as “Militant Baptist Church,” which, as ironic and funny as it was, probably wasn’t such a good idea considering the fact that his church (Liquid Church) was once known as “Liquid, a young adult ministry of Millington Baptist Church.”
On second thought, Ifbies tend toward militance, so I suppose it’s an apt description.
Question: why isn’t “My church doesn’t do ‘special music'” an option in the current poll?
“Question: why isn’t “My church doesn’t do ‘special music’†an option in the current poll?”
That thought crossed my mind, too.
I have long thought that the IFB movement was a uniquely American one for the reasons stated above.
That is probably why they don’t see a lot of success when they try to take this model overseas to cultures that prize dependency on each other rather than independence.
The “separation” is not just a Baptist phenomenon. My fundy Lutheran church would not participate in any joint or ecumenical outreach or charities either. I think that’s just sad.
“If your ideal of Christianity is a church built on a deserted island” This would never work, Fundy pastors like the limelight too much. Throwing tantrums is the only way they can get others to listen to them. Throwing tanturms on a deserted island just would not be the same.
@RobM,
I have heard this independence labeled as “believer priesthood”. I do not remember that this concept was every taught at my last IFB church that I attended during the 1990’s. In the 1970’s, this concept was taught to me in my teen years at a IFB. IFB circles have reduced this to the following:
1. For sheep the Holy Spirit and a ManOGawd are needed.
2. For the ManOGawd, only the Holy Spirit is needed.
Speaking of charities and fundies, I used to work for a marketing company who had a big SC charity as a client. On discussing marketing strategies with them, we found that they didn’t want to do anything too drastic because they feared they would lose the support of BJU and local fundy churches (who supplied more volunteers that they could ever need). This included things like music and imagery in their videos.
The “leader” of the congregation is to be accountable to the people he serves. This can be a double-edged sword. The good of it is the more spiritually discerning in the assembly can challenge the pastor if he goes off doctrinally or is involved in sin. The bad of it is the pastor can become a shoe-shine boy & behind-kisser just to “keep his job.” I’ve seen this repeatedly in Southern Baptist churches and some IFB’s. There will of course be no perfect church but Biblical accountability must be in place or else the church that God shed His blood for is no more than a circus.
I always found this puzzling about IFBs………If they are so Independant, why do they do everything the same (e.g. Sunday School hour @ 10am, Sunday AM service @ 11am, Sunday night, Wednesday night prayer and service, Saturday night prayer meeting, bus minitry etc. etc. etc. etc…..). If any of them were truly independant, then one of them would have come up with something a little different, say a 9am Sunday morning service so I won’t miss the start of the football game.
Obviously your problem is that you value your game above the “things ‘o Gawd” 🙄
If a church wants to govern itself independently, I don’t particularly have a problem with that. It’s more the lack of accountability and inability to fellowship w/ other Christians that I have a problem with. I mean, let’s face is, we’re going to be worshiping IN HEAVEN TOGETHER with the church down the road who might not be dispensationalists or use the same Bible translation. . .so why not start fellowshipping together NOW??? I don’t get it; I really don’t.
On a practical level, I think for a lot of churches that don’t really believe in secondary separation (I think that’s the proper terminology) anymore, they still practice it because: 1) they don’t want to offend the older/more conservative members and lose financial support. . and 2) “what will people say if we participate with THEM?”
<<>>
RJW, the IFB church I grew up in actually preached that if you weren’t IFB, you weren’t saved. The gospel presented by other churches was a false gospel. Entire sermon series were devoted to the topic of the Baptist distinctives and why IFBs were the only ones who got it right.
During my IFB recovery, when I finally started living my life outside “the compound” (previously I had been an overworked/underpaid Christian school teacher spending about 90 hrs/wk in church/school activities), I was honestly shocked over and over again when I found out where some of my godliest new friends went to church. My mind couldn’t wrap itself around the fact that people who truly knew the Lord went to some of those horrible other denominations.
quote RJW-“The “leader†of the congregation is to be accountable to the people he serves. This can be a double-edged sword. The good of it is the more spiritually discerning in the assembly can challenge the pastor if he goes off doctrinally or is involved in sin. The bad of it is the pastor can become a shoe-shine boy & behind-kisser just to “keep his job.â€
The 3rd option (and IME the most common) is that the “sheeple” (a term used by a friend who’s also a former fundy) have been so indoctrinated about “Touch Not The Lord’s Anointed” that they couldn’t say a critical word about their pastor if you held a gun to their head. One of the worst sins a fundy baptist can make is to say anything against the pastor (youth pastor and head of the deacons also come under this heading in some churches).
@Scorpio: I’ve been in fundy churches with 8:30 and 10:30 services. In my experience 11 am services are more common OUTSIDE fundamentalism, but that’s me.
@ Richard
I would amend that statement to say that the “Church” Christ shed His blood for will never be a circus…
…the posers and the “In Name Only” counterfeits are circuses by virtue of their very existence. These groups of people who gather to worship the god of their imagination and not the God of all Creation as revealed in Scripture…. are P.T. Barnum, Center Ring, religious performers of the first degree.