Two Questions.......
1. For anyone...........What church do you go to and how do you manage to conicide your believes with that of the church which you attend, what is it which makes you stay in the church you are in? I'm talking here about women vicars etc.
2. For those people who believe the KJV is the only Bible to follow and America is the only country which is saved by God...............I am curious only, Why do you believe in and follow a Bible which is written in, published in and Authrorised by a King of England and Scotland when you don't believe anyone outside America is Godly?
Please except my apoliogys if anything here is insulting to anyone, that is not my intention, I am just curious.
You made an honest and quite reasonable error in mistaking landover, westboro baptist or any of whatever tiny minority of wackos are out there with Christianity in the USA as a whole or even fundamentalists like us. I hope to answer in a respectful and kind manner. We Christian fundamentalists probably get more "bad press" than any other group in modern times. As a result, we oft bristle at what are sincere qustions, confusing them with more of the same hate and absurd caricatures that are standard fare in any search engine.
I attend the PCA (Presbyterean Church in America) which expressly forbids women elders, both what we term ruling elders (elected representative men, only men, who vote on various matters) and Teaching Elders (pastors, preachers, vicars ect). Thus we follow what we believe are the straightfoward admonition of Scripture that in the Church no woman is to have authority over a man. I will not sit in a pew where a woman preaches officially from the pulpit. If a woman makes announcements, gives a lecture or testimony that is not directly the worship service, no problem. I of course do not agree 100%, in fact pretty much everybody agrees I am the resident gadfly and trouble maker. They all tell me when I miss Sunday school it's boring because people agree. The teachers, well all but one, want me in their classes beacuse I do so often, and loudly, disagree. So debate is welcome and encouraged. Unfortunately, there certainly are Churches were a coercive enforced rigidity is the norm, and many are fundamentalist. There is some truth in some of the caricatures and hate speech about fundamentalists. I am aware of Churches were women are not allowed to wear pants, which is absurd, and other things that well, are legalistic extra-Biblical traditions of men rather than an honest attempt to follow Scripture in it's plain meaning. For example, there are Churches here in America that follow the traditions of Scottish Kirks and ban all music from worship, singing modified Psalms a capella under the banner of "the regulative principle." This is patently absurd, for the Psalms themselves list many musical instruments, just read the last Psalm. How one can ignore the plain sense of Scripture, which says to bring instruments into the worship, and actually ban musical instruments is beyond my comprehension. Yet the majority picture it is nowhere near as we are portrayed. As a fundamentalist I dance, drink alcohol and occsionally curse (as do the writers of Scripture on occasion curse, BTW). Being a fundamentalist does NOT necesitate a scowl or a hatred of Science. I am retired from being a professor of medicinem and whaen a student there at my medical school Lawton Child, THE world authority on syphillitic disease of the eye, was also a fundamentalist and quite open about it. No we are not necessarily idiots, born a Cuban, Icertainly can dance and drink!
As to the KJV being the only or even best Bible, very few on this thread would hold that (I think only one). My favorite is also the NASB, but I go to the Greek and Hebrew often. However, there is this annoying strain of "KJV-onlys" among fundamentalists whose views I can not explain. A long time ago on this site we had "KJV only" wars, and they mostly all left. Again, there is some truth to the caricature of KJV thumping fundamentalists, but it is a minority.
Lastly, America the Godly nation. Again I doubt you get anybody here to agree. There as at the founding of this nation a very strong element of Puritanism, and they did in fact view this continent as "the new Canaan", would call indigenous Americans "Canaanites" and saw themselves as the "New Israel" whose duty it was to continue the Nation of Israel. Well, that dream died when they had teenagers, when they had to compromise and have their children be "half-way covenants." Look, MANY nations (all??) will be saved. Read the last couple of chapters of Revelations and you will see this clearly layed out. God will save a remnant from "all peoples and toungues" to populate the New Earth and New Jerusalem. That the USA made a more serious attempt at godlyness is debatable, very debatable. I personally think the USA did in fact behave on many occasions in a surprisingly godly fashion. How many world superpowers have conquered huge areas, turned around, returned them to the inhabitants, paid those that made war reparations and rebuilt their countries and then walked away? Did not the USA occupy Japan, write it's constitution, rebuilt her cities and then just leave it all to the Japanese? The same Japanese that attacked the USA without notice! Did the USA remain occupiers of western Europe as Russia of Eastern Europe? Did we demand colonies throughout the world of the losing powers of WWI? Does not even now the USA pay Native American nations, AND apologize frequently for the abuse the USA heaped upon the natives? Sure the USA did and does a great deal wrong. The aforementioned treatment of SOME f the native American, the slavery, the many times the USA destabilized various foreign Govt for economic gain and so on and so on. The USA is not a "godly nation," but I would put the historical record of my adoptive country up against any other in history that achieved world power status. Yet those days are long gone. I believe this country has turned a corner, and we are headed down a very dark path indeed. In any case, it is true that many Americans are a bit too ethnocentric. Sometimes we really go overboard in our patriotism, and there is no Scriptural warrant for it at all. Yet in your own country you have the British Israelites. Look up their beliefs, they are as messed up as the Puritans ever were.
I hope my tiny short answers have been helpful without being overbearing. If I had time I would answer in a more detailed manner, but for now this very brief post will have to do.
JR
Very embrassed now
Thread failure. 
