Here’s a clip from a Phi Beta Chi society meeting at BJU. I witnessed similar scenes of stupidity in my “collegian” at PCC where the chief form of entertainment was making this guy drink root beer until he threw up.
This is the college that would blank out all the commercials during the evening news (one of the few times the televisions in the lobbies were turned on) lest someone see an advertisement for beer or hear rock music. But making someone puke up two liters of soda? That’s just good clean fun.
I usually sat in the back and tried to do homework.
As I’ve been hearing about the whole Koran-burning craziness going on down in Florida (by the way, what is it with Florida and religious crazies?) I’ve been at least thankful that for once it isn’t the Baptists giving Christianity a big black eye. Then I got the chance to read the Dove World Outreach Center’s Academy Handbook and I realized that they’re not as far off the fundy path as all that.
Rules for students include:
– The student is responsible to share the gospel with one person every day
– No eating out in restaurants (this is how we know they’re not Baptists) All students are also weighed weekly to make sure they’r reaching their “weight goals.”
– No visiting with family or receiving visits with no exceptions for weddings, funerals, or birthdays.
– Showers are to be between 5 and 7 minutes.
– No Romantic Relationships between students of the opposite sex. (Do I detect a huge loophole there?)
Draconian would seem to be an apt description. Or what the Roloff Homes would call “At least a good start…”
Whenever someone apostatizes and leaves the old paths, fundamentalists will inevitably assign someone the blame. There will be an informal postmortem, inquest, and a whispered placing of the blame on someone’s shoulders for having led this soul astray. More often than not the culpability is rested on the shoulders of the fundamentalist parents.
It is a strange contradiction that fundamentalists can at the same time believe that every man has free will but also that no child raised “properly” will ever stray from the fundy faith. It can’t have been that the fundamentalist movement was flawed or illogical or provoked this young person to wrath. No indeed, it’s much more likely that this rebellion was inspired by the way their parents spared the rod or allowed them to have Disney characters on their third grade lunch box.
For this reason, parents in the fundamentalist realm will often preach to their children not only the doctrines of separation and standards but also heap upon them the warning that if the child’s foot should stray that he will bring a reproach on his family’s honor that will never be removed. His father may lose his deaconship. His mother may lose her place on the women’s missionary committee. The family dog may even lose the right to frolic with more upright and holier dogs.
Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old if he has departed from it we’ll definitely be blaming your parenting. (Unless, of course, you’re a pastor who is among the congregation of the blessed. Then we’ll be far too polite to mention it.)
If people at your church fanatically cheer for a team at a college they think no good Christian should ever dream of attending…you may be a fundamentalist.
