Matt Chancey's Unorthodoxy: There's Nothing Funny About It.

In response to a recent article in The Dothan Eagle, which describes the rather odd political and religious views of PSC cantidate Matt Chancey and his wife, Jennie, one reader wrote,

"The rest of the country is laughing at Jennie.”


And, that’s a shame.

This is America, and everybody should be able to believe as they choose without being laughed at. My only point was that if people happen to have views that are “out there”, they ought to be willing to let the voters know about them, should they choose to run for public office, BUT, such scrutiny (and even criticism or denouncement as being cultic) is not the same as ridicule.


That being said however, I’d like to point out that being a fundamentalist does not automatically equate to being an extremist nut or a cult follower. A fundamentalist, strictly speaking, is someone who believes the fundamental, historically orthodox doctrines and truths of his or her religion, without a lot of trendy, man-made innovations (such as the blessing of gay marriages or the idea that the Bible forbids female suffrage or mandates homeschooling), and it is ironic that the churches which are most often described as fundamentalist are usually those unorthodox churches and cults which have gained a reputation for being the nut-wards of Christianity.



The churches have brought this situation upon themselves, to a large extent, beginning in the 1980’s when the televangelists first started to gain a large following. Many people were converted to Christianity as a result of the televised altar calls (which was and is a very GOOD thing), and many “fundamentalist” churches were happy to ride on the coat-tails of the TV preachers, gaining new members (and bigger Sunday collection plate hauls), even though it meant that they began to adopt the ideas of the TV preachers, ideas which in some cases were NOT fundamental to historical Christianity; then in the 1990’s, Gary North and Phil Lancaster and the other bright young things in the Patriarchal/Agrarian/Dominionist movement got the Y2K disaster scare rolling, and many preachers and congregations bought into that, and when the televagelists fell to scandal and Y2K didn’t happen, the churches shared in the pop-preachers’ discreditation and as a consequence wore the resultant portion of egg facial.


But, it appears that the churches haven’t learned from the experience.


One look at the writings of Doug Phillips, Ovid Need (Jennie Chancey’s step-father, who calls Pope John Paul II an antichrist), Gary North, or Bruce Ware shows that they are certifiably outside the fold of mainstream, historical Christianity, with their talk of arranged marriages, stoning people to death, etc, and yet their books are selling like hotcakes in “fundamentalist" circles, especially throughout the South.....

...... and still we who are mainstream, orthodox, fundamental Christians wonder why people outside the church are calling all fundamentalists and even all Christians into question?



I’d say that it’s NO wonder, no wonder at all. If we in the churches do not police our own, and call a cult a cult when we see one, we shouldn’t blame non-Christians for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.