341 thoughts on “Friday Challenge: Ask A Fundy”

  1. Have you ever told the story of Breaking the Lamb’s Leg, and if so, did you ever consider fact-checking it? How many rumors and lies have you spread in the course of your preaching? How many burdens have you bound on the backs of others?

      1. Not going to read it. Just recalling the bones of the story (pun intended) makes me angry and sick.

        You know how the oldest depiction of Christ we have is the Good Shepherd, with a lamb across His shoulders? People have gotten up before a congregation and preached that Jesus isn’t carrying the lamb because it’s tired and He promises rest to the weary. Ohhhh no. It’s because Jesus Christ deliberately crippled that lamb. And we are to go and do likewise.

        There’s your Satan at work, right there.

        1. Are you serious? I have never heard that one before. Dear God Almighty, that is disgusting. No, it’s anathema.

      2. I’ve never heard that one! My God, what a sadistic story. And as a poetry! That makes me sick. I thought that I had heard everything but that story never travelled overseas to Scandinavia.

        1. Oh the bullshit. I hate hearing that story. Even when I was 10 I was like, ‘WTF?’

        2. With that kind of language I am sure you thought just that way. Amazing! That is exactly how I spoke before I “got saved.”

    2. Or the frog in hot water…or the microphone down to hell….or Darwin’s deathbed conversion…

    3. I’ve heard that one preached. Right after that usually came a lecture on how God would slap you down if you didn’t get your heart right with Him. Because after all God is just waiting to punish His followers if they stray to the right hand or to the left, isn’t He? Anything going wrong in a “backslider’s” life is the HAND OF GOD punishing you.

      Of course if your heart IS right with God, then it’s Satan trying to turn you from the path.

      Which is which? Only the pastor knows for sure.

      I think one of the Fundy Rules deals with this.

      1. I remember hearing that if you decided to live for Jesus (just like the pastor) then the devil would be out to make your life miserable. Now, if you were saved and decided to backslide (ie miss a Wednesday night service, listen to rock music etc.) then the devil was going to make your miserable. Hmmm, which is it? I guess the devil has his way with us NO matter what we decide to do. That is unless you remembered a sermon 6 months previous where we were told that if we stopped living for Jesus then the devil would leave us alone. I am so confused.

        1. Good job, Scorpio, pointing out the absurdity. You’d think having an entire book of the Bible about it – Job – would keep people from accusing others of automatically being in sin when Satan seems to be attacking in their lives. There’s no formula, and no easy answers.

  3. You love to say that you love homosexuals, but hate their sin.

    Why have you never preached against gay-bashing?

    1. . . . And, have you ever condemned from the pulpit a book that you’ve actually read?

  6. Could you please try to preach without picking your nose and scratching your privates?

    (I did actually hear (see) a preacher who did that.)

  7. Why mix so much politics into the sermons? Why are you talking about America as if it was God’s kingdom on earth?

  8. I didn’t mean to make anyone sick by the above but it does illustrate how low many in the ministry have really sunk.

    1. fmx,
      as a young girl, there was a deacon assigned to the youth programs who would do disgusting things while preaching hard. I’ll leave it at that. Disgusting indeed. Of course, my mother would accuse me of a sinful mind as would all the other parents, so no one spoke up. You can see how easy it can all go to nightmare in the IFB.

  9. Why is it that I cannot listen to any kind of rock music without falling into sin, yet the traveling evangelist that stopped by can listen to it, record it, play it for us and display the album covers via the projection screen without anyone worrying that he will give into temptation?

    1. I find it interesting that many fundies will say “don’t watch/listen to such-and-such because it has . . .” But the only way that the person telling you this knows that it has such content is because . . . they watched it.

      How are you supposed to know what to not watch/listen to, unless you’ve watched/listened to it first to know why you’re not supposed to watch/listen to it?

  10. When we were looking for a pastor before I left the Fundie Bunker system we had a candidate ask us this:
    “Why do you exist, or why should the doors remain open at your building and not merge with another Bible-believing church?”

    This question should be asked of all IFB Churches. Yea, all churches in America period.

    1. What was their answer? Standards they think they had nailed do so well?

      Totally agree on too many churches of all sorts. I do like the ridiculously angry Baptists all go to Baptist churches so you are much much safer going anywhere else. They have angry people, but when you’ve been in an angry IFB, everyone else’s anger is laughable. 🙂

        1. Oh, I’d believe that’s the answer they had practiced up and gave. I wouldn’t believe they actually were doing that… 🙂

  12. Do you love the Lord more than the sound of your own voice?

    Have you read the Bible to see what the Bible says and not consulting a commentary or your college lecture notes from Fundy U?

    Why don’t you preach on how to love Catholics/Homosexuals/Democrats instead of on how much Christ hates their sin?

    Why do you preach that the ways of God are above those of men, yet act as if you are God?

    Why do you preach that man cannot fully understand God or His ways, yet preach against any and all who disagree with you?

    Why do you use the word “I” more times in your sermons than any of the names used for God/Christ/the Holy Spirit?

    Why do you support missionaries whose only “work” is making more children for their supporting churches to support?

    Why is there a double standard (or sometimes sextuple standards) depending on the person?

    I could go on, but I’m only making myself upset…

  13. Does the knowledge of parents properly bruising their children according to your explicit instructions make you feel like a bigger man?

      1. I’m glad someone did. Thanks! I was getting worried that I was the only warped one here. But I was pretty sure that wasn’t true.

  17. “Pastor ________, could you justify your actions after I left *your* church? Why did you go to that website for rating college professors and write a nasty review? And why did you then go to my [now ex-] girlfriend’s page on that site, who left *your* church with me, and write the exact same ad hominem response? Pastor, if you had something to say, were you not man enough to say something to my face?”

  18. What exactly do you mean by loving someone “in Christ”? If you think about it, if you tell someone this, you are saying to them that they are so dang ugly and disgusting that you have to call on divine assistance to even act pleasant around the person.

    1. that ohrase “in Christ” is a trigger for me. As you point out, its nothing more than an obnoxious euphemism for “I can barely tolerate your less-than-me self, but I will.”

    1. Paul, If I may, I think an answer would be that our shallow, selfabsorbed lives that focus on things and are never really challenged to embrace people for God leaves us hollow. We sit in Church week after week never expecting to be changed or affect the people around us except in legalistic conformaty.

    1. There’s a Peanuts cartoon that addresses this issue. Linus suggests to Snoopy that he write a book on theology. Snoopy’s title: “Has It Ever Occurred To You That You Might Be Wrong?”

      1. No! That can’t possibly be the case! Actually, it can be. And often is.

  21. Pastor,
    Why do run an un-accedited K-12th grade school with sub-par teachers without any teaching certificates or teacher training, even from one of those useless Fundy-U schools?
    Why do you use sub-par PACE’s and expect the students to learn on their own?
    Why do you issue diplomas that aren’t even worthy to wipe your a*& with, let alone to try to use them in the real world?
    Why do you berate your former students who have made something of themselves outside of your silly cult-church-school?

    1. That’s the proverbial raw nerve for me. It took me a long time to get over that one since husband IS college educated.

  22. Why is it that your church had over 500 saved last year and yet not even one percent of those have joined the church?

    Why do you celebrate Christmas when almost every tradition of Christmas comes from paganism, commercialism and Catholicism (BTW, I love Christmas)and yet you would not read nor encourage your congragation to read books by non baptists/fundys who have the same doctrinal beliefs as we do?

    Why do you have a Sunday night service on Super Bowl Sunday when it might be better to have dinner on the grounds after the morning service, have another brief service in the early afternoon and then encourage your congragation to get together with members you may not know all that well to watch the game? That might be a great opportunity for fellowship.

    Why do you say that those who stop going to your church are of the devil when maybe they left because your preaching is just not that good?

  23. If I could prohibit him from answering “I don’t know” I would ask, “How many sexual laws or admonitions are grounded in an ethic of mutuality and consent, and in Bible’s stories about sex, how many practice the ethic of mutuality and respect and how many of the sexual encounters which violated the primes sexual ethic, how many fell into the following categories: marital rape; how man were a consensual obligatory attempt at reproduction which was devoid of mutuality, how many were accounts of rape and how many of those were aggravated rapes which ended the woman’s life. How many were instances in which a woman had to perform the sexual services required, and how many cases involved free women who have been prostituted or given by a family member. How many are instances of child sexual assault under our laws, and how many women were coerced into marital sex by threats of violence, material detestation, and isolation from children? Mostly, because I want to know the answer to that question.

  25. I’m sure I will repeat a few that have already been posted, but here goes.

    I understand that you believe (in part) that we are saved by grace, but why then do you not believe that we are to live by grace and that the same grace that saved us, justified us and sanctifies us day by day, not rule by rule, and that the actual evidence of that grace in the life of a true follower of Jesus Christ is to show that same grace to others regardless of their status or position?

    Do you realize that Heaven will be full of people throughout all of history who were never members of the IFB? Follow up question – Yes, you will have all eternity to get to know them, but wouldn’t it be nice to know a few by name before, and if, you get there?

    After hearing you preach so many times my whole life on the beam in the eye, why is it that you have never preached that one to yourself?

    Why do you extrapolate these absurd man invented standards from obscure Scriptures that you take out of context and then make them into doctrine, all while ignoring the simple commands of the Bible, such as “By this I will know that you love me, if you have love one for another.”, the reading of Scripture in a worship service (and I mean more than just a few verses before you began to dictate), the Biblical command to raise hands in worship, the fact that, yes, the husband is to be the head over his wife, but that headship is to be in the image and likeness of Christ which is evidenced by a love that requires death to oneself? (I could go on and on.)

    If you think that you are so right and that your system is flawless and should never be changed, why are you so threatened by those of us who have left the fundy kingdom and your only response to us is to take shots at us and demean us?

    If loving God is truly a heart issue, why do you focus 99% of your “sermons” on how everyone lives and never focus on the One who can actually change our hearts?

    Have you ever compared the what Jesus said, how He lived, and what He did while here on earth, to how you say we are to live and if you have, how can you not see that you are not preaching the same Gospel?

    I know that someone else already said this, but it’s worth repeating. You do know that Spurgeon was a Calvinist, right?

    Which is more important, the size and status of your church, or the breadth, depth, and growth of the Kingdom of Christ? And the two probably aren’t in the same circle.

    Do you hold onto and practice your long list of Pharisaical rules because you actually believe they are right, or is it because you know that if you were to ever confess that just one of them was wrong it would cause your whole kingdom to fall in on itself.

    Have you ever heard and ever really meditated on the words of Paul where he said, “I will know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”? How is that evidenced in your church?

    So many more, but I will stop.

    1. Eric, well said, especially the one about making up their own standards while IGNORING things the Bible actually says.

  26. Have you ever read a book by someone you didn’t agree with, like John Henry Cardinal Newman, John Calvin, or R.W. Dale?

    And if not, why not?

  27. Oh, and to those Fundies who support Gail Riplinger: Why do you allow this woman to teach and to pose as an authority in a book when you say you’re against women teaching in the Church? And why do you allow her to get away with telling lies and fabricating quotations?

    Why do you allow those on “your side” to lie about people who are ‘the enemy’?

  29. I would ask:

    “Where in the Bible does it say that we are restricted to only using one version of the Bible per language?”

  30. His answer would be, “It doesn’t Will.” He would then say, “The Bible does tell us to study to show ourselves approved unto God.” 2Tim.2:15

    If we are interested in truth we will study this issue and then decide for ourselves. However, once you have studied you will see the truth behind the argument and then you may have to change your position.

    I just find it amazing that from the beginning the devil has put doubts in the mind of man by questioning God’s word. Genesis 3

  31. Know I’m a little late to the party, but I’d like to ask a fundamentalist pastor the same question I’d like to ask everyone else, and the same question I’ve been asking myself for several years.

    “Who is God to you?”

  32. Do you believe that Colossians 2:16-19 is still inspired? If so, why do you blatantly ignore and disobey this passage?

    1. Excellent passage. It was reading the Bible and thinking about passages like this that influenced my husband and I to leave the IFB.

      1. I grew up in 3 different IFB churches (all different stages of the insanity as well) and my husband and i are currently leaving an IFB church. I went to FundyU, and graduated hi school from a IFB school. It’s all I’d ever known until becoming confronted with some horrible inconsistencies, which I decided to search out for myself. Which has led me to this website 🙂

        All that to say… this passage has by far been the most confusing to me because I’ve felt that my whole life I’ve been judged… from so-called “Bible believers”…who aren’t believing this particular passage.

    2. I was just listening to that passage yesterday (youversion). If you ever ask them about passages that contradict their teaching about “separation” they bust out Romans 15 and try to convince you it applies to watching movies in the Theater. 🙄

  33. To quote the great Hawkeye Pierce to Harry S Truman:
    “Who’s responsible?”

  35. When you knew my father was physically and mentally abusing me and my siblings, why didn’t you step in and do something…anything? Oh wait…”spare the rod and spoil the child” was the title of your sermon last week…..Never mind.

  37. Will you ever accept that you are absolutely irrelevant from a historical perspective? By that I mean you are just another heretic to be forgotten by history.

  38. Loved reading responses to this one!

    Mine:

    1. How did you come to believe what you believe (about God/Bible/etc)?

    2. If i believe something contradictory/different through the same process, why are you right and im wrong?

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