Category Archives: Preachers

Family, Preachers, Public Life

Bad Pay

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If you’ve ever made $ 11,000 per year working in a ministry, while supporting a wife, three children, and a dog and then had the senior pastor you work for tell you that taking government assistance wasn’t “trusting God”…you might have been a fundamentalist.

Fundamentalist churches are generally not full of professional, high-income members. Doctors, Lawyers, and other such folks are noticeably absent from the church rolls and their tithes are noticeably absent from the church budget. As a result of this lack of funds, these churches often rely on a workforce of very poorly paid employees to take care of the ministry. Woe unto you if you’ve spent six years in school to get a Masters Degree in Education at an unaccredited fundamentalist college. At the local fundy school (the only place you’re qualified to work) that effort will probably net you church staff housing, no insurance, and less pay than you might get working at the local McDonalds.

To compound this problem, — and for reasons more political than doctrinal — many fundamentalists are deathly opposed to welfare of any kind. The claim is that if the government is helping you then they get the credit instead of God getting the credit. The idea that maybe God uses the government to help folks sometimes has evidently never dawned on them.

This lack of funds combined with an inability to seek help from any other source (not to mention threats that leaving this glorious ministry will ruin God’s will for your life), combines to create a class of indentured servitude with people who are too literally too poor to escape the cycle. Add to this the bellowing of preachers who blast their lackeys for even daring to inquire about how much money a ministry position might pay and you end up with a very sad situation indeed.

It’s all fine and good to be told that slaving away for sub-minimum wages is laying up treasure in heaven. One has to wonder if it’s inconceivable that it might be possible to get both treasure in heaven and a decent dental plan down here on earth in the meantime.

People, Preachers

FWOTW: The Tony Hutson One-Liner Podcast

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The “lunatic fringe” of fundamentalism is never quite as far away from the “mainstream” as those who claim to be the mainstream would have you believe. Since guilt by association is a favorite game of many fundies, I’ll beg your indulgence while I try my own hand at it for a moment.

Consider Tony Hutson, son of former Sword of  the Lord editor Curtis Hutson. A few minutes spent listening to the Tony Hutson One-Liner Podcast will reveal a slew of crazy rants that attempt to pass for preaching. Don’t miss the story on apologetics that ends with a recounting of an alleged conversation where Curtis Hutson tells Tony “boy, you’re even more ignorant than your mama.” Um…amen?

Yet for all of this craziness, he still maintains close ties with Sword of the Lord. He has a listing at the top of their Tenessee Church Directory and routinely preaches at SOTL conferences. Meanwhile, the Sword of the Lord has grown increasingly close to none other than the “mainstream” fundamentalist organization Pensacola Christian College who from all accounts puts quite a sum of money into keeping the Sword afloat. To emphasize that tie, SOTL Editor Shelton Smith will be preaching at the PCC Campus Church from Jan. 18-22 of this month. There is no stronger endorsement in fundyland than letting a man fill your pulpit.

Hutson->Smith->PCC. Is there really a “mainstream” of fundamentalism when crazyland is never more than a hop skip and a jump away? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Preachers

Pastoral Authority

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If you’ve ever heard your pastor use the word’s “touch not the Lord’s anointed” to refer to…himself, you probably have been a fundamentalist.

It is the great irony of fundamentalism that after having decried the centralized control of the Roman church, fundamentalist churches each hasten to set up their own local pope who speaks to them ex cathedra on matters of Scriptural interpretation and practice. Based on the passages most often used to justify this dominance, one can only assume that the local church pastor fills the roles of prophet, priest, and king with a generous helping of apostle thrown in for good measure. Not bad for a position where the only entrance requirement is an invisible “call” to preach.

Since the fundy pastor says he will be called to “give an account” for the minutest details of the lives of those under his care, it only stands to reason that nothing is outside of his purview. Some of the more extreme will even say that since the authority of the church stands above the family, the pastor is responsible for the decisions made in each home down to where each child goes to school and whom they marry. Resist this “man-of-god” at your own peril; the pastor may not have she bears to do his bidding but he does have a deacon board.

Of course, most fundamentalists will tell you that we are all merely sinner saved by grace and that the ground at the foot of the cross is all equal. Some parts are just a bit more equal than others; and evidently some also come with a direct line to God’s will for everyone else’s life.

Preachers

Famous Fundies: Ron Comfort

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Right out of the bat we have too many SFL’s to count.

– Do you think they have enough American flags on the platform?

– We’re all familiar with the “table in the back.” Cash and checks accepted.

– Hey! My Life Was On Unshackled! How Cool Is That??

– Give to the building project! We only have 20 days! (What happens after that isn’t quite clear)

And that was just the warmup…