420 thoughts on “Friday Challenge: Crime and Punishment”

    2. There was that time in 4th grade that I wore a snowsuit to school because I was going over to someone’s house after school. I wasn’t allowed to go out to second recess.

        1. I know: the big snowsuit rebel. 😕

          My dad will tell stories of how he spanked me for crying when I was still in diapers, so I think they had me trained to be obedient from before I can even remember.

          And I still ended up an ex-fundy. They are so disappointed.

        2. Why would you spank a baby too young to even _understand_ punishment…?

          Ugh.

  3. In the school run by my church my class (8th grade, I think) had kind of local and state heritage project that included drawing pictures of local flora and fauna. On the page for birds one of my friends suggested we draw a finger in one panel and write that it lived exclusively on the roadways of the greater Atlanta area. We all laughed uproariously. And then the pastor/principal walked in to see what was so funny.

    That weekend was a youth “retreat” to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and I spent a good chunk of it writing 1,000 times: “I will not make jokes about obscene gestures.”

    1. Writing sentences.

      Man, I’m glad that punishment has largely fallen into the dustbin of time.

        1. Wow, so much for the verbal plenary inspiration and not adding to/taking away. Was this a KJVO church you were writing chapters of the Bible for? It would be the height of hypocrisy, I feel, for them to ask you to add to the 1611 (or the 1672). Did you write them in the same dialect or modern US English? Hopefully the former, for continuity of style.

        2. while “doing 5-12” at the local christian prision-school, i stayed behind after chapel in the bathroom with friends in 9th grade. we snuck out into the santuary and played an epic game of hide and go seek. needless to say when the pastor of the church walked and found us running around in “God’s House”, he was pissed.

          My punishment was copying the letter “A” out of the dictionary. Words and definitions. OUCH. my hand hurt like a mother, but no beatings, so that was cool

      2. I actually make my sons write sentences. “I will not talk back to my mother” has been the most common one so far. BUT my mom made ME write Bible verses and that led to my hating the Bible for a long time. The Bible is the living Word of God, not a punishment to beat someone over the head with. 👿

        1. My older kid has autism, and writing sentences works out well for him because he’s a visual learner and has difficulty grasping something unless it’s tangible. Writing words to paper is an excellent way of getting him to understand what I need him to learn about his behavior.

        2. The 19th century one-time Freethinker (sceptic) William Hone had the same experience. His father made him read the Bible as a punishment, which led him to hate it. His father also told him John Wesley was evil, and when Hone met Wesley as a boy and found he was a nice old man, that also led Hone to doubt everything his father (and his pastor) told him. Hone was an ex-fundie in his day. Later he returned to Christianity, though not to the circles he had been brought up in, but to the Congregational denomination and the Church of the moderate Congregational pastor Thomas Binney.

      4. Well, fundy elementary schools sift through that dustbin for that treasured punishment.

    4. That IS very funny, but I probably would have been appalled if I had found that on one of my student’s papers. 😯

  4. Posting on SFL and getting raked over the coals for talking about the church on a board full of “scorners” and “rebels”. The pastor didn’t like his controlling, dictatorial ways brought out.

    I wasn’t using this name when I did it, and we were shunned by people from the church.

    2. What were they doing reading “a board full of ‘scorners’ and ‘rebels'”? Shouldn’t they be out soulwinning or something? 🙄

      1. Indeed, shouldn’t one who reads the scornful, rebellious comments here be punished as well?
        … Maybe by writing “I will not have fun” 1000 times.

        1. Unless it was the MOG, then he’s got carte blanche, because it’s all “research”, right?

          That’s pretty pathetic that you would be shunned for it though, but I suppose things happen for a reason. Hopefully things are better now.

        2. Nope, they were commended for being “loyal” and supportive of their “man of God”.

      2. They probably should have been punished, but that’s not how things work in the IFBxx world – if you turn someone in, you are the saint, no matter what you did to get them.

        I’m sure that they declared that they “happened” to come across the site and thought that the post “sounded like Bro X”.

        The pastor went on a rant about posting on blogs, chat rooms, etc. I didn’t know he was talking about me at first because I’ve never said anything online to give away the church.

  5. When I was about 4 my parents left my brother and I with a couple for a few days while they went to missions candidate school.

    The man decided that my habit of shrugging my shoulders was “rebellion” and decided to meet out spankings whenever I did it. You learn a lot about pain in fundyland.

    It’s worth noting that this couple had no children of heir own and never did have any. Thank God for small kindnesses.

    1. Your rebellious spirit was evident at a young age.

      This would fit well with the Cause and Effect post a while back…….

      Shrugging your shoulders at the age of 4 will lead to creating a rebellious blog. One never knows a slippery slope. 😆

      1. Maybe abusing your authority by punishing a 4-year-old for something innocent causes that child to start questioning authority figures.

    2. WTH? He was allowed to spank you?! Well, I say that and my parents told all of the people that I stayed with that they could spank me, but no one ever took them up on it. I’d never allow that. Never. Please tell me your parents weren’t okay with you getting spankings simply for shrugging your shoulders 😯

      1. I don’t really think they were ok with it. But as I recall they just kind of pretended that it didn’t happen.

        1. Yes! That unfortunately a typical response. As a mom, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. People aren’t allowed to punish our children except for time out and that’s only when my husband and I aren’t there. I would never ever feel comfortable disciplining someone else’s kid like that. You can always tell when someone has no idea what it’s like to be a parent. Sorry, just couldn’t wrap my head around it!

        6. Darrell – Look at how good you’ve turned out! If you hadn’t received that “loving” correction you would probably be sitting alone in a topless bar, drunk and still shrugging. Haaaayman!

      2. I’ve had people in church tell me it was OK to dscipline their children. But these were people who knew me VERY well, and they knew that I wouldn’t make up arbitrary rules (No shoulder shrugging!), and that I wouldn’t hit a small child just for some trivial or imaginary offense.

    3. That’s appalling. I guess their lack of experience was showing, but still, how utterly wrong of them. And the presumption it represents is even worse, deciding that they as pinch-hitting parents should attempt to correct harmless habitual behavior. Bah! 😯

  6. When I was a kid a fundy relative caught me watching the BBC Narnia movies. He wanted to know why I was watching something so demonic. I tried to explain that C.S. Lewis was a Christian and Aslan was an allegory of Christ. His reply was “well, the devil can come in many guises.” ❗

  7. At my Fundie high school during a break I was playing a “contemporary Christian” song on my acoustic guitar (I wasn’t singing, just kinda strumming out of habit). The pastor was walking by and he stopped and asked me what song I was playing so I told him.

    Later that day the entire high school was called for an unscheduled meeting on the dangers of contemporary music…It was fantastic.

      1. Indeed, Jared alone apparently has the power to damn the whole student body, and maybe the faculty, to perdition, just by strumming a few chords. Truly awesome power!

  8. Fortunately I didn’t get caught doing anything at Fundy U. Not that I didn’t break the rules I just didn’t get caught.

    But lets see the other stuff is mostly stupid. And none of it got me into major trouble. I do remember one time when I was about 10 or so talking to my dad. I asked him a question and he didn’t answer so I asked again. After about the 4th time asking him I said, “What the hell is that.” I wasn’t allowed to watch TV for a bit after that one.

  9. i got in trouble a few times for playing uncheckable music on guitar at BJU, like Blind Melon, Metallica, Hendrix, KISS, etc. see, the devil is deceitful – he’d tempt me into playing songs by those bands that SOUNDED all quiet and nice, but were actually just as evil as the loud songs (or so my dorm counselor explained it to me!) 🙄

    1. I got 50 demerits for not deleting all my iTunes music after I left my nosy roomie alone with my computer.

      2. I’m going to BJU, and I’m very nosy. Not that I’ll rat on anyone: I’ll probably be doing 3x what they’re doing with iTunes! Just curious to see who all’s learning to hide like me.

  10. While in grad school at BJU, I got a stern talking-to because someone had seen me hugging my fiance on Paris Mountain and turned us in anonymously. We were socialed for two weeks.

      1. Not really. My supervisor scolded me about not being a good testimony. My fiance was one officially socialed.

        1. Same thing happened to me, pw, only our “sin” was going to a movie over Christmas break. Interesting how they can treat two 25-year-olds (hubby and I are the same age, but he was an undergrad) like they’re 12. Back then, it was stupid. Now that I look back I see how controlling it was.

    3. Hey – I kissed my wife (now, not then) for the first time on Paris Mountain. I imagine a lot of that went on there…

    4. I was socialed at BJ for a week before finals. I made it a point to talk to every dude possible. So actually my “punishment” turned out to be really fun. 😀

      1. Socialled meant you couldn’t talk to the opposite sex for a specific amount of time, basically. It was humiliating and stupid and I can’t believe that sort of punishment was given to adults.

        1. We were told at PCC that it would also go on your permanent record as sexual misconduct if you were socialed. Can you imagine a future employer asking about the sexual misconduct on your record?
          “um I handed a pen to someone of the opposite sex and we accidentally touched hands.”
          Blank stare from the potential employer…

        2. Often when one points out the errors of a college, someone says, “You knew what you were getting into.” That’s so not true. No one ever says, “BTW, if you ever hold hands with someone, your permanent record will say you’re a sexual deviant.” You don’t know stuff like this until you’re already there and invested.

        3. The “sexual misconduct” thing is a scare tactic. In most states (including FL) there are specific laws for what constitutes sexual misconduct. If they ever did “put that on your record” (whatever that is supposed to mean…is there a footnote beside your GPA or something?), one would have grounds to sue the school for all they are worth…and then some.

    6. Mmmm I’m glad to know you suffered through this place too. 😀 Haha nah, I like it. It’s not too bad.

    7. Mmmm I’m glad to know you suffered through this place too. 😀 Haha nah, I like it. It’s not too bad.

  11. There’s not enough space here… Unless you were a typically hyperactive young boy in a Fundy elementary school you cannot imagine how many spankings for the most minor of infractions- real or perceived- that one must endure.

    I did develop a philosophy about corporal punishment out of it all and it is that if you spank a child more than once or twice for the same offense and the behavior doesn’t change then it becomes abuse. You are either continuing to spank them because you are too stupid to think of a creative punishment or you are doing it out of anger and vengeance, aka abuse.

    Of all the problems with fundyland this one hits home for me the most. I hated living in terror as a child because it was so easily to offend the powers that be and be subjugated to regular spanking/paddling. The teachers were quite fond of their paddles- some were fiberglass with holes drilled in for wind resistance reduction, some were black with bright red flames. Some times the principle would walk around with a big boat oar as if he was really gonna hit someone with that.

    1. As a teacher, that hurts my heart! I feel like it’s my job to guide my students to make better choices in the future, not to humiliate and torture them for making bad ones. Any teacher should know that if your “punishment” isn’t changing the behavior, it’s obviously not getting at the heart of the problem, and may even be reinforcing the behavior in some way. The solution to that is to try a new approach. I can’t IMAGINE having a paddle period, much less one with flames on it! I want my students to respect me, but not to actually fear me!

      1. I’m a fundy, born and bred (3 generations and beyond). My parents always told me why I was getting a spanking. And I deserved them. They did help me learn NOT TO DO THAT AGAIN (in front of them 😈 ).

    2. That was basically my dad. I used to get spanked probably daily when I was little. My parents never understood why I kept returning to the offending habit. Well, it was because I was never told the reason I was being spanked. I was brought in with no explanation, hit terribly hard with a wooden brush, then told to stop crying or I would get more. I was totally confused, and was not allowed to talk about it. So, duh, I repeated the “wrong” again, because nobody corrected me. I still hate how it was all handled. I did live in fear wondering exactly what would set him off and get me hit though.

      1. Why do parents say, “Stop crying or I’ll spank you again!”?? I don’t understand it. They should get spanked with a wooden brush and told not to cry after they’re beaten. My mom was the worst about that. She was one of those, spank you til she was tired parents and told me to stop crying or I’ll get more. I asked her why she said that once. She couldn’t or wouldn’t give me an answer. That may be part of the reason why my mother and I don’t have any interaction anymore.

        1. Not that it justifies what your mom did, but she might’ve been brainwashed that way by the church. Our church taught us to keep spanking until after they stopped crying because they’d learn to cry to manipulate you to stop. And of course if you didn’t do this your child would end up a crackhead gangbanger. The goal was to “break their will, but not their spirit” whatever that means. Thank goodness we got out of there before we did a boatload of damage to ourselves and our kids!

        2. the “this hurts me more than it hurts you.” once i said, “ok let me hit you then and it will be less hard on you.” that got me a major beating upgrade.

          that phrase always got me furious.

          logic in my mind: My dad is 6′ 250 lbs. it hurts him more to beat on me, than it does for me to sit there and get hit!?!?

          in what world is this true?

          Bull Sugar Honey Ice Tea

        3. I heard that tons of time (will hurt me more than it will you). Told them it wasn’t true, was told I would understand when I grew up. I’ve grown up, and it’s still BS. The authority figure in a disciplinary action is NEVER hurt anywhere near as much as the one being punished. What a crock.

        5. And if you want to count emotional pain on the parent, the emotionally scarring pain of being a youth & having your parents lie to you about it hurting them even more itself is more emotional pain than the parent/authority is experiencing, not including the physical pain.

        6. You beat me to it Naomi. That trying to get the victim/punishee of spanking feel sorry for the spanker is totally preposterous. I’m ok w/ spanking if Parents choose to do that (not incluing actual abusive spankings). Emotionally manipulating your kids that it’s harder on you is complete BS.

        8. I wrote about this on the second page of this thread! My mom hit me with a belt for over an hour one day b/c I refused to cry to begin with. I stood up for days, but I took her power away! 😯

  12. Oh where to start….

    8th grade – almost expelled for stepping on ketchup packets and splattering them on the shower room wall. (Destructive I know)

    9th grade – during an away game we were busted listening to headphones and “rock music”. Little did our coach know that we always went back to the bus before our game and rocked out to Metal/Rap before our game to get pumped up. He saw us acting crazy on the bus, but we were able to kill the music before he got there so he wouldn’t catch up with headphone/music contraban.

    10th grade – almost expelled for getting a bowl cut (it was 1993). Chapel message then devoted to hair cuts with boys coming forward for forgiveness (not me though)

    11th grade – Played a choral song by the BJU mens quartet for morning announcements and was almost expelled by the founder of our school (BJU grad) for playing music that we too contemporary. The MOG at my church (BJU grad) intervened but told me that I need to have higher standards for music.

    12th grade – Almost expelled for going to the prom. Teacher found out I was planning on going, ratted me out to the principal (as well as my other friends) and he gave me the ultimatum of attending our JR/SR banquet or the Prom which both happened to be on the same day. Of course if I attended the Prom, he would expell me. So I put my date through dress check, attended the JR/SR and got the hell out of dodge 2 weeks later.

    Liberty U – Broke every rule in the Liberty Way except for performing or having an abortion (you have to draw the line somewhere 👿 ). I was the notorious 10% Jerry Falwell warned the freshman and their parents about. My philosopy was that at least you were partying with other Christians who had some kind of moral compass. Lousy justification I know!

    Thanks for the therapy. You can send me the bill 😀

    P.S. – At this same Christian high school where I faced expulsion a number of times, the principal’s son was busted for vieiwing gay pornography on a school computer. He was expelled mid-second semester, but came back to the school the next year. The only kid in the history of my school to be allowed back after expulsion. 🙄

    1. “…. for getting a bowl cut (it was 1993).”

      Regardless of the year, some sort of punishment would be justifiable in this scenario. :mrgreen:

      1. Come on….Color Me Badd had it. Pop culture in the school. You had to have had a fashion faux pas as well. I am just brave enought to admit it 😆

        2. OK. I grew up in the 70’s so I shudder when the family pictures get brought out at get-togethers. Let me just say that plaid pants are NOT your friend.

        3. It’s a good thing you can’t see the double-knit, plaid suit I wore to church in the 70s. I was prous of having plaid socks that matched the suit, too. 😯

        5. I would’ve thought the punishment for getting a bowl cut was obvious. It’s called “having a bowl cut”. :mrgreen:

    2. The ketchup thing would have been punishable at any school. All those other offenses exist only in the fevered imagination of Fundies.

  13. My worst experience was with a fundy of the charismatic variety. I was volunteering with my church’s youth ministry (the year after I had been a YM intern) when our youth pastor left and the church appointed this crazy guy who’d already been directly responsible for splitting 2 churches. Anyway, I guess he just didn’t like me but next thing I know I’m being “disciplined”. I was told to stay away until I apologized. So I set up a meeting with this guy and the rest of the adult leaders of the youth ministry to find out WHAT I did wrong that I’m being disciplined (an am supposed to apologize) for. When I ask them what it is I’ve supposedly done this youth pastor guy jumps in and says “That’s not what we’re here for, we’re here for you to apologize and admit that what you did was wrong. We’re not here to discuss anything else”. When I asked again, WHAT I was supposed to apologize for, the guy interupted me and said “Well, clearly you have no intention of apologizing and seeking forgiveness so this meeting is over. I’m very disappointed that you mislead us in order to have this meeting”. So as I get up to leave I just throw out a generic apology for the misunderstanding and this other guy (whose whom we were at) goes “that’s ENOUGH! I won’t have you disrespecting my home and my authority anymore”!

    To this day, I’ve never discovered what I did that was so wrong. In the end I just left and went to a different (less crazy) church.

  14. my parents were “helpers” at Roloff Evangelistic enterprises in Texas. I went to their school, which had the helpers kids and all the “troubled” kids. We weren’t allowed to talk or even look at the “troubled” kids. I developed a teen crush on one of the troubled guys, and decided to sneak a love note to him. Needless to say, a HUGE breech of privacy happened after they discovered the note…they searched through my locker and purse, and backpack for all things considered evil because apprently, if you do one bad thing like…write a love note to a boy, then you MUST be hiding pot in your personal belongings! Oh, and I also got spanked by the principal who was later found out that he was molesting other children in the school…that was pretty disconcerting when i found that out! SOOOO disgusting.

      1. Roloff’s “Family Alter Program” still gets played on our local Fundy radio here every day at 8:00 am. I’ve listened to a couple, and found it distasteful and condescending.

        1. I’m sure it’s not, but that should be grounds for pulling their license to broadcast if you are going to broadcast obscenities like that.

        2. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, religious broadcasters generally get a pass on all the standards that other licensees have to follow.

        3. @BG Yeah, I’ve noticed. And yet there’s so many churches you can walk into today and still hear them crying the entire service in the pulpit about how put upon & beaten down the church is. Really any religious broadcasters are pretty much free to encourage any abuse they can dream up, and they almost always get away with it. Fundies/Christians stick out the most cause they/we are the most populous.

  15. Ugh…I could write forever about my college experiences. The best though had to be during my Sr year. After some preacher spoke forever about developing a “coalition of christian brothers” to help you get through life my friends and I decided to start the Coalition of Friends. We put all sorts of rules and laws down on paper (because you can’t do anything without rules and laws) and wrote a list of original members. Two days later after chapel we were told several students had to meet with the president (who was also the MOG) of the college. Guess which students had to be in the meeting….thats right…everyone listed on our paper. Unfortunately we left the paper on a lunch table and someone turned it in because they were “saddened in the spirit that every person on the college wasn’t on the list”

    So after college they line everyone one up outside of the pastor/president/MOG’s office except for me. I got a very special seat in the Dean of Academics office. One by one I watched my friends go in, get yelled at, and come out crying….well the girls cried. I was last to go in and was told I was the reason for rebellion in the school and I was causing division in the school by not including everyone. I was told that our rules made a mockery of rules (Because rule #10 was “There must be 10 rules)and other non-sense. The MOG also threw a Jars of Clay CD at me that I had given away two years before this event because I felt guilty for having it at the school. I have NO idea how he got his hands on it.

    The most interesting part of this whole story is that after all the yelling, crying, and accusations I never ended up with a punishment. They couldn’t prove anything they were accusing me. I mean really, you would think if I was the reason the school had such a bad spirit it wouldn’t be that hard to prove. BTW, the school closed two years after I graduated.

  16. I was fortunate…I never really got caught at school doing anything and I flatly refused to go to Fundy U, because I wouldn’t leave my then fiance, now husband, so despite my rampant rule breaking, I don’t have any cool stories. Sad.

    There was the time that I was called out at a fundy church where my then boyfriend( now husband) was attending for causing trouble…long long story…but the pastor told me that I had to come to a church meeting with the girl who accused me of causing trouble and her parents, but that I wasn’t allowed to bring mine. My mom said absolutely not to the pastor, told him that they were not going to gang up on me, then my boyfriend left and that was the end of it.

    1. You couldn’t bring your parents? Red flag! Red flag! Red flag! Good on your Mom for saying no to all that.

      1. Indeed! My mom, whose mouth and temper kept her from being a proper, submissive fundy woman, called the pastor directly and told him that I wouldn’t be attending.

      1. That’s exactly what my mom, my dad, my boyfriend, his mom and his grandparents said…

  17. ….one more

    I preached a Sunday Evening Service for my pastor while he was on vacation. That morning, I left church early to attend a Steelers playoff game. The MOG found out when he returned and invited me out for ice cream after the next Sunday Evening Service.

    He went on to berate me for “walking out on God’s man” during the morning service and ordered my to apologize to my friend’s parents as well as the entire church. Of course he took the liberty to tell me that I wouldn’t be qualified to preach again unless I attended BJU. Oh, and if I wanted to be a preacher, I need to give up “those Steelers”.

    Needless to say I was pissed. I left the church and revoked my membership. It ended up that he basically had the church pay for his doctorate and then bolt when it was done to teach at BJU. His name is Wade Kuhlewind. You can look him up on the faculty page.

    1. Thanks for putting his name there for all the world to see. I have no idea who he is but it’s about time people like that quit getting their behaviors covered over by enablers.

    2. Can I ask where that congregation is in the PGH area? I see churches around that I KNOW have to be fundy, but am always curious which ones are that ridiculous.

      1. Church of the Open Door in Connellsville, PA. Since the new pastor took over a year or so ago, it has relaxed the fundy in the church. Of course the same membership is still intact from 30+ years ago. If you mention a church in a 50 mile radius of Pittsburgh, I can tell you if they are fundy.

        1. The one in Cranberry that always has the sign “if you’re tired of being entertained come worship” or something to that effect makes me laugh. I don’t think I would laugh if I actually went there though. I don’t recall their name.

        2. “if you’re tired of being entertained come worship”

          And if this is a fundy church then worship = getting yelled at constantly for never ever measuring up to our holiest of holy standards.

        3. @Scorpio I’m 99% certain that’s exactly what they mean, and I will never be the one to verify it though.

  18. I accidentally left a flash drive with some Coldplay on it in a classroom at BJU. I was called in to answer for it the next day.

    Dorm Sup: why do you listen to Coldplay and rock music?
    Me: Because it’s beautiful and I like it.
    Dorm Sup: Ummmmmmmmmm it’s wrong. Here’s some demerits.

    😛

    1. I love your answer! They befuddled looks I would get with those kinds of answers were priceless!

      1. I specifically asked Mr. Dorm Sup if he’d ever listened to anything like what was on the flash drive. He got so uncomfortable! He just KNEW it was Satan-worshipping, demon spawn! No need to listen or have an open mind.

    2. Wait. Excuse my ignorance. You’re going to college, according to our laws of society you’re an adult, AND YOU CAN GET DEMERITS??

      Wow. Sorry I missed that. I would have had A BLAST. I — seriously — probably would have lasted about a week, max.

      Wow. Just … WOW.

      1. Welcome to BJU fundyland where the grad students-yes, 25-year-olds-have their rooms checked for cleanliness once a week. There’s no age limit on control, domination and power.

        1. Dorm checks at my fundy u were twice per week. The dorm “mom” would come through weekday mornings between 8 and 9.

          My last semester, my schedule ended up as such that I never had to make my bed. My classes started late 3 days a week, one of the other days she didn’t check, and she didn’t check on weekends.

          It drove her nuts, but I did not make my bed at all that semester. She would ask if I made my bed, and I would say “no but you didn’t check today”, or I would say “no, but you had already checked”. It bothered her so much that two weeks before the end of the semester she spoke to the dean of women, and came to me with the “deans authority” that if she checked and it wasn’t made, she would check every day till the end of the semester. All of this for my bed, and favored students who had been caught fooling around didn’t get punished. 🙄

        3. At my Fundy U we had room check daily (weekdays) and white glove once a month. I remember one white glove where I was deducted points for having dust on something on an upper shelf. I’m petite. This shelf was *obviously* too high for me to see, much less reach! She laughed as she marked off for the dust, commenting how she knew I was too short to reach it easily! 👿

          Confession: I *never* once did my laundry before white glove. White glove never coincided with my normal laundry cycle. Money was tight and I refused to do only half a load. So, every semester I reserved a drawer and a portion of my closet space just for my dirty laundry. I folded and hung everything neatly and got away with it. 😉

      2. Only place I ever got demerits (since I went to State U) was in ROTC boot camp.
        The mentality’s the same; basically, they want to work all the individuality out of a person. 💡

    3. HaHAHAHa – nice.

      my honest responses to authority always went over like a Led Zeppelin – They just can’t handle the truth, they really do want you to spoon feed them the crap that the “good” kids (who all ended up drunk and pregnant by the end) gave them.

  19. Most of my transgressions were music-related. My father, a pastor, railed at my brother and me when he found some music we bought for piano. He called it “pornography” – it was music by Bread and Chicago.

    My sisters and I were involved with a singing group. They (not me) were called before the group and taken to task because they had gone to a house that had also been visited by someone who might have smoked dope at one point. Guilt by very remote association. I left that church shortly thereafter.

    1. Chicago? Pornography?Um…what part of the “-graphy” does he not understand? 😕

      Awesome band by the way.

  20. I taught for a while at a fundie Christian school. My first year, I made the mistake of wearing a musical Santa Claus tie to work. The students saw it and said, “You’re in trouble. A teacher put Santa Claus on a bulletin board last year and they made her take it down.” The principal was actually a bit more gracious. I just took off the tie and went tieless for the rest of the day. It was a win/win of sorts…Of course, I didn’t teach nearly as well without a tie, but at least I wasn’t promoting Satan Claus.

    1. One of my fellow teachers at my IFB school got in trouble for wearing a tie. Not a Santa tie, just a regular tie. He wore it because he wanted to be a professional and he felt like it made him look a bit older. The principals thought it made it hard for the kids to relate to the teacher, so they made him go tie-less.

      1. I wish that would happen to me. I hate wearing ties, and the school that I am at still has us wear them on “chapel days.”

      2. At the local Fundie High, I nearly got in trouble for wearing a tie. We had to wear dress shoes, dress slacks, and a button-up dress shirt to school every day, but were not required wear ties. Occasionally, to break the monotony, I’d wear a tie to school. The guys who played sports were required to wear ties to school on game days. One day, I happened to wear a tie to school on a game day. I didn’t do it on purpose; I didn’t pay attention to the basketball schedule because I didn’t play, and had no interest in watching. This bothered one of the players—he thought I was trying to horn in on their glory. (Fat chance. The team sucked wind, even by fundie school standards.) He took it to a teacher, and demanded that she do something. She hesitated, and I pointed out that, while the rules required them to wear ties, they didn’t forbid me to wear one. Although she would have liked to do otherwise, she had to admit they didn’t. She wasn’t high enough on the food chain to make arbitrary rules on the spot.

        1. Is there ever a “she” who is high enough on the food chain to make arbitrary rules on the spot?

    2. Not a tie, but a suspender story.
      My 8yr loved his great-grandfather dearly. He got on ebay by himself one day and found a Van Heusen sports coat and suspenders- just like his grandpa’s, and I let him order it. At children’s church the teacher had him come up front, take off his coat and model his suspenders while the other kids laughed. He never wore that again. I felt so bad for him. I’m a bad mom- in all honesty I really should have seen that one coming.

      1. Is there some Fundy rule against suspenders, or was the teacher just an unabashed sadist?

        1. I’ve found they usually like suspenders, especially when paired with a big belt. 😉 Maybe he just felt the bus kids could use a good laugh that day.

      2. I had a suspender phase about that same age. Late 80’s. It would be kind of funny to wear some elastic suspenders now at my business-casual workplace.

  21. When I was a teacher at an IFB school, I caught several of my students copying each other’s homework for my class. I talked to them, and they admitted that they had copied. Cheating is against the rules, so I was supposed to give them a detention, send a note home to their parents, and give them a 50% on the assignment. I decided that was a bit harsh for this small assignment, so I sent a note home to their parents and told them I’d give them a 75% on the assignment once they turned in their own work.

    The principal got wind of this and called me into his office. He said I was defining cheating wrong – copying is not the same as cheating, apparently – and that I was “too harsh” on the students (who had admitted doing wrong). I was required to personally apologize to each student, remove the “cheating/copying” behavior notification from their school record, and change their grade on the assignment to 100%.

    The moral of the story for a student: if you cheat, you get better grades, even if you get caught.

    The moral of the story for the teacher: no one is on your side. Ever. And there’s no point in disciplining at all, even for admitted offenses.

    1. I thought I had nothing to add here but I had a student who CLEARLY had copied her paper OR had her father (a pastor [elsewhere];her mother taught at the school) write it . . . it was so obvious, there was no way this C/D sutdent had pulled out this well-argued and documented paper for her final project . . . but I was instructed to grade it as it was.

      I can’t believe you had to give them 100s without actually being allowed to grade it . . . ugh. I had no support, either.

  22. H.s. – Kicked out of High School for rolling my eyes at the principals wife…not kidding.

    Yelled at and almost expelled again for going to see “heaven can wait”. I can still remember the principal yelling “heaven CAN’T wait”.

    bojo – socialed for 2 weeks for holding hands on dating outing outside the allowed time to hold hands.

    75 demerits, campus-ed, social-ed, and moved to hall monitors room for listening to snake music.

    Put on “spiritual probation” and required to sit up front in chapel and meet regularly with dorm sup for not going to Sunday night church or participating in extension.

    socialed again for being in a “secluded” area of the campus with a female.

    If they only knew what they didn’t catch me doing.

    1. 😀 I’d imagine a challenge asking everyone “what did you get away with” wouldn’t be fit for family viewing. 😉

      1. Physical contact was absolutely forbidden except for on a dating outing for a limited amount of time (so embarrassing). Each society organization had one regular outing and one dating outing a year. So if you invited your boyfriend to yours and he invited you to his, you’d get two chances to hold hands during the year.

        2. I think I remember a friend who got caught holding hands with a girl on the bleachers during a game. Can’t remember what happened.

          I am pretty sure holding hands was ok while ice skating. And maybe if you were engaged. I wasn’t living on campus at Fundy U so I had my own rules for the most part – you know like from my real parents

        3. We also had a roller skating outing where we were allowed to hold hands, one time during my sophomore year. They also allowed us to sit together during the bus ride on the way home. In the dark! But no hand holding then, of course. That was the first time that I deliberately broke the PDA rule. My boyfriend was delighted.

    4. Spiritual Probation? Does that mean you could lose your salvation if you didn’t sit in the front row and meet with the dorm sup?

  23. ‘Scuse me, but not being a BJU alum I’m out of the loop: What do you mean by “socialed”?

    1. Outside of a classroom or dinning common setting you could have no interaction with the opposite sex.

    2. Socialed basically means nobody is allowed to talk to you because you are considered evil for the allotted time.

    3. You can’t see anyone that you’re currently dating, can’t go to the “social parlor”, or do any of the things defined as “dating” on BJU campus. I think you are also automatically “campused” which means you can’t leave the premises. Not sure on that one as I was a graduate assistant during my time there. If I don’t have this quite right, any other BJU alum is welcome to correct it.

      1. “campused” is a further level of punishment, laid down at 100 demerits. No leaving the campus except for church.

        1. WHAT??!! You mean to tell me adults acquiesce to this nonsense?? You folks are blowing my mind.

        2. See, “acquiescence” in the sense of “consent” assumes there was no psychological bullying or imbalance of power and that saying no was a legitimate option.

          Or were you referring to the adults who enforce the nonsense?

        3. @Don Adult doesn’t mean much in fundyland in college or elsewhere. You are expected to obey whatever the local rules for the congregation or college are, do it happily or you will be punished in some for or other. There are no adults capable of making their own decisions. Ever.

        4. Furthermore, at least at some Fundy Us, you do *not* know about the rules beforehand. My Fundy U did not publish their handbook on their website (I’m talking about the last decade here!), nor did they send it to prospective/accepted students. I never got my hands on a copy of the rules until freshman orientation. You really don’t know what you’re getting into. And once you’re there, they spiritually and psychologically intimidate you into following the rules (in floor meetings, chapel, class, etc.). Because apparently, going to see Toy Story is a sign of rebellion against God. Of course, what happens is that most people become very adept at getting away with things. Not that I would know anything about that. *cough hack cough* 😉

      2. There is “socialed”, when you are not allowed to date; “restricted” which means you can’t participate in sports or other extra-curricular activites; “campused” which means you are socialed, restricted, and you can’t leave campus to go to the mall or something like that. Campusing somebody is pretty bad. Being socialed can happen with or without accompanying demerits, depending on the exact offense. If you get 75 demerits you get automatically . . . . socialed? Restricted? I don’t recall exactly. But I do remember that 100 demerits gets you automatically campused.

        Personally, the only rule I ever broke was the no-physical-contact one, and I never got caught for it. One of my friends got turned in for “playing footsie” with her boyfriend during Vespers, and got socialed for a day. A day!!!! This friend happens to post here sometimes–identify yourself if you dare!

        1. Guilty as charged. AFAIC, BJU can take its freakouts over physical contact and everything else and shove them.

          But that’s not all. My then-bf and I got chewed out for sharing a shake, and our _hair_ touched. What can I say? It was the 80s, and we both had the hair to prove it.

          I also got in trouble for finishing up puberty later than other women, but that got posted over on the forum.

          The longer I’m away from BJU, the more convinced I am that too many people there have the most perverted minds ever.

      3. I unsocialed myself by going with my girlfriend over to Furman University where we walked around the lake in peace and calm. Great times.

    4. How does everyone know not to talk to you?
      Do you have to wear a big, red “S” on your chest?
      Do loudspeakers all over campus continually blare, “Attention! Nobody talk to Bill!?
      Is there a big billboard with the names of all the naughty sutdents and their punishments?

      2. at BJU there’s a bulletin board in the bottom of each dorm with a list of socialed and campused students. There’s probably some digital roll now, too.

        1. Ooooo … I’m a software developer and I create mobile apps. I sense an opportunity here!!! 😆

  24. I still consider it a point of pride that while trying to get all women completely banned from East Field @ PCC (guys only soccer field, tennis courts, basketball courts), by taking my shirt off everytime a visiting woman would come through to see the grounds, I accidentally got them to make a new rule that you may not take your shirt off on East Field anymore. That rule still exists 15 years later, and I still hear the few students I know there complain about it. It’s a ridiculous rule, and I take full credit for it.

    1. For the record I got in no trouble whatsoever for doing it. No demerits, no name taking, no meetings or lecture. The only way I knew they had even noticed was a hall meeting annoucement introducing the new rule that was met with much disdain by all the men.

        1. I feel bad students have to put up with the rule, but I still think it was worth the effort to try to get women banned. 🙂

      1. Kind of a young macho territorial thing.

        Plus had found a rule I could use & abuse so I was gonna do it till they did something about it.

        1. i’d hope you wouldn’t do that today. it’s not like the women there don’t have it hard enough! if pcc is anything like the bob, women already have more restrictions (on what to look like, where to go, and who to go with) than men do, and the equal rules get enforced more strongly on them than on men.

        2. I don’t think I would, but there is a side of me that when I find a ridiculous rule want to challenge it pretty strongly. I can’t say for sure I wouldn’t. And I still think if they feel like they need a “no women on east field rule” that they had and continue to have, that taking your shirt off should be fine, and if women visitors see you without a shirt in a men’s only area that’s kind of the hazard of going to see East Field, you know? Would be like women sports reporters complaining about locker rooms having athletes in states of undress.

        3. I understand the point that allowing only male reporters in the locker rooms disadvantages female reporters, but I’ve never understood why sports reporters should be allowed in team locker rooms at all. Why can’t they interview the athletes as they go in and come out, or anywhere other than the locker room?

        4. Yeah, any kind of reporters in the locker room are odd to me as well. But when/if you are going in as a reporter you kind of have to accept that you are in a locker room environment.

    3. Lets just say that there is a new section in the handbook regarding hazing at my Fundy U that came out the year after an event in my dorm that can only be described as legendary.

      The 4 words that will paint the picture for you.

      Nudity, Sprinting, Pizza Delivery Lady, Frontier Justice

      1. and to round it out, it was supposed to be skipping, but eventually ended up being sprinting

  25. I tried to link to the “Liberty Way” (handbook for student conduct at Liberty University) and I literally (best Rob Lowe impression) broke EVERY rule except abortion. If my dad only knew… 😈

  26. I don’t recall how much actual trouble I got in for it, but I had tons of fun with my parking spot. Would back into to really drive them up a wall. I know I got lectured for that several times.

    Also had some friends overturn the concrete bumper thing on the ground so it was impossible to park in my spot, and would park under the water tower that weren’t supposed to use since my spot was unusable. Got lectured for not reporting the parking problem.

  27. I remember being about 6 or 7 and getting really mad at one of my teachers. What it was, I have no idea now, but I’m sure it was terribly offensive to a little kid, LOL. Anyway, I was so upset that I took a tiny piece of paper, wrote every obscenity I had ever learned on it, and stuffed it behind the “wall” of my little desk/cubicle in school. We were an ACE school, so each kid had his/her own cube with dividers so that nobody could talk to or interact with each other. Kind of like horse stables for kids…

    Well, I thought I was clever hiding it. A teacher found it and boy did I get busted! I was spanked at home, and then made to write an apology letter to our pastor and hand it to him personally when he visited our house the next day. It was all pretty humiliating. Everyone asked me where I had learned such language, and I said “the neighbor kids”, which was true, they swore like sailors, and I kind of envied them and their freedom.

    1. I went to an ACE school for a few months in 4th grade. My mom took me out of it because she thought the education was sub-standard (it was too easy for me; I was always working in PACE booklets one to two (and in one case three) grade levels ahead of me).

      I also used to decorate my little cubby hole/desk with handmade decorations I’d make when I wasn’t doing school work. One time I made a little table, chairs, and whole mini living room set out of tape and notebook paper; I was quite proud of it. Of course, during recess, the teacher threw all of it away because it was supposedly “distracting to the learning environment”. She gave the same excuse when I’d make decorations for holidays and put them up in my little area. What a killjoy she was.

      1. That’s freaking awesome! I did some time at an ACE school, too, and I made a farm out of thick scrap paper – complete with house, barn & animals. It was awesome, and my mom actually still has it. 😀

        1. LOL, what is it about those cubicles? I did exactly the same stuff with paper that you guys did. I made little houses, trees, whatever I felt like. My teachers didn’t throw them out or destroy them, but they did discourage me because it took time away from my work. Please, the other kids were cheating off of the score-keys anyway, and I was also 2 to 3 grade levels ahead in my workbooks…I truly think it’s sub-standard education…

  28. I remember when I was about 15 or 16, I took a late Sunday afternoon nap and accidentally slept through the first half of the evening service. I kind of freaked out because I had never done something like that before. Fortunately, the church was in walking distance, went down, and explained to my step dad, who happened to be the pastor of church, and was spanked for it, the reason? Because if anyone found out, it may look like he was going soft on us kids and it might hurt his reputation in the community ❗ I think it was more of an ego thing than anything else.

  29. This is kind of silly…chickenpox made the rounds of 7th-8th grade and those who hadn’t had it before got it BAD. I had a disagreement with another JH girl and called her a “pockface.” My teacher overheard and told my mom (the K teacher), who asked me about it when I got home. I lied and said I didn’t do it, so I got spanked at home for lying, then she made my aunt (her sister), the principal, punish me at school the next day since the offense happened there. The punishment for name-calling at that time was spanking.

    Oddly enough, getting spanked helped me lose my goody-two-shoes-you-never-get-in-trouble-because-your-family-runs-the-place reputation. 😆

    And I have to add that I am super-proud of my aunt (and my church for hiring her): for years (1979-1986) she was the only female administrator in the Christian school association in our part of the state of NY.

  31. When I was 6, I attempted to draw a map of the United States on the classroom wall of my IFBx school. When the teacher called me out on it, I tried to sweet talk my way out of punishment by claiming that it was “educational”. So, needless to say, I was packed off to the principal’s office, who also happened to be my pastor. After spending half and hour informing him that it would be useless to spank me, he was laughing so hard, he had to exuse himself to go call my dad so he could leave work and come spank me. Which he did.

    It was WAY worse.

  32. Adult doesn’t mean much in fundyland in college or elsewhere. You are expected to obey whatever the local rules for the congregation or college are, do it happily or you will be punished in some for or other. There are no adults capable of making their own decisions. Ever.

  33. Ah, memories.
    I only got spanked once at my school, and that was a LONG time ago, so I don’t remember much about that.
    I remember my father getting called out by name during a sermon for bringing sin in the camp, when, as a deacon, he had the nerve to (correctly) accuse the pastor of STEALING money from the church.
    I was always trying to be the model student as a kid, so I lived a nerdy boring (and trouble-free) childhood. There were a couple of moments, though.
    We all hid from our substitute math teacher before the start of class. The principal wasn’t amused, and threatened to give us all 25 demerits. He only gave demerits to the two ringleaders, though. We also would be the only class to refuse to go to Washington, DC for our senior trip. We wanted to go to Disneyworld. You can imagine how that went over (although we did go to Disney in the end).

  35. When I was 12 years of age, my friends and I made fun of our s.s. teacher who had a speech impediment. He couldn’t say his “R’s” So we would ask questions in class that would make him use words with “R’s” in them because he sounded like Elmer Fudd. Us: “Mr._______, can you tell us what happened on Easter again?” Mr. ___________: “Jesus died on the cwoss and aftew thwee days, He wose again.” Eventually he caught on and because I was the music pastor’s kid, he let my father know, and it was the last spanking I received. I know it was wrong, mean, and cruel, but after all this confession 😛

    Also it gave me a unique perspective when I watched “the life of Brian” for the first time while in college (Think of the scene of Brian before Pilot 😆

  36. In order to maintain power and complete control, they need to deny you the normal emotions of pain. Children find it confusing that someone they love and expect to take care of them is deliberately causing them physical pain and humiliation (I know we’ve all heard the rationalizations and probably all accepted them eventually – doesn’t make them true). You’re not allowed to have anger or express hurt to the parent because you have no power (doing so would require them to listen and empathize which means giving up control) and your feelings don’t matter. It’s abusive and setting them up for all kinds of future issues to tell children you hurt them (capriciously, inexplicably) because you love them.

  37. On a more serious note, let me share about my wife when she was a counselor at a camp that used to be fundamentalist, Camp Mel-Tro-Mi (connected to the Mel Trotter Mission in Grand Rapids) back in the early 1990’s This happened 2 years before we were married. As a counselor of inner-city kids, my wife and her co-counselor were lied about from a deceitful child that was mad at my wife. The child accused my wife and the co-counselor of having a homosexual relationship and the camp director and his wife believed the 5th grade kid over my wife and the co-counselor.

    The director’s wife tried to get my wife to confess by sharing that how she had homosexual feelings towards other women (which my wife found quite strange that she was sharing this with her) as well as other manipulative devices. Because my wife and the co-counselor didn’t confess, they were promptly fired. Later that summer, the girl came back for a second week and confessed that she had lied about my wife and the co-counselor…..The camp asked her to come back and counsel, but the damage was already done……. The following year, both the director and his wife were fired from the mission and the camp because their fundy tactics were destroying the mission and the camp…..

    1. Wow, that’s sick. My sympathies to your wife and the other lady.

      My personal suspicion is that someone higher up had it in for your wife and/or the co-counselor in the first place, and the kid was just a convenient excuse. Of course, I’m also wondering if this child herself had been abused for her to know about certain things. Unfortunately, the kid would be believed if what she says slanders another and could therefore be useful, but she wouldn’t be believed if something bad had truly happened to her and she really needed help.

      Typical Fundyism. Children as tools, slander as control. Disgusting.

      1. Most fifth-grade kids know about homosexuality these days. They may not be clear on the details, but they’ve heard of it, and they call each other “gay,” and worse, as a childish insult.

        Unfortunately, in the attempt to combat sexual abuse, some people have been taught that children never lie about sexual abuse, and that young children don’t even know anything about sex unless they’ve been abused. These claims are untrue, especially if some adult (well-meaning or not) is asking the child a lot of leading questions, even to the point of describing something and pressuring the child to affirm that it happened. That means a lot of innocent adults have been ruined, along with the guilty ones.

    2. Wow. I’m glad to hear the Director got fired. How he was allowed to do as much damage as he did before he got fired is ridiculous.

  38. Went to public school. Am I ever glad. As for punishment, my mom and my grandma could do a subtle shift of their eyes that just sent shivers down my spine. Also after being told so often to “relax and just be yourself”, I would be myself and then get a very frosty “We’re not that kind of people”. 👿

  39. At my fundy u, we always had spirit week, and at least one day everyone would color their hair with those spray on hair dyes. It wasn’t against the rules, it was just understood that you only did it during spirit week.

    Well, I decided that dying my hair green for St. Patrick’s Day would be awesome.

    I waited till after classes, right before chapel. I sprayed 3 green stripes in my hair, and went to chapel. The best part?……………..WE HAD A GUEST SPEAKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😎 I didn’t know there would be a guest, the vice president came up to lead songs, and looked super pissed, and made fun of me after the song for celebrating a “catholic” holiday. I tried to say that St. Patrick was a baptist bwahahaha!

    Afterward I was “talked to”. I had to wash it out before leaving for work, and I was told that I embarrassed the vice poo-bah. Well, that was the best thing they could have told me. Vice presbo loves to have a good laugh at student’s expense, so I was pretty happy to embarrass him on behalf of the student body. 😆

  40. Here is my story: I attended an IFB ACE school when I was in 1,2 and 5th grades. When I was about 6, in first grade, our teacher was asking us about the Easter Story. My mom had just read the story to me a few days before, and I happily answered that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on an ass and had palm fronds placed in front of him. ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE! I was called into the principal’s office (this guy was an arch-MOG whose why and he never had kids, but had mucho spiritual points for being missionaries to brown people)
    He asked me what I had said: I innocently stated that Jesus had rode an ass into Jerusalem. I had NO idea it was a dirty word! Growing up in Fundyland I never heard any adult cuss till I was almost out of HS! Anywyas, he never explained that saying “ass” was bad…he just told me that he would drive the Devil out of me. There was a ping-pong table adjacent to the kitchen (this was all in the church’s dungeon) and I was told to grab the table and bend over. He proceeded to wear my “ass” out with a ping-pong paddle. And then he gave me a hug. So weird looking back on it. Other favorite fundy punishments included copying Psalms and Proverbs. Bible = something to abuse people with, one way or the other…

    1. I hate that they shelter kids completely and then get mad at the kids when they display their innocence by saying something they “shouldn’t.” I remember my mom being angry at me for saying, “Everything got really screwed up today.” I had NO IDEA why I shouldn’t say it, especially since my dad said it often. At least I didn’t get hit with a pin-pong paddle over it.

    2. Wow, Fundies beating your for quoting (correctly) from the King James Version Bible!

      Then it takes the cake that they also make you copy from that same Bible as punishment. What have they got against the Bible, anyway?

      Did that end up making you hate the Bible, or just the fools who ran the school?

        1. or whore, damn, bastard, frankly one of the reasons I prefer newer versions is to avoid these words, I seriously don’t like them.

      2. Obviously, Paul was right and the ignorant teacher and principal were wrong: “Ass” is not a dirty word at all when you use it to identify a species of bovine animal.

        Stuff Fundies Like: Being so uptight that they can’t stand for anyone to use accurate, polite words that name donkeys, female dogs, male chickens, or adult male horses and cattle.

        1. Darn, I thought I wrote “equine” animal, not
          “bovine” animal.
          I feel like such an ass now. 😳

      3. It has been a long journey away from it. I haven’t been to church in 3 years….my final attempt to keep my spiritual life alive was spent at L’Abri….

  41. I attended a public school and didn’t go to a fundy church (as defined here). So my example is fairly mild, and yet so irritating. My mother-in-law said, to my children, with my husband present (but not me) “Your mother’s a godly woman, but she has a tattoo.” My hubby wants me to get some more now 😈

    1. I think you should get one of those hearts, with your mother-in-law’s name written across it. Show it to the kids and say, “I got this because I love your grandmother so much.”

      1. Oh, NEVERMIND!!! It’s meant to go up under GuiltRidden’s comment about the church members being called “loyal”.

        1. LOL! Someone should create a facebook group of ex fundies in favor of an improved reply button/function on SFL! 🙂

  44. When I was around eleven years old, my friend and I decided to sit in a pew where these two elderly women always sat. They were miffed, and I was scolded.

    When I taught fourth grade in an IFB church, I was reading The Chronicles of Narnia. John Todd http://www.myspace.com/markdice/blog/528834716 visited the church, and freaked everyone out about the occult including telling them that C.S. Lewis was a witch/warlock. I was forbidden to finish reading the Chronicles, though my students nearly all had their own copy by the end of school. Todd was later discovered to be a fake. He wrote tracts for Jack Chick http://www.monsterwax.com/todd.html .

    The latest was the worst, though. We joined a church that did not look in the least like a Baptist, or Fundamentalist church, but it was. We wrote a letter to the pastor that we were leaving, and why, naming some of the things that he was teaching that we were no sure were biblical. Long story short, he shamed us by putting a letter of rebuttal out where anyone who wanted to read it could. That was in 2002, and I’m still hurting from that episode.

    1. 😯 This guy! I was an impressionable fundy teen. I had forgotten his name. Wow, these are some uncomfortable memories.

      I hope he rots in hell.

      Thanks for the links.

  45. I was never a rule breaker. I was a foster child that had the “privilege” to go to a fundy school. Despite being bullied by both students and faculty, a few memorable punishments stick out in my mind.

    In third grade, I sat nest to the principals daughter. This little princess could do nothing wrong. One day she lost her little pink eraser. http://carlasue3001.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/pink-eraser-small.jpg

    Of course, rather than admit she lost her eraser, she blamed it on the class scapegoat. “She stole my eraser.” (Please remember, a class full of 32 third graders who ALL had the same eraser.) Next thing I know, Mr. H is dragging me down the hallway to his office where he beat me with a old wooden chair-leg (Mr. H called it, “The rod.”) I never stole this eraser.

    Another memorable punishment occurred when I was in 6th grade. Mrs. H (yes the principals wife) decided that the best way to punish me for talking to my friend in class was to tape my mouth with Duct tape. She left it on most of the day. When it was time to get on the bus to go home, Mrs. H. ripped off the Duct tape along with skin. My friend didn’t get any tape, just me.

    It was known both to the kids and to the staff that I had no parents who would take up for me. No one would be calling the office to complain. It was open season. (This was back in the 1970’s)

    2. The principal hit third-graders with a CHAIR LEG?!?
      I hope that vicious Son-of-a-Baptist is in jail now.

    4. That’s so horrible. God’s Word is clear about providing justice for the fatherless and defenseless. I think we’re talking millstones for some folks there.

  46. The one in Cranberry that always has the sign “if you’re tired of being entertained come worship” or something to that effect makes me laugh. I don’t think I would laugh if I actually went there though. I don’t recall their name.

  47. Me and my friend Dan Olsen were the choristers for a collegian at PCC. At one meeting, we started playing a popular praise song we had just passed through music check. We were interrupted by our chaperone, (the assistant Dean of Men at the time), who promptly un-passed the song in the middle of our worship. Talk about grieving the spirit. Thankfully, Dan Olsen was a mature older student who humbly apologized and preached a mini-sermon about submitting to authority, and probably kept a riot from breaking out among the ABD Panthers that day.

    Other than that, the only time I was openly rebuked is when I chose to hang a clay cross on a rope from my bulletin board. I was told to take it down because it looked Catholic.

    1. I was Omega Kappa chorister for 3 sememsters. It was terrible. We sang the OKD fight song every collegian meeting though.

      My qualifications where: preferred to be doing homework instead of involved, and was a computer science major with a tin ear.

      Jerks kept nominating & voting for me.

  48. #1: When I was in 8th grade, we took quite a few kids home from school every day in our giant station wagon (think 1980s). I was in the back with a bunch of other kids and one of the small boys said the word, “penis” and all of us who were back there laughed. Of course this had to happen on the day my Dad was driving us home instead of my Mom.

    Hoo-boy! By his reaction, you’d think I was a terrorist or something. I got the WORST. SPANKING. OF. MY. LIFE. EVAH. And the worst yelling at too. And then he went and told the preacher who lectured all of us in his office and made it a point to single me out. He said, “I KNOW what happened to you!”.

    Fast-forward 4 years and suddenly it was ok for my dad and his friend to make Dolly Parton jokes for an hour while driving through TN/NC. 🙄

    #2: This happened to my sister, not me. When she was in 11th grade, she and her boyfriend kissed and got caught. They had to spend weeks doing their classwork in their desks that had been set out in the hallways where everyone could see them. They also got tons of demerits, yelled at, screamed at, WORST. SPANKING. EVAH. for my sister and she was 17 years old. I wanted to hide when she got that spanking; it seemed to go on forever.

    Anyhoo, fast forward a few months and the same preacher who punished them publicly started boinking one of the teen girls in our church, and a deacon’s wife, and… we don’t know how many more. 👿

    1. Your sister got spanked at 17?!?!?

      To me, that’s highly inappropriate and borderline sexual assault.

      1. I think “borderline” is being generous. Another example of fundies hiding behind their religious protection & “getting away with murder”, all the while complaining they are being persecuted & having their rights denied.

      2. In my dad’s case, spanking my sister at 17 had to do with being “old-school”. My dad’s generation still got spanked even as teenagers. My mom got her last spanking at 19 years old! 😆

        1. Right, your parents might not have known there was anything sexual about it, but just because people have been doing it for a long time doesn’t mean there’s not. I think the modern spanking ritual I’m guessing most of our parents used started in Victorian times, and just happens to look really similar to BDSM rituals (which are also about control, in an explicitly sexualized sense). It’s not right to hit someone in an erogenous zone, especially after puberty. Especially not if you make them undress.

        2. BDSM and “flagellation” themed erotica ALSO started in Victorian times.
          Coincidence?

    2. Yeah being spanked at 17 would have been essentially the same as being fondled sexually for me. I wasn’t spanked after like, age 12 I think (still way too old IMO, but whatever) but I was frequently threatened with it up until probably college age. The thought of such a thing always made me feel horribly dirty and really uncomfortable/scared.

  49. My older sister, who was in her late teens/early 20s at the time, almost married into the “professing people,” a group that refused to put capital letters in the name of their sect. They had church in people’s living rooms. One day she came home red-faced and angry because after dress-checking herself in the mirror–baggy turtleneck, long dark skirt, flat-heeled boots, hair up, no makeup, blah blah blah–she was scolded for dressing immodestly because her trouser skirt had a walking slit in the back that went above her ankles.

    The boy she almost married had a 10:30 curfew. I asked why he was getting married to somebody who had already graduated from high school. The “boy” was 23 YEARS OLD.

    1. I forgot the worst part. I was in my early teens. My sister took me along–I think I was partly curious and also I had been invited–? Maybe the group was scouting out my family to see if we were easily browbeaten, I mean, suitable fellow worshipers? Anyway, I put on the most conservative things I had, a long tan skirt and a button-down shirt buttoned all the way to the top. (I hated turtlenecks–they always made me feel like I was about to choke.) And every time I looked up from my lap, SOME GUY IN THE ROOM WAS GLARING AT MY CHEST. And when it wasn’t the guys THE WOMEN WERE DOING IT. I had dared to transgress against the holy commandment Thou Shalt Not Need a Grown Woman’s Bra at an Early Age and If Thou Dost, Thou Shalt Wear a Gunnysack, and If Thou Dost Not, Thou Art a Convenient Target, Thou Slutty Slut-Slut. I never EVER went back.

      2. So, I take it all their women had huge bedspreads over their heads all the time?

        I can’t help wondering what made your poor sister think it might be OK to live in that kind of environment?
        And when you “asked why he was getting married to somebody who had already graduated from high school,” you were kidding, I hope? Surely most people in your circle didn’t marry while still in high school?

  50. I am so thankful I never went to a fundy school of any kind. I got in enough trouble at the Catholic school I went to.

    What is really disturbing to me are the stories of girls who were 15-17 years of age getting spanked. Is it me or is that borderline sexual in nature? Sexual for the spanker, not the spankee. Very creepy.

    2. YES. Especially after puberty (but also before), spanking can get linked to sexual pleasure because the area is an erogenous zone. So, it can end up being sexual for the girl being spanked. (Or boy, but I’m guessing that parents would have to feel very sure their boys were submissive enough to be spanked at that age.) And yes, it probably is some weird control/power thing for the person spanking to get off on. I can’t imagine any reason to use physical pain at an age where children have pretty much developed adult reasoning.

    3. I put an end to my being spanked somewhere around 12, I decided I’d had enough, and when the next one came I just controlled myself & made sure to smile afterwards, with no hint of tears even though it hurt. Best acting job of my life, but it worked. IDK if they were starting to think about ending it or not, but I knew I was not going to be tolerating that any longer.

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