A Godless Fundamentalist: Chapter Seven – Fired by the Bill Rice Ranch

I’m more and more grateful I didn’t grow up in the hard-right fundamentalist bubble. What a ridiculous sub-culture. Does anyone here realize how cult-like all this sounds, when you step back from it and think about all this? I realize that isn’t John E’s point, and he isn’t implying it. This is just me, talking. Not being able to give out copies of The Case for Christ, because of the author’s associations? Arguing about men wearing jeans? I was once criticized because I wore cargo shorts while mowing the church lawn on a 95 degree afternoon.

When you cut out all the pious gloss, there’s one word for this attitude - stupid.

As my family and I look back at our experiences in “The Village” we often laugh. Not at the people we were associated with. They were people who really wanted to do what they thought was right and we went along. I’ll admit that on first leaving The Village I struggled with personal bitterness but thankfully God gave me a family that helped me see the good things that were there and to laugh more at myself and my response to the atmosphere. That’s probably why I enjoy the Babylon Bee, Church Curmudgeon, Lloyd Legalist, and Unappreciated Pastor.

I had to look up the definition of verboten. I did not know how to match my ties until I got married (I still have trouble with that) so does that make me country grunge? With that in mind, one of the few things I know about Poison (Band) is that “every cowboy sings a sad sad song and every rose has its thorns” (line from their song). Even though I liked country, as a Christian, I was bothered by a lot of the lyrics. Other songs were very wholesome and I still enjoy them. The Poison song was way less offensive to me than Foxworthy’s “Party all Night” (just ask Officer Mitchell or Peggy’s dad if you have heard that song).

BTW, I danced to that Poison song at high school dances. The only thing I had ever heard about dancing being wrong at that time was from the preacher in the Footloose movie. The thing that got me the most upset about that movie at the time was that I had spent many hours on a tractor just like the one the main character got his shoe laces stuck in. I kept telling my friends that all he had to do was pull the shuttle shift lever to the left of the steering wheel and then the tractor would have went in reverse. If you want to see that scene just look up footloose tractor chicken scene on youtube. There is no dancing in that scene, but you may want to mute it if you are music sensitive or turn it up if you are not.

The best explanation I’ve heard of the proscription of denim is that it was the uniform of the 1960s counterculture. Obviously, it’s a bit of a stretch to carry that forward to the 1990s. Another explanation I’ve heard—this from more of a Reformed midwestern orbit than a fundamental—is that good white collar people in the 1970s were simply puzzled why one would want to wear the clothes of blue collar workers when one’s parents had worked their tails off to get white collar jobs. Obviously, that latter bit is class consciousness that you probably won’t “get” at a heart level unless you’re well over 50, and even then maybe not.

Agreed that Hussey was taken advantage of—really, with only a few exceptions, I’d argue that’s pretty likely for most actresses whose private parts are seen on screen. Or actors, really. The question is whether the abuse that got them to do so occurred on the casting couch or elsewhere. And as Elizabethan plays were originally done by all male casts, I dare say that you can perform them well without being that explicit.

In my experience, many of the authority figures seemed embarrassed by the sillier rules. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t those who really loved and lived by those rules.

Probably the worst example regarding clothes that I can remember happened about ten years ago. One Sunday evening, at the behest of some friends, my wife and I visited a large, fundamentalist church in the Greenville area.

A supporting missionary (a church planter in Arizona) was there, and he was asked to share about the ministry. During his presentation, he told an anecdote about a teenage boy that he had “won to the Lord.” The boy’s parents were not Christians, and so this church planter gave him rides to and from church. He was unsure of the validity of the boy’s salvation until one Sunday when the boy came out to the car with a tie in his hand. He asked the church planter to help him tie it because he wanted to wear a tie to church. The church planter then told us that that was the instance that he knew the boy was really saved. The church resounded with “amens!” My wife and I almost walked out.

I do want to reiterate that for me, at least, I did view my appearance as a way to signal my rebellion to those around me.

Appearance does matter. If I wanted to transition into a career into hotel real estate, for example, I would have to seriously alter my appearance. While there was and probably still is problems with the ways in which appearance is discussed and monitored within fundamentalism, the authority figures weren’t completely wrong. To me, and referencing my current chapter, the problem can be seen in the juxtaposition of me and Dennis. It was obvious that I was rebelling. In fact, I wanted it to be obvious. Because Dennis was willing to conform to the outward standards, it was assumed that he was “good.”

I understand.

Speaking as one who also spent much of his childhood in the fundamental CDS movement, I can confirm a lot of what John is saying. At our school, there were certainly many students who were only “Christian” in that they had signed a statement that they were so they could attend, and so there were a huge amount of those who followed the rules to the letter to “fly under the radar.” Sure, there were some genuine believers, and also somewhat more open rebels, who really didn’t want to be there, but were made to go by their parents.

As in John’s narrative, I can say that almost without exception, the educators in my school whose job it was to teach and look after the students demonstrated that they loved the Lord and that they were genuinely interested in the welfare of the students. However, like I would assume happens at most Christian schools, the faculty and staff were simply too busy to delve into the lives of every single student. Most teachers not only had a completely full class load, with multiple classes of students, but were responsible for study halls, coaching duty, chaperone duty at school sports activities, other fundraising, etc. I’m guessing that in this environment, a certain amount of judging by looks and behavior takes place. Teachers have only so much time, so unless there was a particular case of a student who was taken under a teacher’s wing (and I had a couple teachers do that for me), they probably only had time to deal with those who really stuck out.

While “judging by the outward appearance” might be a failure on the part of some teachers, I would say that it’s more or less going to happen in this kind of environment. There’s simply not enough money to hire the number of people necessary and pay them well. I would further note that while some discipleship should take place at a Christian school, I think it should be clear that the main avenues for that activity should be the home and the church. Teachers are to a lesser extent both counselors and substitute parents, but neither of those are their primary function, and sadly, Christian educators are paid so little that many also have to have second jobs, in addition to having a home life, so their time is extremely constrained.

Looking back, I think that both my Christian university and day school did what they could, and they provided, to the extent they able, a Christian environment, under which those who really wanted such could prosper. They can’t perfectly get rid of all those who are not true Christians, and given what is in the parable of the tares, they have to stick to obvious biblical judgments, or risk tearing out the wheat as well. As this series has demonstrated, it’s quite easy for one to be a “godless fundamentalist” in this environment, but I would say that can certainly happen in our churches as well, when people play the game and fly under the radar. We just need to continue to show God’s love to those around us, and trust that He will work in their lives what must be done.

Christian schools and universities are not the be-all, end-all of educational choices for Christians, but when understood and used properly, can still be quite valuable. However, no matter how close to perfection they are, they are never going to be able to solve the issue of those who really don’t want to follow Christ but are willing to play along.

I’m really looking forward to how this story comes to a conclusion.