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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”

  1. I once heard my dad get into a full blown using tirade from the pulpit. He was taking pot shots at the woman who had just left her husband, and he called her everything but a child of God. He later blamed it on pain killers.
    At a camp meeting, Jimmy Hood out of Columbus, Ohio had a little issue with cussing out the devil. It was rather amusing, and both incidents added immensely to my young vocabulary.

  2. I once squirmed through a sermon in which the preacher expounded for an hour on Gen. 1:29: ” . . .the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” He insisted that the “it” referred back to the word “seed,” ergo, we should be eating the seeds of fruit, not just the meat, ergo, we are so unhealthy because we are not obeying God’s culinary commands. It’s right there in God’s Holy Word, Friends. Remove the seeds at your own bodily and spiritual harm.

    1. Probably true, I remember hearing that from Kent Hovind when I was a kid. Supposedly the trace amounts of cyanide in apricot seeds killed cancer cells, and part of the reason people lived past 900 years before the flood was because they ate fruit seeds. True story.

      2. Eeek! Look it up on the net; although it takes 50-70 seeds to kill an adult, it only takes 7-10 to kill a child. I wouldn’t think more than a few would be too good for an adult either. 😯

      3. Yes the cyanide kills cancer cells. What they don’t tell you is that cyanide kills all cells, not just cancer!

      4. That’s an idea lifted straight from the famous psychic Edgar Cayce. My grandparents followed it religiously and both still died from cancer.

    2. I remember my old fundy school, well never coming out and saying, but hinting and poking at the benefits of latatril against cancer. 😕 To this day I wonder if they have a point.

        1. The usual spelling is laetrile. Laetrile is a substance derived from the kernals of apricot seeds, which contain a good deal of natural cyanide.

          Laetrile became a fad treatment for cancer and sometimes other ailments in the 1970s (although it originated long before that. It certainly didn’t cure cancer, and it likely harmed people in large doses.

          Here’s a longer article about it:
          http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/laetrile.html

        2. Thanks, BG, that does clear things up. It’s sad in so many ways, in that it did seem like a cure at first, that it didn’t work, and that so many people got ripped off about treatments. 😥

      2. The fundy school I taught in in the late 70s-early 80s went the laetrile route, too, until something even more bizarre and mysterious came along. It was some preparation made by a cattle rancher in Wyoming over an old Indian concoction. Lots of herbs and natural things, cooked on a rock in the sun. The rancher used it on his stock and it had shown amazing results on horses’ legs tangled in barbed wire. Anyhow, somehow it became known for astounding results when taken internally including effects on cancerous tumors. One of the teachers in the school was the daughter of our first fundy pastor. I won’t go into my family’s escape story, but suffice it to say this was an over-the-top goofball fundy family. This gal insisted that when she rubbed the the Formula # Whatever on a mole she could feel it burning clear into her head, and within a few hours she pulled the whole thing out of her face, including the roots. 😯 Our church (not the one with the school) supported a missionary whose wife was quite ill with cancer. I told him about the stuff and that a large syringe of it could be had for a $50 donation; the rancher would take no “pay.” He decided to give it a try and I took the $50 to the pastor of the school/church. He got the Formula #/Whatever. It was a sludgy paste with a really pungent smell, pretty much what you’d expect of a bunch of herbs and weeds cooked on a rock in the sun. The missionary eventually even took his wife to Mexico for laetrile treatments, which was about the only way you could get them. She did not survive in spite of his efforts. It seems that fundys love mysterious and rare things like these. There’s a kind of “I know something you don’t know” arrogance to it.

        1. I think you nailed it– there’s a definite thrill in knowing things that few people know.

          Also, if you have a cancer or other illness that is incurable by conventional means, you may be willing to try anything, no matter how improbable.

          Some of this stuff does no actual harm, unless it keeps people from seeking more effective treatment. For example, I don’t know of any adverse effects from wearing rock crystals around– nor could there be any conceivable benefit. As someone said the other day, “Homeopathic treatments have no side effects, because they have no effects.”

          But some of these “alternative” treatments are toxic or otherwise bad for you. That’s where I object to them. Those, and the cases where someone is charging a lot of money for something with no proven benefits.

  3. Just prior to the last election, Our IFB pastor, “Cattleman,” preached a sermon via powerpoint where he wove into the sermon political cartoons of Obama side-by-side with Adolf Hitler, and Omama portrayed as Pharoah riding (with a whip) one of the great pyramid stones as the American people drag it along. I can’t remember what the text was, but I believe in the Hebrew (because he likes to preach out of the Old Testament) Israel was encouraged to vote.

  4. More than 700 comments, quick call Pat Robertson and the 700 club. I remember attending Youth Conference in Hammond and Hyles called out Pat Robertson and Kenneth Copeland and said “Preaching on TBN is a sin.” I guess that also includes the 700 Club, The PTL Club, and Daystar.

    1. “Preaching on TBN is a sin”? oh dear oh my, and why are those words resounding more than they should? 😕

  5. My dad used to preach at this church every year or two. He was good friends with the pastor and once took a trip to Israel with him and a few other preachers. Well, this one time the week before the revival meeting an important member of the church was speaking for some reason and went off on people calling their children “kids,” since that was saying they were goats. On the final night of the meeting, my dad said something like, “Thank you for allowing me to be here with my wife and kids.” He was never asked to preach there again.

  6. There was this church in South Dakota that had just about completed a new auditorium, and the pastor had the brilliant idea to let the church members vote on what color carpet they wanted. He picked out a blue sample, a red sample, and a brown sample that were all beautiful and would complement the auditorium very well, and then for a joke he brought in this ugly green shag carpet.

    On the day of the big vote, the results came in equally divided among the red, blue, and brown carpets. Nobody voted for the green carpet.

    Unfortunately, no one in the church could be convinced to change a vote. Before long, the church split into three factions. Each group would sit together in church, and would not speak with members of the other group, until the service was over and they would get into arguments in the parking lot.

    The matter was eventually resolved when the blue carpet people and the red carpet people got so mad at the brown carpet people that they decided to join forces. They still could not agree on a color, so they compromised by voting for the green carpet.

    1. 🙄 😕 If it’s not true, something very much like it happened in a church somewhere.

    2. OF COURSE the church went with the green carpet, the one nobody really wanted. The conclusion was assumed the minute I read the words 🙄

    3. I have heard this story or variations thereof. Always supposed to be an illustration of the dangers of lack of “unity”. Never had it substantiated though.

    4. My dad preached for the pastor in the story. The information is second-hand and I have no way to verify it, but I believe it to be completely accurate.

      1. This happened at FBC in Modesto, CA. There was great disagreement on whether the front doors should be light wood or dark wood. The pastor had them painted bright blue. Deacons and staff carried around printed cards: “Your spiritual maturity can be measured by your reaction to BLUE DOORS.” Haymen!

        1. For some reason I would not be surprised if a similar thing happened in many churches.

  7. There was a rule at the Bible college I attended – the girls had to wear skirts or dresses and pantyhose at all times. No exceptions. Because that’s what godly women do – unless you’re the president’s wife or daughter. Then you can ride around the city in your Lincoln or on your motorcycle wearing jeans (without pantyhose!).

    No sense asking if you think this is true – you all know it is!

    (Not a big deal, I know, compared to the horrible things some of you have been through. Just another example of hypocrisy.)

    1. 🙁 My mother was no fundy, my grandmother was. As of this writing I hang my head in shame over not wearing stockings and proper shoes out in public. No clues as for who reminded me of this. (hint, my grandmother died 40 years ago.)

  8. I once taught at a fundy school which had chapel every Monday and Friday. One day, the speaker made repeated reference to a “Peanuts” cartoon. Except he didn’t pronounce the “t”. And he said it over and over and over and over again…

    1. Ah yes, the Peanuts illustrations.

      I do believe John C. Maxwell started this tradition. Maxwell (or rather one of his hired “illustration finders”) seems to always include at least one Peanuts illustration in his books (which are often merely spliced together versions of the one or two books that he has actually written).

      There are some pastors (Pastor Chappell for example) who laud the wisdom of reading books on “productivity” (like John C. Maxwell’s), all the while scanning for some good “preaching material.”

      Thus, the gratuitous incorporation of a couple Peanuts illustrations in some IFB sermons.

      “While should I listen to you?” Charlie asks.

      Shaking a clenched fist in front of the face of Charlie Brown, Lucy replies, “I’ll give you FIVE good reasons!”

      *curteous laughter from the audience who has obviously heard the joke from their pastor many times before, and wonders to self, “Wow, I guess Pastor So and So must really love Peanuts.”

      … that or he has never read Peanuts in his life but has got the illustration from a book or another Pastor’s sermon.

      1. When I was a kid, the book, “The Gospel According to Peanuts” was hugely popular. The author, Robert Short, made a ton of money from it.
        The book consisted of a selection of reprinted “Peanuts” cartoons with some obvious, overly literal links to Bible quotations.

        1. sad thing, the Peanuts cartoons probably demonstrated ideas better than anything else. 😕

        2. The Gospel According to Peanuts is on my 5 foot shelf of desert island books. Short also wrote “The Parables of Peanuts” and a third volume (I own it, but the title escapes me… something like “Meditations from Peanuts”.

          Charles Schultz was an astute observer of the human condition, and used his gifts of humor and art to create many poignant strips. I was fortunate to have corresponded with him, as he was guardedly generous with his time.

          It’s interesting to note that although “Sparky” was known to give Sunday School lessons and “chalk talks” in many Churches of all denominations throughout much of his life, he later became disenchanted with “churchianity”. He said “baptists were the worst of all… They didn’t even know who Beethoven was.”

          In his final years, he described himself as a “secular humanist” by default.

          As for the books by Robert Short, Sparky had no input or editorial influence in them, although he gave permission for his strips to be used in them, and he said he enjoyed them. TGATP helped me, in my early days as a 21 yr old seeker, to understand some of the Gospel’s ramifications in a believer’s life. In the later 2 volumes, Short became more open with his Universalism, which confused me somewhat, yet they were all well written and thoughtful books.

          Thanks, BG, for bringing up this book. If any one would like a copy, there are usually very inexpensive ones available on Amazon. It sums up what many people express here on SFL… “Good Grief!!” Indeed.

        3. I admired Peanuts and Charles Schulz as a child, and I still admire them to this day.
          The strips are full of very profound insights.
          I’m not persuaded that Short added much to those insights, but he didn’t pervert their messages, either.

          A few years ago, I read “Shulz and Peanuts,” a very good biography by David Michaelis. If you’re interested in Schulz’s work, it’s well worth a read.

  9. There were a couple of great IFB missionaries who made their way to Quebec, Canada and were horrified to realize that the French speaking residents of this province did not have access to God’s Word in the form of the KJV. They proceeded to immerse themselves in an intense period of study to master the French language (about a year or so). They began to produce the most magnificent work of French literature ever seen. Their translation is storming the French speaking world and is the source of a huge revival in Quebec.

    2. There is something a bit off about this one………hmmmm……..can’t quite put my finger on it. Oh wait, I see the lie: fundies learning French well.

    3. This was discussed by some missionaries but never happened (fortunately they realized that they didn’t possess the necessary language skills to pull it off).

    5. This actually happened in Korea. First, a group came and introduced KJVO doctrine, so local Koreans translated a new Bible from the King James version. Then these translators started telling everyone that if you used the Revised Standard Version (Korean) instead of the Korean King James, you were going to hell. After that, no one wanted to be associated with that translation, so a second Korean Bible was translated off of the King James. It is ridiculous to be that anyone who is bilingual and able to translate would fall for that KJVO malarky!

      1. I’d be interested as to how the KJV-inspired translation came out. If nothing else, I’ve wondered how Shakespeare’s English, 😎 as compared to the ordinary kind, turns out in other languages.

  10. I preached in a church in TN a few years back. The pastor taught the adult SS class. He went on a tirade against some unnamed member who was seen frequenting “titty bars”. Yes, the pastor used those words from the pulpit. Several times in fact.

  11. Once upon a time, a Pope – er, Pastor washed the feet of prisoners, two of which had the audacity to be women instead of upper-level male bishops. Traditionalist catholics – er, independent fundamentalist baptists were incensed. They said he was setting a bad example.

  12. Why are you asking for storys? This whole entire website is nothing but storys about the church and they are all lies. So are you just running out of material and now you have to ask your readers for more lies? Let me tell you if you told the truth about the church insted of your lies then all these mocking readers would go away real quick.

    4. That should be “go away really quickly”, or “go away very quickly” (really is a really imprecise word that is really bad to use). Quickly is modifying “go”, and should be an adverb. The way you have written it, you are saying “go away quite living”, which, you know I’m guessing is not what you intended.

      1. Hey Doc… John misspelled “insted” … Do you think he argued with autocorrect and insisted that autocorrect was telling lies too? LOL

        Oh how the willfully blinded live is beyond the scope of even themselves!

        ~~~Heart 😯

      1. Uh oh….too much of the iceberg is being exposed! Fundies getting nervous, things are getting too hot at SFL! Time to start crying,”LIES, BITTERNESS, MOCKERS…”

        Surprised it took them this long! Think maybe, most recognize too many of these stories???

        1. Been There…

          Absolutely! And while they defend, they deny that they are amidst those very happenings as victims or guilty of such conduct!

          Open your eyes people!

          ~~~Heart 😯

  13. There was a lady in my fundie church who went to buy a new car at a Ford dealership. They test drove a car they really liked. When they went to buy it, the would not buy it because the name of the car was “Fiesta”. She thought it sounded too worldly and wouldn’t buy the car and spend $10k more on the next model up.

    1. Ohhhhh wow what is that saying in the Bible about straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel?

  14. One fine Sunday, on the AM bus route to pick up the kids, I decided to readjust my shirt. There were a handful of kids and a few workers towards the back of the bus. Our driver was a man. I quietly stepped into the stairwell. out-of-view, to, you know, undo the necessary items to tuck the shirt in. Well, turns out that our resident “LOOK HOW FUNDY I AM!!” guy had his eye on me. Next thing I know, I’m called into a meeting with said Super-Fundy (who is no longer part of a church at all, mind you), the bus captain, the bus director, and the assistant pastor. Cap’n Fundypants was making his case that something was wrong with me because I was performing a striptease in front of the kids. 🙄

  15. John, when using the plural form of story, drop the “y” and add “ies”…should read “stories” not “storys”…

  16. I was counseling with Jim Berg at Bob Jones University because I have a long history of physical and sexual abuse, including being kidnapped.
    Most people who have been through these things have trust issues, and I was no different.

    Berg’s problem with me, though, was that I didn’t trust HIM.
    Berg decides he’s going to fix this.
    During one of my counseling sessions, Berg pulls a rat-trap out of his desk, set’s the trap, then places a pencil in the trap. The trap springs. Bits of broken pencil pieces fly around. (I have that non-real thing called PTSD too. You can imagine how the loud noise, flying pencil pieces did to me with that ‘not-real condition.
    Then he re-sets the rat-trap in front of me.
    Tells me if I trust him, I will put my finger in the trap.
    Berg asks me repeatedly, “Do you trust me?”
    Uhhhh…no… I don’t trust anyone enough to put MY finger in a rat-trap just because they tell me to…is my repeated answer.
    At one point, Berg says, “You don’t trust me that your finger won’t be hurt?”
    I replied, “If you wish to put YOUR finger in the rat-trap, that’s fine, but I’m not putting MY finger in any rat-trap.”
    (I figured he must have somehow rigged the rat-trap that it wouldn’t go off. But I knew it was the same rat-trap and knew that even little mouse traps can hurt like a bitch because I had once had a mouse trap I thought was broken spring shut on my pointer finger and needed stitches to close the wound. There was no way in Hades I was going to put my finger in *anyone’s* rat-trap.

    Well, Berg finally takes another pencil out of his desk drawer and springs the trap. The trap didn’t go off.

    Then Berg takes the remainder of the appointment to upbraid me. According to Berg, since I lacked the ability to trust those whom God had placed over me as authority on the horizontal plane (Read Jim Berg and his rat-trap)–I could never trust God who was on the vertical plane.

      1. I wouldn’t have done it either, especially when he had just demonstrated that it DID work. In my opinion, one can only expect this level of trust after investing a LOT of consistent compassion in someone’s life. He seemed to think that he deserved your trust simply because of his status as dean. That was a totally unfair expectation. I believe we have a God-given sense of self-preservation and it is only RIGHT for us to honor those boundaries.

        1. Trust is definitely something people have to earn with me.

          Berg’s counseling, at least for me, was extremely damaging. I had as many, if not more, therapy appointments to undo nearly everything Berg had done, as I did therapy session to deal with my abusive past.

          He didn’t believe in PTSD. You see Berg says PTSD is just “a sin problem” not a real medical problem, ya’ know? PTSD “is a sin.” My PTSD and associated depression and anxiety didn’t have any medical basis but were “spiritual issues.” When I began to take anti-depressants, Berg accused me of “covering” my “sin problem.” Berg used to do things that he knew would trigger a flashback to “teach how to deal biblically” with these problems. Berg had me memorize certain passages of scripture. During the flashback, Berg told me what all I needed to do was stand up and recite passages from the Bible out-loud. I don’t know about other people, but when I’m having a flashback from my PTSD, I can’t talk because I’m literally re-living a series of traumatic events (such as being raped, or beaten or starved on that farm.) There was no way I could think clearly enough to remember a Bible passage let alone stand up and quote one.

          Then Berg determined I just wanted to to have flashbacks because I wanted to remain angry and bitter.

          Oh dear God. I didn’t want to re-live any of it. I often have wondered if men such as Berg could just live through ONE flashbacks, its very likely it would scare the Beelzebub out of him. Then perhaps men such as Berg wouldn’t make such cruel, preposterous statements to those suffering with PTSD.
          But, I wouldn’t wish my PTSD or flashbacks on anyone—including Jim Berg.

        2. Holy shit.

          HOLY SHIT.

          I just–I–HOLY SHIT. Is this man still practicing? I mean, can we take your story of his so-called counseling and push it to the very top of his Google page? Please?

          *has PTSD*

        3. He was the Dean of Students at Jaw Bones for the longest time. He is now the head of the Division of Graduate Studies, as well as the Seminary and Graduate School of Religion.

          Meaning he will have a major impact on Jaw Bones preacher boys for years to come.

          http://www.bju.edu/academics/faculty/facultymember.php?id=jberg

          He no longer has the haircut from that website, having decided to go with the Jim Carrey look from “Dumb and Dumber.”

          I kid you not.

          Make of that what you will.

          He must still be practicing, because he hasn’t gotten it right yet!

    2. Wow…

      First, sorry for what you had to go through, first with the abuse, then with self-righteous control-freaks like Berg.

      2 points about that trap – first, if the spring is wound, there’s a decent chance it could go off accidentally no matter how he rigged it, and second, I notice even HE didn’t stick his finger in to trigger it the second time 😯

      1. Well, you see, Berg explained that away because even if the rat-trap had gone off he was had a hold of it…and HE wouldn’t have let me get hurt.

        yeah…whatever.

    3. After all that abuse, and the issue was that YOU didn’t trust HIM? 😡 John 11:35! The ugly thing is that I could see him springing the trap as a nasty joke, maybe rigging it so it “just wouldn’t hurt as much” and all in the name of… just what?
      Just hope you’ve gotten away from these sadists.

    4. It is better to trust in The LORD than to put confidence in man. You did the right thing.

    5. So his idea of counseling is to show you a cheap-ass magic trick and then tell you you should trust him as if he were God?

      That’s just a watered-down version of the old torture technique of subjecting prisoners to mock executions.

      At least you had enough self-esteem to refuse to play his game.

      I wonder if anybody knows how many already-hurting people Jim Berg has further harmed by his deranged “counseling.”

      1. “version of the old torture technique of subjecting prisoners to mock executions.”
        Interesting you say that because that was the same response I received from my licensed therapist when I told her about Jim’s “trust exercise” (Except for the added f-bombs and other words that came out of of her mouth during that appointment)…Jimmy would have needed a dictionary to understand her vocabulary. 😯 And she didn’t usually use those words as a sweet lil’ Southern gal. :mrgreen:

        Berg has hurt a lot of people with his “counseling.”

    6. Cathy,

      That’s such the typical attitude of the egos of these men in leadership positions of these entities under God and its WRONG!

      Testing your trust after you had been abused and hurt was preposterous! I hope you have gotten the love and support that you deserve my lovely girl!

      Try to put his damned stupidity behind you, pity the man and those who look to him but take your strength, that I know you possess, and elevate yourself to a higher “plane” and receive a big hug from me! 😀

      ~~~Heart 😉

    7. I believe everything you’re saying except the stitches from a mousetrap bit. I can’t tell you how many mousetraps I’ve set (and snapped on myself) in my life, and there is no possible way a mousetrap can cause damage anywhere near that bad to anyone’s finger. Remember, if it’s gonna be true, it’s gotta be all true!

  17. Once upon a time a woman in an IFB church left her husband and children in order to live in a relationship with another woman. Several of this woman’s church friends met with her and encouraged her to consider returning to her family. When that didn’t work, they made sure she had food and had her basic needs met, and then continued their friendship with her. The church told her she is always welcome there and nobody de-friended her over the situation.

    2. I’m guessing “false”. De-friending assumes that the women were allowed to use computers for secular purposes. And the rest just doesn’t align with my experiences in the IFB movement. 😐

  19. An IFB church was meeting in a school. They decided that it was time to purchase some property with a building on it, so the church started a special building savings fund. Keep in mind that this church has a total of around 100-120 members or so. They found a very nice location with a church building already on the property for around 1.2 million dollars. The current owners wanted a nonrefundable down payment of $50,000 if for some reason the transaction did not go through and gave the church three months to come up with the rest of the money. The pastor used the money saved in that special building fund(close to $50,000) for the down payment and told the congregation that the church would rely on God to supply the rest of the funds for the building. They believed that their extraordinary faith in God would result in the money being supplied. Amazingly everyone in the church voted to go along with this extremely unwise plan. Needless to say the rest of the money did not come through and the church lost its $50,000. What is amazing is that all of the members simply said that it must have been God’s will for it not too work out. No accountability for the lost money and nothing happened to the pastor. To this day they are still meeting in a school believing that at the right time and place God will supply their needs.

    2. Years ago, a small Spanish-language church rented space from my church. But the tenant church wanted to have its own building, so they had a long-term Building Fund campaign. They got enough money to buy a lot, on which they intended to put up a building of the “manufactured” variety. But when the church applied for a building permit, they discovered that for some zoning reason (I don’t know the exact details), it was illegal to build any church building on that site. So for several more years, the small congregation kept renting space from us, and remained stuck with the unusable plot of land. A time came when my church needed the space, so the small church was sent packing. Last I heard, they were renting space somewhere else, still unable to get their own building. All of this took place over a span of at least 10 years.

    3. Tim,
      By any chance, do you happen to be referring to a now un-aptly named ministry in the Southwest, and are you posting from outside the country?

      1. Haha, whats happening bro. Posting from Afghanistan here. I thought a lot of your posts sounded familiar.

    4. Dumb question: Why does a congregation of 120 or so need a million-dollar church property? Our little mission church built its first building for about $250,000 and its second (expansion of first) for about $450,000 — many years later, after it had retired the debt from the first building. Granted, we are in an area with reasonable real estate values; perhaps that’s the crucial difference. Also, our land was donated. But still — we have more than 300 families, and even back in the day we had a lot more than 120 members. Am not patting my church community on the back or anything, really…but, unless it’s in some crazy-expensive place like New York or San Francisco, why would such a small community need such a pricey church?

      1. It’s a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, and land values are crazy. It was not an extravagent property – San Fran and New York would be higher, but would not be that far off in comparison.

      2. Yeah, almost all of the land in the area of the church would be around that price, especially if they already have a church built on the property

    1. The area code on the window is 812 which is Evansville, Indiana but if they were HAC students, I’m sure they would be in suit and tie. I hate how the preaching comes across and the signs are terrible!

      I completely disapprove!!!!

      ~~~Heart 👿

      2. They’re preaching against HAC for, get this, not being conservative enough. No, they aren’t HAC student; I misread what this was about.
        And they’re crazy as crazy can be. 😈

        1. JH,

          Yeah, I heard that preacher dissing HAC and the church! The preacher sounds insane!

          Volatile and quite scarey!

          ~~~Heart 😯

        2. In a way, HAC is not conservative. Sticking to tradition is conservative.
          Making a bunch of stuff up and then claiming it’s traditional is just nuts.

  22. Two stories.

    1. I once had a Hyles-Anderson youth pastor who, while standing at the urinal, decided that it would be unbelievably funny to turn really quickly and pee on the teenager standing at the next urinal.

    2. This same youth pastor was also our basketball coach. On a road trip, he thought it would be a real gas to strip down to the bare nothings and walk around the room on his hands.

      1. Oh, it was true, alright.

        Imagine the conversations at home when my parents would ask me what happened at school that day.

        Mom and Dad would get pretty quiet.

        And two teachers weren’t back at school the following year.

        It hadn’t occurred to me that Dad was on the school board.

        The guy wasn’t a perv, as far as I know. He was simply EXTREMELY immature. Call him “23 years old going on 12.” He also liked to screech the chalk on the chalkboard, to the point where the teacher from the next classroom came storming in to ream us out…until she saw that we were sitting quietly at our desks, and it was a TEACHER who was acting the fool. And this guy spent the final 15-20 minutes of each Algebra class trying to bounce a superball off each table, off the back wall of the room, and off each table again, back to his hand. It took him more than one entire school year, but he finally succeeded! I guess he explained it away as a study in applied physics or geometry or somesuch.

        Oh…he was also our Sunday School teacher. Every single lesson was exactly the same: he would give his testimony.

        Every.

        Single.

        Week.

  23. Once there was a woman whose husband left her and filed for divorce after she discovered his pornography addiction. While waiting for the divorce to be final, she was living with a friend. One day, she was in the church office talking to the secretary about the nursery schedule, and the pastor came into the office. He acknowledged the secretary, then turned to the woman and said, “Have you called your husband this week?” When she said that she had not, he shook his finger at her and said, “You dirty dog; I told you that you need to make an effort to reconcile with him and you’re not doing what I told you to do.” Then he turned and walked out.
    True or False?

  24. Every year a children’s pastor at an IFB church led the children in several weeks of playing Underground Church during junior church. For forty minutes every Sunday every child would run and hide somewhere in the church basement. Leaders were the “gestapo.” They dressed in black and carried plastic toy guns. Some years they covered the orange safety tips with black tape. Children who were caught by the gestapo were asked if they were ready to die for Jesus. One Sunday a fifth grade girl was caught. The children’s pastor pointed his toy gun at her and told her to deny Jesus or die. She threw her hands up in the air in fear, cried, “I’m not ready to die,” and ran out of the room. The children’s pastor burst into laughter. Now he often tells this story and expects everyone to laugh with him.Every year a children’s pastor at an IFB church led the children in several weeks of playing Underground Church during junior church. For forty minutes every Sunday every child would run and hide somewhere in the church basement. Leaders were the “gestapo.” They dressed in black and carried plastic toy guns. Some years they covered the orange safety tips with black tape. Children who were caught by the gestapo were asked if they were ready to die for Jesus. One Sunday a fifth grade girl was caught. The children’s pastor pointed his toy gun at her and told her to deny Jesus or die. She threw her hands up in the air in fear, cried, “I’m not ready to die,” and ran out of the room. The children’s pastor burst into laughter. Now he often tells this story and expects everyone to laugh with him.

    1. I’m guessing it’s true. I know youth leaders have done this before with their youth group. I’d be surprised at a church extending this for several weeks though.

      1. Yes, it’s true. He ran Underground Church every year for four consecutive Sundays. With first through sixth graders.

    3. I don’t which is worse, that the pastor thinks the girl’s fears are funny 👿 or that he expects everyone else to laugh too. 😡 Bet there’s at least one closed mouth in the crowd whenever he tell this.

      1. That’s what blows my mind: that he laughed and more so that nobody even acts surprised when he tells this.

    4. In light of all the school shootings, it’s hard to believe anyone would be insensitive enough to do this – or be allowed to do it. Gun”play” is no joke, and there has to be a better way to make whatever point he was trying to make. Scaring children half to death in the name of the One Who gathered them on his knees is beyond reprehensible.

    5. This is extremely, extremely wrong. This can cause anxiety, nightmares, trauma, and God knows what else. This is abuse, plain and simple. Why would you WANT to pretend like you’re in danger? Why the hell can they not appreciate the fact that their kids don’t have to really go through these things? They should nurture and protect children, not terrify them. I am so upset by this story. That leader is sick and twisted and usually I don’t wish ill on anyone but this man deserves to have someone break into his house and point a gun to his head. I hope someone does. See if HE gets PTSD.

  25. sorry guys, I don’t know how I got a double post. (I’m new at this) 😳

    1. George likes to pick on new people! Welcome. I am guessing that your story is true.

      1. Thanks. I’ll have to keep an eye on George. Yes, true. Finally got brave enough to actually post. 😀

    2. RRR,

      It’s ok but terrible practice if this church. May have good conditioning intentions but I would never subject my children to such antics!!!

      ~~~Heart ❗

  26. Two stories, you decide which one is true.

    1)The small church that was picking a new carpet and couldn’t decide between red and blue. The arguments went on for weeks and the anger and rhetoric grew ever higher. Finally, one half of the church snuck back one night, sawed the church building in half, loaded it on the back of a truck, and drove off with it.
    2)The church where the pastor was on a serious power trip and headed for a split before long. Some of the pastor’s supporters had buttons printed up that said, “I Love Pastor” and passed them out at the door. That way you could either show your support for the pastor publicly or be easily targeted for disloyalty.

      1. The first story was borrowed from Mike Warnke, who totally made up his stuff. The second story is sadly true.

  28. During chapel one Monday morning at fundy U, we were told by the vice president (in extremely grave tones) that a certain person had broken a certain VERY important rule the day before, and so had been expelled.

    We found out the next day what his awful transgression had been: he had thrown a paper airplane from the balcony before church started.

    1. Even though I’d like to think this isn’t true (because the reason is so stupid), I’d bet that it is. It was probably given as a sign that this person had a “heart not right with God” – showing such disrespect in His house. Or something like that.

        2. Surely you know that at places like Jaw Bones University, if they decide to nail you, it really doesn’t matter that you can prove that you didn’t violate any written rule. They will simply declare that you have an Attitude Problem, and slap you with as many demerits as they deem necessary. From their own writings:

          “It is understood that attendance at Bob Jones University is a privilege and not a right, which may
          be forfeited by any student who does not conform to the standards and regulations of the institution.
          The University may request withdrawal of any student at any time, who, in the opinion of
          the University, does not fit the spirit of the institution, regardless of whether or not he conforms to specific rules and regulations of the University.”

          (http://www.bju.edu/academics/catalogs/ug04.pdf, bottom of Page 11.)

          In other words, “heads we win, tails you lose, you insufferable little worm. Now give us your money, your loyalty, your soul, and your children, if you want to be Right With God.”

        3. My husband was dismissed from another Fundy U for “not having the spirit”. He never went over on demerits, but they pulled that clause from the handbook.

        4. Clarification, that was “not having the spirit of PCC”. It had nothing to do with the Holy Spirit.

        5. Well, THAT part is OBVIOUS…

          To everyone but the administration of places like Jaw Bones University and PCC.

      2. Yep, true (sadly). And I believe the rule used/abused was “causing a disturbance during a church service” even though it happened before the service had even started (when did logic ever stop them?). This particular time happened at PCC, though I don’t doubt it has happened at other fundy U’s.

        1. My experience, which is probably typical, was that you had to sign a statement at the beginning of the year promising to keep all the rules in the rulebook. However, there was a clause in there that the administration reserved the right to add to or modify the handbook at any time in any way they saw fit, and the students would be required to obey any new rules just as if they had been agreed upon at the beginning. You were signing a blank check, and the administration could do anything they wanted. Even the rules in the handbook really didn’t matter. I think the penalty for staying out past curfew was 5 demerits, but one year the dean of men announced that anyone who came in late on Super Bowl Sunday would receive 20 demerits. They did not want anyone deciding that watching the game would be worth taking the demerits.

  29. I went to a church for 24 years where there were 7 paid members of the church staff. Only 1 of them was not a relative of the pastor. At one time there were only 6, but when his daughter got married, almost by magic, a new full-time position opened up for him. No one could ever know what his “salary” was. And his favorite expression to throw around from the pulpit to potential new members was “and remember, you’re joining us, we’re not joining you.”

    1. “[A]nd remember, you’re joining us, we’re not joining you.”

      I guess you’d have to say they’re giving you fair warning there. 😕

      1. You know, I actually appreciate that word of “warning.”

        I was in a church that got invaded by people who regularly and repeatedly expressed their contempt for us and our ways. They overwhelmed us and forced us out. The church died not long afterwards. We wandered, looking for a new church to join, and still haven’t found one these years later. We attend a church, but our philosophies are so different! So, I keep out of the way, because I don’t want to do to them what was done to me. They might be wrong; they might be foolish. But that doesn’t mean I have the right to ram my ideas down their throats. If they want my input, they will ask for it. They were happy before I showed up.

  30. Years ago at my old Fundie church the song leader was caught with a TV in his home. The next Wednesday night as he was in the church, they got his keys, pulled the car around the front of the church.

    They started the service, proceeded to introduce the charges, then “churched” him out of the auditorium to their car which was left running by the front door. They were never heard from again.

  33. Our Pastor told us that if the woman of the church really loved him we would be very careful how we dressed and we have no idea what goes on in his head. He went on to say that he asked his wife how many times a day she thought about sex and of course it was little or none, then she asked him how many times he thought about it and he said 10 to 12 times a day, anything could trigger this, reading a book, walking into his office……

    1. Did any of the women there show up in a burqa? Be fun if one Sunday all the women did so, probably take all the wind out of his sails… 🙄

      1. My story is true of how many time my pastor thought about sex a day, we were too embarrassed to even look at our pastor’s wife and it seems so much worse now that we are out. It was just last year and one of the last sermons we heard before leaving the IFB movement. I at least once a day wonder how we listened to most of this stuff and didn’t run, it doesn’t make sense.

    2. Why is everything always the women’s fault? This man can’t control his thought life – and it’s the women’s responsibility?

      1. MoGs are too busy scheming on how to control women to be able to control their own selves.

    3. Uhhhh….if he actually had the cajones to say that, I hope somebody got a big fat clue. Seriously. That’s like begging for someone to find him out.

    4. Freeatlast,

      The first half of your story sounds true enough, but I have yet to hear an IFBx preacher even breathe the word “sex” from the pulpit! (Was this in a sermon?) Let alone reveal what his wife said, or reveal that about himself! The MOG wouldn’t paint himself in such a ‘human’ light!

      I came from the extreme IFB camp, and it was considered obscene to even mention the topic you’re describing.

      1. Eh, sure they do. Some IFB MoGs even put on a show about it. (See the “Polished Shaft” video on Youtube.)

        I know a fundylite preacher who once disclosed in a sermon that one of his kids was a result of failed birth control. His wife was furious. I didn’t know why she was so mad, because she had told people herself.

        1. Guess my ex-fundie MOG and the preachers he allowed in ‘his’ pulpit were extremely, extreme!

        2. Oh my stars and garters, but that’s how my first and most fiery child came to be. 😯 😀 I always made a point of telling her that since the birth control failed God knew better than I did and that she was MEANT to be born. 😎 How well she’s taken this is in the laps of the angels.

        3. My mom told me the same thing and it made me feel special. She also told me they had intended to start trying soon anyway.

        4. My mom told me that I was an “unexpected surprise” but did go on to explain that she was furious for the first 24 hours after she found out because she saw pregnancy as the “beginning of the end” of her career. Thanks, mom. 😆

        5. I was an accident. I never thought much of it until I heard fundies preach about how terrible it is that illegitimate children would grow up to find out that they were accidents and their parents had not wanted to conceive them. It seemed like, to be consistent, I should feel the same way, but of course I didn’t, and I figured that that would be a pretty sad way for a person to look at life.

        6. The corollary to that idea, EK, is that ‘legitimate’ children are always wanted. That’s just as crazy as saying ‘illegitimate’ children are always unwanted.

        7. Oops 😳 . I think I may have been unclear in that post. I meant to say that my parents were married when I was conceived, but they did not intend to get pregnant at the time. Sorry mom and dad.

        8. I was thinking of a youth pastor who preached at teen camp one year and talked about how he had been devastated to learn that his parents (who had, like, raised him and loved him and given him a good home) had not been married when he was conceived. So apparently he was the result of lust and not of love, and that one act overruled all the love he received from his parents his whole life. The point of the illustration being, of course, that all of you kids had better keep yourselves pure, or you’ll get pregnant or get someone pregnant and a baby will be born who, no matter how much love is shown him, will never be able to get over the fact that he was never wanted to begin with.

          I wondered if I were supposed to feel the same way, since I just “happened” and my parents were not intentionally trying to have a baby. It is nice to know that people in the real world do not think this way.

        9. @EK — Here’s hoping you were wanted in retrospect. Some “accidents” do end up being the most doted over and loved. 😎 😀

        10. EK, I didn’t think you were implying that you were conceived/born out of wedlock.

          The pastors you mention are ignorant. Children can be loved and wanted but not offspring of a married couple. Children of a married couple can be unwanted. It has nothing to do with parental marital status.

        11. You’re both absolutely right, and I certainly never in my life felt unwanted. It wasn’t an issue, and I thought it was weird that someone would make one. Why a person would focus on that instead of the love he received from his parent or parents, married or not, is beyond me.

    1. Fascinating story, certainly more spicy than you’d expect at BJU. 🙄 😎 I’m guessing that Roger exaggerated his family circumstances a wee bit. Ever find out anything further?

  35. You know, this thread is a massive indictment of Fundyland. The people who try to say that the abusive experiences were an anomaly or not the usual clearly just can’t see the problem. These stories are across so many segments of Fundydom by so many people and resonate with all of us – and the vast majority are apparently true. You can’t make this stuff sound any crazier than it already is.

    May God have mercy.

  36. True or False:

    My Mom taught a young girls Sunday School class. She was teaching from Isaiah 53:2, “he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him” and told the girls that it was likely Jesus was not a very handsome man while he was on Earth. God wanted it that way so no one could lust after him. One of the girls went home, told her Mama that her teacher said Jesus was ugly, and her Mama in turn called and told the MOG. MOG then made my Mama stand up in the middle of a Sunday Morning sermon and apologize to the congregation for saying Jesus was ugly.

    1. You know, I’ll wager that Jesus looked just like the pastor. Same suit and same hair cut. So calling Jesus ugly was the same as calling the Pastor ugly… and that is a sin that must be confronted and dealt with immdeiately and publically. 🙄

  37. I grew up in two different churches in Pine Bluff, AR.
    The second pastor of one of those churches finally left the church after they came up with a large sum of money he demanded for severance pay.
    One day, as the new pastor was alone in his office studying, he heard a tap at the door. Mrs. W—-r, the lady who cleaned the church was at the door. Brother B—n asked what she wanted.
    She wanted to know if he would be taking advantage of the sexual favors she had provided the previous pastor (who had gone back to HAC). Brother B, said, “No! But I am going to call my wife so she come up here and straighten you out!” Mrs. W tried to explain: “You don’t understand…I’m just too much woman for my husband. He is unable to satisfy me sexually. That’s the only reason I ever started a relationship with Pastor L—y S—h.”
    Needless to say, her cleaning services (and sexual favors) were no longer needed!

  38. A friend of mine was only going to be socially campused at PCC for engaging in ocular intercourse with his girl friend (that’s starting into each other’s eyes in the brightly lit dating areas). It got messy when he said, “It’s okay, we were using protection…I’ve got contact lenses in!”
    He ended up at Kansas University I believe.

  39. True or false: a preacher dealing with two deacons who were defying him once came to the pulpit on a Sunday evening, when it was time for the sermon, and pointed the two men out to everyone. “It’s them or me,” he thundered. “You can’t have us both. You have to choose.” Then he got in his car and drove away, leaving the congregation to conduct an immediate business meeting, which became so raucous that the state police were called in.

    1. False, because in Baptist business meetings you usually need the presence of UN peace keepers to start off with and then end up calling the National Guard when things start to get out of hand. The state police couldn’t handle it.

  42. The youth pastor asked me to please have my 13 year old daughter wear more appropriate clothes because when she leaned down to pick her Bible up under her chair he saw down her shirt…. we laughed the other day because she pulled out a button down shirt I had actually stitched up the front so it wouldn’t gap at all when she was singing in choir. And I never hit this guy, again I wonder why.

  43. When I was a teenager, I went through a phase where I loved Greek and Roman mythology. My grandma let me get books about it out from the library, but she made me keep them out in our porch because she didn’t want them in the house.

  44. At my fundy-lite ACE church school, when I was 10, a Sikh family enrolled their two kids. The pastor of the church was the principal of the school, of course, and his wife actually ran the place (. . . of course). The pastor and his wife became really good friends with the parents of the Sikh kids, and they even went on trips together to go to Bible onferences, agreeing on their belief in God, while respecting each others’ specific religion.

      1. Believe it or not, this is true. The pastor and his wife remain incredibly good friends with the Sikh parents to this day, and a few years ago attended the eldest child’s Sikh wedding.
        The rules the school imposed were restrictive, the way they treated girls was not cool, and overall I don’t agree with their view of God, but the pastor and wife who ran it were genuinely good people. The wife, especially, had such a knack: she loved every single student, and even the worst-behaved kid (we usually got kids who’d been expelled from every other school in the district) improved due to her cheerful love and habit of treating them as if they were already good kids.
        Thank God that there are always good people, in any situation 🙂

  45. On a school trip, I went to the Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater in Arizona, in 110 degree weather, wearing an ankle-length dress, slip, and nylons.

    1. Haha, btdt. I refuse to wear nylons today. At all. If I absolutely HAVE to wear a skirt in the winter, I’ll wear tights. But you will never, ever, ever get me back in nylons again.

      1. Amen, PP! Tights, yes, occasionally. Nylons, never again. You know the legends of bra-burnings? I bet all former-fundy ladies would be very happy to participate in a nylon-burning.
        Very much a true story.

    2. Yikes! Most Fundy ladies I know who actually live here in AZ don’t wear nylons in the summer if they are going to be outside! Plus, if you’re wearing a long skirt, why would you even need nylons?

      1. It’s obvious: A RTC Fundy woman keeps EVERYTHING covered ALL THE TIME, 😡 and twice or thrice over if possible. Don’t want to tempting those weak, weak menfolk with even a glimpse of UnGawdly Female Flesh 👿 Be-Low the Sacred Collarbone, not to mention that nylons will keep her feet from erring into (gasp!) SANDALS of any kind! 😯
        Funny how sandals were good enough for Jesus. 🙄

      1. I signed up for this website ON THIS THREAD. Imagine my joy at deleting more than 1000 emails. 😛

        Awesome thread though. lol

  47. I had a midget friend at HAC. He was expelled but couldnt face the music back home so he decided to find unlocked cars in the parking lot and sleep in them. When it started to get cold he sneaked on campus and would sleep under peoples bed. Did you get that? HE WOULD SLEEP UNDER PEOPLE’S BED! THE MIDGET! He finally got caught when he snored so loud that somebody found him. It became an ongoing joke with my group of friends “There’s a midget under my bed.”

    PS. this is the greatest string of posts ever….

    1. I can’t WAIT to hear whether THIS one is true.

      It’s so bizarre, it can’t be false.

  48. I’ve got one that involves Darrel’s (the webmaster) own father. I had Mr. D in 7th and 8th grade for a couple classes. So we are talking 12-13 years old. One day at the beginning of class, Mr. D gets up and says, “All the young ladies in this room, please stand.” So all the girls stood up. Then Mr. D says, “Ok, all young ladies please be seated properly and sit like a lady”. So they all sat down. Then he explained that this was the proper policy for a teacher to enforce when girls were not sitting properly and allowing the teacher to see up their jumpers. Funny stuff, and true.

  49. Sorry TB, but I think your adolescent hormones were working over time! I think your 12-13 yr. old mind was more focused on the girls, than the etiquette lesson Mr.D was trying to teach them! Really, how focused are 12-13yr. old adolescent boys on most things, except wanting to see up girl’s jumpers!

    1. *BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD LAUGH*

      You’re probably right. At that age, boys tend to get “stuck” at their desks and hope that the teacher doesn’t call them up to write anything on the board!

  50. Life on staff…Teaching at the Christian school 5 days a week,working on Friday and Saturday night and then attending church all day.You had to find a away to “cut corners”.Thursday night soulwinning was the answer! After school let out on Thursday,my wife and I would go out and do our required “door-knocking”(mind you with better results due to the daylight hours).We would then go to the reqired 6:30 pm meeting and then head home to relax.On this day we were asked to take a pair of teen brothers (not the saints of the teen dept mind you) out souwlwinning. I made the mistake of telling the YP I had already went.Got called into the office the next day for being a “maverick”.Yes,I got in trouble for going soulwinnig!

    1. Ahh yes!, accused of being a maverick. I’ve been accused of that before. Don’t try to simplify things or do something that makes sense. After all remember the ministry is not about you, its about glorifying your MOG, lifting him high upon his pulpit.

      I say true.

      1. This was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” I was told in this meeting that I was too smart and that I read too many books (Lets not forget the job that I got paid for was as a teacher)I felt like this was “It wasn’t my idea so it was a bad idea”…yes entirely true!

        1. LBTcastaway,

          I’ve totally been there, in that seat, being scolded for thinking outside the box (with some pretty great ideas) but being reprimanded!

          It’s only because they fear that they will lose control or that they see they are inept in comparison, lacking the intelligence and creativity!

          Please… Go some place where you can flourish and use that God-given intellect to prosper and be happy and live a fruitful and fulfilling life! Meet the appropriate challenges that will spur you on to higher levels of accomplishments! Those endeavors are good for both you and God!

          Be happy!

          ~~~Heart 😀

    2. LBTcastaway,

      Typical….. Not only do they want to tell you what to do with all your time, they want to control when and if you don’t follow their regiment and decide to make your own schedule in your own life, then oh you’re a “maverick”… wild and untamed!

      They might as well pierce the noses of their members with big brass rings so that they may lead them in the paths they deem most appropriate! Ridiculous!

      Give some thought as to what he was thinking all morning long before he called you into his office to “scold” you! What do these people think? How are they honestly justifying their actions? It’s SO warped and tainted by years of manipulative teachings that have stemmed from hyles and trickled on throughout corrupt fundamentalism!

      I hope you are out of there!

      ~~~Heart 🙄

      1. Out of there yes,fully recovered no and probably never will be 100%,I have moved onto something more legit while still helping people

    3. “Maverick” sounds like something from the Old West. In the name of independent thinking, you ought to get a cowboy hat and wear it proudly! 😎

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