This is the one hundred and ninth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a clip of Duffy Strode, the Boy Preacher on the Oprah Winfrey Show. This video is from 1988. Duffy, 10, was suspended from school for refusing to stop preaching to his classmates. Today, Ryan Duffy Strode is married with children of his own. His children have not followed in their father’s preacher boy footsteps. Based on a quick perusal of Duffy’s social media accounts, he no longer walks in the Fundamentalist footsteps of his father.
Please be aware that the following videos are heartbreaking. They are hard to watch, perfect examples of child abuse in Jesus’ name.
Here’s another video (1992) that details the street preaching of the Strode family.
oh.my.god. Those poor children……………
The sad thing is that I wonder how Duffy and his siblings turned out. I wonder if any of them are atheists?
I couldn’t watch– my heart was breaking. I’m a rather vocal Deist here but rest assured that my two dear sons were not raised in an environment anything like that. By the time my youngest son was born, I no longer attended church, not even for Easter/Christmas. I did send them both to a week-long Quaker summer camp each year, but it was as much or more for the chance to spend a week at the beautiful lakeside camp as it was for the religious instruction and they always wanted to go. My oldest was asked to return as a cabin counselor by the camp director because he wanted his son in my son’s cabin. That son now identifies more as a Buddhist than Christian. My youngest has swung the spectrum, getting entangled in Fundamentalism/Evangelicalism while incarcerated for 3 months on a probation violation over a misdemeanor, then declared it all bullshit and is currently agnostic, with a slight lean towards Deism couple with a disgust at religion in general. They are and were always free to choose.
Bruce is right; this was abuse.
I don’t know if they are atheists now, but Facebook seems to suggest they have moved on from this life. Someone on youtube said they don’t talk to their father anymore and lead relatively normal lives now.
found him
https://www.facebook.com/ryan.d.strode
Ryan Duffey Strode wed in 1997 and had two children (apparently his parents or siblings attended) They divorced recently I read but at least he got out of the ridiculous fundamentalist street preaching. His parents are most likely still hateful; let’s hope he has a relationship with his siblings at least.