Thursday, February 7, 2008

How to be a Fundamentalist

From a convert to liberalism: A Cautionary Prescription

1. Read all documents of faith in a literal way and do exactly as the text says. Do not wait for other interpretations because a good fundamentalist can be directly linked to God through the text. Interpretation delays action and shows a lack of faith. The text tells you what you should do. Do exactly what it says.

2. Anyone who does not live a life that is directed by your faith text, is unworthy of your consideration. Do not talk to them or show them hospitality or help them. In fact, do not like them. They are not significant because they do not want to know what you know.

3. Seriously consider the possibility that God has chosen to speak directly to you through your faith text. Consider too that you alone have received God’s true message. Consider these things so that you can feel important and special.

4. Do not for a moment consider different opinions about your faith text. You read it. You understand it. Others must not be close enough to God to understand your faith text the way that you do.

5. When other people disagree with you, they are persecuting you. Persecution for the sake of your belief is noble and should be endured. Do not wreck the positive payback of persecution by changing your mind. Persevere. You are the right one.

6. Do not let your faith be diluted by a temptation to gloss over particularly harsh passages of your faith text. Your faith text is an all or nothing document. You have chosen to follow all of it without convenient omissions.

7. Remember that God chose you to understand your faith text. You are God’s chosen one. God only gives ‘the right’ understanding of his words to his chosen ones.

8. Remember that you are the special ones that God will reward when everyone else gets their ass kicked at the end of time.

9. Remember that the world is in the mess it is because people do not agree with you and God’s revelation of his ‘Word’ to you.

10. Remember, you get to go to heaven for this!

Text copyright 2008 by Athena Graves. This post may not be reproduced or redistributed by any means, either in whole or part, without the express written permission of the author.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

well done, Athena.
Good points raised.
I trust some (many?) of a certain persuasion will be praying for your soul and wish they could take such words right off the blog!
Canon Greg