If you have to put it in quotes...

Fundamentalism intrigues me.

I remember the day in my Religion in America class at Furman University when we watched a documentary about fundamentalist groups, featuring Greenville's very own Bob Jones University. I left class that day knowing I had found my life's calling--or at least my area of greatest academic interest. I psycho-analyzed Furman's most conservative religious organization, delivered a paper on an incident of Baptist limitation on academic freedom in Furman's history, and three years later wrote my master's thesis on the political action of the Religious Right in the 1970's.

Now, I am working in my first "real job," and biding my time til I can afford to return for my PhD. in American religious history. When the cubicle walls start closing in on me, I read contentious blogs, really appalling Chick tracts, and Concerned Women for America's website...for fun.

Today, I came across an article on CWFA.org, asserting that teenagers without proper parental supervision and the influence of a Bible-believing church are susceptible to the homosexual influences in American society, and will come to believe they are gay because no one has told them that homosexuality is a sin or that being gay will inevitably lead to a life of drug use, depression, and anorexia (see the end of the article). Interestingly, after her exposition on the dangers of public high schools and mainline denominations, the writer gives several examples of teenagers who have stumbled across CWFA's site and have written angry e-mails to the organization in response.

One angry young man she quoted said, "What happened to "Jesus loves everybody"? Oh, except you, you and you. You people are so closed-minded. It is people like you that cause teen suicides, for the teenage homosexual, one who is taught that it is wrong, sinful, etc. He is in such turmoil, being judged, by people like YOU!!"

The writer goes on to say that sometimes they try to engage these young critics in a dialogue, but that "it usually doesn't get very far, because they keep responding with different versions of the same irrationality. They frequently don't even want to hear about God's love or the saving power of Christ."

What intrigues me is what this writer didn't realize...that the boy already had heard about God's love, and that he knew that what he was reading on this website did not reflect it! The writer says teens are biased against traditional Christianity but does not recognize her role in creating this bias. All she can do is defend her organization, saying "We never express "hatred" toward homosexuals or anything like that."

All I can say is, if you have to put it in quotes, it certainly ain't love.