Fed Up with Fundamentalism, Still

It has already been nearly 15 years since I started writing Fed Up with Fundamentalism, which has been out of print for some time now. Even though Christian fundamentalism may not as be prominent now as it was in 2004, this book still seems to be needed.

The Difficulty/Ease of Publishing

When I finished writing Fed Up with Fundamentalism: A Historical, Theological, and Personal Appraisal of Christian Fundamentalism, I fully expected to find a publisher for what I thought, and still think, was a good and important book.

However, publishers are, of necessity, interested in making money, and publishing the first book of someone virtually unknown in this country was not a risk the publishers I contacted were willing to take.

Rather than go through the lengthy process of submitting my manuscript to publisher after publisher and waiting each time for their evaluation/decision—who knew how long that would take?—I decided to publish the book with a Print on Demand company. Thus, the book was issued and on the market in 2007.

Although there was a sizeable number of books sold, I’m not sure I ever broke even with the initial cost of having the book published.

Things are different now, though: Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is available, and soon I will publish my third book, Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (TTT), with them—at no cost to me.

And now, I am planning to do the same sort of thing as I did last year with TTT. Beginning today, I plan to post a blog article each month based on a chapter of Fed Up . . . and then publish the (slightly) updated version of the book by KDP at the end of the year.

I will appreciate you Thinking Friends reading the blog articles based on Fed Up and giving me serious feedback as I work on re-publishing the book. 

The Preface of Fed Up

By clicking here you can read the updated Preface of Fed Up, and I hope that many of you will do that.

The Preface largely gives the rationale for my choosing to spend the many, many hours necessary for doing the research and writing the book. As you will see if you open the webpage linked to above, I wrote the book from my Baptist context at the time.

I also indicate how for years I was an “embarrassed Southern Baptist,” so I shifted from being a Baptist to becoming a small b baptist. But still, I was a Baptist until I was well past 70, so that is the Christian denomination I wrote most about in the Preface.

Christian fundamentalism, of course, is much larger than the Southern Baptist Convention—and much larger than Christianity—so the book deals mostly with the broader sweep of fundamentalism.

What do you think? Is fundamentalism less prominent now than it was in 2004~07? Or because of the Christian Right’s support of DJT, is it even more problematic now?

The Tone of the Book

At the end of the Preface, I emphasize that I intended to write “with an irenic spirit and with the earnest hope that even where there is definite disagreement there still might be fruitful dialogue.”

That is also the tone with which I seek to write each of my blog articles, so I hope that you will call me out if you think I am ever unfair or disrespectful of other people and/or their views.

In keeping with these comments, please consider the last section of the Preface: “‘Ten Commandments’ for the Author and the Readers of This Book.”

Even if we are fed up with fundamentalism, let’s be civil in our criticism.