Fundamentalists take a fairly pessimistic view of most things including their own spiritual condition. They tend to look down on those Christians who go to church to sing upbeat music and generally be happy, preferring rather to spend their time in and equal mixture of guilt and grief. Repenting of something each time you go to church is seen as indispensable to the worship experience.

Fundy preachers would claim that other churches without “hard preaching” are just buildings full of people with itching ears who waste a lot of time hearing about how God loves them, when the truth is that He’s actually pretty unhappy with them most of the time. The concept that the itch that some people like to have scratched could just as easily be a craving for a dose of artificial guilt that builds until release during an invitation would be dismissed as just plain crazy talk.

For fundamentalists not only is the glass half empty but it’s also filthy and needs to get right with God.