There appears to be a great need to put people in a box. And when I say that, the song "Man in the Box" by Alice in Chains starts playing in my head, which, I think, might disqualify me from the fundamentalist label. But I'm not sure. I don't really know what that means.
I'm just as guilty of it. I paint with a broad brush when it comes to feminist ideology. So I understand the phenomenon. It's much like the ex-smoker who must remain deeply convicted to overcome their addiction. When I realize how much feminist indoctrination I was exposed to, I react similarly.
Seeking truth. That's it, nothing more complicated than that. RLB and I seek truth. The basis of our morality is the Bible.
RLB is not someone interested in jumping from one side of the horse to the other. Which is very good for me. My personality is such that this is tempting to me. He keeps me grounded. He is slow to embrace ideas and researches them thoroughly. There are a few convictions we maintain which are immutable. Those are what I write most about. I understand there are members of various groups who have similar convictions yet in other areas have vastly different convictions. Which makes us terrible cult members.
The quivering label was most amusing to me. I had never heard of it before. I started homeschooling our daughters when we lived in South Korea. When we returned to the States, we put them in public school for less than two years. We were disgusted by their changing attitudes and not impressed at all with how little education they were receiving in the amount of time they were gone. The discussion we've had about them attending college started when we were considering our plans for when RLB gets out of the Army. We talked about purchasing a house that we'd rent to college kids and have the girls live there to manage it. After much thought and prayer, we discussed the reality of young women. They generally don't make good decisions in that type of environment. I certainly didn't at that age. Also, the last thing we want to do is imply they must go to college. They have both expressed the desire to marry and mother. They will be of the age that no decision we make can be forced on them but our advice to them is to stay with us, continue getting educated, and be highly discriminatory about who they will marry. It's that simple. But, if that earns us a label, so be it.
I'm still learning what this tradcon label is all about. I'm not ashamed to admit I don't know. I didn't get an invite to the group. If any of you could enlighten me, that would be great.
So now that the song is stuck in my head, here you go (interpret it as you wish, I won't label you):
tradcon = traditional conservative
ReplyDeleteThanks for the help, Anonymous. I was going to go to UrbanDictionary.com to look it up. I thought it would be like Comic Con but a little different. A lot different apparently! LOL
DeleteI'm surprised that you're an Alice in Chains fan, one of my favorite songs of theirs is "Hollow", which is a great song, but a local radio station tends to overplay it.
ReplyDelete"Quivering" is a reference to the Quiverfull ideology, which believes that having many children is a sign of divine blessing, and rejects all forms of birth control. The name comes from Psalm 127:4-5
Not all groups that are a part of that movement use the Quiverfull name, you'll see it most often in the groups like the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement.
I don't know if that's what you adhere to or not.
Anyway, people have different definitions of what fundamentalist means, here's a few of the qualifications that I use (not an exhaustive list)
Belief that the Bible should be interpreted literally, if at all possible, and that events discussed in the Bible such as the creation story in Genesis, or Noah's Ark are not allegories but literal fact
Strict adherence to Biblical principles
Opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage
Rejection of the idea of separation of church and state, (the Bible should be the basis of the laws of the land).
Rejection of outside culture, or the belief that outside culture should not influence Christians "Be in the world, but not of the world".
Sheldon, I think your description of fundies would fit most conservative Christians. Fundies are, in my estimation:
Delete- Non-sacramental
- Iconoclastic
- Exclusivist - meaning they view the only truly "saved" are those who believe exactly as they do
- Usually KJV Only or some other archaic translation
- Dispensationalist
- Preoccupied with eschatology
- Millenialist - either "pre" or "post" - and it is a huge deal (see "exclusivist")
- Intensely anti-Roman Catholic
- Bible-centered rather than Christ-centered - meaning Law-centered not Gospel
There. How's that for sticking someone in a box or two. :-)
I logged in first this time. Maybe I won't end up in the spam can??
It worked!
DeleteLori, you have lots of big words going on and are all over the board on this description. I don't think you have a very good understanding of fundamentalists.
DeleteA couple of things here:
1) Non-sacramental - sacraments are determined to be important to a particular faith and deemed necessary for its adherents. Are you suggesting that fundamentalists believe in not deeming anything necessary? Or are you saying that they don't believe in certain sacraments that other belief systems believe in? The very idea of non-sacramental leads to believing in nothing. I would never consider fundamentalists to believe in nothing.
2)Iconoclastic - one who destroys existing religious structures. Maybe fundamentalists could be considered here if you are talking about not wanting to worship statues.
3)Exclusivist - It seems to me that this can be an accurate descriptor of most religions(including atheism and humanism). For example, you might not be allowed to be an elder in a church(or college faculty) that allows gay marriage if you believe it to be sin.
4)KJV/archaic - are you suggesting every version of the Bible is accurate in its translation? Are you suggesting that political issues don't influence the wording to be more PC in the nature of the translation?
We'll just start there. The other issues have me just chomping at the bit, but I'll wait for these explanations first.
1)Non-sacramental in the sense that they view baptism & communion as symbolic rather than as sacraments/means of Grace. Fundies will tell you sacraments are not taught in the Bible. They don't use the word sacrament to describe these practices.
Delete2)The Cromwellian iconoclasts were the brethren of our Puritan forefathers. Many in this crowd don't celebrate Christmas or Easter because of perceived ancient pagan symbolism. Many in these sects don't display crosses and none of them would display a crucifix. Their churches tend to be very bare, not just of statues but of anything ornamental or symbolic.
3)Exclusivist in the sense that they believe only members of their sect have any hope of being saved. Those cute Amish with the buggies & bonnets teach that only by being Amish does one have a chance at salvation. Everyone else is going to hell. (A narrow gate indeed!)
4)Elizabethan English is archaic. The KJV was as influenced by the politics of its time as any Bible since. There is no divine revelation declaring it to be the only true Word of God. No version of the Bible is completely without error in its translation - all have been touched by sinful human hands but I believe the Holy Spirit has preserved the truth of the Gospel into modern English versions. Still, I wouldn't rely a translation that from it's inception was purposefully designed to support a particular viewpoint (NWT,TNIV). We should conform to the Word not change the Word to conform to us.
Ask away! Happy to discuss.
1) All you are saying is that they don't agree on what a sacrament is with other belief systems. Just because they use a different word doesn't mean they don't have their own markers of belief. You would really need to provide some type of real world example for me to understand who you could possibly be speaking of.
Delete2) An iconoclast by definition destroys the existing religious structure. So it must mean that this definition applies to anyone that disagrees with the majority. Every religion has been a minority at some point in time, so every belief system has been iconoclastic.
3) This is a circular argument about most liberals as well. It is evident in every believe system at some level. Feel free to provide an example where it doesn't.
4) Are you familiar with the Dead Sea Scrolls? Do you understand the importance of Luther and allowing the people to hear what the apostles had to say? Do you understand the rules of convention for certain Bible translations over others? Did you realize there were rules of convention over translations? What makes Elizabethan English archaic? Is archaic meant to refer to a lack of understanding in your description? Do you think it is impossible for the Creator of the universe to make sure an accurate Bible translation could make it through time?
I have no time today, but check out the website Jesus-is-savior.com. It is a fundamentalist run website that explains their beliefs.
DeleteWhat do you mean by, "The basis of our morality is the Bible."? Isn't your morality based on what was considered moral by your parents, teachers, perhaps clergy, certainly siblings and peers, as you were growing up?
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm thinking that you say this automatically, it's something you know a Christian qua Christian would say. If your guardians, mentors and peers were brought up saying this and you say it too, aren't you climbing your own box and pretending that it is 'the rest' that is putting you into it?
True, our sense of morality is based on the people around us, what they have taught us since we were young. If we were to go solely by the Bible as the basis for our morality, who's to say that slavery wouldn't come back? After all, the Old Testament law endorses it, and so does Paul in the New Testament.
DeleteHowever, we live in a culture that knows that slavery is wrong, and has known that for 150 years, regardless of what the Bible says. Our society learned from it's mistakes, and now realizes it's an deplorable crime to treat another human being as property.
Slavery is still alive and well. Just because you haven't been around it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Living in a white suburb of a SWPL city isn't the whole world.
DeleteIt's obvious you have very little experience in life and less knowledge of history.
The Bible's discussion about slavery isn't about whether or not it's right. It's discussion is about how to behave if you are slave or master. Slavery exists. Always has, always will because men are evil. Without an unfaltering morality like Christianity, evil triumphs. Moral relativism is always a failure. Nothing new there either.
Try reading some history and philosophy before pretending you understand these things. Start with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. You might want to start reading some Eastern philosophies as well. Notice the particular failures of different belief systems. The quickest way to failure in history is to stop pursuing truth. That is moral relativism. That is what you suggest with your cafeteria morality.
Isn't the whole point of the manosphere to stick labels on people?
ReplyDeleteLori Kay,
ReplyDeleteFor some reason your comments go right to spam. Only yours too, it's so odd.
I don't believe that is the point of the manosphere. I can see why you might say that with the analysis of socio/sexual ranks. However, what I see the manosphere as is the pursuit of truth. It is the analysis of the general nature of women and how they respond (not what they say, what they do) to stimuli. It is the analysis of the nature of men depending on their socio/sexual proclivities. It is the high scrutiny and replication of what successful men do. It is a response to feminism and an assertion that feminists/cultural Marxists will not control the thoughts and behaviors of free men.
Generally, I prefer to label everything I encounter.
ReplyDeleteIt's called language. You can't talk about a thing unless you have adjectives (which are labels) or nouns (which are labels).
Complain if you are mislabeled, sure. Or if no existing label adequately descrbes you, create a new one.
But while the act of labeling a thing can be used as an unwarranted dismissal, this doesn't mean that all acts of labelling are dismissals. On th contrary, you cannot talk about a thing, or even think about it, without first assigning it one or more labels. In other words, the only way you can avoid labelling something (or someone) is to dismiss the thing from thought without consideration.
Put another way, the word label is itself a label we use to pigeonhole other people's thoughts about us, rightly or wrongly. Like nearly all post-modern values, the value of rejecting labels as a thing (rather than rejecting specific labels as inaccurate) is a self-eviscerating value.
Yeah. The mandrosphere is about labelling things. The question is, do the labels fit or not?
The point was not about a resistance to being labeled, I could care less. My amusement is in how contradictory the labels are. One person reads one post of mine and determines me to be the opposite of what another reading a separate post determines me to be.
ReplyDeleteThe Alice in Chains song is so appropriate considering it's about censorship.
SD, don't write fat shaming posts
SD, don't link Roissy
SD, don't swear
SD, don't write about biblical submission
SD, don't write anything that might offend a woman
SD, you're not nice
SD, don't write at all...
I have no complaints. It all feeds my, perhaps, twisted sense of humor.