Odds and Ends

Friday Challenge: Flashbacks

255 Comments

From time to time every ex-fundy experiences as fundamental flashback wherein they get a nostalgic sensation that that they are about to be either

a) judged (“your hair is too long!”)

b) witnessed to (“your hair is so long that I can tell you need Jesus!”)

or

c) recruited for something (“once you’ve gotten a haircut you can serve in the puppet ministry!”)

Today’s challenge is to share some of the triggers that send your mind back to the days when life was simpler and thinking was optional.

In no particular order some of the causes of my flashbacks have been:

The smell of hymnbook pages.

People who raise their eyebrows really, really high when they sing.

Anybody dressed in a suit and carrying a cordless phone. (PCC folks will get this one).

The words “and all God’s people said?”

Feel free to list your own…

255 thoughts on “Friday Challenge: Flashbacks”

  1. “I’ve been praying for you”

    “Here’s an answer to prayer….”

    Seeing someone in a shortsleeve white shirt with a tie.

      2. I like that piano! (White looks too flashy to me – although I’m one of those who have seen it, Scorpio!) Many smaller churches only have an upright so I always like to see a baby grand.

        I was wondering where the organ was too!

      4. I agree, though Infectious Disease specialists wear short sleeves and ties. Usually too-short ties. That’s to avoid transmitting bacteria from patient to patient on sleeve cuffs or ties. Why they just don’t come into the hospital in T-shirts or scrubs, I’ll never know…

        1. There was a study somewhere in the last couple of years finding that doctor’s neckties are a major source of contagion. They wash their hands and change their clothes, but they don’t have their ties cleaned frequently.

          This led some, but not most, I fear, male physicians to stop wearing ties when they see patients.

    1. Anything more than 1 does it for me. Also girls wearing essentially guys shirts only more pastel’ish will do it.

      1. I just sent some long jean jumpers to the Salvation Army. I still have some long khaki skirts. I’m thinking I may never actually have need to wear them again because I won’t be in those circles. It’s a little hard to believe. I guess I’ll believe it when I finally toss them.

        1. Purged my closet of the long skirts and out of style dresses that I will NEVER wear again. It was liberating…enjoyed every minute of it.

  4. When I see people in long skirts on a Saturday morning, I remember when I was required to be part of that.

  5. “Everybody’s eyes closed and heads bowed…”

    Shitty sound systems, i.e. cracking and/or too much treble.

    People who always have to have the last word.

    Jello with marshmallows and fruit cocktail in it(reminds me of pot luck dinners)

    nicodemusatnite.com

  6. While listening to Christian radio, a song I hadn’t heard before came on. It began like this:

    “Which Jesus do you follow?
    Which Jesus do you serve?
    If Ephesians says to imitate Christ
    Then why do you look so much like the world?”

    I had a total fundy flashback! My mind immediately filled in the rest of accusation: “Why do you look so much like the world, wearing pants, going to movies, listening to CCM?” Then I heard the rest of the song!!! It was all about helping the down-trodden and loving the unloveable! Wow! What a contrast to what my mind had automatically thought:

    “Cause my Jesus bled and died for my sins;
    He spent His time with thieves and sluts and liars.
    He loved the poor and accosted the rich
    So which one do you want to be?”

    The contrast between what I was expecting and what I heard was almost shocking!

    1. The latter Jesus is the one in the Bible.
      The one with the strict dress code and the long list of banned activities is a much more recent invention.

    2. That’s one of my favorite Todd Agnew songs. I got a fundy flashback the first time I heard it too!

      “He reaches for the hurting and despises the proud.”
      That’s not a fundy Jesus.

  7. I was only in fundamentalist circles for about three years, but it was long enough to last me a lifetime.

    Every time we visited a church (for revivals, meetings, “youth rallies,” whatever), I would be accosted at the door and expected to play all the planned and unplanned (read: more spiritual) “specials.”

    I get really nervous in my stomach when people call me “Sister,” when I see a cassette deck, a wireless mic at the front of the sanctuary, or someone uses the adjective “special” in conjunction with anything related to a church music activity.

    1. Sarah I feel your pain. I too spent most of my high school years up until now, my sr. year in a conservative IFB church. I was essentially the musical slave-playing whatever and whenever I was ordered by the Men of God and their clans, which usually amounted to services at the organ (7 hymns, with no advance warning whatsoever), “special” music, and choir accompaniment under know-nothing directors. All this for no pay! Now I’m out of there and on to conservatory…

      I left it all behind, along with the spiritual baggage that still bugs me, for a different church where I now feel very welcome, and the teaching is INFINITELY richer and believe it or not, more Scriptural! :mrgreen:

      Fundy Ex-Musicians Unite!!
      Joe

  8. For me it is the “look”…the “I am better than you” look. It’s hard to describe but perhaps some on here know what I am talking about.

    1. yes. exactly that. I know what you mean. I used to feel guilty when I saw “the look”…now I just pity the person.

    2. I was just thinking about “the look” as I was reading this thread. “Oh, you’re not one of us, you’re eeeevvvviiillll.”

      The “look” is also used by fundy, patriarchal men when women dare to speak to them, or, God forbid, ask them a question about the Bible. This one’s a little longer:

      “Oh, dear sister, say whatever you want, but in the end we both know that I am wiser, therefore better, than you, because God made me a man. Little ladies like you are so deceived by this evil world. It’s scriptural, don’t you know.”

      Blech.

  9. Bad fashion. Not but tremendously borderline intentionally bad (pleated pants, white sox with dress shoes — I used to do that @ PCC, tapered hair cuts). Also really robotic acting/singing will do it. Those travelling groups performing the same robotic gestures every single week burned into my psyche just how bad choreography etc can be.

      1. YES! Short sleeve dress shirts, especially with a tie, and even worse with a jacket. No clue how that became acceptable dress. Looks totally ridiculous.

  10. Holiness of God: visions of the BJU tribal deity with corresponding expectations

    “If you died today…”
    ”
    “FulltimeChristianministry” and its inverse “Wasting your life”

      1. I grew up in a Fundy church and we almost never sang the doxology. And I never even learned the tunes to The Lord is in His Holy Temple, the Gloria Patris, the Amens, or the Benedictions even though they were in the front and back of our hymnal, Great John W. Peterson Hymns of the Faith. I was in high school when my family moved to another Fundy church in another state. They never sang any of the above either, except the Doxology, which they sang after the offering every week, but only on Sunday morning. Twenty-some years later, I’m in a church where we sing the Doxology every week after the Sunday morning offering, but it’s an Anglican church.

  13. Being exhausted on Sunday from going to church so much and doing other stuff for church. Ahhh, the mythical day of Fundy rest.

    1. Bingo. For the actual payed managawd Sunday was the 1 day a week he did what could loosely be considered “work”. Being on staff but working an outside job, near the end of my fundy tenure I DREADED Sundays. We would arrive at the church at 9 am and between Sunday School, church, lunch, choir practice and Sunday pm service, I MAYBE had an hour to enjoy my family on Sundays. I would literally arrive back home around 8 pm on Sunday nights and flop on the bed dead tired. But Sunday was the “Lord’s day” and a “day of rest”. Bull butter. It was the most stressful, exhaustive day of the week for me. I am enjoying being free and enjoying my recovery, however slow it may be…

  14. 1) For me it’s the taking-scripture-out-of-context that you expounded on several blog posts ago.
    2) It’s the mixing of Law & Gospel so that I have to do something to prove to someone that I’m saved.
    3) Or anything that smacks of decision theology “Choose this day…”, “Behold I stand at the door…”. (see #1)
    4) Keith Green

      1. I wasn’t really a fundy. I went to a pentecostal holiness church. Close enough for me… too close.

    2. Keith Green was charismatic, and charismatics can be every bit as “fundy” as IFB’s can. However, I think Keith was somebody who really tried to live up to everything he preached, without pretense, and he certainly had a lot fewer hangups than most IFB-ers I know.

      1. I admire Keith Green very much. Reading the biography that his wife wrote opened my eyes to a different kind of Christian life.

    1. The picture bothered me too. I don’t know if it’s because it’s so bland and lacking beauty or creativity or because it reminded me of places I’ve been.

  20. Simply being in Greenville is enough to put me back in Bob Jones mode–watching every car I pass for BJU parking stickers, turning down my radio at traffic lights, feeling vaguely antsy everywhere I go… Revisiting campus is of an entirely different order of magnitude.

    But then the vaguely antsy part could also be because I have a touch of agoraphobia. 😉

    1. This feeling was so strong for me that I had to move away. I’ve been a million times happier living FAR away from the BJU orbit.

      1. I took my wife to visit HAC when we were in Chicago for a Jimmy Buffett concert a few summers ago. She wanted to see the place I had told her so many stories about. I was wearing shorts and she had on pants. They would not let us walk the campus on our own, but had a campus guide walk with us to “show us around.”

        My wife gained a better understanding of what I grew up with.

        1. Yep. I’m a HAC grad too. One day I’ll take my husband there. I don’t think his mind can fully comprehend what I talk about sometimes.

      2. LOL My sister was there another year after I was, which accounts for a few visits. But last year I also took a friend from Clemson just to show him around–he didn’t believe half my stories. 😀

    3. I go back to Greenville to visit family members…but I never set foot on BJUs campus! (OK, I did once for my brother’s graduation, I figured there were plenty of us non-Bojo family members there attending our relative’s graduation so I would be safe)

  21. Our church had a pipe organ, and a talented organist, but that didn’t disqualify our minister from a deep seated strain of fundamentalism. I dearly love classical music, and there are many fine compositions for pipe organ. But whenever I hear classical organ music,I start to yawn, feeling as thought another long, boring, rambling sermon is on its way.

    1. “…another long, boring, rambling sermon is on its way.”

      Is there any other kind in fundyland?

      1. Actually, when Rev. Mountain got to rolling on some of the more firey passages of Isaiah, Ezekiel, etc. the fire and brimstone would come poring out of his mouth, adrenalin would flow through the congregation and sometimes even Mr. Pillette, up in the choir loft would wake up with a start.

  22. Recently walked into a fast food chain and saw a group of teens. I didn’t really think anything about it until i saw the ankle length jean and kaki skirts. Man what a flashback. Not only to when I was a teen, but also when I was older and worked with teens. Wow! I kept observing until they left and sure enough, they all piled into an obviously fundy church van!

  23. I would say seeing a lady with a long skirt on with white keds tennis shoes does it.
    Also, do you remember when a preacher would say, “Are all hearts and minds clear?” Oh, yeah! Testimony time was coming.

  24. Certain songs that former pastors would latch onto as “invitation songs” or use as preludes every single Sunday. In particular, “Just As I Am” and “Majesty” (agh!!). Maybe not terrible songs in themselves, but they’ve been ruined for me.

    1. Ugh, staples at my church…I learned a concert arrangement of Majesty for a recital one year. The sound of that song or Just As I Am preceded by “every heard bowed, no one looking around” does it for me every time.

  25. Rewatching Walt Disney’s “Pollyanna” with Karl Malden (Rev. Ford) delivering his sermon “Death comes unexpectedly!” Hayley Mills (Pollyanna) stares up at the chandeliers and sees that even the light bulbs are quivering in fright. She later comments “He sure sermonizes something fierce!”

  27. Just watched the “Golden State Baptist” video and the way Trieber said “..in the the year Nineteen Hundred and (fill in the year)” took me back. I’ve only heard someone state the year like that in fundy circles.

  28. Skirts: ankle-length denim, ankle-length khaki, mid-calf length with elastic waistbands, jacket dresses (you know, the ones unfashionable for even grannies).

    The song “Little is Much.” Southern Gospel style music. Tennis shoes with skirts. Pantyhose. Conspiracy theories.

    1. Excuse my ignorance. What’s a jacket dress.
      My Mom’s a granny, but I don’t think she wears one.

      1. It’s usually a print dress with a short, open coordinating solid color bolero or jacket over it. To hide the fact that the dress is usually sleeveless. I’m still looking for a picture to show you.

      3. Yeah, Tiquatoo’s link was pretty good. Except the ones we wore weren’t nearly so nice 😛 They usually had padded sleeves, hit mid-calf with two side slits, and buttoned all the way up. And we wore them with flat pumps. Eye bleach please.

    2. Excuse my ignorance. What’s a jacket dress? My Mom’s a granny, but I don’t think she wears one.

  30. Jonathan’s post (“Everyone’s head bowed, everyone’s eyes closed”) reminded me of pet phrases that I used to hear over and over again:
    “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour?”
    “Have you prayed ‘the sinner’s prayer’?”
    (At the time of the Pastoral Prayer or at prayer meeting) “Laid aside on beds of sickness”
    “I have a burden on my heart”
    “The Lord has touched my heart” (Do real human beings talk like this??)
    The ubiquitous words “bless” and “blessing” (“The trio is here tonight to bless our hearts”; “Brother Bob, would you bless the food for us?”)
    “Special”, as in “special” music (“Sister Louise has a special for us tonight”). Isn’t all music special?

  32. “And all God’s people said” made me cringe.

    And anytime that my husband asks “Do you want to go to church?” When we were in the process of leaving fundyland that always provoked a long and often bitter argument.

    Also, any time his dad calls (dad is still in fundyland).

  33. My favorite hymn used to be “Standing On the Promises” until husband used it for IFB pastor’s ringtone. Considering he called us every two hours on Sundays and Wednesdays when we missed church, along with random calls during the week, it got to where I wanted to stomp the phone whenever I heard that song.

    2. we always had to stand to sing that one, because “you can’t stand on the promises if you’re sitting on the premises!”

      2. I never heard that before. Once was enough. It must get tired very quickly if you hear it again and again

  34. Occasionally my wife plays a CD from our college

    Seeing the coffee mug my college gave us

    Visiting my sister who works at said college

    1. I threw out every stupid commemorative coffee mug we were given. Since they liked to commemorate every little thing, there were quite a few.

  35. In Boston you just don’t see girls with long skirts or dresses much at all. And I’m talking about down to the ankles Bob Jones Missionary kid style skirts or dresses. So when I see those it takes me right back. A couple of times its turned out to be some religious group (and I wonder what their affiliation is). But sometimes it is just a random person with outdated fashion sense. Either way it takes me back to campus and starts off nightmares. Cool thing is that a quick glance in either direction will quickly cure me of the fit of rage.

    1. I think otherwise I’ve been blissfully sheltered from Fundamentalism since leaving. It is especially true in Boston. So I don’t hear the catch phrases or anything like that. When I first left BJU I think for that very reason I avoided any and all Baptist churches even if they were far from Fundamental. I just needed a clean break and hearing, “Have you accepted Christ as your personal savior” would send me overboard. Actually even alter calls would do so, but I don’t have to worry about that anymore! Amen?

  36. The song “Just as I am”

    People on my Facebook page who’s status go something like this, ” Went to First Baptist church of the called, sanctified and separated today! My preacher is such a man of God! Thank God for Him!. He ripped my face off and I needed it!”

    Any quotes from “Created to be His Helpmeat” by the Pearls

    People who come up to me and tell me they are “praying for me” and say it with this sad, pitiful look of ” You’ve fallen into the hands of satan”

    Whenever Darrell posts Jack Schaap clips…

    Mystery meat

    Oh I could go on…

        2. For me, the essential material on the Pearls is the video Darrell presented a while back where Jack Pearl (or whatever his name is) ranted insanely about some bit of Scripture while he gutted and filleted a huge fish in what looked like a junkyard. It’s not to be missed.

        4. Thank you, Scorpio. The nutcake’s name is Michael Pearl, by the way. I was trying not to waste any of my brain’s limited storage space on that name. But since it’s quite possible that one of his 96 children is named Jack, I don’t want to blame the wrong person.

    2. “He ripped my face off and I needed it!”

      This reminds me of a friend of a friend on facebook who’d seen something I’d posted on my friend’s page and friend requested me. I friended her but soon found out that she was ardent KJVO and would often post stuff such as you describe. I didn’t like the links she posted either; the last straw was when she linked to someone’s message called “Shut Up, Lady” which was really rude and demeaning, and then put on her status, “I think I like this.” Arrrrggghhh!!!!! I immediately unfriended her; I don’t need that crap appearing on my wall. Excuse my language but that’s what it was.

      1. Oh Dear Lord PS
        I love FB but I get a lot of “still-holding-up-the -fort, entrenched- in- the -IFB -world people requesting my friendship…that is until they link to my website and then I get smug emails telling me what a reproach I am to their family.
        Some of their posts send me spiraling…

        1. “Some of their posts send me spiraling.” So sorry! What a shame that Christians whose identifying characteristic should be love would hurt other Christians so. The awesome thing is that you’ve discovered that you are Christ’s beloved! No one else really matters! But still, if they disagree with you so much, too bad they can’t just pray for you privately and with love instead of bawling you out.

        2. I get friend requests from people in my IFB past all the time…and I accept them. Then I proceed to comment about the last movie I saw…or I “like” a secular hair band like Bon Jovi 😯 and they mysteriously disappear from my friend list :mrgreen:

      2. I have to stop myself from commenting on a lot of FB statuses…. It’s hard. If the urge ever gets too strong, sometimes I satisfy myself by finding an article (good or bad) on the topic, posting it on my FB page, and making an observation about it that makes my point. Then I just pray it shows up on their feed. 😈

      3. LOL pw. I just unfriended someone who said that we won’t have our pets in heaven because why would we need them when we have Jesus? It curdled my stomach just for starters.

        1. Tell them to read “Heaven” by Randy Alcorn. Changed my life and sure taught me more than 25 years of fundie upbringing about the subject.

    4. “He ripped my face off…

      Yeah. That happened to me and I responded that way. I loathe the thought now that I deserved to be publicly humiliated because I questioned some of the pastor’s pet beliefs.

    5. Mystery meat ha I was with my Canadian friends waking down the cattle shute to the dining hall when I referenced mystery meat. Mrs Hedderman spun around and corrected me about how disrespectful that was and I should be thankful…..she was a really sweet person and it kinda took me off guard. I guess I shouldn’t have giggled but I just couldn’t help it.

    7. –He ripped my face off and I needed it! —
      taken out of context, it sounds rather different. 😈

  37. Pictures my fundy friends send me of their kids playing in the snow in a jean skirt.
    People using old fashioned hymns to prove their doctrinal theory like it is the Bible. Just cause Fanny Crosby wrote doesn’t make it gospel.

  38. When a person in authority comes up to me and says with a concerned voice, “Could I talk with you for a minute?” ugh, I’ve been lambasted so many times after hearing that!

  39. White cake and orange drink. Several of our youth group had allergies to chocolate. Pop (soda) was sinful. So for treats, we had a LOT of white cake and orange drink.

  40. the KJV – which is sad, because it is beautifully written

    most hymns, especially if we skip the third verse (I intentionally chose my nonFundy church to be a non-hymns church)

    wearing skirts at all

    altar calls

    seeing tracts shoved in the literature pockets on the bus (where they usually keep the bus announcements or schedules or whatever)

    I agree with kbonikowsky, too, that whenever anyone says “Can I talk with you for a minute” I get all paranoid that I’ve done something wrong or offended somebody or whatever, and usually it’s nothing.

    1. “the kjv, which is sad, because it is so beautifully written”

      So true, how the fundies have so besmirhed this venerable old translation because of worshipping it, instead of the Blessed Saviour it points us toward.

    1. “Any opposed? Hit the door.” So much for Christian liberty, freedom of conscience, and the priesthood of the believer. 🙁

      (Divisive infighting during business meetings is awful, but it is possible to disagree with a loving and gracious spirit, but it’s sadly true that a lot of churches are uncomfortable with hearing anything but unanimous decisions.)

      1. Fundyland is not a democracy, there ia only one that has the rule over the sheep and that is the self-anointed, self-apointed, M-O-g. If you don’t listen to and obey him then you have a heart problem, you have a problem with authority. If you cannot obey the M-O-g then you are directly disobeying gid himself! You are a wolf! You are a sower of discord among the brethern. You don’t question God so you better not question (which is the same as coming against) the lord’s anointed.
        AAAARRRRRGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!
        *ok that’s it I’m done for today. too much flashback, too much trying to swim through all the mental and emotional fecal matter in the fundie cult cess pool!… ** 🙁

        1. “If your pastor is sinning, pray for him (don’t mention his sin to him); God knows how to put him six feet under the ground, if he doesn’t wanna listen. (As if the pastors who are not six feet under the ground are all obeying God’s voice. What a self serving teaching!)

        2. When it became obvious that I was leaving my old fundy church, I began to wonder what they would say about me when I left. I didn’t hear anything for awhile, but a family member came to me and told me that the pastor said that “Greg likes an argument” Hey come to think of it I’ll bet alot of people at SFL could say the same. 😀

        3. I’m inclined to agree that Greg Likes An Argument, but if that’s the worst thing that’s ever been said about you, you’re in pretty good shape.

        4. @Greg,

          In abusive situations, the victim always gets labeled. It’s not new. I got the “Oh, you’re bitter” label. This preserves things as they are, and lets you know if you sense something phony about the narcissistic-in chief (the pastor), its because you have character flaws. Classic.

    3. I never heard that one, but I can imagine my former Dear Leader saying such a thing.

      One time at the annual church-wide business meeting he said something about going forward with some kind of project without local government’s approval. He said it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. That startled me and I was horrified, because it was so counter to everything I’d ever heard taught about doing things properly (decently and in order). So much for avoiding appearance of evil and having a good testimony. :-/

  42. “Brother Donny” *tik*
    “Old Paths” **twitch**
    “Open up your King James Bibles”
    “Invite Jesus In…”
    “Short accounts…”
    “Look like a Christian” ??? Could I see the template again? What does a Christian Look like? Is everyone who looks like a Christian, really a Christian?? How can you tell who is a Christian and who isn’t??

    **Mounts soapbox for storytime**
    At our church day camp one year I was missing one of my regular guys and got to asking around about him. Talked with his momma and she told me the story. He did not come to camp that year because he had let his hair grow out over his ears. Several of the teen guys had been calling him a girl, a sissy and (are you ready for this…) a hippie. They were relentless. Come to find out one of the mothers was doing it too.
    Well I went high and to the right, I let the teen guys have it that even during prayer time. I addressed the issue found out the ones who had been doing it and asked them to look around the room and tell me who was saved and who wasn’t. I asked them what a christian looked like. I asked them if my beard and long hair over the winter made me a hippie? (If I had been thinking quicker I would have asked why hippies can’t be Christians… but that’s another rabbit trail) I told them that is the trouble with Christianity today, we judge the outer appearance and we try to clean up the appearance to mak folk look and act like us before we will allow them to join our group. We put pur rules and standards on folks first then try to give them God.
    While I was letting the teen guys have it Momma was giving that mother what for as well. Now here is what that young man said and it was very wise for a young man of 14-15. “They will not accept me looking like this, and they judge my heart because of it… I guess they would accept me if I had a haircut and dressed like they wanted me to.. even if I was dealing and doing drugs it would be ok if I look right.”

    grrrrr that superficial, sanctimonious, works sanctification BULL GIPP really just pisses me off!!

    **dismounts soap-box, ohhh, took an extra step on the landing…that will cost him some points.**

    1. I’m glad you let the teens know how wrong and unbiblical their thinking was. Sadly, many teens grow up in IFB circles and are never confronted with their exclusive, judgmental, Pharisaical attitudes.

      And you don’t like “Brother Donny”? The first church we went to after college was in the rural midwest and I was called “Sister _____”. I couldn’t STAND it!!!! It sounded so hokey to me. 😡

    1. Or “God established the tithe as the basis for giving.” Hmmm. Where in scripture does it say that?

      1. Or “Don’t tithe to James Dobson or some pair-a-church ministry. Your tithe belongs to the local church.” (Does anyone know where I can find a Levitical priest, so I can give personally give him my tithe? The last time I checked my Bible the Baptist church has no more right to the tithe than a parachurch ministry.)

        1. I got that one from the Pentecostal church, too. They said give 10% to the church, and then if you have extra you give it to para-church ministries. And God will bless you, of course, and $10,000 will magically appear in your bank account like it did for that guy in Canada.

        3. @Rose, a parachurch ministry is a Christian organization that is not under the auspices of the local church. Many IFB churches look askanse at these. Examples would be Campus Crusade, Focus on the Family, Promise Keepers, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, etc.

      2. I’m still waiting for someone to show me where money was ever used to pay a tithe. It appears from my study that tithes were to be “paid” by the Jews, under the law, and those “tithes” were agricultural products from the land.

        2. Greg,

          Good point. Back in the dark ages before internet, I was not exposed to much anti-tithing teaching. Now, I am finding there are a lot of people out there questioning this teaching.

    3. “You can’t outgive God”

      Ugh. There are so many bad memories attached to that statement and others like it:

      “Not equal giving but equal sacrifice.” (Big lie!!!)

      “God shovels it in. You shovel it out. God shovels it in…but God has a bigger shovel!”

      👿

    4. *curls up in a ball*

      My preacher said that just last night.

      I hate messages on giving. Yes, we should give and support the church, but hate what it’s become.

  45. Ladies hairdos that have their hair piled up on top of their head resembling a hornet’s nest.

  46. Teens who aren’t laughing & jostling together. It took me quite a while to get used to seeing teenage girls & guys hang out without trying to keep their distance.

  49. Any mention of the word “cosmos” takes me back to a two-part chapel sermon by BJIII in like 2004 or so where he must’ve used that greek word (kosmos) at LEAST 100 times.

    And also, nowadays it takes a VERY special occasion for me to wear a tie (reminds me of morning dress at BJU), and i absolutely will not wear suits, period (reminds me of Bible conference, Sunday morning “mass” at BJU, etc).

    1. I remember that, too! Even when a non-fundy preacher mentions it, a red flag goes up.

      BJU also ruined “The Doxology” and several excellent organ preludes because we ritualistically sang/heard them every week.

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