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Presently, fundamentalism is a hot topic. Many folks have been astonished at the level of evil perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists, the most notable example being the events of 9/11. Those events are indelibly etched on the American psyche. Recently, news stories of the fall of Ted Haggard, a prominent evangelical, have attracted attention. After years of railing against homosexuality and assorted other sins, Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, was “caught” committing the very “sins” he so railed against. More recently, Americans have been shocked at revelations of events happening at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints compound in Texas.

All of these groups and individuals involved would likely be viewed as fundamentalist. Is there some common denominator they all share? I have recently noted that some fundamentalists, who once proudly claimed the title, are presently reticent to make use of the label. Some American Christian fundamentalists have been opting for the title “Bible-believing,” although their belief system hasn’t changed. Once again the question is raised, is there any common denominator(s) among the variety of fundamentalists?

Two come to mind. First, there is the idea of absolute certitude. This is certitude that is unequivocal. On the points of doctrine on which fundamentalists groups claim certitude, they are highly unlikely to think they may be in possible error or that these points should ever be examined. The second characteristic is the importance of the fundamentalist culture from which their fundamentalism emerges. This culture supports adherents and discourages asking questions or incubating doubt. These two characteristics they have in common.

From these two commonalities, some signs that one might be a fundamentalist come to mind. I thought it might be instructive to construct a list of “Ten Signs that You Might be a Fundamentalist.” Bearing my all too apparent fallibility in mind, here is an attempt at such a list (note that I speak here of Christian fundamentalism, although the signs apply, with a little tweaking, to all varieties):

1. You tend to see the world in terms of dualities. Everything is black and white with little in the way of shades of gray. If someone is not right about the essence of your faith, he is wrong. Period!

2. Going along with that idea, the other’s “wrongness” doesn’t only extend to matters of faith. You begin to think that the other person is at her core a “wrong person.” She is flawed in some way.

3. This leads to the notion that there is a basic “them and us.” There exists two basic groups of people, the subgroup with which you identify and the rest of the world.

4. The “rest of the world” is under the control of the Dominion of Darkness. The world is not only different and wrong in what it believes; it is basically evil. You are part of the righteous ones. Those unlike you are most certainly not.

5. The basic character of “the world” is everywhere. It is in the public schools. It is in the libraries. It is on the television (Well, there might be something to that one!). It is in the government. It takes in the folks on your street.

6. Your task is to get out of the world. Find alternative books, music, schools, friends, associates, etc.

7. If you can’t escape it completely (Who can?), it is your task to launch a mission to make the world match the fundamentalist subculture. You must work to make the schools more Christian, for example. You must work to make government godlier. It is your task to change society in the direction of your religious beliefs.

8. Generally, you associate with conservative causes. You may not agree with the policies of all conservative politicians, but there are always issues that take on major importance. In the US, these usually amount to abortion and gay marriage/rights. The view is myopic and only the “hot button” issues matter.

9. You will usually “follow the leader.” There are several well-known fundamentalist Christian leaders in the US. The fundamentalist faithful take their cue from them. They set the agenda. It is difficult for you to do much other than walk in lock step to the beat of their drummer.

10. Finally, if anyone should ask, these are not your ideas. You must follow them because they mark out God’s agenda. To be a fundamentalist is simply another term for being a follower of God. Those in churches that disagree with the basic tenets of fundamentalism are lost. They don’t know God. In short, they aren’t really Christians at all.

Do all ten of the characteristics apply to all fundamentalists? In reality, folks are probably fundamentalist by degrees. However, the two elements of certitude and a supporting, indoctrinating subculture are universal characteristics. I want to end with an assignment. Go back over the list and write the inverse of each point. What would such person or society acting on reverse characteristics look like?

James C. Alexander, Ph.D. is an education professor at a church related college and a bi-vocational minister who publishes regularly in the areas of education and religion. His latest book is Stories of a Recovering Fundamentalism: Understanding and Responding to Christian Absolutism. His blog site is located at Repentant Fundie.

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A few centuries ago, in the 1600’s you may not have been likely to find chairs in all churches. If you did find seating, chances are good it would not have been in good shape because money was not readily available and churches often had their congregation stand rather than sit. Today, however, church chairs are a necessity. Very few people are likely to attend a church that doesn’t give them somewhere to sit!

Frequently in the 1600s and 1700s, and even the 1800s, those churches that did have church chairs or pews for the congregation chose to rent that seating out, so in order to have a place to sit on Sunday, you paid for your family to have a pew or chairs reserved for them. Unlike today, that means that your family could be the last ones in the door, but you would still have a place to sit while others who arrived before you may have had to stand. Obviously, if your family was financially well-off, you were more likely to have pew space, and less-wealthy families who could not afford it would have to stand.

Later, near the end of the 1800s, churches began to rethink their church chairs and seating arrangements. It became more important to offer pews or chairs to the congregation, and it was becoming more important to allow everyone a place to sit regardless of their ability to pay for the privilege. Typically back then, and still today, church chairs and other church furniture is expected to match; that is, they should be made out of the same kind of wood. Today, that is not as difficult to accomplish as it was a few hundred years ago. Back then, building church chairs was time consuming and required the skill of many workers. It was also more difficult to get “matching trees” to have matching furniture. Usually, a church would buy all the same type of lumber all at the same time to ensure that the wood would all be the same. So, once that was done, the church had wood but no stacking church chairs, regular church chairs, or pews. All they had was raw wood.

Once the lumber arrived, it was time to get the wood in the best possible shape for furniture making. It had to be put somewhere out of the elements and the best place was a place that could be heated so some of the natural wetness in the wood could evaporate and the woodworkers could work with wood that had been dried a little. Then, the wood had to be cut to the right size and any natural blemishes had to be removed. Then, the woodworkers could begin their skilled carving of the church chairs or pews.

They would carve out the individual pieces of the church furniture first; for example, they would make the legs and arms, then the seat, then the back. Once those were carved, all the pieces could be put together to form complete church chairs. They could be held in place with special types of glue and/or jigs. It was important that the church furniture be finely crafted so that it would last a long time and also remain intact with its beautiful and pretty looks. So, you can see what a time-consuming and difficult task it used to be to make church furniture! To keep those church chairs looking their best, they needed to be waxed and/or oiled on a regular basis, as well, so upkeep was important also.

Today, most church furniture is manufactured by machine in factories, so it is less time-consuming and takes a smaller percentage of the church budget than it did a few hundred years ago. Some fine wooden church furniture is still oiled, but for the most part modern church chairs and pews have a lacquer coating or some other kind of wood finish that simply allows the furniture to be dusted to look its best.

As evidence of the difficulty in getting a lot of church chairs or pews in a church, you can look to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The Basilica itself is huge, but the seating is very limited. That probably has to do with the complicated and time-consuming method of church chair building that was necessary several centuries ago.

Nowadays, it is not nearly so difficult to furnish a church. Church furniture is mass produced, and even if it is not, shipping of lumber and improvements in furniture making equipment have made the task of providing church furnishing so much easier. In fact, if you ever find yourself with the task of furnishing a church, you can probably get everything you need from the Internet. What could be simpler than that?

Seomul Evans is a seo copywriter for a leading Church Chairs manufacturer specializing in affordable Church Chairs.

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Picture this scenario. It is about 8:00 am on a Sunday morning and you have stumbled out of bed knowing that it is your responsibility to wake up your other family members, feed them breakfast, and get them dressed in their “Sunday best.” Even though you are tired an might just like to pull the covers over your head, you live up to your family’s expectations and prepare them and yourself for the Sunday services at your local church. You cook bacon and eggs, find some stockings that don’t have a run, get out your pumps and flowered dress, and the do all those same things for your daughter. You find your son’s tie that he can’t find for himself, and tie your husband’s tie straight because he can’t do that either. You are not even out the door yet, and already you are tired and your feet hurt. You pile everyone into the car and are careful to bring Cheerios for your toddler to snack on and a coloring book for the older kids so they won’t misbehave during the sermon. You can’t wait to get in there and slide into your favorite pew. What would happen if you got there only to discover that your church was no longer having the congregation members sit? You discover to your shock that the church chairs and pews have been removed and you are expected to stand for the entire service. Chances are, you would be distraught, and thankfully that is not likely to happen.

Anyone who has ever walked into a modern church knows that there are either going to be church chairs or church pews to sit on. Not having any kind of seating would be unheard of in our society today. Several centuries ago, however, most churchgoers were expected to stand rather than sit, so churches did not have pews. Most churches were built around a dome or central area where priests or preachers would preach, while the congregation stood around. It worked well for standing parishioners, but around the seventeenth century, the congregation began to be expected to participate more, and the need for seating increased. Still, however, there was not much seating, and the pews or church chairs that did exist were typically reserved for the wealthier people who could afford to pay the church rent money to hold their pew open for them until they arrived. In the 1700s it was common for pews to have a family’s name on them and everyone knew that those pews were reserved for that family. Even if a family did not arrive for worship, the pew was still theirs and remained empty while others stood.

Then, around the mid-1800s, church seating began to evolve further. It became uncommon to pay for a reserved spot on a church pew, and church pews were filled much as they are today, on a first-come/first-serve basis. Still, though, it was uncommon to find adequate pew space in churches.

As pews began to become more mainstream, there were different areas of pews for different people. Generally, the more affluent people sat closer to the altar or pulpit, while the poorer people sat farther away. There would also be special seating for black people, children, and sometimes widows. They may or may not have been labeled with the proper designation, such as Negro Pews or Widow Pews. When slavery was still the custom in the United States, slave owners could pay for pew space in order to have their servants close to them to tend to their needs, or sometimes there would be a separate galley for slaves.

Most pew reform in the United States began around the 1930s. Black people and white people, at least in the northern states, sat next to each other if they so desired. There was no special seating for widows or other special groups of people. Children began to sit with their families, for the most part. Also, pulpits changed during this time. Pulpits began to be more important, and pews were arranged so that everyone could see the preacher behind the pulpit and the altar.

Over the course of time, some churches have come up with various ways of setting up the pews or church chairs. At one time, it was even common for members of the church to face each other. In the Catholic tradition, before the Vatican II Council changed many elements of the Catholic Mass, the priest did not face the parishioners and had their church chairs facing the same direction as the parishioner’s pews faced—most likely toward the altar and/or crucifix.

Today, the world is different and all cultures and colors, both the sexes, the young and old alike, and the wealthy and less affluent are seen as equals in most churches, and the seating arrangements have accommodated that belief. Anyone can sit anywhere they want, and only on the most crowded of days will there not be enough pew space to give everyone a place to sit.

Seomul Evans is a seo copywriter for a leading Church Chairs manufacturer specializing in affordable Church Chairs.

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Church furnishing can create the atmosphere you desire the most in your particular house of worship. Carefully choosing what will work best for you and your congregation can make your church comfortable and homey, fancy and ornate, or any combination of the two. You can go with classic, simple styling or look for an old-fashioned motif, or design your church to look contemporary or bold. Whatever church furnishings you want to choose for your particular church, you have a few options available to you on how to buy altars, pews, communion tables, kneeler’s, pulpits, and whatever else your church might need.

The first option is to look for used church furniture. Sometimes, churches will close down, and if they do, they typically want to sell their church furnishings. Obviously, buying your church’s furniture from another church that has already paid the retail price can save you and your parishioners money. Sometimes, though, there may not be any church closings scheduled in your area, so that option would not be available to you. If not, there is no need to fear.

Just like when you want to buy anything else, you can always go online to search for your church furniture. You can find both used and new church furnishings online. Simply type used church furniture in the search line to get to online sites that have used furniture to sell. Thousands of hits will likely pop up for you. If you don’t like the idea of using used furniture, you can always type new church furniture into the search line and get a multitude of online stores pop up right in front of your eyes.

All churches need somewhere for the congregation to sit, and you can choose individual seating or group seating in the form of pews. Individual chairs can be wooden, which is probably the most popular, but there are other options available as well. The chairs can come with cushioned seat bottoms or just wood. You can choose to have arm rests on all of your chairs or just on the chairs near the aisle or no arm rests at all. The options are multitudinous. The same is true if you prefer pew seating. Some pews are all wood, and some have red or green or tan cushioning for comfort. You can choose plain pews or look for some that have intricate details.

Altars, too come in a variety of styles, sizes, and prices. Some churches like a simple altar, while others prefer fancy altars. If your church uses any special items like incense burners or oils, you may want to look for an altar that has special compartments built in to house these types of items. You may want your altar to match your pews, or you may decide that your altar should stand out and be made of a different material than your pews. For example, you may choose wooden seating and a marble altar.

Most churches need a pulpit of some sort as well, and those can be as plain and simple or as intricate and ornate as your church prefers. You can find pulpits made of light or dark wood, covered with angels and doves, or made of metal and Plexiglas. Whatever would best suit your church’s budget and preferences can be found online.

If you are not furnishing a brand new church, but rather are updating your preexisting church, you can sometimes trade in your old church furniture, much like you trade in your old car when you buy a new one. In that case, you could get more for your dollar, and you might choose to keep some of the old furniture and replace only certain church furnishings. If you choose to purchase used church furniture, you could also choose to refurbish or upgrade what you buy and add your own unique touch to what you buy for a small cost. That is an option that you might prefer so your church feels like yours rather than someone else’s.

No matter what size your church is, it needs to be furnished, and like almost anything else, you can likely get everything you need via online stores. Just sit down at your desk, in the comfort of your house or office, and search for what you need. Browse until you find just exactly what suits your church’s personality and funding. The sooner you begin what can seem like a daunting task, the sooner you will have a place for your congregation to sit and a place from which to deliver your sermons or homilies.

Seomul Evans is a seo copywriter for a leading Church Furniture manufacturer specializing in affordable Church Furniture.

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In this article, we wish to explore the nature of two words, fundamentalism, and extremism. What connotation do we arrive at when we hear these words? Are they essentially the same? In other words, are we to construe fundamentalism as a variety of extremism? Does the equation work the other way as well? What we are about here is a definition of terms.

One could give considerable space, either directly or indirectly, to defining the term “fundamentalism.” After a careful examination, some conclusions may be reached. There are two major characteristics of fundamentalism. The most apparent facet of this ubiquitous term is certainty. Fundamentalists are very certain people. Further, it is certainty that cannot be entreated. Fundamentalists know that they know that they know. Case closed. The popular bumper sticker gets at the heart of this: “God said it! I believe it! That settles it!” Evidence is largely irrelevant. In the sense used here, one might view certainty as an attitude.

The second dimension of fundamentalism to consider is the subculture. The subculture supports the fundamentalist, befriends him or her, and supplies the certainties into which the absolutist is inducted. We see this in Christianity when we consider alternative music, a closed society into which only the initiated are invited (unless others are visiting and viewed as potential initiates), and a Christian jargon, including the rhetoric of the right. Even when the adherents are separated from the subculture, the sacred memory of the teachings of the subculture help the adherent maintain membership in the society of the certain.

These components are true of all types of fundamentalism. They are true of all types of religious fundamentalism as well as political fundamentalism (often the two blend). As Alistair McGrath points out, one might even speak of an atheist fundamentalism such as represented in Dawkins’s, The God Delusion. Even in this case, careful investigation indicates these two features are present.

What then is extremism? The dictionary feature available on my handy little MacBook which I am using defines an extremist this way: “a person who holds extreme or fanatical political or religious views, esp. one who resorts to or advocates extreme action.” That’s a mouthful! There are certainly some terms we must “unpack” if we are to make use of this definition. First, we must define what “extreme views” are made up of.

Of course, that is a question that is heavily dependent on culture, at least on one hand. Many Europeans view the United States as very (overly) religious. In reality, the US is a church-going nation. Is that extreme? Not really. In the context of the definition, extremism must drive someone to extreme actions. When we speak of “extreme sports,” we know that we are all referring to sports that usually involve some danger. I propose we take the notion of extreme views as views that might be dangerous to individuals, society, or the progenitor of the views. Therefore, we will define extreme views as dangerous views.

The next term we need to get at is “fanatical.” I propose that a fanatic is someone who is so consumed with something that they cannot divorce their thinking from the object of their fanaticism. They must always talk about it, practice it, and promote it.

How do fundamentalists hold up when it comes to rejecting the label of extremism? Certainly, at least in the Abrahamic Faiths, there is a missionary imperative. That is why fundamentalists cannot take no for an answer. In the case of Christian fundamentalism, adherents will spend considerable time evangelizing, even if the objects of their evangelism are not interested in what they have to offer. If they “slack off” in promoting fundamentalist Christianity, the subculture moves in with a heavy dose of guilt to enforce evangelization. Say what you will, but a true fundamentalist surely qualifies as a fanatic (somewhat akin to the sports fanatic whose team is the best and greatest and who tend to lose through poor calls and bad breaks rather than bad plays - although the analogy quickly breaks down).

Of course, there are degrees to which one adheres and embraces certainty. We have to think of it as a spectrum. Somewhere on that spectrum, folks cross the line and become fanatics. To the extent that someone is truly fundamentalist, relative to any action or belief, s/he will be a fanatic.

But, what about the “extreme” side of things? It has been stated that being extreme involves an element of danger. When has that line been crossed? What constitutes danger? Physicality? Or, can danger be psychological as well? There is little actual danger done by becoming a Yankees fan. Still, think of the rioting that often breaks out after soccer matches in otherwise civilized Europe. When is an idea dangerous? Or maybe we should ask, When is an idea too dangerous? Certainly, polygamy is dangerous. Surely, Christianity so opposed to abortion that it is willing to resort to violence against abortion providers is dangerous.

Where do we leave this question, then? Fundamentalism may fairly be called fanatical. But dangerous? That is a question that we must answer for ourselves, perhaps on a case-by-case basis. Is fundamentalism extremist? I think all that we can say is it depends.

James C. Alexander, Ph.D. is an education professor at a church related college and a bi-vocational minister who publishes regularly in the areas of education and religion. His latest book is Stories of a Recovering Fundamentalism: Understanding and Responding to Christian Absolutism. His blog site is located at Repentant Fundie.

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