Ned Flanders

Matt Chandler over at the Resurgence has an interesting post here. He uses the Ned Flanders character from the Simpson’s show as an embodiment of the things he is troubled by in evangelicalism / fundamentalism. As a guy that was raised in a fundamentalist church, I identified with much of he post.

Here’s an excerpt:

…For years before I began to pastor a church I knew just what the problem was in American evangelical culture, and it wasn't sin, it was church people, it was Ned and his friends. The "frozen chosen" I think I have heard them called. They were old, tired, non missional, unmoved by the gospel, and thought the Left Behind movies were a great idea. They had driven our precious Lord's bride into the ground and deserved at least to be mocked in our young, hip, missional conversations and sermons and maybe even killed in some sort of Old Testament fashion…

It's a strange thing to wake up and find out you are the very thing you hated and rebelled against to begin with. Judging men not by the content of their souls but by how they dress, talk and drink…


In an analogy I am borrowing from Steve Brown: We looked down our noses at the ignorant, backward, fundamentalist, with allot of extra rules. We said, “I thank you that I am not like that man.” At the same time the fundamentalist was on his knees saying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” Who in this scenario “went down to his house justified?” (Luke 18: 9-14)

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