All posts by Darrell

People

Alexander Scourby

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scourbyFor many fundamentalists, the voice of God sounds curiously like a Shakespearean actor from the 1930’s. For that matter, so does the voice of everyone else in the Bible from Adam to Zechariah.

Whether it’s the daily Bible reading on the radio, the cassette tapes enshrined in their plastic cases, or the original LP albums, Alexander Scourby is the voice of the King James Bible. Fundamentalists accept no substitutes. Not even James Earl Jones’ fine work recording the Bible can hope to compete with the long tradition of the original recordings. They are the Authorized Version.

Alexander Scourby’s skill is such that even the genealogies somehow take on a new and invigorating air when he gravely intones them. Perhaps Moses and Joshua and Boaz may not really have sounded like Scourby — but until we get to hear the originals, it would be hard to find a better substitute.

Fun and Games, Music, Outreach, Sermons, Standards

Revivals

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revivalOnce or twice a year, a fundamentalist church will hold a series of revival services. An evangelist or special speaker who is specially trained to give spiritual CPR will come into town and spend a few nights trying to get the church’s pulse going again. The fact that they are apparently so feeble that they needs periodic five-day-long jolts from a biblical defibrillator to keep them alive does not appear to bother fundies at all. They rather seem to enjoy it.

Revivals are a great time to combine a lot of fundy favorites: hard preaching, old fashioned altars, evangelist fish stories, and coming up with new things to feel guilty about. Throw in some special music and a few covered dish suppers and it’s a great time for everybody.

Another emphasis of revival services is bringing out lost people to hear the messages. This may strike some as odd since it would seem to be a contradiction in terms to try to ‘revive’ something that’s never been ‘vived’ in the first place. But the philosophy goes that if there’s preaching on sin going on, it’s a good idea to get a bunch of genuine sinners in to hear it. And there’s a reward Bible with your name on it if you can bring in the most.

Oh, Revive us again (and again, and again, and again).

Family

Courtship

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reb-meets-isaacAlthough many fundamentalists still let their teens date (translation: “sit next to someone of the opposite sex in youth group or church”) many like the idea of courtship instead.

The trend towards courtship became very popular a few years ago, when a single charismatic-leaning Calvinist teenager who was living in a basement decided to write a book about why he didn’t want to date anymore. For some reason, this book was widely accepted in fundamentalist circles where some touted it as gospel and declared it the “Biblical way.”

Using the biblical model for finding a wife, the parents of the bride and groom are the key decision makers in who their children marry. The advantage is that this eliminates emotionally painful breakups and purges out the leaven of mates who are not quite up to fundy snuff. The disadvantage is that rounding up the livestock needed to pay the bride’s dowry is a messy business. The week-long wedding feasts are also very expensive. But, if a fundamentalist is going to set out to do things the Biblical way, he can’t pick and choose which traditions he wants to follow.

Matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match…

Books, Church Services

Keeping the Sabbath Day

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For fundamentalists, their “day of rest” begins promptly at 6:00 a.m. with mom and dad rousting the five children out of bed, feeding them breakfast, and hunting all over the house for various articles of children’s clothing that they could have sworn were hanging in the closet just last night. Then with everyone bathed, fed, and dressed, it’s off to the bus ministry and an hour and a half of driving around town picking up children and getting them to church.

Then it’s time to get the babies to the nursery, the children deposited at Sunday school, and making sure that there are coffee and doughnuts for the adult Sunday school class. After that it’s time for the main service where Dad watches the older kids while mom volunteers in the nursery since the youngest kid is teething and she’ll probably end up in there for half the service anyway.

Sometime later, the service concludes and it’s time to get the bus kids back to their respective homes just in time to rush to the monthly nursing home ministry which Dad happens to be speaking at this week and it turns out that the normal pianist is sick so mom fills in for that as well. After that it’s a quick lunch at a drive-through, then back to the church for children’s choir practice and Men’s meeting before the evening service. Evening service this week is followed by a lengthy business meeting which mom and dad take part in while the older kids play freeze tag in the parking lot. Finally, long after darkness has fallen, it’s time go home.

On the drive home, the eight-year-old looks out of the car window and exclaims “look, there’s a fair going on! People are riding the rides and playing games!”

“Those people should know better than that!”, says Dad piously “Sunday is a day for rest.” But in his heart he’s rather relieved that tomorrow is Monday when all he has to do is go to work. This much resting could be deadly in large doses.