ExFundie

[Note: the very first essay begins here]

So, you've got a family of fundamentalists living next door to you. How are they going to behave toward you, if you're not a fundamentalist yourself?

There are several possibilities. The strictest of them will have nothing to do with you, period. This is because, of course, you are under a completely different allegiance: you are allied with the enemies of God no matter how nice you may seem, and there can be no fraternizing with the enemy.

A second reason for not fraternizing, though, comes from two beliefs, about themselves and you: firstly, they believe that they are inherently sinful and weak; secondly, they believe that as an enemy of God, you are given solely to sin. The spirit behind even your "good" actions is self-centred rather than God-centred, so even your "good" actions are sinful. So if they allow themselves to enjoy your company, they could easily be led back into sin under your influence. They want to avoid temptation, especially in the guise of goodness and friendship. Therefore, they will avoid you except for the most cursory, necessary interactions in the community.

For these people, this can apply even to neighbours who are supposedly Christians, but of a different sectarian persuasion. If you are Roman Catholic, for example, many fundamentalists will consider you just shy of a servant of the anti-Christ, and will avoid you almost as fervently as if you were a Satanist (and some would say you are!).

If you are of another religion altogether, say Sikh or Hindu or, heaven forfend, Islam, you are even worse. Catholics at least use the Bible, so there is some chance of God breaking through and converting them. But these others are, for the Christian fundamentalist, unabashed and brazen idolators. Their evil nature is much more out in the open. So a strict fundamentalist will have as little to do with these neighbours as humanly possible.

There are other fundamentalists, though, who will in fact be quite friendly, and fraternize to some degree with their atheist, or idolatrous, or otherwise ungodly neighbours. But do not be deceived, no matter how friendly they are: their primary motivation is NOT simple friendliness. Always and only, their purpose in befriending you will be TO TRY TO SHOW YOU THE TRUTH AND CONVERT YOU TO FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANITY. Only after you are converted will they be able to relax, and enjoy you as a person, and enjoy your friendship for its own sake.

They believe that Jesus gave them a divine mission before he departed the world and ascended to heaven: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). It is their job to bring everyone they meet into a saving relationship with Jesus and God. If you were to die "in your sins," and go to hell, because they just hung out with you and didn't try to convert you, it would be a horrible tragedy and a lifelong accusation on their conscience. So their first business with you – always and only – is your conversion.

Sometimes it appears as though these neighbours are being friendly without trying to convert you. But they regard conversion as a process, often progressing gradually. They work to gain your trust, and gradually introduce ideas that work toward the real reason they have befriended you. At all times, they are watching and calculating: "How can this barbecue or that hockey practice lay more groundwork? How can I work this conversation around to point in God's direction? How often can I casually refer to God doing something in my life, to try to make them curious enough to bring up the subject themselves? When will they be ripe for another attempt?" And so on. Every friendly act and conversation IS A TACTIC. Even if they come to regard you genuinely as a friend, they are always plotting first and foremost how to convert you

If they end up having to sacrifice your friendship in the name of their God – they will. You are, at very best, in second place. But even being that high is rare, because they owe far more allegiance to their church, their religious friends, their political organizations, and so on. You will NEVER be considered on a par with them, as friends, till you have converted to fundamentalist Christianity.

This will have an effect on all sorts of family issues. Your children might be allowed to befriend their children – up to a point. But they will segregate their kids from yours at the first sign that your children might be putting non-fundamentalist ideas into their kids' heads. However, they will not hesitate to try to put fundamentalist ideas into your kids' heads. A mother making cookies while all your kids hang out in the kitchen may take that chance to talk about God while you're not there. The father driving the kids to practice might pray with the kids while travelling in the van, as a "witness" and influence on your children.

Because it is their responsibility to try to convert everybody they meet, they believe that you are harming your child if you do not introduce them to Jesus and his redemptive work. Therefore, they will always try surreptitiously to educate your child in their beliefs. They will do this EVEN IF YOU EXPLICITLY ASK THEM NOT TO. They will obey what they think God wants, even if it contradicts what you want, as a parent.

In fact, this is a good moment to comment on the fact that fundamentalists in North America yell very loudly about parental rights, but don't really believe in those rights for any parents but themselves. They yell that the government has no right to interfere with their parenting; they are the parents, and The State does not own their children. The State has no right to declare whether they can or can't strike their kids in punishment, for example. The State also has no right to tell them what they can or can't teach their children. In fact, they are the ones who should be dictating to The State what it can or can't teach. They believe this so strongly that if they disagree with what The State teaches their children, they tend more and more these days to pull their kids out of public school altogether, to engage in home schooling.

But it's odd, about parental rights, because fundamentalists in essence believe that only they have these rights. They will NOT recognize your right, as a parent, to tell them, "Do not talk to my children about religion." Whatever principles you try to teach your children, that they disagree with, they will subtly try to undermine in as many ways as possible. What they believe your child "should" be taught, they will try to teach, no matter what your wishes are.

In other words – not only do fundamentalists believe they have parenting rights over their own children that supersede any rights by The State or others – they believe THEY HAVE PARENTING RIGHTS OVER YOUR CHILDREN, if they disagree with what you are teaching your kids.

All you need to do to test their commitment to "parental rights" is ask them to join you in fighting for your right to teach your child evolution, or to be an atheist, or to support left-wing politics. They only believe in "parental rights" if the parents believe in the "right" things – meaning fundamentalist Christianity in its current manifestation of right-wing politics.

Family structure will play a big role in their beliefs as well. In theory at least, they believe that the wife is always subjected to her husband. Even if she works outside the home, in theory her husband is boss, and makes the decisions for the family. They may not come right out and tell you that your equal-partner relationship is wrong in the eyes of God, but they will support political groups that try to undermine male-female equality, and will subtly disapprove if you have a relationship where the female partner takes the lead as often as, or more often than, the male partner.

If your partnership consists of two men or two women living in a marital relationship, you will be lucky if the fundamentalist neighbours speak to you at all. Certainly they will discourage their children from having anything to do with yours. They may in fact actively try to force you out of the neighbourhood or out of community involvement. Most of the time the best you can hope for is to be ignored.

Though if they do try to befriend you – beware. More than any other type of non-fundamentalist neighbour, you have the most to worry about from these "friends," no matter how much they might genuinely like you. Since their primary goal is to try to convert you to fundamentalist Christianity, this means as a corollary that they are not just trying to convert you, but TRYING TO BREAK UP YOUR PARTNERSHIP AND FAMILY. Because of course, their talk about "family values" only extends to their type of family. Any other type is ungodly, and therefore evil, and gay relationships are the most evil of all. They can convert a standard male-female family to fundamentalist Christianity without breaking up the family (though they will immediately try to "mentor" the new converts into the man-ruling-the-woman type of hierarchy). But they will never tolerate a gay relationship without wanting to destroy it.

We could go on and on with specific examples of how a set of fundamentalist neighbours would relate to non-fundamentalists, but I think you get the picture. Some fundamentalists do not behave this way, because while they agree in principle with the things taught at their church, they either lack the courage to try to push these beliefs on their neighbours, or they retain some sense that their neighbours have a right to hold different beliefs without interference. However, the stronger and more fervent their fundamentalist faith, the more likely they are to behave this way. Converting their neighbours to fundamentalist Christianity will be their number one priority, overriding freedom of conscience, parenting rights, and different family values.

And naturally, they extend these attitudes beyond the local neighbourhood, into society in general. So let us move outward too, to view them in action in the wider world.

Back to: Interjection: Acting Out