111 thoughts on “GOH: Why Didn’t You Tell Me?”

  1. I guess I’m just a stupid Calvinist that thinks it would be their fault. Weird right?

    2. Yes, the gall of them! To have left the womb without that “chosen” ticket clutched in their tiny fists!

  2. Reminds me of the old song “I dreamed that the great judgment morning had come…”

    1. The Chorale at Maranatha did an arrangement of The Great Judgement Morning, when I was a student there. (I was in the other choir called, The Madrigal Singers and Handbell Choir, under the direction of the president’s wife, Thelma Cedarholm. The group was also referred to some of the students as Thel’s Bells.) The Great Judgement Morning arrangement was by Don DeGraw, director of the the chorale, voice teacher, chair of the music department, a BJ grad, who received an honorary doctor-ate at Hyles. I’ve been told that he received his honorary degree at the same time as MacArthur, John R. Rice’s horse. I need some verification on that story.

  3. Well isn’t that sweet? Guilt trip song as they take up the offering! Leave it to a fundy…

    I used to know many people who honestly believed that if someone they’d neglected to witness to had died unsaved and gone to hell and it was all THEIR fault, as if that person had never known another Christian in their entire life, who could also have given them the gospel. No it’s all THAT person’s fault. Some of them ended up quitting church because they couldn’t handle the guilt.

    1. I so agree!
      The song made me nauseous in both the singing style and in the message.
      Repellent!

    2. Heard this “theory” preached over my life in the IFB. Has if I don’t have enough skeletons and guilt in myblife already, let’s add people burning in Hell from my indifference to that list. Sheesh…..

  4. Surely their Gid and their Jayee-zzuusss must be very small and impotent. 🙁

    What a relief to know that the true God is awesomely powerful and His Son Jesus indeed paid it all!!!!

  5. nice guilt trip. And the lyrics “now I’m in a burning hell.” Nothing like a good uplifting song.
    Part of me thinks this is quite arrogant. It all rests on their shoulders to save each helpless soul.
    There is no acknowledgement that God is at work in people’s lives no matter what. I really find the Holy Spirit in the IFB to be somewhat castrated often.

      1. I believe it’s the same one that makes one who’s “on fire” jump in the baptistery….I could be wrong. I just know when our Pentecostal friends do the same thing then it’s just emotional fanaticism or demon possession. I don’t have an honorary doctrine though.

  6. So do I save them or does the almighty and eternal God? I never understood this – the fate of another person’s soul depends on whether or not I go bus calling this Saturday? It’s not biblical.

    1. Yup, who goes to Hell or Heaven is all up to you. God can’t do squat; it’s all on your shoulders. 🙄

  7. I’ve sat through tat sermon about how many of us had ‘unsaved’ parents and how our grandparents were crying out from the depths of hell begging us to talk to our parents and ‘save’ them so that thy wouldn’t end up in hell as well.
    Guilt trip big time. The guilty feelings didn’t motivate any change in me then, and quite frankly I don’t believe in any of it today. It was all about church leaders ‘guilting out’ the flock so that they could boast about their numbers.

    1. Some may be sincere, and have just received bad teaching (such as from HAC or other places).

  8. You guys, I have family in this area of Virginia. And this is the church the liberals go to, according to my family!

    1. Don’t ever, ever let me accidentally wander near the church the non-liberals go to, then. :shocked:

      1. Oh, that didn’t work. I was trying to make one of those smiley thingies. 😯

  9. Most awkward IFB applause ever at the end of this one? What are they clapping for…the waiting, the burning, or the bad singing?

  11. Looks like a Missions Conference, so, it could have been much worse.

    “THAAAAAAAANK YOUUUUUUUU FOR GIVIIIIIIING TO THE LO-OO-OOOORD”

    or…

    “PEOPLE NEEEEEEEEEEED THE LOOOOOOOOORD.”

    1. No true fundy church would use music by the gay singer or the compromising singer who wants unity.

      Not going to happen.

      1. Last I checked, those fundies who still have a Juno account haven’t heard about Ray Boltz coming out. So, that song is still safe in some corners. “People Need The Lord” is known as That One Song That Is In Every Slideshow Ever, so, nobody really remembers who sang it in the first place. It’s safe. The only other go-to song that is always used at specials is “So Send I You” (the “You Gonna Get Martyred” version).

  13. If there is a literal hell, and I end up there (something seeming increasingly likely to me with each passing day), it will probably consist of me being tied to a pew and forced to listen to performances like this one of songs like this one for eternity.

  14. This is the one song that burns me up from my fundyU days. I still recall it from time to time. Yes, I’m another reformed presbyterian Calvinist convert.

    2. Whoa!! Bibb Graves Jr? I never knew i had any offspring!! Could it be true? Could Tony Miller have been right about that “optical intercourse” thing after all?!?!

  15. I do believe that the Great Commission was given to the Church, and we have the responsibility to witness, but at the end of the day, You are either elect or you are not elect.

      1. For real. Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Some are fitted to destruction, and some are chosen to be vessels of mercy. It’s ok though. The reprobates WANT to go to hell, so it all works out in the end.

        This whole thing used to matter a whole lot to me. I quit caring about it some time ago. If God wants to send me to hell, what can I do about it? If he wants to send me to heaven, what can I do about it?

        Maybe I’ll be allowed to spend a little time in both places–you know, like the retirees who spend their winters in FL. Reminds me of Mark Twain’s comment about where he’d like to spend eternity–heaven for climate, hell for company!

    2. My personal view is that yes, God gave us the Great Commission but at the end of the day–like Mordecai says–God can raise someone else up to fulfill God’s call. And in truth, the saving is done by God, not by the messengers.

  18. Yikes, memories from my deputation days as a kid…. the song really beats you over the head with the “works and only works will get the job done….” logic. I have always wondered, if its our fault that the lost die and go to hell, what about those that don’t ever hear?? Who’s fault was that or what about the generations of “natives” that worshiped their gods before the pilgrims and spanish missionaries arrived??? so much fail with that songs logic…

    1. yep if only you do enough, do it right enough, do it often enough, do it with enough sincerity, do it with enough urgency, do it with enough pathos, do it with enough tracts, do it with formula enough, just do it or else… the blood of everyone you didn’t do it to will be on your hands. You will have to answer for why you didn’t give a Gospel message to, extend an invitation to, say the “Sinners Prayer™” with and get them to make a decision and commit their life to Jesus… all of these will one day stand before god, (lowercase on purpose) single you our in the heavenly crowd and shreak for all of heaven to hear that YOU are the reason they are headed to hell, because YOU didn’t tell them about Jesus so they could make an informed choice!

      Yep that’s the way it reads in the King Jimmy eisegesis of the IFB gospel.

      1. Here’s another fundy guilt trip itinerary:

        Yooo are the reason why
        they’re going to hell,
        Yooo are the reason why
        they suffered and died;

        Yooo are the reason why
        so many fell;
        Yooo are reason
        they fried.

        I would be only mildly surprised if the aforementioned ever made its way into a fundy song service.

  19. Ahhh yes. I remember the sermon where God is judging your brother who never trusted Christ. Then he calls you forward from the ranks of the redeemed to toss your own brother into hell because you never told him about Jesus.

    Unbiblical as hell (hmmmm…..) and a guilt trip extravaganza. As if God couldn’t or wouldn’t make a way for a person who would believe to actually believe.

    Then again, there is that really weird passage in 2 Thessalonians in which God sends strong delusions on those who don’t believe because He doesn’t want them to have any possibility of trusting Christ and getting saved! Yep. God chooses whom He will damn.

    And amazing how much of a product of geography salvation is! God has evidently condemned people in the Arab world or the poor around the world who never will have access to hear the gospel to suffer forever in Hell, and He never gives them a chance.

    Which in my mind is a horrible thing and unjust to boot. Why worship a God who is so arbitrary and vindictive? For that matter, how should God be so offended at my sins or my unbelief when He makes precious little effort to make Himself known in any credible way? After all, so many of His messengers are corrupt and wicked and outright liars and unbelievable. God would judge people for not believing them about salvation?

    I have real doubts about Hell for many reasons, not the least of which is that no mention of it exists in all the Old Testament. In historical context, it appears to be an import from Persian Zoroastrianism (as well as a very powerful Devil and the Forces of Darkness). Such ideas are not found in the Old Testament, either making God very negligent about warning about the consequences of sin, or sadistic, giving people an everlasting surprise. Adam was only told he would die if he ate the forbidden fruit. He was never told he would be tortured forever in a lake of fire and brimstone.

    But I guess things could be worse. Instead of the Devil being in charge of hell (just kidding! I know theology!), God could put Fundamentalists in charge of hell. It really would be a place to avoid then!

    1. It would seem as if God doesn’t particularly care for the Muslims or the Native Americans. Or African Americans. Or (fill in the blank.) I think that this perception has strengthened the racism that is endemic to white American fundamentalism. When white Americans or Europeans come, we save your sorry asses. We teach you to say a meaningless ‘prayer of salvation.’ Then you’re good to go. Praise be to the white man.

      I sure don’t understand it at all. I lived among Native Americans (Inupiat Eskimos) for over a decade, It pains me to think that their ancestors who happened to have been born before the arrival of the great white hope were condemned to hell–through no fault of their own. Where the hell is there any justice in that?

      1. Where the hell, indeed.

        If God is just, then the traditional policy structure American Fundamentalism has created regarding hell and who goes there has to be wrong. Or, if their doctrine regarding hell is correct, God cannot be just.

        Of course, the traditional throwback is that whatever God does is Just simply because He is God. That is nothing more than a “might makes right” argument. We supposedly don’t believe that might makes right, but we give God a pass on that. Funny that neither Abraham nor Moses automatically thought that because God made a decision it was necessarily the right one!

        If God is all powerful and decides to send me to hell because I cannot understand how casting people into hell who had no possibility to be exposed to the gospel (eww, sounds like a disease saying it that way!) is just, then it will be to me further proof that it — and He — is not.

        The more I think about it, the more I cannot understand how God could make people made in His image to be disposable and to suffer infinite torment for sins finite in time and effect. An old admonition was “Let the punishment fit the crime.”

        1. “If God is just, then the traditional policy structure American Fundamentalism has created regarding hell and who goes there has to be wrong.”

          That is my fondest theological hope. I would include evangelicals in with the American Fundamentalists, and hope that they are all wrong.

          It comes back to genre studies. What fundamentalists and evangelicals take as strict historical and didactic passages in the bible may well be entirely allegorical.

        2. Punishment is for correction, my friend. Eternal hell is simply vindictive. You may be interested in Robert Ingersoll’s thoughts on the matter:

          If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung the hearts of the tender, it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. This doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine, neither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena.

      2. I wrestles with similar questions. I think there are some verses that have been glossed over or perhaps misapplied in our fundy backgrounds…as in Adam all die; in Christ shall all be made alive. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (does an all-powerful God get what he wills?)

        Perhaps is some mysterious way, the good news is that all will ultimately be made alive through the atoning work of our Lord. I’m still trying to reconcile this view with what appears to be scripture’s clear teaching regarding eternal punishment, but the door is at least open a bit.

        1. I am uncertain myself. I know there is a lot wrong with the doctrine of hell as fundamentalists and evangelicals teach it. But I don’t have the answers.

          For that matter, I can’t conceive of heaven as being a city with streets of gold and gemstone foundations, either. I think that in the mind of the people who wrote scripture, an eternity of doing nothing but eating and resting and praising God in a mansion in a hugely rich city would be the best they could imagine. They were, after all, people who were used to wearying toil, hunger, poverty and hardship.

          But would God have constructed His throne room on the model of near-eastern royalty? Does God even need a literal throne room?

          The models of heaven and hell appear to be extensions of the culture’s ideas of glory and misery. That does not impress me with its verity. It conveys the idea of things more wonderful or terrifying than we can understand, but little more than that. God certainly does not sit on the arch of the roof above the earth. Nor is “heaven” a place that can be found outside the atmosphere, above the clouds.

          Essentially, I have lots of questions. I know why I think some things can’t be “true,” but I have no answers as to what *is* true. Maybe there are no answers. Maybe the best I can do with such passages is to understand the general sense of what the author was trying to convey and stop looking at specifics.

        2. Think of it this way: Your child takes a cookie without asking, and doesn’t tell you, or say sorry. Now you are going to pull all his fingernails as a punishment. Horrible? Still nothing on the God who throws sinners into an eternal hell….

        3. Klasie, it’s hard to fathom. May I extend your painful analogy a little?

          It is as if your child stole cookies and you pull out all his fingernails as punishment; but the fingernails immediate grow back and you pull them out again. And again. For ever and ever Amen.

          And you multiply this by billions of children.

          And you, as the All-powerful Father and Creator of all things, have the right and the ability to say, “This is pretty stupid–I made up the rules, I can change them. I’m God, for crying out loud! I hereby decree: No more eternal suffering.”

          But you don’t, because . . . . . . anyone care to finish this sentence for me? I can’t figure out the reason.

        4. I choose to read the passages of “streets of gold, gates of pearls/gems” as meaning the restored creation will have a societal structure of labor & wages will be that the fruit of the labor that workers do is rewarded without oppression and or/confiscation from the masters/governments/land owners/etc, and the economic structures that gather wealth to the powerful while establishing & perpetuating a permanent class of poor that are always serving is so altered that the very symbols of the wealthy’s power & wealth are so worthless as to be used for gates & streets to be trod under foot.

      3. BJg–What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. . . .Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

        I’m not quite sure why St. Paul thought this put God in a good light.

        1. Indeed, nico. I struggled with these passages for years. About 30 years ago (while a student at DTS) I was introduced to the concept of the ultimate reconciliation of all to Christ. (This was through a fellow student, NOT a faculty member.) Ironically, that classmate is the pastor of a large SBC church in Texas today. I’d be willing to bet that he still holds to the ultimate reconciliation of all people to Christ.

        2. For most of my life I couldn’t allow myself to even consider the notion of universal reconciliation, even though my heart told me there must be some other solution to the fate of humankind than that most of them burn forever in hell. That whole infallibility of the Scriptures thing kept me affirming a literal hell for longer than I actually believed in it.

          14 years ago, after I converted to Orthodoxy, I found several remarkable saints who believed, or at least hinted, at a better ending for humankind than a literal burning hell. St. Isaac of Syria in particular was an eye-opener. But even then, the official attitude is “It may be allowable to hope for universal reconciliation, but it is heretical to teach it.” Sorry, but I find this stupid.

          And I believe that a God who would eternally stoke the flames of hell to torment his own creation is not worthy of my loving devotion. Will I burn in hell for this heretical belief? Two word answer: don’t care. Belief in a vicious, sadistic god does not appeal to me. If I’m wrong, Oh well. If I’m right, won’t it be nice to hear God say at the Judgment, “Thanks for not believing that crap in the bible that people wrote about me. They meant well, but really, I’m not the jerk they painted me to be. Come on in!”

        3. That passage has always bothered me. One passage says “Whosoever will may come.” another passage says God hardens who He will so they not only can’t come, they can’t even will to come.

          Sounds like God is not only vengeful, but has to use underhanded and/or indirect means to accomplish His purposes. Perhaps He thinks He simply cannot bring blessing without having a few (or many) innocent people dying first? Or that He has to sacrifice some innocent people when He takes vengeance on His enemies?

          Ever wonder why people had to die when Achan hid the gold wedge and Babylonian garment? Why didn’t God just arrange for Achan to die himself? Why did God have to hold everyone guilty for the secret sin of one person? Then, too, unless Achan’s family all knew of what he did, why did all of them have to die?

          Ezekiel seems to show God rethinking this when God says that the son will not die for the sin of the Father.

          Maybe God had to learn how to be a better Parent along the way? Almost seems like it. But then, you have a hell of a hard time reconciling the differences if you want to be seen as always being right! (Yes, pun intended).

        4. nico & rtgmath,

          It is as if you both have been reading my mail for about the last 30 years. I have come to believe that if God created us (by whatever means) with the full knowledge that he will send most of us to an eternal burning hell of conscious torment–whether by his predestination or because some slacker didn’t push us to repent–I don’t want to have much to do with that God.

          IF we are created “in His image” why do WE have such moral problems with this sort of cavalier damnation–yet He does not?

          I cling to the hope that we just don’t see the big picture. I hope that all will be saved–or that there is no conscious existence after death for any of us.

        5. Just had a thought. Interesting one, at least for me.

          So the Scriptures have the heavens and the earth consumed with fire and a new heaven and a new earth being created by God for His people.

          But this is the not-too-far-away beginning tied to the close ending with humanity sandwiched in the middle.

          What did these people know about astronomy? Nothing. They didn’t understand what stars were (or else John wouldn’t have envisioned a third of them falling to the earth). And while creationists used to parrot the idea that we have never seen a star being born, I have heard much less of that lately. We see stellar nurseries. We know the physics. We see the processes. And while we don’t know everything, we do know that the earth is at least 4.5 billion years old, and that the universe is at least 12.8 billion years old.

          We witness novas, supernovas, black holes eating stars, and all kinds of marvelous things never envisioned by the ancients. So, if they were wrong about beginnings, what would make them right about endings?

          Why would God destroy the Universe as we know it just as a sequence of the events involving mortal men? It is a big universe out there. There is no reason to think that we are all there is.

          I strongly suspect that the great vision of John was mostly a messianic dream in which he envisioned all the enemies of God at last conquered, consigned to unending torture and that God would reward His faithful ones. A natural response to his exile on Patmos, to his wearying labors, to his disappointment that Jesus did not come in his lifetime? He may have thought he’d been promised to see the Lord’s return by Jesus.

          No, the way the universe is working gives us no indication that it has any chance of suddenly being dissolved with a fervent heat. Even stars have lifetimes they live out.

          Were I to have to spend an eternity with harp and song, I should quickly go mad. If I am going to live forever, give me something to explore, something to learn, something to do. I do not want to be a mindless admirer. God has given me gifts I would like to use.

        6. I read on Wikipedia (I know, I know many say that it’s not a reliable source) that the Scottish Bible commentation, William Barlcay believed in universal reconciliation. Here is a quote: belief in universal salvation: in his autobiography he wrote, “I am a convinced universalist. I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into the love of God.”

          He also was a pacifist and believed war was mass murder.

          I believe in difficult issues, blessed is the man who has the guts to say “I don’t know!”

    2. That’s pretty much what I was thinking as well. Saved me the trouble of having to type it out, so thanks for that.

  20. So, since I left the Fundy church and have not gone soul-winning in years, how many souls in Hell will be credited to my “account”? I remember being reminded to “keep short accounts with God”.

    Is there some sort of Fundy penance I will have to pay/perform to clean off the slate?

    Being such a “carnal Christian” will be held against me, they believe. So will I only get a broom closet instead of a mansion?
    Or do they thing Jesus will say, “Depart, I never knew you!”

    What is in store for those of us who abandoned our Fundy (MOG) calling to knock on every door and compel people to visit the Fundy church?

  21. When I was a teenager, a singer named Marvin Harris came to our church. He was called the singing truck driver, because he won a national truck driving championship. People also referred to him as the singing truck, because he was so big. He was from Highland Park/TTU.

    He sang a song his piano player wrote and the chorus went like this:

    Burning, yes burning someone that you know
    Burning in hell and screaming in woe
    Fathers and mothers and friends that we know
    In torment are burning below

    Also, the first evangelist I heard when we started attending an IFB church when I was in sixth grade was Glenn Strunk and he spoke on Spiritual Homicide, for not witnessing to others.

    It was quite a rude awakening from what I was used to hearing.

    1. I had no idea there is a national truck driving championship. What does one do to win it?

      1. Oh. Don’t bother copying and pasting. I didn’t realize I just created a link.

      2. You are truly blessed, my friend, for sending this link along. This site is absolutely incredible! Looking around in the religious/gospel tag, I found a recording that gave me several minutes of hysterical laughter. The album cover is a picture of praying hands, with this: Soul Seekers sing That’s the Man I’m Looking For . . . ‘Featuring One Arm Bass Player’

        Thank you, thank you. You made my day better!

        3. I’ve got some stuff to send him.

          Big Gary, please tell me you’ve heard of Isabel Baker.

          I found this album at the thrift store and almost passed it over because it didn’t look immediately weird enough. Then I was like, “Wait…that chick was holding an electric guitar…obviously 60s, gospel…” I had it on my shelf for a year or two before I looked it up on Ebay (never you mind that I’ve been reselling records for years) and found out how rare it was. I sold it for about $325.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk-YzTtNbA8

        4. Ok nico, I finally listened to it. Hilarious! I can see how easy it would be to waste time on that website. I was just looking for Marvin Harris.

        5. Petrushka, I’ve heard of Isabel Baker, but don’t know much about her.
          I’m not really surprised that record is super-rare.

          How much would you charge for the name and address of the person who paid $325 for it? I think I have a lot of stuff to sell him or her.

  22. Ok. I take great pride in my commitment to watch these videos Darrell blesses us with all the way to the end. Especially if I decide to comment. I feel I owe it to Darrell, to the performers, to the Almighty God His Own Self. But this one was difficult to make it through. Here are some remarks, which I feel I am permitted to make since, after all, I did watch the video from start to finish:

    I appreciated the fine last name of this singing family. I do love me some Faulkner.

    Those were the sorriest excuses for offering plates I’ve ever seen. What were they, some kind of new-fangled low-profile plates? You can’t improve on a large KFC bucket, in my opinion.

    Even though the song was written in only one key (how everlastingly boring!), the piano player experimented with all the keys on the keyboard.

    Go Israel!

    Go US of A!

    Several of the fellows in the back row of the choir are remarkably still. Peradventure they sleepeth, and must be awaked. Perhaps a deacon should be assigned to give them a nudge every once in a while.

    Around the 2:00 mark, the cameraman’s indecision made me a little light-headed and unsettled my tummy just a bit.

    1. The usher finally got a contribution from the guy sitting on the end, five rows from the front.

      You’re right. Those offering plates don’t work.

      As for Faulkner–I live near Faulkner College in Montgomery, Alabama. Any connection?

      1. They look like shiny dinner plates. I believe if you’re going to take up a collection, you ought to go with deep-dish. What does that say about a preacher’s faith when he passes around a plate that couldn’t hold a roll of pennies or a few thin dimes?

        Another offering plate pet peeve of mine is those plates with fabric on the bottom. I’ll bet folding money these shallow-ass plates have this detestable feature. One of the great joys of my childhood was hearing the sound of my few thin dimes hitting the bottom of the KFC bucket as I dropped them from as high as I could reach. These kids are being robbed of one of the few pleasures of church attendance.

        My only Faulkner connection is that I have read a good deal of William Faulkner, and I have liked it a lot.

  23. I liked how the one guy in the choir was seated away from everyone else. He also seemed very fidgety:)

        1. No. He actually had a jug under the table. You can see his beady eyes shifting around furtively.

          His fellow Republicans congratulated him for not giving up his post as Lt. Governor. If he had left the room, the Democrats, in majority at that time, might have passed some nefarious legislation not to his liking. So he stayed.

          I am not making this up!

  24. It’s funny, IFB pastors are so happy to guilt people into proselytizing because “OMG we’re saving people from the fires of hell!”

    But then when you turn around and warn them that they shouldn’t be covering up child sexual abuse, suddenly your backslidden and bitter. Guess they can’t handle the taste of their own medicine.

    1. It took me a while to figure out whether the little one was ventriloquist’s dummy or not.
      I’ve got to admit the answer disappointed me.

      1. Same here. And the kid didn’t start singing until the parents had sung for a bit. Almost like he was waking up from a trance.

        The kids in the video didn’t look too happy, either.

    2. Cute. The “little bit” was clearly confused by what was going on, but started singing with his mommy and daddy.

  27. I’m not asking that you prove true every moment you live. I can’t do that.

    I’m just tired of all the big shot MOGs who expect us to believe that they have proved true, when they are as false as … well, as false as … an MOG?

    Honestly, used car salesmen, politicians, and bankers. How low can these people go?

  28. A James,

    What are you asking? It almost sounds like you’re a fundy who’s pretending not to be a fundy.

    Are you disappointed in these “fundy” churches for using Getty and others? Would it be better for those churches claiming to be fundamentalist who use said music to just shed the label and call themselves something else?

    I’m not convinced that the style of music fundamentally changes an IFB-style of church where the Mog still lords over the people and the Old Testament law still carries the day.

    B.R.O.

    1. B.R.O. , I can attest to the fact that A James and I have been confronting a BJU prof on another website of late. Bassenco of SFL has been helping a great deal (though under another screen name.) Between the three of us, we’ve called him on the carpet for BJU de-commissioning, then re-commissioning the GRACE investigative report.

      A James talks about the morphing and merging going on between fundamentalism and evangelicalism of late. I couldn’t agree more strongly. If anyone doubts, Google Steven Furtick and the Elevation Church in North Carolina. They are using coloring books for their children that say “We are united under the visionary”, the “visionary” being Steven Furtick himself. And, good old Stevie boy has built himself a $1.6M, 16,000 square foot home in North Carolina. Now get this: Steven Furtick, born in 1980, is a Southern Baptist, and Elevation Church is SBC. When I went to Stevie boy’s website, I was overwhelmed with photos of him, amazing Stevie, wonderful savior. Check it out. I’m not kidding. The fundies have nothing, and I mean nothing, on this SBC preacher.

      2. Seriously, we’re glad to have you at SFL. This site has folks who run the gamut from still in the IFB. to those who left it decades ago. Some affirm all the fundamentals, some none. Some are searching to know just what is believable. We’re pretty all-inclusive here, and we appreciate the IFB and non-IFB pastors and their spouses who post.

      3. Hey, no hard feelings. You *are* among friends, here. We understand how feelings, bruised and battered in the fundy world, are sensitive to exposure elsewhere.

        So we hide behind pseudonyms. Most of us really don’t have to, but it makes it easier to come out with some of the details at times.

        So, no fear. The Community — and we are a community — is glad to have you come in. We have welcomed lots of others. And as proof of their welcoming spirit, I present … (roll drums) … (Ta Da!), myself!

        If the people here can stand me, they can put up with a lot. And they have welcomed me and made me feel at home.

        Come on in and stay a while!

      4. A James, welcome. There are all kinds of people here, with a wide range of beliefs. There are some fundamentalists here. There are some who have formally left IFB but still have deep attachments to fundamentalist belief systems. There are some who are confused and just trying to find their way. There are some who have found another expression of the Christian tradition outside of fundamentalism and are happy and fulfilled in that expression. There are some who don’t believe in any of it anymore, for a variety of reasons.

        And there are some like me, a reluctant believer, not afraid to ask questions and badger and cuss and carry on and laugh and romp around. So far the illustrious staff at SFL hasn’t kicked me off. I think you’re safe!

    2. A James, please pull up a chair and join us. My theological identity crisis has been ongoing for 30 years, so a little company is most welcome.

    3. “I can be found most often these days on sites disgruntled with BJU (just ask BaldJones) or providing therapy such as this one. Proof enough? So, if my questions seem to have cognitive dissonance–thy are an accurate representation of my current state of mind ”

      I’m listening, friend, and appreciate your lengthly response. BJg’s comments assure me that I may have misunderstood and haven’t understood the full picture. I am one who has much to learn, I’ll admit that.

      B.R.O.

    4. Heh, most of us here have an identity crisis. I certainly do.

      Stick around. Voice your opinion. It is worthwhile, I guarantee it. And while I am not hanging around other sites very much (too little time), I am glad to meet you here.

  29. My wife and I went to the traditionally liberal Episcopalian church in town a few weeks ago and were irritated to no end that they sang “Make Me a Blessing.” Ugh.

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