Although Baptist fundamentalists wouldn’t ever dream of touching regular playing cards, they do still love card games; and one of the perennial favorites is Dutch Blitz. After all, anybody can see the game is wholesome just by looking at it. There are primary colors and pictures of modestly dressed Amish children. Instead of evil hearts and clubs, benign-looking farm implements grace the backs of the cards.
Without even the remote chance of the appearance of evil, this card game has been used at youth outings, christian college campuses, and church picnics almost since it was invented in the 1950’s. As the saying goes, “if it’s from the 50’s it’s just plain better.”
Blitz!
Everything I learned about solitaire I learned from Dutch Blitz.
Oh man this site is awesome! Hilarious because it’s true and the subtle sarcasm is gold. Def going into my rss reader.
I WISH people would actually play this game!!! It’s soooo much fun!!! It takes a while do develop your skill but once you get going, it can get crazy. When I went to BJU, my roomies and I would play twice a night and kept a scoreboard on the wall. You should have heard the yelling and screaming that went on…. never mind the cheating accusations…. Our RA even had to come into the room and tell us to keep it down. haha! fun stuff!
I remember being reprimanded in 5th grade for bringing a card game to play at my Christian school. It was called “Bible Daughters” and the goal was to collect four of a kind (Rachel, Esther, Mary, etc.). Each card had a fact about the Biblical character. My Sunday School teacher (at a different church) had given it to me as a Christian present. I was annoyed and offended that I was told to put it away lest “visitors” (although there were none) might think we children were playing poker and betting (well, that’s not exactly what they said, but that’s how ridiculous it seemed to me!) We did tend to shy away from card games in general so I’d never even heard of Rook or Dutch Blitz until adulthood.
My dad taught in an IFB school, and his contract specified that he was not allowed to own playing cards. We did, however, own and play the following games:
Rook (many different games. Were some of these just regular card games with different cards?)
Mille Bournes
Pit
Uno
Dutch Blitz
Ono 99
Skip-Bo
not to mention Crazy 8s, I Doubt It, Go Fish, Old Maid etc., but with specially-designed non-playing card cards. I only learned later that some of these games could be played with playing cards.
I’m sure there were others I’m forgetting. What non-playing-card card games did you play as / with Fundies?
I played all of the ones that you have listed as we were not allowed to own playing cards. After all the jokers are suppose to mock Jesus and all of the Queen’s signify the worship of Mary by the Catlicks™. At least that was what we were taught. I learned to play Rook when I was 5 and didn’t touch playing cards until I was a teenager. One of the ladies in our church taught me how to play cribbage using a Rook deck since we couldn’t have regular cards. Now, I love all card games, especially Texas Hold ’em with real cards. I know, I’m going to hell.
The missionary family that worked with my family called playing cards “Poker Cards.” Although it always sounded like they meant “compulsive gambling/gateway to sin” cards. But maybe that was just my imagination 😀
They’re so much WORSE when they are POKER cards! As if that is the ONLY game that can be played with them.
If you meet people like that, you can tell them this story:
http://www.mamarocks.com/deck_of_cards.htm
My son loves poker, and loves Jesus. It CAN be done! 😉
Regular playing cards were not allowed in our house most of the time growing up. My mom bought them once, then repented and hid them away. Eventually she threw them out.
She flipped out on my 20-year-old brother last year when she found a deck of cards in his room. But she continued (and continues) to play Solitaire and Free Cell on her computer every night to wind down after a busy day. 🙄
Is this the first ever SFL post? It’s the first I can find on here…
I’ll never forget, I was at a pastor’s house in high school, and they were teaching me this game. It dawned on me, and I stated, that it was basically just like Solitaire, so I wouldn’t have that big of a problem. The glaring looks I got from saying that are still seared in my mind 🙄
Dutch Blitz is a great game where they can get aggressive for fun.
At around age ten, my younger daughter’s friend took a pack of playing cards so they could entertain themselves while we had choir practice. I had no idea, but I would not have cared. One of the other kids saw them, however, and went off in high dudgeon.
Oh my goodness! We were never allowed any kind of playing cards at all, so I just learned this game at the age of 30! One of my fellow Christian school teachers brought a deck of these cards to our camp and taught us. This game is so much fun! 😀
This is the earliest SFL post I can find. I love playing Dutch Blitz. My son brought his future wife to visit us for the first time and we played. She is a master at this game and blew us all away. I called her a little brat. She never lets me forget that. “I remember the first time I met your Dad, he called me a little brat.” See how evil even Dutch Blitz cards can be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdIHBaQ9eJs
The cards look like the Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs. Hexes are what witches use on their victims so they are evil and shouldn’t be used.