I was raised Fundamentalist Christian. I know you all know stories, but here's mine:

[PatrickforB]

124. Yes, many times I marvel at how wrong the Fundies have gotten it.

My mom was born in 1920, and her dad was evangelical. Mom stuck a button in a gum machine and got caught, so she told me Grandpa 'confessed' it before the congregation, and while looking down at her (4 or 5 at the time), he pointed and thundered, "It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God!"

The minute Mom got old enough to leave, she left this evangelical church for good. She taught me good things, like kindness and compassion, but never really stopped serving that creative force the Christians call God.

A few bad apples - Falwell, the Bakers, Roberts, Robertson, Huckabee started it. They allowed their egos free rein and forgot who they were serving. Instead of helping their congregants seek first the Kingdom and righteousness within, they instead sought political power and wealth.

It was insidious - the 'creep' to the right. GOP politicians hastened this by appearing to be anti-abortion. Now we have that guy on daytime TV selling miracle water. Sigh.

To my mind, this is a church whose leaders have been seduced by pride, wrath, greed, envy, gluttony, lust and sloth (which doesn't quite mean what we read into the word). Too bad they didn't read some of the literature about what it all actually means - Thomas a' Kempis, John of the Cross, St. Augustine, Theresa of Avila. These old mystics knew at least as much about human psychology as we do today, if you read them.

This is the thing about Jesus, you know. He was an inconvenient guy. He was the king no one wanted. The zealots expected a king that would lead them against the Romans and restore Jerusalem to its Davidic and Solomonic glory days. Instead Jesus bade them to seek first the Kingdom within. When asked the greatest commandment, he said, "Love..."

Funny how that all got lost in the worship of the Wall Street bull. Here in this 'christian' capitalist utopia we call 'Murika, shareholder PROFITS are always king, not God! We hold profits over the needs of workers, consumers, communities and the very earth itself. Our whole society seems to be ruled by the seven deadly sins.

Well, enough. Fundamentalism, like any zealotry, makes me sad.