Praying to bless the food at restaurants is a badge of honor among fundamentalists for to not bless the food would be tantamount to a rejection of Christianity itself. Also, it presents an opportunity for outreach to all the other tables around you and (if your voice is loud enough) the kitchen staff as well.
As with most things fundamentalist, there are rules that must be followed for the restaurant prayer:
– The prayer must be loud. Prayers who mumble into their fried chicken will be assumed to be ashamed of the gospel. Bellow it out or run the risk of being called a compromiser.
– The prayer must be long. A simple “bless this food” will never do. Running out of things to say? Pray for the hands that prepared it. Pray for the digestion of the people eating it. Pray for the missionaries from who’s country it originally came. If the food is still hot by the time the prayer is done, he has failed.
– The prayer must use biblical words and phrases. Phrases like “Jehovah-Jireh” and “countenance” are a must for the restaurant prayer. This is no prayer of a neophyte. This is the only chance some folks will ever have to hear someone actually using 17th Century English and that isn’t a thing to be taken lightly.
– There must be hand-holding. Grab the sweaty palm of the person next to you and hang on for dear life. Try not to think about where their hand has been and the fact that you’re getting ready to eat. The one exception to the hand-holding rule of restaurant prayer may be if there are two people in the circle who are dating and seated next to each other. Perhaps grabbing the edges of the same napkin or holding the ends of a knife will suffice to let the circle be unbroken without the need for gratuitous hand-holding.
Have you ever heard a sermon based on the differences between eros, phileo, and agape? Can you never remember not knowing what Koine Greek was? I’d dare to bet that at some point you have been a fundamentalist.
Fundamentalists believe that the King James Version of the Bible is the only accurate translation that has been preserved for English speakers. They believe this so firmly that they are willing to separate from other churches and groups who don’t use the King James. Then through some strange cognitive dissonance, they also spend years in church basements learning the original languages to enable them to explain what the Greek really means in English.
“In the original languages,” the pastor will intone “This verb “to sit” is really a pluperfect subjunctive. This means that the original author really meant “he will have sat at some point in the future perhaps but has not actually sat yet nor will he sit until the present time is over.” One is left to wonder how those incredibly bright King James translators missed out on all of this detailed material that is so vital to the second point of the pastor’s sermon.
Ask any fundamentalist and they’ll tell you that the King James is as absolutely perfect as gold purified seven times — as long as you’ve got a fundamentalist pastor there to tell you what the original Greek says, that is.
Fundamentalists love persecution — or more accurately they love to call things persecution which people in real persecuted countries wouldn’t even notice.
For example, if there are ten miles of street that fundamentalists are allowed to preach on and ten square feet that is off-limits for safety reasons, you can bet your life on where the fundy street-preacher will end up standing. And don’t even think about asking him to get a permit…
The list of new persecutions is never ending.
Taxes? Persecution!
Building Safety Codes? Persecution!
Not to mention health inspectors, noise ordinances, gun laws, emissions tests…
Jesus would never have put up with all of this! It’s not like ever told his followers to follow the government’s rules or pay taxes, after all. Those early Christians just didn’t know how good they had it.
The Slippery Slope argument is a popular one among fundamentalists. It goes something like this…
If a woman wears culottes that are only to the knee instead of to the ankle then she will inevitably begin wearing pants. This will in turn lead to wearing shorts which will lead to mixed bathing which will lead to dancing in night clubs and then on to drug addiction. This will drive her straight into prostitution which will lead to to armed robbery, prison time, terrorism, mass suicide, and and finally becoming a Southern Baptist.
So keep those culottes to your ankles, or else!!
A silly blog dedicated to Independent Fundamental Baptists, their standards, their beliefs, and their craziness.
Praying to bless the food at restaurants is a badge of honor among fundamentalists for to not bless the food would be tantamount to a rejection of Christianity itself. Also, it presents an opportunity for outreach to all the other tables around you and (if your voice is loud enough) the kitchen staff as well.
Have you ever heard a sermon based on the differences between eros, phileo, and agape? Can you never remember not knowing what Koine Greek was? I’d dare to bet that at some point you have been a fundamentalist.
Fundamentalists love persecution — or more accurately they love to call things persecution which people in real persecuted countries wouldn’t even notice.
The Slippery Slope argument is a popular one among fundamentalists. It goes something like this…