According to unnoficial fundamentalist dogma, the height of perfection in hymn writing was reached somewhere around 1947 and any music written after that point is automatically suspect. Fundies view CCM artists as tools of Satan to tempt young people to turn the fellowship hall into a dance hall. CCM artists view fundamentalists as the musical equivilant of Elmer Fudd.
As the official collection of approved hymns has been canonized, however, there have crept in some strange selections that can only be described as “absolutely awful.” These would include songs about honey coming out of rocks, boys wandering around, little brown churches in the valley, and holding a fort.
It can only assumed that these hymns were included because they were written by the General Editor’s brother-in-law or perhaps someone to whom he owed great sums of money.
Jesus may have come to bring a sword but most fundamentalists prefer the cold steel of a Colt .45. Throw a rock into any crowd of fundamentalists (if you dare!) and you’ll hit a gun aficionado with surprising frequency.
You can keep your liberal CD’s full of CCM music and liberal preaching far away from fundamentalists. Yes, sir, fundy churches are still in the business of churning out cassette tapes in the ubiquitous “tape ministry” that graces the back table of many an Independent Baptist sanctuary.
Grace Livingston Hill lived from 1865-1947 and in that time she managed to write hundreds of “Christian Romance” novels which continue to grace the shelves of fundamentalists households everywhere.
In 1996, Juno Online Services launched an e-mail client that took the fundamentalist world by storm. The reasons for this were twofold