Category Archives: Odds and Ends

Odds and Ends

Monday Challenge

152 Comments


André-Henri Dargelas – Children Going to Church

We haven’t done a Friday challenge in a while so instead here’s a discussion question to get Monday started right.

On the Facebook comments under the last post somebody used a phrase “tender hearts” which in my experience is just code for “easily swayed.” Children are said to have tender hearts (which is why so much focus is put on converting them early). The grieving, the poor, and the uneducated are also seen as having more tender hearts than their more emotionally resilient, affluent, and better educated counterparts.

So here is the question: what are the ethical boundaries on evangelism? Is there a wrong time? A wrong method? At what point does the message stop being an invitation and become instead a manipulation?

Odds and Ends

Fundy Tweet of the Week: Funeral Manners

173 Comments

There’s so much wrong with this that I don’t even know where to start. First of all, who tweets out a picture of somebody’s late relative FROM THE FUNERAL HOME? And then, who tries to make the funeral all about the PASTOR instead of the grieving family?

Apparently even the people at Longview Baptist Temple figured out how inappropriate this was because they’ve since pulled the tweet down.

Odds and Ends

SFL Flashback: Burning Out

97 Comments

This post was first featured on SFL in October of 2010 and seemed an appropriate flashback for Labor Day.

O Fire of Love, O Flame Divine, Make Thy abode in me; Burn in my heart, burn evermore, Till I burn out for Thee. —

Fundamentalists love those lines by Eugene M. Harrison. After all, it’s better to burn out than rust out, amen?

The Christian soldier is never off duty for it was when David left the battle field that he fell into sin! Keep on the Firing Line! Any vacation that is not disguised as a short-terms missions trip is for liberals and apostates.

Work for the night is coming. Get up early and stay late. Give of your best to your fundamentalists masters. Put your heart and soul and strength into the work without a care for your health or sanity. (It’s not like you’ll have the insurance to cover either of those things anyway.)

Hurry up with painting the church, mowing the 37 acres of grass, cleaning all the bathrooms, and scrubbing the fellowship hall with a toothbrush — because you don’t want to be late for choir practice, visitation, and chaperoning that youth group all-nighter.

There is nothing more glorious than falling in the line of duty by dropping dead of a stress-induced heart attack at 43.

Odds and Ends

Fundy Facebook of the Week: Suffer the Little Children

184 Comments

Today’s Facebook post comes from Tom Brennan, Hyles grad and pastor of the Maplewood Bible Baptist Church

Want to be friends? Only the super-sanctimonious need apply.

For Jesus said unto them “love your neighbor as yourself but don’t let their kids close to your kids unless they attend Wednesday night church.”

This really is sad because once upon a time I thought there might be hope for Tom when he got fed up and started naming names in his sermon entitled “39 Years an Independent Baptist…And Grieved About It.”