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Rules Concerning Online Discussions

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And when it shall come to pass that thou shalt gird up thy loins and dial up thy service provider with thy modem wherewith to spread the Gospel via e-mail forwards that are almost certainly true, that thou shalt take heed undo the words of this book to follow its commandments for thine own Internet safety. For in the day that thou shalt let thy mouse finger issue an errant click, thou shalt certainly be in a whole heap of trouble.

Knowing this that the World Wide Web is a pit of sore evil and is full of scoffers and mockers and King James deniers and even such as will claim that the old paths could really use some repaving. Thou shalt not read their blogs, or surf their pages, or look at them on the Twitter for they shall surely turn thy heart away from The Truth as was given to thee by thy pastor in his books (which are available on a table in the back of the auditorium after every service).

And if thou shalt be a goodly man and a brave soul such as is fit to do battle forces of liberalism and darkness then thou mayest leave comments and replies on the blogs and websites of scoffers but thou shalt in no wise stay for long for we don’t really do much actual dialog with people in general. And if thou shalt start a blog or a website wherein thou shalt uphold the standards of thy fathers and smite the wicked with clever words and creative spelling then thou shalt not in any case allow those enemies of the old time bible preaching soul winning way to comment or discuss whatsoever thou shalt write.

For in the day that thou shalt start “a dialog” and allow such manner of folk to use “logic” and present thee with trick questions and clever defenses of their sinful lack of standards and liberal lifestyles then shalt thy foot slip in due time and thou shalt begin to doubt. And then we shall all be forced to write blog posts about thee and will not hear thy entreating to allow thee to explain and shall delete thy forum memberships and ban thy posts.

For dissent is the unpardonable sin and an open and honest discussion is like unto it.

Independent Baptist Book of Everlasting Rules and Requirements, Appendix I.

166 thoughts on “Rules Concerning Online Discussions”

  4. Good stuff Darrell. I have noticed that several of my FB friends have published general warnings to everyone not to publish things or play games that would “bring shame to the cause of Christ”.

        2. I’m still waiting for somebody to Photoshop (or draw or paint) Jack Hyles as a fire hydrant. It could be the newest Stuff Fundies Like T-shirt.

      3. Doctor of Proctology? I’ve often wondered if there is or was someone named Doctor Proctor?

        1. The President of my college was Dr. Proctor. Awesome man, knew my grandmother in high school, and played football with her late husband. He actually shared stories of my grandmother as a kid that I had never heard 😉

  7. And thou must flame every Facebook post that does not refer glowingly to the manogid, the Authorized Version or the local church with fractured Engrish and atrocious spelling. Haymen.

  8. Following is a fb entry by a young fundy. I thought it was interesting that he referred to people as prospects. What? You’re selling encyclopedias? 🙄

    “We had an awesome day out teen soulwinning today! Four were saved! Many other good prospects were contacted.”

    1. That kind of soul-winning illustrates this part of Darrell’s post: “we don’t really do much actual dialog with people in general.” The typical “1-2-3, repeat after me” doesn’t allow for conversation. I think deep down this inability to dialogue shows that they really don’t have love for others, only a burning desire to spout their own opinions. (I’ve seen this a lot with IFB parents to their adult children: a tendency to monologue and lecture and pontificate instead of lovingly listen and interact.

      1. Fundies in general don’t treat people as persons. They treat them as territory to be captured.

      3. I think the avoidance of dialogue is mostly about fear, actually. Although that doesn’t make your point wrong (“there is no fear in love”).

      4. The typical “1-2-3, repeat after me” doesn’t allow for conversation.

        It doesn’t allow for conversion either. I mean, seriously, does anyone who has actually read the New Testament think that saying a magic prayer constitutes conversion? Why, the idea isn’t found in almost 2,000 years of Christian writing. I rather suspect that it is contemporary Americans who’ve got it wrong, and not all the rest of Christianity in time and space put together…

      5. Not only does the “1-2-3, repeat after me” illustrate their distaste for dialog and lack of genuine love for those they seek to “convert”; it also evidences an insecurity about what they say they believe. “Don’t interrupt me before I finish because I might forget what I’m supposed to say next”–and if I have to think it through and defend it, I might not be able to do so.

    2. No, they are selling heaven… Sadly, it’s treated just like encyclopedias or vacuum cleaners, isn’t it?

      The best “salesmen” are awarded… they give you tips on getting better “sales”, etc.

      1. Even Elton John (that sssssinful homossssssex-u-al)pegged the Magic Prayer Warriors in his song “Tiny Dancer.”

        Jesus freaks out in the street,
        Handing tickets out for God

    1. There was so much awesomeness in this post that the Juno reference that should have been there had to flee and hide in fear of its life. 😆

    2. What is the deal with fundies and juno? My hasband even has a juno account that he’s actually a little embarrassed of, but he’s had it so long it’s not worth cancelling. Its from the kool-aid days. But why is juno so special?

      1. Back in the day, Juno offered a free email service unattached to actual online service. The only other big email at the time was AOL, which was not unattached from online service. Come to think of it, Juno may still be one of the only ways to get email without having actual internet service. This would probably be why it’s big in the more fundamental circles. We had/have by default Juno because we needed email but couldn’t afford to keep internet all the time. Then the “internet is dangerous” idea crept in and having internet in the house was delayed longer. Of course, that had more to do with my younger brother and what he might get into than philosophical danger. haha. Then we had filtered internet for a while. Now we just have internet.

        Anyway, long drawn out answer to day that Juno’s popular because it’s email with no internet service necessary.

        1. Haha! I remember the solemnity of the day when our family got the internet. Only my parents had the passwords and read and monitored everything we did online. My dad told the family he did this because he’d had a dream that he was trying to shut the door on our house and a demon kept trying to push in (I guess the demon was the internet to him) It’s a bit ironic that it was his personal computer on which I found a downloaded, paid for, porn program. Hmmm 🙄

        2. Lol I still have my Juno account which so happened to be my very first email! I got it for the same reasons you mentioned as it was “free email” and I needed something for folks to be able to contact me (since cell phones weren’t as wide-spread back then).
          I didn’t know Juno was so “Fundy” until visiting here. :mrgreen:

        3. Juno was the only way my extended family convinced our family to get email. Mom didn’t want the internet “coming into our house” because of “all the garbage on it.” So we had Juno for several years before I went to college.

          When Juno 4 came out, which we could download from Juno 1, it had an option of free internet access. I pulled it, installed it in a different place on the computer so my parents wouldn’t see it, and set up my own email account (so emails sent to me wouldn’t get read by someone else). Short-lived, unfortunately…. My mother found out about the other email account (I got careless), so I got confronted and she said she didn’t know me.

          It blew over, but Juno remains a sore spot in my memory. Luckily they got DSL eventually. Unfiltered…

  11. “creative spelling”

    haha, soooo true.

    And thou shalt receive thy blog post comments to thy Juno account, which is the only email you can use to be safe from the wicked wiles of the devil.

  13. Brilliant. Post of the year. 😀

    This post is made all the better because all you have to do is change the tone of passage like this:

    For in the day that thou shalt start “a dialog” and allow such manner of folk to use “logic” and present thee with trick questions and clever defenses of their sinful lack of standards and liberal lifestyles then shalt thy foot slip in due time and thou shalt begin to doubt.

    to pure seriousness and it could be an excerpt from a Fundy sermon. Fundy suspicion of logic knows no bounds.

    1. Not only change the tone to pure seriousness but throw in a lot of yelling and screaming and you have the start of a 3-point sermon.

      1. well, it might never be admitted, but I am certain that SFL is the beginning (and many times the end) of sermon prep in some pastor’s offices in IFB land.

        There is just no way in hell it hasn’t happened.

        1. I will go a step further: I think that Schaap is so sick, he checks SFL frequently to see if he is mentioned. Then works an idea he gets from it into his “message.”

  16. also, it’s probably not a good idea for husbands and wives to have separate blogs. the old path way would be, like, AnaniasAndSapphiraKJV1611Amen.blogspot.com.

  17. Someone in the church told the MOG that I was posting here, and thus there was a message aimed straight at me about the evils of posting on a blog. No names were given, of course, nor in my posts.

    But I found out from real friends (not psuedo-friends) that the MOG went around telling everyone who would listen in private my name and that I was trying to bring him down because I was unhappy with him. (because, you know, it’s all about him, not Truth or the Bible). This was all done behind my back, with never any chance to answer the charges.

      1. So ~HI THERE PASTOR OF GUILT-RIDDEN!!! We are all on to you!~ (Just because he is probably reading this instead of his AKJV 1611 this morning.)

        1. Sorry, I should have made it clear that it was a former church… we left a few months after that incident.

      2. Why not take the direct approach and address the entire thing with him after having him over for dinner at YOUR house on YOUR turf? 😈

      3. Aww man. That really stinks. That’s very reminiscent of a church I went to. A long time. People were preached on until they left the church. There was no confrontation (a much less spineless move) of any person caught doing wrong except in front of a large crowd. And names were used. Including my sister’s. They never got over the fact that a boy came up and started talking to her on church ground without any adults around. Until we left. And sometimes that’s the only option. Hope all goes well for you though.

        1. In my experience, the reason you have to call people out in public is they never will submit to correction in private. That is the problem, if people would take the advice they are given and act upon it there would be no need for the public outings. A question I would ask, how many here actually ever went to the pastors you all disagreed with, instead of just leaving and bad mouthing them on the internet?

        3. Good eye Darrell, I didn’t catch that, such manipulaters. I hope it doesn’t take long for my recovery, I am so tired of being confused.

        4. @John: there are Bible examples of calling people out, but it always with evidence, and names were used.

          I thought that the things I talked about were sufficiently obscured, since I never used the church’s name or area or pastor’s name. In fact, he cannot know for sure that it was me. But apparently, he thought it was. He never came to me; he blasted “blogs” in general. I found out later that, behind my back, he told others that I had “blogged” some bad stuff about the church and him.

          I could not confront him about spreading these stories about me, since that would have only hurt those who let me know what was going on. Anyway, it was hurting my family, and was especially hard on the kids, so we left.

          And, for the record, I DID go in private to the pastor with the things I had an issue with. I suspect that I had a tiger by the tail, so to speak – I was looking into the finances. Others who have left told me that there was definitely hanky-panky going on, but I was gone before I could track it down myself.

        5. John, I asked Jack Hyles why my Sunday School bus could no longer pick up African American riders, and got shooed out of his office with him in a snit. I asked two different shyster/pastors where the money, which they demanded each week from the pulpit was going, since the poor were not being cared for, and these bums were playing on Facebook all day. So, yes, some of us have privately asked, and got nothing, or in some cases, got slammed in one way or another, for trying to honestly understand.
          Question to self: why do I EVER bother answering these people?

        7. Well since everyone is in confession, I might as well share my confession of confronting the manogawd… I mean going to him directly… I mean talking to him to his face. This isn’t getting me anywhere.

          Seriously though, I was told to leave while questiong that man. The run down goes like this.

          1. End of service, everyone lines up to worship the MOG upon exiting the building.

          2. That particular Sunday, my kids are with their dad at his church (we were not seperated, just seperated in church) Imagine this fundy paster telling me it’s better to stay than to follow my husband. At one point I asked this preacher if he could recommend another church for my family to attend together. His answer, was no, this is the only church. This pastor was in a pickle. How do you preach “wives submit to your husband” and then tell me to listen to him over my husband. Shees, so confusing.

          3. MOG askes me, “where are the kids” as if he didn’t know, dumb ass knew. My reply, “with their dad at his church”

          4. His reply, “You tell your husband I said he is a pansy”

          5. My reply, “what? I thought you said, “now ladies, don’t you go home talking bad about me to your husband”. He said this from the pulpit in the middle of a sermon. I really think he was preaching that one at me, because I was the only lady their whose husband would not submit to this lunatic, so it must have been me talking smack about him.

          6. That’s where he told me to leave.

          So Mr. John Smith how is it one can confront a bully preacher like that? No one dared confront this guy, we knew better.

        8. “a boy came up and started talking to her on church ground without any adults around…”

          So I assume this means then that your sister was dating, um, er, “courting,” whether she wanted to or not?

        9. @Monipenny: Incredible that you escaped HAC after only one year, but still had a pastor who could be the clone of Hyles/Schaap! ACK! You are gone from there, right? Ugh! Poor you! 😯 😥

        10. My “escape” from Hyles after one year wasn’t because I wised up. I met and fell in love with my now husband after coming home that summer (really, he rescued me from fundyland, I just didn’t know it) that’s why I didn’t go back to Hyles. As it turns out he rescued me from fundyland once again when he dug his heals in the ground and refused to attend that church, he visited a few times, that was all he needed to make up his mind. He was good about letting me do my own thing, he didn’t like that we were seperated on church. And for the record, during my time at this cult, I never spoke ill about that preacher, I completely trusted and followed him.

        11. Sorry, yes, I’ve been gone from there since he told me to leave. It’s been over 10 years.

        12. I have several times via email and once over the phone and not once did any of them admit to saying anything wrong. Their basic modus operandi were to deny, trivialize, give the silent treatment, and to get up and preach about it in a sermon while sneering at me.

        13. @John… My mother once asked the pastor of our former church how were could afford to have 30 missionaries when we were always struggling to pay the rent. He refused to answer her and then preached a sermon about how he was accused of stealing from the church. He did not name names but we all knew who he was talking about. A few years later he left the church in financial ruin. I have many more stories like this.

        14. I have gone to the MOG and asked for clarifications or to ask him about a passage of scripture I thought he was mistaken about. He wrote a letter to “me” that he put in the back of the church for anyone to whom I had “complained” about the church to take home. The letters all disappeared, but the truth was that I had talked to only one person who was (and still is though we left there several years ago) my friend. So, yeah.

        1. I don’t attend any longer… before God graciously opened my eyes, I swallowed the line that they were the “only” church in the area that had “good standards” that were doing good things for God.

        3. Ok, now my conscience is after me. I don’t have even the remotest clue who or what group we’re talking about. I’m just having a little good-natured fun here. I don’t mean to and would not joke about specific people on a public forum. I believe we are all flawed and we all have room to grow. I like this forum, but I don’t want to get specific about particular people. It’s one thing to poke fun at an overall group, but I don’t want to single out specific institutions or people. At least for me, that’s going too far…………..Ok, enough from me now. 🙂

        4. Mistress of the iron, it’s okay to have fun and share silly comments, you’ve done nothing wrong.

        5. I think some people/ministries/churches have such a wide-spread influence that it is necessary to call them out publicly. Thousands of people are influenced by HAC, and it’s right to be specific about the unbiblical teaching/behavior that is propagated there.

    2. GR –
      It sounds like he is overcompensating for having unusually small genitalia. This is a common psychological phenomenon, often manifested by men hanging “truck balls” on their jacked-up rides, purchasing .50 caliber hand guns, and gossiping about people behind their backs.

      P.S., If you have “truck balls”, I take it all back 😀

    3. SFIE is in standby mode if you need to activate them. We can scramble Scorpio and get a bird in the air with in the hour.
      Folks we are going to DEFCON 2 at this time. All divisions check in:

        2. @Seen Enough: Your post made me laugh… I guess “Bald Beach Whale 3” for me is not going to make the cut either…

      11. the Amillenium Falcon is ready – she may not look like much but she’s got it where it counts…we made the last Hammond run in under 12 parsecs

        2. ROFL!

          Red squadron. First into battle…and first to recruit replacements for those who went into battle first.

      12. Reality Alpha, requesting permission to enter the DZ.

        ‘Cause if there’s one thing that fundies hate, it’s reality.

    4. Oh, GR! 😥 You need to get out of that church! I think it is great that you found SFL, but helpful as venting here has been, you need true liberty in Christ. I have had pastors like yours before, most notorious of whom was Jack Hyles, who, sadly, was also my employer for a short time. Staying IN with this MOG will not change HIM, and will only bring you down. Getting OUT is what is best, for your own peace and tranquility! Jesus’ yoke is EASY, and His burden is LIGHT. This MOG is a screwed-up mess! Praying you can do this. 🙂

      2. I should have been clear that this happened some time ago — I don’t recall for sure. SFL was not explicitly called out in the public rant… and it may have been before I settled on “Guilt Ridden” to post under. So, it’s been a while.

        But my family is still in an IFB church, but the grace we experience is wonderful! We thank God for our “new” (well, getting “old” now) church.

      3. @Seen Enough: thanks… not surprisingly, the church was a strong follower of Jack Hyles. The pastor is still there, and I hope God will use the church… left some really good people, but we had to go.

        The verse you referenced “my yoke is EASY and my burden is LIGHT” was a real help to us in those dark days!

        1. One thing you can always use as a plumb line: where is the pastor on the whole topic of Jack Hyles. If a man reveres or defends him in any way, time to move on. 😕 I am glad that is behind you!!

      1. To GR’s former pastor: You are a pathetic excuse for a pastor! I hope you will eventually see the error of your ways and realize what kind of harm you are causing toward Christianity by your unChristlike behavior. Good day to you, sir.

    6. Hi, there, Guilt Ridden’s pastor (since now we know that you read all these comments).

      Judge not, lest ye be judged.

    7. “No names were given, of course”

      Of course not! They think because they didn’t actually say your name they did not gossip so they are let off the hook! I don’t think so. Not when everyone knows exactly who he was talking about.

      Two weeks after we left our former church the topic of the Sunday evening sermon was “Why people leave the church.” We heard about this from someone who still goes there. The pastor actually believed it was ok to slander us and talk about us just because he didn’t say our names. In the small church who didn’t know who he was talking about? Not one person didn’t know it was us! He stood behind the pulpit and had his say, and since it was behind the pulpit it comes off with the authority of almighty God. We were not there, we were in our new church unaware (til the next day) of what was going in. We had no say in the whole thing. We were not invited to come in and give our side. If we had been we wouldn’t have done so because we had more respect for him than he had for us. We have not badmouthed him, other than telling our new pastor what went wrong at that church and why we left. We tried to do so in such a way as not make him look any worse than we absolutely had to. I said he was a good man and I think he truly loves the Lord. But his hyles mentality, all that falderal that was drilled into his head at HAC had to come out. This is their mentality.

      I think his sermon had four points, as it was relayed to us. The last one was “disagreements at coffee shops.” That was where we had our last meeting with him in which we discussed our differences. He made it sound as if our leaving was on a whim, that we didn’t think it through, that this decision had not been coming on for several months! That made us look like a couple of unstable nits.

      To his credit our new pastor did not contact our former pastor to get the lowdown on us. We were accepted with open arms. I now look forward to Sundays instead of dreading them. I feel such a peace in the new church instead of the anxiety I felt in the former church.

      If anyone is still in a church where a pastor will badmouth you from the pulpit, and then pat himself on the back for not saying your name, GET OUT OF THERE! 👿

  18. “to spread the Gospel via e-mail forwards that are almost certainly true”

    Cross-stitch that on a pillow, so I can send it to my aunt and mother-in-law who are apparently allergic to simple fact checking.

    1. My great aunt, full stop. To the point that my mother automatically deletes anything she e-mails to us, because she knows it’s just about chain letter or spam thing or otherwise stupid forwarded-a-million-times-e-mail. We’re just praying my grandmother never discovers the Internet, we know she’d do the same thing!

  23. And thou shalt unfriend those on Facebook that dare to speak Truth when thou puttest up false doctrine (even if they are your family).

    1. Yup!! This must be in the book somewhere because this is standard operating procedure.

    2. Actually, I have a special grouping for all of the fundies that are still in my friend list on FB. It’s to that group that I make visible my most radical anti-fundy beliefs posts. I actually do a check to see if they de-friend me or not. None have yet so I’ll keep going. I don’t make the anti-mind control/fundy stuff visible to my normal friends, it would just bore them and weird them out that I was that far into a cult at one time 😀

      1. I must follow your lead. Often I consider posting something specifically for my fundy friends, but hesistate because others would think I went off the deep end. I’ll report back.

        1. I have tried this with both “religious” and political issues–but most fundies seem totally oblivious toward or scared to death of anything thought-provoking. All they need to know is what the “pastuh” said. Their motto is “Never think; never question.”

  24. “For dissent is the unpardonable sin and an open and honest discussion is like unto it.”

    So incredibly, heart-wrenchingly true. Unfortunately this seems to have infected much of the body, spreading even beyond fundydom.

    1. That quote really hit home to me. I have a friend who recently left the fundy world. I don’t know if he’s reading this site or not; I gave him the link to it. Anyway, I’ve been trying to have an open and honest discussion with his wife (not sure what her stance is re: the IFB world) about a couple of different topics relating to the IFB world, but I feel like all she’s doing is giving me the cold shoulder, no matter how many times I try to open up a convo with her. Very disheartening.

    2. You got it. Even outside Fundystan, I’ve found that this attitude extends even to honest spiritual doubts being expressed with no hint of dissent or malice. It’s like evangelicals feel threatened by the mere existence of doubt and so put up their thorny defenses. If they only knew how many wondering souls they push away from God with their fear-based “faith”.

      1. “It’s like evangelicals feel threatened by the mere existence of doubt”

        The opposite of “faith” is not “doubt”; the opposite of “faith” is “certainty.”

        If you’re certain, what part is left for “faith” to play?

  25. hahaha I just figured out the Juno references. Then I realized several of our gotherdized, KJO church members have juno email addresses. hahaha

    I realize this has no bearing on world events at this time, but it made my day. :mrgreen:

  26. Darrell, could you have written this in a modern version so that I could understand it? I read one part over 5 times and…ugh.

    I am confused, I don’t know if you are talking to scoffers or them fundies who like to argue.

    1. Read it a second time around, so let me see if I am interpreting this passage correctly. Fundy preacher is speaking to his fundy followers…..

      1. Are you saying that you need the heretical ESV or Non-Inspired version of Darrell’s post so that you can read it better? 😆

    2. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the “everlasting rules for fundies” gag is a running fictional book that Darrell writes rules & what can only be the “logical reasons” behind the rules that fundies love to enforce on each other. There’s a number of blog posts from the “rule book”.

  27. You forgot this bit: “And the graphics and layout on thy website shall be, in the Authorized vernacular, as dung. Not past the Year of Our Lord one thousand, nine hundred, ninety and five mayest thou update thy graphic design. Thou shalt assail the eyes of thy viewers with flash and the ears of thy listeners with electronically rendered Hymns of the Faith. For faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by an instrumental muzak rendition of a song to which the listener knoweth not the lyrics.”

    2. I wouldn’t think flash content would be common, since it requires extra learning to use. I’d think it would more be the aweful spinning, flashing and blinking gif images that would be the trademark.

  28. You know, it’s amazing how the internet is such an awful thing…..demons coming into the home…must take the children’s computer from their room because of the internet..I’ve heard all these things..one thing–it’s what YOU plug into the internet that can be harmful..and if the kids do not have telephone jacks or have cable internet access into their rooms, there is no reason for them not to have a computer (unless their’s wifi). I guess really “perfect” people have to have someone to blame for the rise of modern technology and the evils thereof, surely you can’t blame yourself.

  30. If you’ve ever had a distant relative criticize you for Christian music you post on FB, you are probably an ex-Fundy.

    1. Or a pastor’s wife in a nearby town who’s never commented on anything you posted before but who was horror-struck by Leeland.

      1. LOL is it just me, PW, or is our state’s churches particularly networked and nosy in each other’s business? I’ve heard that it’s the case from an evangelist friend of ours – that our state is unlike any other when it comes to competing and interfering churches.

  31. My former fundy church was so whacked ~ The schoolkids were required to give their social network passwords/addys to the church school administrator. How crazy is that?

    The administrator monitors their online activities AND THOSE OF THEIR ONLINE FRIENDS (who might not even be aware their PRIVATE messages are not really private after all).

    If you ask a student why they would turn over their personal data like that, they spout the party line saying, “I have nothing to hide!” They have no clue that this is not about the content of their online activities, but their privacy and healthy relationship borders.

    Big Brother is always watching in Fundystan…at least in the Lancaster Division. 👿

    1. I’ve heard about a couple fundy grade schools that do this. I’ve always been confused by some of those fundies who try to defend it by claiming “if they don’t like it they can go somewhere else.” Ummm… school-aged kids don’t have a choice where they go to school. Their parents decide. Even in a college setting (and sometimes even they don’t have a choice), nothing excuses this complete lack of privacy.

  32. Ok, folks we have an all clear, all divisions stand down. Seems Guilt Ridden is safely away.

    Good Job, all responders. You can be proud of the work you have done here today.

    Ops, take us back to DEFCON 1. …but stay vigilant.

    Proud to know and blog with you all. 😎

    2. Sigh… KowardlyKittyVI didn’t make it out into action this time… Some day I hope for the courage to go public and aid in an extraction. Until then, i will attempt to aid from the inside. I still have friends in high places.

  33. Listening to my parents go on and on about a certain someone we know who happens to be an instigator online (you know who you are, CV 😉 ) and how disrespectful they are because they question things. 🙄

    It really reminds me of socialist countries, where even reasonable and expected questioning is not allowed. In any other institution of higher learning, critical thinking is expected, but in Christian centers of “higher learning” it’s banned. That should raise a red flag to a parent… or at least, one would think.

  35. Haha! Loved this post, as usual. Oh, the sermons against social media and separating yourself from the world…memories. To fundies, truth is ONLY truth if preached from the pulpit or solidified in the “inerrant Word of God.” 😉

  36. The bit about only fundy men doing “battle” online was a nice touch, I had noticed a distinct lack of female fundy voices online (unless you count the occasional June Cleaver homemaking blog).

  37. I had to LOL — this week was the first time this site was blocked by my work admin for having “Hate Speech.”

    My work admin apparently doesn’t like discussions either. 😀

  38. Speaking of fundys and modern technology, I got called out from a pulpit tonight by a fundy preacher for “sinning” by using my phone in church. The funny thing was that I was following along in the Bible on the cell phone…not facebooking..lol. Its apparently a sin to use an electronic Bible, but not a sin to try to publically humiliate someone from a pulpit when you don’t even have your facts straight. I love so many people in that church, but I am so done with this garbage.

    1. I guess I should have avoided the “appearance of evil.” Never mind that those that always use that verse have never heard a proper interpretation of 1 Thess 5:22.

    2. They tend to be quick to judge, reluctant to allow liberty to others, quick to attributing evil intent to people instead of assuming the best, and so eager to be “right” that they don’t even think twice if they’re hurting or humiliating someone.

  39. oohhh Michael I am sorry. That is plain humiliation. I hope you got up right then and there and told him what your phone was used for. I would like to think that I would have had the courage to dummy shut their mouth for humiliating me in public, but I didn’t the one time it happened to me.

    1. Whenever stuff like that happened to me, it was always at such an unexpected moment, I was too shocked to think of an appropriate response.

    2. I had our last pastor try and call me out on that and I said, “I wasn’t texting, I was looking at my Bible, but thank you for your concern.” He didn’t respond. (This was in front of everyone. I am not afraid of them anymore.)

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