With all due respect, while I don't mean to come down too hard on you (really, I don't), there are some things I must say regarding this. Attitudes like this have made me reluctant to associate with other Christians.
"... keep the pagan holidays, which is ‘strange fire’ to God."
I presume this means it's a sin to wear a costume on the last day of October, or hunt for colorful eggs in Spring. Where in Scripture is that written? I have a hard time seeing any sin in these activities.
"... immodestly dressed feminist women; femininized men in tight womanly clothing... "
Who made you the Fashion Police? There are far more heinous crimes a woman can commit than to show up in public wearing a halter top and short skirt. A lady can never be modest enough for these people. Where in Scripture does it say it's a sin to dress this way?
"They have other sinful practices as well..politics, sports, fleshly music with emotional appeal..."
So it's a sin to watch a ball game, listen to secular music, or discuss the circus with elephants and donkeys? Says who? The Pet Shop Boys? Your beginning to sound like them with their song "It's a Sin", circa 1987. What isn't a sin to you?
"I say this not to be unkind or pharasitcal, but it is the truth and people need to wake up."
No, it is not the truth. You are condemning activities and things as sin without any real basis in the Scriptures or common horse sense for doing so. That kind of legalism not only irritates me, it discredits the Faith as a whole.
I do not recognize any of the activities you mentioned as sin.
I wouldn't want to associate with other Christians, or be part of a church that thinks these things either.
When I was a child my parents enrolled me in a private school run by a Fundamentalist Baptist church, one that taught KJV-onlyism. That said all secular music was satanic and even said that "Christian rock" is still satanic because, as they argued, the percussion instruments were related to demonic practices of indigenous Africans (in other words, racism). One wasn't permitted to go to the movie theater because, as they argued, that if you go to see one movie you watch all the movies that have ever played in that theater. Men couldn't have long hair, women had to wear ankle-long dresses/skirts. That a Christian man shouldn't even wear blue jeans because it isn't "Christian appropriate". And the list goes on.
Now, I didn't go to that church, neither did my family. In fact, that was a source of problems for me at the school. I was often treated different, like an outcast or pariah, because my family went to a different church. It wasn't just me, other students whose families weren't connected with the church also had to deal with being treated poorly. I was even called out and ostracized in the middle of class by teachers, and made to feel like an outsider.
I was a student in that school from Kindergarten until the 6th grade. And I'll be completely honest, I'm in my 40's now and I am still recovering from trauma I experienced as a child at that school, I am only now at this time in my life coming to grasp how much that school--and the church which ran the school--messed me up in a lot of ways.
My grandmother (mom's side) grew up in a terrible church as well. The pastor was an abusive money-grubbing monster who nickle-and-dimed pretty much all the money my great-grandmother had when my grandma was growing up. It was so bad that even when my grandma was in her 60's and 70's she would ask me things, like if it was possible for someone who is overweight to go to heaven. See, she had been raised to believe that fat people can't go to heaven. My grandma would tell me how, growing up, she wasn't allowed to drink root beer and other carbonated beverages because "root beer" had the word "beer" in it, which made it evil (and all carbonated beverages were evil by association). My grandma was raised to believe that one had to follow strict codes of holiness, such as women not wearing jewelry or wearing trousers, or playing card games (including Go Fish) and all manner of things were evil and could prevent you from going to heaven.
I've seen other toxic churches as well. Though for different reasons.
The point I want to make here is simple: I've seen this stuff my whole life. I don't want anything to do with that, it's awful, it's inherently un-Christian. It's toxic, it's abusive, it's not Christianity. Certainly not the Christianity that I know from my Bible, from Jesus, and from my reading and study of two thousand years of Christian history.
You shouldn't associate with that kind of "Christianity", nobody should. Nobody should be a victim of that kind of false religion.
Moralism has nothing to do with Christ. Legalism has nothing to do with Christ. Toxic spirituality and abusive religion has nothing to do with Christ.
The good thing, however, is that most churches don't come anywhere near any of that. Even most "conservative" churches. Even churches which, for other reasons, I wouldn't personally attend or be part of (for theological reasons chiefly) aren't anything like that.
But it is precisely because these types of churches exist, that this kind of ugly fundamentalism exists, that it is all the more important that we, as believers in the Lord, are part of good and healthy communities of faith. That we are encouraged and share life together with, and receive God's Word and Sacraments, in the context of a loving, free, grace-filled community where we can not only grow in our faith, but we can grow in our faith
together.
There are a lot of weeds out there, but there are also so many beautiful wildflowers.
-CryptoLutheran
