Fleeing Fundamentalism

Don’t worry, I’m not. But Carlene Cross has. She wrote a book of the above title to tell the world of her exodus from the Christian faith. I picked up Fleeing Fundamentalism, published just this year, expecting to encounter all kinds of rants and raves about the evils of biblical Christianity. There’s a little bit of that sort of thing in the book, but there is a much more disturbing issue at the book’s core, one that cannot be written off with the use of labels, true as labels can be.

The issue is this: Cross’s husband was a conservative Baptist minister who had a healthy church, a growing family, and every reason to be happy. There was just one problem with this man, named David. He had fallen into sexual sin early in his marriage. He habitually attended strip clubs in order to “relax” and ease the pressure he felt due to his burgeoning ministry and family. This terrible secret did not surface until the Crosses had been married for many years. When it hit, however, it blew the family apart.

Carlene Cross spiraled into pagan spirituality after this discovery and her eventual divorce. Though this is tragic, she will be held accountable for her sin when she dies. So I do not solely sympathize with her. However, this story, a true one, does show what happens what Christian men abdicate their responsibility to lead their families with virtue and moral courage. The results are especially terrible when a pastor, a leader of Christian husbands and fathers, slips into sexual sin. Children are disullisioned, families are destroyed, careers are ruined. Far from leading me to angry disgust, Fleeing Fundamentalism made me deeply sad as it shows the unraveling of one Christian family due to sexual sin. The stakes are so high for men of God. When we fail, we plunge ourselves into chaos and judgment. But more than this, we take our families, and even our churches, with us.