Customer Reviews

The Texas Baptist Crucible: Tales from the Temple

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read James' chronicles several times from the week he first introduced them on the old Fighting Fundamentalist Forum. The very first chapter had me in tears of laughter, and I e-mailed copies of it to many friends. What a great day to see James Spurgeon's memoirs of life at Longview Baptist Temple and Texas Baptist College in print!

If you have suffered church abuse, this is the book that will teach you to laugh again. Without ever losing sight of what is sacred---indeed, James uses the Rabadash-like characters around him to emphasize what is truly sacred and what is false--young Pastor Spurgeon brings the reader into the world of Independent Baptist Fundamentalism Gone Bad. It is a nightmare of comedies (or comedy of nightmares), as truth is turned on its head, manipulation and pressure are masqueraded as God's love, and hours of hard labor building membership of the church by suckering children into "decisions" is passed off as grace.

Ridiculous Bible lessons, impossible competitions to "win souls," a culture of deceit and boasting, harsh and illogical rules, and one young man's ever more ingenius ways to beat the system by playing the system against itself make this collection a mixture of PILGRIM's PROGRESS and McHALE'S NAVY. It's a delight from beginning to end.

But the comedy and the tragedy of James' story is housed in excellent, but never labored, reasoning from the Scripture about the abuses and excesses that he experienced. Kudos to James Spurgeon for such a thought-provoking story for Christians. He takes a hard look at a manipulative church and a ridiculous, unaccredited Bible College that propagates ignorance rather than knowledge, and he manages to keep the story upbeat and focused on the great truths that awaited him once he got out.

I hope that Christians, especially Fundamentalists and former Fundamentalists will read this book and carefully consider what has been allowed to happen in Fundamentalism.

If this book appeals to you or has helped you, you may also want to consider Schizophrenic Christianity: How Christian Fundamentalism Attracts and Protects Sociopaths, Abusive Pastors, and Child Molesters, which is an analysis of how and why so much has gone wrong in Christian Fundamentalism.

Also, if you have been harmed in a harsh and legalistic church (or molested in such a church), this book is designed to help you heal your faith in Christ: The Lambs Workbook: Recovering from Church Abuse, Clergy Abuse, Spiritual Abuse, and the Legalism of Christian Fundamentalism

As somebody who deeply values laughing in the face of adversity, I found James Spurgeon a delight. The more I read the more I felt proud of the way he handled this unfortunate chain of events. No feeling sorry for the "victim" here. He uncovers the hipocracy without crucifying the offenders (no pun intended)

I didn't intend to read this marvelous book in one sitting, but that is what I ended up doing. The stories are so outrageous as to be unbelievable. Unfortunately, those who have had similar experiences can tell you that this book is all too believable. Spurgeon is able to take what is really a horrifing and sad experience (I would compare it to being raped over a period of many years) and present it in such a humourous fashion. Praise God that the author has turned out to be such a nice, fully-functioning person. I recommend this book to anybody, but especially to those who may be or have been in similar extreme fundamentalist circumstances, so that they, too, may end up fully-functioning. Reading this book is like watching the first half of Full Metal Jacket for the first time. Only instead of being set at Paris Island, it's a church and its (unacredited) college. Very sad, indeed. Read this book to the end (which you won't help being able to do if you start it) and you will end up with hope that something good can come from such sadness.

I'm sorry for using the word "Awesome." Brother Spurgeon would probably say that it's a word that should be reserved for the Almighty alone. (Just kidding - sort of.) I'm sorry, but the book is AWESOME...
Perfectly enjoyable reading. ... When I buy a book, I like to buy one that I can re-read later on [for example, "David Copperfield" by Dickens, or "The Hobbit" by Tolkien], so I won't feel I have wasted my $. This is one of the classic and thoroughly entertaining books I can definitely read and re-read many times over the years. --- When a story is "spell-binding," it is often fiction; this one is NON-fiction, yet it is just as enthralling, if not more so, than a work of fiction would be.
I expect this book to become famous ---it is only a matter of time -- and I expect great things from the author in future.

You know a book has a "cult" following when you start recognizing the names of other people giving reviews. Being from a fundamentalist background I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Frankly, it's sad that so many well meaning people are so misguided. But Spurgeon's book couldn't be more tactfully written. He clearly needed to expose this level of hypocrisy. You'll be telling the stories for weeks! If you've been in a situation like Spurgeon, you need to buy this book. I highly recommend it.

This is the best expose of Baptist Fundamentalism I have ever read. I could not stop once I started reading. His clear writing style and straightforward factual accounts are riveting!!!

Great book. It's well written, compelling, hilarious, and the characters are infuriating, puzzling, and very human (but often quite monstrous.) I laughed out loud multiple times, and I was so moved by one student's troubles with a back-stabbing faculty member that I actually punched my desk (something I don't think I've ever done while reading a book.) The reason I don't give it five stars is because it could use a bit of editing, as it's really a collection of vignettes more than it is one continuous narrative. I highly recommend it, however, as it helps demonstrate why so many of us who come from fundamentalism have such a love/hate relationship with it -- we see the horrific sides of it, but we know that there is quite a bit of good in it, that in fact some of the best "good" you can find comes from an unassuming gym teacher or assistant pastor in fundamentalism. Overall, it's a very good read.

Fundamentalism is a movement that seems to have more than its fair share of crazy people and institutions. James Spurgeon gives us an insider's view of Texas Baptist College, one of many non-accredited colleges dedicated to producing fundamentalist ministers (and minister's wives). He documents the rigid and mind-numbing rules and regulations that govern the daily routine, the cults of personality, and the atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust that the TBC inculcates in order to control its students. Amidst all this, however, he managed to maintain his sense of self, his sense of humour, and to rebel against and finally reject the system. It says volumes about how distorted this part of fundamentalism is, that Spurgeon found the Southern Baptist church to be an inclusive and tolerant community by contrast.

Spurgeon is an admirable and likeable person, and it took courage to stand up to the college as he did. But my abiding impression was ultimately how weak the control of the TBC actually is, given that there are no sanctions that they can impose that are not related to membership of the culture itself and status within it. Once someone rejects the system they can just walk away, as Spurgeon did. Imagine if the rest of society enforced the rules as well, and we would turn from the light-hearted 'Tales From the Temple' to something more like 'The Gulag Archipegalo'.

The book could do with some more editing to bring it into a tighter structure. It feels like a series of vignettes without an overall arc, which probably derives from its genesis as a series of internet posts. The writing also lacks a bit of refinement in language and tone that could have elevated it to a more serious and compelling level.