I don’t see it that way at all. I respect everything I’ve ever learned about Judaism and I wouldn’t want to be saved from it at all. I consider myself Jewish still because of my heritage. I feel that finding Christ *for me * has fulfilled my search for the Messiah.
Sure, that would be offensive but I’m not saying that.
The ball is in your court :).
I just thought it was interesting what dreamer had said. I actually stopped becoming a fundie and a Christian when I researched Judaism, not vice versa.
Vineyard? Isn’t that the Toronto group that splintered off into the Brownseville movement? Those teachings (tongues, slain in the spirit, spiritual warfare) is actually what I was researching for the church group I was leading when I started moving away from Christianity. IMHO, that movement (charismatics in general) are very much a cult in Christianity and extremely misleading. In fact, I think if any group can be considered the anti-christ, it is that one.
1. How did you get saved?
It was at a revival at my home church. I was 7. God had been dealing with me before then, though.
2. What denomination church do you attend?
Grew up southern Baptist. Now I go to a non-denominational church, I guess you could call us pentecostal though.
**3. WHo are your favorite authors? **
John Grisham, Dave Barry, Erma Bombeck, plus some others that aren’t coming to mind right now.
4. Are you a Republican?
Registered Republican, yes, although my views are more Libertarian than anything. I’m not one of these “vote the party” people, I vote pro-life … and if that means voting for a shudder Democrat, so be it.
5. Do you consdier other sects not-christian?
Some, yes.
Like Res, I’m Catholic. I was born into a Catholic family, educated in Catholic schools, and have always attended Sunday Mass. Within the last few years I’ve explored my faith more deeply, I pray evey day, I attend daily Mass when I can ( a local parish has daily Mass in the evenings 3 nights a week). We don’t have the concepted of “Saved”, though.
Favourite authors - Religious or secular? For religious works ione of my favorite books is “Living the Truth in Love: An Introduction to Moral Theology”. I also read lives of the saints, St. Francis DeSales, etc. For light reading I like Tom Clancy, Laurell K. Hamilton, Lois McMaster Bujold.
Voting preference - I would say Republican, although I unfailingly vote Pro-life.
I leave the souls of others in God’s capable hands. He’ll do the judging, thank you.
StG
FWIW, ResIpsaLoquitor, yours is the kind of story that far more impresses me. Personall, that is.
One of my favorite authors is Flannery O’Connor, and she was about exactly the same kind of Catholic. Except of course she lived in the deep Pentecostal South, which also made her a freak. Which I also admire.
It’s my belief that each of us must somehow build for him/herself a system of metaphor–a map of the universe–so that they can picture for themselves their place in it. I think that religion is a good starter metaphor for people who are undergoing that process, and insofar as they take it and make it their own map out of it, I think it’s a good thing and I admire it. But when people take a religion as a done deal–when they try to live their according to someone else’s map of the universe–I think it leads to small mindedness and ill feeling toward others. And of course, when someone develops a map that works for them, and then tries to make other people adopt his/her map, no modifications allowed, well then you get fringe fundamentalism and cults.
So even though my map of the universe does not include a literal god, my admiration for the kind of religiosity by which Flannery O’Connor lived her life (what she called a “habit of being”; read her letters!) is such that she inspired me to read a few lives of the saints (O’Connor was a great reader of such books).
I’m fascinated and full of admirations for many of those people who come to be known by others as saints (or bodhisatvas, or what have you). I’m also really fascinated by religious hysterics and visionaries: snake handlers, tongue talkers, people who spend their entire life building a grotto to the virgin Mary out of bottle caps, etc.
Anyway, ResIpsaLoquitor*, if you haven’t read Flannery O’Connors’s letters–the collection is titled The Habit of Being–I hope you will.
FWIW, ResIpsaLoquitor, yours is the kind of story that far more impresses me. Personally, that is.
One of my favorite authors is Flannery O’Connor, and she was about exactly the same kind of Catholic. Except of course she lived in the deep Pentecostal South, which also made her a freak. Which I also admire.
It’s my belief that each of us must somehow build for him/herself a system of metaphor–a map of the universe–so that they can picture for themselves their place in it. I think that religion is a good starter metaphor for people who are undergoing that process, and insofar as they take it and make it their own map out of it, I think it’s a good thing and I admire it. But when people take a religion as a done deal–when they try to live their according to someone else’s map of the universe–I think it leads to small mindedness and ill feeling toward others. And of course, when someone develops a map that works for them, and then tries to make other people adopt his/her map, no modifications allowed, well then you get fringe fundamentalism and cults.
So even though my map of the universe does not include a literal god, my admiration for the kind of religiosity by which Flannery O’Connor lived her life (what she called a “habit of being”; read her letters!) is such that she inspired me to read a few lives of the saints (O’Connor was a great reader of such books).
I’m fascinated and full of admirations for many of those people who come to be known by others as saints (or bodhisatvas, or what have you). I’m also really fascinated by religious hysterics and visionaries: snake handlers, tongue talkers, people who spend their entire life building a grotto to the virgin Mary out of bottle caps, etc.
Anyway, ResIpsaLoquitor*, if you haven’t read Flannery O’Connors’s letters–the collection is titled The Habit of Being–I hope you will.
Hmm…
I think that Gobear and I have now established that due to Falwell & Company’s unrelenting hijack of the term “Fundamentalist” to include Biblical inerrancy (which historically it didn’t used to, and it didn’t while I was growing up with the term), I’m going to have to stop classifying myself as a “Fundie”, as I am not, strictly speaking, an inerrantist. Perhaps I should start a new sect–the Fundie Errantists?
Oh, well…
Saved–twice, once when I was nine and once when I was 16.
Baptized three times–sprinkled as a infant, sprinkled in the 7th grade, and dunked in high school.
I attend a Christian church.
Favorite authors–practically anything at the library that isn’t nailed down, except for self-help books and philosophy.
Political affiliations–politics, feh.
Yes, I firmly believe that the Hasidic sects are not Christian.
I did not expect this many responses, only 4!
I don’t know what else to call us: Bible belieiving christians,
all I’ve been called is fundie, on here at least.
I had meant christian authors, but I love Dave Barry too.
So make it for all christians then, lets have some answers from the LDS and Polycarp too ( who is not a fundie, but fun anyway).
Thank you.
It did while I was growing up in the Pentecostal Church of God and Assemblies of God churches in the 70s and 80s.
Okey-dokey.
1. How did you get saved?
My church doesn’t do the whole “saved” thing. I was baptized as an infant and took classes before being confirmed at the age of 16. I took confirmation seriously, and consider that the point at which I affirmed my faith and assumed my status as an adult Christian.
2. What denomination church do you attend?
Born, raised, and confirmed Congregationalist, now a Methodist. Potato-potahto, at least out here in the liberal northwest.
3. WHo are your favorite authors?
Christian? C.S. Lewis, Kathleen Norris, many many others
4. Are you a Republican?
Yep. But not a very conservative one.
5. Do you consdier other sects not-christian?
I’m not sure what you mean by other “sects.” Obviously a bunch of other religions are not Christian. So far as those claiming to be . . . well, I have learned not to tell others if they can or cannot consider themselves or call themselves Christian. I don’t do it, because it infuriates me when others (mostly fundies) do it to me. (“You’re not Christian because you don’t believe the Bible is the literal word of God,” etc.) Certainly other people and other groups do things and believe things that are not consistent with Christianity as I understand it – things that make me go “Huh. I wonder where they get that?” But that’s more true of Fred Phelps than it is of, say, the LDS.
DUCK DUCK GOOSE, what do you mean by “Hasidic sects”? The Hasidim are Jews, right? Why would anyone think they are Christian? Not picking a fight, I just don’t know what you mean there.
Jodi: DUCK DUCK GOOSE, what do you mean by “Hasidic sects”? The Hasidim are Jews, right? Why would anyone think they are Christian?
(pssst Jodi: whoosh. 
it were a funny.)
I think DDG was calling attention to the weird (or, at best, ambiguous) phrasing vanilla used in her OP. Hasidim is a sect of Judaism, and it’s not-Christian, so that literally answers Question 5 of the OP… but that’s probably not what vanilla was gunning for.
I suspect the OP wanted to know if various other fundies consider Mormonism, JW’s, Catholics, Christian Scientists, etc. “Christian” or not. You know–denominations which claim to be Christian but aren’t, according to a large number of Fundies.
That’s my interpretation of the two posts, at least.
Quix
Right. It wasn’t until the 1970s, when Harold Lindsell and his The Battle for the Bible, which was published in 1976, popularized the concept of Biblical inerrancy, that “inerrancy” got to be included as one of the Five Fundamentals, especially among the Pentecostals and Assembly of God. Nowadays, of course, “inerrancy” and “Fundie” are interchangeable, but it wasn’t always like that.
While I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, among a mixed group of Lutherans, American Baptists, Southern Baptists, and Methodists, “fundamentalist” still had the old-fashioned meaning–“someone who believes the Five Fundamentals”, as laid down in the Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910.
http://www.pcanet.org/history/documents/deliverance.html
The original Fundamental that referred to the Bible says:
It doesn’t say “inerrant”. It says “free from error” and refers to “doctrinal” error, not “scientific” error. It was formulated as a reaction against the growing secular humanism of the turn of the century, which said that the Bible was just a collection of inspiring fairy tales, written by men. The Presbyterians wanted to make it clear that everything in the Bible is there because God wants it there, because the Holy Spirit inspired the men who wrote it. They never intended “free from error” to mean things like “God created the world in, literally, 144 hours”.
This idea that the Bible is literally, totally true was around for a while during the decades after the publication of the Five Fundamentals, as a sort of “fringe” idea in conservative Christian circles, but it was The Battle for the Bible, which was a best-seller, that made the concept go mainstream, especially after Jerry Falwell and an assortment of other TV evangelists started popularizing it, which, again, happened during the 1970s and 1980s.
http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showarticle?item_id=1823
So, yes, growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in a Pentecostal church, you’d have inevitably associated “Fundamentalist” with “inerrancy”. But it wasn’t always like that.
I think it’s very unfair and quite annoying of Lindsell and Falwell et al to co-opt the term like this, but I don’t see that there’s anything I can do about it.
Yeah, that’s what I thought, too, which was why I declined to answer it. Fingerpointing threads belong in the Pit, IMO. 
That way all the folks who get blacklisted as “Not Really Christian” can feel free to let fly. 
But FTR:
The requirements for being a “Christian” are as follows:
If there are any other requirements, they ain’t in the Bible, “inerrant” or not.
DUCK DUCK – Very interesting post about the history of the term “fundamentalist.” I did not know that. Thanks for the post.
What the heck, let’s do the poll…
1. How did you get saved?
We don’t do the whole “saved” thing. I was confirmed at 14, I think, which is about the usual age. I was pretty casual about religion for a long time, though, and only started going to church regularly last summer. It’s been kind of a long, painful struggle since then – still is, in fact – because I don’t know how to deal with my disagreements on some of what the Church teaches.
2. What denomination church do you attend?
Catholic. As I said before. I consider myself a liberal, though.
3. WHo are your favorite authors?
J.R.R. Tolkien – he counts, doesn’t he? I’m not really into contemporary Christian media. OTOH, I’m a student of Renaissance literature and there’s a lot of great religious poetry from that era – Donne, Herbert, and of course Milton, though (not being Protestant and all) I’m not always in agreement with the specifics of their theology. (Of course, a lot of Renaissance English literature is profoundly anti-Catholic.)
4. Are you a Republican?
No way. (Side note: the rest of my immediate family usually votes Republican, though not, as far as I can tell, for religious reasons.)
5. Do you consdier other sects not-christian?
It’s not up to me to say who’s Christian and who’s not – besides, as Jodi says, it’s infuriating to be on the receiving end, so I wouldn’t dare say it of someone else. (Though it’s tempting with regards to the likes of, say, Fred Phelps.)
Don’t know how well I can do but I’ll try. Most true Christians agree on the basic tenets of the faith: the virgin birth, deity of Christ, His sinless life, His death on the cross for our sins, His resurrection, His return. That those who accept Him and His sacrifice will spend eternity in heaven with Him and those who don’t accept His sacrifice will spend eternity in hell. Any religion that teaches any other way to heaven than Christ is false or a cult. Also some religions like JW’s have such differing beliefs that they made their own Bible version to support their beliefs. Mormons follow Joseph Smith who received some gold plates from an angel, I don’t see anwhere were he tested the spirits according to 1 John 4:1-3. Muslims worship Allah and consider Muhammad to be their prophet. They believe in Jesus but not that He’s the Saviour and God in the flesh as the sciprure teaches. Colissians 2:9 . Satan has had a field day today causing all these different cults and religions to confuse people as to which way is the true way. The true way is Christ who said "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me. John 14:6
Thanks, H4E. You’ve proven that you’ve absolutely no knowledge of my church. I, for one, would appreciate your not making any further comments on it unless it’s to gain knowledge about it instead of to damn that which you don’t knowl
SO answer the poll, Monty!
Um, I believe this statement is wrong:
See this. Both the KJV and the New English Bibles are quoted from on their website.
http://www.watchtower.org/library/jt/index.htm
Although if you can come up with a cite for your statement, His4ever, I welcome enlightenment. This website, after all, is about Fighting Ignorance.
And about this:
Well, first of all, Monty, it’s a marvelous kindergarten-level explanation, innit?
I John 4:1-3 says, courtesy of the Bible Gateway:
**
Monty, correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that the LDS believe in Jesus, worship Jesus, and just generally acknowledge that “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh”. Is this not so?
If this is true, then if Joseph Smith had “tested the spirit” that led him to the plates, he would have found that the spirit in question was from God, as it would have confirmed that Jesus was Lord, since the church he founded believes that Jesus is Lord.
Yes?
Therefore, His4ever, Mormons are Christians. Look at this.
That’s about as tight a statement of Christian belief as you could ask for, His4ever. Gonzo golden plate mythology or no gonzo golden plate mythology, Mormons are still Christians.