Standards

One-Upping Your Standards

179 Comments

You read Christian fiction? Well, I only read missionary biographies since whatever isn’t true is bound to be a lie. And you know where liars go.

You don’t believe in kissing before you’re married? Well I don’t believe that married people should be intimate on their wedding night either. That time should be spent in prayers for their marriage and asking to be blessed with children as quickly as possible.

You don’t shop at stores that sell alcohol? I don’t shop at stores where any of the employees even drink alcohol. And I know because I ask each of them personally.

You only read the KJV? I only read Parris’s 1760 revision, second printing with the wood engravings of Adam and Eve au natural. Don’t be fooled by one of Satan’s counterfeits.

You only let your children court instead of date? Well I never let my son court a girl unless I’ve been taking her out myself for at least a year to make sure she’s a good and godly girl. And so far they’ve all been trollops.

You only listen to hymns? I only listen to a capella hymns performed by
people with whom I am in complete doctrinal agreement. Most of my cassette tapes are of Mama.

You go to church three times a week? Sometimes I go to church during the middle of a week day, stick a mirror on the front pew and preach to myself for an hour. It’s always good stuff too.

You tithe? Every week I stick my entire paycheck into the offering plate and then pray for the Lord to give back to me whatever I actually need. Thankfully, I’m the pastor so it always all comes back with interest added.

179 thoughts on “One-Upping Your Standards”

    1. I deferred. My girlfriend deferred the deferral. I couldn’t argue with her logic. Now, I’m anti-deferral.

    2. Hey – if you want to look like a complete idiot “kissing the bride”, that’s your call. I’ve never seen biblical support for deferring kissing for the wedding.

      That said, I hope you’re being sarcastic.

      1. I don’t understand why it should be deferred. It seems like you then have put it on the same level as sex…..

        1. Because if:

          Sex = Intercourse

          Then it stands to reason that:

          Kissing = Upper Oral Intercourse

          Because then we can say:

          Prolonged Eye Contact = Ocular Intercourse

          And don’t even get me started on Auditory and Olfactory Intercourse.

          (In case you wondered how the PCC rulebook came into being.)

        2. Also, “Olfactory Intercourse” would be a great name for an indie band.

          (Cold medicine makes me talkative. Who knew?)

        3. And the amount of illegitimate children from ocular and olfactory intercourse is just flat out innumerable. It’s a real epidemic.

        4. Arch Radish, you just took me back to my days in a Methodist youth group. Our youth minister asked us to suggest program ideas, and I said it would be fun to have “an orgy of olfactory satiation.” (Yeah, I was a dorky kid.) The youth minister got furious, because he thought that sounded dirty.

          (That minister is now a bishop, by the way.)

          I don’t even remember what I was thinking of at the time, but it wasn’t sex. Probably, I just liked the sound of those words.

      1. I once believed along those same lines. I also got a girlfriend and went from never having kissed to just shy of 2nd base in about a 12 hr period. 😀

  3. That hedge around the Torah keeps getting wider and wider! I’m thankful that I haven’t seen a standards pissing contest for several years. It’s so pharisaical and completely misses the point.

  6. Fifth? Well this is the best I’ve done so far.

    When I meet this kind of sanctimonious prig I run for the hills! They’re always a better Christian than you are at least in their own eyes. 🙄

  10. You are skirts/dresses only? Well, I wear one to the floor with a train so that anyone who hasn’t noticed how modest I am, will hopefully trip on the train, land on their face, and notice then.

    1. Say, I don’t post boften but I have been missing your post on here. I was worried that you quit or someything !!! 😛

      1. Thanks, Dave. 😉

        I’ve been working a ton (we had some people leave at work) and just haven’t been on the computer much due to internet issues.

        I’ll try not to be a stranger too much. 😉

        2. Get one Wahl clipper. Attach #4 guard. Buzz all off… The hair on your head, I mean, not anywhere else, although if you do that’s your business and please don’t tell me about it.

          😉

  12. This is hilarious yet disturbing. The Bible doesn’t say be ye separate from your brain yet that’s what has to happen for someone to reconcile this kind of BS to what the Word actually says. Talk about one-upping, I went to church with a man who spent 3 years fighting the government for the right to have a driver’s license without a photo on it. He had purged his house of all photographs, no TV, no magazines, etc.. and if he bought a book that had pictures, he ripped them out or blacked them out. Because, you know, if you have your picture on your driver’s license, you’ve made a graven image to worship. The bastard wore blue jeans though, so I know he’s not saved.

      1. The same old man also hated Max Factor. He said that Max Factor basically created prostitution in the US by peddling his whore paint. He eventually quit coming to our church because the pastor didn’t preach against makeup harshly enough. Whores, I tell ya.

      2. Yes, Beloved, I believe you have heard a lot of crazy things.
        In fact, I would be so bold as to call you one of the world’s leading experts on having heard crazy things. 🙂

    2. When my late wife was attending a “Christian” School, the principal at the time would take a knife and cut out any pictures that were in the student’s Bibles – (“graven image” don’t you see…). Needless to say, a lot of parents were “Not Amused” in the least…

    3. This fella reminds me of this story, about a man who fought a three-year battle for the right to have a spaghetti strainer on his head in his driver’s license photo:
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523

      I used to take passport and immigration-document photos (I was a paralegal in immigration law). There are a lot of arbitrary rules about what can be in the photo, what size it must be, what the pose has to be (you aren’t supposed to smile, for example), and so on. You can’t have a hat or head covering, unless it’s for religious reasons (that’s why Mr. Alm was allowed his sieve in Austria). But a veil over your face is not allowed, even if your religion requires it (which makes sense, if you think about it).

      1. @Big Gary….That’s one of those PASTAFARI dudes. ❗ He was banned in the forums. You could have verbally sparred with the likes of him over in the Forums!!

        He was something….

    4. fifth, you made the Two Big Mistakes.
      1)Assuming fundies are rational
      2)Trying to be biblical.

      It’s a religion, the Word is NOT their final authority!

  13. You have a six-inch rule for boys and girls? We have them in separate classes for Sunday School. And in church, men are required to sit on one site and women on the other, just like the ancient Jews. Even our married couples don’t sit together, for verily, that is a distraction to the message!

    1. You separate married couples to different sides of the room for church services? Ha, we won’t even allow married people to ride together on an elevator . . . oh, wait. That’s not funny.:shock:

  14. My hubby decided he would one up the standards using me as his muse. First I wore skirts past the knees and he decided that my skirts should be past mid calf. Then he decided that my skirts should be past mid calf AND full not straight. Then he decided slits should be not 4 inches long but 2. I obliged for about two years and looked like a freak- then one day I lost it. Today Hubby and I “have come a long way baby” Its good to be free from religious man made craziness.

      1. I’m not a country music fan, but I can totally undestand a “goodbye Earl” situation! 🙂

    2. Most husbands want their wives to wear less clothes, so they can get to the goodies faster.

  15. “You only listen to hymns? I only listen to a capella hymns performed by
    people with whom I am in complete doctrinal agreement. Most of my cassette tapes are of Mama.”

    Well, we know Jack Schaap couldn’t have said that because he doesn’t get any theology from women. Praise God he’s a man!

    1. But Jack Hyles nearly worshipped HIS saintly momma. He regularly would point out something brilliant she had taught him, etc. I guess Jackie Boy Junior wasn’t paying attention at THAT point of each sermon.

      1. Sims, are you serious? NO WAY could Jack Two’s mommy ever even hold a candle to Big Jack’s mommy, so why even try, is what Little Jack figures. Little Jack gets his inspiration from… the voices in his head?

    2. No, Jack Schaap is not a “man.” He is male. A man doesn’t demean and berate women to make himself feel better about himself. If he had his way, God would have taken the woman from the sole of the male’s foot so he could have excuse to walk all over her.

  16. You had your devotions today? Well the Lord woke me up at 4:15 and I prayed for the next hour and a half till about 6AM, when I made breakfast for my family. Then I had my regular devotions in which I write out a 3 point summary of when the Lord revealed to me. Then in the evening, “when the dew is fresh on the hillside” I lift up all 53 congregants of our church and their extended family in prayer for another hour – after leading my family in family devotions and family prayer.

      3. 545 to 600 is my SFL time! It’s when I’m ready to leave for work, but don’t yet need to run out the door.

  17. *You have Devotions? Well we use Call to Glory!

    *You have visitation? Well we go Soul Winning with The Witness Stick ®.

    *You throw sticks into the fire? We throw Bible Perversions in the fire!

        2. You throw perverts into leadership? Well, we.. we… we… ummmm Dang you got me on that one. We’ll go get our own perverts, so there!

    3. Don, in case you didn’t know, your Sword Conference comments were repeated on Unreasonablefaith.com.

      1. If I had know someone was going to take them elsewhere I would have done a better job of spelling and proof reading… they may not be aquainted with goerge over there and appreciate his handiwork. 🙄

  19. Sometimes they aren’t so obvious about it. Sometimes you might explain the way you do things only to get the ‘smile’ and the slight sigh and a tiny eye roll which sends the message ‘We are more spiritual than you and WE do it this way which is of course, the proper way’. Then the ‘smile’ again. 🙄

    2. @Elfdream. You are so right. I was “smiled at” many times. Those fake smiles hurt more than anything.

    3. Oooooh, my fundy former MIL was the MASTER of that smile! I received it many times, and unfortunately it took me a while to figure out what it really meant. I chalk that up to my previous lack of exposure to fundies. (How I miss those good ole’ days, when I had never met one before!)

  20. *You only use a piano to provide music for your hymn singing? W-e-l-l-l, we only use a White Piano for our sancitified musical accompaniment!

    1. You use a piano for worship? We only use our God-given voices to sing Psalms. Heaven forbid we ever get too emotionally involved to what we are singing!

  21. This is all so good. But I have to address Don (I will address him as Mr.) The witness stick is funnnny. But the throwing the Bible into the fire is sadly so true. While looking for another church, heard the MOG shouting put your NIV’s in the trash! Former MOG called me a heretic. I told him to dig the pit and tie me up and light the fire!

      3. Wow, they don’t like anybody very much, do they? They seem to be of the “Burn ’em all and let God sort ’em out.” philosophy.

    1. yeah, that one was good too 🙂 my “momma” made her own cassette and circulated it around church, gag and twitch! 😯

  23. *Your pastor went to Seminary? W-e-l-l-l, our pastor only finished 8th grade, then he was saved at a tent meeting and was called™ to preach that same week! He lets the Spirit fill him each week in order to preach!

  24. You don’t go to the movie theater?
    Well, we only watch movies on VCR IF they’ve first had all unholy scenes expurgated by the free-lance Christian ministry in our church that makes “family-friendly” remixes.

    You don’t have cable? We don’t have TV.

    1. OBVIOUSLY, my dear “weak vessel”, you’re not “redeeming the time” as we are! We not only don’t watch movies from Hellywood, we can’t even SPELL “TV”.

        1. Ah beth, you must be from around the BJU area. Miracle Hill Thrift Store. I know that store. Oh, the memories….

    3. We only watch St. John in Exile, select dramas of the Gospels (only ones that quote the KJV verbatim – NEVER the Jesus film) and our pastor’s sermons.

  26. Sadly really.
    I know there was SOME tongue-in-cheek with this post, but the overall theme is far too accurate.
    At what point do people step back and wonder, “For a Savior who says, ‘Cast your burden on me and take my yoke because it’s easy/light,’ why am I so exhausted?”
    It breaks my heart because many aren’t there yet, and some may never get there.
    Jesus Christ is Freedom, and that, my friends, is one of the most refreshing truths.

  27. Yeah, well WE don’t wear wire-rim glasses!

    Oh … wait … Don Green actually DID preach against wire-rim glasses. Oops. 😈

    1. Yeah, I heard Don Green say many times that God Called™ him to be the John the Baptist to the Hippies whatever that meant and that it was hard because he HATED hippies so much. He had a fat head too.

        2. @Beth D I am almost sick after watching that. 👿 👿 We can only hope that the only people there were his immediate family.

          Ugh. I feel like my mind has to take a shower just after listening to that crap. . .

  28. I get so incredibly irritated at this because we, as the church in the age of grace, have no need for the law (which they will give lip service to occasionally.) I feel as though they feel since we have no “law” they have to make their own… oh wait… isn’t that legalism?

  29. This post makes me so happy 😆 My mother’s dress code always fluctuated according to the camps we were around, but our “standards” always had to be one level up from everyone. Hanging around pagans? Tight culottes were allowed “so they won’t think we look like weirdos, because Christians can be fashionable and Godly too!” (We never pulled that one off) If we were hanging around super-crazy IFB people, we had to have the loosest-fitting and longest clothing out of everyone! My parents had to make sure they were more “godly” than anyone and they got a lot of respect in their circles by always being the most radical about everything…makes for a fantastic childhood!!! 😕

      1. No 🙂 Our “tight” culottes were the culottes that didn’t look like skirts at first glance. They were still ridiculous and could never be called shorts…that would have been too normal. 🙂

  30. “That time should be spent in prayers for their marriage and asking to be blessed with children as quickly as possible.”

    So . . . they’re praying for children as quickly as possible, while simultaneously delaying the potential conception of said children for at least a full day?

    Man. Talk about running ahead of the Lord . . .

  31. Yay, my idea!

    When I kissed dating good bye hit my college campus, people started ‘courting’ and there was a lot of talk about not kissing till the wedding. I had fun with people.

    I told people that *I* was not even going to have sex till 6 months AFTER I got maried so my husband and I could spend that time dedicating our mariage to the Lord.

    I had people believing it. 😈

      1. I was just yanking people’s chain….of course I didn’t actually believe that.

        I was trying to show people how crazy they were being.

    2. it’s not really a marriage in God’s eyes if it hasn’t been consummated! Remember, in the olden days they used to put the couple in a room after the wedding and everyone stand outside waiting to make sure they consummated their union so it was official.

  32. “And so far they’ve all been trollops.”

    Sprayed coffee on my Macbook. You owe me, Durl!

  34. You go to church every Sunday? Well I park my car in the driveway on Saturday night and we walk out the front door of our house with our Bibles in hand to get in the car on Sunday morning so that our neighbors can see what a good testimony we are.

    1. When in reality, most people are still sleeping when fundies are leaving for all their church activities at 8:30 on a Sunday morning. At least… I usually am now 😎

    2. This is too true! And if one of us stayed home because we were sick (this happened next to never, of course) or because an evening service was cancelled, we were not allowed outside of the house. My mom was afraid a neighbor might see us and realize we weren’t in church and we would ruin our testimony!

      1. and of course this works off the fundy assumption that anyone who might see you knows your religious affiliation and church schedule

        1. Well, if you dress like a fundy in public at all, they’ll probably remember that for a long time. So there might be some truth to the remembering your affiliation bit.

      2. And definitely don’t wear casual clothes. If you’re not in your Sunday best, how will people know you are going to church and not the mall.

    3. Despite the neighborhood we lived in, we always turned out all the lights in the house when we were at Sunday night service and Wednesday prayer meeting so the neighbors would know we were at church.

      True story.

  36. You thought the 20/20 war against fundamentalism was horrible? Well, I didn’t even watch it! Wouldn’t want the devil putting ideas into the youngin’s heads!

  37. You have you women dress modestly? We have our women bind their breasts and wear so many layers you can’t even tell they HAVE curves! They just look like beach balls with arms, hands and heads rolling into church!

    1. That reminds me of an old classmate of mine who at one point studied to be a “Breathairian.” He explained how, once he had finished the transitional stage, he would eat nothing at all. He would live on the nutrients in the pure air he inhaled.
      Nothing that casts a shadow, indeed.

      I’ve known some interesting characters …

        1. Breathairianism actually taught that food and drinks (except pure water) are poison, and that people are meant to live on air, and if you stopped polluting yourself with food you’d never die.

          How about that?

        2. The transitional stage involved eating only one or two small meals a day, and eating foods that grew as high as possible in the air, rather than on or in the ground. So apple or nuts were better than carrots or potatoes, and meat from birds was better than beef, pork, or fish (because birds can fly).
          This diet would help prepare you to eventually stop eating altogether.

  40. I think this is my favorite post this year. This was so true in some of the circles I was in. The one-upsmanship and self-made spirituality was funny at some points and frustrating at others.

  41. X-Games for Fundies. I grew up in a fundy church that vehemently preached against extreme sports because it was gratifying to the flesh. This type of pharisaical behavior (I’m a better Christian than you because _______ ) is just another version of extremism.

  42. You leave a tract whenever you eat out at a restaurant (now limited to select Denny’s and Ram’s Horn restaurants because they are the only places that don’t serve alcohol), well, I leave a tract and a 30% tip to ensure that they read it and that Christians don’t get a reputation for being cheap.

    Yeah, you know I’m kidding. I wrap it in one of those ones that looks like a twenty dollar bill and tell them I’m giving them something more precious than gold.

    1. We do have our ladies’ meeting at Denny’s b/c they are the only restaurant with a room we can reserve. And we don’t go there to (browbeat) witness to them, but the waitresses do fight over who gets to wait on us b/c we do leave good tips. And b/c we treat them respectfully. I think that says more to them than a tract would.

      1. I agree…but I’ve heard that the impression that waitstaff have of the “Sunday” crowd is that they are very frugal when it comes to gratuities. I always err on the side of generosity, but I don’t think that’s the norm.

        1. It’s true! When I was in Bible College, I served tables in a restaurant and frequently heard how the church people are lousy tippers, and that they would rather work in the smoking section where “normal” people value the work being done for them. I explained that the Christians think they’re being good stewards of God’s money. 🙄

  43. God strike ’em down if at any time kissing occurs between an unmarried couple, tongues get involved.

    Good grief. 😡

  45. Texas Baptist College in Texas (the other Bob Gray) is all about one upping in standards. They make HAC look normal and as we know this near impossible to do!

  46. You refrain from any physical contact with your girlfriend? Well I don’t even hug my mom to avoid the appearance of evil.

  47. You claim that you practice modesty, well I acted as midwife for my wife for all of our children to protect her modesty.

    1. Hah! My wife and I only do our marital duties fully clothed in pitch black while wearing blindfolds to keep her modesty and abstain from any lustful thoughts!

      1. Well…….my wife and I do it in the dark, blindfolded, fully clothed and we listen to preaching tapes while we do it! That way I enjoy it as little as possible and she doesn’t enjoy it all, like God intended.

        1. Me and the Missus did that once… I’m not sure how it went, the Missus won’t talk about it, she just giggles and for some reason the dog runs away from me now… -george
          😯 😳

  48. Doesn’t the whole making new rules thing defeat the purpose of Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

    Why would I listen to someone who only adds burden to my preexisting burden?

  49. Ok this is the kind of comical stuff I was expecting on this site…finally. Enough attacking. Just post the funny stuff already.

  50. You guard your speech to be sure it always honors God? We gave up speaking anything but KVJ-only Bible verses, to be sure our speech was always in line with and spreading Gods word!

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