Fundamentalist Christians have taken to the Net like medflies to a pheromone trap. Of course, you’ll also find loads of Christian critics buzzing around in there, too. But none of them seem to be having as much fun with fundies as the subject of this week’s Fringe profile: Poppy Dixon
“Defender of the unborn again, or unholy scoffer?”
Turf: The Postfundamantalist Press, Poppy’s site of esoteric Bible lore and contemporary Christian culture studies.
Tools & Weapons: Typing in Tongues. (“Don’t use ALLCAPS as God will think you are yelling.”)
Affiliates:
- Christopher Paris (“An excellent writer best known for Reverend Ablack: Adventures of the Antichrist.”)
- [Rev Illuminatus Maximus’] Gnostic Friends Network.
Enemy: Celebrity Christian Chuck Colson.
Quote: “Fundamentalists are living proof that Darwin was wrong”
Field Notes:
Born on the Palouse in northern Idaho and raised in suburban Boise, Poppy, at the tender age of 11, attended church camp, where she was “bullied into accepting Christ as my savior.” Though everyone around her spoke in tongues, she never received the gift. “I learned to read and write it but I could never speak a word of it.”
The Postfundamentalist site (about to be renamed “Poppy Dixon’s Adult Christianity”) is a marvel of crisp, pleasing design and infectious obsession over little-known Bible facts and modern fundamentalist hijinx. Online since September 1995, the site gets 50,000 hits a month, Poppy says.
The current issue has a feature called “XXX-Rated Christianity,” (naughty bits from the Bible) and a review of Gil Alexander-Moegerle’s book about the leader of Focus on the Family called James Dobson’s War on America.
Poppy Dixon Q & A:
How did you become born again?
I spent my teen years in a religious commune run by hippies, Jesus freaks, in the ’70s. It was called Shiloh and they had houses all over the country. Besides being fundamentalists they were quite benign and loving. I had lost my family and was very fortunate to have found them. I’ll always be grateful.
How did you become un-born again?
These same people forbade me to attend college because of the required science classes. That was the beginning of the end. It didn’t make any sense to me that God could be threatened by science. I left the commune and went to college.
Why did you start The Postfundamentalist Press?
Christianity has a rich, popular culture which has not yet been mined. Christians deny everything interesting about their religion. Each month we take a topic such as music, fashion, war, or sex and trace it through Christian history, exposing the strange and marvelous effects of religion on culture and vice versa.
How do people respond to your site?
I get some really interesting hate mail. I’ve been accused of being ‘obnostic.’ I’ve gathered a group of adoring ministers that I talk dirty with. It’s always been my dream to enslave a minister.
The Christians who respond to my site hold nothing back, describing exactly how Satan will sodomize me in hell. I’ve had to ask, “Do you praise God with that mouth?”
What are some of the things about contemporary Christianity that amuse you?
Probably the phallic references in Christian ministries, “Sword of the Lord,” “Sowers of Seed,” “Probe Ministries,” “Rod and Staff.” They’re obsessed with sex in a hopelessly repressed way. My favorite image comes from a chastity movement event. The staff gathered thousands of pledge cards from virgins and skewered them on a long, thick cable. The photo shows two or three male virgin-groupies trying to erect this pledge-laden cable “through the roof” which was the theme of their event. The virgin-groupies made me feel uneasy. I think they should be required to register with the police when they move to a new community.
The idea that you can become a born-again virgin, get your virginity back, is bizarre. You have to wonder whose fantasy that is.
Another strange thing is that CyberPatrol has blocked our page of Bible quotes. I don’t think Christians realize yet that the Bible is subject to online censorship.1
- Frauenfelder, Mark. “Fun With Fundies.” Wired Magazine. 13 October, 1997. http://www.wired.com/news/news/wiredview/story/7259.html [↩]
