Roy Moore's scandal is just the tip of American evangelical Christianity's child bride problem

boing
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I have some experience in this world, many years ago. You are correct that there is no “IFB” denomination, per se. However, Independent Fundamental Baptists pride themselves on the whole “we’re unique, just like everyone else” nonsense. They proclaim their independence and look down upon denominations with hierarchy, but then they turn around and have their own colleges, media (print, digital, audio), conferences, musical artists & groups, regional organizations with hierarchical leadership, in-group superstars, and so on. They’re a loosely-held, tightly enforced group-that-isn’t sort of a group. They have their own standards & practices that are common to the group. They have reciprocal recognition agreements (usually couched in terms of “churches of like faith & practice”) with each other.

What’s worse, IFB churches serve as a protective collective for preachers run out of a church for sexual impropriety (regardless of age), as there’s an unwritten agreement that any “issues” at a prior church won’t be spoken about or mentioned when a preacher is looking to hire on at a new church. It’s a “he’s not our problem any more, we made the victims apologize, we dare not ‘speak ill of God’s man’, etc…” mindset. So, predators are free to move about and very rarely does word of their misdeeds make it outside of the church where the incident(s) happened.

Yes, there are various levels of “crazy” that sub-groups within the IFB world adhere to. As you might expect with a system with so much “independence” there is infighting and cliquishness (“we’re true believers, and you’re not, because we believe XYZ and you only believe XYZ, so we won’t ‘fellowship’ with you any more”). But when push comes to shove they circle the wagons and defend their own, since it’s them vs. the big scary evil world.

The IFB exhibits the essential characteristics of a denomination. This is abundantly clear to anyone who has been on the inside of that world. After so many claims from various elements within the IFB sphere that they’re not part of any network of churches or organizations, it became common to refer to them as a notwork. The only ones who think that IFB types aren’t a denomination, group, collective, network, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, are the IFB themselves because “independence” is prized higher than anything else, including ethics, morals, and general-purpose humanity.

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That graph is quite enlightening, I wonder if there is a recent study done because I’m guessing they’re past 80% at this point.

Sell our country to Russians - eh, whatever
Molest and rape teens - TRADITION!
Nazis - Misunderstood!
Muslims - We’re the ARMY of the LORD and we are MARCHING Zionward
Shootings - Praising Jesus as we march away…
Breaking the constitution - ONLY ONE of those articles matters, the one that lets me have GUNS
War profiteering - When we win Jesus will share the wealth
War crimes - Only matter if a Dem does it
Collapse the Economy - It’s the Antichrist that did that, we’re marching to Ziooooooon

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Some of them don’t. Seriously, some of these hardcore evangelicals around here are also the anti-vax crunchy sort that fears science over all… and those people I can tell you from experience, if they can’t pray the illness out or exorcise it or cure it with holy oil… then that person is just going to either survive or not. Gets attention when a kid dies, but I know firsthand a lot of adults will straight up refuse medical treatment because God will heal them… in fact I knew a lady who died of cancer for just that reason. Can’t forget her words to her doctor when he told her she had less than six months left after collapsing and being taken by ambulance to an ER… “my God is bigger than yours.” Sad but legal. She died of course. The thing that gets me about her isn’t that she died, she was going to die either way. What gets me is she spent that time in constant pain praying and continuing work, refusing to take any time with her family or take any of the time before she was too sick to do anything she’d hoped to do. She had six months and frankly, she wasted it praying and trying to pretend the prayers were working. That’s the part that gets me…

Worse yet I knew ANOTHER lady who had a strep infection but would NOT accept antibiotics or any modern medical treatment. She died of HEART SEPSIS after months of horrific illness. Pointless… it’s their rights, but don’t assume these folks go running to the doctor. A good contingent of them really don’t.

I wonder if this is the cash tie in with the whole insurance mess… it’s easier to get people to believe that access to healthcare for them is evil if they already believe that illness is caused by God’s anger and only prayer cures it. No need for insurance then! Votes matter!

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Well, I suppose the proof will be in the pudding, won’t it? “Mainstream” Republicans do not support Moore… in fact, McConnell has called on Moore to drop out.

I bet he won’t.

Let’s see if he gets elected regardless. Because if he is, regardless of whether the majority of Alabamans find his beliefs repulsive, the senate agenda on behalf of Alabama will be heavy influenced by those beliefs. And all because, what, evangelicals think that child molestation is repulsive, but electing a Democrat is even more repulsive? Talk about twisted priorities.

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Speaking as a DECENT Dad, or even a halfway decent one. You’re totally right about rural settings, they are more split than people think and a lot of the mainline Baptist types do NOT sit well with the more frenzied Evangelicals even though the two groups are related. Honestly, to rout this kind of mentality people kind of need the moderate Christians to start raising their voices loudly.

One of the key differences though is that many mainline Protestants have been established for a long time in those Rural places and often they don’t take kindly to new Religious groups or Sects popping up. Gellies use rehab and prison as a major hunting ground for new recruits, and they don’t mind having their church in a stripmall store. This makes them very adaptable to large cities actually.

… On a completely random and unrelated note

Your comment made me fleetingly grateful to my antisocial dad who intrinsically misbehaves in the presence of such folks. He may have been in his “summer home” (rehab) or trying another investment (bail money) most of my childhood, but at least he would have taken one of his many terrifying weapons out to send a special message. One of the few positive sort of memories I can say about my dad is that I had a stalker in HS (pretty creepy according to one teacher he had a scrapbook of me any time anything with my picture, name, or anything on it which was a lot since in HS I was actually active). Actually I later found out that very guy was a rapist who raped several girls I knew during that time period. Good times. He was camped out across the street one night, right across from my bedroom window and I was freaked out enough to call the cops. Before they came my dad had already run out the front door and ended up arguing with him for long enough that the guy was thankful when the cops finally showed up. Dad backed down in time not to get himself arrested. Guy never showed up around me again at least. Stopped clock I know, but hey at least my dad wasn’t walking out there to arrange my marriage.

Eh I’m commenting too much but I can’t help it. This issue REALLY gets me.

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Indeed. They can live anywhere, like rats.

(I’m from west Michigan, with several medium sized cities full of fringe Christians)

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I agree in the long run, but the Evangelicals that are horrified need to raise such a stink that change happens. That’s not going to happen unless people keep the pressure on. Bad people are anywhere and it’s the job of the in-group that doesn’t agree with them to put their defenses down with regard to others, and stand up against one of their own with whom they disagree. To do that people needs support. While broad generalizations tend to shut people down, they also need to understand that until people start seeing change there won’t be any and the first changes start with what you can do. If YOU are an evangelical look into the past of some one, look into the overall attitude not the Religious affiliation. Don’t group YOURSELF with them and the insults won’t apply anymore. In fact, it will become more and more obvious where the problem lies.

Sadly people just won’t do that unless they are forced to think about what they don’t want to and admit what they don’t want to. In short, they better not vote for him. And they better start questioning people near them a LOT.

Yeah I get it, there are Transphobic Feminists, Racist Feminists, and yeah… Richard Dawkins who just can’t not make a bizarre and inappropriate comment on any social issue switching seamlessly between hallowed professor and creepy old white guy. It’s also the job of all of the other Feminists and all of the other Atheists to shout back at that person until they eventually lose status in the community. It sucks terribly to find out that a group of people with whom you felt aligned, where you have a sense of belonging, are protecting something you find repulsive. But the problem isn’t the outside people getting angry. Don’t turn that anger on them it’s too easy, turn it on the ones who betrayed something you held dear.

Rejection and condemnation from insiders has real power, that’s how communities make big changes. It’s how people with power who are abusing it are pushed out of power. We can scream and call for justice all day long, but no one supporting Moore cares because we’re all crazy liberals trying to ruin things and pave the way for Satan or whatever. But when half the church you’re preaching to walks out on you, it matters a lot.

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And, for those with a taste for a more literal unicorn chaser, a punk unicorn girl:

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That’s worked out really well for the Muslims…Like my neighbors from the Philippines who wouldn’t know where to find a terrorist to persuade to change if their lives depended on it.

That’s what I’m trying to say. This isn’t a group. (We don’t even know each other! I promise, if I had any relational, monetary, or other connection, I would sever it!) And as for calling them out, may I introduce you to

I’m not going to comment any more here, because the big story is that girls are being hurt, and that’s where the focus should be right now. But as a side story, declaring everyone in a huge wide group to be into child-brides is not ok.

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I get you, I really do. And I WILL look at your link. But if you don’t know anyone look for more. Yeah, you won’t always win. But I’m pretty sure that much as I do with TERFs a simple conversation will expose a world about people. The truth is if you are living in the US and a Christian, you simply are not under the kind of pressure an minority group is.

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Ok, I stand corrected on that. I don’t know of any IFB churches. Which is probably as good a reason as any not to conflate them with all evangelicals (or all Christians).

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At least it’s not missing a “Moore” there.

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Conflating them with evangelicals used to be difficult, as the differences were large. Mainline protestant denominations (Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, American Baptist) now seem to be distancing themselves from the “evangelical” label.

I suppose this is due to the reputation the label has been getting after being seized upon as a preferred label by churches identifying as IFB, Southern Baptists, various other Baptist sub-groups (including whichever ones Fallwell Jr and Franklin Graham identify with), many Non-Denominationals (which include modern versions of Reformed, Brethren, Bible Fellowship and a few others), SDA (who have always been their own special kind of crazy, but overlap significantly with most of the rest of these groups), most Pentecostal/Apostolic groups, etc… In the past decade or two, the bulk of the evangelical world has been shifting further right, and some of the fringiest elements of the IFB have shrunk due to attrition, so what remains is getting more difficult to tell apart.

My distancing myself from IFB circles has been challenging as the move outward into evangelicalism happened at about the same time that evangelicalism became progressively more conservative, so for a while it felt like treading water in a ripcurrent. We finally landed in the Lutheran & Methodist regions, though we still haven’t felt “safe” enough to put down roots even all these years later, after having been scarred by our various IFB experiences.

For myself at least, if I hear someone identify as evangelical then I’m immediately in “hackles-up” mode, as my experience has indicated most (though not all) people that still identify as such are prone to a very distinct set of attitudes and opinions that I am unable to square with the core message of the Bible. In fact, due to what American evangelicalism has become of late, I now hesitate to even identify myself as Christian, lest I be lumped in with them. That is the saddest part to me, and I hope this present bout of American evangelical absurdity fades away quickly. We certainly can’t afford much more of it.

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Fractal Poe.

sigh

It’s Poes all the way down.

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In my experience, anti-vax tends to be more common on the left than among fundamentalist Christians. I suspect that the belief works better as a substitute for religion than as part of religious beliefs.

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#NotMyGod ?

Reminds me of my mid-teens, when I was at least somewhat religious and got into a heated argument with a young-earther (still rare in these parts). I was massively offended at the idea that someone would claim my (Christian) God would create this fascinating, wonderful universe, give mankind the amazing gifts of intellect and curiousity, and then condemn his children to eternity in hell for using those gifts to better understand God’s creation.

I vaguely remember calling “his” god a sadistic psychopath while being dragged off by my friends.

I still feel a bit ashamed though. I failed the old “peace, love, and understanding” right there.

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Ever seen this?

It’s well done; worth watching.

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I love that movie

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Last line: It wasn’t him.

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