Living With Fundamentalism

A reader writes:

I am really drawn in to your discussions of fundamentalism. It is an issue that my husband and I, as well as many colleagues, often find ourselves discussing.  Why? We teach next door to a mega church and many of our families attend the church. We have seen numerous times where these children have upbraided their peers for not being "Christian enough", for not going to church where "they" do, and for not claiming Jesus as their personal savior.  To say that this behavior disturbs us, is to put it mildly.  The other day, another teacher found herself surrounded by a group of her 8 year olds calling her out on where she attends church, and what she believes. This event came after a year of one of her students frequently throwing out scripture verses aloud during class.  This is not limited to students; many of our colleagues attend services there as well.  Therefore, you will see a myriad of stickers affixed to the cars in our parking lot: "God is In Control" (guess that wraps up that Free Will debate) and "Not of this World" (funny, I thought God created this world for us) are the current favorites.

What I see are families who want certainty; to be told what to do and how to parent their children.

They don't seem capable of parenting on their own two feet, so they turn their families over to a finger wagging mega-church that tells their kids to go out and bear witness, to wear chastity rings, and to quote scripture without ever really looking at the development of the soul. Also, there is an air of exclusivity among the children.  If you are not seen there during the weekend, or if you go trick or treating instead of going to the church carnival, or you don't attend the "Christian Club" meetings during lunch at the public school, then you are on the outs with the crowd, because you just don't love Jesus the right way. Further, the insistence on literal level thinking in regards to accepting the Bible as God's literal word, has bled into classroom practices. Many of our children see no need to think about the author's message of a text or to infer why someone might be feeling something in a given text, because if the author wanted you to think that about that, he/she would tell you directly, right?

I am looking forward for this trend to abate, and in the meantime, my family will be in the fourth pew from the back at our Catholic Church, living life in an uncertain world, comfortable with ambiguity and learning that the world is not black and white, and God probably doesn't want it that way!