Good article by this guy Monte on religious fundamentalists. But he hasn’t quite polished his defense of Christian fundamentalism.
Christian fundamentalism may vary-
It doesn’t.
-but whatever it is, it cannot involve murder or coercion.
That’s…true. But it’s a little “damning with faint praise”, isn’t it? Why not just state Christian fundamentalism, since Jesus gave it to us in easily understandable form?
(Almost as if He anticipated this questions arising. Did Mohammed?)
“Rabbi, what is the great commandment?” Christ was asked. Give us the Cliff’s Notes version, here. Sum it up for us…you can’t, can you?. Ah, ha ha! Gotcha, Lord! You can’t do it! Life and morality is just too complicated and no one can just-
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it; you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
…er…alrighty then…
If we weren’t all mental and moral idiots Jesus wouldn’t have needed to toss out that second commandment. In loving God properly we’d automatically love others as ourselves.
Anyway, that’s the Christian fundament. Disagreement is not permissible; Christ specifically addressed this concern so no one else can define Christian fundamentalism. You have a different theological basis? Then start your own damn religion.
That’s what Mohammed did.
I don’t know if he ever tried to “sum up” Islam as Jesus summed up Christianity, and don’t care. But I’m pretty sure “love those who spitefully use you” isn’t among his tenets.
World's Only Rational Man 
Just curious, Worm… what’s your take on Joe Nelms’ NASCAR invocation from a few weeks ago?
Here it is, in case you missed it:
I’m not a Christian, but personally, I thought it was brilliant.
Well, it was definitely earnest. He really is thankful for motor sports and his smokin’ hot wife. But in all the entreaties to the Divine I’ve heard, that was the first with corporate sponsors. Maybe I’ve seen it in a movie, maybe even the Talladaga Nights bit. But it was jarring to me in an actual prayer.
It won’t cause anyone to turn from the Lord, but who knows if it will help Christianity’s cause? People hostile to it can say, “See? It’s just a joke to them.”
(Of course, those same type folks will say that religion destroys our sense of humor and turns us all into personality-free drones.)
So, I freely acknowledge I haven’t the discernment to know “’twere it best done” or not. Glad you liked it. I can promise that if you ever did become a Christian, your personality and humor would not be psychically disintegrated.
Can’t speak for Islam, though.
Thank you, that is illuminating.
Myself, I thought Pastor Joe was speaking mainly to non-Christians, and saying, “See? We are not allergic to having a good time, and the Lord isn’t against having fun.”
I think he realized that for those few moments he was allotted, he had an opportunity to be an ambassador to non-believers, and wanted to make the most of that.
One thing people often overlook is that Christian fundamentalists can be quite liberal in their political philosophy. While they might be socially “conservative”, they can be leftist in practically every other aspect of their politics. These are the so-called “religious left” and most of them are actually Republicans. Perry from Texas is one of these, in my opinion. He is “conservative” on social issues such as abortion but is pretty left wing on everything else.
Don’t be snookered by someone’s religious values into believing they are fiscal conservatives.
Another thing is that they may be for a small government, but be exceedingly liberal with their own personal resources.
Exactly! Being liberal with your own resources is being liberal; giving away other people’s stuff is to be an enslaver.
Actually, I think the most basic, overlooked fact is that not everyone who claims to be a Christian is a Christian.
For a solid year I tried to be a Christian, and if you’d asked I’d have answered, hestitantly, “yes”. That wouldn’t have been an intentional lie, but it was still untrue. The reason I learned I was lying is because, believing in Christian “fundamentalism”, I tried to love the Lord, love myself, and love others as myself.
Couldn’t. Not under my own power, which revealed to me I was still under my own power.
So, I have my doubts about all these American politicians and activists who claim to be Christian, especially when they use Scripture and God talk to justify their ambitions. Maybe they’re straying Christians…or maybe they never were in the first place.
This doesn’t happen when Christianity is persecuted. It always happens when there are secular rewards for Christianity. When the glamorous offers respect and acceptance for a “Reverend” who his Reverendance to further the world’s agenda, there will always be some who take the world up on that.
Right, Al and Jesse?
Man, there is a lot in those few words. I don’t think any human being can be absolutely Christian without somehow transforming into Jesus or something. I don’t think we are really expected to be perfect but to strive to be. And in doing so, our failings become even more obvious to us and so that should, i think, result in a pause for reflection and asking for forgiveness. The point is that no matter how hard we try, we will sin.
If you take it all the way back to the Garden of Eden, the first sin was the knowledge of good and evil. Before we had an idea that there was sin, we couldn’t commit one. Once we came up with the notion of “right and wrong” rather than simply doing whatever we needed to do to survive from one day to the next, and once we socialized a set of things that were “right and wrong”, we basically created all the evils in the world.
There is no turning back from that point because try as hard as you can, you can’t completely, totally, 100 percent of the time always be as you should be. It just can’t be done. And so we must ask for forgiveness and try again. But it’s a lot of work and probably best accomplished while living the Amish lifestyle where you spend so much of your day working just to provide for yourself with that horse pulling a plow that you don’t really have much time to do anything wrong.
Idle hands…you make a very good point.
Many people, if they don’t follow NASCAR don’t get the “boogity, boogity, boogity” part of the prayer. Listen to Darrell Waltrip call the start of a race sometime and you will understand.
Good point. Actually, one needs even more background than that to get it.
Besides DW, the first 90 seconds or so of this video is helpful. This scene from Talladega Nights was much of Nelms’ inspiration.
The Great Penguin, praise His name, does not look upon such tomfoolery with great enthusiasm. Indeed He does frown upon it as the mortals involved have failed His great test. But fear not. There is still time to repent until the Black March begins.
Repent now! Or suffer the consequences come the Black March.
He won’t blame me, I voted for Bill and Opus.
Infidel! *shakes fist*
To repeat: Bill…and…Opus. The Great Penguin will cut me some slack, even if you don’t.