Missionary stories are a great source of apocryphal illustrations…
A missionary came back from Africa and went to some churches that had supported him.
At one of them, he told of how at one point, he had camped in the jungle overnight.
The next day he came into the nearest village, where the people came out to greet him in fear.
They told him that they had heard he was on his way, so the night before, they had gone out to kill him and steal his money and medicine. But as they approached his camp, they saw that his tent was surrounded by twenty-six armed guards. They asked him where those guard were.
“I don’t have any guards.”
But the people continued to insist that they had seen them.
At this point in the story, a man jumps up and says, “Can you remember the date that that happened?”
The missionary tells him.
“Well,” the man says, “that morning I was playing golf and felt this over-powering need to pray for you. In fact, I called into church and had them put you on the prayer chain. I wonder how many people here got that message and prayed for this missionary?”
The missionary was moved to tears as 26 men in the congregation stood up.
No matter how far to the right a group of fundamentalists may be, they will invariably be able to find a group even further off the map than they are to point to as the ‘real crazy’ fundamentalists. Whether it be dress codes, music standards, or theological vagaries, there’s always someone else who’s so much nuttier that by comparison even strict fundies look downright moderate.
Question a fundy about their rantings against Harry Potter books and they’ll point you to folks who don’t read anything but Christian fiction. They in turn will point you to a group who only allow their children to read approved biographies of missionaries. And even they will no doubt be able to dredge up some remaining Abecedarians to prove that by comparison allowing reading at all proves that one is reasonable and normal.
Compared to all that, just cutting out Harry Potter seems downright ecumenical. In the land of the full-bore crazies the only slightly unusual man is king.
Today around the nation, fundamentalist churches will participate in God & Country Sunday. The national anthem will be sung. The pledge to the flag will be said. The military will be honored. Jesus may or may not get an honorable mention.
To be sure, the conflation of patriotism with Christianity extends far beyond the walls of fundamentalist churches but one can be sure that if they visit most fundy churches around Memorial Day, Independence Day, or Election Day they are much more likely to hear more about the Founding Fathers than our Heavenly Father. Fox News, The President, Congress, Public Schools, Welfare, The Second Amendment, gays in the military, tax laws, and the ACLU also get significant air-time during these patriotic services. Be sure to invite all your unsaved friends and family unless they are Democrats or (worse yet) Canadian.
And woe be unto him who would suggest that perhaps the American flag has little place inside a church full of the citizens of heaven…
Fundamentalists are fascinated by stories of demonic forces. Nothing thrills the heart like listening to stories of missionaries in Africa (which seems particularly rife with demonic activity) doing battle with the evil hoards.
It’s a small wonder that Frank Peretti, author of such works as This Present Darkness should be wildly popular in fundamentalist circles — the fact that he is a member of the Assemblies of God and plays the banjo in a bluegrass band notwithstanding. His children’s books like The Door in the Dragon’s Throat are widely regarded as great way to give young fundamentalists nightmares. [ed. I didn’t sleep for a week.]
The books are horribly thrilling stuff full of sword fights between angels and demons and very insightful information about how public schools are conspiring to make sure that no child graduates from kindergarten without having been demon-possessed at least once. The theology presented in these stories is a little shaky to say the least but did I mention that they have sword-fighting demons!
More than one fundamentalist has remarked that these books have really opened their eyes to the workings of spiritual warfare. One is forced to wonder if they also imagine that Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven is a treatise on ornithology. Or one would if they weren’t caught in such a quandary over whether to laugh or cry.
A silly blog dedicated to Independent Fundamental Baptists, their standards, their beliefs, and their craziness.
Fundamentalists are fascinated by stories of demonic forces. Nothing thrills the heart like listening to stories of missionaries in Africa (which seems particularly rife with demonic activity) doing battle with the evil hoards.