Where Fundamentalist bigger in the 1980's?

I would disagree with this pastor saying that fundamentalist churches were "more pure" back in the 80's. Maybe the scandals and hypocrisy were just better covered up and kept hush-hush during that time.

 

That.

Bob Gray(FL) is a prefect example. He sure bamboozled a lot of people.

{Edited to add}

Having said that, there are many good IFB churches. I'm of the opinion that there are no bad churches, there are just churches that have bad pastors.

 

IFB's in our area are much smaller than they were in the 80's. The church I grew up in was 900 members strong with a very large school. It hasn't had more than 150 attendees in many years and this will be the last year the school will operate. It has been constant financial trouble for over a decade. Having grown up in the fundamentalist movement, I have watched the implosion of fundamentalism from the inside, until I left in the late 90's. I have noticed that the IFB's thrived at the same time cults were on the rise & for the same reasons.

From the early 60's until the late 80's, people were flocking to personality-driven, ultra-legalistic, conformist groups. As the culture was shifting hard toward political liberalism, sexual deviancy, & hyper drug-usage; many Christians knee-jerked to the opposite extreme. Charismatic, hell fire preachers were seen as super-spiritual modern day prophets; unquestionable & accountable only to God. Deep, meaningful Bible teaching was replaced by shallow anti-sin preaching & incessant evangelizing to the church. Fundamentalist colleges worsened & extended the trend by training future pastors to be fiery self-righteous preachers instead of mature, expounders of the Word. After 40 years, the result has been numerous sexual scandals, financial misconduct, & dwindling membership throughout the movement. I could list over a dozen IFB's that I have attended/been affiliated with that have not grown in over two decades; most running 100-150 members. Most of them had Christian schools that thrived in the 80's, but as of next year, none of them will have schools any longer. Their bus ministries & door to door "evangelism" are nearly completely fruitless. For all their efforts, God does not grow their numbers.

 

I do know what you are sharing.

There were good, pastors who chased after and copied because dramatic results were seen.

Unfortunately, the accountability and scrutiny were replaced by "don't touch God's anointed" and great shame rests upon those ministries and evil tidings is not kept from the mouth those who would scorn and ridicule.

There are a number of Godly pastors who (like those in Elijah's day did not bow to the idol worship) keep true to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and I thank My Father for each one of them.