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Friday Challenge: Tell A Whopper

1,046 Comments

Today’s challenge is to tell us a story that happened in fundyland and then let us guess whether or not it is true. The one criteria is that if the story is true it must be all true, if it is a lie then every part must be a lie. Be sure to come back at some point and let us know whether or not your tale was true!

Start spinning your yarns!

1,046 thoughts on “Friday Challenge: Tell A Whopper”

  4. Ill Tell a tale first….. Youth conference on a bus hundreds of miles away to the infamous First Baptist Church in Hammond Indiana. Teens were piled into an unairconditioned old school bus for a 900 mile adventure for some “spiritual” enlightenment.
    With only a few short hours into the trip my son was questioned about his music by the Youth Pastor. He was listening with headphones to be respectiful of others around him. He prefers classical music…I guess that’s sinful. Anyway, after being questioned as if he was a nazi spy, the bus was pulled over at a gas station and my son was asked to get out. His luggage was taken out as well and two teen GIRLS were asked to rummage through his luggage and look for any incriminating evidence. While they were pilfering through his personal things the Youth Pastor made a public example of him to the rest of the teens. IN the end, nothing was found except some deep regret for sending my son on a trip that humilated him and destroyed his spirit. That was the beginning of the end for us in Fundyland.

    2. I say not tue. They would not let girls go through his stuff. They might see his underwear. And that would cause them to stumble.

      1. I agree with Scorpio on his logic… However, handling laundry is the woman’s job! 😀 😆 🙄

      3. Sorry to say, this story is very true. Very hurtful and my son has been deeply affected by it.

        1. That’s terrible!!! I hate seeing church authority see sin where there is none, create drama when they didn’t need to, and go for judgment and humiliation instead of compassion and gentleness.

          They are SO FAR from the Spirit of Christ and they don’t know it. It’s breathtaking how smugly blind they are, to treat people so horribly and yet assume they are so righteous in so doing.

      4. No, Scorpio, girls don’t lust. Women have no sexual desires. You should know this from your time in fundydom.

        And sadly, I do believe this story is true. And very awful. 🙁

      5. I say absolutely true, if that youth leader was anything like schaap, he probably got off w the thought of girls going through the underwear. His fantasies were recharged for at least another month or so!

    3. Dear ellen:

      Good thing I’m not your son. I’d have slugged the guy on the nose and shoved him off the bus.

      Christian Socialist

        1. My alter ego would have. But the real me would have just shut up and taken it. And then some time afterwards would have thought up something really smart that it should have said in reply.

  5. I’ve got one: during her freshman year, my wife had to go before the discipline committee at Hyles Anderson and was nearly expelled because the college performed a dorm room search and found some unapproved “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and Kenny G music cds in her room.

    In those days you had to turn in all of your music to the school for approval.

    4. Sounds true… I can totally see how Charlie Brown could set one into a sin spiral, leading into deep darkness of sax before marriage.

        2. I had to Google Kenny G before the pun attempt. I always confused him and another guy with long hair.

        6. I was told I couldn’t learn to play the sax because it is a barroom instrument and plays inappropriate music for godly young ladies.

        8. Sorry I couldn’t join the conversation yersterday. I was helping my 2nd daughter and her husband move from GA to OH.

          Anyway, now for something completely different. I’ve never been a Kenny G fan. I have avoided his Christmas music as often as possible. A few years back, after a couple of weeks in a remote “village” of only 3,000,000 people (as I was told by a local) a few hours northwest of Beijing, we were back in Beijing celebrating Chinese New Year. It was February, New Years Night. We went to an acrobat show, and playing over the sound system before the show started was Kenny G’s Christmas album. Even 12 timezones away I couldn’t get far enough to avoid it.

        1. B.G.-I guess I am. This move was a little easier than the last, a one day drive instead of three. The Mrs. and I have been in the same house over twenty years. I guess it isn’t too bad to help the kids move at least once. My son moved out three weeks ago, and was told to bring nothing to his new home. Uncle Sam is taking care of his needs, so that was an easy one.

    6. PCC had their own radio station that featured music by their own staff and faculty. Some of their own songs weren’t “approved” for the college students to listen to.

      Rediculous…

    3. Interesting – my parents told me about a pastor of ours that did that once. I was too young to remember it, but the pulpit was most definitely cracked.

      You sure you didn’t grow up in Wisconsin, Darrell?

    5. I’m pretty sure I remember that my dad broke a pulpit that way when I was a little kid.

    6. A the Bill Rice Ranch, “famous” evangelist Dave Young broke is wedding ring in two when pounding the pulpit.

  7. I once heard a sermon against ATM’s because they kept you from witnessing to your bank teller.

    2. I believe it. It also charges you fees which you could be putting in the offering plate, HAYMEN?

  8. My father was a preacher and healed a demon stricken women who flew around the church. She said that her favorite blog was Stuff Fundies Like. 😈
    😛

    3. Hi Judson!!! 🙂 I think I may remember hearing your dad tell that story at some point. LOL!!!

    4. True, of course. Why are you even mentioning this. It’s completely a “dog bites man” story. 😛

  9. One Wednesday night I pull into the church parking lot. As I pull in I can see the choir director next to the pastor’s car. I get out of my car and as I am walking to the door I see that the choir director is loading cases of IBC Root Beer into the pastor’s car trunk. I guess the pastor couldn’t be seen with cases of root beer, lest someone think it was beer and his entire testimony is destroyed.
    The End.

    4. That is 100% true.

      At the time I saw it I didn’t think twice. Figured he was just doing him a favor. After I started reading SFL, I realized the folly of avoiding the appearance of evil.

      1. How about not buying Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider because someone might see it in your cart and mistaken it for champagne! A “Trieber-ism” against the appearances of evil, many years ago.

        Of course, this is from the guy who sez ultra-sound pics of your baby on FB is indecent!

        2. Doc,

          The 5 Star Old Forester Birthday Bourbon 2008 is worthy of your consideration, I must say! 😉

          ~~~Heart 😀

  10. Two people at my Fundy U got written up for “looking like they wanted to kiss.”

    6. I heard one…second, third, or fourth hand…so even I don’t know if it’s true or not…of a couple who were expelled from a certain fundamentalist college in the panhandle of Florida for staring too deeply into each others eyes. They were formally accused of “visual intercourse”. To which the young man (apparently OK with getting kicked out) replied that there was no risk involved since he was using protection…ie, his contact lenses.

      2. There was a legend at my Fundy U about a guy getting sent to the dean’s office for “optical intercourse” who rubbed his eye and said, “Look, optical masturbation.”

        1. Used to be Darren,

          That is so ridiculously hilarious!
          Touché with KUDOS!

          ~~~Heart 😎

      3. Hey! I unwittingly told the same sorry you did. Onlythe person it happened to is a friend of mine. We were discussing the hypocrisies of PCC. I told him my neither got 150 demerits because a friend borrowed his truck to go shopping and got caught shop lifting. My brother and his best friend went and bailed the guy out of jail and the guy immediately turned himself and my brother and the friend in (for what, I don’t know)!
        Then my friend told me this story about ocular or optical intercourse. It would be funny, if it weren’t so pathetic!

  11. Spending one and a half hours in a church meeting arguing whether to financially support an IFB missionary just because the missionary was also funded by another “liberal” IFB church who allowed contemporary music used in worship services. True, false?

  12. Sat as a guest at my pastor’s dinner table. As part of a pleasant family discussion, he asked his two young boys whether they had pooped or not yet that day, and how much. Pastor had recently been to a Bill Gothard advanced seminar that harped on the importance of “regularity” for optimum health. He said it’s the father’s spiritual responsibilty to monitor such things for a family.

    4. Based on experience within the Gothard movement, I’m going with true. And add to it my also true experience of no longer being allowed (for a time) to eat cheeseburgers because it somehow violated the verse about cooking a kid in it’s mother’s milk (Deut. 14:21)

      1. That teaching is straight from orthodox Judaism. They go so far as to have two sets of cookware, one set for meat and another for dairy.

        1. I understand this…and understood it at the time. It only served to heighten my confusion, seeing as how we are not orthodox Jews.

    5. When Lester Roloff decided it was unhealthy for your digestion to drink water within an hour of a meal either way, they quit putting water out during meals at HAC. When he decided milk was bad for you, they quit offering milk at breakfast for a time. (They were both brought back before I left though.)

      1. Due to medical problems, for a long time, I couldn’t swallow food without water. The problem is resolved now, but if I had been in that college back then, I would have either choked to death or starved.

    7. This story is hard for me to digest, but it’s not much of a strain to believe that it’s true.

    8. I have two young grandsons. Depending on the ages of the boys, they might have enjoyed the conversation. Not sure why young boys seem to think “potty talk” is so hilarious! :mrgreen:

    9. Given how obsessive HH was with the girls’ regularity, I don’t doubt it for a minute. Can’t imagine what Bible verse they twisted to come up with such absurd ideas, tho.

  13. One Sunday morning during the preaching, a woman in the pew in front of me started to have convulsions. A woman sitting next to her said she is diabetic and a few people got up to help. With an angry scowl on his face and obvious irritation in his voice, the pastor bellows out “What is going on here?” Someone said she is diabetic and needs something to eat he responded “Get her down to the nursery, they have donuts.”
    The End.

    2. False. The donuts would have been gone by then by the deacons wondering the halls.

    3. This one is also true. John is Awake – our church was small enough nto to have deacons. 😆

    4. True. No one gets more upset at being interrupted than a Fundy pastor. He worked ALL WEEK on that sermon, guys!

    6. I’m glad not to be in that church.
      I was in church once when a man had a heart attack during the sermon, and the pastor (a woman, by the way) stopped preaching to give the man first aid while someone else called an ambulance. Then she ended the service early and went to the hospital to see how he was doing.

      1. BG – No kidding. There was another time when one of the older women in the church, right before Sunday School started, slipped and fell and landed shoulder first in the wall. Everyone could hear a loud sickening crack (turns out she broke her collarbone). Pastor had the choir director call 911 and then proceeded to “teach and preach” as if nothing happened.

      2. One time, I was at a service where the preacher paused in his reading of Scripture, cocked his head at the congregation, and said, “I feel funny.” Then he died.

        There was no invitation.

        2. Someone in the congregation stood up and asked, “Preacher, if you died today, do you know where you would spend eternity?”

        3. Yes, it really happened during a Sunday evening service to a visiting preacher when I was 3. (It obviously made an impression on me).

          My aunt & another woman in the congregation were RNs, so they ran up to the platform to assess the man’s condition & begin CPR. Once it became obvious the situation was dire, my mom & the pastor’s wife took all the children from the service. The paramedics were called, the man was taken to an area hospital, someone phoned the man’s family with the hospital info (they hadn’t come with him for some reason), & the pastor had one of the men lead in prayer for the speaker while he went to the hospital.

          At least they didn’t try to act all business as usual.

        4. John R. Rice was speaking in a chapel service at HAC and all of a sudden his words became babble and then he paused. It was extremely awkward. Dr. Evans approached him from behind him, from his seat on the platform and gently and quietly walked him out of chapel. I never saw a public oration from John R. Rice again.

          ~~~Heart 😐

        6. Big Gary,

          No one dared to ask any further questions, only to accept what was told to us which was to “Pray for our dear brother…” I never knew the details… Come to think of it, we could probably google it. It was either 79/80 or 81/82?

          ~~~Heart ❓

  14. Ooh, ooh! I’ve got a couple!

    A good friend of my spouse & his fiancée both worked at the Fundy U cafeteria. They rode in the freight elevator together on a few occasions (HUGE no-no), but no hanky-panky happened.

    They broke up over one summer break. The fiancée was so angry that she called the school and “confessed” to “inappropriate physical contact” in the freight elevator. She waited until just before fall semester to do this, so her ex-fiancé made a nearly 1,000 mile drive to Fundy U, only to be shipped upon arrival.

    ~~~~~~~~~~

    Another time, I was part of an elaborate scheme that involved a girl getting all the proper permission slips to go home for a week, me dropping her off at the airport, and her fiancé retrieving her from the airport and taking her to his place (less than 10 miles from Fundy U) for a romantic week together. Never got caught.

      1. New topic, Darrell? What I Got Away With at FundyU–if they knew I would get retroactive demerits on my credit score, or maybe they would revoke the accreditation from my degree (or maybe they wouldn’t have that option). True or False.

      1. LOL, sorry, John. If you knew me IRL, you’d know I have the personality of Dug from the movie Up! Everything gets me excited. 😀 Well, except dishes and laundry. 😛

    4. Both true. Although in the second story, I was in the dark about the kinky week the couple had planned until after the fact. The guy involved told my spouse (they were friends, and neither of them were students at the time) because he felt guilty pulling me into their deception.

      Of course, by that point, I couldn’t say anything without being implicated myself.

  15. I once had a fundy teacher tell me that Christians shouldn’t sing songs with nonsense phrases in them because you “might be cursing in some other language.”

      1. I only have a secondary association with The Wilds, but it seems to me that certain Fundy rules are temporarily suspended for them…

    6. There’s an obvious logic hole here:
      How do you know that “Just as I am, without one plea” or “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound” isn’t a curse in some other language?

    7. “SkinnaMarinkyDinkyDink
      SkinnaMarinkyDoo”

      I don’t remember being warned against made up words in songs, but my mother would scold us when we made up words and said them to each other pretending we were talking in another language: she was worried that we might unknowingly utter a curse word in some unknown language somewhere.

  16. A man in our church wanted to do something for the church. He thought he’d bless the church with some of his coffee, a roaster, grinder and commercial coffee makers. We deacons prayed and argued about letting this kind of thing into our church. The final decision was “no” because we didn’t want Starbuck’s like coffee or Starbuck’s like coffee drinkers within our church. We believed it was too worldly to let in.
    Later, we asked the coffee man to come in early, before Wednesday night Kids for Truth, to discuss with him what his motivation was for such a thing in the first place. It was suggested by one of the deacons and confirmed by the pastor that there must be concealed sin.
    The coffee man is still there…

    2. I’m saying true on this one. Fundies always turn an eye of suspicion on anyone doing a good work for unselfish motives.

    3. You lost me at “roaster” because it just doesn’t make sense to give a church a coffee roaster. It takes too much expertise to do properly, so you wouldn’t just give one to a church. The other machines are somewhat more user-friendly.

      I say a lie, thought I suspect the story is inspired by true events.

  17. The Bible says “I have never seen the children of God begging bread.” My fundy pastor said that all of those people on the side of the road with those “will work for food” signs are going to hell if they don’t stop begging and repent.

    3. This one is actually false. I hatched it up last week and ran it by my pastor for a good laugh. Both of us escaped the IFB and know all too well the absolutist, black-or-white, for-us-or-against-us thinking of fundyland.

      1. The sad thing is, some IFB stalker is going to see this and use it in the future.

    4. Here’s the whole verse:
      “I was once young, indeed I am now old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread. He is merciful, and LENDS CONTINUALLY; and his seed shall be blessed.”
      Psalms 37:25-26

  18. My last semester in Bible college, I was in full rebellious mode. I was ready to get out. I was meeting up with my boyfriend unchaperoned, I was lying on my accountability reports, I was just waiting it out until I could leave. It seemed the rest of the college was in the same mood I was, since lots of other students were fooling around, having sex, drinking, going to the movies (and getting caught! I had not been caught thus far). 😯

    Two weeks before the end of the semester, and my glorious freedom, I was approached by an absolutely furious dorm supervisor. She was on the warpath, and aiming right for me! Fear struck my heart. What did she know? Was I finally going to pay for my sins??

    Yes. Finally, my actions had caught up to me. “Emily,” she said, “I have spoken to the dean of women. She has given me permission to do this. You have not been making your bed all semester….” [point of order, I had figured out how to get away with not making my bed for the entire semester, without getting in trouble, even though the dorm sup knew about it 🙂 ]…..”If I find your bed unmade one more time, I will check your room every single day until the end of the semester”.

    They really know how to strike the fear of God into a person. 🙄

    1. I’m saying True on this one. My wife’s ex was raised fundy, and he would let the kids get away with murder, then beat them half to death over something trivial. Your story fits the pattern.

      2. Never got all the details, but I can believe it. Supposedly a second cousin of mine was expelled from Bob Jones for the vile sin of chewing gum. 🙂

        1. 😳 I meant I never got all the details about my cousin; Linmie, your tale I fully get. There may have been more involved, but the one part everyone remembered was about the chewing gum. 🙄

  19. Elvis died in 1977. Pope John Paul I was elected in 1978. My fundy pastor told us the reason Elvis had to die was to free the spirit of the Antichrist so that it could go into the new Pope when he was elected.

    2. Wonder what the pastor said when John Paul I died a month later, so much for that theory. 🙄

    3. This one is true. In my fundy church, anything with even a whiff of Catholicism was anathema. It’s no wonder I’m so screwed up in the head now.

    4. What was the AntiChrist doing during the interval between those events? Disco dancing at Studio 54?

    5. I thought Jack Hyles gloriously saved Elvis… or was it Lester Rolloff, oh I know.. It was Clarence Sexton?

      I’ve had so many preachers tell me they saw Elvis pray a sinners prayer in the lobby of a hotel I forget who it was.

      Whoever it was, I’m sure they are enjoying their blue suede butt cushion in heaven.

    6. Dear Arthur:

      What I want to know is, ‘how come these guys know so much about the antichrist.’

      Christian Socialist

    7. The 1970s. The USSR was intensifying persecution of Christians. Serial killers were stalking through the USA. And the best candidates for Antichrist were Elvis Presley and the Pope.

      Stuff fundies like: imagining that anything that makes them a little bit nervous is of cosmic importance.

  20. I remember hearing a sermon about how evil cremation is. You see, heathen cultures have a history of cremation. But christians look forward to a bodily resurrection, and so a good christian will be buried as a testimony to his hope in the resurrection.

      1. There is actually an attenuation issue with cremated bodies RE: the resurrection. The impedance mismatch between the Divine Transporter Beam and rapidly oxygenated flesh results in specular diffusion and subsequent resolution issues at the quantum level. Thus, all who have undergone this heathen practice will, quite literally, never be more than a doormat in heaven.

        3. I would presume the Divine Transporter Beam to be well-capable of reassembling any particles to their original state, what, being Divine and all! No? LOL

          ~~~Heart 😯

    6. My parents believe that cremation is wrong. When I asked why years ago, I was told it’s because people “chose cremation as a way to try to hide from God so they couldn’t be judged.”

      1. I’m choosing cremation. But that’s because I’m planning to donate my organs & whatever else could be useful to those who have medical needs.

        I’m sure I’ll have family members who quietly question my salvation at my memorial service. 🙄

        1. I’m choosing cremation because it’s a tenth the cost of a burial. My Bible says God created man from the dust of the earth. If he did it once, he can do it again. The notion of cremation impeding the resurrection is total nonsense.

        2. I’ve never heard anyone seriously posit that cremation would impede the rapture (THAT would be the duty of all the Baptists being hauled up feet-first because they’re latched onto their sports cars and fishing boats for dear life, hay-men), but said former pastor made the point that, in the Bible, burning a body was a sign that that person was cursed, or being sacrificed to another God, and why would a Christian want to give that appearance?

          *sigh*

          One member asks one question and the rest of us get an entire Sunday School lesson about it.

        3. My Fundy preacher, grandpa was against cremation, until he found out how much a traditional service would cost. Being cheap won. Following the funeral, the Fundy pastor said, “this is usually that part of the service where we go to the cemetery to say ashes to ashes. Well Mel beat is to that, so lets go eat”.

    7. This was a big issue for my father-in-law’s former pastor. It’s definitely true.

  21. After I left my husband, my kids were in the IFB school. My six year old daughter in grade one had a little boy sit next to her, telling her that her daddy was a good man and her mummy was a bad person. This was going on for weeks before the traumatised little girl was brave enough to tell anybody.

    The school claimed they would deal with it, but I never heard any feedback as to HOW it was dealt with, so I don’t know what they actually did.

    We changed schools.

    3. It sounds true.
      But who was telling the boy this? He probably didn’t come up with it on his own.

      1. It’s true, and the boy’s father, who was also my son’s Sunday School teacher, had also been bullying me. So that’s where he heard it from.

  22. An individual in the community heard our church was undertaking a building project. This person wanted to donate a large sum of money to the church for that purpose.

    The church leadership refused the much-needed funds. Why? Accepting money from unbelievers sent the message they didn’t trust God to provide the funds. Besides, who knows what nefarious means this man had used to attain his wealth. He could have possibly won the lottery, and the holy church couldn’t possibly use gambling money to further the cause if Christ!

    2. I am going to say true. It makes me think of when the Lord had the people of Israel plunder the Egyptians just before the exodus.

    3. True, but it goes even beyond fundies (personal experience in a non-denom church!).

    4. True. I was about 3rd grade at the time, and my question to my parents, “Couldn’t God be providing through this man?” wasn’t well received. Because God only provides through other believers. How do we know who the True Believers (TM) are? They go to our church, silly!

      *facepalm*

  23. In 1986 I was an eighth grader at a Christian IFB school in Kentucky. The pastor of the church (who also taught Bible and history at the school) had a son (also in the eighth grade) who got involved in an altercation with a tenth grade boy over an eighth grade girl. At some point a hole was knocked in the wall in the men’s restroom.

    The next day in Bible class (the last period of the day– all students in the seventh through twelfth grade were in this class), the pastor announced that there were going to be major changes in the school. Students would not be permitted to speak to students of the opposite sex on school grounds, and lunch would be absolutely silent for a week.

    The Monday following this punitive week, the pastor, his wife (who taught the science class), and their two sons were gone. History class was then taught by a man who threw out the curriculum on ancient Rome and proceeded to teach us about Major Bowes’ Talent Show. Bible class was replaced with hymn singing and listening to sermons on tape, including Tony Campolo’s “Sunday’s Comin'” sermon. A mother from the church took the responsibility of teaching the science class, the science fair was discarded, and we simply read and took the tests from our A Beka Book science text.

    1. I don’t know if it’s true or not — I’m just trying to figure out if the situation was remedied or got worse.

    2. We’ve all heard stories of fundy staff members who disappeared suddenly… I’m just trying to work out (if this one was true) what allegations were bubbling under the surface to cause this?

    4. It’s true. This event took place in March, so the school never quite got back on track that year.

      What I didn’t mention– because I could neither confirm or deny the events– was that there seems to have been a heated exchange in the school’s church on Sunday between the father of the tenth grader and the pastor after the week of silence. My family didn’t attend that church, so we never really found out. It did cause enough of a stir in our church, because so many of the kids in our church attended the school. Our pastor took all the parents and students aside and cautioned them not to get involved in the other church’s affairs– even though it directly impacted our education.

  24. My old fundy pastor preached about kids dancing. He told us that children have no business doing the “Hokey Pokey” or the “Chicken Dance” because it involved wiggling their behinds. 🙄

    Years later I saw a tshirt that read “Maybe the Hokey Pokey is what it’s all about”. Priceless!!!! 😆

  25. Ok, one more!

    I once had a pastor who had previously been a missionary to Zimbabwe. He refused to allow CCM in the church because the backbeat sounded like the rhythms the African witch doctors used to summon evil spirits in their Satanic rituals.

      1. False, actually.

        I did have a pastor who was formerly a missionary to Benin, but he actually tried to introduce CCM to our church. He wanted us to experience the joy he saw in the Africans when they sang and danced and clapped for Jesus.

  26. My old Mog preached against men having facial hair because it was a sign of rebellion and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft so Mustache=Warlock.

    1. True, depending on your stripe of Fundy.

      There are a lot of weird rules about facial hair. For some, only mustaches are ok, for others, beards only, yet others accept mustaches and beards, but goatees are worldly.

      Never heard a sermon preached against facial hair on women, so theoretically, I could sport a Billy Gibbons beard as long as I wore a demure skirt. 😆

    3. “How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at the mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them! . . . . For God wished women to be smooth and to rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane. But He has adorned man, like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him as an attribute of manhood, with a hairy chest, a sign of strength and rule.” – Clement of Alexandria

        2. That looks like a great project My historical-theologian husband would be so impressed if I did it. But then I’d have to give up my SFL time to read the Fathers . . .

    4. I’ve never understood what these people have against facial hair; perhaps it is a carryover from the old, old movies in which the villain had a mustache? Or from the hippie days when many rebels had long hair and beards? I mean, come on, they ate food too – just because a rebel is doing something doesn’t make it sinful.

      1. Businessmen in the 40’s and 50’s didn’t wear beards. In the 60’s, hippies wore beards. Ergo, beards are unprofessional and rebellious.

        I also heard that wire rim glasses were evil, because John Lennon wore them and he was obviously evil as a leader of the British Invasion.

  27. One time, I and a guy I knew got some hookers. I never got caught. He was charged with soliciting a prostitute. I wonder what ever happened to him. Rumor has it that he went into Christian education.

    1. False. And hilariously satirical. Although it’s hard to satirize the satire of Fundamentalism.

        3. You see, BJUs brand is in major trouble because nasty bloggers said things like they shouldn’t be harbouring sex offenders or mistreating the victims, so they got a Branding Officer to clean up their image.

          And hired a sex offender. Because this is BJU.

  28. Mine have to do with dress.

    I went to an amusement park on a hot day and found myself in line behind a group of young people who were dressed up as if to go to church. The girls were in dresses and wearing hose…the young men in dress pants and shirts. The girl I was with thought they were crazy..(incidentally I was with a SBC church group but they were smart enough to know how to go casual and still be within the bounds of ‘moderation’)

    Another time our youth group decided to take a trip to a nearby battlefield. It was outside and included a lot of walking along dirt paths. I dressed appropriately …the rest of the youth group dressed up. The girls even wore dress shoes. I remember seeing them and thinking “Are you crazy?” That was the beginning of the end of my dressing a certain way because of what people ‘might’ think. You might see it as a testimony.
    Everyone else sees it as a bit kooky.

    I also remember while at Bob Jones a certain type of high heeled open toed show with no back strap became popular. Apparently some of the preacher boys took offense to it and thought something should be done about them. To his credit Bob III dismissed their objections.

  31. My wife was in a service once where the preacher made every female between the ages of 18-25 stand up, pointed at them individually, and said either “Godly lady” or “whore” just by their makeup, dress, and overall appearance. (BTW, my wife was classified a Godly lady.)

    2. Oh man… I sat in a church once that makes me partially believe this. However, I say “false”.

    4. Hint: The speaker was Sammy Allen, and the site was at Harold Sightler’s church/college, Tabernacle, circa 1990

    5. I’m going with True, as what Fundy preacher would ever pass up the chance to call out some poor woman as a whore, and not only get away with it, but have the backing of all the RTCs (Real True Christians) as well? 😡 😈 🙁

    6. Oh my freaking word, I saw Sammy Allen do a similar thing! He called out a friend of mine, made her stand up, and told everyone that she was dressed modestly and was a good example of a Christian lady. Ironically, my Dad disagreed with Sammy because he thought my friend’s dress was a little too low cut (her collarbone was showing).

    7. I saw this happen in my youth group. We had rent-a-skirts for those occasions.

  32. My wife was in a different service in which a man was running around the auditorium “in the Spirit” and he ran through a plate glass window of a door that he thought was open.

  33. Pastor held a Community Gospel Crusade and began a series of sermons preaching against the Sin of Homosexuality. Shortly thereafter he (allegedly) was attacked in the Fellowship Hall by an irate man who was upset because his lover had gotten under conviction at the Crusade and had left him, so now the Pastor was going to pay for how he had hurt that relationship. The attacks included a concussion, a road rage incident, arson, terrorism at his home, a break-in at the church, an alleged beating at the church and eventually the Pastor was shot. All for standing and preaching hard against the sin of Homosexuality.

        1. The arson and the shooting did take place. Of course they were both self-started/self-inflicted…

    3. Don, did you ever find out if that “pastor” was dealing with homosexual attractions himself?

      His railing against teh gayz sounds very similar to Schaap’s fascination with sexual immorality. 😐

      1. Yes, the local police have surveillance footage of him frequenting local gay bars… but I’m sure he was only in there to preach and hand out Chick Tracts. 😯

  34. 1) A “mog” star in fundyland told a group of “preacher boys” that if they lusted after a woman God could not use them until they confessed and people would go to hell because of them.

    2) IFB pastor explained to members of his congregation that he had to discipline his wife that week because she had squandered the church’s money by purchasing the wrong type of copy paper.

    1. 2 – sounds like Jack Trieber. Just wait until he sees how she stacked the copy paper. He’s really gonna have some disciplining to do.

  35. In 1981-1982 I attended an IFB school in Newburgh, Indiana which had a book burning during school one year. Students were encouraged in advance to bring sinful material to chuck in a burn barrel. Two sisters brought the family television set (with the permission of their mother) and burned it.

    Also at that school that year, all students were given the assignment to write a letter of appreciation to Ronald Reagan for his position on abortion.

        1. If its the IFB school I think he is talking about, they used ACE paces, and they burned very well. 😛

    3. Disney was right, it is a small world after all….

      There is no place quite like this place near this place, so this must be the place!

  36. In youth group (not fundy) we went downtown for an outing. Gyroscopes were the new thing, so I decided to try it out. I wasn’t much of a thrill seeker, but it looked fun. So, I get inside and the thing starts spinning. I’m holding on for dear life, my shirt however is not. I end up flashing my entire youth group, including the youth pastor, and all of downtown. Needless to say, no one else was allowed to go on it after me.

    2. Oh hahaha… You poor thing! I imagine the audience standing, eyes wide open… Oh man, that’s funny!

      TRUE

    3. On my first date (at Hyles Anderson) with my now-husband, we went on the dating bus to Old Chicago (an indoor amusement park in Chicago) They had a really fast spinning ride there. We were sitting next to each other on the bench and every time it spun one direction, it took both hands and all my strength to hold on and not be thrown into my date’s lap. Immediately I realized that my skirt kept blowing up as well. If I took one hand off the bar to hold down my skirt, I would be thrown in to him, but if I didn’t he was getting more of a show than would have been approved. I was trying to remember what I learned in Mrs. Evans’ class about which is worse for boys, sight, or touch… Fortunately the ride was over pretty fast and no permanent harm was done. But just to be on the safe side, he married me.

  37. When my husband and I worked at an elementary school in fundy-land, they required everyone to not only spend their required on-the-clock hours working, but also every evening and weekend there was something “mandatory” that was required to attend. (i.e. Monday, soulwinning, Tuesday, AWANA, (whatever they called the knock-off of AWANA they had) Wednesday, Church, etc.) In order to make ends meet, I got a job in a health club and kept it on the down low (for obvious reasons.)
    The pastor ALWAYS made a HUGE stink about how EVERYONE was required to go visiting, and the whole fundy guilt-trip rigamarole of all the reasons visitation made you a better Christian or whatever.
    Imagine my surprise at work one Monday night when who walked in to my health/racquetball club in their suits and ties and gym bags for a game of racquetball but the pastor and principal of the school.
    I asked my husband after work if they had skipped visitation, and he said, “No, they were there, why?” They had shown up at the church for visitation, but instead of going out on the calls, they played hookey.
    Hypocrites!

        1. You know, it’s likely that this was used as a sermon illustration later. But YOU were the one playing skipping out on soul-winning!

  38. I once attended a Jack Hyles sermon in which he announced that according to his meticulous records, it was his 40,000th sermon.

    1. Keep in mind that 40,000 sermons would require a person to preach 2-3 times a day for 40 years.

      1. False, but only because of the constraints of time.
        Of course there are MOGs who are big enough blabbermouths that 40,000 sermons sound entirely believable. 😀

        1. It doesn’t have to be false that she heard the claim. Only false that he actually preached that many sermons. (But he also claimed to win thousands of souls to the Lord… EVERY WEEK.) So I say TRUE.

        2. Schaap claimed that he worked over 100 hours a week. Prosecution had something to say about that 😉

    4. Pretty sure this is true. I wrote the number down in my Bible at the time. It was at a SOTL conference around the mid-1980’s. At the time, I felt honored to be in the audience on such an auspicious occasion. Then, later on, I did the math.

      Perhaps I misheard the number, but I don’t think so.

  39. When I started dating my husband at a fundy U, he (staff kid) was pulled aside by some authority and told not to date me because I looked like a snuggler. 😉

    1. They wanted him to go for the whips-and-chains girl instead. Come on, don’t we all?

  40. Taught at a Fundy school in which we had to attend a 7:30 faculty meeting, the bulk of which was dedicated to our trash habits. Essentially, we were to no longer ball up a piece of paper before throwing it away because that takes up more space.

    I taught math, so a future math lesson involved an experiment where we determined the space savings.

    1. Sounds true to me because a lot of fundy schools are known for micro-management.

      And a teacher turning that into a math lesson sounds like something teachers do — capturing a teachable moment!

    2. True story. Still can’t figure out why fundies are so concerned about paper. Maybe more of them need to go completely paperless…

  41. How about this: as a student at Fundy U selecting a seat in the balcony. The usher told me I had to sit somewhere else, but I told him that I had agreed to meet my sister in the balcony in that section. Sister never shows up (turns out she got a stomach virus during Sunday School – or maybe the teaching was just that bad), and the usher pulls me out of the service. He begins to berate me for lying to him, then starts actually crying. He says he is angry that I disrespected him. He ends up crying on my shoulder. I go back to my seat and sleep for the rest of the interment.

  42. I was in a service once in Appalachia where “it got on” during the service. People were jumping the pews and running the aisles. Two obese gentlemen ran the opposite way around a blind corner and collided head-on. The paramedics were summoned to assess them. They were deemed badly bruised but otherwise okay. The service didn’t recover.

    1. Ok, I hope this is true, and I hope there’s a Youtube video. Please provide linkage.

  43. I knew a guy at HAC who had a very exhausting week, and although he tried, he couldn’t find anyone that week to witness to who wasn’t already saved. He knew that if he didn’t he would get demerits (I think it was 10 for not witnessing to someone) so he lied on his report and said he did. The very same day he felt convicted about the lie and went to “Dr” Jorgensen (the discipline guy at the time) and confessed. He got the 10 demerits for not witnessing and then 50 more for the lie. It was enough to put him over the allowed number of demerits and he was kicked out of school for the year.

  44. Taught at a Fundy school. On last day before Christmas break, was asked to remove my Santa Claus tie (Santa’s nose was lit up!) that played “Jingle Bells”.

    At a different, presumably more liberal Fundy school, was asked on a Valentine’s day to remove my Winnie the Pooh tie that was covered in hearts. Had previously worn a Bugs Bunny tie, a Curious George tie, and a less colorful Winnie the Pooh tie with no objection. At a different time, was asked to remove my tie that had the logo of my favorite college team because the school didn’t want me promoting secular colleges. (Which is strange, because they paid my tuition for a master’s degree from the same institution.)

      1. Wow, I feel the love guys! Lol. All true, and you’ll be happy to know that my wife picks out my clothes now. No more tacky ties!

        1. In my public high school, we had a math teacher who ALWAYS wore tacky ties! We laughed but also secretly liked it, and though we mocked, it was with affection. One day we all wore crazy ties to class ourselves.

        2. We had a teacher like that. The last day of class we all sang “Blest be the Tie that Blinds.”

        3. Many of the ties that I wore with cartoon characters on them were actually gifts from students. You pretty much have to wear them at least a couple of times.

          Once, I got a rather expensive, but extremely pink, tie. Now, I’m secure in my manhood and all, but this man doesn’t wear pink. Well, not any more… 😉

  45. My old fundy church has a pastor’s refresher school every year. In 2012 they had as guest speakers both Paul Chappell and David Gibbs (can’t remember which DG).

    I never did find out if DG made it though, since it happened to be scheduled for the exact week that Schaap was caught.

  46. I knew a woman whose father was an IFB pastor. When he was a young man, he made a vow to the Lord that he would witness to one person every day. He seriously went door knocking EVERY SINGLE DAY until the point where a person was willing to listen to the Romans Road or whatever he used. He did this even on his own wedding day, and his daughter’s wedding day. Every single day until he died.

  47. In a church youth camp, the pastor spent FOUR hours from 11pm to 3am going through the Bible to a confused teen to ‘break him down’ spiritually and get him to ‘repent and turn to Christ’. True, false?

    4. While at BJU, my fiance was being interviewed for a youth pastor position. I went along, the pastor wanting to meet both of us. When he asked for our testimony, he didn’t like my answer; I can’t remember now if it was because I didn’t remember the exact date (I was three years old when my mom led me to the Lord) or because I admitted that I sometimes doubted, but the pastor spent the rest of the interview trying to convince me that I was unsaved and needed to get saved.

      I truly was terrified of going to hell and he scared me, but I couldn’t get past the point that he wanted me to admit that I was unsaved. I was willing to admit that I MIGHT be unsaved, but I couldn’t say that I absolutely wasn’t, because I was pretty sure that I really HAD meant what I’d prayed as a child, and maybe I’d said it wrong and hadn’t repented — God knew whether I had meant it or not — and I was willing to say, “IF I’m not, please save me,” but he insisted that I had to admit that I was unsaved right then and on my way to hell and I couldn’t admit that. We went round and round and round. I went back to my apartment on campus (I was a GA) and stayed up all night, crying and praying and reading 1 John over and over.

      It was nightmarish. I’m getting a little upset now just thinking about it.

      Needless to say that pastor did NOT hire my husband-to-be.

      1. Sounds like your husband to be dodged a bullet in not getting hired. Maybe God was using you to keep hubby to be out of a toxic situation?

      3. PW, that makes me angry just reading it. I have sat through sermons such as this about one must know the exact date or one is unsaved, type of unscriptural nonsense. Praise the Lord for His wonderful grace in the gift of His Son for us. God Bless your dear Mom for caring enough to share Him with you as a tender child.

  48. One time, I got expelled from my courtship-only Baptist high school two months before I should have graduated for putting a Valentine’s Day note in my crush’s coat pocket.

    Having no diploma, my pastor ‘advised’ my parents to make me quit my job and spend the summer as an unpaid* resident laborer at a nearby Christian camp – splitting logs, digging ditches and the like. That way, he could monitor my spiritual growth, and at the end of the sentence – and if and only if he deemed that I wouldn’t embarrass the name of his ministry – he’d pull some strings and get me into an established Greenville, South Carolina-based University.

    So the crux of this anecdote is that I now have a B.A. degree but no high school diploma. Truth? Or Fiction?

    * In the interest of complete truthfulness, the camp did pay me a salary of $22.50/week (the tithe was pre-deducted).

  49. One summer, I worked at a Christian camp. I was in the habit of wrapping a bandanna around my head to keep the hair out of my face. I was reprimanded and told to take it off because the bandanna around my head was a gang sign.

    1. I think true because I’ve heard of bandannas being forbidden for that very reason at schools.

    3. True. That was at a tiny camp in Colorado where I worked my first summer after Fundy U. They out-fundied my college and caused one of my friends to have a nervous breakdown halfway through the summer.

  50. When I was in the 8th grade, Schaap, came to my fundy church to “preach” to the youth group. One hour and fifteen minutes later he was still “preaching.” After he finished he then spent the next fifteen minutes showing pictures of abortion clinics and aborted babies on slides.

    3. Schaap a Perv, yup! TBN has even made fun of him. There are atleast a handful of videos making fun of Schaap and the Shaft. I wasn’t surprised that Schaap has polished the shaft more than once first doing back in 2004 while descending from the ceiling at FBC.

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