Because Easter is
1. Pagan
2. Roman Catholic
3. What Everybody Else Calls It.
Sanctified and Seperated Seclusion
There are constant warnings in fundamentalism not to get too close to the world and worldly people. The idea seems to be that sinners will always cause Christians to sin rather than Christians making sinners more holy. For this reason, fundamentalists organize their own schools, sports teams, drama clubs, and social activities lest being in proximity to the unrighteous somehow should soil them. It would seem that sanctification is a very fragile thing indeed that only requires the tiniest of temptations to crumble completely.
This so called “doctrine of separation” has created many illustrations that are familiar to any fundamentalist. Stories of the clean glass and the dirty glass, the canary that learns to sing like the crow, and the drop of poison in the good food are repeated over and over. Evil always triumphs over good. It’s a wonder that anybody ever manages to stay pure.
How exactly we are to be salt and light in the world if we never actually spend any time in the world is unclear. Evidently, Christians are supposed to go out like hunting parties (always two by two, never alone!), club the nearest sinner and drag them back into the haven of the church. After all, that’s what Jesus did. He never spent time with sinners.
If you think that the Amish have the right idea about how to deal with the temptations of the world, then you may very well be a fundamentalist.
“Camps”
Fundamentalists eschew denominations preferring to imagine each of their churches as completely separate and independent from every other church. Members often hear the claim that “nobody is going to tell us how to run things around here, amen?” As with most things, it doesn’t really work that way in practice. While fundamentalists do not have denominations, they do have “camps.” These are not the fun and games type of camps, however.
Fundy camps are loosely defined power structures with unwritten charters that revolve around some particular institution or personality. In many ways camps are sort of like gangs but without the hand signs and spray paint. There are even the occasional wars between camps wherein gallons of ink are spilled over things like whether the King James Version is inspired or just a perfect preservation and translation of inspired originals. Casualties are many.
Fundamentalists may belong conference of churches with pastors who all graduated from the same bible school, believe the same things, preach the same way, use the same gestures, and have the same haircut but that doesn’t make them a denomination. There’s nothing like being exactly like everyone else to demonstrate one’s independence.
One-World Government Scares
The recent announcement that the fallen World Trade Center buildings are going to be replaced by a new building known as the “One World Trade Center” has created a tizzy in some fundamentalist circles, serving as a reminder that fundamentalists love to frightened of a supposedly impending one-world government.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. Everything from the rumored NAFTA superhighway to the Olympics has been pointed to as evidence of Biblical prophecy unfolding before our very eyes. Before we know it, the UN is going to make a law that everyone has to learn Esperanto! Next, they’ll take away football and make us all watch soccer! Oh, the humanity!
To fundamentalists it’s all obviously part of the very slow rush towards the end of the world which has been going on for the last two thousand years and in theory may take just about forever (although fundies seriously doubt it). After all, don’t you know that the Euro has a picture of a woman riding a beast on it!! Never mind that only sixteen of about two-hundred countries use the Euro, and that the only one coin out of well over one hundred different coins carries that image. That 2 cent piece the smoking gun that fundamentalists need to prove that the EU is most definitely the seat of the anti-Christ who will no doubt be making an appearance sometime in the not-to-distant-but-not-specifically-setting-a-date-like-those-cults future.
No prophecy conference would be complete without a little xenophobia mixed with some wild guesses ripped from the headlines. The end of the world is here again.
Alternative Medicine
Evidently, peach pits cure cancer…