Odds and Ends

Fundyland Shutdown

165 Comments

Taking a cue from the recent headlines about the hardships caused by a partial government shutdown, today’s challenge is simply to complete this sentence:

Since the fundamentalist churches in my town shut down our community really misses ____________.

(Think hard)

165 thoughts on “Fundyland Shutdown”

  5. The food bank. Oh wait that was the Methodist church.
    The clothing drive. No that was the Lutherans.
    The wine-tasting event to benefit cancer research. Oops, that was the Episcopalians.
    I remember! The homeless soup kitchen. Nevermind, that was the Catholics.
    I guess it is just the waitresses at the diner. They tell me they miss the $2 tip and chick tract they get for the $65 tab.

      1. Too late. I already separated from you. Your name is like a nickname for someone who smokes the weed. Our bodies are supposed to be a temple for the Holy Spirit. Amen? Now pass me that fired chicken.

        1. I separated from Stony due to the name obviously being a reference to stony ground. Now, Scorpio I will have to separate from you since you missed this obvious glorification of sin.

          You are herby uninvited to my next preacher’s fellowship.

        2. Aren’t you guys separated from each other yet?
          You announce your separation about every other day.

        4. Aow – But I was going to bring the fried chicken and biscuits?

          BG – I will practice daily separation if it means living a holy and sanctified life.

        5. If you aren’t announcing your separation someone might misinterpret you as not being separated and stumble. I’m separating from the entire thread just to be safe. We’ll see if you reprobates straighten up!

    4. I remember getting a phone call when my first was four days old. It went like this, “Congrats on the new baby! Can your hubby come shovel the drive?”

      We’re taking it slow at the non denominational church we’re attending, but is night and day compared to the IFB. I love the fact that we can wear shorts and sandals. 😀

    6. Some Southern Baptist churches I’ve been to do sometimes things like run food banks, or clothing spots where people can get free clothing.

      I’m not saying I am totally on board with all things Southern Baptist, however. No offense to the Calvinists here, but I do not agree with Calvinism, and segments of the SB church are pushing Cal on to everyone.

      Also do not agree with SBs excluding older adults singles to focus on marriage and nuclear family, or the SB views on women (they are complementarians,I am not).

      But as I said, a few SB churches I’ve been to do at least do some good work in the communities they are in, visiting nursing homes, doing food drives etc.

      1. Not only that, but also, on the national level, the Southern Baptists are 2nd only to the Red Cross with disaster relief efforts for major disasters.
        Calvinism is a hotly debated subject in the convention right now. Mohler et al. are Calvinists, Patterson and the ones who agree with him are not. Some churches are, some aren’t, some are pretty neutral.
        Even though complimentarian is pretty much the “official” position of the denomination, a lot of churches / pastors / individuals disagree with that! Guess what I’m getting at is there’s a fair amount of diversity in the convention!

        1. Ahhhh yes the Calvinism debate. I’m sure it is well worth their time and will get the whole thing solved for us.

        2. My impression of the Calvinist debate is that we are fighting about the answers to the wrong questions, based upon wrong definitions.

          It seems to turn on the question of God’s Sovereignty. But what if the Calvinist definition was incorrect? Then the other questions would need to be reframed.

          We often spend too much time on issues and questions we have allowed others to make according to their own definitions and standards.

  6. ..knowing with absolute certainty just how sinful we all are.
    .. hiding in the kitchen and pretending to be out when the doorbell rings.
    ..all those folk going around talking in Tudor English.

  12. All of the most obnoxious people in the community being confined to one place for multiple hours a week, thus giving temporary relief to everyone else in the neighborhood.

  14. The KJV 1611 float in the 4th of July parade. We never did figure out who those jean skirt-clad, white skinned youngins were that appeared once a year to hand out tracts instead of candy. (Sorry grammar police, coffee is still brewing)

      1. No, he must be for real.

        I found a photo of a “King James Bible” float in a parade (the photo is way, way down the page, towards the bottom) here – click here to view
        The caption for the KJV float says,

        The Thoth “King James Bible” float. (UptownMessenger.com)

        😯

      2. Not kidding a bit. Briefly looked through my pics to find the evidence. Not sure I snapped one. If I find it I will gladly share!

  15. … the unsafe vehicles with untrained drivers and crew driving small children at high rates of speed down the highway.

    Remember its OK to speed to make sure to get to church somewhere close to 15 minutes after Sunday school was supposed to start. My old fundie church would pay speeding tickets.

    1. Many extreme fundamentalists will grant themselves a great deal of personal liberty in applying Acts 5:29 whenever the civil authorities get in the way of whatever it is they want to do.

  16. the drinking game we played while the incredibly bad sermons aired over the church’s AM radio broadcast.

    Take a drink every time the preacher says ….
    “wimminz libbers”
    “of the devil”
    “britches” (two drinks for “britches on women”)
    “lemonade-sippin'”
    “libruls”
    “I’m yore preacher”
    “long hair”
    “say Amen”
    “you young people”
    “anhegotsaved!” (all in one breath)
    Any reference to President Obama
    Any claim to spending at least one hour a day praying, reading Bible, or soul winning. If all three, Triple Crown: empty the bottle.

    2. The idea of an IFB sermon drinking game … boggles the mind. Fantastic! :mrgreen:

    3. You could have even more fun with that list, by combining things, like, “those wimmin libbers in their britches, drinkin their devilish lemonade!”
      😆

  20. Employment for pedophiles. Our church loved to give them second chances at the Christian school, on the church bus, as the church clown, youth pastors etc.

  22. youth group yard sales (full of church member yard sale leftovers) to fund the new auditorium screens

  23. Mr. Dow, concerning the hover text….this doesn’t actually look like an old church. It looks like a creapy KKK building maybe somewhere in a field in the deep south. I want to do a paranormal investigation here for jesusween

    1. Given the KKKonnections that some fundies had (have?), I think you both may be right. ❗

    2. According to Wikipedia (if you click the images), it’s an abandoned church somewhere in North Carolina (details on Wikipedia).

      1. Wikipedia does seem to get that information based on the photo title of a flickr user though, so I guess I can’t be certain of that either.

        1. I have two students I feel so sorry for. They both have the butt-length hair, but I sympathize more when they dress out for P.E. – in their long jean skirts. I remember sledding and roller-skating in skirts, so I know what it’s like.

      2. 🙂 The higher the hair the closer to God.
        Seriously, I knew a few ladies, when I was a kid, that I was amazed they could get through the church doors without scraping the tops of their “dos” on the frame. They must’ve been especially close to the Lord.

  26. The bigger question is… where did all the Fundies go?

    Did we miss the Rapture?!

  27. Ephesians 4:29-32: Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

    2. LTJ – I think you miss the context of this verse. Paul was writing to the church at Ephesus about how to deal with each other (i.e. other believers). It is quite obvious that fundies have taken the biblical gospel and added so many man-made rules that it has become a different gospel (as Paul warned against). Fundies themselves will tell you that your gospel is not the same as theirs, but they come from premise that you are wrong and they are right. Therefore, all bets are off when it comes to lampooning them.

    4. Looking to Jesus–this question is actually quite legit. Every church should ask this question–if their doors were to close what would the community miss. And the sad fact is, the IFB is so busy telling people they are going to hell, they are not making a difference in the lives of the community.

      1. This made me think about my church, actually. If my Catholic parish closed, the community would lose its food bank, thrift store, and annual free Thanksgiving dinner. And that is just a start.

        1. Catholic church: Thrift store.

          ELCA church: Preschool.

          Non-IF Baptist church: Food bank and TEFAP distribution center, and the local summer camp.

          Salvation Army: Other food bank, and free coffee and donuts at the spring community festival.

          Our half-dozen or so mutually vituperative IFB congregations: Um . . . the tracts that the church kids have to pass out at all community festivals that promptly end up trodden into the mud?

        3. Forgot to toot my congregation’s horn. The Episcopal congregation is small, old, and poor, so we use our uncrowded facility that was built for a formerly large congregation to serve the community. We rent the parish hall every night of the week to local non-profits who can’t afford to pay much; we used to ask for freewill donations, but now we have to charge the cost of electricity and heat, which is still way less than anyone else charges–even other churches. We also have a rectory that was built for a large resident family and now houses visiting semi-retirees. We use to just informally put people up there who were between places to stay, but we just got funding to convert the downstairs into an apartment and get on the official low-cost housing list.

          And we provide sandwiches and warm socks to the homeless shelter and food to the women’s shelter and the Baptist food bank. We grow some of the food on the lawn where the rector’s kids used to play.

          But we are so lukewarm and worldly because we pray pre-written prayers and don’t fuss at people for missing services now and then. 🙄

        4. Jenny, your parish sounds a lot like mine. Used to be a large parish, but we got steeplejacked. We’re bouncing back though, and have more outreach going than the unaffiliated (IFB perhaps?) Baptist church the next block over. And they’re three times our size.

        5. We didn’t get steeplejacked, I’m happy to say; it’s just that we live in a small, isolated community and many of the founding members were military (hence transferred) or have now retired from civilian jobs (and moved somewhere cheaper). And our one effective outreach program is a class for people interested in theology, so we don’t get new folks in droves and scads. We are growing slowly once more. I restarted the Sunday school program, which has helped.

        6. Luitgard: What does “Steeplejacked” mean? I don’t come across that word everyday. By the way you use it, it sounds similar to ‘blindsided’ or of that nature, correct?

        9. Steeplejacking is where your church gets motivated and energetic new members/leaders . . . who are motivated to energetically take your church plant away from you and drive out all of the current parishioners who won’t toe the new line. Not that they’ll say that that’s what they’re trying to do at first.

        10. Or the smaller older congregation will decide to help out a younger church by letting them use the church plant and the next thing they know they are barred from the property.

      2. “..the IFB is so busy telling people they are going to hell…”

        It’s like they are travel agents…….

        IFB: OK almost done with your itinerary.
        Traveler: I am so exited. It is so nice to have someone make all the arrangements for me.
        IFB: Amen. Now just a few questions and we will be done.
        Traveler: OK.
        IFB: Do you go to church now?
        Traveler: I usually go on Easter, Christmas. You know, the big days.
        IFB: I see. And when you go, what church do you go to?
        Traveler: St. Mark’s.
        IFB: Catholic, mmmm.
        Traveler: Is there a problem?
        IFB: Not for me. But you want to make sure you pack your SPF 64,000,000,000,000 lotion.

    5. Dear LtJ:
      Reading the thread I was thinking that what I’d really miss would be that all-pervasive feeling of guilt, that I must have done something wrong. You reminded me of the great ability of fundys to create false guilt. Thanks for the reminder.
      Sincerely,
      BJG

  29. Gawking at all the fundy women out and about rocking those ankle length denim skirts. Especially the ones rebellious enough to not sew or pin the slits up 😆

  30. Ahh…nice fantasy. That’s how they keep their sheeple – no let up of weekly events – come blizzard or hurricane – or else paralyzing guilt sets in and many subsequent trips to the alter.

    1. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up a bit. My old church cancelled church. Once. For a hurricane. (it was in Florida) But other than that they were very proud to say that they had not ever cancelled [their four] services [plus visitation] every week. 🙄

      I don’t know how I stayed so long doing that.

  32. …that humble guy who would stop in the middle of a thunderstorm to change someone’s tire.

    …the group of ladies who would make weeks worth of food for the new mother.

    …that man who would go to the nursing homes and spend some time just hanging out with some very lonely people.

    …the kid who mowed the neighbor’s yard just to be kind.

    1. Ah, yes, my other favorite thing about fundies: the unshakeable belief that no one but them ever does anything kind. Although they don’t know anyone but each other, so they’re just relying on what the preacher always says.

      1. I’m sorry. Did I say that no one else ever does these kinds of things? However, to think that the only thing that fundamentalist churches bring to a community is negativity is completely wrong.

        I realize a favorite thing to do here is to bash everything “fundamentalist”, but all that does is reveal the one throwing the rocks to be a fundamentalist of a different sort.

        1. Just my experience…..did the fundys I know do those things you listed? Absolutely. Sometimes those things were done only as a means to witness to the folks they were helping by giving them a tract. They weren’t doing it just to be kind. And that is the thing lost on some fundies….doing nice things for people just to help them can be a witness in and of itself.
          But I think what Hth was getting at (or least what I read into the comment) was when the pastor praises himself for the kind thing(s) he did to help someone and then berate us for not doing likewise. And the weekly rant that no one outside of the church would ever help anyone because they are all miserable and selfish.
          Again, just my experience.

        2. When I was shot years ago, only 2 of my colleagues came to visit me more than once in hospital. The one was the General Manager, who was a “friendly” atheist. The other was a Muslim. The Christian guys, even friends, with the exception of our minister and one other chap, came by once, briefly.

        3. Weird… that’s something I found once I got out of my fundy church and more into the world– Muslims (as a whole) are generally nice people. I mean I know every crowd has exceptions to that, but the ones I have met all seem to genuinely care about me with little ulterior motives.

        4. Klasie, when my youngest was just an infant, I had to have emergency surgery, and suddenly my (then) husband was stuck with three children, wife in the hospital, no child care, etc. We had no savings and he had no accrued leave. He called our church, they told him too bad, that’s what family is for. We lived 3 hours away from our families. So he called my mom to see if she could come down. She was in the middle of exams and couldn’t, and we she heard what the church told him, she blew her stack. So she called our church. I don’t know what she said to them, but they turned around and called him back and said that they found a college student to help out for ‘a couple of days’. (There was a definite note of ‘don’t ever ask us to help again’.) But no one- ***NO ONE*** came to visit me in the hospital, or at home when I was released. Come to think of it, until I started attending my local parish here, no one ever visited me when I was ill or in the hospital since my oldest was born. And I’d almost died then.

          I don’t get it. I go to the hospital, I go and wash someone’s dishes or do some laundry, pick up their kids from school. Am I some sort of mutant?

      2. I’ve been proselytized, lectured, shouted at, and verbally consigned to Hell by plenty of fundies. One fundie actually befriended my husband at work, got to talking to him . . . and then handed him a tract in which the words “friend” and “damned” appeared in the same paragraph. One of these days I have to scan the thing and send it to Darrell.

        I’ve never had a just plain friend who was a fundamentalist, except for my brother, bless his heart, who drifted into it later in life.

    2. Just so long as those people are fellow fundamentalists. Otherwise the only thing we can do for them is walk them down the Romans Road.

    3. Most of what you have listed are things individuals did….and I know lots of very nice fundamentalists.
      I would ask does the group of ladies who makes food for the new mom do it for anyone in the community or just church people?

      You see that is part of the issue–we all can individually and should individually do kind things for the folks around us. But many fundy communities I’ve experienced–kindness to the poor was either a liberal thing or accompanied by the poor having to attend their services first.

      2. This. None of the mainstream churches in town have ever demanded church attendance or signed pledges of doctrinal purity in return for help. But if you so much as send your child to IFB VBS, she comes home “saved.”* And if they provide any aid whatsoever to non-members, I’ve never heard of it.

        *1. We wishy-washy mainstream types often call this “sheep rustling,” and we don’t do it because it’s nasty.
        2. A minor child induced to do something that the people inducing her to do it believe has eternal spiritual consequences, without the consent of the parents. I can’t continue this paragraph without going capslock or possibly cussing.

        1. Wow, Jenny. I hadn’t quite looked at it that way before. That is an important viewpoint.

          They would be absolutely livid if, say, the Episcopal Church baptized their children by sprinkling — and without their (the Parents’) permission!

          Yet they willingly usurp parental authority, not just teaching Sunday School stories to the children, but actively pressuring them to make “spiritual decision.”

        2. ONE time I let my son (10 or so at the time) go to VBS with our neighbor friend. I believed in my kids being exposed to the world outside our Lutheran understanding. Until he (and other kids in the neighborhood) came home talking about participating in altar calls and being “saved.” From then on, he could spend the night with said friend, but had to come home on Sunday morning and could not go to church with them. That made me sad, but I was infuriated that they would deign to interfere in my parental rights like that.

      3. Leanne, you raised a good point.

        I don’t come from an IFB background but talked to them quite a bit on the internet many years ago. I come from a Southern Baptist background.

        I find it frustrating that -in my experience anyhow – that while many Christians are pretty good about helping Non Christians (such as donating money to orphans in India, or handing out sandwiches to homeless men under inner city bridges), they are oddly unloving and unwilling to help fellow hurting Christians who might even attend the same church with them every week.

        After a very traumatic thing happened to me a few years ago, and I turned to different Christians (some at a local SB church, some extended family) for encouragement and help, I was either brushed off or was given cliches, platitudes, or criticism.

        None of these people that I am aware were IFBs – mostly SBs, and a few Charismatic/ Pentecostals.

        One reason I am rather antagonistic towards the Christian faith (after having been a very committed Christian since I was a kid) was experiencing this very thing.

        Some types of Christians can be all helpful and loving to people they do not even know (such as homeless people – which is fine), but they can also be very cold and harsh towards fellow Christians who are in a time of need or tribulation.

        I have also seen or experienced a Christian or two who were being helpful to me, at least a little bit, not because they cared about my feelings, but they viewed helping me as being a Christian duty. And that also made me feel crummy.

        1. “I have also seen or experienced a Christian or two who were being helpful to me, at least a little bit, not because they cared about my feelings, but they viewed helping me as being a Christian duty. And that also made me feel crummy.”

          And they clearly weren’t doing it out of love- either for you, or for God. So why were they doing it? I don’t think that whoever keeps God’s books is going to put that on the right side of their balance sheet…

          Their Christian duty is to love. And real love results in actions. But actions without love are worthless.

        2. I am so sorry you have had this experience with the church. People can tell when we have conditions on our generosity, our hospitality, etc.

          God help us.

        3. As a Catholic friend likes to the poor and needy is a privilege. If it stops feeling like a privilege to you, you should find some other way to serve God’s Kingdom.

        4. Dang, the server ate some of that comment. Trying again:

          As a Catholic friend likes to say, serving the poor and needy is a privilege. If it stops feeling like a privilege to you, you should find some other way to work for God’s Kingdom.

        5. My sister no longer considers herself a Christian as a result of this same sort of thing. “Help” given was almost always accompanied by some sort of personal judgment. And usually, help did not come.

          When she divorced her husband because of his abuse, her church embraced her husband and snubbed her. The women were the worst, almost as if they were afraid she would be going after their husbands!

          I am pretty sure that people who are kind inside fundyville would be kind outside of it. And people who aren’t kind outside of fundyville would not become any kinder inside.

    4. the idea that these would stop if the fundy churches closed is one of the big problems with fundamentalism

    5. When my now four year old son was born, he had cleft palate. We were in and out of hospital a lot that first year because he had feeding difficulties. I had never felt more alone. The nurses said, why aren’t you getting visitors? I thought you went to a church?

      It was the first time I realised that my fundy church might have a nice facade, but that’s all it was. A facade. It took another two or three years before it hit the fan and my church was actually attacking me and I left, but the seeds were sown.

      1. Sometimes people on the outside (in this case, the nurses) have a better perspective on what’s happening than we have ourselves.

  34. I would miss the tracts left in my door telling me I need Jesus. I would miss the tracts left in the bathroom stalls–its not littering if its about Jesus.
    The judgmental glance I have gotten when someone tries to witness to me and I state I am the pastor at the local Methodist church and I believe I will be in heaven if I die today.

    And this is a question I often ask the churches I’ve served…if we closed what would our community miss–our fundraising dinners or the love shared with the community through our serving the poor, our relationships with our neighbor?

  35. The fundamentalist church is my town did shut down a number of years ago, mostly due to the fact that it was a church plant that never really grew to much more than just the pastor’s family.

    However, because of today’s post I decided to take a look and see if I could find out what happened to the pastor of that little church.

    It seems he’s emerged elsewhere, and for your viewing enjoyment, this is what I found:

  36. Interesting that the closing of the church would cause kind acts to stop – speaks to the motivation for the acts in the first place.

  37. Everyone is missing the obvious here: church splits.
    Whenever a fundy church shuts down (at least in the South) the result is usually at least two smaller fundy churches who hate each other’s guts but are virtually the same.

    If all the fundy churches shut down the result will be more fundy churches, not fewer. It is the paradox of fundamentalism.

    1. I see my former fundy church disolving; not because af a problem with another fundy church (they don’t associate with anyone outside of FBFI circles), but because the moG will drive enough people away that they won’t be able to pay the mortgage or his salary.

      He will then proclaim himself to be a modern Job.

      And the delusion continues.

    2. It’s like the mops in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”: Every time one splits, you end up with two of them.

      1. A doctor friend of mine, who happened to be Quaker, told me that many years back, when he was in Baptist seminary, a professor told him that Baptists are like alley cats. You see them around in the neighborhood, and and night you hear them fighting, and screeching, and YOOOOWLING, and you think surely they’re killing each other. In the morning you go looking for survivors, and you find that it’s not that there are *fewer* cats now… no, actually, there are *more*…

    3. There is a church in Tennessee that I passed going to a friend’s house it was the Independent Fundamentalist KJV only, pre tribulation rapture, free will, eternal security Baptist church. My friend and I joked every time they split from another church they simply added to their name the doctrine they split over.

  38. The wonderfully inspiring movable-letter sign messages–complete with misspellings, random apostrophes, and meaningless quotation marks. (Yes, this feels like a low blow, but there is enough truth here to justify it, I think.)

    COME WHORSHIP “WITH US” THIS SUN. A1L DAY “SINGIN AN DINNER” ON TH3 GROWNDS’. (FREE PACK OF “BAZOOKA JOE” TO EVREY KID BRANGING FORTH A KJV BIBLE) HAVE YOU MEET “JESUS”? “PRAY” FOR THE U5A TOO REPANT BEF ORE ITS’ “2 L8”

  43. … snowcones for the kids during Vacation Bible School — along with the free babysitting during that period of time.

    … the free babysitting on Wednesday nights when the bus would come around to pick up their child for AWANA and Kids For Truth.

    1. ^^ love it! There is a fundie church that drives 40 miles to our city to stand at the same intersection every week and “street preach” to cars with their windows rolled up.

      1. I always enjoyed the brownies that one flower child religion offered on the streets of Pittsburgh myself.

        2. I don’t like “Imagine.” I love to imagine a place of joy and peace and harmony, but not the world Lennon envisions. I do want God, not an empty sky above me. And honestly, while I do want to share with those in need, I happen to like my possessions and I imagine most of the people who sing that song like their belongings too.

        3. I don’t agree with every aspect of the song. In fact, in almost every way the song is unrealistic.

          But I like the ideas about not judging people, working to meet needs, and not being greedy. I like the idea that belief (or nonbelief) in God should not be an excuse for war or hatred or prejudice.

          Grief! I mean, with so many people saying they just believe the Bible, and then have so many dramatically different points of view about it! So many contrary doctrines!

          And what is worse is that the more loudly someone seems to proclaim their faith and the need for others to believe the way they do, the more corrupt they turn out to be.

          In coming out of Fundamentalism, I am having to do some very hard rethinking of my beliefs. And one thing that really doesn’t make much sense to me is a God who would judge others for not believing a message He does not ensure is given clearly and backed up by believable action.

          If someone tried to sell you a laundry product and when you saw that those who used it had filthier clothes than other people, would you take it anyway “on faith”? So why should people believe the Gospel from people who act in bad faith?

          John Lennon’s problem with Christianity wasn’t a hatred for God. It was that the so-called “people of God” didn’t live their hype.

          And frankly, if God is supposed to be “in control,” then the things he “allows” to happen in this world do not speak well of Him.

          Oh, I still believe. I cannot bring myself to not believe. But belief with so much contrary evidence does not make me happy. I know the Scriptures, and I am struggling as an IFB “survivor.” Far be it from me to criticize Lennon for his song.

        1. I loved the parody. I have to admit it. Imagine all the people driving like they had a brain!

          But I have to say that the fundy experience short-circuited my humor circuits. Some things I will find humorous later, after I have worked through the hurt and anger.

          And no, I cannot forgive them — yet. I don’t think it is right to “forgive” them and be at peace with them hurting others. I will never forget, either.

          So please forgive my inability to be properly amused. I will work on it.

        2. rtgmath,

          “So please forgive my inability to be properly amused. I will work on it.”

          You don’t need to be forgiven. I read through your lengthy post and find that I’m working through much that you have been able to aptly put into words. Thanks for sharing.

          When I read, “John Lennon’s problem with Christianity wasn’t a hatred for God. It was that the so-called “people of God” didn’t live their hype” I immediately thought of the book “I fired God.” I somehow managed to read through it and came to the same conclusion regarding Zichterman’s choice of her title as in your assessment of Lennon’s viewpoint. Fundamentalism’s god is not the God of the Bible.

        3. Parody that is not irreverent of the original is not usually funny.

          I have no issues with idealism, and I understand the sentiment that created the Lennon song, I just think its a classic throw the baby out with the bathwater scenario (hows that for a trigger phrase)

          Not all of God’s people (or Allah’s people, or Buddha’s people) are evil and not all of them exhibit the best traits that reflect the ideals of their sacred writings. They are all human. The only real way for humans to rid the world of evil is to rid it of humans. That’s a cynical perspective, but it is also one that has its roots in scripture. That is why our identity has to be found in Christ and his righteousness. The acceptance of that inability is the core of the gospel, and it results not in nihilism but in hope.

          When considered seriously Lennon’s hope has always struck me as being empty. “Imagine a great unified ball of Nothingness” – yep, not comforting to me at all. Why don’t we just go ahead and start the nuclear apocalypse now and get it over with.

  47. I can honestly say that the church I used to attend would be missed.

    1. There would be homeless people who would go without food and warm clothing.
    2. The food bank would shut down.
    3. Financially disadvantaged people would have one less place to turn for help with their utility bills.

    There are other support systems — food banks and homeless shelters — in my city, but Lord knows we need every one we have.

    1. Ah, which means it’s not a Real True Gospel Preachin’ Pulpit Poundin’ KJV1611OnlyForeverandever FUNDY Church! Everybody knows that Real True Xtian Churches don’t deal with no namby-pamby liberalpinkocommie stuff like Feeding the Undeserving Hungry! 😈 🙄

    2. Do they demand attendance at services or a profession of faith of some kind? If they don’t–wow. That’s awesome.

  49. …a place to meet men “struggling with same sex attraction”.

    Don’t pretend you don’t know it happens.

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