The Sounds of Fundamentalism 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 video clip of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) evangelist and editor of the Sword of the Lord John R. Rice saying he would beat his adult daughters if they didn’t obey him.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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This is absolutely terrifying, and a stark reminder of how fundamentalism tears apart families. To threaten to hurt your own offspring due to your beliefs in God… I can’t fathom that.
And all the people said “amen,” because they’re brainwashed fools. My parents followed this crap child raising style as godly. They still believe they have the right to strike me. Good lord!
That is truly horrifying. But the Old Testament teaches treatment of inn’s offspring this way.
Looks like American Christianity is simply part of violent American history. What Walter Wink calls the “myth of redemptive violence” is especially alive and well in the IFB church. In conservative Christianity it’s considered de rigueur to beat your kids and often your wife too, and their “God and Guns” worldview is also well known. Sick.
Ah, John R. Rice, my teenage hero. I remember him saying things like this. I remember him saying that he spanked his daughter the night before her wedding when she said something he didn’t like. I really don’t know why I had so much respect for the man.
I’m trying to picture his daughter allowing him to do that. I also wonder who she married. Someone who was going to hit her too? What a nightmare. I also wonder if Rice is lying. I went to a church where lying was okay if done in the name of Jesus. :/ A good old false tale could go a long way in getting your “women are to submit” point across.
John Rice,that weirdo from the 70’s. Yeah, I remember him. His wife wrote a booklet on baby care. There’s a booklet, ” What : Me, Obey Him?” the wife wrote that. Goes into how his handprint was on the exposed buttocks of one of their baby daughters who was sleeping face down, after a spanking. Airing the butt, no doubt. So creepy,and I felt he was wrong even then.