113 thoughts on “Lying: A Cooperative Act”

    1. YAHOO!!!!! and now I will take the time to add all the celebratory rejoicing and exclamation points that I was in too big a hurry to put in when I FIRST posted my FIRST FIRST!!! 😆 😀 😆 😎 😆 😛

    1. Thirty-something years ago I remember getting onto a bus to go to Baptist City. Little did I know that two of the people that I met on that bus would end up still being so important in my life this many years later. I would like to thank and acknowledge Seen Enough for being the only sane person I knew in college and also the craziest person I knew in college. And I would like to share this FIRST with her so that together we can conquer the internets.

      1. This brought tears to my eyes, seriously. The marvelous Grace of Jesus, that not only delivered us from sin, but from the cult we were in so innocently! And it gives me goosebumps that you two lovebirds have been together ll these years. Our God reigns! 😀

  3. I think it would be a fun project to go through a bunch of preacher videos and pick out the language and expression quirks.

    Well…”fun” anyway.

    1. I was thinking the same thing when I was watching it. I would like to study this subject a little more deeply. Our pastor lied in the pulpet just about every time he gave a story or illustration. Often he would reference events that I (or someone I knew) was present for and ALWAYS he got the whole event wrong. I wondered if he just had a bad memory or if he just lied for the heck of it.

      1. Some people just don’t value accuracy very much, so they don’t bother to get the facts straight.
        I don’t think that’s exactly the same thing as being a habitual liar, but it’s definitely in the same family of attitudes.

        1. Well, as it turned out he definately didn’t have a love affair with the truth. In fact I am pretty sure they weren’t even passing acquaintances.

      2. Boldfaced lying is and always has been alive and well in IFB pulpits. Our former pastor was very good at firing people who dared disagree with him and then getting up in the pulpit and saying how the person wanted to leave and he wished them well and how it was all very amicable, etc knowing full well he told them to get out of town yesterday and good luck getting another job in IFB circles. 👿 🙁 👿 🙄

        1. That’s the truth. How about a pastor resigning by saying God called him elsewhere but behind the scenes the deacons had asked him to tender his resignation? They were only allowing him to save face.

          The reasons he was asked to resign were first he was never there, he was always off somewhere preaching for other people and was hardly ever behind his own pulpit. We never knew who was going to fill the pulpit on any given Sunday. It was always a surprise when he was actually there. Part of the reason he’d preach elsewhere was was money. He knew the other church would take up a special offering for him, and all the while he could still collect his salary plus perks at home. He wasn’t doing the job anymore though, for his own church, he was never available. And he’d made it so no one else could do anything, he refused to designate any authority at all.

          Second, he changed the church constitution to reflect that he now controlled everything, and designated giving meant nothing anymore, if he chose to deflect it in a different direction than it was designated to by the giver. I will never forget the Sunday after he left. They said from the pulpit that from now on designated offerings would go to that which the giver designated it for! Everyone stood and cheered. This told me that though the former pastor had resigned, it was only to save face. The deacon board fired him!

          This also happened years later when another pastor had been called. Within the first year of his pastorate many long time staff people suddenly felt “called of God” to move elsewhere to other churches and other ministries. One man even took a demotion, he’d been principal of our Christian school, now he would be vice principal and probably make less money. I never did learn what that was all about, why so many couldn’t work for the new pastor.

          There was so much total hypocrisy. Another story, a man had been treasurer of the church and resigned and took a position elsewhere though he stayed in the church as a member. The pastor bragged on him, brought him up and gave lots of gifts and you could see the scorn on the man’s face. I remember sitting in the choir watching all this and wanting so hard to laugh my head off. :mrgreen:

        2. Yes they always need to save face. Our church doesn’t allow designated giving, and the senior pastor controls pretty much everything. I could barely sit through the sermon this morning my ears hurt from the screaming and the cognitive dissonance is driving me crazy! I am out of there at the end of October, I have committed to one last thing. I can’t do it any longer. 😥 🙁

        3. Yes I saw on another topic you said you are out at the end of October. I was fixing to say why wait, but I see you are doing what we did, finishing up a commitment first. That’s what we did. They switched over the Sunday school departments in the middle of September and I felt we should fulfill our agreement to teach til then, it was a matter of integrity, otherwise we’d have left months ago. You will be so much happier after leaving that place, and have peace. I hope the Lord leads you to another church as quickly as He did us. Today’s services were wonderful, and I now look forward to Sundays rather than dreading them. I hope the same for you! 🙂

        4. Thanks for your support. I have no ability to hide my feelings and I could tell people could see the change in my demeanor. The evening service was just as bad as the first in the say one thing which is mostly right on but knowing that all will continue as it was, lip service. It’s very sad. I know I will eventually be happy about it but as I tell my friends and they try to convince me I am wrong in leaving…it’s going to be pretty emotional so your prayers will be appreciated.

  4. Yes, but would a person show the marks of lying if they don’t know they are being deceitful? I think most fundy preachers probably sincerely believe the crap they deal out from the pulpit.

    It’s in the interpersonal interractions of what goes on behind the scenes in church politics when they outright lie – and know it.

      1. They believe their lies yes, but contempt would probably be an easy one to pick out. I can see quite a few preachers (and especially my mom) with that look on their faces right now.

  5. If you grow up in a lie, believe that God himself teaches this lie through Scripture, hear every influence that you love confirm the lie, then you tell the lie to others, you will eventually come to the hardened belief that the lie is true and no amount of facts will change your solidified belief.

    The only hope that you will have is that God, in his mercy, plants the seed in your heart that says: “this can’t be right.”

    Now, fast forward a few years and here we are on SFL. A group of people who were saved, by the grace of God, from the lie that is fundamentalist cultic legalism – to God be the glory.

    2. Well said!! Sadly, that summarizes my life well. 🙄 Thank God He changed it all when He brought me out of the mirey IFB pit.

  6. Our most recent pastor was a liar and a con man. He knew it. He is in jail now. This video would have been very helpful about a year ago. Oh well. I probably would have tried to excuse it somehow in him anyway.

    1. However, the last time he was on the news, trying to explain something about a break in at our church, I remember saying to my husband, “I wish he hadn’t looked so guilty. People are going to think he had something to do with it.” (Pretty sure now that he did)

  7. Huh. So, while I am certain that watching video footage of Hyles or Schaap would show up these gestures, expressions, etc., I already KNOW they are liars. What I find intriguing is her claim that we cooperate with the lie, due to our own particular hunger. I must agree. I have said elsewhere on this site, Hyles succeeded fastest and best with those young people from dysfunctional homes, who craved strong decisive leadership. 👿

    1. I will also agree with that. We had an entire church hungry for what our con-man pastor was dishing out. Some out of greed, and others out of laziness. I have to admit, I knew he wasn’t always truthful, but I didn’t want to upset the apple cart. Everyone loved him.

      1. And also, I already knew from experience in my past that if it came down to *me* against *him* of course there was no way I would win against the m-o-g. So I just rolled along with it, knowing things weren’t quite right, but keeping my mouth shut. I had no idea the magnitude of his transgressions though. I wish I could go back and have a do-over. 🙁

        1. Yes, it is often like that… after the truth is exposed, we often wonder why we didn’t probe more earlier, or look at things. It was so in my case.

          It’s like she said – we help the lie; we want to be part of a church where God is working greatly; we want to believe that we are special, or a part of something special.

        2. We kept being told to look at the big picture which was (what we were told) God is at work, souls are being saved, people’s lives were being changed, and we had a part in the work of God in that place. We were to overlook the small things like deceptions, and how the pastor was taking more and more control over everything especially the finances. But those “little things” were adding up and eventually we couldn’t take them anymore. 😥

        3. Character is revealed in the small things just as much (if not more) than in the big things. ““His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things….’ from the parable of the “talents,” Matthew 25 (NIV).

  8. I feel like this is a very important thing to understand at this point in my life. If I am unwilling or unable to take some responsibility for being decieved, and instead laying it all on him then I become powerless to change anything and will be a victim again and again.

    1. THAT sounds excellent, and I not only agree, I feel the need in my own life to be very careful about accepting responsibility for my choices.

  9. Where do her “facts” come from? I can go to First Fundy Baptist and hear scientific “facts”.

    Everyone knows that 98% of public speakers are liars and thieves.

    So, anyone who claims to tell the truth is lying, or should I have finished this silly video.

        2. Man, I just had a flashback. That Three Dog Night LP was one of the first vinyl record albums I ever owned. I haven’t listened to it for at least 30 years.

  10. I wish Pamela Meyer had said more about how “lying is a cooperative act.”
    I find it easy to believe that many people are willing participants in their own deception, but hard to believe that this happens in all cases of people telling lies (and being believed).

    1. I think the flip-side to that is to be super skeptical of everyone. I am not sure I want to be that person either. I like the idea of giving a person the benefit of the doubt (and not judging them to be a liar before they have even opened their mouth) but the older I get the more cynical I become. {sigh}

      1. I’m definitely going to get the book from the library. I agree with the above poster and felt exactly the same way about not wanting to be one of those cynical people who doesn’t trust anyone, yet I have learned alot about socio/psychopaths in the last two years and know personally that there are people that have no problem screwing you over without any pangs of concience and I now try to look for tell-tale signs in their personalities and speech.

        1. Just requested an interlibrary loan of the book, I should get it within a week or so. I think what she means by cooperating with the liar is that we don’t want to believe someone is lying to us many times because they have charmed us or we doubt what we are perceiving as a lie because we seem to be the only one that thinks it’s a lie amongst the people hearing it. Hindsight is 20/20 and I can see how I have overlooked many red flags or things that didn’t jive because I was in denial. Look at the guy that kept trying to bring attention to Bernie Madoff, his book is titled “No One Would Listen”, people thought they were making money and didn’t care to dig into the allegations of fraud, etc.

    3. It’s a topic that gets people hot in a hurry. If you even begin to suggest that sometimes the victim could have done something to prevent his injury, some people start claiming that you believe that the injurer shouldn’t be punished to the maximum, even if you said or believe nothing of the sort.

    4. Yeah, I’m not buying that at all. Was kind of interesting some of what she said, but the idea being an act of cooperation is going to have to leverage “white lies” a whole lot to reach that conclusion, IMO.

  11. While watching this video, my bird said “I lie”. Now the truth comes out. I have had my suspicions, every time I walked in and found something tore to peices and he’s standing a few feet away. “Paco, did you do that?” “NO!”

      1. Funny thing is, he says “bad birdo” too. Suppose we taught him that, so he’s cooperating.

  13. We are being taught by a WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!1!!!!
    😯

    (screaming and holding my hands over my ears as I race for the door)

    😛

    1. OOps, sorry, that link is to what you just watched. My technical skills are very sub-ferior and that ain’t no lie. 😳

    2. Which, of course, hasn’t got anything to do with the reliability of her ideas. Or was that clever satire disguised as a red herring?

    3. She said that there are accounts of people lying in the Bible. I don’t recall her saying that the Bible is a lie.

    4. Good to see that I wasn’t the only one who had no clue what this post meant, where the idea she said anything about the veracity of the Bible, or how it would matter if she had?

    5. (I was just repeating what someone on my facebook page said) I don’t believe that whether or not she believes in evolution has anything to do with her studies on lying. I just thought it was interesting is all.

    6. As I watched the video, I got the same impression you did, Sims, that she was implying there were lies in the Bible that people have believed for generations. It is also true that if she does believe that, it does not change the truth of the other 99 percent of what she said.

      I watched the video again, and about 5:30 she talks about characters lying in the Bible, Shakespeare and Dante, but she does not come out and say that there are lies in the Bible.

  15. @ Macushlalondra
    Are you telling the stories from Church of the Open Door in Westminster MD? Your stories match up with that place. Just curious

    1. No, these stories were concerning my old church in Michigan. This was from approximately 15 years ago. This pastor after he resigned he took some position at 1st Baptist of Hammond for a while, I don’t know just what, and then ended up pastoring a church in Ohio, and the last I heard he’s out of there too. Don’t know the story there but I’d love to. I don’t know what he’s doing now. 😕

  16. So wonder how many “men” o’gid suddenly felt “the spirit move” when they were trolling this site today. I predict a rash of sermons tomorrow warning about this woman. Nothing threatens the “man” o’gid’s power more than a truth-seeking woman.

    1. Quite a montage you’ve got there, Buddy.
      If it gets into the wrong hands, it could easily be used as an instrument of torture– tie people down, clamp their eyelids open a la “A Clockwork Orange,” and make them watch it all over and over.

      1. Oh, you mean like the way the New Bethany Homes did it. Put you in a room with only a tin can for your business and pipe in Roloff sermons 24 hours a day.

        2. You guys probably know this, but in the seventies, Roloff was IDOLIZED at HAC and BJU. 🙄

        3. My dad was in PCC’s summer master’s program 1978-80. One of those years, I forget which, Roloff came to the Campus Church with a choir of young women. They sang, he preached, and sold his books and tapes in the foyer afterwards. (“Cuz you’re not a moneychanger in the temple if you do it in the narthex.) My dad bought Roloff’s auto-lie-ography, and still has it. All this to say, PCC seemed to have a pretty high opinion of Roloff, too.

        4. Seen Enough and Papa Bear, if you look through the SFL archives, you’ll find a good deal of material on Lester Roloff and his various institutions.

  18. “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies…Tell me lies” – Fleetwood Mac

    Idea for future Friday Challenge: Posting lies we have heard from the pulpit.

    I have a great one from a “Christian legal missionary” (who had never piloted a plane before) who claimed to take command of a plane in Alaska, after the pilot became disabled, and land it safely – using only instructions from air traffic control. 🙄

    But hey, it made for a good, emotional illustration, so Gid was okay with it…right?

  19. Great post. My college son alerted me to TED talks a month or so ago. Intellectually stimulating.
    She never said the Bible was a lie. There are examples of lies in the Bible though. Didn’t Annanias and Sapphira lie? I thought there was some deception in the Cain and Able thing, too.

    I have said it before-more transparency is always better. It is part of our nature to deceive though.

    I was never any good at it. I was usually the first one busted in high school.

  20. But what do those who consent to sweeping, obvious lies need? After Matt Jarrell killed himself because he was, at the very least, a serial rapist, his entire church bought into the protective lies of the IFB preachers that covered for him, willingly. What are those people looking for or needing to consent to such lies?

    1. They need (among other things) the assurance of their own superiority.

      They consent to the (relatively) little lie that their MOG is an innocent victim in order to maintain the big lie that they are God’s special chosen people. To do otherwise would be to admit that they’ve been hoodwinked and suffered much at the hands of false prophets for no good reason. Nobody wants to be a sucker.

      It boils down to pride.

    2. Self preservation of the group they are completely dependent on, and the delusion of the group’s moral superiority & persecution.

    3. In order to keep people following them, they need to be larger-than-life. People don’t give over their lives and wills and fortunes to ORDINARY men (usually) Since ALL the IFB pastors are just ordinary men (not gods like they have come to believe) they need to lie to keep the image up. Even if it is just a “small” lie about how they do some ordinary thing, it is designed to make the people they are telling it to be impressed with them.

      1. There is the crux of the matter isn’t it?

        In order to keep people following them

        It a “Follow me first… and I will lead you to God” attitude.

        So they put on their mask of authority, their mask of superior spirituality, their mask of false humility, their mask of perpetual happiness and their mask of power… and their “followers” willingly participate in the lie of the mask by wearing one of their own.

    4. Good question. I think one of the reasons fundies fight so hard to cooperate with deception is that whatever can be said about their group or leader reflects on the little people as well. If we admit that our pastor is a pervert or serial rapist or embezzler or general jerk then we are also saying that he hoodwinked us. Which might mean that the whole religious project is a deception. Which attacks everything that comprises one’s personal identity.

    5. Bassenco, I am curious. What have the other IFB pastors been saying to the congregation about Matt Jarrell? Any links?

      Also, I wonder if the same kind of lies are being told about that pastor in Arizona who committed suicide when the police came to question him, Nick Minerva.

    6. Good discussion here, caused me to reflect and realize how true this is and I never thought of it like this. So true. I’ll accept the fact that I was completely hoodwinked and that’s not even the appropriate word for it, I would say scammed.

  21. OK, she didn’t cite her sources in the video, which looks like an extended commercial for her book. (I would say infomercial because it is an informative commercial that does give away some content for free, but “infomercial” implies misleading or excessive claims, which may not be the case here.) If anyone here reads the book, please let us know if she cites them there. If you want to be extra cautious, check her references. People have been known to lie about references too, citing fictional sources.

    So far (I’m pausing at 10:51) she seems to be not so much advocating truthfulness as teaching people to spot lies (raising their lie-spotting accuracy from 54% to 90%) as a method of getting ahead of the competition, the “evolutionary advantage”. As she mentions, some people are better at lying (and / or at spotting lies) than others. It seems to me this book could be just as easily used to gain the advantage by making one’s lies harder to spot.

    An aside: many of the signs someone may be lying are actually signs they feel awkward about what they are saying, and /or are trying to cover that awkwardness. A sociopath is more believable when he lies because he doesn’t feel bad about it. OTOH, I have often been accused of lying when I was telling the truth, not because I am habitually dishonest, but because I am socially awkward.

  22. She seems like a huckster. She uses many techniques including division and unqualified statements and claims to a previously unknown “truth.” Some of her conclusions are also logical jumps, like fake smiles being a lie. When I work I sometimes put on a “fake” smile, not because I am trying to deceive people into making them think I am happy or friendly (I suffer chronic and severe depression), but because I know that if I put on a smile it will make THEM happier, and that is an act of obedience to God, who told me to love my neighbor. I also don’t lie. I used to lie a lot before I was a Christian, but since growing in my faith I believe I am called to a higher standard, so I don’t lie. Again, commanded by God. I also do not feel compelled to open my mouth all the time and give my opinion, because to be “honest” is to affirm the fact that I never know the whole picture. I am often very socially awkward, so sometimes people think I am lying, but it is a very rare day when I catch myself in a lie, and it usually is when I have lied to myself. If I say something you can believe that I believe I will be judged for it by he who knows the truth.

      1. Please don’t get me wrong, the reason is that smiling makes others’ days better, not simply obedience. I’m also sure I even believe in a concept of a “fake” smile.

        1. I don’t have any issues with fake smiles. I just don’t think it’s possible to say doing so is being obedient to God. I’d like to see a scriptural reference about smiling through the pain or putting on outward show.

    2. That is one of the things that turned me off of going to church and especially in the IFB. People are not genuine, they put on a mask and trot off to church.
      Everybody wears a mask and everybody hides behind their mask. Pastors are especially adept at this. And when their Sunday/Wednesday mask does not match their Mon-Tues-Thurs-Fri-Sat mask it maks them look like phoneies. That affects how people perceive their message and their preaching. Thus making the people in the pew willing participants in the lie of the mask.

      2. While I could never be happy in an IFB church again, I still go to church. I, too, get fed up with what Don is referring to as masks, but I have found that I believe I am supposed to fellowship, worship communally, partake of the Lord’s Supper, and hear teaching from the Word.
        That being said, I certainly go through dry spells of being fed up with “churchianity !” 😕
        I am not commenting on Don, or his habits or lifestyle. I think I’m vocalizing my wish that church was better, somehow. I have been considering the idea that my current church may just be Fundy Lite. It is not even Baptist, but… Shrug. Just wondering.

        1. I also add that I am more on the periphery of church than I have been in my entire life. Once a week, only, because I am tired at night, and because I do not get into the whole small group phenomenon.

        2. I also add that I am more on the periphery of church than I have been in my entire life. Once a week, only

          That’s really where I’m at right now as well. I’m a religious cynic when it comes to the whole church thing. I don’t trust people. I expecially don’t trust religious leaders. I’ve even taken to staying seated instead of the popcorn mechanizations that the “service” dictates. Stand-up, sit-down, bow your heads, stand-up… So I generally just sit there anymore.

          I don’t go to small groups either. I happen to believe that small groups are probably the most Biblical way to practice church… but it requires that one put aside their mask and make themself vunerable to others in the group. I’m not there yet and don’t see it anytime in my near future. So for now I’ll play the hypocrite and hide behind my mask and allow the cynic in me to continue to keep people at arms length.

        3. Well, I did do small groups when that first hit our church, fifteen years ago, and consider it a disaster. I guess because the whole thing was not only led by a complete phony, but also due to what you say here: the vulnerability. At that time, I was okay with it being so “unmasked,” to use your analogy, but do not care to go there again, after that experience.

      3. Maybe we are all not talking about the same thing. Maybe some more info from my side would help. I have been abused most of my life, by my parents, my peers, and people I don’t even know. I believe that there are many in the church who still actively treat me as less than someone created in the image of God. This has possibly led me to the state where I am today; I am fairly depressed more than 50% of the time. I know that God loves me and I know that my wife loves me. I have a hard time believing anyone else does. I wake up most mornings believing I may have put here to be the universe’s punching bag. I also realize the irony of such a thought as a type on my expensive computer’s keyboard from my (in law’s) nice house. But this is how I truly feel most of the time. I have actually been a fairly successful actor because I can cry on command, even have a genuine breakdown at will, this is because of how much pain I struggle with holding back every second of my life.
        Doctors say I have an extremely severe imbalance in my serotonin levels that is to blame, and years of tests have confirmed it. I have become immune to most antidepressants and therefore do not take anything. In the midst of all that junk, I was called to be a minister of God. I do believe that my background helps me relate to people who are suffering, especially those who have been utterly destroyed by the church.
        I do not struggle with the reason I am here, nor any sense of cosmic fairness. My daily struggles are much more on the surface than that. I struggle with not unloading on every person I see. I would rather not bring down every person I meet, so I put on a smile. I don’t smile because I am trying to lie about how I feel, because a smile doesn’t always indicate how someone feels. I smile because I have a sincere desire for the other person to have a good day, and not be brought down because I am scowling mope. To me, it is giving them a little a grace, hence my connection with the command to love others. Other people do not need to believe or practice this, it is just a conviction that I have for me personally.
        I live because of the faith I have in the hope that God is making all things new, and that one day I will be in a state where there is no more suffering, but only the pure joy of God surrounding all people, that hope is why I smile.

        I hope this makes sense and clears up my earlier comments.

        1. Wow, this is a great explanation, and may I also add, God bless you. What you have written here has blessed me, and I am so glad you took the time to do it. 😀

        2. Mike…my heart goes out to you. I grew up IFB; experienced multiple kinds of abuse, from seemingly every direction; and still live with loneliness, depression, and grief daily. I know how difficult it is to have a wounded spirit…in the world of church. 🙁

          *Hugs*

  23. When I was in Fundamentallyinsanism, the biggest lie was music: Fanny Crosby was looked upon as some sort of hero. I think Fanny Crosby was a big fag who did nothing but write femmy songs and led our men into homosexuality. I think Fanny C. has led more men into homosexuality through her faggy, feminist songs than anything else in our nation. I don’t appreciate my pastor for lying to me about how she was actually a good musician instead of a deceiver.

  24. I would like to publically thank Darrell, and his other brother, Daryl, for providing this wonderful service to us. Darrell has done more for exposing the feminizing of America than most preachers I know. Where else would we learn of the dangers of Fanny C. and other homosexyual influences on our men? Thank you for your support.

        1. Seen Enough, I think you are wrong. (You must be referring to Mrs. James’ posts?) I have seen some pretty odd, weird, bizarre statements made about much-beloved older hymns of the faith. It would appear that many on this site have walked away from Christianity and are nothing but mockers and scorners. But on the other hand, I’ve seen some people who still seem to accept Christianity, they just don’t like the world of IFB. I have no idea what the majority are on this board. For people who have walked away from Christianity, I can see how they can mock and despise any Christian song, because that’s what turns their crank, so to speak. But I have actually seen people who say they are serious Christians make claims such as Sheila’s. And they were not trying to be funny. They were actually serious! The old hymn “Walk In The Garden” (or whatever it’s called – can’t recall the exact title at the moment) seems to be the number one song on the hit list as songs that are “homosexual, effeminate and a ‘danger’ to our men.” Again, I’m not kidding; people actually say this. Personally, I am a Christian and find many of Fanny Crosby’s songs and that “In The Garden” song a blessing. I really don’t understand how all of a sudden Fanny and that garden song are now the prime threats to “true” manhood. I’m a man even. I just don’t find this genre of songs as gay.

          Long story short – I think Sheila might have actually been serious and not a troll, as shocking and bizarre as it is.

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