Church

A Small World

169 Comments

Although Baptist fundamentalists make up less than 1% of the overall population of America, you’d never know it to hear them talk. How many pastors have we heard introduced as “one of the most influential men in America”? How many times have we been told that some church of 300 or 500 people is at the forefront of the battle to bring the entire nation back to God? Yet somehow with all this influence, the powerful fundy church with its amazing pastor can’t even manage to get the liquor store down the street to go out of business.

The accolades of power and prestige that both fundy churches and pastors heap to themselves range from the ridiculous to the outright hilarious.

– “Adviser to the Governor and State Legislature” (He met them once at a fundraiser along with 632 other members of the clergy.)

– “Books and Tracts have influenced Christianity greatly” (Except that nobody who doesn’t shop at the church bookstore has ever bought a copy of any of them. The missionaries who received complementary copies in lieu of Christmas presents have long since used them for kindling.)

– “One of the most dynamic and powerful churches on the West Coast.” (Also one of the most oblong and unceremonious. I mean if we’re just going to throw around meaningless adjectives let’s go for broke.)

– “Reclaiming their town for Christ.” (And they’re doing it one zoning board battle at a time. Take that, heathen politicians!)

Most fundamentalists just seem to have no clue that the average non-fundy has never heard of their church, its pastor, his alma mater, and their preacher’s fellowship. And as long as they are refusing to have any meaningful relationship with non-fundamentalists, it’s going to stay that way in perpetuity. Delusions of grandeur would seem to be a requirement to be a somebody in fundyland.

169 thoughts on “A Small World”

  1. I have never seen “Adviser” spelled with an “e” before, but looked it up, and apparently, it IS an acceptable spelling. So much for feeling smart by catching a typo… 😕

  2. At my university, every chapel speaker was introduced with a 5-10 minute introduction of every minor accomplished they had ever achieved. It really was ridiculous, as if we should listen to them because of what they did, not because of what God has done. I made it a point, no matter who I was sitting next to, to add “and he craps bricks of pure gold” when the intro finally finished.

  3. There’s a word for this sort of mindset….cultic….
    Branch Davidians also thought that they effected world events.

      1. Both, actually.
        “Affected” (as a verb) means “influenced” and “effected” means “caused to happen.”

        1. Ha, I went to a web site to check myself and I was more confused after reading the help! Your explanation makes me right on both counts, thanks! (still confused….) 😉

    1. Seriously! I noticed that too, and then the HUGE man in the middle. Kudos to the kid in the bottom row with the striped polo and tie…nice look, LOL.

  5. My church was well known in our town because of two reasons:
    1. It was the biggest church in town.
    2. The pastor had a huge affair on his wife with numerous women and was ran out of the church and town. To this day if you say the name of the church to anybody in the town they will say “Oh, that’s the big church where [ex-pastor’s name] ran around on his wife with ladies in the church”
    Not the best reputation for a church to have…

  6. Has anybody here seen the First Baptist of Hammond Youth Conference opener that showed a timeline of major events in history interspersed with Jack Hyles coming to Hammond, having big day Sundays, etc? That was the height of Fundamentalist narcissism, in my opinion: man landing on the moon and Jack Hyles having Pastors School.

      2. Two questions: Where did they get the drums? And what heathen did they get to play them for the recording session? Smacks of compromise. Resolve has wavered.

      3. Barf! That video is just so wrong. Although, the narrator sounds like my brother in law who happened to go to HAC…I’m sure it’s not him, I guess a lot of the guys sound the same…

      4. Definitely a colossal egomaniac! Comparing Christians in the past who were tortured and murdered for Christ, and people in history who stood up for freedom and were killed for it, with Hyles having his cult- I mean CHURCH building set on fire. How sickening! Then the equally egotistical Schaap shrieking that he is “changing the world.” Clearly he hasn’t actually been looking around at the world to check. Or maybe he’s talking about the number of people who have been abused, chewed up, and spit out by their “ministry” and other “ministries” cloned after it. I guess that technically counts as change. 👿

    2. Well, for my parents’ 50th anniversary, we made a timeline of world and national events that had happened during the 50 years of their marriage. Nobody suggested that my parents caused any of those world events or that their doings were as important as the big headlines. It was just a way to see what else was going on the world during that time.

      1. However, I really doubt that Jack Hyles was around when the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

  7. OK, I can’t resist any further….

    The title of the post is actually describing the MOg in the middle. As in he is the size of a small world. The people around him are not posing for a picture, they are in his gravitional orbit.

      2. I didn’t even have to click the link…I knew exactly what clip was coming. Nice choice. Love that one.

  8. They are doing their part to make the local Chick-Fil-A and Cracker Barrel the most profitable in the tri-county region.

  10. Small world? I think they’re actually just so large it makes the world feel small to them.

    -Confused and Single, Still

  11. Okay, I viewed this post on my iPhone, and half of the picture was cut off. I was very impressed by the girth of some of these men, but when I opened the page on my computer and saw the whole picture, MOG and all, I may have busted a rib with my incredulous laughter.

  13. It also appears that while fundies will rail against every conceivable sin, ascribing devilish motives behind every thing and cultural phenomena which they don’t like, it remains that the one sin I have yet heard preached against was the sin of gluttony.

    1. I heard one Fundy preacher comment on the merits of having a fat soul. He said, “You can’t have a fat soul in a skinny body.”

  14. The guy in the centre is the right weight. He’s just the wrong height. He should be 14 feet 3 inches tall.

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