Odds and Ends

Friday Challenge: Sooooo Fundamentalist

583 Comments

Today’s challenge is to complete the following sentence “Your Mama/Daddy is soooooo fundamentalist that he/she…”

As in:

“Your Mama is soooo fundamentalist that she has a reserved parking spot down at the altar.”

“Your Daddy is soooo fundamentalist that his blood type is Kool-Aid.”

You get the idea.

583 thoughts on “Friday Challenge: Sooooo Fundamentalist”

  1. Your daddy is so fundy he never took you fishing, but still brags about taking you “fishing for men”.

      2. BG,
        Old anecdote about “the Family.” In 1977 as a young man, I asked out a young blonde girl who was a nurse at the local hospital. Took her home after the date, and she told me wonderful things about her faith. She was a member of the Family (and talked for all the world like a Cxn). When she tried to seduce me on the first date, I hightailed it out of there.

  3. Yo daddy so fundamentalist, he still brags about being baptized by J. Frank Norris.

      1. No. My mom also thought imaginary numbers were a communist invention. So did Mrs. Horton from PCC. Mrs. Horton went around giving lectures on the evils of higher mathematics!

        2. Yeah. I have to say that some of them are written with a bit of bitterness still attached. Fundamentalism is funny, but it hurts when the these things are true for your own family.

          I hate what fundamentalism has done to my family. I hate what it is still doing in my wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law. Frankly, it has ruined a large part of my marriage and threatens my future. And when I look at what it is doing in politics, I fear for the nation and the world.

        5. Thanks. In regard to my mom and imaginary numbers, there was real pain attached.

          My parents got fundamentalism so bad they pulled us kids out of the public schools to homeschool us. Never mind that they never had any college courses at all. (And since I am nearly 57, I was one of the early ones!)

          Well, I had read some of my dad’s Popular Science magazines. My mom was reading the algebra book I had and came across imaginary numbers. She flipped and ranted about how all numbers had to be real. She had gotten some literature from somewhere about the evils of “the New Math” and she marked up the textbook and all.

          When I said I believed that imaginary numbers existed (I’d read about them in Popular Science), she wouldn’t listen to an explanation. She got the inch-thick paddle and laid it on. She said she wasn’t going to stop until I “believed” that imaginary numbers didn’t exist. I still remember the pain.

          I told her what she wanted to hear. But years down the road, when I went to BJU and learned about imaginary numbers in a math class, I called my mom on the phone to tell her what I had learned.

          I swear, the phone lines had to have frozen from Washington State to Greenville, SC. I learned then she wasn’t willing to change her mind about anything, not ever. I knew that already, of course. But one keeps hoping beyond hope.

        8. rgtmath: I have some sympathy for your mother, imaginary numbers are pretty weird if you think about them too much.
          Also, the IRS doesn’t like it if you fill out your tax form in imaginary numbers. :laughing:

        9. Sure. If you don’t bother to learn about something, anything is weird, magic, mysterious, and possibly evil. The “if I don’t understand it then it has got to be wrong” mentality is rife in fundamentalism. But really they are no more weird than points on the Cartesian (xy) plane.

          My mom always told me to “Love the Truth above all else.” It took a few years for me to understand that she meant “Her Truth,” not “THE Truth.”

          And of course, there is this little thing about thinking one knows more than the experts in the field, despite being untrained at all in it. That is a fundamentalist viewpoint as well. God said it (I think. At least He said it to me!), I believe it, and that settles it!

        10. Somehow Gary’s posts aren’t funny because so many are lies: Norris a fundy? Vaccinations are totally safe any anyone who realizes otherwise is somehow a “conspiracy theorist?” How much does Gary get paid to sit on here and spout his propaganda? Sorry, Gary, I don’t mean to pick on you exclusively. It’s just that you are the most obvious paid poster on this board.

        11. Chuck Norris *is* “more or less fundy,” as Gary said. Or at the very least a conservative of the radical stripe. One doesn’t have to be IFB to belong to the club, you know.

          Gary didn’t say anything about vaccinations on this thread as far as I can tell. Every health professional will acknowledge that nothing is totally safe. However there is NO evidence vaccines cause autism. Vaccinations certainly are better than the diseases that accompany NOT being vaccinated. Vaccinations were the health care miracle that nearly eradicated many childhood diseases. The Anti-Vaccination groups are nearly all “conspiracy theorists.”

          And a common compound you use and ingest on a regular basis every day (dihydrogen monoxide) is known to cause many thousands of deaths every year. It is still regarded as safe and effective!

          I don’t know what your real irritation with Gary is. But I can attest that many of the wilder stories on this thread have a ring of truth to them, because I myself have experienced them.

          There are no paid posters here! We use the site for fellowship and therapy.

        12. I believe her argument was that math is truth, truth never changes, therefore variables are evil.

          Although I thought her objection was to recursive math, not all higher math.

        13. stacymcanderson, if you’d been reading here long enough, you’d know I get paid millions to comment on SFL. I also have a vast army of slavish followers. Or so another commenter said.

        14. RTGMath, Gary spouts such ridiculous leftist propaganda most of the time on here that it’s hard to believe that he’s not a paid agent whose job is to discredit all common sense. I’m not trying to be rude, I just find that he has a leftist answer to EVERYTHING, and you apparently do as well. 🙂

          I think that this blog would gain instant credibility if it were more honest and just added a couple of qualifiers. The description calls it a site that makes fun of Fundyism. If the owner of this blog would just change the description to “A site that mocks Christianity, conservatism, and fundyism” it would gain respect and people would actually take this board seriously instead of as a joke. Maybe the owner of the blog doesn’t realize this, but from the description of the site it would appear as it it’s SOLELY a satirical mockery of all things IFB. If the description were just changed so the true ethos of the site were put out there in the description, we’d all be on equal ground and there would not be any confusion. I know that a lot of people at first thought this site was full Christians who just happened to make fun of fundyism and didn’t realize that it was also a mockery of Christianity in general, and not just fundyism.

        15. The SFL blog posts are aimed at poking fun at fundamentalism. If the comments are skewed to the left, that just means there are more liberals commenting. The way to change that is to have more conservatives write in, not censor voices we don’t agree with.

          And if Big Gary is getting paid, I want to be paid too! 😉

        16. I teach trigonometry and understand some things about imaginary numbers. Growing up among independent fundamental baptists have helped me understand imaginary numbers more thoroughly than any textbook ever could.
          Behold ifb imaginary numbers…
          Attendance (especially on big days and bus route campaigns)
          Souls Won (especially at Daytona Beach during Spring Break)
          Offerings Received (one church I attended as a child didn’t count of record any cash that came in the offering that wasn’t in an envelope. Eventually they built up enough to purchase $20,000 in gold bullion, made a safe under the floor of the pastor’s office, and saved it for a rainy day. )
          Homeless People Feed and Clothed
          Hours the Average Pastor Studied for Each Message
          High Quality, Well Researched, and Duly Footnoted Theological Writings
          And we could continue on….

        17. If Big Gary’s getting paid to comment, I want to get paid too! I want to save up for a white piano, if I ever see one.

        18. The truth is that Big Gary DOES get paid. The reason I haven’t been posting lately is that I’m in a contract dispute with Darrell. I told him that I wanted “Big Gary money” and he wouldn’t pony up…something about BG posts generating more hits than mine. I’m calling my association rep.

        19. PCC’s (Beka Horton’s) problem with modern mathematics is set theory, particularly the “theory of infinite sets” (the distinction between countably infinite and uncountably infinite). Although this is almost as silly as being against imaginary numbers, that’s not quite what Mrs. Horton objects to.

        20. My favorite teacher at BJU, Gary Guthrie, put it this way (or at least pretty closely).

          She would get up in front and start with a statement that she didn’t know much about mathematics. At that point she should have sat down because she proceeded to prove it.

          She ran the gamut of upper level mathematics. She essentially has the opinion that if she didn’t understand it, it had to be wrong.

          Yes, set theory was a particular place where she and other fundies would rail and show their ignorance. But there were other places. Dr Guthrie was ironically amused with her wide command of ignorance.

          I know that some literature was around that railed against imaginary numbers, too, and my mom got ahold of it.

          Fundamentalism is full of know-nothing’s. If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

        21. Just curious: Do you know when she was giving these lectures? I can’t exactly say this surprises me, but I’m a bit skeptical. I do know that imaginary numbers are definitely in PCC’s A Beka curriculum.

        22. Dear Big Gary,
          All this time, I didn’t know you were getting paid to post your liberalism. Don’t I post liberal stuff, too? I want to get paid then. It’s only fair. Stacymcanderson said you are a paid poster. Will you at least share some of your riches with, say, me, rtgmath, and nico and the other liberals? Please?
          Respectfully,
          BJg

        23. BJg, if you negotiate well, you might get double what I’m paid. Or even triple.

          (I thought I’d throw a little more math humor into the thread.)

      1. PW, you make a good point, although grossly understated. The view in this forum does not “lean a bit more to the liberal side.” It full-blown leftist propaganda!

        Let’s just take this most recent subject of new math. New math was a major success! It made Americans kids even more inept and ignorant than they ever were before. America isn’t even close to the top in the percentages of engineers and scientists that it put out. I find it disingenuous to constantly make fun of Bible colleges and their perceived “lack of intellect” while the liberal educational establishment is purposefully turning out American students who can’t even come close to cracking anywhere near the top in math and science. And yes, this “dumbing down” of students was done purposefully. That’s why I said new math was a success: it did exactly what it was supposed to. And the latest incarnation of churning out mindless drones is Common Core – just another brainwashing technique whose purpose is to wring out every last bit of uniqueness and individuality from a student and turn him or her into a useful idiot for the state.

        In another recent post this board was making fun of chemtrails. You can make fun of it all you want, but are you still laughing when your region has fewer and fewer totally bright, sunny days with deep blue skies? When’s the last time you saw bright blue skies for more than three days in a row? They are a thing of history because the entire populated globe is being sprayed on virtually a daily basis now. You would have to literally be blind not to be aware of this. And even blind people notice it because they can’t feel the sun as powerfully as they once could. Now, we can debate about WHY they are spraying. I have no clue. It could be to stop global warming (which is a fraud by the way), it could be to aid radar systems, it could be some type of toxic particulates designed to lower the fertility rates and otherwise lower the population, etc. Or it could be for weather control. Or, it could be for some combination of all or some of the above. I really have no idea. But to wholeheartedly deny chemtrails and call them a “conspiracy theory” just makes one look foolish.

        Gary may be a legitimate poster here. (Although it’s doubtful) But whether he is a real person, or whether he’s doing it as a paid poster, either way he probably personally believes a lot of the stuff out of misguided sincerity. (Except for vaccines. You’d have to be living under a rock to actually believe that the recent vaccines are not dangerous and a cause of great harm. I don’t think anyone can really believe in the FDA propaganda with a straight face.) So I don’t mean to be unkind to Gary or RtgMath and the rest of the misguided crowd here. You probably are sincere, just sincerely misguided!

        One thing I will agree with many of you here is that fundamentalism is quickly dying in this country. America is becoming less and less Christian all the time, and fundamentalism is not gaining in the culture.

        1. stacymcanderson, please take your medication and quit confusing the science fiction aisle in the library with the science section. They really are different.

        2. That posted a bit early. It should have continued with a warning about pots and kettles. I believe you are the one having trouble with propaganda.

        4. I haven’t figured out yet what anagram of “John” or “greg” that name is, but it is one.

        5. Wow! Such a wide gamut of conspiracy theories all in one post! Well done!

          I suspect you are a Poe, Stacy McAnderson. But in case you aren’t…

          I confess. In my early fundy days I was a True Believer. Conspiracy theories were the norm, from the New Math to fluoride in the drinking water to contrails to what have you. I didn’t descend to the depths of geoocentrism or the Flat Earth Society, but we (family, church, friends) believed in malice, wickedness, the power of the devil, the deviousness of scientists and the imminent conversion if the US into a communist nation. We were magical thinkers. The less the evidence, the more certain we were.

          But I was convinced by evidence. Was it that I wanted consistency? Somehow I was turned as magical thinking and prophesies of doom, gloom, disaster and the Lord’s return failed time and again. I found it curious that Christians would cling to obvious lies as if they were truths.

          So I found that knowledge was better than ignorance. I learned.

          And that is what I recommend to you, Stacy. Your post was a cornucopia of erratic misconception, a feast of ignorance as such I haven’t had in years.

          I am a mathematician and an educator. You know nothing about the new math or why it “failed.” It wasn’t designed to confuse. But no, you start with false premises and you arrive at incorrect conclusions.

          Misinformed? When I believed this nonsense I was uninformed. Learning, knowledge and experience have taught me to know better.

          But thank you, dear Poe, for reminding me again of the vastness of ignorance from which I have been rescued as I found my way out if fundamentalism.

        7. The funny thing about railing against “the New Math” is that nobody outside of conspiracy theorists and historians of education has talked about the New Math for about 40 years. It was a hot topic back in the 1950s and 60s, which was when Tom Lehrer (who was a college math teacher) recorded that routine. It wasn’t a different system of math, it was just a slightly different approach to teaching math.

        8. Doing a problem in base 8 instead of base 10 probably seemed perverse 50 years ago, but since computers work in base 2, and exponents of 2 such as 8 and 16 are also very important to computer architecture, it isn’t so esoteric now.

        9. Soooo…how much are YOU getting paid? And by whom? Because the stuff you are saying makes my head hurt. I would certainly say this isn’t the site for you.

    4. I think trig is sinful, but not because of the commies. I think math like that is just wrong. Like Barbie says, math is hard.

        1. “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”

          George W. Bush, Florence, S.C., January 11, 2000

        2. I think it was Barbie, she quiped, “Math is hard!” and oh, the flap over that.
          Well, math can be hard. 🙄

        3. Back in the 90s, there was a group called the Barbie Liberation Front who switched the memory chips on Talking Barbies and Talking GI Joes, to make Barbie say things like “Eat lead, sucker!” while GI Joe said “Math is hard,” and “Let’s go shopping!”
          It was downright hilarious.

  6. Your parents are so funny their entertainment is watching Fun Night DVDs from the Wilds.

  7. Yo daddy’s so fundy he’d rather read Bible commentaries than play with his grandkids.

  8. Our parents were so fundy that when SFL has a funny game to make up extremist behavior, half of the postings really happened to us.

      1. Actually, my wife was offended when I read a few items to her. (She still goes to the IFB. Her granddaddy was a fundamentalist preacher.).

  9. Your parents are so fundy they believe scientists are hiding the human fossils they find with the dinosaur fossils.

    2. My momma’s so fundy she believes God created the earth with the fossils already in it just to test our faith.

  10. My parents were so fundy they and my sister called me a heretic for owning a New American Standard Version of the Bible.

  11. Your Daddy’s so Fundy, he thinks Phil Kidd and Larry Brown have hilarious comedy routines.

  12. Yo momma’s so fundy, she drew shirts and long pants on Jesus and the two thieves in the crucifixion story flannelgraph set.

    1. My momma’s so fundy she drew clothes on the naked kids in the Waterbabies book that my grandma gave us.

      1. I was so fundy I refused to buy that Waterbabies book as well as a beautifully illustrated Little Mermaid book (original story not Disney) that I found in the thrift store because of the nakedness.

  13. Your dad is so fundamentalist that he think the “pansy” aspects of Jesus loving sinners so much is because he was operating under a different dispensation.

  14. Your daddy’s so fundy, he wears a suit and tie, white shirt of course, everywhere, even Little League games, in case he has to “minister” to someone.

    “Instant in season, out of season…”

  15. Your parents are so fundy no one knows what color their 15 passenger van is. It is completely covered with magnetic verse signs and warnings.

  17. Your daddy is so fundy he preached against the liberal church down the road at the same time he was “knowing” the SS teacher.

    Your daddy is so fundy he preached against the administrator of your school because his kids watched the opening credits of a cartoon that played a Marvin Gaye song.

    Your daddy is so fundy he didn’t allow a television in the house, but went to a bar every time there was a Syracuse basketball on that he needed to watch but preached against the bars also.

    My mother is perfect and the reason any of us are sane.

    1. This is an actual Deta 767. I wish I had a picture of the 757 that is ship # 666, which of course no fundy should fly.

  19. Your parents are so Fundy you started a blog about it just to get it out of your system.

  20. Yo mamma so fundy, she sees no problem with PCC asking for a photo as part of their application.

    Yo mamma so fundy, she believes yoga is the gateway to opening up for devil possession and oriental religions.

    Yo mamma so fundy, she believes the Beach Boys are “too rocky.”

    Yo mamma so fundy, she thinks the morals of the Hunger Games is that killing is good.

    1. Your mama’s so fundy that she would not let you eat yogurt because it sounded too much like yoga.

  22. Your dad’s so fundamentalist, he not only doesn’t find this joke funny; he’s called a meeting of the deacon board to discuss what they’re gonna do about the growing problem of disrespect among their young people. And once again, the youth pastor’s job is on the line.

    1. Some Fundy pastors go through their hand-picked, spineless deacon board so it appears they have a unanimous (it is ALWAYS unanimous) consensus. It serves to deflect criticism…but make no mistake, the board’s decisions always reflect the pastor’s will.

      West coast fundies like to operate like this. Image, image, image.

  23. Your parents are so fundy that your dad made you stop playing Rook because it was too much like Poker and your momma is so fundy that she threw out all of your Letterman albums.

    Your momma is so fundy that she stopped the car, got out and ran across a crowded field to stop her son from talking to a girl…in broad daylight. It was in public and there were people everywhere…. not like they were sneaking about in a dark alley at midnight.

    Those were my husband’s parents btw and the son was his brother. In the interest of fairness I should say that they have both long since left that world and are no longer like that. but when they were in it…they were really into it.

    2. Re: the rook reference

      Your dad is so fundy he wouldn’t let you create a fantasy baseball team as a kid, because there’s a fee to join, and some sort of prize for the winner, therefore gambling.

  24. You know your parents were Fundy’s when…

    You were only allowed to consider PCC after at least one year of Bible College. Then, after your year of Bible College, were told that you were being a quitter and compromising. Also, PCC was considered a very Taboo subject and highly discouraged.

    Your Mom taught you how to make communion bread when you were 14. It’s actually pretty good so every now and then you make it just because and eat it with guacamole… but NEVER admit that to your mom.

    You were never allowed to play with Barbies because they are, or can be made to be, immodest.

    When you went swimming, (NEVER mixed of course…) you wore culottes and a sweatshirt.

    You had a plaque above your front door that said “The Mission Field”

    The only radio station you were allowed to listen to was the Classical Station. And if something modern or with a beat came on, you had to turn it off.

    Blue Denim and Lace was required reading for the girls in your High School.

    Your trendiest clothes were Old Navy long Jean Skirts and Aeropostale Polos.

    Your mom taught you how to make Angel Eggs. You didn’t find out they were actually called Deviled Eggs until you were 23 and volunteered to bring them to work for a Pot Luck and everyone looked at you like… What?

    Your unmarried girlfriends still live with their parents at 26 because it is a sin to do otherwise. Therefore, you are living in sin because you live by yourself. Even though you attend the same church as them and just as often as they do…

    If you wore pajama pants to bed, you couldn’t leave your bedroom without a robe on.

    All true stories and so many more…

    1. “When you went swimming, (NEVER mixed of course…) you wore culottes and a sweatshirt.”

      You weren’t even in mixed company in that getup? That isn’t swimming, that is trying extremely hard not to drown.

      1. Yes ma’am! Modesty at ALL times, not just in front of men. Even the men had to be modest — wind pants and t-shirts in the pool. Guys weren’t allowed to ever wear shorts either.

        1. Re: modesty for the men. As my fundy mother put it: I don’t see where in the Bible it says it’s okay for men to show their nipples when it says that it’s a sin for women to show theirs!!

        4. @Deacon’s Son: where does it say it’s a sin to show the nipples? Personally, I think people are too weirded out by nipples, and both men and women shouldn’t have to try so hard t hide them…

        5. I knew a guy who was so fundy, he wouldn’t allow his wife to breastfeed their children because that would be exposing them to her nakedness, and too close to having sex.

        6. Luitgard, can I guess/hope that that guy had never seen a baby being born? I can only imagine that, if he had, not only would there be no male doctors allowed, but he would insist on a c-section to avoid the “naughty bits” being involved. Giving birth is nothing like sex, but it’s more like it than breastfeeding!

    2. haha my mom let us play with Barbies but when we put them away they all had to be fully clothed…. wouldn’t want a Barbie orgy going on in the toy box…

  25. Your grandma’s so fundy, Jesus’ beard was a 5 o’clock shadow.
    (Miss you grandma, you can see for yourself now.)

    1. Our High School Bible teacher taught that too! He was questioned, “How could the hairs of Jesus’s beard be pulled if he was clean shaven”? His response was a very sarcastic “I doubt he had the opportunity to shave after he was taken by Roman soldiers so there would have been some growth”. We all just looked at him like he was crazy lol.

      1. Another miracle! His beard grew from nothing to long enough to pull with your fingers in just a few hours!

      2. Did the bible teacher graduate from Maranatha? Dr. Cedarholm, the founder of the college, taught that and a roommate of mine believed him. I asked him (my roommate) if they used tweezers when they plucked out Jesus’ beard. He said, “That’s a good question!”

  26. You’re so fundy you actually once uttered the words, “If you are a good Christian, you will be a Republican”.
    Confession is sometimes good for the soul, and sometimes just embarassing.

  30. Your mama is so fundy she thinks the devil planted dinosaur bones in the earth to trick people into being atheists.

    2. Your daddy’s so fundy you constantly monitor everything you say around him, thinking 3 or 4 moves ahead, making sure absolutely nothing will get him started on creationism vs. evolution. Cause once he starts…

  31. Your Daddy is so fundamentalist he has a continuous, gnawing fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time.

      1. Oh yeah…I’ve wonderred how our two nations might have turned out if Australia had gotten the Puritans and we had gotten the convicts.

        1. We did get some of the convicts up to the Revolution. The state of GA received a lot.

          Hope George puts that in the right place or its going to look kind of weird.

        2. It’s said that one of the reasons Great Britain started the Australia colony (beginning in 1788) was that the independence of the United States deprived the Crown of a place to send convicts, debtors, and so on. Britain benefitted from having a place to offload its dispossessed.

  32. My Pastor Daddy is sooo fundamentalist that he preaches against “Unwaking love before it’s time”!!! I’m 27 and he still reads to me from the book “The princess and the kiss” and I listen faithfully every time he reads it to me. (Note: look it up – its for real). It’s prescribed by most fundy pastors.

    1. I picked that book up at a thrift store, and I really dislike how they equate “a kiss” with virginity.

      I’m all for teaching my children to save sex for marriage since I believe that’s what the Bible teaches, but I don’t think holding hands or kissing is the equivalent of sex.

      1. If holding hands is sex, then I don’t want to tell you what I did with two old ladies in church …

        2. There was one old lady that would give me a “green handshake” every once in a while. My shake must have been really good!

      2. It always starts out as simply holding hands. But once that threshhold has been crossed, there’s no telling what that may lead to.

      1. Good question – I thought of that as soon as George typed it. I probably meant to say “awakening love”…

  33. My friend’s daddy is soooo fundamentalist that he makes her and her friends bow down to their knees to make sure their culottes fully touch the ground before being allowed to go out and play.

  34. Your momma’s so fundy she didn’t let her daughters study science or math in high school (except for creation science and consumer math) because they didn’t need to know that stuff to be wives and mothers.

    Your momma’s so fundy she would buy tapes of some of the “lighter” CCM musicians and then leave them lying around the house to see if you would listen to them. When you did, she would take you aside for an interrogation session about “why, of all the tapes of good music in this house did youyou choose this one to listen to?”

    Your momma’s so fundy she once made you write an essay on how all the Ten Commandments are broken in the film My Fair Lady. You didn’t score high because you couldn’t figure out how “thou shalt now kill” was broken but your much godlier sister remembered that, per Matthew 5, anger is the same as murder! (Unless it was your momma getting angry at you!)

    1. D’sS, your mother is quite the character, I’m guessing she really did this stuff. 🙄

    2. DS, I used to think my dad was tough, until I read things you wrote about your mom. I appreciate him so much more now. Thanks.

    3. Dad: Why are you listening to News Boys?
      Me: Because it’s as close as I could come to Dio without you disowning me.
      Dad: I disown you!
      Me: Now that that’s out of the way, which do you think best captures the soul of Metal: Rainbow in the Dark, Hallowed be Thy Name, or Enter Sandman?
      Dad: (dies of choking fit)

    4. Wow, that one hits real close to home! The fundie school (ACE) I attended did not allow girls to take algebra or high school level science or typing until we had passed at least one semester of Home Ec.

      1. This was supposed to be a reply to Deacon’s Son several posts above but George had other plans, I guess.

  35. Your daddy is so fundy he couldn’t sleep while on a retreat because one of his roommates had a blanket covered in Native American symbols. He had to have it taken outside before he could go to sleep.

    Speaking as someone who is 1/4 Cherokee…the symbols were more than likely fake.

      1. I know. Born there. 😉 Tried to learn how to make baskets. Didn’t come out quite so beautiful but at least they are authentic. 😀

      2. Natalie, a few years back my wife and I were at the Great Rift Valley in Kenya. We happened upon a Masai “Trading Post”. I stood outside the place and had a feeling of déjà vu. I swear I had seen the exact same place run by a Cherokee in North Carolina and another run by a Ute in Colorado. Since the, I saw a very similar place in rural China (likely close to the factory).

        1. Reminds me of the Souk I traded at in Dubai. All of the fabrics had little “made in India” stickers on them. Real kitschy. Of course, I got one for the mrs. anyway, just so I could say that I went to UAE and haggled with a bedouin to get her a scarf 🙂

        2. In Barcelona my wife and I went into the Euro Store. It was the same stuff as The Everything for a Dollar store here, including the Pakistani clerk.

  36. Your Momma’s so Fundy, that some mornings she’d wake you up by standing over your bed and reading all the proverbs about “sloth” and “laziness” and “A little folding of the hands to sleep” in a quavering, dramatic tone; then she’d follow you around as you tried to get ready calling you “lazy” and “reproachful” while steadily increasing the tone of her voice from quiet, to chiding, to flat-out yelling to hysteria; and climaxing in her throwing various objects at you as you tried to get out the door.

    No, wait. That was my Momma.

    True story.

    1. That was my momma too!! (More or less.) Did yours like to scream the verse about stoning rebellious sons? Mine did. She also liked to call me a “scorner” because that sounded very proverbial.

      Mine didn’t usually throw things. Her favorite line was “you can’t be my son anymore. Now get out of my house before I call the police!!” This only worked until I got old enough to realize that the police would be on my side. So I called her bluff on it one time and she didn’t call the police, of course, and she never threatened to again.

      1. Never got the “stoning” verse thrown at me (ha!), but one summer my daily chores consisted of copying by hand verses she had carefully selected from Proverbs: usually about how disappointing children bring shame on their parents.

        She wasn’t always strictly Fundy: she grew up in a home where her father was a Christian Scientist and her Mother was IFB. o_O In college, she “Rebelled” and joined the Folk Music scene, traveled to Europe, and hooked up with a hard-drinking, philandering Army NCO (with a side of PTSD), which lead to a shotgun wedding. Moving back stateside, she tried to fill up the house with literature on science, art, and philosophy– all good things that as I child I gobbled up with relish. But when her husband (my father) died suddenly in the early 80’s, she took it as punishment from God, and reverted back into Fundy-ism– with a vengeance.

        Took me the better part of 25 years to get de-programmed from the nasty cocktail of religious extremism and mental instability.

      2. My dad used to say to me, “If you wind up in jail, don’t expect me to bail you out.”

        Are we in therapy here?

        2. Actually, once when I was in college, I got pulled over at the Dulles airport for speeding. (Later, in traffic court, it was determined that they were replacing the speed limit signs at the airport that day so no one knew what the speed limit was and the judge dismissed everyone’s ticket.) Anyway, I was going 21 miles over the speed limit (I think it was 41 in a 20 mph zone) and in Virginia, that counts as “reckless driving” which can include a jail sentence. I was quite worried about this issue and told my parents because a friend at college had been charged with reckless driving (90 in a 60 mph zone, as I recall) and had to get an attorney to stay out of jail for this. My father wouldn’t talk to me about it but told my mother to tell me that they weren’t going to pay for it or do anything to help me – it was my problem and I would have to deal with it.

        3. D’sS: Were they upset when you didn’t end up in jail?
          From your description of the outcome, the tickets getting dismissed, you sound like you did rather well, wish I could have seen your parents’ faces when they found that out. 🙄

        1. Thanks Natalie. Reading all the comments on this topic–and elsewhere on the blog– it’s clear many of us are dealing with the wrotten fruit of abuse. Be it psychological, emotional, sexual, or physical, abuse continues to hurt for a long time after the abuser is no longer in our lives. What a shame– no, what an EVIL– it is that such a culture of abuse flourishes under the guise of Christianity; the more zealous the outward manifestations of piety appear, the worse the acts of abuse become, it would seem.

  38. I just can’t compete with these comments…

    My parents were so fundie that my dad changed his social security number (it contained “666” before he and my mom would try to have kids).

    That’s about the best I can do.

      1. Well, yes, but the scenario is made up of various fundie fears I’ve heard over the years.

  39. Your mama’s so fundy she confiscates Pokemon cards the bus kids bring to church and then burns the cards while pointing out that the “screaming sound” the card makes as it burns is proof that Pokemon is the devil.

    1. I think the Pokemon makers probably spread that rumor, to get people to buy Pokemon cards so they could burn them and hear the screams.

  40. Your parents are so fundy they taught you that anyone who gets depressed isn’t trusting Jesus enough.

    Your parents are so fundy they would tell you when there was sin in your life and you shouldn’t take communion until you cleared that up, leading to years of paralyzing fear that you were “partaking unworthily.”

    1. Yeah. A fundy pastor of ours said this, too.

      Fortunately one of the deacons (a medical doctor) diagnosed my wife with depression and prescribed medication. He said he disagreed with the pastor, but he wasn’t going to challenge him. He was going to do his job.

      My wife got better.

      1. I was always nervous about taking communion too. Now I think of communion as necessary, life-sustaining food. I love the Catholic perspective on communion (although I wish their table was open to anyone).

  41. My fundy pastor brother is soooooo fundamentalist that when his baby boy was born with a lot of hair he made his wife cut the babies boys hair. Cutting their newborns hair hours after birth was for ‘testimony sake.’ The babies hair was touching its ears.

    Sadly this is a true story.

    1. I believe it. Seeing a newborn baby boy with long hair could very well be a stumbling block to a vulnerable new believer, duh!

      1. The idea that we need to correct God’s frequent mistakes is pretty central to Fundamentalism at some core level.

  42. Yo daddy’s so fundy, he thinks the metric system and interracial dating will lead to a one world government.

    Yo daddy’s so fundy, he won’t let you play monopoly because of the dice.

    1. This is so convoluted that it almost doesn’t make any sense, but my momma was so fundy she told me that if I tried to marry a black woman, that they would try to love her, but only if she was from the West Indies, where, my mother said, it was okay to be black.

      (As for why we were having this conversation in the first place, no, I was not dating or otherwise planning to marry a black woman. But having been branded as the family rebel and liberal, my parents would frequently have “if you did this, here is how we would react” conversations with me. This was also the conversation in which my mother told me that she would disown any child of hers that was gay. )

      2. Metric system idea was from my high school history teacher.

        For interracial dating, I was thinking about Bob Jones III on Larry King Live, detailing the reasoning behind having the interracial dating ban at BJU and then lifting the ban.

        Monopoly comment was about my dad. He thought we should use a spinner instead of dice.

        1. I had a horse racing game where you’d spin a wheel and move little attached horse figures along a track. My mom made me get rid of it because it was a game of chance and referenced horse racing which was too close to gambling to her.

        2. PW, now that you mentioned that, I just remember that we weren’t allowed to play The Game of Life (anyone remember that game?) – at one point in the game you could play the stock market by putting some of your play money down, and spinning the spinner – too close to gambling.

    2. I do remember being told, in the 70’s, that the metric system was evil. Then I got to high school and later nursing school and everything is metric. Was pissed we didn’t learn it.

        1. About half of the more technical aquarium literature (which I read a lot of; I’m that kind of geek) is written in the U.S. and about half abroad, therefore about half uses inches, gallons, etc., and about half uses the Metric system, so I have to keep switching back and forth. It keeps my mind nimble, I guess.

  44. Yo mama’s so fundy she won’t let you watch My Little Pony or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because they’re pagan.

    1. Sadly that was me back in the day with my kids. I was a know-it-all fundy. Now I know I was really just a pompous ignorant phony. Can’t turn back the clock….

      1. Many of us have similar regrets. Growth and change are good things, even though our Fundy pastor preached that change was bad.

        So to keep this reply in line with the theme:

        Yo daddy’s so Fundy he preached to stick to his personal opinion of ye olde paths, and that you would be followin’ de devil if ya ever change.

        1. Almost any non-Fundy song or film or book or the like can be twisted around to supposedly promote homosexuality. 😐

    3. Your parents are so fundy they won’t let you watch the Smurfs because Gargamel’s cat was named after the angel of death in The Book of Satan. Of course the cat kinda was an angel of death to the Smurfs…

  45. Yo daddy is so fundy that when playing Scrabble he wouldn’t allow the word “SEX” because “we don’t use dirty words in our house.”

    No kidding.

        1. The words “gender” and “sex” have different meanings, but fewer and fewer people seem to know that.

  47. Your daddy so fundy He mutes movies when there is heathen music playing.

    Your momma so fundy she reprimands you if you are tagged in a picture where a friend’s friend happened to be wearing a two-piece.

    I was so fundy I got PTSD the time I had to get a ride with a friend’s family and they played CCM!

    1. Oh yes, the good old “your facebook is making me look bad” rebuke. I have found that “your friends shouldn’t be such busybodies” is an effective retort.

      Actually, I may be dating myself a bit here but the rebuke I always got was “stop putting things on your xanga that are critical of homeschooling and make me look bad.” (“Critical of homeschooling” was defined as me saying anything about homeschooling whatsoever that implied, no matter how tangentially, that I disagreed with some aspect of my upbringing.)

      1. “I was thinking about doing something to make you look bad, Mom, but then I realized you’ve beaten me to it.”

    1. From the article:
      “The word “cult” is a relatively new word that has only been used within the past century.”

      From actual reference materials:
      The word “cult” has been in English since the early 17th century (circa 1610), and the Latin root, “cultus” dates back at least to the time of Cicero (106-43 BCE), who used it with regard to religion.

      http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cult
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_(religious_practice)#Etymology

    2. Read the article… I actually agree with most of the article; Independent churches are not cults. Baptists are not cults. Having standards is not cultish.

      What makes many IFB churches cult-ish is their devotion to their leader, their MOG over and above their devotion to Jesus Christ.

      Jack Hyles was all about Jack Hyles; he taught his people to blindly follow him. Examples of this are legion. I like how one man defines a cult: “A institution that names the name of Jesus Christ but has a head other than Jesus Christ and an authority other than the Bible”

      Churches that copy the Hyles’ model of having a church lean in the cultish direction. They exaggerate the office of the pastor to that of near-God. They teach and preach that it is sinful to make a decision without consulting with pastor, and they also preach that the pastor should rule in your life; if he says no, it is “no”. This is a cult.

      Note: It is Biblical to get spiritual advice, especially in major decisions, but it doesn’t have to be only from the pastor.

      1. “What makes many IFB churches cult-ish is their devotion to their leader, their MOG over and above their devotion to Jesus Christ.”

        BINGO!

        The article was the building of one straw man after another while avoiding the root problem. The blindness is amazing.

        1. Best laugh line from that ridiculous article:

          I think of men like J. Frank Norris and Jack Hyles.Both of these were used greatly in the United States. Because their ministries grew to great numbers, they had a positive and enormous affect on many Christians. Yet, because of the scope of their ministries, they also had those who became disgruntled with them. Many times these disgruntled people would say that J. Frank Norris and Jack Hyles were cult leaders. They had no grounds on which to base this

          No grounds!?!!? NO GROUNDS!?!?!?

          There are none so blind as those who will not see.

        2. “Affect” (as a noun) doesn’t mean what you think it means, Allen.

          Though I can see why affectation appeals to you.

        3. “… However, this is not the list of standards from a Baptist church, but this is the list of visiting standards from the California Department of Corrections. It’s sad when their standards are higher than the average church. So, I ask you, are they a cult because they have standards?”

          Um, no, they’re a prison. And “high standards” is an interesting term for the rules prisons enforce.

      2. Actually, one could argue that “independence” as the IFB defines it does make them a cult since their definition of “independent” is not Scriptural and they in fact reject the authority of Christ over His church.

    3. Wow. What a load of self-justification! “Lord, I thank thee that I am not like these compromisers!”

      Yes, IFB churches fit the definition of a cult.

  49. Your mommas so fundy that if you didnt obey her every whim she would announce loudly “You’re shortening your life!!!!”…..true story till I told her “If I die young you will regret those words coming out your mouth until your dying day” She never said it again.

    1. You were brave! If I’d said that, I’d have gotten backhanded across the mouth for sassing.

      1. This was well into my late teens…and I was tired of being slammed over the head with ignorance of scripture… God isnt your attack dog for bad behavior.

  50. Yo’ momma’s so fundy she taught her daughter that it’s totes OK to kill every deer on the island because “God will make more.” Bag limits are pagan Earth worship, yo.

    Yo’ momma’s so fundy she actually thinks God manifested the deer out of the dirt when five minutes’ conversation with any worldly hunter-type around here would’ve told her that deer first “manifested” on this island when worldly hunter types brought them here on a barge less than a hundred years ago!

Comments are closed.