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.

Music

Sanctifying Contemporary Music

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Good fundamentalists would not be caught dead listening to Steven Curtis Chapman or Amy Grant (the most recent artists most of them have heard of) because of their evil beats and wicked contemporary associations. No matter how much Satan tempts them to enjoy the fleshly pleasures of CCM, the fundy will resist.

However, since good music is in short supply, fundies are willing to concede that the songs themselves might just be redeemable if one can sanctify the music by removing the drums, rewriting lyrics to remove heresy, and letting a male quartet sing it very, very slowly. God is most please with worship that nobody is enjoying.

This is hardly a new phenomenon. Dottie Rambo and Bill Gaither are now in the hymnbook. No doubt, Steve Green’s music will show up in Soul Stirring Songs and Hymns one day as if the songs had been there all along.

The three steps to redeeming worldly music are these:

1. Remove the beat. Not only must the actual percussion be removed but also the syncopation must be smoothed out. The canny fundamentalist can spot where the drums are “supposed to be” and still worry that the listener will be tempted into worldliness.

2. Flatten out the voice. No slipping, sliding, or scooping must be allowed to ruin the texture of the music. Scooping and sliding voices are the doorway to the relativistic clutches of jazz music and sin lies at that door.

3. Re-write the lyrics. Study the words with caution to identify any possible doctrinal misstep. Also replace “you” with “thee” and “thou” for that special fundy flavor.

Following these simple steps will open the doors to thousands of songs that were once the music of the very devil but now can enter into the worship service having been washed, cleaned and sanctified.

A silly blog dedicated to Independent Fundamental Baptists, their standards, their beliefs, and their craziness.