240 thoughts on “FWOTW: LibertyGospelTracts.com”

  2. Wow, Baptists try to build on everything don’t they. No one wonder most of the world doesn’t like them. I’m a Baptist,but my church would never have a track so offensive.

  4. God and country, I’m not quite sure which is being served more… 🙄

  5. Of course I’m prepared….to kick some terrorist @$$. 😈

    These guys seriously will try to use anything it seems to get their agenda across. It’s almost like the Westborough folks use IEDs and gays as their tools to carry their agenda to the masses.

    Seems like all their missing is a tract with a photo of a suicide bomber with the detonator in his hand asking you if you’re ready to die or not. 👿

  6. My favorite part is the lesson on the actual marriage ceremony itself. Who should attend, receptions, guests… good heavens! People should NEVER just be able to have fun at their wedding!

    1. Oh boy, I’m just reading through that one myself…

      So it begins by pointing out that really, the Bible says very little about wedding ceremonies. But if you’re REALLY Christians, CLEARLY you’d want to do it this prescribed way.

      The worst part is the end, when they pretend they know what Jesus would do if He saw an immodestly dressed wedding party. Jesus. The One who protected an adultress from being stoned to death. The One who suffered and died for the thief on the cross and Paul who killed Christians. The One whose only remotely violent moments were when people used God’s house as a means to get money.

      Boy, doesn’t that last part sound familiar… and I’m not talking about weddings!

      2. What would Jesus do at a wedding party? HMMM….

        Fortunately, we don’t have to guess at this. We have an account in John 2. Drink some wine, and when it runs out, make some more for everyone! He’d be kicked out of church like that! Can’t have sinners in your midst.

    2. The only thing I learned from the Bible about weddings is that you shouldn’t run out of wine at them.

      1. But the tract for that explains that the “wine” was really grape juice that they were drinking from the “punch bowl” at the wedding.

  7. To bad you didn’t post this the other day BEFORE I got rid of all my ankle length denim skirts! 🙄

    1. Fundy women LOVE to go shopping and spend all their husbands hard earned money (since they of course don’t have jobs themselves!), so I guess all is not lost 😉

      1. Yes, fundy women love to go shopping…at Goodwill, garage sales, flea markets, etc. Even better is going shopping in one’s own attic for a few yards of spare fabric and a spool of thread from which to make a nice, modest maternity jumper or two.

        1. Don’t forget the next step: bragging how little they spent so they can prove they’re more spiritual than you.

    1. That seems bizarre. Wouldn’t they want to get the word out to as many people as possible, regardless of their religion? If someone who identifies as Muslim suddenly becomes interested in these tracts and distributing them to others, wouldn’t that be a *good* thing?

      I also like how even though there’s a box for Hindu (the English name of the religion is “Hinduism”, by the way, not simply “Hindu”…) or Islam, it immediately follows it up with obviously Protestant-oriented questions about a church and pastors.

      I do recognize they’re giving this stuff away for free, so it’s understandable they’d place a limit on things (particularly if they thought the person ordering wasn’t serious and just wanted to cause them trouble), but the inquisition still seems a bit… excessive.

    4. Doubtless if you don’t agree with them on every little point they aren’t going to send you squat as far as anything you might order (though why they think a Muslim or Hindu would want to order from them is beyond me). They will, however, no doubt send plenty of literature to try to convert you to their “correct” way of thinking.

  9. I always liked how people would try to tie bathroom signs to appropriate dress for men and women. Yes, dresses are more commonly associated with women than men, but that hardly “proves” that pants aren’t *also* associated with women, not just men!

    I feel like there’s a term for this particular type of fallacy (where Fact A being true is taken to mean that Fact B must be false, even though the two are not mutually exclusive), but I can’t think of it at the moment.

    Anyway, their other argument is no more convincing. So if you can’t immediately tell if someone is a man or a woman… you’re going to be enticed into lust. Really now. And then they bring the hair thing into it, because the verses about having long hair on women had to do with gender differentiation… NOT.

    And I still don’t know what the Golden Rule has to do with anything.

    And what a surprise, it ends with a canned prayer. Repeat this magic spell, kids, and you’ll be assured of heaven forever! Or at least until the next altar call.

    1. When the international signage was introduced to the U.S. in the early sixties, Mad Magazine came up with a cartoon: A kilted Scotsman looking at the one sign, and a pant suited lady looking at the other, each with a look of confusion on their face.

    2. I think that is the “False Dilemma” or “Either-Or” fallacy.

      Per Wiki:
      “A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false choice, black-and-white thinking, or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option. The options may be a position that is between the two extremes (such as when there are shades of grey) or may be a completely different alternative.”

    4. In central China I once saw a completely different set of signs: a high-heeled shoe for women and a pipe for men. 🙂

  10. The tract on tattoos says that getting tattooed is helping prepare society to accept the mark of the Beast. The writer also mentions the prevalence of kiddie tattoos and paint. Face painting at birthday parties will pave the way for the AntiChrist. You have been warned.

    1. I’m a professional face painter and who knew that I was paving the way for the Anti Christ! 😈

  11. There’s also a tract called “Would Jesus Buy It?” with clip art labeled “Church Coffee Shop” and “Church Bookstore”. I’m surprised in the light of eternity (he has another tract about what to tell someone if they have only five minutes to live) this issue is so important that it requires a TRACT.

    The biggest issue that the author overlooks is that the merchants in the temple were selling things REQUIRED for worship and CHEATING people (“den of thieves” Mt. 21:13). In the modern church, the issue is one of convenience, but no one HAS to buy coffee in order to be part of the service.

    Personally, I don’t like buying and selling going on in church, but I don’t think it’s an issue that requires high indignation and the printing of tracts!

  12. @ Annie: That’s called “False Dichotomy” where the arguer assumes that two facts are mutually exclusive when they are not. He also committing False Cause, though – the signs on the bathroom doors are because of the traditional gender roles, they don’t actually give support to it.

    1. The whole argument is based on a false premise, the assumption that the Bible is talking about wearing pants versus wearing skirts. In Biblical times, neither sex wore trousers. They all wore robes and/or garments we would think of as skirts, sarongs, or kilts.

      In the late Roman empire, the newfangled fashion of trousers for men was banned (because it was a “barbarian style”).

      1. Trousers didn’t start to appear in the Roman Empire until very late. It was well after the various German groups started moving into the Empire.
        Trousers were ridiculed by the Romans as barbarian clothing though Roman troops were known to don them when posted in cold areas such as along the Danube.

      1. Oh no! Is that a man or a woman? I’d better stare at their naughty bits for several minutes to determine the answer.

      3. Love the priest’s beauty pageant pose. “Pretty hands & pretty feet” is what my girls’ pageant coach called positioning said extremities that way.

        Apparently, “skirts” do make one act more feminine! 😛

    1. I know that “Prego” doesn’t mean “pregnant” in Italian, but if it did, it would give “It’s in there” a whole different meaning.

      2. Nope, “prego” is Italian for “you’re welcome.”

        I never understood why a sauce company would choose that as a name.

        1. An Italian friend of mine from NYC told me that “Prego” can mean a number of different things, not just “you’re welcome.”

    1. Cneck out the “Prayer List” under Misc.
      A fundy pastor could get 29 weeks of sermons from that list of proof texts.

      1. whooops, I didn’t keep scrolling far enough, there are 36, 38 if you count the verses in “red.”

        Let’s see there is the Missions conference, the Bible conference, Spring and fall revival. Throw in a visiting missionary or two, a special God and Country service, and the Homecoming service with all the special music and five or six weeks where the pastor is preaching away (aka vacation) and with this one tract the pastor has a year’s worth of texts from which he can launch into a sermon with.

      2. I noticed under Prayer List that there is space to pray for 41 Christian friends, 39 unsaved people, 25 pastors and missionaries, and 12 government leaders. I just found the numbers interesting.

        1. Let me have a shot at these numbers.

          If you multiply the 41 Christian friends and 39 unsaved people, you get 1599.

          Add the 12 government leaders to 1599 and you get….1611!!!!

          I’m just trying to figure out what to do with the 25 pastors and missionaries. Back to the drawing board.

      3. I do rather like the things mentioned on the prayer list (little odd that Jews get specifically mentioned, rather than, say, peace on Earth in general), but I am less gung-ho about the idea of having a prescribed checklist to mark off when I’m praying.

        Although I certainly don’t have a problem with people marking down a private list to help them in their own prayer, so I guess my issue is more with the presentation than anything else…

        1. The Check-list Christian BTDT
          That was one of the things the Lord used against me when he saved me. I was at the “Altar” for Monday night Prayer meeting, and I was going through my “check-list” when the Lord showed me what I was doing and my true condition before the God of all creation.
          -in attendence everytime the doors were open…check
          -tithing…(large)check
          -visitation… check
          -outreach at the nursing home… check
          -faith promise…(another too large for my salary)check
          -Cleaning the church… (non-paid rotational volunteer service in a small congregation)..check
          -Mowing and grounds keeping…(again non-paid rotational position but if noone else showed up to do it)…check
          -weekly bulletin & quarterly newsletter production… check
          -music, choir, substitute teacher, camp counselor… burned out church cynic..Check

          (no I was not a deacon nor did I hold any official title/position in the church)

          So yeah the “Check-list Churchianity” hits home with me.

        2. I have a distaste for anyone telling me exactly how I should pray and for what except in the case of the Lord’s Prayer or a basic Sinner’s Prayer outline.

          This doesn’t hit it quite as hard as the Bible study I’m doing that has No Editing Expected opening and closing prayers for every single daily lesson, but it’s rubbing some sore spots.

          And what happens if friends and relatives are less than 45 people? Or someone has under 41 Christian friends because they don’t have that many people willing to let them be a friend? Or someone honestly doesn’t know 39 non-Christians personally by name?

          It’s bringing back memories of those ‘Who do you know who you could witness to?’ lessons in youth group where I wasn’t permitted to be honest with myself and declare that really, there weren’t enough kids in my grade willing to acknowledge my existence to fill out the bullet points on the handout, so how could I fill all of them truthfully?

  15. Drums in church. Drums in Church? DRUMS IN CHURCH? This is something to get upset over? While I can agree with the noise factor, isn’t this just getting petty?
    Deaf churches tend to rely on drums to rally everyone together, got any bright ideas on what they should do instead?
    I will admit I like wearing long skirts. 🙄

    1. I’ve heard LOTS and LOTS of preaching about the evils of drums in church.

      That tract ends with this:

      *I just asked Jesus to save me and I desire to now obey and live for Him.
      *I am already saved, but after reading this, I am repenting of my drums and rock music, and desire to only play psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Please pray for me.

      Of course, the tract offers NO verses saying that drums are actually forbidden. And you gotta love the assumption that Christians using drums aren’t singing spiritual songs. 🙄

      1. How about this?

        “Once I believed what this tract states. Now I repent of believing lies, of judging other Christians, of my pride in thinking that my style of music was holier than another style, and of ignoring the verses in Psalms that describe joyful, rhythmic, and physical praise.”

        1. If you ever happen upon a physical copy of that track, you should definitely write that on it and mail it back to them. 😀 The only downside is that no one will get to see the looks on their faces…

      2. But GOD HIMSELF instructed us to use only THREE types of songs!

        But yes, like you said – they make no attempt to define “spiritual songs.” Neither does the verse they use. But if you disagree with them, you’re WRONG. And probably going to Hell. 😎

      3. Where’s the box to tick for “I will make joyful noises in every way I can think of, with all available instruments”?

        Psalm 150:
        3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
        4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
        5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.

        (Timbrel = small drum or tambourine.)

      4. Where’s the box to tick for “I will make joyful noises in every way I can think of, with any intruments available.”

        (Psalm 150:
        3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
        4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
        5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.)

    2. “Deaf churches tend to rely on drums to rally everyone together, got any bright ideas on what they should do instead?”

      Smoke signals? But you have to make sure it is not misconstrued with incense as that is too Catholic.

      1. Strobe lights, except that they induce seizures in some people, which would lead others to think you were Pentecostal.

      1. It’s definitely not Afrikaans. It looks like maybe it is Tswana, spoken primarily in Botswana and South Africa.

    2. I did some Googling based on the words in the tract, and I *believe* it’s Tswana, which is the official language of Botswana and one of the official languages of South Africa. It’s not on Google Translate, though, so I can’t try to work out what the tract says! 😆

  17. Hmm, I googled HBLV-1825. No mention of pandemic flu, but it did mention that it creates a chronic mononucleosis type condition. Nothing about sodomy or adultery causing it though. Damn my untrusting nature!

  18. I guess the Portuguese don’t need to be warned about the evils of tattoos, church coffee shops, and drums in church.

  19. On the tract that said, “Pastor found Guilty” I thought it was about Jack Schaap and immorality in the pulpit…Boy was I sadly mistaken.

    2. Did you look at the archive of answered questions? If you go down the list a bit, one is, “Should a person eat meats that are rare or medium rare?” with the answer of “No.” Next question, “Are we still under the Old Testament meat restrictions?” Answer, “No.” How does one miss that connection?

      2. Under questions, someone asked if a woman should wear a veil when she prays. Their answer: “If a person is following what God has engrained into us by nature (that a man has short hair, and a woman has long hair), then the headcovering matter is not to be a matter for contention… If a local church is in an area where the women practice wearing headcoverings when they pray, then practice it. If the local church is in an area where they do not practice that custom, then do not make it an issue.”

        That was a surprise. They make contentions over coffee shops but not this.

      3. Sounds like they read in Acts (instructions about the Gentile followers) where we are not to eat blood. Excuse me while I eat my rare hamburger. :mrgreen:

    4. Wat.

      I also like how they completely take the verse about wives and husbands out of context. In context, the verse is: “And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”

      It seems clear to me that it is referring to whether or not women should speak in church, NOT whether or not women can ask questions to men other than their husbands. It’s not saying “women are not allowed to talk to anyone else ever”, it’s saying “rather than talk in church, talk about it later”.

      But hey, taking things wildly out of context seems to be a running theme on this site…

  23. That tract on wearing skirts is a true masterpiece of its kind.
    “The reason is this: If you see two people walking down the sidewalk together, and they are both in pants, how do you know which is the man, and which is the woman? If you cannot tell at a glance from a distance, then you will keep looking until you know. Your eyes will be drawn to the differences in the way that God has made men and women. Those areas entice people to lust.”

    This author doesn’t need the Bible as much as glasses.

    1. He can see just fine. He just wants to use women in pants to justify leering at women on the street. For my part, I don’t spend all my time trying to figure out the gender of people walking by on the sidewalk and then, oops, ogling their boobies to see if they are female!

      1. seriously, what is wrong with these people. Speaking of the dress issue, the preacher must be a goer if you know what I mean. Wink wink nudge nudge. Sorry I just had to say that. I love Monty Python.

    2. It’s implicitly an argument for burkhas, maybe for men as well as women.

      … Or maybe for total nudity in public. That would make it very easy to quickly determine everyone’s sex, so we wouldn’t have to stare at each other!

      1. Actually, he does have bad eyesight. The tract “A True Life Story Walking on Thin Ice” gives all the gory details of how his dad poked his eye out with a nail sticking out of a board. So, maybe he needs to look at the boobies a bit longer than the rest of us since he only has one eye. (Never before have a wished for a pirate smiley.)

        1. Also, the tract “A True Life Story Trouble Turned to Triumph” states that “my eyesight was hurt by two incidents. The first was when I was 6 years old and fell into a stove. The second was the next year, whena bunch of us children were racing to an apple tree.” I guess he forgot about the nail in his eye incident by the time he wrote this tract.

        2. You could always write in and ask him about it on the link for “Questions.”

          I however cannot as I am a married woman and he would pass off my question to a woman to answer it and that would rather defeat the point of asking him his personal experience.

          (I wonder if I had a question, if I would have to specify my age as well, since older woman are to instruct younger woman.)

      1. Yes, in passing, I did wonder why you would need to know if two strangers passing on the street were men, women, or one of each. Myabe so you don’t accidentally talk to someone of the opposite sex?

        1. Well, as PW pointed out, you have to be very careful not to answer questions from a woman, especially if her husband is with her.

  25. “Two Deadly Viruses: HIV & NIV”

    I. Must. Stop. Looking. At. Their. Website.

    ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

  26. From the Prayer List section:

    “God really does care, and wants to answer your prayers, when you are praying according to His Word.”

    Wow, He’s so…. inomnipotent. 😯

    1. Matthew 21:22 – And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

      Yeah, I don’t see anything about the format of prayers there, simply that we believe!

  27. There’s a tract about Youth Ministry not being scriptural. It explains that Jesus and the Apostles always reached the parents first. . .John 9. I know it says he was a man, but he was obviously young enough for his parents to be brought before a council. Does this guy hate everything that makes church an enjoyable place to be?

    1. You know, the question page reminds me of the pages that muslim imams set up where muslims can send in similar questions and get the imam’s pronouncement as to what the Koran and islamic tradition has to say.

      1. ME too!! I’ve seen those. Dear Imam, is this fabric ok for a burqa? Dear Imam, if I have sex with my girlfriend and then break up with her, can I participate in her stoning? You could about substitute it with “Dear MOG.” 😐

    2. Drat. I read through that whole answer, and I still don’t know if it’s right to breed dogs.
      There seem to be plenty of dogs, though, so I’m not overly worried about it.

        2. Most of our friends have “rescued” dogs and cats, too. They’re just as good as the ones from “breeders.”

          My brother and sister-in-law (in Alaska) know a musher who races sled dog teams made entirely of dogs he finds at the animal shelter. He does very well in the races, too.

      2. Of course the point is moot in the end, as they so graciously state (summarizing 500 words, most of them
        Bible verses) that dogs don’t go to Heaven, so what’s it matter?
        What’s sad is that we know several dogs with sterling pure souls, and no shortage of human-shaped garbage. Funny, you’d think that if Christ was willing to die for Charles Manson or Josef Stalin you’d think He’d welcome a beloved dog with open arms. 🙁 😥

        1. I’ve known animals that were more noble than any human I’ve ever met.
          My wife’s late cat, Bruno, was really more of a spiritual master than a pet.

        2. My pastor in the IFB used to scream, and I mean SCREAM, about how animals would not go to heaven and that people care more for their pets than they do humans.
          My thought is my pet doesn’t yell at me like you do, so I guess you are right.
          As far as animals in heaven, isn’t there a verse somewhere about all the sacrificed animals being restored in heaven? I think God can do anything so if he wants to let Fido in rather than Preacher Blowhard, I’d say he can do it.

        3. For those of you interested, read the book “Heaven” by Randy Alcorn. His thoughts and views of what Heaven will really be like (not what we grew up believing via the IFB church) changed so much of my thinking about Heaven, and life here on earth in the mean time.

        5. NEW CREATION!! The new creation is the final state for Christians, not some weird disembodied eons-long church service (which, incidentally, owes way more to Plato than to the Scriptures). And the new creation will totally include animals, and all the rest of creation, perfectly under the authority of Jesus as the perfect New Man, with whom we will reign forever.

    3. The proper answer to a question like this would be, “The bible doesn’t say anything about it so go with your conscience.”

      The fact that a question like this even gets asked shows a complete lack of knowledge of who God is.

  30. I enjoyed the tract, “The State of Michigan’s Stimulus Package for the Great Depression.” Apparently, the great depression ended because Michigan made abortion, sodomy, and other moral offenses FELONIES. In 1931. And we all know how the depression ended suddenly on September 18, 1931. (Okay, okay, maybe it took a while to clean the sin out of the camp.)

    The tract has a blatant misrepresentation. Michigan defined abortion as causing the “death of a quick child.” The tract states that Michigan meant that all children in the womb are “living” children. As anyone who has ever studied the law of abortion knows, however, the phrase “quick child” meant that pre-viability abortions WERE allowed.

    1. If I remember right (it’s been some years since I studied this), “quickening” of the fetus was held to occur somewhere around the fifth or sixth month of gestation.

    2. I thought “quickening” referred to when the baby starts to move around and the mom can feel it? In any case, NOT what the tract was saying.

  33. And the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary gets a mention in the question on dinosaurs! See, a month ago, I wouldn’t have understood the significance. Now, thanks to SFL and all you wonderful people here, I can tell these people must be true Christians because they use the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary!

    (Also… really? People genuinely thought dinosaurs, the whole concept of them, was made up? A person who went to a public high school? That is… possibly the silliest thing I’ve heard yet.

    Also, what is up with fundy groups believing in the Loch Ness Monster? I know Kent Hovind does, and it got mentioned in this question as well… it’d be really neat if it turned out Nessie was real, but I just don’t get why belief in her is so common in these groups!)

    1. My mother attended public high school (in the 50s) and she did convey to me that dinosaurs were made up by people who would find a bone and then imagine what the animal might be based on just a fragment. It was a ploy to destroy faith in God.

    2. Yep, Annie, God preserved His word in the King James Bible and then he preserved the English of that Bible (sort of) in the 1828 Webster Dictionary! It all fits! Yay!!!

    3. I think fundies citing the Loch Ness monster as proof of Creationism would be on par with scientists citing Bigfoot as a missing link.

      Even if the earth were only 6,000 years old, for the Loch Ness monster to exist would require one of two things: 1. A really, really old dinosaur swimming around there. 2. A breeding population of Nessies.
      Neither option seems plausible.

  34. Okay the stupid is really starting to hurt my brain. Under the section humorously titled Bible Questions we find this gem: “Will the Antichrist be of Jewish or Muslim descent?”

    Since Muslims don’t believe in the Trinity the Antichrist can’t be a Muslim. By his reasoning, this leaves the possibility that the Antichrist will be a Jew or a Christian since apparently Jews now believe in the Trinity.
    My Jewish friends would be surprised to find out that they are honorary Trinitarians.

    1. It’s that old Fundy school of reasoning: Don’t try to find out the actual answer, just make something up, and then get some vaguely related proof texts (preferably from the Bible, but from anywhere else is acceptable) to give your preconceived conclusion some kind of appearance of legitimacy as long as no one is paying too much attention.

  35. Every time Darrell puts something up, I think it’s the most illogical thing I’ve ever read. And then he finds something better.

    Well done today!

  36. “Amnon forcibly committed immorality with his half-sister, Tamar.”

    That is a direct quote from the website. It shows very clearly the fundy mindset. He raped his sister yada yada yada…..immorality though? The Horrorz!

    YOU CANNOT FORCE SOMEONE TO COMMITT IMMORALITY YOU BLITHERING IDIOT. Sorry for the yelling but stupidity like this really grinds my gears.

    You know you are a fundy if you read the story of Amnon and Tamar and you think it is about unmarried people having sex.

    1. … Sort of like the people who think adultery is the only or principal problem when pastors have sex with teenagers they are supposedly counseling.

      1. Well put, to the both of you! It’s been a month since the Schaap broohahah but that incident still boils my blood!

    2. YES, or people who read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and go “Oh, God destroyed it becaue the people were gay!” instead of, maybe, y’know, because THEY WERE WANDERING AROUND RAPING PEOPLE!

  37. Wow! I had forgotten how confrontational these tracts can really be. That one about the importance of the woman’s skirt so you can tell her apart from her male companion begs the question – WHY is she with a male companion? Shouldn’t there be someone chaperoning that outing? Assuming the couple isn’t married, that is. Is a skirt really just a more convenient way to know who at Fundy U needs to be reported as a couple? The whole thing just made me laugh. These websites are great for your sense of humor.

    1. I can absolutely guarantee anyone looking at my husband and me from behind when we’re both wearing pants can tell immediately that I’m the female and he’s the male.

    1. A sin? No. Wise? Probably not. Most responsible pet owners are adamantly against pet breeding.

      1. “Most responsible pet owners are adamantly against pet breeding?”

        Really? I don’t want to be unnecessarily confrontational, but that’s a pretty naive statement. I’m a responsible pet owner, and agree that in most cases adopting or rescuing pets is the way to go. However, I’m not ADAMANTLY against breeding, either. I know that many (most?) places don’t do it humanely, and that fact sickens me – but again, that doesn’t translate to a dogmatic (pun intended) viewpoint on my part.

  40. I just asked the following:

    “I have a question about verbal, plenary inspiration. In Deuteronomy 24 we are told how to proceed with a divorce. In Matthew 19 Jesus negates that teaching.

    How can Deut 24 be inspired Scripture if Jesus Himself pointedly disagrees with it? He says that the only reason Moses allowed it was for the hardness of their hearts. This would seem to point away from this Deut 24 being inspired by God.”

    BTW, I sorta, kinda know the answer. I have just enjoyed putting that one to various fundies and watching them twist in the wind before faking a stomach ache and running off.

    1. There we have the problem with a lot of fundies laid out… they don’t have personal convictions beyond the canned answers they’ve been taught. In response to a question like this, I would talk about the context, what Jesus says immediately after the Pharisees bring up the Law reference, discuss the difference between what God allows and what God wants, and probably bring up the difference between Law and Grace, although that’s less applicable in this situation.

      I think I can already guess that their answer will be some variation on a few “WE AREN’T UNDER THE LAW” verses buried under a massive onslaught about how evil divorce is, though…

  41. The website sure caused a furor here. I see plenty of mocking his stands; only a few bother to refute what he says logically or with the Bible.

    Such comments only help to fuel their arguments that we are merely backslidden or unsaved scorners and mockers.

    1. Really, GR, this isn’t the kind of thing one should take seriously.

      As a friend of mine said about another set of arguments:
      “You can’t argue with the logic there, because there isn’t any.”

      1. I guess… I still have many friends who hold to these standards; I believe some of them, and it is off-putting just to mock. Not everyone has done that, but there are several posts here just making fun of the teachings.

        I’d like to know if his (admittedly odd) teachings about marriage work – what is the divorce rate of the people who follow his rules?

        Don’t get me wrong; I think some of his “proof” is ripping verses out of context or misapplying them.

        A lot of the FWOTW posts are filled with a lot of poking fun at what the people look like or the design of the web site – this is a distraction from the wrong IDEAs that need to be fought.

    2. A lot of the arguments are stated elsewhere: there’s no need to reinvent the wheel to explain why his stance on music, Bible versions, or clothing is wrong. Nothing we say would make a difference anyway. If we don’t hold the KJVO position, I assume anything we believe would be just dismissed out-of-hand.

      (I actually thought a lot of people were responding with plenty of logic to the tracts.)

      1. Perhaps arguments are stated elsewhere — but like in all teaching, repetition is they key. Every time a bogus argument comes up, let us refute it and avoid the personal insults.

        1. People can come up with wacko arguments much faster than it is possible to refute them with reason. Life is too short (literally) to keep rebutting all of them.

    3. After you’ve beat the corpse to glue all that is left is contempt and pity.

      Contempt for the cult and the con artists who push the error on unsuspecting folks.

      Pity on those who are taken in and believe bilge such as this is true Christianity.

      This site is filled with legalism, man-made standards, adding to and taking away from the Gospel message. Semi-Pelagian in scope and practice topped off with 1-2-3 Repeat After Me easybelievism. Repeat this sinner’s prayer and you get your spiritual passport stamped for heaven.

      Like I said earlier, fear, Superstition, idolatry and I’ll add ignorance are the main players on fundy sites like this one.

      I have mixed emotions abut these type sites. On one hand I am filled with anger that Christ is associated with hate, unjust judgments, falsehoods and man made extrabiblical superstitions. The Gospel message is cheapened and twisted in order to increase decisions.

      On the other hand I pity the ones who believe Christ is no bigger than these rules, and regulations. Those whose liberty is bound by the ironclad legalism found in these tracts of bondage.

      In the end, my heart breaks that sites such as the one featured are what passes for Christianity these days.

      1. I can kind of see the point – do you think the guy is a con artist? You don’t think he really believes these things?

        1. Sadly he/they probably believe every word of the junk he/they print.
          They probably believe their view is just “godly” standards… because legalism, bondage and judgment it’s all they know, all they have ever been taught. Error begets more error.

          Most of the con artists are the ones behind the pulpits promoting this junk. Them and the church growth movement folks whose ends justify their means. Follow the money. If someone is profiting from promoting this junk then the “con” is in play.

        2. I don’t see intentional deception in these tracts– I see poor theology and poor thought processes. In my (perhaps elitist) opinion, it’s what often (but not invariably) happens when very unschooled people take to preaching (unschooled in the sense of being naive and not widely read– it doesn’t matter whether or not one has had formal academic training).

      2. Thank you for this post. I catch myself laughing at first at the craziness of these beliefs. However, I quickly become almost a mix of mad/sad that people believe these man-made rules. Its also saddening that this tract guy is still in business.

    4. Some things are so absurd that they only deserve to be mocked. God doesn’t in a number of places in scripture. Sarcasm has its place.

  42. Bwahahaha
    Really?? –

    “When women wear pants, it causes confusion. You are not sure whether you are looking at a man or a woman. Everyone has seen two people walking down the sidewalk and thought, “Which is which? Which is the man, and which is the woman?”
    That confusion leads to lust.
    If you cannot tell at a glance whether you are looking at a man or a woman, then your eyes will be drawn to the differences in the way God made men and women.”

    1. Of course the real fun is if there’s a woman in pants walking next to a Scotsman in a kilt. 👿

    2. I’d like to add that when I’m confused over whether someone is a women or a man IT NEVER EVER LEADS TO LUST! Quite the opposite in fact.

    1. Fundy Website of the Week.

      (I always think “for what it’s worth” in my head when I see it.)

  44. I’m going to let out a little of my own personal bitterness here. Hope you’ll all take it with a grain of salt and forgive me if I’m hurtful. I don’t intend to be. The same people who have often made snide comments about how I should just “get over it” in regards to my past abuse and should just “forgive and forget” some of the awful things that were done to me, some of them in the name of Christ, are the EXACT SAME ONES who are vomiting things like “NEVER FORGET” and “Everything I ever needed to know about Islam I learned on 9/11” all over my Facebook page today.

    Isn’t it ironic? Is it forgive and forget, or is it not? Perhaps, maybe, just perhaps, we should instead all just let people deal with their own pain in their own time …

    1. You don’t have to forgive Muslims. But you do have to forgive Christians. Because that is what God does. 🙄

    2. That’s a good point, PP. The irony is palpable. If only they could translate some of their outrage (which I share) to personal violations instead of white-washing it or pretending it never happened.

      It might make an effective word picture for some of them: “You know that rush of anger and horror you feel when you think of our nation being attacked and innocent civilians murdered? That outrage and anger is how I feel when my world was destroyed after ____”.

      1. I was sent a link to an article by someone that sounds like a kook to me – he claimed that the US Govt blew up the towers for its own purposes. I’m surprised that this kind of thing finds traction.

        1. GR – Just Google “truthers”. There are a whole bunch of them that firmly believe that 9/11 was an inside job.

        2. I do not believe, nor have I ever believed, that the U.S. government blew up the World Trade Center towers, or intentionally allowed it to happen (allowing it through ineptitude and mismanagement is another matter).

          Yet had Bush/Cheney engineered the attack, it could not have served their purposes any better. The cynical way they exploited the tragedy to accomplish political goals they had little hope of accomplishing before (such as passing the police-state “Patriot Act,” milder versions of which had been introduced many times before, ever since the Nixon administration) was stunning.

    3. I’ve heard one meaning of forgiveness is “let go”, that is, it’s over, your abuser can’t hurt you anymore, you don’t have to keep getting angry about it. Sometimes that knowledge, that you don’t care about this low-life anymore, that he is NOTHING to you, can hurt him more than anything else.
      Easy for me to say, I’ve never been abused or molested or shamed, but it’s just something I heard. His part is over, you’re done, you’re free. I do pray that you get true healing. I like to think that God never gives up on us 😥 , 😉 , 😛

      1. It’s not as though one sits around thinking about one’s abuser or the one who did wrong, but there is no way to wipe the *abuse* from your mind or to rid your mind of the damage that was done. So to those who say forgive and forget? I say “forget” is impossible, and they can “forget” their judgmental attitudes and move on with their lives … far away from me.

        1. Adding to my own thoughts here — this is such a common (and simplistic — I’m sorry) mindset. But researchers have SHOWN that abuse permanently alters the mind of the victim. Those who have been victimized are more likely to suffer from chronic pain conditions like migraines or conditions such as IBS. They suffer real physical conditions due to their abuse. They can’t just “let it go,” eliminate it from their minds. It’s not as easy as all that. And when people who have never “been there” flounce in and say, “Oh, forgive and forget” (and I know you weren’t, Panda Rose), it dismisses every one of our experiences. It implies that we are merely hanging on to a grudge against our abusers, and it rarely has anything to do with that at all.

          In fact, many of those who have been abused were abused by family members. We LOVE our abusers. They hold a special place in our hearts. There’s a terrible disconnect there — we’ve been terribly hurt by these people we love and have spent our lives trying to protect (yes, we protect them, our abusers). So again, forgive and forget is especially hurtful to us.

  46. I’ve never heard of a “christian” making fun of tracts. I would love to know what you do to tell others about Jesus, or do you hate non-christians as much as you do Baptists? Maybe they’ll see the love of God oozing out of you toward your brother and sisters in Christ. Yes, lots of sarcasm

    1. It depends on the tract. Some tracts, Jack Chick’s in particular in my experience, do more to drive people away from Christ than to bring folks to him.

      If a tract author shows he has absolutely no real knowledge of the secular aspects of what he’s writing about, why would anyone, Christian or non-Christian, handed the tract believe he was right about the religious aspects and why would they have a reason to believe be cared a whit about them – he obviously didn’t care enough to find out a true thing about what life outside his personal experience is really like!

      One of the worst decisions I’ve ever heard tell of in Christian witness was the day Jack Chick neglected to find out about ‘rolling a new character’ in D&D and displayed his lack of knowledge in print and online to the entire gaming community. That tract has probably gotten more people to leave the church than it has brought into it.

      And when it comes to tracts like today’s website offers: well, if someone would speak against a theological stance if it were presented in a sermon they ought to be allowed to speak just as loudly against it if it’s offered in a tract. More loudly, even, as the sermon usually has a smaller intended audience and therefore can do less potential damage.

    2. Telling people that they have to keep rules to go to heaven is not sharing the love of Christ with people. It does the same thing that the Pharisees did when they found a proselyte. It makes them twice the son/ daughter of hell.

      These tracts don’t teach people about Jesus, they sever people from Him by inserting law into the new covenant God made in the blood of Jesus. It’s Galatians all over again.

      The person who puts forth this theology is dragging people to hell. Jesus got really angry with people who created barriers to God for others.

    3. Becky- I, like hopefully most Christians,tell people about God by BUILDING a relationship with that person and sharing the love of Christ through personal experiences, scripture, actions, and compassion. I would bet that handing someone a piece of paper, saying 1,2,3 repeat after me, and sending them on their way doesnt always work.

    4. You know what I do? I listen to them, befriend them, figure out where they are in their own life, and talk to them. Because I’m a Christian and thus have the Holy Spirit dwelling in me, I can trust that when I naturally discuss my own faith and answer their questions, God is already at work.

      I’m also a teacher at a private school, where many of my students are of unknown status, regeneration-wise — i.e., they are church kids and probably know all the right answers but whether or not they’re actually believers is known to God, not to me. I have the blessing of speaking with them almost daily about the Gospel, teaching them about Jesus, walking through the scriptures with them.

    5. Well, I personally see no problem at all with giving Christian literature discussing the Bible and God to unsaved people, if they are interested. However, because we are discussing a topic so serious as God’s Holy Word, I would certainly make sure that the material would be accurate and agree with what the Bible says. After all, the Bible should be our first source; literature such as tracts is only a convenient way to present specific relevant portions of the Bible to others.

      If, after careful consideration, I determined that the tracts did NOT follow the Bible and were, in fact, contradictory to it at several points and focused on man-invented theology rather than God’s Word, however, I wouldn’t DREAM of giving them to someone else. And that’s my problem with the tracts on this website–they simply do not line up with the Bible. Therefore, I could never with good conscience give them to anyone, lest they be led astray by false teaching.

    6. I have never, but never, seen an unsolicted tract that showed a shred of the love of God. They fall into three classes:

      1. I’m scared of everything unfamiliar and you should be too. Have a few Bible verses that I think prove my point.

      2. The time is coming when you will bleeeeed and burrrrn and screeeeeam and I will gloat! Join me or you will bleed, burn, and scream for ETERNITY! I have the super secret knowledge of exactly WHEN! That is what the Bible is all ABOUT! Justice, mercy, humility–phuh, those are for wusses.

      3. I have to keep my stats up, gotta tell the pastor I saved a ton of souls this week, so will you please take this tract and recite this prayer?

  48. Becky, I think Don’s response at 1:52 pm pretty much speaks for the vast majority of us who comment here. Hatred isn’t the right word – it’s contempt and pity. Along with a good dose of “I can’t believe I used to believe that” attitude.

    2. I wouldn’t call it hatred, but take a look at my 6:00 comment. Anger; anger is the word. How dare someone block others from heaven!

    3. If you think what is posted here is comparable to pure hatred, you don’t get out much. There are some very dark corners of the internet where users do nothing but spew true hatred – do you really want me to start posting links?

      Hatred isn’t just something you can call a site you don’t like, no matter how much you may disagree with it.

    4. Pretty sure what you need is a dictionary if you think anything on this site approaches hatred. You want to see hatred? Check out boingboing anytime someone brings up God, or read something by Richard Dawkins. Or go wander around Westboro Baptist’s site.

  50. Baptists: using the fact that SOME rock artists are Satanists to “prove” that rock music is Satanic.

    Some breathers of oxygen are Satanists too. So I guess breathing oxygen is Satanic.

    1. *snicker*
      I’ll bet some of them eat meat as well, fried chicken even.

      And I’ll bet they even shower.

      Heavens, I’ll bet there are some who even vote Republican… well maybe that’s a stretch, but it could happen. :mrgreen:

    2. Ah, the good ol’ Hitler Ate Sugar fallacy. 🙂

      Which I’ve actually heard in modified form about why Christians shouldn’t be vegetarians… apparently Hitler was one, therefore vegetarianism is evil. Who knew?!

      (more info on the Hitler Ate Sugar fallacy here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlerAteSugar

      Caution, reading the above page has a slight danger of turning into a several hour trip around that website…)

      1. Yep, Hitler was an animal lover. Famously. He forbade the consumption of meat in his presence and apparently hated even the discussion of cruelty or violence to animals. But… uh-oh. He was also a teetotaler! Guess Christians shouldn’t abstain from alcohol! 😀

        And yes, TVtropes is super addictive. See: http://xkcd.com/609/

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