10 Religious Types To Watch Out For

Having a religious blog of 5 years introduces you to a wide variety of religious folk.

Over time, I’ve noticed some common traits, profiles if you will, of our various intarweb-dwelling, God-fearing kin. For your amusement, my dear & fine blog readers, some examples will be shown below.

Now this will probably offend people. But hey, I admit to adhering to a few of these myself, at least in part, so that let’s me off the hook, right?   So here a few common religious profiles I’ve run into in the last half-decade:

• The Meta-Disciple: You’re a disciple of a disciple. You know the Bible inside-out! Or at least the parts this disciple wrote. Even though this disciple’s writings comprise only 3% of the Scriptures, he’s your man, and you’ll interpret the other 97% of Scripture to fit this guy’s words. Sure, his words were to a tiny, specific religious group in the 1st century, but hey, you’re gonna go global: you’re gonna take his micro-statements to a specific people-group and turn them into eternally-applicable, universal theological dogma!
  
  
• The Purist: Everybody’s evil, worldly, isn’t doing things right. Except you. You’re the only authentic guy in the One True Religion of God. You frequently advertise how well you do the religion thing, and you often half-jokingly chide others for falling short of your standard. You paint a pretty spiritual picture of your life to the world, but folks close to you know it’s a façade. You’re a total hypocrite. But at least you put out a good picture for the world. Hopefully that inspires somebody.  
  
  
• Ye Olde Ancient: Your belief system pre-dates mine by at least 500 years. All these centuries of men formulating their rigid set of beliefs builds the basis for yours. You cannot possibly consider my silly little beliefs, since yours are so much older and more refined than mine. You sympathize with Grandpa Tevye. You follow the majority. You follow the leader, and the leader is that old pious guy at the head of your big and ancient religious sect.
  
  
• Demon Under Every Stone: Christianity is sun-worship! Judaism is witchcraft! That church steeple? It’s the workin’ of the devil.  That star of David you’re wearing? Witchcraft. That cross you’re wearing? Pagan symbol. Spiritualism is pagan, mysticism is witchcraft! The word “pagan”? It’s pagan, you pagan. Stop saying pagan, it’s pagan!
  
  
• The Cowboy Religionist: You don’t need no stinkin’ traditions! You throw out 3000 years of historical prayers, literature, worship, liturgy, ceremony – those ancients were all fools, and you’re the enlightened one. You’ve successfully rebelled from Grandpa Tevye and made your own way. You do things your way. A cowboy religionist. You do your own thing, which will eventually become a custom, and then a tradition… until someone else throws out your traditions, repeating the cycle ad infinitum.
  
  
• Sola Absurdum: If it’s not in the Bible, then it’s evil. “All I need is the Bible!” is your motto. Everything in the Bible is 100% literal and true and never tampered with or redacted or edited or translated. And your interpretation of Scripture is the only valid one. You talk about The Truth a lot. You say, “man-made” a lot. Your nickname is Thumper. You love quoting from your leather-bound King James Bible, which contains the only pure, unadulterated words of God, authored in its original language, Middle English. You sympathize with the Cowboy Religionists; if somebody is a member of Christianity, Judaism, or any other of man’s religions, then that person is part of a vast cult system and needs supernatural deliverance from said religion.
  
  
• Grandpa Tevye: Ah, tradition! There is an inexplicable art, spiritualism, and beauty in the traditions of the elders within a structured religious environment. Each year you do X, Y, and Z, and that is spiritually quenching. To live a Godly life is to perform the traditional customs. You oppose all those crazy Cowboy Religionists. You do it the correct way, like they used to… you know, in The Good Old Days, back when all things were right with God, the world, and religion. You’re speaking, of course, of when religion was done right: In the Middle Ages. Or in the 1st century. Or in the Temple period. Or in Moses’ day. For you, the grass is always greener on the yesteryear. No need for all this new fangled relationship talk; that heartfelt thing is overrated. As for spontaneous prayer and worship…gah, that’s for the crazy Pentecostals. Living for God means doing the traditions.
  
  
• The In-Name-Only: What do you mean; of course you’re a Christian! You usually go to church, right? It’s true you can’t go more than a few sentences without dropping an F-bomb. Your kids are unruly and disobedient, but hey, everybody’s gotta rebel sometime. And yeah, your favorite musical group is a Norwegian melodic death metal band whose members all have, underneath their pseudo-satanic war paint – aw hell yes! – and impaled skull armor, blood-red pentagrams tattooed to their foreheads which they prominently display in the opening to their hit song, Witch’s Covenantal Orgy… but hey, you occasionally go to church and tell people you’re a Christian. Who am I to judge?
  
  
• The Brimstoner – You know that earthquakes increased globally by 0.03% last year. This is surely a sign of the apocalypse! You send out emails with text in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS and lots of exclamation points (!!!!!!) and lots of animated .GIF images warning everyone of the impending doom. Every terrorist incident, every flu outbreak, every war, every economic downturn… they’re all signs of The End. You can hear Jesus’ train a-comin’, He’s comin’ back to judge those heathens. And you predicted this would happen….back in 1982. But this time IT’S FOR REAL!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!
  
  
• The Napoleon – They’re coming to take me away, ha-hah! Yes, the NWO (that’s the New World Order for you uninformed pawns of the System) is taking over the world! It’s true you didn’t do much research, but you read in an internet article somewhere that the Bilderbergers, the Skull & Bones, and those international bankers – these are the real guys in charge! Their nefarious plots are all part of the World System, which is from Satan. You send us links to conspiracy theorist websites which exhibit poor web design skills, contain lots of flashing animated .GIFs, and a display a visitor counter widget at the bottom of every page. Oh, and explanations of the vast conspiracy. For you, every US President is the anti-Christ, and you’re very sympathetic with the Brimstoners. Don’t get those vaccinations, it’s part of the anti-Christ system to control you! Don’t get that Visa credit card; it just might be the Mark of the Beast!
  

There’s probably a tiny seedling of truth in all of these. But on the whole, they’re often erroneous, if not silly.

Reality be exposed, I’m a little bit of all of these!

A few others I can think of are The Crowd-Pleasers, The Don’t-Offend-Anybody’s, The Rebounders, The Feel-Gooders, The Father-Son-And-Zany-Spirit People, The Rebels, The Airy Spiritualists, The Heresy Hunters, The Old Dogs, The Culture Warriors, The Zealots, The Last-Of-The-Holdouts (Hey, we need another list!)

What kind of religious folk you fine blog readers run into? And are you one of these people?