If you’ve ever heard an entire point of a sermon based on playing six seconds of a rock and roll records backwards, you have probably been a fundamentalist. Fundies are convinced that demonic messages are being secretly coded into…just about everything.
In the 1980’s various fundamentalists became convinced that subliminal messages were being hidden in rock music songs via “backmasking.” This inevitably led to a rush on pastors and youth leaders buying up record players that could play backwards, for use as sermon illustrations.
Of course, other than a few publicity stunts nobody has actually ever proved that there is backmasking in songs, nor that recording messages backwards into music has any effect on the listeners. Fundamentalists, however, are so convinced of the truth that they don’t allow themselves to be confused by the facts.
They also bear the dubious distinction of being the only people who have ever spent more time listening to rock music in played in reverse than played forward.
Ever since the days when rock and roll music first made it onto vinyl records, certain fundamentalists have been holding record burning services for their teens. This tends to work out well for for the record companies since the teens who are burning their records (or eight-tracks or tapes or CDs) will be back at the store buying new copies in not too long.
Of course, it’s not just music that meets a fiery end at these meetings. Everything from mini-skirts to Cabbage Patch dolls are a potential target for immolation. Only the heat of a church bonfire can serve to scour the earth of evil as great as this. Not to mention that it’s fun to get a bunch of teens together and play with matches.
As time has passed, technology has made it harder to get in a good old-fashioned music burning. Getting a group of teens together to delete music off their iPods just lacks some of the visual effect.
On the upside, there’s a decline in youth groups that get carried away and think that burning their drugs in a public bonfire is a good idea as well…
A silly blog dedicated to Independent Fundamental Baptists, their standards, their beliefs, and their craziness.