The Selfish Fundie
This article grew out of a comment by Lindsay, who writes:
How about the comparison of fundies to vermin taken in a literal sense—that frankly, stupid people tend to breed more than intelligent people. There has been considerable research in the link between the amount of time a woman spends being schooled and their fertility.
It may be more complex than “Fundies are stupid. Stupid people breed more.”
Most of the values that fundies promote are all aspects of a traditional patriarchal society. Collectively, these values lead to higher birth rates, and (consequently) more fundies. They may have stumbled upon the formula that keeps their kind going. Fundamentalism could be a selfish meme.
There are two great ironies here. First, not only have the fundies biologically evolved (which they constantly deny), but their complete set of values has also evolved! (If, indeed, the selfish meme concept is valid.) Everything about a fundie is a result of a form of evolution. Their physical bodies have evolved, and their values have evolved. They are living examples of a double whammy of what they hate so much.
Second, they accuse the gays of having a “homosexual agenda”. The real gay agenda is merely the acquisition of equal rights and nothing more. Broadly speaking, the fundies believe that the gay agenda is about two other things instead:
(1) Not equal rights, but special rights (e.g., rights and privileges above and beyond what other people have).
(2) Recruitment of young people into the homosexual lifestyle. They claim, “That’s the only way gays can reproduce!”
Not only is there no “gay agenda” beyond simple equal rights, but there is actually a “fundie agenda”, and it is exactly what they accuse the gays of wanting:
(1) Acquisition of special privileges.
(2) Creation of more fundies (in this case both by recruitment and high birth rates) in order to perpetuate their kind.
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
I’ll agree with you except for one point. Fundies work to increase their ranks by recruitment as well as reproduction. Ever heard of vacation Bible school? Churches in my town set up giant inflatable games, prizes, music and loads of peer pressure to bring in impressionable children and teens.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:20 am
High breeding may be the only way to keep their kind going. I don’t have hard numbers, but there are instances (possibly the majority) of the younger generation not being fundies like their parents. It would be interesting to see actual numbers. However, if fundies were truly growing in number, why does it seem so much the opposite in practice? They are definitely loud-mouths and politically active, but I just don’t see them as a growing population.
Their high birth rates may be out of necessity in the sense that such a small percentage of offspring turn into fundies, that the only way they can sustain is with a high birth rate.
Danny is right that they have many “recruitment” style of indoctrination events, but the attendees are primarily from fundie families. I would highly doubt you would find very many (or any) children of non-believers (or apathetic believers) at those events.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:38 am
Danny:
I went to vacation Bible School! It didn’t work. They didn’t recruit me. In fact, it had the opposite effect. Oh, law of unintended consequences, how sweet you are!
You are absolutely correct. I was too focussed on Lindsay’s comment about their high breeding rate. I fixed the text to include recruitment, which is probably a much larger part of their efforts to increase their numbers.
We should remember, however, that recruitment is a conscious act they engage in to increase their numbers. Many of them may not realize the role that their patriarchal values (which they adhere to because they think God wants it that way) plays in perpetuating their species.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:57 am
PL:
Attendance at the fundie churches (evangelical, etc.) has gone up over the last couple of decades, while attendance at moderate churches has been falling. Fundie numbers are definitely increasing.
I have not seen any indication that few of their children become fundies. Growing up in a fundie household is a very effective form of indoctrination.
One of the goals of fundie recruitment is to cast their net farther from their own shores. Remember, for example, the article I did about Pastor Gary Beeler of Crusade Ministries (jump down to second topic in that article). He was unconstitutionally getting the public schools to send all their students to his recruitment drives.
This is one of their primary goals. It’s the main reason they’re trying to get creationism taught in the schools and put the 10 commandments on every blank wall they can find. They’re intentionally trying to spread their form of Christianity into the entire population.
November 2nd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
RB
You wrote “Attendance at the fundie churches (evangelical, etc.) has gone up over the last couple of decades, while attendance at moderate churches has been falling.”
It may well be that the fundies in the mainstream churches are transfering their attendance to fundie churches. So it is not that fundie numbers are growing per se. Their numbers, relative to others in the country, have stayed the same but fundie churches are attracting the fundies out of the mainstream churches.
I would argue that fundie numbers are growing in 3rd world countries though.
November 2nd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Chris:
That’s one possible explanation. My perception is that some of the people who had been previously content with moderate views have been wooed by the fundie churches. I don’t really know if that’s true.
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:28 am
Yesterday afternoon my husband and I saw Religulous, and one of the ex-mormons interviewed made a great point about why many do not leave the religion though they may harbor serious doubts. I can’t remember the exact quote but he said it would be “social suicide” to leave the church.
Although less irritating than other fundies, the Amish have a very low rate of their youth leaving the church as well.
However, this might apply only to certain fundie groups where religion is very closely tied to culture…ie Utah and the very closed societies of the Amish and hard-core Mennonites.
As for other fundie groups, I would be interested in seeing the numbers as well. I imagine it would be very difficult to continue a fundie lifestyle unless you are a particulary frightful, rigid and ignorant person. Maybe for many people it is merely a “phase” of their lives…I would be curious to see the retention rates of many of these fundie churches as well.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:43 am
Lindsay:
This is called shunning. It’s common in many of the more rigid churches. It’s a very effective tool.
Fundies are always bashing the “liberals” and “socialists” in the universities. When fundie kids go off to college, a lot of them are cured. Fundies hate that. At college, the kids are removed from their fundie surroundings, and they get a real education. That’s probably a big reason the fundies started creating their own schools.
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Ron – Not trying to diminish the importance of fighting back against Fundie indoctrination, but I still am hesitant to say their numbers are increasing dramatically (or at all). So-called “main stream” churches are progressively tending to become more and more liberal (or liberated, to avoid a political term), so jumping ship to a “fundie” church could just be the fundie population staying the same. For example, I remember growing up how my when the Methodist church I went to grew its membership, it had to become more tolerant of different groups and different levels of belief. The sermons became more generic lovey-dovey and less focused on specific intricacies of biblical interpretation. That sort of stuff drove away a lot of old timers. I would not be surprised in the slightest if they started going to a more dogmatic Southern Baptist church than stay on board with the squishy hippy Methodist church…
Just an anecdotal observation, I suppose. However, I just think the natural human tendency over the past millennia has to gradually become less and less superstitious. The surge in fundamentalism, to me, seems to be less about growing enrollment, and more about fighting back against dwindling numbers and a way of life that the rest of the public no longer wants.
Again, I would really love to see some numbers of how many of these fundie kids grow up and stay fundie. No doubt their teens and early twenties are ruined. But how many keep drinking the kool-aid to middle age and pass the greedy fundie meme to their kids?
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
The gentleman in the movie didn’t refer to it as such…I wasn’t aware that shunning was practiced in mainstream mormonism.
At least in my experience (I’m not saying this is across the board) either 1 of 2 things happened to fundie kids when going to college:
1) they mainstreamed
2) they joined fundie campus groups (such as the Navigators)
In many cases the kids I knew of didn’t go on to a college…they just join a family business.
This maybe slightly OT, but nevertheless interesting and enlightening. A few years back a documentary film came out called “The Devil’s Playground” about “rumspringa,” which is a period of time during an Amish teenage years when the parents/community allow (or at least do not dissent) them experimenting with mainstream cultural influences.
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/may/amish/
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
ParrotLover:
I’m sure that’s part of what we’re seeing. It’s just that the country as a whole has gotten way more conservative over the last 30 years. I think there are a lot of cultural and other reasons for that. So if the populace has slowly embraced conservatism, then the things fundie leaders say start to sound more sensible to a lot of people. Don’t forget that conservatives are very good with language. They are “pro-life” and oppose “partial-birth abortion” and the “death tax”.
Maybe as a very long-term trend, but on a smaller scale, such as decades, that doesn’t always hold up. Plus, that trend will be different across different populations. Among the more enlightened, there is definitely less superstition than even 20 years ago. The percentage who profess no God-belief has gone up, for example. However, within the fundie population, they are no less superstitious. If anything, they are even more so. When those people who jump from the mainstream churches to fundie churches, they are now exposed to fundie ideology. When they were at their old church, they may have grudgingly accepted that maybe there was something to evolution and the age of the Earth. At their new fundie church, all they hear are the reasons the scientists are wrong. That makes a fundie-light into a full fundie.
There’s definitely something to that. Here in California, I’ve noticed an increase in the Yes on 8 activity. The signs are bigger and more plentiful, and you can see them on street corners waving their signs around. By listening to talk radio, I’ve finally figured out one of their chief motivations. Sure, they think their religion should dictate secular law, and that only their definition of marriage should be the correct one. But what they’re really objecting to is they feel like the “liberal elites” have taken control of this state and are imposing an alien set of values upon them. Prop. 8 may have been put on the ballot for the obvious reasons, but the fundies are rallying behind it because it is a beachhead against a society that they are increasingly being marginalized from.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Oh, fundies. The comment that spawned this post is actually very depressing, and very true…which is why I feel like MENSA should found a country with merit-based citizenship/immigration and a mandatory reproduction policy.
Seriously, growing up in fundie-land left me (a gay) very damaged, but when I left it I told myself I had escaped. Seeing this whole Proposition 8 bullshit really makes it hard for people to convince me that Democracy isn’t an outdated meme itself which shouldn’t be replaced by a technocracy (e.g., Hu Jintao’s CCP).
November 4th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Very true. They are professionals at this. They have the PATRIOT act and what do we have? SCHIP? What the hell is that? That’s supposed to evoke emotion about providing health for kids? Never underestimate the conservative ability to deceive you into thinking something that is horrible for you is good for you. They are absolutely professionals at doing that.
Thankfully, we have an incredibly eloquent leader in our party with Obama. Maybe his language skills will rub off on more legislators. I’m hoping this 2008 election will be the final nail in the coffin of neocon rule, started with the “Reagan Revolution.” I want the conservative brand to become more Ron Paul-like. I’ve said it many times before. I may disagree with a lot of what Mr. Paul says, but he’s not batshit crazy! Somewhere in the middle between that type of conservative and modern liberals is a happy compromise that would function well in this country and make almost everybody at least mostly happy.