My previous questions have been answered. :)

[LovebirdsFlying]

This post isn't a question, so I didn't put it under Ask a Fundamentalist. It's an update, just FYI.

I found an online support group for ex-members of my family's church. It pretty much answered all of the questions I had asked before. Under the thread of "Why I Left," I posted this:

I just joined here and haven't read through all of the previous replies. I hope I don't duplicate too much.

I left the Church of Christ because

1. If it isn't in the Bible, don't go near it. Some of my relatives have never owned a cat, even detest cats, because cats are never specifically mentioned in the Bible. Therefore cats are evil, and that's why they're associated with Halloween and witches. Of course God made cats. Gospel of John 1, "by Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made." If it exists, God made it.

2. Propensity to use an analogy when they can't find a Scripture to justify their teaching. I quoted "where there is no law, there is no transgression," Romans 4:15, as an argument against their "a capella only" doctrine. Maybe the NT never specifically says to use instruments, but it never says not to either. I was told, "That's like a child touching a hot stove and saying, well, you didn't tell me not to." I fail to see the parallel.

3. The self-righteous, we're right and everyone else is wrong attitude. I have never, ever attended a service at a Church of Christ where the sermon was not some variation on, "We're the only ones who are going to be saved." The Scripture quoted, every time, was "The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." See? They weren't called Baptist, or Methodists, or Catholics, but Christians. But.... it doesn't say the disciples were called the church of Christ, either.

4. Attitude toward women. We were watching a 1970's sitcom, Thanksgiving episode, which ended with mother, daughter, son and friends around the table. Mother offered the blessing, and all my relatives could think was, gasp! "She's not supposed to do that." Why? Because Mother is a woman, and there were teenage boys at the table. At a New Year's Eve party, hymns were sung for fellowship, and women were not allowed to lead them. The thinking was that if women got to lead the singing at a party, they might also wonder why they weren't allowed to teach in church. Everyone knows women are too stupid to know the difference between church and a party.

5. In the hymnal at one church, I noticed a pasted-over revision of the words to the hymn, "To God Be The Glory." Where it had said, "The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives," they had replaced it with, "The vilest offender who truly obeys, that moment may enter the heavenly way." This is salvation by works. They took Jesus completely out of it and inserted obedience as the way to salvation. They refer to being saved as "obeying the Gospel." The word "gospel" means "good news." Commandments are obeyed. Good news is received.

I could go on, but I think this post is getting too long.

I'm glad I found this site. God bless all.

And now, I welcome education on what being a fundy REALLY is! :D

[cubanito]

I haven't the right to define "Fundamentalist" for the entire English speaking world. But I can tell you that a Fundamentalist according to the rules on this board is taken from a source (the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy) which is probably the major concensus at this time by those who currently claim that title.

Whenever one adds a human tradition to the Bible as if the tradition were inspired, one is not a fundamentalist. Nowhere does it say that any animal not specifically mentioned is evil. There is no mention of dolphins, yet that mammal has saved many sailors from drowning and sharks. There is no mention of giraffes, are they evil also?
In fact, those animals which are considered "unclean" for eating purposes, and could, by an extreme stretch be thought of as "evil" (they are not anymore "evil" than any other creature, I am talking an extreme hypothetical view) were told to Peter are now "clean." Very explicitly, in more than one place, the NT repeals ALL the OT dietary laws and any thought of an "evil" animal.
Thus by adding a human tradition, the "evilness of cats" they are not fundys.


It is also not fundy to take away from the Bible. The Psalms are replete with musical instruments used during worship of many kinds. To deny their use in worship is to take away from the Bible.

And of course, these are but superficial issues. There are some fundys that do add this or that tradition to the Bible, thinking that it is supported by the Bible, when in fact it is not. It is impossible this side of death to be perfect, and I am sure I hold some stupid little doctrine here or there thinking it from Scripture, when in fact it is not. But we can muddle through this or that, keeping our eyes fixed on Christ, and Him crucified.

But when one starts messing w the Godpel, it's over, and these people (as u describe them) have replaced the Gospel with their vain imaginings.

Having, again, said what a fundy is NOT, what is a fundy?

By the dictionary, a fundamentalist in ANY area of life, is one who is primarily, even exclusively fixed on what is primary, initial, and essential.

Thus a mathematician concerned with the fundamentals of mathematics is obsessed with such questions as how much is 1+1, do prime numbers exist and how the existence of integers makes math different than logic.

A fundamentalist stock market analyst looks not a stock's history or trends, but at how the company who's stock is being analyzed is doing. Is it's underlying business growing? Is the company saddled w too much debt? Instead of looking at the day to day meanderings of the stock, they are fixed on waht underlies the stock.

I could go on and on, but as it relates to Christianity, a Fundamentalist is one who'se interest in on what Christianity rests on, and that is the Scriptures. There is NO WAY to suppose what Christ said, did or meant apart from the Scriptures. Time and again, wether tempted by Satan or attacked by the religious experts of His day, Christ referred to the Scriptures, at times even making arguments from the verb tense of a single word of Genesis. If we abandon Scripture, we can make up ANYTHING as coming from the mouth of Christ. Thus, we are OBSESSIVE about Scripture, in His words, every letter of it, as He Himself was.

Fundys are the extreme of the "sola scriptura" crowd. Some of us refuse to acknowledge any Creed, others of us (me) accept a variety of Creeds (like the Apostle's and Nicene Creed) as neat summaries of Scripture that, while not inspired, are very useful and time tested. Some of us Fundys bring in many traditions which we think are allowable by Scripture. Others, like me, tend to hold very few traditions UNLESS they are CLEARLY supported by Scripture.

But whatever else, a fundy's primary focus is Scripture. Not what the pastor, denomination or "groupthink" is preaching, but what we best can understand out of Scripture with our own minds.

So, some like me drink alcohol, while others think the Bible asks them to complete abstention. Some of us, like me, insist their wives put something on their head when entering formal Church services, while others see Paul's admonition as merely a cultural remark.

There are several denominations that, more or less, can be called fundamentalists. Such is my own, the PCA (Presby Church in America) as is the OPC (Orthodox Pres Church) and the Southern Baptists, to name some.

There are fundys here, such as kobuk, that believe that ALL denominations are contrary to the Bible, and they stress the total authority of individual local Churches.

As you can see, there is much freedom of opinion among us. That exists because, even while honestly reading the same Bible, some of us come to different conclusions. Yet, as wrongheaded and numbskulled as kobuk is :) he is my brother, and he is a fundy. I am content if kobuk may consider me an arrogant, bombastic, stupid ignoramus but also acknowleges me to be his brother, and a fellow fundy. We are ALL stupid, spoiled, ill-mannered little children in God's Kingdom, but we are HIS stupid, ill-mannered children, whom He sometimes chooses to spoil.

I hope it helps.

But most of all look around.

JR