You just might be an Evangelical American Christian Fundamentalist if you found yourself bristling at a good number of these observations. Be honest now.
This list might seem to some like I am turning against the Christian faith, which is not true, so I’m going to preface it with some hopefully clear disclaimers:
1) I am absolutely an “evangelical” in the sense of believing we should be sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with the world. 2) I am absolutely a “fundamentalist” in the sense of believing in the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. 3) Nevertheless, I sympathize with how the words “evangelical” and “fundamentalist” have taken on some pretty negative connotations in our society, and I personally wonder if perhaps the time hasn’t come when it might be good to start distancing ourselves from those words. In any case, I certainly feel we should be distancing ourselves from some of the attitudes that I think have come to be associated with those words. 4) I can’t deny that this list makes fun of some of these attitudes that I see as all too prevalent among evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. But I certainly do not intend it to be scorning or making fun of any of my brothers and sisters in Christ who perhaps don’t quite agree with me on all of what I say in #3 above. If you feel I have crossed the line and made fun of an attitude that is actually commendable instead of harmful, please let me know.
I think you might be an Evangelical American Christian Fundamentalist if:
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| You believe most of the positions in the Republican party platform (including foreign policy, economic policy, military policy, etc.) are not just reasonable or smart, but also clearly supported by the Bible. |
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| You automatically vote for a Christian political candidate over a non-Christian one, regardless of any other qualifications. |
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| You sometimes wonder if Barack Obama might be the Antichrist, or at least a model for him, since you are amazed at how effectively he was able to delude the masses into thinking he was actually qualified for the position. |
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| You are revolted by the hypocrisy of any Democratic politician who talks about his Christian faith, but you mostly believe and admire any Republican politician who does so, without even investigating whether or not he shows any real evidence of true faith. |
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| You feel a moral obligation to research a candidate’s position on abortion and gay marriage before voting for him, regardless of how far removed the office may be from making any laws, judgments, or other decisions related to abortion or marriage policy. |
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| You believe all civil law is or should be based primarily on the Ten Commandments. |
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| You believe at least 52 of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence were deeply committed Christians,[1] and that the American Revolution was primarily an act of obedience to the will of God against the forces of evil. (And if you live in the South, you might believe the same about the Confederacy.) |
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| You believe the Pledge of Allegiance is proof of our nation’s Christian roots,[2] and therefore ought to be reverenced and routinely recited by all Christians. |
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| You believe the U.S. Constitution is second only to the Bible in its timeless justice and wisdom. |
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| You believe if Jesus were on earth today, He would probably be a member of the NRA, or would at least be ready and willing to voice His strong support for their cause. |
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| You do not see any debatable, gray area at all in the concept of separation between church and state. You simply consider it an invalid concept to begin with, since you believe it to be based on an invalid reading of the founding fathers. |
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| You believe Bible studies and sermons are perfectly appropriate places to voice your opinions (er . . . I mean God’s opinions) on political candidates and all forms of political issues. |
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| You believe the vast majority of Muslims here in the U.S. are secretly plotting to overthrow our country’s way of life or possibly even its government. |
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| You support the teaching of 6-day Biblical creationism as a scientific alternative to evolution in public schools, though any other religion’s version of creation would clearly be unscientific and therefore inappropriate, of course. |
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| You believe public school classes and football games should always begin with Christian prayer. But if they were ever to begin with any non-Christian prayer, you would consider that discrimination against Christians and decent Americans. |
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| You believe the government and especially the media treat all other religions far more favorably than they treat Christianity. And naturally, you’re not just going to lie down and take that! |
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| You believe Christian churches and organizations ought to be honored by the government and exempted from all forms of taxation, since they are doing the work of God. But if the government honors or grants tax-exempt status to a mosque or Hindu temple, for example, that is a clear case of favoritism and disloyalty to the original intent of the Constitution. |
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| You are horrified at how openly Muslims, JWs, and Mormons are allowed to advertise and proselytize and infiltrate our communities, yet you decry the fact that some neighborhoods do not allow door-to-door evangelism or public street-preaching, and you might even believe in defying their ordinances against such things, or at least in finding every possible legal loophole to get around them. |
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| You believe that before a person can be saved, generally he needs to be convinced of the evils of evolution and of the truth of the absolute inerrancy of Scripture. People like C. S. Lewis who held different views on these things were very rare exceptions whom you prefer not to think about. |
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| You consider an extra-good episode of your favorite talk radio program to almost count as your daily devotions. |
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| You feel morally obligated to stand with the Israeli government in every action they take against any other people or nation, since God clearly says He will bless those who bless them and curse those who curse them. |
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| You not only question the severity or cause of global warming, you consider it an anti-Christian hoax invented primarily to distract us from the real danger of secularism that is plaguing our country. |
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| You believe that if the phrase “In God we trust” is ever taken off our currency,[3] that will be a sure sign that the apocalypse is near. |
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And finally . . . You just might be an Evangelical American Christian Fundamentalist if you found yourself bristling at a good number of these observations. Be honest now.
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Apologies if anyone found this offensive.
| [1] |
This is a reference to History Forgotten, an anonymous essay widely circulated
on the internet. There is an obvious factual discrepancy here, in that there were
actually 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence. I suspect the writer may
have erroneously based his claim on David Barton’s video America’s Godly
Heritage, which states that “most of the 55 founding fathers who worked on the
Constitution were members of orthodox Christian churches, and many were even evangelical
Christians.”
I have no reason to doubt the founding fathers’ church membership, and it’s probably not unlikely that some of them were indeed “deeply committed Christians.” However, my interpretation of most of the founding fathers is that their apprehension of “Christianity” was very different from how most of us who take the Bible as the true Word of God understand it. They tended to ascribe high value to things like “true religion” and “Christian principles,” but what they generally meant by those phrases seems to have had very little to do with personal trust in Christ, or even with belief in His deity or resurrection or anything else that would be considered a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. Rather, they mostly seemed to be talking about a general system of human ethics and decency that lined up with what Christianity teaches in the Golden Rule. The following quote from John Adams illustrates this point. Note his inclusion of universalists (who believe everyone will be saved), Arians (who believe Jesus was created), atheists (who deny the existence of God), deists (who deny God’s care for man), and people who believe “nothing” (i.e., agnostics) in the set of those who are bound together by “Christian” principles: There were among them Roman Catholics, English Episcopalians, Scotch and American Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Anabaptists, German Lutherans, German Calvinists, Universalists, Arians, Priestleyans, Socinians, Independents, Congregationalists, Horse Protestants and House Protestants, Deists and Atheists, and Protestants qui ne croyant rien [“who believe nothing”] . . . all educated in the general Principles of Christianity and the general Principles of English and American Liberty. . . . The general Principles on which the Fathers achieved Independence were the only Principles in which that beautiful assembly of young gentlemen could unite. . . .(Later in the same letter Adams also referred to several radically anti-Christian Enlightenment philosophers, including Hume and Voltaire, as those whose writings would be “in favor of these general Principles.”)
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| [2] |
Note that the phrase “under God” was not officially added to the Pledge of
Allegiance until 1954.
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| [3] |
The phrase “In God we trust” first appeared on the 1864 two-cent coin, and
has appeared on all coins since 1938. It was not declared the national motto until 1956,
and did not begin appearing on paper currency until 1957. (Source: http://www.treas.gov/education/fact-sheets/currency/in-god-we-trust.html)
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This page copyright © 2009 Edward A. Morris. Created February 16, 2009. Last updated February 18, 2009.