Double Standards in Fundamentalism Today, #1: Separation
Does this seem like a far-fetched scenario?
“I heard the church down the road had Pastor MacDonlad come to preach for ‘em. Sure, he’s a good preacher. But, I heard he goes home and listens to CD’s with drums in em’! Also, his sister-in-law’s dog groomer’s cousin is involved in the occult! Now, I don’t care who they think they are, if it were me, I’d kick Pastor MacDonald out soon as he come in these doors! We ain’t supposed to tolerate any kind of compromise!”
“Anyway, church, let me talk to ya about our upcoming Bible conference, the Old Time King James Fundamental Sawdust Trail Conference. Tomorrow night, we’re gonna have Pastor Jones. Now, he’s a Ruckmanite, but that’s ok, we need the emphasis on the KJV. Then Monday morning we’ll have Pastor Smith. He tends to be a Baptist brider, but I’ll teach ya about that someday. Pastor Davis will preach Monday night. He’s an ultradispensationalist, but I’ve asked him to preach on grace. We’ll wrap things up on Tuesday with Pastor King in the morning. Women and black people may want to stay home for that one. We’ll record it for ya. Finally, Pastor Norris will conclude our conference with the Tuesday evening message, provided he can get parole.”
Yes, I made that up. But I believe it’s based on truth. I’d like to see what others think. Just one note of disclaimer: I consider the above an example of hyper fundamentalism. This is something I’d like to define later. Unfortunately, the entire fundamentalist movement is being swallowed by this kind of thinking so that true, historic, biblical fundamentalism is no longer the mainstream. This is why we need something new. Something like Biblicism.
3 comments so far
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Damien T Garofalo
Funny senario! But, it’s way too close to reality.
Many fundamentalists forget that compromise to the “radical right” is just as much of a compromise as a move to the “liberal left.”
We go to such great lengths to make sure that our associations are not tainted with liberal compromise and at the same time fail to consider our associations with radical compromise.
God, give us discernment!
Not that separation isn’t important, but many fundamentalist remind me alot of a certain group of people in the Bible (What were they called again?………….Oh yeah, Pharisees). This is my opinion of what the difference between fundamentalists and legalists is:
Fundamentalists will separate themselves from the world in order to try and get closer to God and to grow spiritually. If they see someone else doing something that is not spoken against in the bible, but is not necessarily being as separate as they themselves are, they do not try to push their own ways on to them.
Legalists are the people with the double standards, usually. They do most of what they consider being separate, in order to look good. They wear different clothes around certain people than they would in their local Wal-Mart. And most importantly to be a legalist you must force your ideas on other people.
I think most so-called fundamentalists are far from the real thing. Most of todays fundamentalism is focused on the outside of the person rather than the inside. Anyone who calls himself a fundamentalist needs to remember that at the judgment seat of Christ our motives will be judged. Why are you trying to be separate? To grow spiritually? Or to look more spiritual?
I understand what you are saying, but the fact is, I’ve lived in the South my whole life and have never heard anyone do something like that, except for Clarence Sexton having Calvinists in his pulpit. That is what you were referring to, right, Southern fundamentalists (i.e. “ain’t”, “ya”)? After all, Southerners are dumb anyways; I’m sure there’s NOTHING wrong with churches north of the Mason-Dixon (tongue firmly in cheek). But there really is too much of an emphasis on the politics of friends in fundamentalism today, and also there is too much of a popularity contest. We need to stop worrying about having the most popular guy in our pulpits and start busying ourselves with the work of people-building.
P.S. Is anyone evergoing to fix that Contendfortruth.com website? I mean, it’s such a great website, but it’s never working. :-)