But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. {James 3:8}

Some times I feel like standing up and saying; “Hi, I’m Shawn and I’m an Independent Fundamental Baptist”. I think I am recovering but I still have a ways to go. Sometimes it seems I have spent a major part of my Christian life in a fundamental fog. I would like to go back and make amends for those I have hurt along the way, those sermons that I’ve preached that dripped with anger and revenge and pride. I’d like to take back all of those times I have pridefully said “I don’t do that’ or “we don’t go there” etcetera.  It is amazing to me {now that I am little older and hopefully a little wiser} how hurtful we can be to one another. The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints must be true because if not for His grace many of us would have quit a long time ago. You can only kick a dog so many times. It is a miracle that my wife and children have survived so many years of this madness. Why would I want to be around people who only want to find something ‘wrong’ with me or my family and then attack us?  As G. D. Watson {1845-1924} said; A critical spirit “deems itself gifted from God with particular genius to detect and correct evil in others.”

For example I hear people say “we don’t go to the movies” but yet they watch whatever they want on the internet or the DVD player, it’s silly. A good IFB reaction to the above statement is to throw out the TV and the internet and the cell phones and the… ad nauseam. Many IFB’s claim not to have a TV but now watch what they want via the internet. It is what the British call “keeping up appearances”. I once had an evangelist bring his family to my house for dinner. Before he let his children go from my living room he inspected our bedrooms and decided that his children had better sit in the living room because my children had televisions in their bedrooms. He inspected my refrigerator and searched through my cabinets {he did find a pack of UNO cards that he wasn’t too happy about}. Then he and his family decided it was ‘OK’ to fellowship with us. I was a young Christian at the time and I had made something of an idol of this man. If I had to do it over I would have showed him and his poor family the door.

Let me say this and I will quit for now. I am Independent…too independent for most. I am fundamental, I think I’d line up with what  people have called “The Fundamentals” and I am Baptist, I could probably sign off on any Baptist creed or confession before 1930.                              Shawn

Recommended listening:  Then came the Pharisees-Ed Ballew 

Christian Growth the Life of Brokenness-William MacDonald