I had lunch with my brother

[Wildewolfe]

and his "friend" this weekend.

They are both fundamentalist as far as you can go over to that bent type of Christians and in my view frequently Christian should be quotes based on what they do.

The lunch started pleasantly enough. Idle chit chat about this or that. How the family (extended) was doing and then the conversation turned first to politics.

We had a long talk and it degraded quite quickly. I had been prepare for the conversation for some months and left him stunned and thinking this time.

I left the meeting still thinking about it all and it occurred to me finally what the true problem with his brand of fundamentalism is. I came up with a new term for it. Revivalism.

The revivalist takes no responsibilty for the community. They swoop into an area, stay a few days, save a few souls, then abandon them to the environment to fend for themselves. They move on the tne next area and repeat.

This attitude is reflected in the religious rights politics throughout society. They are pro-birth, but abandon support at the moment the baby starts to cry. They are anti anything that doesn't fit within their own little closed community.

Revivalism is the ultimate in non involvement in the real lives of folks while making yourself feel good. I mean what can possibly be of more value than to save someone elses soul. It takes an hours effort and you're home in time for the game. Revivalism is the death of the real community church that cared about it's parishioners and the birth of the megachurch that's about business, politics and facade of soul saving. With 10,000 members the pastor probably doesn't even know who you are let alone that you just lost your job, or you are having problems with your kids. Revivalism is about making yourself feel good at virtually NO cost to yourself. It takes little time to go set up religious ferver to get folks to get "saved" it takes infinitely more time to set up programs to help those same people eat.

This is the true tragedy of the modern far right Christian movements. The betrayal of true teachings for the drug of the revival. Call it what you will, that's exactly what it is. I saw it growing up. All the modern christian hate groups are based on it in one form or another.

Just one of those things watching your family for decades makes you think about.