The Bible is ostensibly the fundamentalists authority for all matters of faith, practice, and flatware. As a result, the adjective “biblical” gets applied to anything and everything that the fundy does. There is biblical soul-winning, biblical courtship, biblical dress codes, biblical counseling, biblical dentistry, and so on.
The proverbial fly in the soup is, of course, that very few of these things are actually found explicitly or implicitly commanded to be done in fundy style anywhere in the actual Bible. Nobody would be more surprised than the prophets and apostles to learn that they had unwittingly given explicit instructions for how long a man’s hair is allowed to grow or the types of instruments allowed to play in a church service.
One is left to suppose that requiring actual Bible passages and exegesis to support arbitrary standards is something that is decidedly not biblical. And then one’s head explodes.
A favorite of mine is “The Biblical Principle of Neatness”. This seems to be the principle that mandates comb-overs and tucked in shirttails.
Neatness is next to Godliness + but only in a Fundy dictionary.
I’m still looking for a auto mechanic with only a Bible as a reference in the garage and a “history of the ages” chart on the wall for quick reference. 😉
Seriously, the principles and standards that I have heard derived from the Bible are hard to believe.
I have developed a quick way to analyze these:
The length of logic, amount of “Biblical analysis”, or number of falicious arguments is inversely proportional to the integrity of the standard or principle.
“Thou shall not lie.” has high integrity.
King James Bible (KJB inspired) principle has low integrity.
I never thought of it that way, but it is true. With all these “biblical” mandates one is left to wonder.
When all else fails theres always the word “principle” that can be thrown out there
Actually, Christians in general have done this by trying to make everything “Christian”. For example, rather than actually going out and interacting w/ the culture, we have our own “Christian” culture. And it’s very Biblical, too. 😉
“One is left to suppose that requiring actual Bible passages and exegesis to support arbitrary standards is something that is decidedly not biblical.”
Ha, that made me laugh out loud. This is so true. They come up with an idea that isn’t so bad, but eventually make it a dogma worthy of core doctrine. It is scary how it works and even scarier when you realize how serious they take these new “commandments.”
I think this is one of the site’s finest posts because it is really the heart of our issue with fundy doctrine. They LOVE to conflate their specific, narrow reading of a passage with “God’s way”.
I heard that Bob Jones is now calling churches in the area that they approve of as “Biblically obedient”. *shakes head* Thus churches that use music BJU doesn’t like are Biblically disobedient? That’s a rather presumptuous and arrogant position to take.
Fundamentalists can PREFER stuff all they like, but that’s never enough for them. Instead they must always claim that THEY have the BIBLICAL position and anyone else is inferior, unbiblical, and wrong. The self-righteous pride in their assumptions of Biblical superiority is obvious to everyone but them.
They keep that up and they will have to drop the “Independent” and just be Fundamental Baptists 😕
Idk, they are pretty independent of the fundamentals actually taught in Scripture! 😉
fo’shizzel
True so True.
But all these Satellites and satellite wannabe will conform to get on the “a”-list. Sacrificing their Independence. That way BoJo (and any other mothership) wields the power without having to actively oversee the operation.
Remember Lord Acton’s Axiom:
Just as nauseating is when they claim that the way they do everything is “God honoring” therefore if you do it differently it’s not. 😈 👿
A speaker I heard a few years ago at a Christian conference near Dublin (a Baptist pastor, as it happens) decided to do something really heretical – he decided to divide the evening church service into two parts by having break for tea and coffee in the *middle* of the service. When faced with this, some of his deacons and elders wanted to know “Is it Scriptural?” decided it wasn’t and vetoed the idea. I kid you not…
Is having an automobile scriptural? What about electric service? Hot and cold running water? Television? Radio? The printing press? Airplanes? Nuclear bombs? Basketball? Sunday School isn’t scriptural, but they have no problem with that.
Oh, this hits home for me. There were years and years where everyone around me was constantly discussing whether or not something was “biblical” or “Scriptural”. I bought into it for years, being torn to and fro according to the latest popular biblical mandate. It took me years to realize that every time something was declared “biblical”, it was really somebody’s INTERPRETATION of a particular proof-text that was “biblical” and nothing else. At the heart of that was really people labeling their opinions and preferences as “biblical”.
These days I break out in hives when someone tries to say something is biblical.
I think I mentioned this somewhere here before, but a while ago I went off on a guy on a message board who, when talking about different types of Bible studies, said, “But is it really BIBLICAL for women to have their own Bible studies?” Puke. He then went on to say that the next thing you know there will be Bible studies solely for left-handed people, blue-eyed people, and monkeys.
Anyway, after I went off on him he told me that the reason I was so angry was because I had sin hidden in my heart, and he proceeded to question my salvation. lol
Ugh! The reason women want their own Bible studies is because in fundy circles, women aren’t supposed to teach men and even voicing an opinion on a Biblical passage is seen by some as teaching so women end up being marginalized. Also, many women have interests that other women tend to share while the majority of men don’t. Additionally, women are often more willing to be open to discuss private things when in same-sex company.
And then because you didn’t share his opinion (or kow-tow to it), he decides you’re sinning? People like that are so incredibly annoying.
A bible for monkeys? That’s ironic, esp considering the Fundy stand on evolution. Would it all be in sign language, like with Koko the gorilla? 😀 🙄 😛
I volunteered in my church’s day care program a couple of times, and it was very much like trying to lead a Bible study for monkeys.
I know it’s pedantic of me, but I can’t help pointing out that gorillas are not monkeys.
Understood. They are both simians, and I doubt either can read.
It’s rather doubtful that they are very good at sign language, either. If you’re interested in that topic, there’s a book, “Aping Language” that does a good job of debunking the more extravagant claims about the linguistic abilities of gorillas, chimps, and bonobos.
My 5-cent summary: The people doing projects with these apes ignored thousands of mistakes and counted ambiguous gestures as ASL signs. Most of the signs recorded by the researchers were requests for food, which puts them on a par with dogs, cats, cattle, and other animals that learn to beg and do tricks for food. The researchers have mostly avoided scrutiny from the scientific community while seeking publicity in the popular media. Koko’s keepers, for example, have not published any peer-reviewed studies since the early days of work with her.
What about bible studies for hazel-eyed ambidextrous lesbians?