Reply #17: "Being a fundie" [View All]

[chookie]

I think what people are saying is that it doesn't mean that the people PRACTICING it are true "fundies" -- but I think it is fair to say that it is a ritual gesture taken from southern protestantism of the poorer classes. No Italian or Polish grandma in one of our old neighborhoods here would be caught dead holding their hands in the air during the Lord's Prayer!

Hmm, WHY it was borrowed is very interesting.... I would conjecture it is a manifestation of people, on some level, opting into the southern conservative cultural model -- shall we say, Catholics who voted Bush.

This gesture got in through TV, or maybe people moving from one area of the country to another -- and I would be very surprised if they did NOT, on some level, buy into the southern conservative cultural model, very surprised indeed. That doesn't make them "fundies", but it does remove them from the practice of Catholicism I grew up with in my very ethnic Catholic family, and for some reason, I believe it is significant.

I think there was a feeling that Catholics needed a more emotionally involving and cathartic Mass -- and these charismatic services certainly have a lot of that.