I was raised as a very conservative Baptist exposed to a variety of fundamentalists (in the traditional and technical sense of the word).
Of course, back when I was young Baptists still proclaimed "soul freedom"* with nobody getting between the individual and God. It was a great theory, though in most congregations whatever the pastor said was believed as though it had come directly from Sinai graven in stone. The phenomenological reality was that all the authorities were local, each pastor a primate among his (and they were all male, with women serving as DRE, running the missions, or else keeping silent in the church) own little, or large, flock.
Since "this world is not my home, I'm just a passing through," contextualism and history counted for little. "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." -- as the bumper sticker so beautifully summarizes the approach. This makes reasoned discussion a tad challenging.
Once I discovered the Episcopal Church, which answered my need for sacramentality, historicity, poetry of the soul, and the exercise of reason, I had almost no regret leaving my religious past behind. Deep scriptural rootedness came with me, just as knowing canticles by heart and being immersed in the theology of The Book of Common Prayer can carry me almost unconsciously now.
I did learn in Baptist seminary days that "a text without a context is a pretext," so that within me which is still protestant and individualist will always question what I hear and read, and test it against my own experience. This is precisely why although I was surrounded by fundamentalists I could never be one.
Added note: The quintessential Berkeley bumper sticker reads: "QUESTION AUTHORITY." As years have gone by this seems less the radical screed of The People's Republic of Berkeley and more a moral imperative.
-the BB
* "Soul Freedom" as described in Wikipedia:
Individual soul liberty
The basic concept of individual soul liberty is that, in matters of religion, each person has the liberty to choose what his/her conscience or soul dictates is right, and is responsible to no one but God for the decision that is made. A person may then choose to be a Baptist, a member of another Christian denomination, an adherent to another world religion, or to choose no religious belief system, and neither the church, nor the government, nor family or friends may either make the decision or compel the person to choose otherwise.
