I was on Facebook today. I have a friend who is a Baptist. He made a post that was as simple as "Why can't we all get along?". I then started going through the comments of his wacky Baptist friends. Every single one of them came off like:
Basically, it all comes down to a refusal to compromise because they believe they're really right and that's all there is to it. I imagine this type of mentality will cause them to continue hemorrhaging followers.
On a related note, I've noticed all of his Baptist friends really feel that Christians are persecuted. No they aren't. Certainly not in America. Then I thought of something:
Fundamentalists are "persecuted".
Now, I'll use that in quotes, because they're really not being persecuted; it's just their world view is decreasingly popular, and they're getting their feelings hurt. I think this notion of Christian persecution is very comforting to a fundamentalist. Not only was it predicted by Jesus (sort of), it allows them to believe things that are objectively and verifiably wrong and still maintain that they're right! It also lets them beat the war drums to rally the troops, so to speak.
Invoking persecution protects their view points, not only from non-Christians, but even from all the non-fundies (you know: the not-True Christians).
These are just two thoughts I had now that I started talking to my Baptist friend, again. When I'm painting for hours back to back, I have lots of time to think about stuff like this.
- We must never compromise! To do so would be to deny the Lord.
- Everyone wants to believe everything is happy and everyone will go to heaven, but down that path lies hell!
- The Bible is very clear on this. We need to be biblical Christians.
Basically, it all comes down to a refusal to compromise because they believe they're really right and that's all there is to it. I imagine this type of mentality will cause them to continue hemorrhaging followers.
On a related note, I've noticed all of his Baptist friends really feel that Christians are persecuted. No they aren't. Certainly not in America. Then I thought of something:
Fundamentalists are "persecuted".
Now, I'll use that in quotes, because they're really not being persecuted; it's just their world view is decreasingly popular, and they're getting their feelings hurt. I think this notion of Christian persecution is very comforting to a fundamentalist. Not only was it predicted by Jesus (sort of), it allows them to believe things that are objectively and verifiably wrong and still maintain that they're right! It also lets them beat the war drums to rally the troops, so to speak.
Invoking persecution protects their view points, not only from non-Christians, but even from all the non-fundies (you know: the not-True Christians).
These are just two thoughts I had now that I started talking to my Baptist friend, again. When I'm painting for hours back to back, I have lots of time to think about stuff like this.
