Odds and Ends

Lack of Privacy

235 Comments

In fundyland it is assumed that the only reason why the average person would desire freedom from prying eyes would be to perform some great act of wickedness. Private correspondence, private conversations, and private contemplations among those who are not in leadership are seen as the very tools of Satan.

Any locked container probably contains liquor, Harry Potter books, and gospel tracts that use the NIV. Anyone wearing headphones must be secretly listening to evil rock music. Anything password protected is pornography or (worse yet!) copies of old SFL posts until proven otherwise. Your secrets are only safe as long as they remain inside your own head.

The only person in fundyland who has the right to keep secrets is the pastor. And his mistress. And her husband.

235 thoughts on “Lack of Privacy”

    1. I would like to thank God, my mom and Darrell for this awesome opportunity. Now I’m going to read the entry. Natalie, I want a butt cushion made from shamwows.

      1. Got it. And, I’ve also included one of those mouth-pieces that that guy wears on the commercials (even though there’s a boom man right over him, but he insists on looking like he’s at a state fair).

        I’m sure you can use it when you are the guest speaker at our blessed, superior church.

        We like to have our own people speak, so we know they think like us.

      3. Those of us who were previously first, (the last firsts) congratulate you. Someday somebody else will post first, and then you will also be a last first. And this is normal, for the last shall be first and the first last. So congratulations.

    2. Is that a first first for the fifth? I believe the fifth deserves a fifth to celebrate their first, especially if it is fifth’s first first. I further declare that fifth should share that fifth with the first to recognize the fifth’s first and it should be a double if it is fifth’s first first. Can I get a second? 😎 😉

        1. I’m actually drinking fizzy yellow american beer tonight which is why I need a butt cushion made of shamwow…so it will absorb moist domestic beer farts. Just sayin’.

    1. This is actually my first comment on this site, although I’ve been reading it for months. This has been bugging me, but who’s “George” and why does he hate spelling?

      1. Whenever you or anyone makes a typo or grammarical error, it is always George’s fault. His favorite thing to do is make errors whenever you’re making a serious point. Don is to blame for introducing George.

        (See, George was the one who misspelled “grammarical”. I let him do that for an example.)

      2. George is the spelling and grammar gremlin. Just as you hit the submit button, he jumps in and messes up your comment so bad, people wonder if you finished 3rd grade or just went to a fundy high school.

        1. Hahaha, thanks guys! I’ll be on the lookout for him…and the leprechaun that steals my tithe money every Sunday.

        2. @Doc, just read down the page a bit and you’ll observe George messing with Wheels quite effectively!

      3. George is the resident gremlin. He takes your well-reasoned and witty post and changes it to an incoherent mess of misspilled words, ungood grammar and strangely; placed punctuation right before you post.

        George seems to be most active early in the mornings and late at night. In my experience a cup of coffee helps to keep George away.

        2. I don’t drink much. However, a few months ago I had a muscle relaxer and a dose of cough syrup. (No, I didn’t read the directions until afterwards) George did all of my typing on this site and some others as well that night!

      5. george actually has a Doctor’s degree and specializes in Rectalcrainalectomies. He says he is glad that Fundies wear ties, it helps to break the vaccuum seal and aids in extracting the patient’s head. It is very serious work and george like to think of it not only as a calling but as his mission field. Here is a photo of one of his cases.
        http://persifler.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/proper-fundy-headgear/

        3. Thanks Don! That has helped explain why so many so many Fundies get their mouths and backsides mixed up…..

  3. Man, this sounds so familiar. I’m sure my young cousins (fundy-raised, in their teens and early twenties) would appreciate it, too.

    So often, fundy attitudes toward other people prove the old adage, “Point a finger at others, and three point right back at you.”

    1. WAIT!!!! When I posted this it showed that I was third and now it shows that I’m… I’m … fourth?…

      *sobs*

      :mrgreen:

  6. Boundaries. What a concept. My wife and I were discussing this recently. Being raised in a Gothard home, a parents wishes were law. The fact that you had an opinion or needed personal space was irrelevant. If your parents said it, it might as well be treated as a command from God. After all God put your parents in authority over you, they know what’s best. Don’t you dare close the door to you room

    1. This is interesting, because the Duggars are big Gothard followers. I remember when they built that house, Michelle said that the kids WANTED to share their rooms with each other. I found that a little hard to believe. Even though I believed that they were close, if asked individually whether they would want their own space or share, I wondered what they would say.

      I’ve always been intrigued by the Duggars and what REALLY goes on behind closed doors. Its obvious that they put on a nice, happy-happy-joy-joy front for the cameras.

      I’d be interested in hearing your stories of living in a Gothard-style home.

      1. Duggars drive me insane! Her uterus is not a lab to see how many units it can crank out in a lifetime!

        1. That reminds me of something funny that I read regarding the Duggars that’s REALLY off-color.

          Please don’t make me say it.
          Please don’t make me say it.
          Please don’t make me say it.

          😉 :mrgreen:

        2. I think I’ve heard it. It just drives me insane that they are lauded by so many and paid by TLC or Discovery or whoever to essentially remain people who act out their desperate need for therapy!

        4. I totally agree with you about the Duggars. They grate on my nerves. I keep hearing people discussing them as if they are significant just because are singlehandedly attempting to keep Caucasians from becoming a minority in America.

        7. Btw, if you google Duggars clown car, you’ll see the motivational poster version of the one I’m thinking of.

        9. It had something to do with Michelle and throwing a hot dog down a hallway.

          THEY MADE ME SAY IT, DARRELL!!!!

        11. I agree with George Carlin, I’ll start caring about the environment when these baby worshipping true believers stop having all these kids!

        12. I’m certain I had heard that hotdog hallway joke before. I still prefer the clown car one. Both are well deserved by those freaks.

        14. @RobM
          Am I missing something here? Is it wrong for people to have a lot of children?

      2. Every Gothard house is slightly different. The goals though are typically same: wife stays home to raise children, husband works, ideally in his own small biz because corporations are somehow bad and his many sons can assist him in his work if its a family biz. On the surface, the message is pretty clear: Life was better (read more Godly)in the olden days, and we’re trying to recreate that. Once inside it turns into an authoritarian lifestyle, though. Here’s a common scenario: young girl of 12 says to herself, “i’d like to go to college and become a lawyer” Parents say no: “that’s not what God would have us choose for you” Utter rebellion ensues over the next several years and the girl usually ends up defeated (socially, mentally, spiritually) or kicked out of the house living

        2. 😯 No, thank you, very much, really, I can;t. The title tells me everything I need to know.

        3. I get summaries from friends, and it’s traumatizing enough! Good choice to ignore that bad advice! 🙂

  7. Got it. And, I’ve also included one of those mouth-pieces that that guy wears on the commercials (even though there’s a boom man right over him, but he insists on looking like he’s at a state fair).

    I’m sure you can use it when you are the guest speaker at our blessed, superior church.

    We like to have our own people speak, so we know they think like us.

    1. George is still mad because he hasn’t got a butt cushion yet for OBVIOUS reasons.

      Please scroll up.

  8. The only person in fundyland who has the right to keep secrets is the pastor. And his mistress. And her husband.

    Burrrrrrrrn! 😛

    That image of the locked diary is a good choice for this post. I’ve known several people of Fundy background who refused steadfastly to keep any kind of journal. Even long after leaving Fundyland, and even with nothing to hide, they were afraid to keep any kind of record of their thoughts or feelings.

    1. You’re describing me! I love writing, and one would think I’d be the type of person who’d keep a journal, but I never, ever wanted to write down my authentic thoughts lest I be condemned for them. I’ve started journals a few times, but I was so cautious in what I actually wrote down that it seemed pointless to continue.

      Can’t have a pesky diary around proving to people that I’m not actually perfect, can I? 😳

      1. Same here. Although, now that I’m a lawyer, I’d never keep a journal, nor would I ever allow a client to keep a journal, for reasons entirely independent of my fundy upbringing. (Only half joking here.)

        1. Because in Law and Fundyland, anything you write down — ANYTHING — not only can but WILL Be Used Against You.

      2. I’ve kept a journal (on and off) since I was in 3rd or 4th grade (I graduated college in Dec 2009). All my old journals are inside a cupboard, but I have my current journal out in the open, sitting on a bookshelf for all to see. No one has ever looked at it, for which I’m super thankful; I put pretty much everything in it. I’d dread to think what it would be like if I were living in a place with no privacy… I’d hate it if my thoughts and feelings were laid out for everyone to see.

        1. Me too: I kept one all through college though. It’s a little creepy seeing my “slippery slope” from liking the college to complete disillusionment.

    2. I’m a fundy, as you would call it, and I keep a journal. It ostensibly is a collection of thoughts in chronological order, and whatever I thought earlier in the day gets written down in it, the good and the bad. Nobody’s every bothered to read that crap that I know of: who wants to read the Life and Times of Boring P. McFundy?
      I suppose I’ll never be a lawyer then. 🙁

  9. “If you have nothing to hide then why does it matter.” Or put another way, “if you’ve done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide.” You actually hear this a lot even outside of Fundamentalism. When people talk about government tracking or even the patriot act. The thing is that we all expect privacy. Privacy or wanting privacy doesn’t mean we are hiding something we did wrong. And we shouldn’t give up privacy because we’ve done nothing wrong.

    1. I heard this all the time and it drove me crazy. I think it was my mother’s favorit saying.

      I always said “Um no, I have nothing to hide, I just don’t like people all up in my stuff.”

      The more nosy you get with someone, the more they guard their privacy. Vicious cycle of insanity.

    2. The proper reply to “If you have nothing to hide, it doesn’t matter” is “If I’m innocent, why do you need to see?”

    4. And we should’nt have to give up our privacy to prove our innocense. Our Rule of Law sets forth the presumption of innocence. the Rule of Fundy is the presumption of guilt… unless you are the pastor, his mistress, or her husband.*

      (*See I am cyber-eco friendly I recycle.)

      1. Ding dang it george! 😳 I-n-n-o-c-e-n-c-e: Innocence! Do you want everyone to know we’re from West Virginia?

    5. “If you have nothing to hide then why does it matter.” Or put another way, “if you’ve done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide.”

      Both favorite quotes of Church Ladies, Kyle’s Moms, and Secret Police Enforcers of various dictators.

  10. I think some of this distrust of anything private stems from the lack of love in many fundamentalist circles.

    1st, fundies often DON’T love others, instead judging or shunning them. If they loved, they would assume the best of other people. Thus, if they saw a password protected file, their first assumption WOULDN’T be the worst one.

    2nd, many fundies don’t love themselves but feel guilty and inferior, as if they never measure up and are never good enough. So when they see other people doing something private which excludes them, they don’t have even confidence to be happy for those people; they just feel horrible because THEY THEMSELVES are being left out. If they understood the fulness of their acceptance in Christ, it wouldn’t feel like a personal attack when other people do something that doesn’t include THEM.

    1. Remember Airstrip One, Oceania, 1984?

      How the Thought Police were so bent out of shape over 6079 Smith W keeping a journal?

      Shouldn’t there be some difference between Jesus Christ and Big Brother? Between the Church and The Party?

  12. I wasn’t allowed to have locked diaries. If I was given one as a gift, the lock was taken away. I stopped keeping journals once my mother admitted to reading them.

    A password on my computer was a no-no as well. My mom would check my internet history all the time and made me give her my myspace and facebook passwords so she could go through everything. I could see a parent doing that with a younger kid, but I was 18.

    I wasn’t even allowed to have a door until my little brother could walk around. I was 14. Even then I wasn’t allowed to close my door unless I was getting dressed.

    My mother constantly checked my cell phone records to make sure I made only local calls. Any out of state number brought on the inquisition. She even threatened to get copies of my texting.

    I had to give a timeline of my whereabouts any time I left the house. This lasted till I moved out at 23.

    I am sooooo crazy sensitive with my privacy now. Even a simple “Where are you going?” from my boyfriend makes me feel trapped and I have to stop myself from flipping out.

    1. That’s so sad! As a mother and a teacher, I believe children need time to themselves. My preschooler is her most creative when she is by herself. I hear her during her naptime singing and humming and talking to her dolls in a way she doesn’t when we are around her. Constant supervision stiffles individuality and personality. Not to mention, it’s based on a wrong view of humanity: that children will always choose to do wrong. It drove me crazy when I taught at Fundy U how some teachers viewed test security. It was once suggested that those of us who lived in college-owned housing where the college trash truck emptied the dumpsters not throw our exams away in our home trash because, you never know, a student might get ahold of them.

      1. “Constant supervision stiffles individuality and personality.”

        I think that’s the point. 😥

    2. My parents made it easy on themselves. No computer (of course there was no internet then…), no phone, no going out anywhere with any friends. Any time the phone rang in our house, my parents were the only ones allowed to answer the phone.

      1. Yep: only Mommy may answer the phone, never mind that it’s clearly Grandma!
        Another thing related to media control is I was 9 before I found out a kid truly can know how a video tape gets put into a VCR…

    3. Jordan, Ok, No Door? That’s pretty bad! I mean, when I got in trouble, I had to keep my door open until I “regianed trust.” So many stories on here make me want to love my kids that much more and treat with love kindness and general human respect… after all, they are humans and they have feelings. (true fundies would disagree) Talking to my parents now, although they are still trapped in Fundyland, they have stated, “We have done so many things wrong it is a wonder you kids turned at as well as you did.” Trust me it was all God, and whole lot of forgiveness. I hope and pray you can you heal. It takes a long time. There is so much joy knowing what you know, that one day you can raise your kids completely different and guide them to a loving relationship with God without destroying their spirit and making them live a life of constant guilt and fear. Being able to do that is a true blessing.

      1. I’m still not allowed to drive (forced to live at home due to medical conditions) because I “can’t be trusted” to go to sleep when they want. Tell that to my psychiatrist-diagnosed sleeping disorder, thank you very much.

  14. Ouch. This one bit me the other day. Ok, let me go back…

    Hi, my name is Paul, and I’m a recovering fundy. I was driving to work in my neighborhood the other day and saw a neighbor was putting up a fence. My first thought was, “Hmm, wonder what their trying to hide back there.” :sniff: 😳 I’m so ashamed.

    2. Paul, I’ve been out for a while and still get fundy thoughts. I wonder if they’ll ever go away, but they seem to be… slowly.

  15. Once I was busted for listening to Michael W. Smith’s first album…(you know the one with the devilish back beat). Steve Green was as hip as it got. I had all his albums. Yeah, anyway, had to leave my bedroom door open for weeks cause I could not be trusted.

    1. My parents weren’t as fundy as many of the parents discussed here, but my mom still intruded on my privacy all the time. She would sneak up behind me and put her ear next to the outside of my headphones to see if I was listening to that accursed devil music. I still get flashbacks when someone asks me “what are you listening to?”

  16. This thread is too painful to read…

    Ironically, this lack of privacy is often designed to protect secrets…

    Secrets and abuse hand out together a lot…

    1. Ha! I once told a PCC security guard who asked to see a casette tape in my car, that it would be a mistake to reach for it!

      1. Double Hah! You had a cassette tape in your car!

        (I stuck an old Michael Talbot tape in the other day in my minivan and my daughter said, “That music sounds so eighties!”)

        1. Yep and I still have the casette converter thing so I can play my ipod in my mom’s car when I’m in it. Hers is the only car I know of still on the road w/ a casette player. I wish to this day I’d have told that security guard that he can check the casette tape if he can explain how it was a security risk.

  18. My parents read my journal multiple times. They didn’t let me close my bedroom door (“Get dressed in the bathroom!”). I couldn’t listen to a Walkman (yes, I’m *that* old) that had a radio, and my parents glued the radio dial on my big stereo. Drove me nuts.

    Although I must say, once I turned 18, they loosened up. A lot.

        1. “not”…man I need to go to bed…FYI I worked midnights last night…thats why I can’t talk..so good night!

      2. I can just imagine where the 7 degrees of separation would end with this kind of a start! 🙂

  20. Harry Potter…my son likes it…and I kinda like that he likes it. Thankful he can grow up differently than I did. 😆

    1. It seems that every 10-20 years or so, the Christian Kyle’s Moms/Witchfinders-General have to feel important and find more Witches to Burn.

      In the Fifties, it was Comic Books.

      In the Seventies, Dungeons & Dragons.

      In the Nineties, Harry Potter.

      And we’re due for another Great Smelling-Out in the name of Gawd. Who’s it going to be this time? My Little Pony? (Who did get denounced as “occult” and “witchcraft” during its first incarnation. I leave you to imagine Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and especially Fluttershy screaming as they’re burned at the stake…)

      1. By the 80s they had the ability to juggle multiple demons/signs of the apocolypse at once. Smurfs, Lucky Charms, He-Man, Cabbage Patch, Pee Wee Herman (before they had a clue about anything about his personal life), Proctor & Gamble, Hippies (yes in the 80s), the list was unending.

        90s had the Teletubbies, pokemon, Hippies (yes in the 90s), etc. I was tired of it in the 80s, didn’t have time to keep up.

        I’m fairly certain that Twilight is railed against nowadays. IDK if fundies even know True Blood exists to rail against.

        1. Oh yes, Twilight is horrible.

          Actually, I agree on that one. However, I consider it pure comedy and so have seen them. Don’t know why I hate myself that much lol

        2. Actually, a lot of Fundy activists actually praised Twilight. Apparently all they could see was “Bella & Edward Save Themselves For Marriage.”

    1. For my own sanity, I assumed that you meant “screw my kids” in the metaphorical sense only.

  22. Funny how everyone’s saying their parents did this stuff, and I just left a ministry where the ADMINISTRATORS did this kind of stuff to the ADULTS who worked there. We weren’t even allowed to leave dirty clothes lying on the floor in our own bedrooms in our own apartments, because what if a maintenance man randomly walked through your bedroom and saw it?

    2. That is just stupid. “OooOOOooo – this person wears clothes, and they get them dirty.” 😯

      Like, so what? So did they do room checks in your apartments?

      1. Yes, actually, they did do room checks/apartment checks – at the end of each school year each apartment inhabited by singles (the married people were exempt for some unknown reason) was checked for white glove cleanliness. If it wasn’t clean enough, each person in the apartment would be fined $200, which on a Christian schoolteacher’s salary is practically an entire paycheck …

    3. Maintenance guys weren’t looking for dirty clothes on the floor when they were looking in the bedroom windows.

  23. My parents were always cool with giving me space, minus that one time I was listening to MXPX really loud in my room and my mom ran downstairs, knocked on my door, and asked me, “Are you doing drugs in there?”

      1. ** Hmmmmm, Had to hide the girlfriend before opening the door… after the sobriety test and a whiff of the breath (after which she gave a much needed breath mint) and sniff test for the odor of burnt oregano and not finding any rolled up dollar bills on the hand held mirror, mom retreated back up stairs to her perch near the heat vent where she could monitor the whole house. She never did question the brazire that was flapping about after somehow becoming attached to the ceiling fan.**
        Oh, are be back in real time? I’m sorry what was the question??? 😯

        2. Shamma lamma in the ramma lamma ding dong george! The word is brassiere, not that there was a brass pot dangling from the ceiling fan but a brassiere, bra, Over-the-shoulder-boulder holder… sometimes george sometimes… you really embarrass me! 🙄

        3. Sorry to disappoint, but I wasn’t actually doing drugs, nor have I ever done drugs. But, there were many times where a brass pot was laying on my floor…

    2. @Jeff — I’ve always been a smart ass (except when it would get me smacked), but as a teen and now, I couldn’t help but say, “Yes, want some?”

        2. The more absurd the definition the better! I still love asking for a definition of ALONE! You have to have a whole lot of legal weaseling experience to think to ask for a definition of alone!

  24. This was never a big deal with me; my parents didn’t go to church, so I didn’t grow up under such a system.

    But, in general, I agree that my children don’t have a right to privacy on computers in my house. They do not have “admin” rights on the computers, and I have the right to check their browsing history, which we do at randomly (probably about once a week). We use OpenDNS to block certain sites.

    But as they get more and more responsible, we expect to ease up (as they approach maturity). Just because they are 18, they aren’t necessarily mature.

    They have cell phones, but none of us have Internet access through the phones, and we do check the phone bill and ask about unknown calls.

    1. I agree! I guess the difference is the purpose. My parents were always looking if I had any interest in “worldly” things: any movies, most music including all CCM, any fashions, any celebrities, any TV shows, any make-up, anything trendy, anything popular, any interest in a boy, anything about the occult (including “The Lion, the WITCH, and the Wardrobe” because there’s a witch in it), etc.

      Since I’m not hyper-sensitive about most of those things, I’m not monitoring my daughter’s computer use to catch her in the MULTITUDINOUS things that are sins in the IFB world. Instead I want to protect her from predators and guide her into age-appropriate activities. If she is doing something I don’t want her to do, I want to discuss my reasons with her instead of shaming her.

      1. Exactly. PW always says it best but I agree; it’s the motivation for checking. Not, “I know you’re sinning and I will find it because you can never live up to my perfect example” but being smart about internet safety, etc.

  25. People who feel the need to examine every aspect of your life (whether they are fundies of not) are not interested in your well-being (spirtual or otherwise) they are interested in POWER and CONTROL. Being a control-freak is a major ocupational hazard of being a fundie, as well as an inability to give anyone else credit for having any intelligence. I do get really p****d off when someone insults my intellegence.

    1. That’s why I always got p*ed off when my fundy friends would tell me about the crazy rules at the fundy u they went to. I felt that the students should be treated like the adults they were, not like naughty little kids.

  26. Why Pink Diaries are Wicked by Shoes

    We need to use the traditional number to letter cryptography to solve this wickedness (A=1, B=2, C=3, … Z=26).
    “Pink Diary” is translated “16, 9, 14, 11” and “4, 9, 1, 18, 25.”
    If we add the letters of “pink” we get 50 and if we add the letters of “diary” we get 57.
    Put these numbers together and we get 5057. If subtract God as the trinity (3) we arrive at the number 5054.
    Now we know the wickedness of Harry Potter, and if we divide 5054 by the 7 books in the Harry Potter series we get the number 722.
    We also know the wickedness of the magical Pokémon, especially the pink Pokémon Jigglypuff.
    A quick numeric translation of “Jigglypuff” results in “10,9,7,7,12,25,16,21,6,6” If we add these numbers up digit by digit we get 56.

    If we take 722 and subtract 56, well folks that equals 666.

    Pink diaries are wicked.

      1. Or writing Pinkie Pie’s dialogue in the latest version of My Little Pony.

        “The two of them seem to have a grudge. And grudge rhymes with fudge, and I Like Fudge!”

      1. (I knew it wasn’t jigglywart, but I thought it was funnier to leave that way than check).

  28. I thought the school I went to was bad. These people don’t trust others because they know the wickedness hidden in their own lives.

    I’m afraid that I would have to get violent if there was this type of intrusion into my private life. How parents can subject their kids to this type of abuse is beyond me.

    1. fnx, this brings up an interesting & crucial point I believe. We believers I’m afraid have too much of a sin-focus rather than a Christ-focus in our lives. I mean that we focus too much on sin even when we are speaking about trying to overcome it rather than looking to the One who has overcome it for us. Just my 2.008875 cents worth, figuring in inflation

      1. Great, David. If we focus on grace, sin just becomes a directing sign pointing to God.

  29. My dad built my sister and I each a wooden box with a lid that latched and we could put a little lock on it. One of those little generic silver locks that has a generic key. It was so we could keep our things private from each other, but our parents (my MOM) made it a point to check it regularly.

    So seriously? What was the purpose? That was so stupid. And it made it worse when my sister hid something in there that she denied having. THEN it was pointless, b/c my mom checked it twice as often. 🙄

    My husband just looks at me like I’m nuts when I tell him these things. Thank you all for assuring me that I’m not or that I’m not alone! :mrgreen:

    My kids are going to have it so much easier than I ever did.

    1. George, you jigglypuff, RELPLY where i command you too. You would be a bad Pokemon; you don’t obey too well

    2. Pokemon are of the devil and your familiarity with them makes us suspicious of YOU! 😉

      1. The pastors & evangelists always know a little bit too much detail about the wickedness of all that porn out there for us to be afraid of! 🙂

      2. I predict the next Big Witch Hunt will be against My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

        1) MLP:FiM is taking off and appealing to all ages.
        2) MLP has previously been denounced in previous Satanic Pancis as “Occult” and “teaching children Witchcraft”.
        3) Harry Potter and Pokemon are “so Day-Before-Yesterday.” The Christian Kyle’s Moms need a new Crusade/Jihad.

        (I’m already shuddering at the mental image of Pinkie Pie/Rarity/Fluttershy being burned at the stake for Witchcraft. Including hearing echoes of their screams.)

  31. What always bugged me was when people were forced to confess things in front of the whole church that were, quite honestly, none of anyone’s business and just led to gossip fodder. Which led to a sermon the following week for the women on the dangers of gossip (when we all know men are worse than we are about the gossip thing).

    1. You Wish! Hey Don, beth says men gossip more than women, and I know that Natalie gossips more than Shoes, and Pastors Wife was seen posting a reply to Rob who regularly posts to Campfiregirl who doesn’t come around much any more because Greeneggs and Ham said…. OH, well… 😳

    2. The Soviet Union under Comrade Stalin and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao did that a lot. They called it “Enlightened Self-Criticism”. And it usually immediately preceded a bullet in the back of the neck and kick into a mass grave.

    3. Beth, why do some sins require confession more than others? I know someone who is a Christian, but is also Gay, but celibate. The elders of his church found out about it and demanded that he confess his “Sin” (with a capital “S”) in front of the whole church. His father,who knew about his sexuality, said “NO! Why should he? If he does we should ALL get up and confess OUR sins in front of everybody. Including the Pastor and the Elders” (they found out later that a lot of people were struggling with Pornography and several affairs we’re going on). My friend did NOT have to “”confess” in that humiliating fashion, but later became more open about it, and has been living a Godly life.

  32. “In fundyland it is assumed that the only reason why the average person would desire freedom from prying eyes would be to perform some great act of wickedness.”

    —THAT’LL PREACH, BROTHER!

  33. THIS is exactly why my ex (who grew up in fundy school) became so incredibly gifted at secrets and lies that he grew up to be a man who very successfully hid a mulititude of mistresses from his wife. He knew every trick in the book to hide things he didn’t want found out (his phone/internet activity, his whereabouts, and some BAD skeletons in his closet) and he had so much practice at lying that he can look you straight in the eye and tell an outrageous lie without flinching. He learned all this because, with fundy parents and a fundy school, if you didn’t hide your every move you were bound to get in trouble for SOMETHING! So all he really learned was just to become a better liar. I’m pretty angry and bitter (yes, bitter) about this right now, so it hit pretty close to home!

    1. It’s such a shame that they make so many inconsequential things into sins (and many times have egregious punishments) so children learn to do a true sin – lying – just to avoid the condemnation for things that really aren’t sins at all! It’s all so messed up, and the results are tragic.

      1. @ Pastor’s Wife. . this is true. .so true. From someone who grew up having to lie and still struggles w/ it. 😥 Ashamed to even admit that.

    2. I can only say, I’m sorry. I’ve counseled several (now former) IFBers through similar tragedies. Know that you are loved in Christ.

  34. IMHO, they don’t want anyone to have any privacy because they are afraid that someone, somewhere might be having fun.

  35. My father was an IFB pastor, but he and my mom were great about giving me space. He wasn’t crazy about us listening to popular music, so we didn’t do it around him…but there were no room searches or anything like that, and he wouldn’t have freaked out if he had caught us doing it. The most we would’ve gotten would’ve been a bit of a lecture. And everyone in the family knew that if I was in my room, the door stayed shut. Even if I was only reading (which I was most of the time), I had to have my privacy.

  36. Once my cousin and I were visiting a friend from Fundy U during Christmas break, and we went to see the last Lord of the Rings movie with him and two other friends of his. We just told his parents that we were going to the mall. Our friend had his dad’s cell phone, and turned it off for the movie (we didn’t realize the movie would be so long). Then, we decided to get something to eat, because we were starving. But the cell phone wouldn’t turn back on without a password. Well, my uncle decided to come pick us up that day (a day early), and our friend’s dad was trying to call us the whole time. So when we got back, we had to try to convince them that we (4 guys and 1 girl) were just shopping and eating (for six hours). And that the cell phone just happened to get turned off. I think our parents still wonder what went down that day. 😀

    1. The ironic thing is, nothing that you did would be something you’d need to hide from normal parents. You went to see a movie (a rather innocent movie, compared to many other movies). He was polite and turned off the phone so it wouldn’t bother other movie patrons. Where’s the problem?

    2. To this day my parents think I went bowling twice a week all summer long from 16 to 22.

    1. George, my name is Nicole not Nathan, and this comment was for Big Gary. Sheesh, get it right!

  38. I grew up in a fundy home my dad was an IFB preacher and taught at a fundy college. There I have established my credentials. I did not have the issues with privacy at home that others did. Once in high school a the soccer coach called my mom because my friend & I skipped practice to see his girlfriend in a public school. The coach told my mom he thought it was because of rock music. ( how he made that leap I’m not sure) When I got home my mom had gathered up my tapes and albums & was going to throw them away. I told her that they actually belonged to my friend & she could not throw away his property. ( a big lie ) she gave them back to me with the promise to give them back to my friend. They stayed in my room I never bothered to hide them…nothing else was said.

    From time to time they would complain about my music..Dad even pointed out that the college he taught at ( and I attended for a semester) had rules against it, but they never touched my property again.

    My 13 year old does have a FB account which I do check ever so often…but more for predator issues than anything else…I have digitized most of my music collection, 70’s & 80’s music mostly and given it to my 13 year old who listens to it on his ipod through his headphones… his favorite band is switchfoot. Last summer he attended the wilds…he does this every year, he told his counselor that he liked switchfoot & his counselor ( a bju student ) said that was his favorite band.

    I would like to identify that student so I can have him kicked out 😉

  39. Someone tried this on me within the last 2 years. I was told that anything brought on the IFB property was subject to search. This included not only my CD case but also my personal laptop locked in the trunk of my car. They expected me to provide them with the password to the computer and and any files (read: email and music libraries) they found. When I refused, they asked me why. When I said I would gladly let them see anything and everything they asked for so long as they let me do the same with their belongings, they backed down.

    3. Even Federal agencies can’t compel you to hand over a password to an encrypted or password-protected system without a warrant. 4th Amendment…ever hear of it? It’s part of the Constitution, you know the document that is second only to the Bible? If Uncle Sam can’t do it, who the heck are the IFB to demand it?

      When I worked at Fundy U in the computer department, I made sure to make a policy, in writing, that any data on a laptop or thumb drive or external hard drive or whatever remained sole property of the student who brought it in and that my office would not release that data to anyone except the student without either the student’s written permission or a properly executed search warrant. Twice I refused requests to go looking through a student’s computer on a glorified witch hunt, and once I went toe-to-toe with a Dean of Men staff member and told him what he asked me to do was illegal. I have zero tolerance for fundies who think it’s okay to break the highest law of the land on some holier-than-thou trip.

      2. Thanks for standing against evil. I am amazed at the way the fundies routinely abrogate the Constitution, and then jump up on their GOP platform and start spewing “original intent” dogma (still wonder why the IRS hasn’t gotten around to revoking some 501C3 statuses, but I digress…). Anyway, freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of almost any kind is repressed. So very weird and more than a little fascist.

      3. Twice I refused requests to go looking through a student’s computer on a glorified witch hunt, and once I went toe-to-toe with a Dean of Men staff member and told him what he asked me to do was illegal.

        Did he try to pull rank on you with “Laws of Men vs Commandments Of God”?

      4. I have some “uncheckable” stuff on my computer hard drive right now, and I’m going to Fundy U this fall. Can I as a student quote the law about searches and so on? (and avoid trouble?)

  40. This grated on me when I was a teenager. My mom would even come to the (public) high school I attended to make sure I was actually where I said. I will never forget the time she created a scene because our Strategy Club was playing D&D. Evidently, D&D was demonic.

      1. I just skimmed the Chick tract. I really have no good comment- I’m more at a loss for words at the ridiculous leaps that the tract took. Jack Chick is obviously someone who doesn’t know much about the game. Or a paranoid delusional. Probably both.

        2. That one is actually pretty popular among gamers I know because it’s so funny! It’s like reading a tract about the evils of chess that starts with “Okay, I’m the Board Lord, everybody put on your hats!” and ends with somebody bleeding on the ground.

      2. More like “If Jack Chick says something, you know it’s SCRIPTURE(TM)!” True in too many cases.

        I’m an old-school gamer; started when D&D was Three-little-books-plus-Greyhawk. Veteran of The Satanic Panic, when D&D became the Harry Potter of its day for all the Witchfinders-General. The mutual hostility and distrust between Christians and Gamers continues to this day.

    2. You could have been playing with Cabbage Patch dolls and that would have been just as bad.

        2. I thought Cabbage Patch was really popular in the 80s. Being born in 87, I don’t remember the 80s.

        3. The peak of the Cabbage Patch craze was about 82 or 83.
          It seems to have been an outbreak of mass hysteria. People were fighting each other to get ugly, badly-made, overpriced, creepy-looking dolls.

      2. There was a Weekly World News article about “Demon-Possesed Cabbage Patch Dolls” that made the jump into SCRIPTURE through The 700 Club and was treated Chapter-and-Verse throughout Fundyland. Bad Craziness.

        1. I remember that headline! Good old WWN, finest investigative reporting around. Thankfully, now we’ve got The Onion to take up the slack. :mrgreen:

  41. My mother-in-law, who is not a tall woman, was checking (snooping) in my husband’s room when he still lived at home. As she opened the closet door *POW* beaned by a bowling ball. Why my husband kept his bowling ball on the shelf in his closet is beyond me, but I do believe the checking (snooping) ended for awhile.

  42. Darrell, SFL is more dangerous than porn??? Wow, that is some serious props to you. /bow.

    The logical conclusion is that porn is less sinful than SFL. I believe I have fallen down the rabbit hole.

  43. Ah yes, the joys of growing up fundy. With many siblings crammed into 1 bedroom privacy required skill, cunning, and an ability to terrorize younger siblings into keeping their big mouths shut 😀
    Let’s see, tool boxes lock and are perfect for holding DVDs, CD players and CDs could be hidden along the edge of the bed or under it (just tuck them in the front corner under the fitted sheet so nothing falls out if anyone looks under the matress) grocery shopping could take awhile, really long lines and bad traffic, really(and who needs to see the trailers or the credits of a movie anyway), diaries and journals are best encrypted and written on loose leaf paper tucked in with school stuff, etc. Sad really, all that wasted brain power, when I could have been plotting world domination 😈

  45. Good Morning all, or should I say Good Evening! I suspect most of you are fast asleep…hopefully George is as well. (sly dog!)

    Anyway I just wanted to say thank you to my mother for giving me a $50 dollar gift card to I-Tunes for my birthday. I was able to replace alot of the music she trashed when I was younger. Wrong? perhaps. Still it feels good. I know I am not totally right but then again who’s right, right? 😛

  46. A lot of my computer privacy skills and tricks came as a direct result of living at Fundy U for 10 years. For instance:

    NTFS Alternate Data Streams (nothing like hiding a full-length hi-res movie in a 2k text file entitled “groceries.txt”)
    Liberal use of TrueCrypt
    SSH SOCKS proxy tunneling to get around internet filters

    I may not be a l33t hacker but I can put stuff on my computer where you’ll never find it, not without some very expensive and lengthy cryptanalysis. 😈

    1. TrueCrypt-yep. Used that at BJU all four years, super helpful. My entire iTunes library was encrypted, but other kids did way more than that, of course.

    2. “no home Bible study without the pastor being present”

      “no home Bible study without the pastor being present”

      “NO HOME BIBLE STUDY WITHOUT THE PASTOR BEING PRESENT”

      OUT WITH THE BAD AIR. IN WITH THE GOOD. ALL HAIL CAMAZOTZ.

      They all seem to think that they can somehow hunt down the Holy Spirit wherever She might get in, grab Her by the throat, and throttle Her to death. I’m glad you escaped!

      1. Holy Spirit is a she? I never really attached gender to a mystical wind. How strange.

        (Sorry if that’s off topic.)

        1. When fundies get off topic on the masculinity points they love to make re “Father” & “Son” being, they always conveniently forget that “Pnuema” (sp?) is a feminine noun for the Holy Spirit. No clue what you can truly make from any of the gender designations of God, but Fundies do their best to maximize the masculinity angle for sure.

        2. I always thought the Holy Spirit was a person. Generally “persons” have gender don’t they? But then, I guess angels are said to be genderless… Guess that is something you Godly fundy students have studied though… The Holy Spirit that is, but that is kind of like using your wife to study anatomy to me…Kind of depersonalises things…

        3. Lol, the Greek word pneuma is actually neuter. Which is why I’ve never really thought of him/it as having a gender. I suppose I refer to the Spirit as a ‘him’ but that’s more force of habit, I don’t suppose the Greek speaking Christians would have.

          Neuter is a gender we don’t have in English, and it doesn’t really mean genderless. Him is probably appropriate since it still carries a bit of a generic force (conservative grammars use him to reference both genders) and because ‘it’ lacks the personal force of him. But there’s certainly no reason to call the Spirit her. Not a biblical reason at least; I’m not sure what church tradition our friend comes from.

        5. How interesting. I haven’t had the privilege of learning Hebrew yet. My guess would be that the controlling language in this question is Greek BECAUSE Paul’s theology would have been derived mostly from the Septuagint, the Greek translation. As best as my limited knowledge goes, most early Christians (even Jewish ones) would not have spoken Hebrew, although as best as I know Paul should have spoken Hebrew.

          However, if you are familiar with a gendered language (perhaps spanish?) you will note that grammatical gender is not really controlling. A girl’s blouse could be masculine. Again I put forward that notion that “he” is the best option because it’s personal with a tad bit of generic force. As a personal entity, I suppose that the Spirit is male. But I try to think of him outside of gender, because the Scriptures don’t appear to present him in this way.

        6. Spanish is much more familiar to me, and yes. I personally think assigning either gender to the Infinite is pretty absurd. You can understand why people would be kind of insistent on reaching for the effiminate nature where it can be, as the masculinity of God is so often way way over emphasized.

        7. Definite 🙂

          I think ‘Father’ is a fantastic reference, since (in a perfect world!) both men and women love and respect their fathers. But something we forget to mention is that in the Old Testament, far more common than references to a Father is YHWH comparing himself to a mother bearing children. But then there are husband-like references. So I don’t think God intended the Jews to think of him as a male. Our idea of God as a Father comes mostly, I think, from the early Christian understand of Jesus as “God’s Son.”

    3. We were in an IFB church with a PCC pastor that had that same rule. Wouldn’t want the sheep to think for themselves … that could be dangerous.

  48. That’s something I didn’t learn fast enough growing up a fundie: don’t write anything down unless you can hide it really well, and don’t reveal anything to anyone from church.

  50. My mother attempted to have strict rules, but she almost never followed through on anything.

    At first I was only allowed on pre-approved websites. Then when I got an email account I wasn’t allowed to send out emails without having her read it first. She’d make a habit of reading through them regularly and I got in trouble if there was anything in the “reply” section of the emails that wasn’t in my sent box. I tried to follow the rules for a week. At the end of the week she hadn’t had time to look any of them over, so I just sent them anyway. She blew a blood vessel whenever I criticized her to one of my friends. I wasn’t allowed on the computer for a week.

    She would also randomly take my phone and read through the text messages. She hadn’t told me about this beforehand, so when they found out about my non-straight orientation from that I had to go through a bunch of lectures. My dad also tracked how long I was on the phone and when I made phone calls. I was called in and interrogated about all calls that were out-of-state or during a non-allowed time.

    I never knew the password on the computer until I left for school and got my own. My emails were always free game and my browser history was checked frequently.

    I rarely faced any consequences for these (other than hours-long “lectures” where mom screamed at me and told me I was worthless and hopeless), though, since my parents never followed through on anything.

    I became very, very good at lying. I’m naturally an open person, but I learned quickly how to hide things well.

    Now, at 20, I’m still not allowed to lock my door.

    1. Same here.

      I got permanently kick out of the house when I didn’t come home at a time my mother thought I should.

      She knew I was at a friend’s house but she called me around 1030p to “find out where I was.” I had just left and was on my way home and would be there around 11. I got screamed at and told I couldn’t come and go as I pleased (even thought I was 22, she knew where I had gone, and way before my 2am curfew). When I told her she wasn’t making any sense and I hadn’t broken any rules, she told me I was no longer welcome at home any more and my stuff had to be out by the end of the next day. That night I slept at my grandmother’s and never went to live back home. To this day I don’t understand why I was kicked out.

      1. My mom uses the “come and go as you please” argument whenever I ask about getting my permit (or, god forbid, my license). Apparently since I can’t be trusted to go to sleep on time or get off the computer when they ask (mom took to pulling the plug on it when her temper got short), I couldn’t be trusted to tell them where I was actually going. Obviously I would be required to give all the details of my trip and then stick religiously to that itinerary, and I would only go out for things like grocery shopping or doctor appointments.

        I sounds like your mother had mental issues and used fundy-ism to justify her crazies. Of course I’m speaking from the standpoint of a psych student and someone who also has brain ferrets. 😛

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