Want to join a fundie cult...commune?

[maybeizfundie]

Ugh. Actual communes scare me. Commune-think scares me. Whether it's secular or religious, I see too much potential for bad. My observation is that no matter how deep the desire to make all things equal and shared, there is always a priveleged elite. Always. However, I know I am biased by my experience, as the cult we were in had the commune aspect to it.

This one doesn't look Mennonite/Amish at all to me--they do have community but not in such a tight, commune-like way. This looks like idolizing "the good old days" as well as idolizing "like mindedness". If we could just cloister ourselves away from all the people who don't think like us, then life will be grand.

Well. I don't think that works. And I think that because of the type of people this will attract, if it ever gets off the ground it will be a disaster--spiritually and emotionally if not physically.

[grovelina]

This guy doesn't seem to have the logistics or finances really worked out, just the ideals. He has this rosy picture in his head of a biblical utopia, where the wimmin are wimmin and the men are men and everyone lives in christian harmony. How is this commune funded? When members join, do they have to contribute a large sum to pay for their 'old fashioned' house? Even though everyone is like minded in matters of faith, a dispute is sure to arise sometime. How does it get settled? Communes that work have all of this (and more) worked out, and if I were looking to join, I would want to know the basics beyond that I would be expected to sew my clothes by hand and make my own candles.

[FundiesInMyFamily]

I just don't get all of these people wanting to live simply to the extreme. I'm all for conservation and living simply, but these fundies take it to a whole new level. Given the hardship of her time, I think Laura Ingalls would have LOVED a nice new Kenmore washer & dryer. Hiking down to the river to get water or weaving your own cloth doesn't make you more Godly, it's whats in your heart.

[Hane]

I just don't get all of these people wanting to live simply to the extreme. I'm all for conservation and living simply, but these fundies take it to a whole new level. Given the hardship of her time, I think Laura Ingalls would have LOVED a nice new Kenmore washer & dryer. Hiking down to the river to get water or weaving your own cloth doesn't make you more Godly, it's whats in your heart.

Agreed. And does anyone else notice that this kind of "Godly" commune dumps the majority of the time-consuming dirty work onto the women?

[Deleted03]

Hahahaha! I just spilt water down myself at that.

I live in a sort of semi communal situation but there isn't, er, a dress code or religion involved. Or, really, anything in the way of restrictions. We're all leftists so a fascist or something couldn't move in (but would they want to?) A guy had a problem with my particular brand of politics and said so but this was resolved (it comes out now and again as my lot have a history of killing his). That's about it.

Can't understand why anyone would submit to that huge list of rules. What can be in it for them?

Can I live in your commune? I'm tired of so much conservatism around me...

[nutella addict]

unschooling the kids?? WTF?

IIRC, "unschooling" is a form of homeschooling where "life is the classroom." There are no formal lessons, only experiences to learn from. Kids are encouraged to follow natural curiosities to learn. I believe that couple in Canada who isn't letting anyone know the gender of their third child also "unschools" their children.

[jenny_islander]

Absolutely the women get the dirty work in situations like this. The men drift in and out, but the women tend to stay put, aging prematurely from the hard work, because their children are there and the culture of the commune makes children women's business. A few decent men stay and get bullied by the jackass alpha types who show up to run the place and make up reasons why they should get lots of sex. A sufficiently evil jackass alpha type turns the commune into a destructive cult; if he's there in the founding group, it goes bad very quickly. If no cult-leader-wannabe ever shows up, the commune limps along and breaks up by the time the kids of the original members are teens. Everybody ends up poor, more teeth are missing than need be, and there are more chronic illnesses and arthritic joints than average.

Doesn't anybody who bathes in nostalgia for the Good Old Days remember that in the Good Old Days, farmers and their wives were all about the labor-saving device? Pedal-powered this, wind-powered that, water-powered the other thing? I think everybody who wants to go do this needs to read a 19th-century issue of the Sears, Roebuck catalog and a copy of the essay "The Sad Irons."

[teddybear]

My mom and dad were raised in the Ozarks, back in the hills. I can still remember my mom's parents living in a tar paper shack back in the woods. They cooked and heated with wood, carried water from the spring, but did have electricity. I also remember them moving to a more modern house just as quickly as they could and how my grandma loved having a washer and dryer in her house, not to mention a real bathroom. Most of those old timers left that primitive stuff just as quickly as they could afford it or it was available in their area. Some people have watched too many episodes of Little House on the Prairie.

[Aeryn406]

I have no desire to walk around in 1800's style clothing 24/7 in the heat of summer and washing my clothes down at the creek.

People already do this - it's called "reenacting" and you do it for fun, not some hide-from-the-naughty-world revisionist agenda. But I could be persuaded to infiltrate for a weekend ... It would have to wait until my new "wash dress" & bonnet come from eBay, though. ;)

[ChunkyBarbie]

My mom and dad were raised in the Ozarks, back in the hills. I can still remember my mom's parents living in a tar paper shack back in the woods. They cooked and heated with wood, carried water from the spring, but did have electricity. I also remember them moving to a more modern house just as quickly as they could and how my grandma loved having a washer and dryer in her house, not to mention a real bathroom. Most of those old timers left that primitive stuff just as quickly as they could afford it or it was available in their area. Some people have watched too many episodes of Little House on the Prairie.

Amen brother! Living the pioneer life is dangerous and hard. I have no interest in it.

[JesusFightClub]

Can I live in your commune? I'm tired of so much conservatism around me...

Well, you'd be very welcome in my book :) We do have a cat, but no kids allowed and you have to not mind people drinking whisky and debating the finer points of anarchosyndicalism at 2am ;) While playing the guitar.

[DamnPrecious]

Well, since I came out of lurkdom, I have to state for the record there is NOTHING simliar between Anabaptists and Baptists. Not to go too much into church history, suffice it to say that Anabaptists refer specifially to Mennonite, Amish, Hutterite or Brethern ONLY. Baptists are wannabes and the only ones who actually think they have any ties to Anabaptists, who came out of Holland and Germany at the same time Luther was nailing his treatise to the church doors.

Grew up Mennonite, the main conference has now merged with the Brethren. Most modern Mennonites and Brethren wouldn't stand out on the street at ALL, except they live their faith in ways most Christians never will. They also tend to be theologically conservative and socially liberal. They've been ordaining women for a LONG time and don't consider it a contraversy since they don't consider themselves to be Protestant either. They do NOT hold the values this ad seems to believe, not surprisingly.

Plain people stand out, live in intentional community and tend to shun modern society (at least in some form, and that doesn't pertain to the Hutterites who live in intentional community but are BIG into modernity).

This ad is not the first wannabe. People think Anabaptists are Amish with conservative Baptist theology because they are idiots and want to embark upon this illylic dream of what they THINK it's all about.

I've been a Baptist my whole life and have never heard that. From the limited research I have done I have never seen the claim the we were Anabaptist. What do I know? Apparently I'm a wannabe idiot.

[Guest Anonymous]

Great, Faux Old Order Mennonites/Amish (without the nasty incovenience of speaking another language)! Seems to me it would take a fair bit of cash to start up something like this.

[Guest Anonymous]

Well, since I came out of lurkdom, I have to state for the record there is NOTHING simliar between Anabaptists and Baptists. Not to go too much into church history, suffice it to say that Anabaptists refer specifially to Mennonite, Amish, Hutterite or Brethern ONLY. Baptists are wannabes and the only ones who actually think they have any ties to Anabaptists, who came out of Holland and Germany at the same time Luther was nailing his treatise to the church doors.

Baptists are wannabes? Uh, I'm pretty sure the Baptist church I was raised in...or any other Southern Baptist church for that matter...doesn't "wannabe" anything like what this ad describes or like what you were raised in.

[ems]

I found this advertisment for a fundie styled cult commune. It's kind of a suprise almost that it would take fundies this long to go the way of the fundamentalist mormons, amish or whatnot. But then part of the ethos of fundism is that each patriarch gets to be an alpha male of his own domain and that doesn't jive with living in a commune. Anyway these guys are more mennonite-ish. I'm amused by the irony of advertising for your anti technology cult on the internet.

http://directory.ic.org/21333/Conservat ... o_name_yet

Website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Old-Fashi ... Community/

Contact:

Odd. And like a lot of the fundies who so idolize the past, it seems someone patronizing in a way. I mean one thing I do respect about the Amish is that they are living a way of life that their community has sustained for centuries; it isn't like they just picked a random point in history and were like, "oh, that time period was more godly, let's just adopt their lifestyle/dress/housing/"old skills," etc."

[LadyBBR]

JesusFightClub - I'm interested in hearing about your commune. Can you share a little?

[FJismyheadship]

Oregon Trail for the win. Just sayin. Does anyone remember the other game where you were like a slave and you had to escape without getting caught? The style of it was very much like Oregon Trail... then again, I think they were right around the same time.

I never won either game.

[Deleted10]

Are there mystical red-cloaked creatures surrounding this commune?

[DamnPrecious]

Are there mystical red-cloaked creatures surrounding this commune?

The Village?

[lovefromgirl]

Given the hardship of her time, I think Laura Ingalls would have LOVED a nice new Kenmore washer & dryer. Hiking down to the river to get water or weaving your own cloth doesn't make you more Godly, it's whats in your heart.

In one of the later books, Pa Ingalls brings home a shiny new sewing machine. The women just about died of joy. :)

[Deleted10]

The Village?

It was the first thing I thought of after I read the description of the commune. :lol:

[Chrystal-J]

The sites says they'll use no computers, yet advertise with a computer for new members who will use a computer to find the group. :?

[doe]

I think someone posted on the old board something about some group of Baptists who were sure they were the real true church because of their connection to the Anabaptists. I don't remember what it was they specifically believed about the Anabaptists, though.

That is the only time I've heard of Baptists suggesting anything like that. But there are many different kinds of baptists so it's possible the person who called them wannabees has had experience with them.

[Evawithoutaclue]

JesusFightClub - I'm interested in hearing about your commune. Can you share a little?

Me too- especially the no kids bit. How does that work?. What if someone gets pregnant?

Sounds like a great idea, mind you. I've got 3 little ones and I'd love to live in a child free commune ;)

[JesusFightClub]

Yes, it's not so weird ;) In re kids: This would be a bad place for a kid to be brought up in for a number of reasons. Some want kids, some don't, but it is not a good setup. I think a pregnant mum would apply to move elsewhere.