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New An intelligent guide to Christian fundamentalism
(via a Static link on FB--which I visit er, peripatetically (love the flow of that word..) Near as mellifluous as the famous 'cellar door' example of 'euphonious English words'?) Thanks, Wade!
http://jeriwho.net/lillypad2/?p=2278

That is: author (a sociologist) dropped-in for a couple years/made notes--here's his observations.
If your interest in this 'evangelism' topic is (as marginal as mine?) I recommend this article as being very well-done, informative and maybe complete-enough that
... you need not wade through (another?) if you merely wish to comprehend How the 'system' works on its adherents.

(For me: this clarifies sufficiently.. the roles of the parade of Rock-star Evangelists in the Murican panoply, maybe from: Aimee Semple McPherson? [way-back], Billy Graham et al ... on through the current Mega-church phenom. I no Interest in more granularity than that. But they all Are part of Americana to-date.)

ie. were someone seeking a Murican Ayatolla.. to follow or skewer (?) a first question might be: which One??
Point: whatever 'revolutions' are simmering towards-->aboil?? Evangelicals shall likely be around a long time.
On my fridge: a Bizarro cartoon: People at door; householder says "But this tract is BLANK!"
Response of the pair--it's Always a pair: "We're Atheists."

Samples:

[. . .]

Ault’s most disarming and perceptive insight is that Fundamentalism, though it emphasizes reliance on the sacred Scripture, is primarily a religion in the Oral Tradition. The beliefs, which have a certain flexibility, are disseminated through the sermons and lessons and by person-to-person conversation. People share sermons, pass around tapes, and attend conferences where they hear the leaders of the religion make their pronouncements. Bible reading, rather than being systematic or scholarly, is performed selectively in order to “hide God’s Word in the heart,” which is a euphemism for memorization. At the appropriate time, learned texts are slapped onto a situation. But sermons carry the beliefs and transmit them. Bible reading serves the sermons.

Ault does not make a distinction between expository preaching, the systematic progress through the Bible, one passage at a time, for the purpose of presenting it as a coherent whole; and topical preaching, the method of selecting a topic to address and then choosing texts to support it. Topical preaching, the Fundamentalist favorite, is one of the biggest culprits in the dumbing down of Fundamentalism. In failing to make preaching serve the Bible, Fundamentalists themselves have transformed the faith from a text-based religion to the religion of shamans and Oral Tradition.

[. . .]

The different strata of Fundamentalists may not like each other, but they sense a certain strained unity as they confront far worse issues around them. But the shaman is the centerpiece of much of the identity, belief, and behaviors of Fundamentalism. Reading the Bible tends to serve what the shaman decrees rather than being a means to verify what the shaman has proclaimed. Therefore different shamans in Fundamentalism have made decrees that are entirely contrary to the Bible, but their followers refuse to believe this, or simply don’t know that their leaders are speaking in opposition to Scripture. For decades, Bob Jones University held that inter racial marriage was prohibited by Scripture, in clear violation of Galatians three, which teaches that in Christ all are one, Jack Hyles taught that the accused must be defended from his accusers, even from being investigated on charges brought openly against him. This is in clear violation of Christ’s teachings on church discipline as well as the practice laid down in the epistles to Timothy and Titus.

[. . .]

The last bastion of Fundamentalism, the certainty of impending cataclysm, remains just about untouched. Granted, more Christians are waking up to the fact that the New Testament does NOT guarantee perpetuity in God’s good grace to a secular state of Israel. There really are people who have read the epistles and understand that the chosen people of God are those integrated by faith into His covenant.

However, a huge majority continues to advocate a blind support of the dispossession and relocation of Palestinians.

Yet it is certain, as new cultures and new populations increasingly supplant old white-European cultural alliances in American society, that the final pillar of the Fundamentalist Oral Tradition will be subject to re-examination in the light of a systematic study of Scripture, free from the prejudices of the current headlines.

[. . .]




(I seem to recall that Timothy got no Respect at the last committee meeting [er, Revision] wherein he got <erased>.
Yet to this reader once-upon-a-time: I thought that Tim grokked the 'esoteric-Christianity' akin to Christ's (implied, ie 'metaphysical') teachings.. pretty-near to Fullness.
But what do I Know-fershure?): nada.

(As one who does not subscribe to the posit that (say) mere human Rationality, Logic and Reason.. employing the algorithm(s) of Evolution is All Ye Need to Know
--to (ultimately) learn Why?--the Universe! or better: Why.. is there Anything at All?)
I Can sympathize with Evangels. But cannot empathize with their chosen Means towards any flavor of grokking-to-Fullness:
those authentic-Mysteries. And.. only 'hubris' can explain: a Certainty that they Have done so.
{{sigh}}

Bon appètit all ye Seekers of (at least) Truthiness.


New :-)
I came across it via a round-a-bout method starting from The Naked Pastor. http://www.patheos.c...logs/nakedpastor/

This is not really the forum for me to explain any of this, but I am rather less Christian than I was 12 months ago. I'm still a spiritual person, but just not exclusively conservative evangelic. Looking at Christianity (and what I've begun calling churchianity!) from the outside is very interesting.

Wade.
Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/
New Best of luck with your new journey!
New Good plan..
Staying (somewhat) flexible can shield from that Certainty!-or-bust bugaboo, I wot.
We homo-saps are in a guaranteed precarious condition 'here'--insufficient imagination to extrapolate from piddling 'knowledge' aggregated
..to come within light-years of what May be "going on."

Our vanity/hubris/etc. seems to be vastly larger than whatever wisdom happens to/in a One.
'Enlightenment' is forever a DIY task--there is ~universal agreement on that and on its corollary: nobody else can bestow such a 'state'. [Pity!]

Luck in the sorting-out. (Meanwhile, enjoy the Mystery, eh?)
     An intelligent guide to Christian fundamentalism - (Ashton) - (3)
         :-) - (static) - (2)
             Best of luck with your new journey! -NT - (Another Scott)
             Good plan.. - (Ashton)

I'm trying to figure out what the proportion of "friendliness" to "menace" is in that post.
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