Real Life Fundie Encounters: Part 5

[BlackberryGirl]

I had a short, pleasant conversation with an Amish woman, her little boy and the woman who was driving them around today while my gs was doing our shopping. Everyone was masked including the 2 year old. The masks were obviously home sewn,  what was really interesting is the Amish woman’s mask was monogramed in hot pink embroidery! 

[LacyMay]

We moved over the summer to a smaller more rural city. We have a larger Mennonite population here and in the surrounding area so it's not uncommon to see them. I also regularly saw women who I think are more mainstream conservative Christian or independent Baptist/Pentecostal (skirts only, long hair etc) pre COVID I saw them in Starbucks every so often they were always super pleasant. 

[Marmion]

If Amish are to count as being a type of fundie , then I have an amusing anecdote .   Around this time of year is  rumspringa ,  and not even covid-19 is keeping them from getting together and partying .  So I have at times been out in my yard and suddenly heard throbbing back beats .  After having trouble pinpointing where it's coming from , I will here the clip clop of horse shoes , and realize that it's from the boombox of a buggy .  Amish teenagers , during this period of their lives might tend to enjoy types of music which might surprise some people .  Their horse will shake its head along to such dance tunes as something like this , for instance .  

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

For an example of the sort of thing  that I am referring to.    

 

 

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

Some time ago I wrote about the new manager at my recycling depot was Hare Krishna.  I was bothered by having to interact with them on a regular basis because the Krishna people in my past were scamming grifters and rude AF.

Well the community has changed a lot since then and I have come to really like this man and his wife.

So yesterday at the depot the woman tells me they’re moving to India as soon as Visas are starting to be issued again. They’re not worried about Corona because the Lord Krishna will protect them.   It’s sad for me to think what might happen to them, they’re moving to a community on the outskirts of Calcutta.  This is an older couple, he’s in his seventies she’s maybe sixty.  All their adult children are going with them.

It just reminds me of the grief people feel leaving the fundy churches.  Some of the people are so likeable in spite of their beliefs.  So tragic.

[Marmion]

13 minutes ago, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

They’re not worried about Corona because the Lord Krishna will protect them.

From what I understand , from this music video , they believe that their chanting of the Mahamantra gives to them protection , and power , not to mention transcendental bliss .  

Spoiler

 

Although anti-cult activists might deem it to fall under number 7 of the BITE model , in the category of thought control https://freedomofmind.com/bite-model/  , and Christians may feel that the practice is prohibited , as it pertains to  Matthew 6:7  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A7&version=NKJV , this is how such bhakti yogis go about connecting to their concept of the divine .  

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

I am so angry.  Mr Kools nephew who hasn’t bothered with us for the forty years Mr K and I have been together phoned and wants to stop in for a visit!  This guy is a JW and was visiting the JW guy who lives about an hour down the road from us.  They severely want to convert us.  The nephew and his wife have been driving around and visiting people during a fucking pandemic and now all of a sudden need to see their beloved uncle, who they’ve ignored for forty f’ing years.  We had quite the conversation, In a nutshell I told them not to show up.  I hope they don’t because I’m no pushover, I’m the bitch gatekeeper and I will not be happy.  WTF is wrong with people, how stupid can they be?  If they show up tomorrow they are not going to like me at all.  We are not your mission field asshole.  

Thanks guys, I just needed to vent. 

[CarrotCake]

Covid seems like a good excuse in this case. ?

[smittykins]

I’m surprised they’re still doing in-person visits.  Reportedly, many JWs have switched to proselytizing through letters and phone calls.

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

7 hours ago, smittykins said:

I’m surprised they’re still doing in-person visits.  Reportedly, many JWs have switched to proselytizing through letters and phone calls.

They have, apparently there’s no door knocking right now.  I guess that doesn’t apply to family, especially when they could die at any time.  And I know these ones around here are still meeting in people’s homes.

[adidas]

7 hours ago, smittykins said:

I’m surprised they’re still doing in-person visits.  Reportedly, many JWs have switched to proselytizing through letters and phone calls.

I got a hand written letter personally addressed to me. It was a page long with a tract and it looked like the handwriting of an elderly woman. It included one of their booklets.
I’ve previously called them and asked to be taken off their door knocking list, but I guess letters are different. 

[neuroticcat]

I have an old childhood friend who reconnected on Facebook. She’s busy selling plexus and conspiracy theories online with this weird polished fundie bonus dogma too.

You’ve probably seen the package of warnings: Sometimes it’s about vaccines or COVID or QAnon or masks. Most recently it’s about coin shortages and the terrors of a cashless society. What I find fascinating - beyond the fundamentalism combined with Gnosticism, is the comment threads with many pious reminders that “God is in control,” warnings about it being end times, mark of the beast, etc., and these weird faith declarations that they know where they’re going so: no fear (except all the fear monger it I guess?).

Anyway, it’s a new bizarro corner of fundamentalism for me, and the entitlement and delusion is crazytown. I mean, made up threats to drive propaganda when the world is on fire and feeling smug and safe as Christians? Look. You don’t have to care about the actual crises I care about...like famine or injustice or COVID...but can you just care about something real that’s not yourself? It’s embarrassing and awful and as a Christian I thInk it violates taking Gods name in vain every time I see it. 

[PumaLover]

2 hours ago, adidas said:

I got a hand written letter personally addressed to me. It was a page long with a tract and it looked like the handwriting of an elderly woman. It included one of their booklets.
I’ve previously called them and asked to be taken off their door knocking list, but I guess letters are different. 

Mr. Puma received one of these. He has the same name as his late grandfather who was JW so I guess that kind of makes sense. He recycled it.

[Flossie]

I got a phone call a few weeks ago.  It was from an elderly lady looking for 'May'.  When told I her I wasn't May, she happily started to tell me that she's contacting members from her church to check up on them.  We had a short conversation.  I couldn't be impolite to an old lady.  She said she's a Jehovah's Witness and can't go door to door these days, but did I know that Jesus also went door to door?  No, I'd never heard that.  Anyway, she said she thought she was calling someone in a completely different area code.  She said her name was Gayle, and she lived right here in town, and was surprised she wasn't talking to someone 250 miles away. 

But I did get her off the phone, and now I hope that I won't get any more calls.  I might have to be more direct next time.

[Marmion]

18 hours ago, adidas said:

I’ve previously called them and asked to be taken off their door knocking list, but I guess letters are different. 

What you need to do , if you don't want them to contact you , is to ask to be put on their no contact list .   

 

[BlackberryGirl]

Sad, sad situation near me.

“PENN YAN, N.Y. (WROC) — The Yates County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after a car crashed into a horse-drawn buggy just east of Penn Yan Sunday afternoon. Seven members of a Mennonite family were on the buggy. All were seriously injured. 
According to the YCSO:

-33-year-old Matthew Sensenig and his wife were airlifted to Strong hospital with head injuries
-their 7-year-old son is in critical condition with multiple internal injuries
-their 7-month-old baby was hospitalized with internal injuries
-three other young boys are being treated for multiple injuries
Officials said that 24-year-old Justin Niver, of Penn Yan was traveling westbound on East Sherman Hollow Road around 5:18 p.m. on Sunday and, “at the crest of a hill approached a slow moving vehicle, traveling in the same direction,” a release from the sheriff’s office said. The slow moving vehicle was described as an open surrey type of horse drawn buggy, operated by Sensenig.

“As Niver was passing the SMV, another vehicle was Eastbound and he collided with the buggy, causing it to leave the roadway and smash apart, ejecting all seven members of the Sensenig family into the ditch and field.”
All members of the family are being treated at Strong Memorial Hospital.

Niver was not injured. His car was impounded. It’s not known yet if he will face charges.

The horse was seriously injured. The sheriff’s office says a veterinarian from Eastview Vet Clinic euthanized the horse at the scene.

 

we drive through Penn Yan a few times a year. The roads up there are full of buggies. There is also a sect that ride bicycles everywhere. They dress ...not exactly plain, but very different.

[Firebird]

Sort of a fundie- sighting. I found this book at Salvation Army and am curious how it will turn out. 

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by Firebird
Wrong picture

[smittykins]

On 8/10/2020 at 10:40 AM, BlackberryGirl said:

Sad, sad situation near me.

“PENN YAN, N.Y. (WROC) — The Yates County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after a car crashed into a horse-drawn buggy just east of Penn Yan Sunday afternoon. Seven members of a Mennonite family were on the buggy. All were seriously injured. 
According to the YCSO:

-33-year-old Matthew Sensenig and his wife were airlifted to Strong hospital with head injuries
-their 7-year-old son is in critical condition with multiple internal injuries
-their 7-month-old baby was hospitalized with internal injuries
-three other young boys are being treated for multiple injuries
Officials said that 24-year-old Justin Niver, of Penn Yan was traveling westbound on East Sherman Hollow Road around 5:18 p.m. on Sunday and, “at the crest of a hill approached a slow moving vehicle, traveling in the same direction,” a release from the sheriff’s office said. The slow moving vehicle was described as an open surrey type of horse drawn buggy, operated by Sensenig.

“As Niver was passing the SMV, another vehicle was Eastbound and he collided with the buggy, causing it to leave the roadway and smash apart, ejecting all seven members of the Sensenig family into the ditch and field.”
All members of the family are being treated at Strong Memorial Hospital.

Niver was not injured. His car was impounded. It’s not known yet if he will face charges.

The horse was seriously injured. The sheriff’s office says a veterinarian from Eastview Vet Clinic euthanized the horse at the scene.

 

we drive through Penn Yan a few times a year. The roads up there are full of buggies. There is also a sect that ride bicycles everywhere. They dress ...not exactly plain, but very different.

Also not far from me.  Last I heard, everyone’s condition was improving, and charges are pending against the driver.

[BlackberryGirl]

Apparently yesterday in Arcade NY, there was ANOTHER Amish buggy accident. Arcade is 50 miles from me the other direction and we go through there often. 
 

i saw this info on a fb steam that covers 911 calls, but I haven’t seen any further information. Just horrible.

 

people, you share the road, these horse and buggies don't dart out into the highway. 

[Marmion]

On 8/10/2020 at 7:13 PM, Firebird said:

Sort of a fundie- sighting. I found this book at Salvation Army and am curious how it will turn out. 

 

Here is a review I found .  

Quote

ASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Can women have it all? A new book from Broadman & Holman explores that very question by defining womanhood from a biblical perspective.

Rebecca Jones, a mother of seven and grandmother of six, wrote “Does Christianity Squash Women? A Christian Looks at Womanhood” to help Christian women understand their identity by examining God’s definition of womanhood.

Jones served for 17 years with her husband, Peter, as a missionary in France with the Presbyterian Church in America and later taught graduate writing skills at Westminster Seminary. A frequent speaker for women’s groups, Jones also serves on the board of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Jones’ book begins with the examination of feminism and whether women have experienced all of the benefits the women’s movement set out to achieve. The freedoms feminists fought for, Jones writes, have resulted in certain expectations within society — women expect equal pay for equal work; equal participation in any and every organization, including academics, sports, politics, the military and the church; and to make decisions “about their bodies and their health.”

So, Jones writes, “Having severed their dependence on men and the family structure, women are forced to prove that they can make it on their own.

“Independence has come at a great price.”

Throughout the book, the relationships and lives of Bible characters -– including Adam and Eve’s relationship and the role the first woman played in the world -– are examined in detail. Jones profiles such women in Scripture as Mary, the mother of Jesus; sisters Mary and Martha; Deborah; Sarah, the wife of Abraham; and more notorious women such as Tamar, Rahab and Bathsheba.

And Jones shows how Jesus treats women, an example for men to follow.

“Jesus never slanders or belittles women,” she writes. “He does not make generalizations about them. He does not shut them out of conversations or ignore them. He doesn’t make them feel small or relegate them to an inferior status. Everything He says and does in relation to women shows the utmost care and respect.

“If Jesus the Christ does not squash women,” Jones writes, “then Christianity should not squash them either.”

The book ends with a close look and comparison of the relationship between the church and Christ and the husband-wife relationship.

“A woman does not look to her human husband for regeneration, but she does find refreshment, comfort and renewed strength in his strength and love,” Jones writes.

“It is a happy woman who lives in a home where her husband bathes himself in God’s Word and creates a Word-soaked atmosphere for fun and work…. Just as the church drinks up the love and truth that Jesus offers … so a wife’s soul is revived by a husband whose love she trusts.”

Women have “listened too long to the poisonous whispers of our culture” for their identity in marriage, Jones writes, noting, “It is not demeaning to ‘belong’ to a husband.”

Instead, women should embrace their roles as helpers to the authority of their husbands, just as the church should embrace its role as a support to Christ, Jones argues. In the same way, men must treat women with respect, just as Christ treated women, Jones writes.

A woman’s significance should not be based on the world’s formula but rather God’s, Jones writes, and as women learn to do this, they will experience greater personal satisfaction for themselves and their families.

“Our God has asked us to fulfill a job,” Jones writes. “It may seem small and insignificant. It may seem humiliating and second class. But God has defined what He wants us to do. He has given us the gifts, the power and the love necessary for our task, and He promises to establish the work of our hands

https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/does-christianity-squash-women-author-explores-feminism/   P.S.  The Presbyterian Church In America , for those who might not have ever heard of it is fundamentalist Reformed in theology . 

[Pecansforeveryone]

I believe R.C. Proul, SR was part of the Presbyterian Church in America. My  understanding is they are the fundies of the Presbyterian Church.  

[Howl]

On 7/6/2020 at 3:28 PM, smittykins said:

I’m surprised they’re still doing in-person visits.  Reportedly, many JWs have switched to proselytizing through letters and phone calls.

This. I've gotten two hand-written letters from a JW church in the last month.   The second listed Bible verses for "encouragement."  

Now switching to the "Of Tea and Fundies" minor drift portion of the post: 

Last week went to meet a relative for a socially distanced outside two-person coffee klatsch at a little town middway between our two towns in Central TX.  We meet at a coffee shop/bakery with one little outside table on the sidewalk. The coffee shop in this dumpy little town, famous for the annual Watermelon Thump, introduced me to a London Fog (Earl Grey tea latte with foamy milk and vanilla) when I ordered an Earl Grey tea. It was very, very good.  Apparently the drink originated in Vancouver, BC.   On another side note, I was today years old when I found out that Adams Vanilla Extract is manufactured in a town about twenty minutes away from where we were meeting. 

Anyway, I had to go in to the coffee shop to order and the young woman (18? 19?) at the register was wearing a honking diamond engagement ring and I complimented her on it.  The story is that the boyfriend isn't ready to be formally engaged, so he got her a promise ring (engaged to be engaged; it's a manufactured diamond) and she was wearing it paired with her purity ring.  Her mom also gave her a purity ring, so she wears that on a necklace, I guess for extra purity. 

No fundy wear; she was dressed in t-shirt and jeans. 

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2020 by Howl

[Bluebirdbluebell]

There's this woman on twitter Amulderwrites. She has this crazy story how she grew evangelical and how her church has this big game, where they pretended the Christian American teens were being chased and sometimes caught by evil communists who wanted to give up Communism. It was extremely elaborate. Worth-checking out if you want some crazy. Here is the link to the story.

[Minnesota]

About 10-12 years ago I saw the Duggars at the Atlanta airport. I don't remember much because I was running to catch a flight but it was very obviously them. No one else was wearing long denim skirts haha. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

On 11/15/2020 at 8:56 AM, Minnesota said:

About 10-12 years ago I saw the Duggars at the Atlanta airport. I don't remember much because I was running to catch a flight but it was very obviously them. No one else was wearing long denim skirts haha. 

And I bet they all matched wearing the same color scheme. They always did that when they traveled. Which made them stick out even more. 

[CarrotCake]

11 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

And I bet they all matched wearing the same color scheme. They always did that when they traveled. Which made them stick out even more. 

If I had that many kids I would let them wear bright orange all the time as well. Easy to lose one if you don't even know all of their names.