What's the new fundie 'thing' going to be?

[smores]

With courtships getting mixed results, I also see "debutante" balls and other mixed, chaperoned get-together as the "it" thing. It has the respectability of being "old-fashioned", but will improve chances of marriage. Despite the isolationist tendencies of certain fundies, I honestly believe most fundies still want to marry off their children. I foresee these parties as a fundie approved ways for young people to meet like-minded families.

I see this too, because arranged marriages could be more prone to failure. I see these chaperone get togethers becoming a big thing as they can convince the girl she liked the guy, and vice versa, since they "met" and have similar life goals.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Coming from a religious culture where arranged marriages (or at least, arranged introductions) have been the norm, I'm just surprised that they don't already do this.

I predict more formal avenues and protocols for matchmaking. It will start to be a rite of passage - finish homeschooling, get established and then contact the matchmaker.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Also, to continue my theme of looking to Orthodox Jews for inspiration - more focus on better food.

A huge amount of traditional Jewish culture revolves around food, and food-based Orthodox outreach is REALLY common. If you are trying to push a cult of domesticity, at least make it taste good. You want the image of home to conjure up warm fuzzies, not memories of being force-fed tiny amounts of crap.

Less isolation, although they may still have a rural focus to keep costs down. Having built-in support networks would be a draw, it would help if a mother is on the verge of physical or mental collapse, and it would also reinforce the fundie lifestyle b/c leaving would also mean abandoning the support system.

[thetabmeister]

Out of touch is right, and that's really their problem. A reasonably intelligent, likable second generation SOTDRT fundie might make local office, but to get any higher up, they'd have to court mainstream voters (or at least the more pragmatic conservative voters). Ignoring the opposition completely is a good part of the reason Romney lost, and Romney was leaps and bounds above some of the mis-educated, fearful, utterly incapable grown-children the fundies have raised. And meanwhile the mainstream is becoming more tolerant and diverse, so it's an even harder gap to bridge. I dunno, I can see pushing their kids into politics, but I really don't see those kids succeeding.

I agree with most of what has been said above, but one may want to look more closely into the students of Patrick Henry College and their "success stories." Supposedly, most of them are homeschooled, and several have gone on to become aides in the White House and to other famous politicians. So I wouldn't say that they're all not succeeding...but I'm sure it isn't and never will be the level of success that they want. I just used to run in circles during my growing up years of people completely obsessed with getting homeschooled fundie lite young adults into politics. My friends would volunteer for campaigns for hours and several of them still donate hundreds of their own dollars each year toward their pet candidates. It was mainly people I knew in central FL, many of which have moved to VA. Some attended Liberty University (this is fundie lite, but to me they are still AS SCARY and dangerous and wrong as hardcore fundy) and others attended that ATI school Verity, while many have gone to Patrick Henry College (used to be my dream school when I was drinking the kool-aid!) Either they are making a big fuss, or they're really succeeding in some small way at getting their drones into government in various ways. Of course, I haven't visited the PHC or HSLDA websites in a while but last I did, that was the big focus. Even when I was into fundieism I didn't think it was right for a nation's leaders to be religious instead of secular. Who would decide which religion was best? Why would that be any better than the dreaded "state church of England/Russia/whatever" that we were taught to fear in our homeschool days? :?

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Coming from a religious culture where arranged marriages (or at least, arranged introductions) have been the norm, I'm just surprised that they don't already do this.

I predict more formal avenues and protocols for matchmaking. It will start to be a rite of passage - finish homeschooling, get established and then contact the matchmaker.

Yeah, as someone on the internet who has just read about that religious culture for ages, I'm with you 100% in wondering why they've not come up with official matchmakers already!

[2xx1xy1JD]

One more: distinguishing between themselves and more liberal evangelicals, particularly when it comes to sex. They will focus on the fact that evangelicals have high teen pregnancy rates (see http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008 ... act_talbot), but instead of seeing that as a failure of abstinence-only, they will see it as a sign that fundie lite is just too liberal and encourage a major push toward modesty, keeping away from media, separation of sexes, etc. They will claim that the stats show that their ultra-conservative approach is more successful than the fundie lite approach.

Fundie lites will continue to be oriented toward outreach. They will make a strong point that liberals tend to be less accepting of the idea of teen parenthood, and present themselves as the warm, accepting and open alternative. There will be more areas of conflict between fundie and fundie lite because of this difference in approach.

[thetabmeister]

Yeah, as someone on the internet who has just read about that religious culture for ages, I'm with you 100% in wondering why they've not come up with official matchmakers already!

Honestly, I think a lot of the "official matchmaker" syndrome may be temporarily put off as an atrocious idea since they like to think that God is the ultimate matchmaker and one responsible for bringing folks together. If they outright had a person in that capacity, it would be hard even for them to excuse that level of hypocrisy since they truly believe that it is God that makes these things happen. What they fail to see is that through the parents' micromanaging of their sons and daughters lives, controlling each meeting, whom is met and how, what is said and done, and where it all happens (this is true, it is EXACTLY how I lived before getting out of my fundie-lite family), the parents have already orchestrated an extreme dimension that is so narrow and strict it gives God little room to work. Then there is the whole courtship thing. Now my parents didn't believe in that but my best friend's parents do. I know I've been telling this story on a bunch of threads lately but I'm just so darn upset that it could happen, that it WOULD happen to someone who used to be my best friend and whose parents used to be pretty normal. I deeply believe that adults who go fundy go waaaaaaaaaaaaay fundy, for the most part. This particular family eventually got so steeped in Gothardism that they felt obligated to leave our Baptist church (back in the 90s) because our pastor taught from the pulpit that Gothard is a false prophet, and he also asked the family not to keep inviting the other church members to ATI-related videos and stuff at their home.

Anyway, my friend. 26. Never went to college because it's sinful. Stayed at home running Daddy's insurance business and Mommy's household of 5 younger siblings plus all the cooking. Enter young ATI man from another state who knows my friend's daddy through working with an airplane version of "Truth Trucks" (do not google images, I'm not kidding). Young man has met my friend once. Young man's family starts criticizing him for not having gotten a wife yet and start suggesting ideal young women for him to meet. He answers that he already knows a young woman he is interested in. He speaks to my friend's dad in January. My friend's parents ask her for her consent which she gives and a courtship is begun officially in February. At that time my friend's specific words were that they just wanted to see if if is God's will, it may or may not end up in marriage, ONLY if it really is God's will, and if it does end in marriage there is no telling when that may be as there is no rush, it is purely a getting to know each other kind of thing. Enter July. They're engaged. THey're shooting for a wedding date of Oct (which is when it ended uphappening) When I make a comment about how fast it happened, her response? Well we knew all along that we were going to get married, it was just a matter of when. Also sad was tha tin the beginning months she confessed to not having any feelings for him at all, but that she was sticking with the courtship because that is the way thigns are supposed to be done. Then after the engagement she suddenly claimed to be super emotionally attached and have these deep feelings...well as someone else on FJ pointed out on another thread recently, what do you expect from someone who has completley suppressed all their emotions and feelings for 20+ years?

Anyways overall that model, the pretense of following God but actually clinging to a manmade formula, is as much an aranged marriage to me as anything. And it's disgusting and sad and I hate it.

[Ellimenopy]

I'm surprised that nobody's already pointed out that they are already moving to an arranged marriage model. Can there be any doubt that Gothard himself was intimately involved in the courtship of David and Priscilla? David surely went to him to ask about suitable matches, given that Gothard's his mentor and he's gayer than unicorn poop fairycakes. I'm sure that other ATI families are already looking at Priscilla and David and wondering how to broach the subject of their own children with Gothard, and I'm sure that matchmaking could become another of his duties. I doubt that they'd call it this, of course - it would just be "seeking wise counsel", or some other fun die-speak. But if David and Priscilla are a success, and it appears they will be, Gothard will probably be making other matches in no time, although we're not likely to hear of it from this perspective.

For Gothard, of course, getting to counsel his followers on whom to marry (even who's just worthy to marry), gives him even more control over his fan base. It allows him to reward "good" families with "good" matches, and to punish with merely a few negative words. I would be surprised if this is not already done, at least among his ATI interns, which makes me wonder again about Jana's perpetual single status. Is she getting passed over? Or does Gothard himself not approve of some aspect of her family?

Anyway, this also explains why they don't have a matchmaker, even though their beliefs prime them for one - why would they need a matchmaker when they already have such a godly counselor as Mr. Gothard?

[Mela99]

I've seen some blogs touting "betrothal"--which appears to be courting with even less contact between the boy and girl before the wedding. Some fundies going this route have a "betrothal ceremony" in which the boy and girl get legally married, then save the religious ceremony for the wedding day, which makes it even more difficult to break an engagement since it would require an actual divorce.

homeshalom.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-is-betrothal-how-does-it-compare.html

ecclesia.org/truth/betrothal.html

Mmm. Link is broken. But what a concept... Reminds me of the Tudor era and all the "betrothals". I wonder what would have to happen for one to be broken. Fraud?

I do think marriages are going to start happening. Erin Bates will be the first unless Dim Bulb throws a J'slave into the ring

[GeoBQn]

Both links work for me, but on the 2nd one, it says the only reason a betrothal can be broken is for infidelity.

[feministing]

I have a friend who is fundie-lite, despite having gone through law school. Her family seems full-on fundie but they let their kids be exposed to *some* worldly things and give them freedom of choice. She was allowed to go to "normal" undergrad and law school, as it was her "choice" (she ended up going to a super-liberal undergrad, she felt that she needed exposure to liberalism in order to make a choice as to how she wanted to live her life, and although she did take up feminism and anti-oppression activism, she also felt more stable in her beliefs in fundie living.

Her defense of fundy-ism is along the lines of, "Just listen to any popular song, they are all so lewd and degrading to women, encourage negative behaviours and delinquency, modern society has gone too far with its distancing from moral and family values."

I have an orthodox Jewish friend who echoes these sentiments. Gothard is clearly familiar with youth - youth are terrible influences on each other. But because youth will be youth, you can't possibly exert this kind of cult-like control without a dose of hypocrisy. She thinks Gothard's intentions are good - he has seen delinquent inner city youth and how they are, and he felt that the only way to prevent getting future kids involved with that is to shield them from it, which is very hard, so what does Gothard do? Create a cult. It's the only way. I mean, I've worked with inner-city youth and it seems all they do is swear, talk about sex and violence, degrade women, and defy their families. Their family units are crumbling because of individualism and materialism (although she - fundie-lite friend - is the first to get upset at her "Christian" friends who blame women for things men are generally responsible for, such as leaving their families). Basically her problem with liberalism is that it is morally bankrupt - it places the individual over the family - although she acknowledges that Conservatism is wildly hypocritical.

I honestly tend to agree that the culture we live in is in a way morally bankrupt. I understand Gothard's actions to bring families together, encourage reverence of men so that they don't feel the need to run off (if we kiss enough ass to them they won't feel tempted to run off to fulfill primal urges - since men have that biological freedom). He wants to overpopulate his followers so that they could eventually "stamp-out" those morally bankrupt "worldly" people. The problem with him is:

1) He takes everything WAY too far.

2) He mistakes the morally bankrupt culture for morally bankrupt individuals... when to most people lewd rap songs are just entertainment, not something to be taken seriously. (Although too many inner-city kids in particular seem to make rap songs their lifestyle). He saw these kids, saw that negative influences are rampant and wanted to try to stamp them out. This "cult" is his aggressive way of trying to stamp out all the negative influences that surround us. I mean, turn on a TV - most shows are superficial, pointless, and highly degrading or sexualized.

3) He's superstitious and mistakenly feels he is doing God's work

4) He is a pervert who wants to live his sexual fantasies of pretty "pure" curly-haired women... don't you notice an element of fetishism on Gothard's behalf in the ATI?

5) He's a bigot and legalist who is afraid that the liberals' legit arguments will fall into favour among fundies who are exposed to the real world (especially given their "servants hearts").

The bottom line is, yes, liberalism to a great extent is morally bankrupt. But we are human beings with urges that can't be this repressed, and we also deserve freedom and enjoyment of life.

So basically, fundie-lite friend managed to reconcile feminism with fundie-ism by saying that living biblically means avoiding degrading women and keeping a cleaner, morally-sound world. I don't see why she doesn't feel that the bible also has huge double standards that her feminist inclinations would ordinarily oppose (note that she thinks all this pro-NRA, xenophobic, anti-environmental-protection is not living biblically and represents a cultural aspect of fundie-ism she does not agree with).

She also feels that in the future, due to the duggars/bates, more and more people will dig deeper into the ATI and expose it for the cult that it is, and in response the ATI will be involved in a great deal of damage control.