There is one truth of all legalists to which fundamentalist are no exception: they cheat. For when people set for themselves the task of self-made sinless perfection, they begin to realize almost immediately exactly how heavy and constraining the yoke that they have taken. However, rather than acknowledge that they have been too ambitious in their personal standards, they merely attempt make their lives at least somewhat tolerable by finding ways around their own rules.

Any good fundamentalist is strictly forbidden to love the things of the world and will touch not and taste not and handle not those abominations which are tainted by unbelievers — if there’s anybody looking. “Thou shalt not get caught” is the first fundamentalist commandment and every young fundy learns it at (or over) their parent’s knee. And the second is like unto it: “That shalt have a really good plan for hiding your behavior and explaining it away if it should be discovered.”

If a Southern Gospel song we really like has a little extra toe-tapping twang then that’s not the same as “rock” music at all. Why that’s merely good-old down-home country-fried music such as good Christian white people have enjoyed forever and isn’t really wrong. Godly music is whatever music I happen to enjoy.

If that movie contains cursing and violence then we rented it from that online place rather than risk ruining our testimony by buying it at Walmart like we were forced to do in the old days. (Thank God for technology!) The only real sin would be watching the movie in a dark room with lost people.

If this fried chicken contains enough cholesterol to ensure we suffer a cardiac event before the age of 40…then we’re really not sure what the problem is since there’s nothing in the Bible about that at all as far as we can remember. Pass the gravy!

For every man-made law there is a man-made evasive tactic that allows any canny fundamentalist to find a loophole his own arbitrary rule without compromising either his “standards” or his ability to judge others for not being as holy as himself. And nothing counts if nobody catches you out.