86 thoughts on “Illustrations”

    1. Missed it by thatmuch! Jason, you better look both ways while walking down the street…I’m coming for your butt cushion, brother!

    2. From the style (and the car in the one pic), I’d guess 1920s or early 1930s.

      Except for the style, all things you’d see or hear in Fundagelicalism today, some 90 years later. Laments about falling away from the Faith, today as contrasted (indirectly) with the Godly Good Old Days (which from the vintage were probably the Victorian Era instead of the 1950s).

  4. I love the second one. After worship Christ make sure to give honor and respect to his main 2 peons. Washington and Lincoln. Respectable men yes. Same level as Christ. Not Close.

    2. That one didn’t bother me – seems to make a valid point (for Americans). We respect Washington and Lincoln (well, some do), but we worship Jesus Christ.

      1. Speak for yourself. Most people on this board dislike Washington and Lincoln and we eye Obama with a great, great deal of suspicion because he’s too conservative for us.

        1. Er, would you please explain to me how Lincoln did not end slavery in the United States? Perhaps I don’t understand your country’s history right.

  5. I invited a fundy to church with me at the Lutheran church. The music was beautiful, and everything was saturated with Scriptural references; however, my friend couldn’t get past the notion that this was dead liturgical worship. Preconceived notions just filtered out reality. To that person I represented a carnal Christian and perhaps an unsaved individual. There was no way of penetrating the wall, and I gave up on that individual, and our friendship finally dissolved into nothing.

    1. That’s sad that your friend couldn’t get passed his attitudes towards confessional Lutheranism.

      I find church history fascinating especially finding out where these attitudes, like that of your friend, come from. Daniel VanVoorhis has some great lectures on the topic at faithcapo.com.

    2. do they not understand that “opening prayer, 3 songs, sermon, altar call” is just as liturgical (although nowhere near as fun)?

      1. You’re missing the 2 song specials, announcements and the most important part of fundy service, collecting of the tithes.

      2. We had stiffness without beauty, lack of creativity with lack of pageantry, repetition without winsomeness.

        1. That’s a great (and eminently quotable) description of worship as it is in many evangelical churches.

      3. Amen! According to ex-fundy David Currie, some 26% of the average Catholic Sunday Mass consists of Scripture. And that’s just the readings. The liturgy also incorporates tons of Scripture.

        BTW, I kind of chuckled over “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” Of course that’s straight from the Bible…but it’s also the core of the Jesus Prayer, which Eastern Christians recite with the aid of a prayer rope (chotki). I bet the person who created that cartoon would have conniptions if you handed him a chotki and recommended that he pray the Jesus Prayer unceasingly….

        1. It’s also part of the Catholic Rite of Reconciliation (Confession): “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned …”

    3. You would think that a prescribed order of worship that includes a minimum of five new Scripture passages every Sunday* plus recitation of a core set of Bible passages at every service would be honey to a fundamentalist’s heart. Aren’t they supposed to be the most Biblical of Christians?

      *Two Psalms, Old Testament, Epistle/Acts, Gospel. My Lutheran prayer book takes me through the entire Psalter in a month and changes the other three readings every single day, plus providing me with an extract from a sermon to mull over–every single day.

      1. Unfortunately the only way it would be honey to their heart is if they were in dispair over their sin and the prescriptions their fundamentalist pastor and friends are giving them aren’t cutting it. They’re stuck on the hamster wheel of “do this and live” getting nowhere and can’t hear Christ telling them it’s been done for them. They really don’t know the difference between law and gospel.

      2. For all the talk about Scripture, fundamentalism is fatally steeped in pietism. Fundamentalists want someone to tell them that they are awful, but that if they try hard enough, they can “kill” sin. For all their talk against Catholics, fundamentalism is the most works-based righteousness strain of Christianity I have encountered.

    4. Dear BobH:

      This observation may lead to the formation of a new Fundy Rule:

      ‘Less Scripture makes worship more spiritual.’

  6. With regards to the illustration with Washington and Linclon, I had occassion to turn the tables at my old IFBX church. When I was in the MOG’s office being asked to not return to “his” Christian school after making snide comments about his honorary doctorate, I asked him how – in light of Exodus 20:4 – he could justify having a bust of Bob Jones Sr on his credenza. He almost blew a gasket. If they weren’t throwing me out after my my comments regarding his doctorate, they were certain going to after that. I am so glad my Dad was there so things didn’t get out of hand. (Yes, I really was that much of smart-ass at 16.)

    3. Dear Bro Bluto:

      Apparently, we were twins, separated at birth.

      Your comment epitomizes perfectly why I left Snob Clones Perversity.

      Christian Socialist

    1. Well, that was offensive to me as a Christian and as a non-American. The tank on the clouds of heaven and the rather excessive labels are bad enough, but Jesus saluting a man, no matter how great? And NOT being saluted back, at minimum?! Heaven flying an American flag? An Israeli flag MIGHT make SLIGHTLY more sense, but not much. My mind’s kinda blown!

      On another note, what’s up with the grateful Arab? He looks like an overweight torso shoved into a too-small electrical plug. And there should be an Arab woman with her veil on the ground behind her 🙂

        1. I did notice it was the Onion, but I may have forgotten it was satire temporarily 😳 Don’t worry, I’m not so very offended 😉 But the concept exists, and you know there’s someone out there that believes just like that. Poe’s law makes the line between satire and reality disturbingly thin, and I find this comic disturbingly realistic.

      2. Dear Janet:

        That expresses what I’ve said for years about American civil religion. Go Onion!

        Christian Socialist

  9. Bro Bluto. Great minds think alike. When our MOG brought in his friend (with a honorary doctorate) to teach at “his” Bible college, he was so very proud of him. “Dr Ward this, Dr. Ward that, blah, blah, blah…” from the pulpit. In front of the MOG and his friends, I asked this “doctor” what he did his dissertation on, there was a very long, awkward silence, then he said, well, its a honorary doctorate. My response was “oh then its not a real one then”. There was an even longer silence. Fortunately, I had just graduated high school from there so they could not do anything to me. Needless to say I got into ALLOT of trouble in high school for asking questions…

    1. You and me both. They taught us to question everything EXCEPT that which proceeds out of the mouth of the MOG…

    2. I would assert that an honorary doctorate is “real”

      While I deplore the practice of handing out honorary doctorates too freely, I don’t have a problem with a Bible college honoring a pastor who has been faithful to a church for, say, 15 years, or 30 years.

      2. I have no problem with honoring someone either…my problem is when the honoree (and his cronies) start addressing him as “Dr”. That is an insult to the individuals who actually put in the time/effort to legitimently earn a degree.

        1. I think some of the church folks do it innocently, perhaps because of their ignorance of academia. (I’ve been in churches where anyone with a college degree was rare.)

          But, yes, a gracious, humble pastor, in my mind, would never demand others address him with an honorary honorific.

        2. PW – I think that there is another side to it as well. I have often thought that the “giver” of the honorary degree does it not so much to legitimately recognize someone’s service, but rather to curry favor with that individual. Our MOG was BJU through-and-through, but once Hyles bestowed an honorary doctorate on him, our youth group was suddenly travelling to Hammond every summer for their youth conferences. I also think that, due to the size of our church at that time (+/-1,200), Hyles wanted us to associate with him and send students to HAC. But a noted fundy like St Jack would never be that Machiavellian, would he?

        3. PW – It brings to mind a man I know who is a well-respected speaker and elder of his church (they don’t have a single pastor). He’s a medical doctor and deserves in every way to be honored with that title–yet he prefers to be simply called “Mister” (to the point of asking that he not be introduced as “Doctor” if he’s speaking elsewhere).

          If only some of the honorary doctors of the IFB would show such humility…

      3. An honorary doctorate is real in that it does exist.
        But it’s not a real degree in the same sense that a degree for which the recipient met rigorous academic requirements and accomplished some scholarly achievement is real.

        A doctorate is not, or at least should not be, the equivalent of a 20-year service pin. And I still don’t know what that horse did to deserve an honorary doctorate from Jack Hyles.

        1. I don’t know what he did to derserve it either, but – if fundy urban legends are to be believed – he showed what he thought of it immediately afterwards…all over the dias.

        2. Probably the same thing another horse did to receive a seat on the Roman Senate from Gaius Caesar Caligula.

        3. We’ve mentioned that parallel here before. It would be interesting to know if Jack Hyles was aware of it and was consciously imitating Caligula …

  11. I feel like I’ve seen these somewhere before.

    There’s not many things Fundies like more than a huge dose of guilt tripping in their literature. 🙄

    I always remember the admonishment from our MOG to ALWAYS be at church…even during your one and only vacation away.

  12. The Path of Education leads straight to a cave full of Disbelief in God. Is this saying that those who believe in God are uneducated? I am confused.

  13. I wonder if the artist knew that Uncle Sam is unlikely to walk the aisle due to his not being a real person.

  14. I am quite certain that scientists do not worship statues of monkeys.
    Nice proof texting though.

    1. Maybe scientists don’t worship statues of monkeys, but most of us on this board do worship at least the idea of evolution and think the whole creation myth is just silly and just one more reason Christianity is an embarrassment to America and scholarly thought everywhere.

      3. I’m curious three. Where’d you get that idea?

        Christian Socialist

        PS: Some Americans worship America. Is that OK?

  15. Religion without ceremony? The IFB and other anti-Liturgical churches have their own ceremonial liturgies; they just don’t call them that because that would make them “empty ritual” and “vain repetition as the heathen” instead of totally spontaneous experiences that just happen to be pretty much the same from week to week. Of course, no two are exactly alike, which proves they aren’t all copying some dead religion. Here’s a pretty good example, although IFB congregations, being emphatically NOT charismatically inclined, would of course omit the cacophony, and each congregation would make any other other adjustments needed to suit the preacher’s taste or “the way we’ve always done things.”

    http://www.the-highway.com/fellowship.html

    1. Isn’t Judaism a religion with many ceremonies? Wasn’t Jesus a Jewish Rabbi who practiced Judaism? (trying to separate the ethnicity from the religion)
      That whole “education leads to not believing in God” seems to apply even when becoming educated about God 😕

    3. Dear Papa Bear:

      ‘The IFB and other anti-Liturgical churches have their own ceremonial liturgies…

      A-HA!

      And here’s another one …

      No creed but Christ,
      No book but the Bible,
      No law but Love.

      Trouble is, I’ve heard that everywhere from Gulfport Mississippi to to Timmins, Ontario. Which means that said ditty is a creed. Personally, I find the Three Forms of Unity, the Westminster Standards, the Augsburg Confession, Luther’s Catechism, etc. to provide more help on issues of faith and practice.

      To a large degree, the IFB movement is concerns disenfranchising other believers by discrediting their churches thereby broadening their marketing opportunities for the enrichment of IFB churches.

      Christian Socialist

  16. Went to the web site – some of them seem good; they seem to have been done in the 1930s to 1950s.

  17. Giving credit where credit is due, the artwork in the posted drawings is GORGEOUS. I love old timey print illustrations!

    1. I like the nicely-rendered drawings in several of these cartoons. If only I could ignore their texts!

  18. Went to the website. I like some of the cartoons; there’s even one that shows to trust in what Christ has done for you instead of what you can do yourself! Of course, some of the others, including the ones Darrel picked, well…

  19. I keep cracking up every time I read that list in the last image: “golf, movies, base-ball, dancing, picnics, etc.” It’s the “etc.” that kills me. It’s like, oh my, my schedule this Sunday is just SO FULL of golf and movies and dancing and picnics (plural), I can’t even fit everything in, I have to put “etc.” instead.

    1. A certain Well Known Evangelist was waxing hot and heavy one time “we don’t HAVE the Lord’s Day Any MORE! It’s not a day for CHURCH, it’s a DAY for FUN! It’s FUNday, Not SUNday” and all the usual suspects of course said Ay-Men! Those of us who remembered that Amen is translated “so be it” got a snicker out of that (quick giggle before we got The Look from our parents).

    2. My friends and I have managed to pull off many a picnic, soccer game, and the occasional dance after church on Sunday. Is there no hope for us? :mrgreen:

      1. Never!!! Dontcha know that Sunday is for going to church, eating large afternoon meals, and napping? Somehow napping in front of a football game is OK, but PLAYING a football game is EEEEEvil.

      2. Haven’t you read your Little House In The Big Woods? Sunday is for sitting round being bored out of your heads, nothing else! 😡 😛

        1. I remember the story that Pa told I think about HIS grandpa sneaking out on a Sunday and going on a toboggan ride and running into a pig!

      1. I grew up in a familiar that was very strict about “Keeping The Sabbath.” Sunday was a terrible way to spend one-seventh of your life. 🙁

  20. These crack me up. This is nothing but marketing papers for the fundy religion. Yes a religion with religious ceremonies,traditions and everything else characteristic of every other religion plaguing humanity.

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