Odds and Ends

Friday Challenge: Fess Up

218 Comments

Today’s challenge is to tell a story about when you were the kind of person who might end up featured on SFL. Every one of us has memories (and perhaps even residual guilt) over when we too were judgmental, unkind, or just so sure that we were the only ones who knew the truth.

Not only is honest confession good for the soul but it help others know that it’s possible to change.

218 thoughts on “Friday Challenge: Fess Up”

  2. I used to try to convert Catholics. I sent the recently widowed wife of a Mason the Baphomet Chick tract. I commented loudly about the “gay agenda” espoused by the Teletubbies when our pastor’s wife mentioned her children enjoyed the show. I assumed that when Scripture said, “By your fruits ye shall know them,” it meant being in church every time the doors were open and rebuked family, friends, and church members accordingly. I thought sharing Christ’s “love” (Pharisaical legalism) meant never having to say I was sorry.

    🙁

    1. Me too. I used to be unapologetically abusive in the name of “The TRUTH” to Catholics and Jews. I had no idea what they even believed until recently. I only knew they didn’t have “The TRUTH” and it was MY job to get it to them.

      1. Yes. Because YOU may be the only Bible those apostate Catholics or godless Jews ever read. What if some unforeseen calamity befell them? Would their blood be on YOUR hands for failing to share with them the Truth (TM)?

        Ugh.

      2. 2001 was an election year in NYC, and Michael Bloomberg was the Republican candidate for mayor. This created a dilemma, because fundies MUST vote Republican, but Bloomberg is Jewish! 😯 The men at church would talk about how the Jews hate God, and (of course) that they killed Christ. I remember overhearing this and thinking, “Wait…what? Did I seriously just hear that?” I mean, this is NYC, the most diverse city in the world, in the 21st century! It sounds incredibly naive, but it didn’t occur to me until just then that antisemitism still existed. It seemed especially egregious because this was just a few weeks after 9/11, a tragedy caused by that same sort of hatred and religious fundamentalism.

        But man, I would kill to be there when someone at church asks how I’m doing, and my dad gets to tell them that not only am I marrying a Jew, I’m converting myself! 😈

        1. I’m wondering what people of that stripe (can’t vote for a Democrat, but can’t vote for a Jew) are thinking now that the top Republican presidential contenders are a Mormon, a hard-core Catholic, an ex-Lutheran-ex-Baptist-Catholic, and whatever Ron Paul is (a Solipcist?). I’m interested to see how they end up rationalizing whomever they’re going to end up voting for.

  3. You mean like when I told my Bible class in a Christian school that people who believed that baptism was necessary for salvation were not going to heaven because they believed in a works-based salvation. In that class was a Lutheran boy and two Catholic boys. 😳

  4. Back when I was in about 2nd grade a song was popular on the radio called “Everything is beautiful”. I was riding in the car with a friend of mine whose family was Catholic and this song came on the radio and I said, “Oh, that is a bad song.” (Probably heard that from my mom or a teacher or someone) and the mother of my friend turned around and said, “Why?” and I parrotted that everything is NOT beautiful. Sin is not beautiful and Communism is not. I will never forget the look she gave me. Sort of pity and disapproval all at the same time.

    1. I remember hearing a fundy evangelist who specialized in preaching on Rock & Roll go on a tirade about the song “Everything is Beautiful”. Mind you, this was 1990. Just a few years past the last time the song had been on the radio. Anyway, he’s pounding the pulpit on how the song was untruthful because not everything is beautiful, “You ever see a pig?”, he shouts, “They’re not beautiful!” Yet I’m sitting there thinking, “but the lyrics say, ‘everything’s beautiful in it’s own way’.” And personally once a pig’s been turned into bacon it’s gorgeous! 😀

      1. Well, I know now the problem they had with the song was later in it where it goes: We don’t care about the length of your hair or the color of your skin… something something about what is without but the love that lies within.

        How could they let impressionable little minds hear THOSE lyrics I ask you?

    1. How fundy could a church with a “praise team” be? You’re compromising with the world if you don’t have a choir!

      Just teasin’, bro! But perhaps illustrative of the OP’s point.

  6. Oh, and even though I wasn’t first this time (when I truly should have been) I can WIN this challenge in volume. I was a fundy my whole life till I was in my 30s and I was a GOOD one. Unfortunately I have some service projects to work on today so I won’t be available to tell you ALL the horrible things I did and said. You will have to be satisfied with the few I can provide quickly before the family wakes up.

  7. If I had to pick one story that still bothers me it would be what I participated in as a teenager. The group I grew up in was militantly KJV only. Well, one day the youth pastor brought in a box of other versions (PER-versions bless God!) that he bought at a thrift store. We in the youth group ripped them to pieces and did all manner of shameful things to those Bibles while the adults, including the pastor, watched and cheered. I know now that it was a horrible thing to do to the Word of God.
    That is why I believe that the KJV only position is dangerous. It can drive you to do things to the Word of God that only avowed enemies of the Word of God would dare to do.

    2. Don’t worry. You can destroy the paper, but you won’t get rid of the Word.

      What you all did was pointless, but it didn’t harm the Bible.

    3. Geez, that is an awful thing for those pastors to have influenced you kids to do! I’m sorry, man.

  8. In college, I once dated a guy who’s dad was a pastor. The pastor took his teens on a weekend camping trip and he asked ME to talk to the girls one night about not wearing pants.

    I spewed the fundy jargon (Dt. 22:5, form-fitting, how men think, etc.) and even had one girl tell me that I had helped her see why girls shouldn’t wear pants and that she was going to stop wearing them.

    🙄

  9. Right after I got married, my husband’s father married a woman who was Baha’i (I think that is how it is spelled) I had never heard of it before but I allowed her to explain to me their beliefs. She even invited me to a study they were having in her home… I have a blurred memory of trying to witness to all of them, and telling them they were going to hell… I also remember the same looks of pity and disgust that I got from my friend’s mom in the car in second grade.

    1. And when they told you that Jesus is one of their prophets as well?

      Haha, it’s all good. We’ve all done idiotic things. Good to have a sense of humour about the situation, I suppose. It’s the only way we get by sometimes.

  10. I think for me it was allowing myself to be brainwashed into believing that the best job for a christian was in the ministry. After two Fundy U’s and graduate school I earned my piece of papers, uh, degrees and have been working for nine years in said “minisrty”. And what I have found is scarey.I don’t do what I do with pure motivations, but rather because it is expected of me. The truth is that God doesn’t need my service for His plan to work out. Christ is enough. He will build His church. And if I had gotten a job in the real world, I might have something left to give to the “ministry”.

  11. As a teen at a fundy-lite camp, I was horrified when I found out that the rhythm the teens were stomping out on the bleachers was really from a rock song. Stomp! Stomp! Clap! Stomp! Stomp! Clap!

    I went to a counselor horrified that my spiritual week at Christian camp was being sullied by the worldly rhythms of an immoral rock song.

    2. funny you should bring that up, PW. I felt similarly about all the cheering and clapping that goes on week in and week out at the WILDS. While, I don’t remember that specific pattern, I always found it odd that during “Christian Life Seminar” (twitch, twitch o_0) Hummel would just SPEW venom about worldly music and worldy rhythms, then out on the fields we would clap and chant in very similar rhythms to the ones we were told so vehemently to aviod.

  12. I was a literal believer in the bible and also a creationist it ended up making me homeless because my mum indoctrinated me to believe what the televangelists were saying.
    Glad in free now

  13. As a kid about 8 or 9, my dad wanted me to play in the local (non fundy) recreation softball league. I enjoyed it but did not fit in with the other girls…at all. When we had our first team meeting to come up with a team name, it was suggested we call ourselves the “Blue Devils” since we wore blue uniforms. I vehemently objected to being known as a “devil” and suggested “Blue Angels” instead. I was voted down and branded the team’s religious nut. I only lasted one season.

  14. In Junior High school we used to get taken over to the public school to stand outside (In our full-fundy fashion) and pass out Bibles and tracts. We used to do this every Thursday after school. I don’t think this story needs too many more details. A lot of this stuff is being pulled out of places in my memory I thought I would never see again.

    1. Wow, that’s even worse than Saturday morning bus calling. I feel sick just thinking about what you must have been feeling standing there, awkwardness to the gazillionth power. UGH UGH UGH Now I’m feeling deep sadness. Wait, now it’s turning into ANGER! 👿

  15. Though I never swam in the deep waters of Fundy Kool-Aid, I do remember a time when I would question the salvation of other “christians” that didn’t believe EXACTLY the way I did. God’s still working with me on this point in many ways.

    Fundyism is a mindset.

    1. More like an insidious weed taking over the mind; just when I think I have it eradicated, I find it flourishing in an area I didn’t realize it had infested.

  16. I remember proudly declaring to my fellow students at my Fundy U that I could prove from the Bible that women were not to wear trousers.

    It’s so easy to be so sure you’re right.

    2. Beware of proof texts. It’s just as easy to “prove” that the Bible approves of slavery, concubinage, and stoning children to death.

      1. “It’s just as easy to “prove” that the Bible approves of slavery…”

        I’ve heard a lot of people say that, but I’ve never heard anyone actually do it.

        1. I fear that I will reignite a subject that is never resolved and only causes hard feelings but here goes anyway. At my Fundy U, one of my classes held a debate between the Northern and Southern points of view regarding the US Civil War. Some of those on the Southern side indeed used the Bible to justify slavery. That was only about a decade ago.

          It was only done for the purpose of trying to win a pointless argument but still………… 😥

        2. If you had been around in the U.S. during the 1850s and early 1860s, you would have heard a whole lot of people quoting the Bible to defend slavery.

          Here’s a little of what the Bible says about slavery (be sure to check the scriptures cited):
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery
          http://www.evilbible.com/Slavery.htm

          Here are some quotes from very prominent 19th-century Americans saying slavery is ordained by God:
          http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl.htm

          Here’s an essay by a contemporary person defending (sort of) the treatment of slavery in the Bible:
          http://www.bible-researcher.com/slavery.html

          That’s just a little taste. But there’s far more out there, if you look for it.

        3. “Some of those on the Southern side indeed used the Bible to justify slavery.”

          But they couldn’t actually PROVE it. The Bible just doesn’t support it. Period. Some people are just going to believe what they’re going to believe, regardless of what the Bible “says” or does not say. Sad. 😥

        4. The Bible does say it, though.
          Read the scriptures cited in the links I gave. They all take slavery as a given, and nowhere does the Bible say it should stop.

        5. Remember where Christ said the unprofitable servant shall be beaten with many stripes? Some say this is Christ condoning slavery, he and others never seem to explicitly oppose it.

  17. I used to preach against women wearing skirts with slits in the back or the side. I now know that they are there to facilitate walking but I was convinced they were there to tempt men. “Slits are for sluts” was the phrase I used. I may have gotten that phrase from P. Kidd or some other dubious source.

  18. I once tattled on my little sister for saying “golly.” She was only 4 at the time and didn’t understand, but she got “spanked” for it. I feel bad now because ridiculous things like that have not only turned her away from fundydom (a good thing), but also completely against God.
    I just thank God for how He has changed me and continues to change the way I think about everything.

    1. While deeply entrenched in fundydom, two Mormon missionaries came to our door. I was ecstatic. An opportunity to convert them to the TRUE church! I waited for an opportunity to “nail ’em.” It came when one of them quoted a verse, so I asked him where it was found in scripture. He said, “In Corinthians.” I said, “Which one, first or second?” He looked at me confused and said he didn’t know. I pompously stated, “Well, I went to Bible college, and read the whole bible, and there are TWO chapters of Corinthians, and you guys have added to the bible, blah blah blah….and I ended my tirade with “you’re in bondage, you’re following man’s rules, it’s Jesus, just Jesus. That’s all you need.” The pot calling the kettle black.

    2. Sorry sonofafundy, my reply was meant for the blog. But your GOLLY story sure hits home. I would cringe when anyone said Oh my GOSH!!!! Or DARNIT! Or GEEZE! Because they were “euphemisms” for the real words. At the same time, I thought it was really stupid when fundies would say STINK for the S word, haha. Of course I kept that thought to myself.

  19. I told my friends there was no such thing as Santa, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy.

    I tattled on my friends who watched a Steven Curtis Chapman concert on VHS.

    I told a new neighbor that I’d have to leave her house if she didn’t turn off her Hanson CD.

    I thought I was better than my only two friends because one didn’t always come to church Sunday night, and the other one went to prom (in a strapless dress, no less!).

    I thought the Wilds Christian Camp was heaven on earth. Then I thought BJU was heaven on earth. And I thought Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Greenville was heaven on earth.

    I went to a dorm counselor to “get help” for a couple of roommates. Didn’t know at the time that I was throwing them under the bus.

    The saddest part of all of it was that I thought in my heart that I was better than all the people around me, even though I practiced a lot of fundy “sins” in private while condemning those who practiced them openly. I wish I could go back and apologize to a whole lot of people!

    1. “I told a new neighbor that I’d have to leave her house if she didn’t turn off her Hanson CD.”

      Nothing fundy about that. That’s just good common sense. :mrgreen:

      2. Y’all need to get out of 1997 and Google Hanson’s post-MMMBop music. It will surprise you.

      1. Oh, don’t worry, I’ll leave that stuff there. I was thinking of some other tidbits. Since this post is about personal confession, I’ll leave them for you to disclose.

        As for myself, I was never the kind of person who might end up featured on this bolg. 😎

        1. Most of the things that spring to mind had less to do with me being a fundamentalist and more to do with me being a jackass.

  21. I was never a true Fundy, but there was a time when I believed that people on the other side from me theologically or politically were working for Satan. I hope I’m over that now.

    1. other side from me theologically or politically were working for Satan

      I remember when I realized I could disagree with a Republican and agree with a Democrat, and it was okay. That was a huge breakthrough, even if it is common sense.

    2. You know, one of my most humbling moments as a Fundy was during a college break. I was walking around town during my lunch hour and was approaching a group of African-American women who were standing & chatting on a street corner. (You can imagine my whitebread Fundy assumptions; at least, they represented “the other side” to me.)

      As I got closer, I realized they were rejoicing in the Lord, sharing blessings that God had done in their lives. Love and joy radiated from them. Before I could get past them, one woman caught me in the warmth of her smile and asked me, “Hon, do you know Jesus?” I nodded politely and answered, “Yes, ma’am, I do.” She threw her hands in the air and thanked God for redeeming me and told me to have a blessed day.

      Returning to my job, I had to admit to myself I did not know Jesus the same way those women did. I had only a passing acquaintance with Him.

      Because of that simple encounter, I was made aware of the absolute joy that is possible in Christ…and I began to seek it. 🙂

      2. That’s one of the things that helped pull me out of Fundyville. Realizing that other people could be saved and happy in the Lord though they didn’t live up to Fundy standards. They may even have been – gasp! Pentecostal and spoke in tongues! I would wonder about this, how could they be happy in the Lord when they were wearing pants or doing other things the Fundys say is wrong? I was saved and knew it, but not as happy in the Lord as they were. I was doing all the “right” things, and serving in the church in many areas but I wasn’t as happy in the Lord as they. There are many other reasons I pulled away from Fundyville and this is one of them. 🙂

        1. This is one of the reasons why I began to study the Scriptures for what they were and left fundydom myself. Seeing other Christians who were not fundy having real joy in Jesus made me re-evaluate my belief system. That, and this site, of course! Thank you Darrell and thank you all you commenters! 😀

      5. “Because of that simple encounter, I was made aware of the absolute joy that is possible in Christ…and I began to seek it.”

        This statement is a blessing to me at this particular time in my life.

  22. When old enough that I should have know better, I explained to a workmate I thought was a believer, though ‘weaker than me’, that I didn’t buy something from another guys kid’s fundraiser because I didn’t know him well and it “might be for Catholics or some other bad group”.

    It turned out my friend was Catholic-with a grasp and belief in salvation as it is in Scripture. I was shamed and humbled. And learned a valuable lesson. Thankfully, my friend had a more open attitude and was willing to tolerate me.

  23. I was once asked by a work colleague what I thought of Jerry Falwell. I responded that I didn’t like him because he was too liberal. I still remember the look on the man’s face. Turns out ol’ JF had been on TV the night before saying something kooky. And here I was saying he wasn’t kooky enough.

  24. I just asked my wife if she had any suggestions. She reminded me that I made us go pass out tracts during the afternoons on our honeymoon. I think she might still hold that against me and I do not blame her.

    2. Now that was bad! 🙂 On our honeymoon, we went to a missionary church for Sunday services. I told my wife we needed to get married on Friday so we would not be tempted to miss church if we got hitched on Saturday night. Check out that notch on my spiritual belt! 🙄

      1. Sorry . . . completely distracted by the words “honeymoon”, “missionary”, and “notch” all in the same paragraph.

  25. There was a time when my aunt had to hide statues in her house when I was coming over, because I would see them and yell “No…Graven…Images!”

    Hey, not bad for a fundy 5 year old, eh?

  26. I was a horrible room leader at Fundy U: I enforced the rules (like lights-out) with an iron hand, and I spent more time telling my roommates what they were doing wrong than I spent trying to get to know them. 🙁

    Unfortunately, it took years before I figured out that I was the main problem in our room, not them.

  27. The two that stick out in my mind as the most shameful for me:

    1. We had special services at church during my son’s baseball season. Games started at 6pm and services at 7pm. The rules said if the player left, his spot in the lineup was an automatic out for the rest of the game. So, not only did my son not play, but I made him go to the game at normal time to cheer for his teammates, then we left in time to make it to service. 🙁 To this day I hate myself for it.

    2. When I was in my 20s, I taught an intro lesson teen Sunday School class series. I actually stood in front of them and drew a line across the top of the board. I said this is God’s standard. Then I drew two points below, one slightly higher than the other. I commented at length about how we compare ourselves to others and not to God’s standard. Main thrust of the lesson: We need to work and try harder to live up to God’s standard. Rest of the series was examining that “God’s standard” in several areas of life. 🙄

    1. you may hate yourself for it, but God has forgiven all (all!) in Christ!! Even the awful things we’ve done to our kids in the name of “truth”

  28. Two years removed from Greenville Fundy U I was working at a Christian school near Atlanta. “J” was running and singing “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. I turned him in to the school principal. He got three whacks with the paddle.

    Turns our “J” left his faith behind and has been in jail for drugs, etc on and off for 20 years now. Don’t even know if he is still alive.

    Wish I could have a mulligan on that one.

    1. (hugs)

      I spent years fuming about my FundyPrep teachers. Then I went the other way and pitied them for their ignorance and arrogance. Then I realized life is a journey we are all on, and we all hurt others, and we all help others, and the world keeps on spinning.

  29. I remember
    1:writting in my 3rd grade journal that Catholics were going to hell.
    2: telling a friend I couldn’t come to her 16th birthday party, then sending her a card with the best gift ever – the Romans road.
    3: writting a paper for high school American literature, after we read the Scopes Monkey Trial, about the evils of evolution (only used my Bible as my source! Funny thing is, we are talking about creation and evolution at youth group. Guess what I teaching, that science isn’t our enemy and God used evolution to create.
    4: going to marijuana, I mean AWANA and knowing I was better then e erupted else because I didn’t listen to Rock and Roll. I was so good, I was Pioneer of the Year.
    5: going to a Baptist Youth Rally and listening to Sketch Erickson tell
    about the evils of Rock and Roll, and thinking how bad it was that other were polluting their mins with songs that had the sounds of a woman having 80 orgasms. Yes I do remember that statement.

      1. Pioneer was the AWANA group name for boys in grades 5-6 if I remember correctly. I think the program has been reformatted and they changed a lot of stuff. My parents church used to do it through 6th graders. They dumped the program when AWANA tried to move away from KJV (yeah, its a fundy church all right).

        Cubbies: 3-4 yrs co-ed
        Sparks: K-2 coed
        Chums: 3-4 grade girls
        Pals: 3-4 grade boys
        Guards: 5-6 grade girls
        Pioneers: 5-6 grade boys
        Junior Varsity: 7-8 grade co-ed
        Varsity: 9-12 grade co-ed

      1. Love to Love You Baby by Donna Summer, 17 minute club version, 1975.
        Sad to say, most of my knowledge of rock trivia particularly of the music of the 1970s comes from Sketch Erickson. Also, he was not the only one counting “simulated orgasms” (I’ve seen numbers quoted from Time magazine and the BBC) but he seemed to count about four times as many as anyone else.

  30. What a load of sanctimonious prigs we were! I remember when I had only been fundy a couple years (I didn’t become fundy til after I got married at 26) and I was in the grocery store in my skirt of course. This woman from the church said hi to me but she was wearing pants. I asked who she was knowing very well who she was and she told me her first name looking very confused. I sanctimoniously said, “I didn’t recognize you in pants.” I wish I could apologize for that “holier than thou” attitude. 🙁

  31. I remember three instances of regret that I have.

    1. As an 11 year old kid, after hearing dad talk about his disgust with it, I decided to have a talk with my brother-in-law about he and my sister listening to rock music which was sinful. Actually the were listening to a Christian band called Petra. He told me he didn’t see how I could down on that when my dad and mom enjoyed listening to Hank Williams, Conway Twitty, and George Jones. Safe to say I lost the argument.

    2. One girl in science class asked me about what kind of jeans did my mom have. I told her none and she kept asking me about it and would not drop it. Finally I went into a whole tirade about how my mom didn’t wear jeans as they were sinful and against God. I went on about it for a bit and then she finally told she couldn’t give a flip about what my mom wore but was talking about biological genes! Did I feel dumb!!!

    3. In the churches that I worked for before making the turn around, I always asked the people in the church to call me Pastor Kennedy or Brother Dave and not to just use my first name as a sign of respect for my position. 🙄 To this day I feel like a moron for that and wonder what people in our church were thinking. Then in my last church before the turn around, with my Manogawds leading, I sat down with a husband and wife and informed them they would not be serving in the Wednesday night kids program anymore because they were not faithful enough to Sunday evening services. I remember the pastor saying to this day, “you know these people are going to have to faithful-up or we’re gonna have to let them walk. We just can’t have unfaithful people in leadership positions here.”. Well they didn’t “faithful-up” and left the church and went to another church to serve. In that pastors 4 years, he has successfully built the church from 220 in attendance to 45. I still regret that to this day because they truly were a good family. If only they would have been faithful enough to come on Sunday night. 🙄

    Through it all there is hope and healing. I look back on it all and thank God that even though I was immature and motivated by false teachings, I am not that way anymore and have changed my ways to a grace based walk of life. If I can change and heal, so can you!

  32. In High School,we were all required to take a preacher boys class and I was one of the “best” preachers they had seen. I remember at the fine arts competition, I took first place my first year in topical preaching because I got all kinds of emotional pounding the pulpit and such against gossip. Plus, I preached my whole 15 minute sermon with a mere three verses 😐

  33. I never felt like I fit in really well in “fundyland” (which used to make me feel really, and I mean really, guilty). Still, I did drink the koolaid, and my tales are too numerous to tell. But, some examples:
    1) Pitching a hissy fit in my middle school classroom when someone said that Jesus wasn’t crucified for our sins, but for political reasons. (Almost had to be physically restrained.)
    2) I need blanket forgiveness for the few years I taught at a fundy Christian school. Still not sure how that happened… Taught the evils of CCM, wearing shorts, having fun, etc. At one point, plaid shirts were on the naughty list, and I can’t remember why. Did Judas wear plaid?
    3) I wore ties to my public high school. Ties, people. Fortunately, I think all photographic evidence has been destroyed.
    4) Engaged in competitive spirituality as a teen. Memory verse competitions, passing out tracts, sitting on the front row…the idea was not to just do better than everyone else, but to crush their hopes of ever measuring up. (Jesus was so proud of me.)

    Wow. This was a good exercise. It certainly makes me a little less judgmental about those who ARE featured on this site. 😕
    Wow. This was a good exercise. It certainly makes me a little less judgmental about those who ARE featured on this site.

    1. Ok, not sure how the last lines duplicated, but I’m feeling guilty. (You can take the man out of fundyland, but it’s hard to get the fundy out of the man.)

    2. Well, I still wear ties to my secular grad school not because the MOG tells me to, but because GQ tells me to 😀

      1. Competitive spirituality ftw! This phrase is so full of win; i’m using it the first chance I can.

  34. Street preaching! How did I forget about street preaching? Standing on the corner in our podunk, overwhelmingly church-going town and screaming at people that they were going to hell.

    Fortunately, I left fundystan just before video cameras became ubiquitous.

  35. In my Junior year at Fundy U, I was on a music kick. I actually told good friends in my prayer group I wouldnt go off campus with them anymore because of the music they listened to in the car. Regret that to this day. Our friendships were never the same. I treated them so poorly about it too. Trying to make themnfeel guilty and all. Didnt work. They just continued to go off campus and have fun without me.

      1. I wasnºt there 😀 Though I have been in several meetings like that.
        Itºs not just a flag, itºs the Baptist flag!

        At 3 minutes 50 secs the guy in the jeans at the far right of the frame picks his nose and eats it. 😯

      2. Rodeo Christians!

        My favorite is still the clip where a guy picks up a potted tree and runs around the aisles with it. It’s somewhere in the SFL archives.

  37. There are too many things to count, but here are a few:

    1. The amount of times that I went “door knocking” and told people they were going to hell while I was standing on their property. That was beyond rude and I can’t imagine someone responding positively to opening their front door to that.

    2. Trying to convince a friend that he was not REALLY saved.

    3. Preaching that the only reason our church had less than 40 people in it was because “straight is the gate” and “few there be that find it.” (Low attendance couldn’t have possibly been because we were hypocrites and jackasses).

    4. The number of times I told somebody that “God led me” to say something to them that was not any of my business to say. (BTW, Fundy’s don’t understand that saying “the Lord led me” when he didn’t lead me to do anything, is in fact using His name in vain. )

    5. Thinking to myself that someone was not really “called to preach” when their sermons didn’t include shouting and beating on the pulpit.

  38. {sigh} I remember being sick with terror when my 7th grade english teacher said we would be listening to ‘Jesus Christ, Superstar’ in class the next day. We’d been told, by both my sunday school teacher and from the pulpit, that that rock opera was blasphamy and god would punish anyone who listened to it. I actually faked being sick the next day to avoid that class, thinking a minor lie was better.
    Ironically, the Bear told me that his lutheran church actually used the record as part of his sunday school class, while talking about Christ in the garden before he was arrested.

    1. I am such a dork, but I bloody LOOOVE Jesus Christ Superstar. I’m a bit of an Andrew Lloyd Webber nut anyway (must keep that under wraps to keep up appearance of music snobbery :P). But whatever.

    2. We listened to that whole sound track in a music class. (Phatchick and I must have been in 7th grade at about the same time.)
      Now I can’t imagine why, except that it saved our teacher from having to prepare lessons for a couple of days.

  39. One time our youth group was at a museum. Part of the museum tour was an IMAX presentation regarding some feature of the museum (history, science, animals – can’t remember).

    Anyway, I flat out told one of the adults that I was NOT going in because I had never been in a theater before and wasn’t going to start now. She explained it wasn’t like a movie theater; it was just showing a scientific presentation. I didn’t care. I told her I’d never stepped foot in a theater and wasn’t going to. 😆

    1. I remember being 8 or 9 and hollering “That’s not true” in a “scientific film” presentation at I think the Grand Canyon. Anyway, the movie was talking about how the rock formations evolved over millions of years.

      Still not sure I believe the stuff about the millions of years, but yelling in a theater was a dumb thing to do.

  40. I don’t remember this, but my mom tells me that when I was about six (and we’d just moved back to my parents home state after my dad graduated from a VERY Fundy U), my younger sibling were playing with a little girl my age who was wearing shorts. Mom came outside and said that we were yelling at her, “Wearing pants and shorts is a sin!”, and she was crying. She and I attended the same school for several years, and she never did like me very much. Wonder why…. 😳

    1. That should be ‘younger sibling and I were playing.’ Sheesh, George.
      Oh, and here’s another one. I used to complain about the pastor that I had — he truly loved people and accepted them the way they were. I was fresh out of Fundy U and thought he should preach on standards and make people tow the fundy line. Well, long story short, he had to leave the ministry. I’ve always felt that I should have thanked God for him and lifted his name up in prayer, as any pastor needs to be prayed for by his people. But what did I do when he was the pastor? I complained and gossiped. How I wish I could go back and change my holier-than-thou attitude.

    2. Following Fundy logic, we really ought to get a pass on gaffes committed before the age of accountability.

      1. Oh, I know. But still, that girl probably remembers the incident with hurt feelings. 😥 Thanks for the encouragement!

  41. You know how pastors’ kids and the kids of big tithers could act like disrespectful brats and get away with murder? That was me.

    I wouldn’t say my family is rich–definitely not by NYC standards–but with my dad being a cardiologist, we were considerably more well-off than the rest of our largely working-class church. My dad was able to tithe and donate more, and other church members were chastised by the pastor for not loving God as much as we did; obviously, God loved us more in return, which is why He continued to bless us while everyone else was being laid off or fired. When you’re a dumb teenager, desperate to feel important, stuff like that goes to your head pretty quickly. I came to believe that there was something in the Bible (which, of course, I didn’t actually read) that entitled me to act like a spoiled little princess and treat everyone like crap, just because my dad threw a bunch of money at the church. I can never apologize enough for being such an awful brat back then. Fundy or not, no one deserves to be treated that way.

    I never considered myself to be a true fundy (I still wore pants whenever I wasn’t at church or school, flirted with boys, and refused to give up my beloved heavy metal), but now that I think about it, conveniently ignoring any teachings that don’t give us a sense of superiority may be the most quintessentially fundy belief of all.

    1. ” . . . conveniently ignoring any teachings that don’t give us a sense of superiority may be the most quintessentially fundy belief of all.”

      EPIC WIN!!!!!!

  42. I hate this and wonder how much damage I did, but when we used to go soulwinning, I told LOTS of people they were saved simply because they repeated a prayer after me. We were taught to “Give them assurance of their salvation” as the end of the sales pitch and I can remember saying that because of this act they were saved forever and not to ever doubt it or let anyone tell them they weren’t saved. I now know that a lot of those people were just doing it to get me to leave them alone. Or they were kids who really didn’t understand. I wish I had had a better understanding before I went out to share my lack of wisdom.

  43. I was vocally and stridently against rock music throughout my years in Christian school. I was almost as bad about CCM.

    I once told a classmate that holding hands before getting married would cause premarital sex.

  44. Would it shock you all to know that I was once homophobic? I know. Little Miss “No-matter-gay-straight-or-bi-lesbian-transgender-life-I’m-on-the right-track-baby-I-was-born-this-way” used to be a homophobe before high school. Saw The Laramie Project and it was seriously life-changing.

    1. I used to be like that too, so I get where you’re coming from. It really bothers me when people make hateful comments toward gays (like saying f**… that bugs me to no end. I always get mad at my parents when they use it, which thankfully isn’t often..). I mean, what good does it do by showing them contempt? If anything, showign them contempt just seems more likely to turn them against the cause of Christ than toward him, imho. They aren’t any less deserving of kindness and respect than you or I.

  45. While deeply entrenched in fundydom, two Mormon missionaries came to our door. I was ecstatic. An opportunity to convert them to the TRUE church! I waited for an opportunity to “nail ‘em.” It came when one of them quoted a verse, so I asked him where it was found in scripture. He said, “In Corinthians.” I said, “Which one, first or second?” He looked at me confused and said he didn’t know. I pompously stated, “Well, I went to Bible college, and read the whole bible, and there are TWO chapters of Corinthians, and you guys have added to the bible, blah blah blah….and I ended my tirade with “you’re in bondage, you’re following man’s rules, it’s Jesus, just Jesus. That’s all you need.” The pot calling the kettle black.

  46. A long time ago when I used to post on LiveJournal, I did a blog post ranting about people who missed church for ANY reason.

    My readers put me in my place.

    1. You DID have some interesting ones, waaaaaay back in the Dark Ages, I mean archives. Funny what a different perspective will do to you.

  47. I told Mrs. Wilver about today’s theme, (she doesn’t read SFL, but I share many of the comments with her) and mentioned my secret. Happily, she has forgiven me and even convinced me to share it.

    We got married in a different state than I lived in, and we were going to live in my home state after the wedding. I insisted that we be wed on a Tuesday, because I didn’t want my family to have to miss their home church, and wasn’t sure if they would miss, even for our wedding. She didn’t like it, but “submitted” to the idea. We were in our new apartment in time to be in church Sunday morning. I probably even taught my second grade boys class that Sunday. “Be in your place” had been well drilled into my head.

    As she said this morning, “Well, we’re still together, [28 years] so it isn’t the worst thing you could have done.” We both realize many errors of our past, and have worked hard to help the kid’s to be scripture, not rules, based.

    As a side note, less than two months later, the mog preached his last sermon and showed up in another state, after a spouse swap with one of the Fundy High teacher-couples.

  48. I’m ashamed to say that, as a freshman, I told a PCC staff member about my senior roommate’s Vangelis “Antarctica” album – and how he had told me that you could visualize actually being there by listening to the music. To me, that was playing with guided imagery; Marlon Maddox and Texe Marrs told me that this stuff let teh demonz in! My poor roommate got raked over the coals for that.

    What an ass I was. What an ass I was. What an ass I was. What an ass I was. What an ass I was. What an ass I was. I wish I could undo that one. As for that album? I own it and have loaded it onto my boys’ mp3 players.

  49. I wrote stuff that actually got published in our local newspaper’s teen page. Stuff like ‘Christian rock is no different than secular rock’ and ‘Evolution is just a theory.’

    For a long time, the first thing that would come up when I googled my name was some creationist website that mis-sourced a Stephen Hawking quote to one of those newspaper pieces I wrote.

    1. Most true Christians reject evolution, and it is indeed just a theory. It isn’t fundamentalism that you have rejected, but rather Evangelical Christianity.

      1. John, your first sentence is totally incorrect. The first part of that sentences says, “Most true Christians reject evolution.” I sincerely disagree. I know devout Christians in many congregations who do NOT reject evolution. Where are you getting your facts?

        In the second part of that sentence you state, “…and it (evolution) is indeed just a theory.” You are using the word theory in the context of everyday vernacular which means “a guess” or “a hunch.” For example, “I have a theory that my stomach ache is caused by eating undercooked meat.” No facts back that up, it’s just as assumption.

        In science, the word theory has a totally different meaning. A theory is an explanation based on observation, backed up by extensive testing. The results have been well tested and confirmed over and over again in explaining and predicting natural occurrences.

        I really get aggravated when I hear the phrase, “Most true Christians…” as this was used in my fundy days as a way to guilt you into falling into line and doing what the pastor/dictator wanted.

  50. Well, I have more stories than I can count. I was never awful to non-IFBers (at least I don’t think I was. . .) because I never fully believed it all enough to stake my reputation completely on it and I didn’t want people to not like me. And I was really, really shy. But, at least in my mind, I was as fundy as it got. And when I was around others like me? It was horrible. One thing, however, stands out. A lot.

    When I was in junior high, I won the AACS national poetry competition. The topic was “I’m Proud to Be an American.” My poem was the biggest steaming pile of BS imaginable. Country worship, Jesus-is-American-ism, USA=Christian. . . Ugh. It even included a guilt trip at the end.

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