The Official Fundie Encounters Thread

[Mais Pourquoi]

On the subject of proselytizing, one fundie (?) encounter that sticks out to me is from my time studying abroad in Japan. An American friend and I were visiting Hiroshima and were walking away from the T-bridge (which was the target for the atomic bomb) when a Japanese woman came up to us and said hello. We were used to this happening as some Japanese people like approach Americans and try to speak English with them. After a few pleasantries she handed us a pamphlet and stared us down while she made sure we read it. It was all about God and paradise and blah blah blah, similar to what JWs will leave on your doorstep. We were just like "Oh yeah, great" at her and nodded, and she tried talking to us further but we walked away.

I don't think the woman was fundie. The above is part of what my problem is with fundamentalist mission trips. There were reports of fundies roaming around the city where my college was trying to get Japanese students to go to their "meetings" with promises of making friends and learning English, and there's no doubt in my mind that the woman who approached us had attended a similar group and had no idea what she was peddling.

[FJismyheadship]

I live over by Champion Baptist and have attended the church next to it a few times. The funny thing was that all of there girls that were there loved my short dresses. I became friends with some of them and ran into a great big group of them yesterday. Actually i run into fundies quite a bit... The last encounter i had though was a few days ago at mcdonales. The dad and any were dressed normally. The non wore a long pink dress and a head covering!!! The daughter had on a deniem skirt and a large blue sweater. They also had a boy who looked about a year and a half who was dressed in normal baby boy clothes.

[sippin0nsunshine]

I saw some fundies in shoe dept today :D

The mom was wearing a shirt for Courageous that said something like "I married a Rich man" and something else under it, and had the Courageous logo. She had the ankle length denim skirt, and her two boys had on urkle-esque jeans, and cowboy hats, and what looked like hand me down shoes from a sister or something, on the younger boy. Tried to get a picture but with no luck :( I've never seen fundies in this town xD

[PurpleGlinda]

I live in southwest MO, so me meeting a fundie probably doesn’t count as an encounter. I see a lot of Mennonites, and there’s a Pentecostal holiness bible school in my town, so I see students from there ALL the time.

I have met the Duggars, though…

Three years in a row, my youth group has gone down to the Jones Center to ice skate and play broomball. The first time we went, the Duggars were still in Little Rock with Josie. Last year, they did show up for broomball (about 30 minutes after everyone else had started). Jim-Bob, Josh, John-David, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jeremiah, Jedidiah, and Jason were the only ones that played. Anna, Mackynzie, Jessa, Jinger, Jill, and Johannah just watched, and talked with some other fundie family there. Michelle wasn’t there, and I can’t remember if Jana or Jordyn were there. For an old man, JB plays okay; JD, Joseph, and Josiah kick butt on that rink. After the game, my friends and I went to introduce ourselves to the girls. Jill was the only one who was available. She was nice enough, and her handshake was firmer than average. I don’t think our conversation was anything worthwhile, though. And Mackynzie is one cute kid in person. This year, the girls weren’t there, for reasons unknown to me. And Jason was the youngest howler monkey I saw, I think. He kind of hung around the goal. I could’ve sworn there were some Bates there, but the more I studied them, I don’t think it was them. Josh was the one who really pickled my liver. :evil: Oh, he had a stick alright, and he was on the ice, but he just kind of waddled around and chatted and heh-heh’d with the “real†players. The idiot also managed to take some videos of his buddies with his precious iPhone. :doh: I wanted to tell him to either play ball or get his lazy butt out of the game. I wish I had pictures, but none of mine turned out. But, hey, broomball’s fun, as long as you don’t get hit with the ball. (I did. It hurts. Like fire.)

[2xx1xy1JD]

I have a couple of funny Christian fundie stories:

1. When I was a teen, I got a summer job working in the mail room of a bank. The supervisor and one of the permanent employees were both fundies. Another permanent employee was a Communist. They had tons of arguments all day, which all sounded alike. One would say yes, the other would say no. I had never met a fundie before, so it was an education for me. I was slightly creeped out by the "oh, you're Jewish, we love the Jewish people!" line from my supervisor. Better than hate, obviously, but she really didn't KNOW me, so it was just weird.

2. A couple of summers ago, we spend the weekend at a Jewish summer camp. When we got there, we met a local fundie family who had also decided to visit. I may have been the only person there who actually understood anything about both this family and the camp, because they were obviously mystified by each other. The camp director was a fairly secular Yemenite Jew, who knew nothing whatsoever about fundies. The fundie family, meanwhile, had trouble reconciling their image of Biblical Jews with this pretty secular left-wing camp filled with boys and girls dancing in shorts.

As for non-Christian fundies, my old building had a lot of Saudi medical residents and my current area has a very large Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish population. There are people on my street that will argue that the sun revolves around the earth.

[emmiedahl]

I have a lot of fundie friends (I don't know if that is the right word, but I knew them from homeschooling and our kids were the activities so we socialized a lot). Including real Messianics and also a family that claims to be Orthodox but isn't. I have Mormon step/in-law family that we visit with quite a bit--nice people but very strict. So I have fundie encounters every time I open my email.

The local pizza place I prefer is staffed almost entirely by women in long denim skirts and FLDS hair with kerchiefs pinned over them. I have tried to engage them in conversation, but no luck. I have no idea what they are, but there are a lot of them in my area.

My kids were invited to Awanas and wanted to go. I let them just once and it was a mistake. The hateful, disgusting crap that they learned in one damn evening was enough for me to forbid any further visits. That was when we started attending the UU church occasionally. There are not enough Jews here and we have temple services once a month with a borrowed rabbi; I realized that they needed more religious community in their life and found a very warm, accepting UU community that is happy to have us in attendance even though we are not UU.

We are about to start Upward Soccer, a religious Christian soccer thing, because it was cheaper and also just a block away from me. Our city youth soccer league actually plays in a neighboring town and the gas and parking fees get expensive. I am hoping this soccer will not be super annoying. My husband is convinced it won't be a problem, but my 9 yo is pretty open about her lack of belief in Jesus.

[Lola]

They come into my store. I never see the men, but the woman have long skirts, long hair, and are all plain looking.

[icecreamycakeycake]

Do Jehovah's Witnesses count? The other day I was walking out of the grocery store (dressed semi-fundie-esque if that counts for anything) and as I was stepping into the parking lot I heard, "HEY. LADY." I turned and looked towards the sound of the yelling and saw two men sitting in a car, one waving the Watchtower magazine thing at me and motioning for me to head over to him. Needless to say, I just kept walking. Worst proselytizing ever.

Also, I gave a couple of Mormons some muffins when I lived outside of DC. I was at home making chocolate chip muffins and there was a knock at the door. I answered and it was... Mormons (their tags said they were elders, but they looked about 18; I was confused)! I was super excited and wanted to invite them in and ask if Matt Stone and Trey Parker accurately portrayed their religion, offer to sing the Joseph Smith song from South Park, etc. but my fiance would have absolutely NONE of that. Sooo I went back to the Mormons and said, "Sorry, you can't come in, but... do you want a muffin? They're chocolate chip and everything!" The one who seemed to be in charge looked at me like I had two heads. "Who made them?" When I confirmed that they were, in fact, made by a woman they took the muffins, handed me some literature in Spanish (???) on Mormonism and wandered off. I never saw them again.

ETA: Not much of a specific encounter, but... When I lived outside of DC I was just down the street from the Lancaster County Dutch Market (they have the BEST fried chicken and awesome soft pretzels, by the way. Check 'em out if you're ever in Germantown, MD stalking the PostSecret guy or something) which was run by head covering, plain dressing Mennonites. I always got a kick out of the girls in their handmade cape dresses and Nikes, smoking cigarettes and texting. :lol: One of them used to not-so nonchalantly follow me around the store and would often flat out stare at me when she was serving me at the pretzel counter. My fiance decided she had a crush on me, while I decided she was just horrified by my lip piercings and making sure I didn't turn into a demon or something. :lol:

I immediately thought, "if you give a Mormon a muffin...."

That could be a fun writing project!

[mrs]

I went to the gun show with my husband. I had a hell of a time pointing them out to him. He thought I was nuts. :mrgreen:

I can't believe how many people from my past are fundies, and I never realized it. I thought there parents were just mean.

In elementary school a girl joined out class for half the year. I befriended her with some of the other girls. We thought her mom was mean because she wasn't allowed to wear shorts or short skirts to school in the spring when it was hot. We would bring shorts for her to wear during school and she would change before getting on the bus. She was home-schooled before joining our 5th grade class for the brief period. She did not come back the next year.

[Spider Burps]

I immediately thought, "if you give a Mormon a muffin...."

That could be a fun writing project!

"If you give a Mormon a muffin, he'll want to sell you some religion to go with it. So, you'll listen and nod politely. When he's finished eating the muffin, he'll want to sell you MORE religion. And more. And more..." :lol:

[mschelseae]

I used to work at a Ross here in Humboldt County, and this one (beautiful) family always comes in, never the men, only the women. I think they might be Mennonites (I guess there is a huuuuge population of them here, which is weird considering what this county is famous for) some of the older ones wear those mesh-like coverings over their hair, some just have really long hair. Never seen them wearing pants, or skirts shorter than the knee. I used to think the eldest woman was the mother, and that the oldest girl was the "sister-mom". Come to find out, that the eldest "sister" was really the mom. This woman looked maybe a a few years older than ME (20) and her oldest daughter looked about 12/13. She has like 5 daughters I think. My co-worker told me that some of the fundies around here start families super young... We also have a huge cult population too, not that it *necessarily* goes hand in hand ;)

[ADoyle90815]

My future SIL is basically fundie-lite, and one of her sons is already starting to fill his quiver, as they have 3 children after they got married almost 5 years ago.

My mom married an ex-Mormon who hasn't resigned because his practicing children would shun him if he did, but his ex-wife is one of those Mormons who won't use medicine if it has caffeine or alcohol in it. She would have freaked out if she found out that the youngest child went to a tea room, even if she had herbal tea, and is pressuring her into going to a BYU school even though she was given a full ride to a state university that has an excellent nursing program. The ex-wife even freaked out when my mom gave "The Catcher in the Rye" as a gift to her stepdaughter, as she said it was a "risque" book which she hasn't even read. Even the practicing Mormons never liked that ex-wife, as she was more extreme than they are. His Mormon children accept that my mom's family isn't Mormon, and don't mind that we drink coffee, just as long as they don't get offered any, nor do they mind that we also wear shorts in the summer.

[mirele]

I had a fundie encounter today, but didn't know it until I left my house to go shopping. I found a Spanish/English scripture booklet (the books of John and Romans) stuffed in my gate latch. On the bright yellow cover, the English portion states that it's from the AUTHORIZED KING JAMES VERSION. I couldn't miss it. There were also a couple of tracts stuck in the pages as well, from a local IFB church.

This isn't the first time I've gotten one of these from this church, but my goodness, what a waste of time and paper. My neighborhood is heavily Mormon and this particular church is 9.5 miles from my house.

I must have just missed the person who stuck it in there as I'd been in and out of the house all afternoon.

[meow139]

"If you give a Mormon a muffin, he'll want to sell you some religion to go with it. So, you'll listen and nod politely. When he's finished eating the muffin, he'll want to sell you MORE religion. And more. And more..." :lol:

and if you listen to the religion talk, he'll want to sell you Mitt Romney. And if you continue nodding, MittRomney will bust the door down, tapdanceacross the roof, pole dance, steal.the rest of the muffins, and shoot Santorum atSantorum, causing the door Mormons to romney in terror. :P

[Kelya]

I'm taking a class and I think the teacher is fundie. I googled her and found her through her husband's listing on a baptist website. A little more sleuthing and I've found the place where he is a pastor. It looks very "home church finally found a low rent building" with all male leadership, the only references to women being as wives or "potluck ladies" and shit. Since we live in an area where churches are thick on the ground, I'm always concerned when people need to start a brand new one! She also likes to bring up her religion and state she's Christian a lot during class meetings/breaks.

Funnily enough, she thinks I'm religious because I only wear skirts. While originally I was trying to fit into my former fundie lite lifestyle, now I just wear them because I'm a hippie with texture issues. She asked me the other day if I had to wear skirts and I answered before she finished asking so I think she thinks I "HAVE" to wear them or I'll be hellbound or something. Oh dear. I'm interested to see if she thinks I'm Jewish or Christian...I get mistaken for Jewish a lot which makes me think I should continue to look into converting, lol.

[llv]

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[llv]

---- how the heck do i delete posts? :?

[meow139]

---- how the heck do i delete posts? :?

What? :?

[llv]

Well, I posted something, then tried to amend it and that made another post, and now I can't seem to delete either of them!

[SheWoreLemon]

I ran into a lady (Greta) who used to go to the church I grew up in (liberal Lutheran). Found out she no longer goes to that church, but is doing online Bible studies through...wait for it...Mars Hill in Ballard--three hours away.

I asked how she got involved in that--her nieces go to the actual Mars Hill Church. Greta herself got interested in looking for a new church after a Lutheran pastor told her that he didn't believe that some part of the New Testament was literally true--yet she couldn't even remember what this shocking statement was.

She did bring up that a Lutheran pastor told her that the creation story was a myth. I asked her if she was a Six-day Creationist--she said no to that, but she was definitely intrigued by the human footprint inside the dinosaur footprint. http://paleo.cc/paluxy.htm

Then I said I'd heard of the disciplinary letters at Mars Hills. Oh, but she loved that about Mars Hills Church! "When you join the church, first you had to take a doctrine class and then you had to join a small group where you'd be accountable to everyone there." She hasn't officially joined Mars Hill yet, so she hasn't had a disciplinary letter land in her email box yet.

I tried to stay and talk a little bit more, but the fundamentalism just exhausted me.

[VVV]

A couple of months ago I was playing in a chamber orchestra concert that was held at a church--it wasn't a worship service; the church was just the venue. A plain, tired-looking woman came in and sat down on the front pew with her eight children (seven girls and a little boy). All the girls were wearing long dresses that mostly looked homemade, and had long hair. Because I was in the front of the orchestra and we had a little time to kill, I chatted some with the woman, who told me that her oldest boy had to work so he wasn't there. Nine children, all the girls in unattractive modest dresses...definitely fundies. It was a benefit concert for the food bank and I was one of the musicians, so I was limited in what I could say or ask--it's bad manners to antagonize your audience at a charitable event. So I just said, "I see you specialize in girls." and moved on.

[JesusFightClub]

A comrade of mine got handed a tract while flyposting recently.

He gave me it, and it really is quite bizarre. I asked him about the tract giver, but, as he was concentrating on his task ;) he couldn't remember except "she was female".

It is all about "God calling you" and if you don't respond you are dooming yourself to a terrible fate and insulting Jesus and the like. It is also written in the sort of English that fundies enjoy, where one never uses a small word where a triple barrelled word will do.

The translation used for the Bible verses in the tract is the KJV. Are you guys in the US sending your spare fundies here? Please stop!

[No Fun My Babe]

I haven't had many good extreme/fundie encounters. There are a few Jehovahs in my family but I don't see much of them. One did ask me once, when I was a teenager and wearing a pentacle, if I worshiped Satan. :roll:

I've been through Amish county on a couple of occasions when I lived in PA, and went on a buggy ride once, but I didn't attempt to engage them in conversation. The scenery was gorgeous.

There are also plenty of LDS/Mormons around this area, but no good stories, sadly.

I guess the best would be in '97 when I was in high school. I belonged to the "outcast" group. There was a cool (I thought at the time) guy who wore eyeliner, listened to The Cure, Ministry, Skinny Puppy and such bands, and I really got along with him well. He would speak about religion from time to time, and eventually invited me and a few others to his house, for what turned out to be ... bible study! I actually did the bible study for a couple of weeks and we ended up going to his church. AHHHHH, PENTECOSTAL! I think about the time they started speaking in tongues and swooning was when I said "fuck this" and walked ran out.

It took me a while to realize that the kid had to be a plant. What better way to try to convert some teenagers than one of their own who dresses like them and listens to their music?

[Spider Burps]

I guess the best would be in '97 when I was in high school. I belonged to the "outcast" group. There was a cool (I thought at the time) guy who wore eyeliner, listened to The Cure, Ministry, Skinny Puppy and such bands, and I really got along with him well. He would speak about religion from time to time, and eventually invited me and a few others to his house, for what turned out to be ... bible study! I actually did the bible study for a couple of weeks and we ended up going to his church. AHHHHH, PENTECOSTAL! I think about the time they started speaking in tongues and swooning was when I said "fuck this" and walked ran out.

It took me a while to realize that the kid had to be a plant. What better way to try to convert some teenagers than one of their own who dresses like them and listens to their music?

OMG did you grow up where I grew up?! A really similar thing almost happened to me but in 2001 or so. I didn't think the guy was cool, but he kept talking to me because I was "outcast"y, too, and also liked similar music. One day, his mom rolled up (wearing a frumper in her giant fundie van with pro-life stickers) to bring him home and he was like, "Want to come by my place? We're having a prayer meeting and Bible study!" :shock:

[saraelise]

I was mistaken for a Jehova's Witness once. I had been handed a copy of Watchtower on the way to a friend's house (along with the words "THIS CHANGED MY LIIIIIIIIFE") and was waiting outside my friend's door looking at the pamphlet. Then her neighbour sees me and just shakes his head and says "You don't have to bother knocking here." I didn't have time to explain before my friend came to the door. :lol: