Fundie Fight Club

[GenerationCedarchip]

I mentioned this idea in the JRM thread, but it's something I've thought about a lot. Within fundiedom, there are certain extrabiblical philosophies and norms that seem to play in the background of those cultures. They're rarely, if ever, spoken of but yet they seem to just be universally understood.

I started to notice them more as I came out of fundie. I think this happened largely because I knew I still believed in God and considered myself Christian, but sometimes it can be hard to separate what is biblical truth from what is a cultural norm. And I found the entire process harder because well, like fight club, the first rule is "No one talks about x."

I know we have some ex-fundies here. What rules of fundie fight club did you see? The "rules" might differ a little among strains of fundie but from my time in super-reformed circles, I noticed:

- kinism - This one got mentioned earlier. For someone who hasn't been around it, it can be hard to explain, but basically kinist ideas (even if the overt racism is never voiced) float around without ever being called by name. Most of the time, it seemed to get rolled into ideas of multi-generational faithfulness and the idea of family units (and the church family) needing to stick to "their own kind" and put their own above anyone else.

- Rushdoony - Seriously. He's almost like He Who Must Not Be Named. I know the Botkins praise him openly and sport "Read Rushdoony" swag, but in many reformed circles, mention of Rushdoony is almost forbidden. I would hear folks teaching of ideas on the law and Christian Reconstructionism that I now know came from Rushdoony, but they would always cite, "An article I saw" or "A book I read." After enough years, you get the feeling that folks read Rushdoony in secret, but it's hard to miss the fact that his ideas are there.

[Naga Viper]

Are we allowed to talk about this?

[FundieFarmer]

I don't know if I'm doing this right, but...

The Elect. You know your'e part of it, but you don't really say you're part of it (at least in my experience).

[GenerationCedarchip]

I don't know if I'm doing this right, but...

The Elect. You know your'e part of it, but you don't really say you're part of it (at least in my experience).

Yes! I internalized that so much that I think I tend to forget about it. However, there did seem to be a basic assumption that all of us there in church were part of "us" (the elect) as opposed to "them" (those people on the outside that we don't know about). I'm on good terms with my family and when I'm home visiting and go to church with them, I can tell that folks are trying to figure out where to classify me now because they see me as "Christian", but not really the RIGHT sort of Christian.

Well, and I talk about fight club.