Can someone tell me what fundy-lite actually is?

[annalena]

I read it all the time, and while I have a clear idea of what is fundy, not sure about this one.

Where's the line? Can someone tell me?

[twin2]

I think everyone probably has a different definition of what fundie-lite is. To me, fundie-lite (in respects to Christianity) is following a lot (not all) of the legalistic and patriarchal aspects of Christianity, yet still can fit and participate in normal society. To me, someone like Kendal is fundie-lite, annoying as all high holy hell fundie-lite, but not full on fundie (others may disagree). She believes in the whole patriarchy and the literal interpretation of the Bible, yet she still is integrated into normal society. They go to a church, she is not skirts only (she mentioned one time wearing shorts), the girls go to dance class and have playdates, she buys them normal one-piece swimsuits and they go to the beach and the pool, and she reads Harry Potter. Someone like the Maxwells, Zsu, of the Botkins would not do any of this, they only exist in their tight-knit little circles and shun everything else.

[xReems]

These are the people who hold some fundamentalist concepts but are not too extreme with things such as: wearing only skirts, allowing God to decide how many children to have, homeschooling using fundamentalist curriculum (ATI/IBLP, for example), etc. Someone like Josh McDonald (Anna Duggar's BIL) and his wife, Rebekah, might be considered fundie-lite. They hold conservative Christian beliefs but watches TV, goes to movies, doesn't homeschool, girls can wear pants, etc etc. Pretty much what Twin2 said, it varies from person to person.

[annalena]

thanks guys.

i have a friend who is baptist, goes to a big church where all kinds of people go, still wears jeans and shorts but applies some of the concepts of fundy-ism.

so she believes in submission, although her interpretation is very different from our fellow fundies' ones, that wifes are called to stay at home, she plans on homeschooling her future children, living debt-free, also she says she has a certain level of modesty, as in not wearing super short dresses and heels at the same time, BUT still wear regular swimsuits and short shorts. also doesn't believe in premarital sex.

would you think she's fundy-lite or just mainstream christian? i dont even know why that is important, but it kind of feels like it is:)

[Wolfie]

I am going to agree that it varies from person to person- I try not to use it for that reason, but I know I do sometimes. I think it is best applied to the very legalistic, but still somewhat mainstream Christians.

What bothers me is that some people here basically call anybody who is Christian a fundie light. No, not all Christians, even evangelicals, fall into that category.

[lilwriter85]

I think fundie-lites do vary in beliefs. I grew up near a fundie-lite family that watched TV and movies but they had strict rules regarding entertainment. The kids couldn't watch R rated movies or anything that had sorcery or super hero elements in it. They also didn't let their kids read books that were about anything supernatural. This family didn't celebrate Halloween either. I have seen other fundie lite families that are a bit less strict.

[lilwriter85]

thanks guys.

i have a friend who is baptist, goes to a big church where all kinds of people go, still wears jeans and shorts but applies some of the concepts of fundy-ism.

so she believes in submission, although her interpretation is very different from our fellow fundies' ones, that wifes are called to stay at home, she plans on homeschooling her future children, living debt-free, also she says she has a certain level of modesty, as in not wearing super short dresses and heels at the same time, BUT still wear regular swimsuits and short shorts. also doesn't believe in premarital sex.

would you think she's fundy-lite or just mainstream christian? i dont even know why that is important, but it kind of feels like it is:)

I think she is fundie-lite.

[skankbiscuit]

Courtney from Women Living Well is fundy-lite. She wears pants, and uses that heathen K-12 curriculum for homeschooling. She is big on being submissive and doing everything to please your man. :roll: But, she is pretty outspoken and disagrees with her husband sometimes. She leads her own bible study group and they attend a normal fundy church (like a Foursquare or something similar.)

[Trynn]

What bothers me is that some people here basically call anybody who is Christian a fundie light. No, not all Christians, even evangelicals, fall into that category.

I've noticed that too.

[debrand]

I've noticed that too.

Honestly, I haven't but maybe I either overlooked the posts or ignored those threads. Could you give an example?

Back to the original question. I think fundie lites are people who do not mind bending to the culture in dress or other practical manners. For example,their wives wear dresses, go to college and work but they are submissive and encourage other women to be submissive. Or they keep their opinions about homosexuality to themselves until it is time to vote and than they vote against same sex marriage.

Not all evangelicals are fundamentalists but I think that some fundie thinking is slowly leeching its way into more mainstream Christiainity. that is why it is so wonderful that the Christians on this site are willing to talk about their beliefs.

Edited because I rambled like taryn. Darn me.

[annalena]

I think fundie-lites do vary in beliefs. I grew up near a fundie-lite family that watched TV and movies but they had strict rules regarding entertainment. The kids couldn't watch R rated movies or anything that had sorcery or super hero elements in it. They also didn't let their kids read books that were about anything supernatural. This family didn't celebrate Halloween either. I have seen other fundie lite families that are a bit less strict.

well i cant see anything wrong with not letting (little) kids watch r-rated movies. especially here in europe, where we have age ratings 12,16,18 and the movies are mostly rated for violence and brutality, not sex or nipples. i can't see a child harmed from seeing a woman's breast in a movie, but definitely from being exposed to violence. (or more graphic sex scenes)

[ADoyle90815]

I think it varies, and not all Christians are fundie-lite. My definition is someone who allows their children to watch TV, even though they might limit what they allow to be watched. Women might only wear dresses or skirts to church, and wear pants and even shorts the other days of the week. Even if their children aren't allowed to wear sleeveless clothing, they do make an exception and allow regular swimsuits so they still blend in with society. The only reason they might homeschool is if the public schools aren't good in the area, and they couldn't afford private schools. They also tend to have smaller families than fundies because they don't believe in raising children they couldn't afford, or they follow a doctor's advice and stop after a dangerous pregnancy.

[1004srs]

I consider myself Catholic fundie-lite.

No movies other than G in my home. My kids are young, so right now I steer them towards books with a message such as The 3 Trees, Treasury of Virtues, and The Toddlers Bible. We have religious art in our home and all of us have crosses in our rooms. We pray before meals no matter what..... My kids go to Catholic School. We observe all of the Catholic Holidays. Conservative dress (no writing on butts, no short shorts, no shirts off for boys unless you are at the pool, no bikinis for girls)

We live near one of the Catholic "cults" and are certainly not that strict.

But, religion is a big part of our lives.

[debrand]

I consider myself Catholic fundie-lite.

No movies other than G in my home. My kids are young, so right now I steer them towards books with a message such as The 3 Trees, Treasury of Virtues, and The Toddlers Bible. We have religious art in our home and all of us have crosses in our rooms. We pray before meals no matter what..... My kids go to Catholic School. We observe all of the Catholic Holidays. Conservative dress (no writing on butts, no short shorts, no shirts off for boys unless you are at the pool, no bikinis for girls)

We live near one of the Catholic "cults" and are certainly not that strict.

But, religion is a big part of our lives.

I don't know how the others feel but I don't consider your examples to be fundie lite. If you prevented your teenagers from watching anythign but G rated, I might agree that you were fundie lite, but lots of nonChristians don't let their younger kids watch many movies or tv shows.

Prayer is an expression of your religion and doesn't strike me as fundie either.

Being strict isn't enough to be fundie lite to me. I consider fundie lite to be those people who believe that their way is the best or only way for EVERYONE.

[1004srs]

I was not raised with the degree of Catholicism that I am choosing to have in my home. Not even close.

I had friends that were raised strict Catholic, Mormon and/or Protestant. I loved being around the religious structure in their homes.

[demgirl]

I consider 1004srs description as running the border between conservative Catholic and fundie-lite. For me, it often crosses over into fundie-lite when you are restricting what your children read and see (not that toddlers should see "R" movies, but when everything you watch or read is related to religion).

I think Kendall is probably the easiest example. Although she sometimes looks like she's about to teeter over into full on fundie, most days she's pretty fundie-lite.

It would be nice to be able to put it into quantifiable terms, like -- well, if you spend more than 40% of your day doing things that are religious in nature or doing things because of your religious beliefs or morals, then you're fundie-lite and not mainstream Christian, but it's not that easy.

[Phyllis Stein]

1004srs, that sounds like conservative Catholicism to me.

[debrand]

1004srs, that sounds like conservative Catholicism to me.

It does to me also.

[FaustianSlip]

Honestly, I haven't but maybe I either overlooked the posts or ignored those threads. Could you give an example?

Yeah, same.

I have friends I would consider fundie-lite. The big things I would look for are being born again, a belief that people who are not born again are going to Hell, often (though not always) homeschools, anti-homosexuality in general/gay marriage in particular, pro-life, typically pretty conservative politically, goes to an evangelical church of one kind or another, belief in young earth creationism, literal interpretation of the Bible, belief in observing complementarian gender roles to one degree or another.... It's kind of like porn, I guess. Hard to describe it definitively, but I know it when I see it. Denomination-wise, the fundie-light folks I most often run across are generally Southern Baptists, Calvinists and conservative Presbys, but not always. My Episcopal priest growing up was fundie-light (and as kind a man as he was, his beliefs probably helped put me on the path out of Christianity pretty early on).

These benchmarks are for Protestants, obviously. Some of the same things would apply to Jewish or Catholic fundie-light folks, but not always. I'd classify a lot of Chabadniks I've met as fundie-light (and some full-on fundie- you tend to get that more in Crown Heights and Israel, I think), along with some of the more right-wing Modern Orthodox (while the more left-wing I know, I wouldn't classify as fundie at all, tzniut notwithstanding).

[marmalade]

I'd say my parents, once they joined the church with Camping, were fundie-lite. I was a junior in high school and had pretty much already decided that organized religion was a joke. Other than killing the teevee and forcing me to go to church on Sundays for two years, they pretty much let me do what I wanted. Their attitude was more geared toward me being self-sufficient; they put a roof over my head and fed me, but I had to work to buy clothes, and the agreement was if I bought it, they could not force me to get rid of it if they didn't like it. They allowed me to date and go out with my girlfriends.

I was a good kid, made good grades and played my parents' game well enough that I wasn't bothered by them much, to the point of actual neglect when it came time to plan for college. They figured all that was also MY responsibility: school counseling, paying for testing, finding financial aid, and the applications themselves. That's why I'm now a 40-something undergrad. They basically threw me to the wolves before I was anywhere near ready. This attitude continued when I turned 18; like my adopted mother's 3 daughters before me, I was given a set of luggage and an ultimatum.

All the while, my parents dove head-first into their church and trough my mother's babysitting business (she was licensed), met young women who were my age, but were having buttloads of kids. She adopted those girls as surrogate "daughters," which infuriated her real (and adopted) daughters; we weren't "Christian" enough...only 5 kids between the four of us. Thankfully, my parents woke up before they passed and realized the value of their actual kids (even my gay brother who was my father's caretaker for the last couple of years of his life), but never amended their trust to account for this "reconciliation" with their real kids. One family with 6 kids (who my parents assisted in buying a swanky house with a swimming pool in our very expensive market...a place they NEVER could have bought on the husband's (a guy I went to HS with) non-union truck-driver salary), received as much cash as FOTF did, complete with trust funds for the kids. That one family got more money from my parents than all their kids put together.

I was trying to get Dad to make some changes, but then his final illness struck without warning and before we could even meet with the lawyer, he was in the hospital and 10 days later, gone.

Their house was a shrine to Jeebus, but toward the end they started to enjoy themselves more, even having a glass of wine or champagne on special occasions! But my mother never gave up those horrific muumuus she made (and wore with sneakers once her ankles told her flip-flops were no longer an option) until the very end. At least they weren't frumpers; they hit just below the knee and she'd often wear them without teeshirts underneath, even well into her 70's.

Strange and often contradictory, but definitely fundie-lite.

[Joykins]

thanks guys.

i have a friend who is baptist, goes to a big church where all kinds of people go, still wears jeans and shorts but applies some of the concepts of fundy-ism.

so she believes in submission, although her interpretation is very different from our fellow fundies' ones, that wifes are called to stay at home, she plans on homeschooling her future children, living debt-free, also she says she has a certain level of modesty, as in not wearing super short dresses and heels at the same time, BUT still wear regular swimsuits and short shorts. also doesn't believe in premarital sex.

would you think she's fundy-lite or just mainstream christian? i dont even know why that is important, but it kind of feels like it is:)

I would call that conservative evangelical, which seems similar to the FJ term "fundy-lite."

[lilwriter85]

well i cant see anything wrong with not letting (little) kids watch r-rated movies. especially here in europe, where we have age ratings 12,16,18 and the movies are mostly rated for violence and brutality, not sex or nipples. i can't see a child harmed from seeing a woman's breast in a movie, but definitely from being exposed to violence. (or more graphic sex scenes)

I agree I can understand not letting little kids watch r-rated movies, with this family when their kids were teens, they didn't allow them to watch r-rated movies. Here in the US, movie ratings are complicated. There are some R movies that only rated that way because of language or nude scenes.

[Rosa]

Mainstream American culture is pretty damn Christian, so the big mainline churches are full of members who are indistinguishable from everybody else.

Anything more legalistic than that, anybody who claims the Bible calls for wifely submission, dressing a certain way, not working on the Sabbath, etc - that's at least fundy-lite. Though I think the way we usually use it mostly only describes the Evangelical parts, since they have the most distinctive culture.

My special rule for spotting fundy-lites is if they are OK with their kids seeing violence in media, or hate speech, but nothing remotely sexual at all.

[GenerationCedarchip]

I wouldn't classify all Christians as either fundy or fundy-lite. For me, I look at legalistic rules required in addition to the basic tenets of Christianity. From what I've seen, fundies tend to separate themselves and their families from anything that smacks of mainstream, secular culture. They also tend to have strict rules about dress, women's roles, children's behavior, etc.. And there's usually a component of anti-government sentiment mixed in.

Fundie-lites tend also to be very conservative, but they dress a little more mainstream and they don't separate themselves from mainstream culture quite as much. However, there still tends to be a strain of legalism through a lot of fundy-lite groups. For instance, if you confess some really big sin the difference between a fundy-lite and a mainstream evangelical (still conservative) church would be that the fundy-lites would focus more on the discipline to be meted out to you while the mainstream conservative/evangelicals would focus on restoring your relationship with God and the church. Sadly, the fundie-lites seem to be making more noise in the public sphere these days.

[annalena]

I agree I can understand not letting little kids watch r-rated movies, with this family when their kids were teens, they didn't allow them to watch r-rated movies. Here in the US, movie ratings are complicated. There are some R movies that only rated that way because of language or nude scenes.

i know. that's a different story. actually, i remember watching movies rated 16 when i was younger than that, and since that's mostly horror movies here, i was so scared i don't watch most of them until the present day.

not to mention 18-rated. still don't and never will! (we're talking stuff like saw, the ring, silent hill)

american pie though, for example, was rated 12