Standards

Top 10 Things Fundies Expect People To Say

170 Comments

Here are the top ten things that fundamentalists apparently expect people to say even if somehow they almost never do.

10. I’m so happy that you’re here knocking on my door on Saturday morning. Please, come in and judge me for a while!
9. Waiting to kiss my spouse until we were married has made it so much more enjoyable!
8. Your culottes are so modest that they make me feel like I’m dressed like a hussy! Can I get your sewing pattern for them?
7. The Bible makes so much more sense to me since I threw away my NIV and started reading the King James.
6. Since coming to your church I realized what was missing in my spiritual life: more pastoral screaming.
5. Looking at your family makes me so sad that I too selfish to have six more children.
4. I get to go to heaven AND vote for Republican Presidential candidates? What a sweet deal!
3. I’d so much rather have this Gospel tract than food or money.
2. Yes! I had always suspected something sinister about The Smurfs!
1. Since joining your church I finally understand what Jesus meant about His yoke being easy and his burden being light.

170 thoughts on “Top 10 Things Fundies Expect People To Say”

    1. I thought maybe you were talking about Jesus coming to take us away.

  5. 11. I’m so glad you taught me the importance of swimming in a shirt and pants. It makes swimming so much easier!

      1. Thank you for suddenly opening my eyes to the great depravity inherent in shoulders and knees.

      2. If you think a shirt and pants helps reduce drowning, you’d love the weighted swim skirt.

        1. No kidding! Yuck, yuck, and double yuck! The only way I would wear a dress around water is MAYBE a sundress at the beach, and then only IF I was just planning on walking on the shore line, or maybe getting my feet wet

  6. 12. I noticed that your family never plays in the yard on Sunday. What must I do to be saved?

    (Somehow our abstaining from fun activities on Sunday was supposed to be a testimony to the world.)

    2. I think you could apply the second part of that statement to just about any intentional Fundy action.

  7. “Are you sure the standards in this church are strict enough? Shouldn’t they be stricter? I need more rules!” 😈

    1. I have actually heard that one! One family moved to our Fundy church in Lancaster and complained that our girls and ladies were not wearing “box pleat” style culottes. Our culottes were too immodest. 🙄

        1. A girl’s school uniform skirt. It’s insanely unflattering through the hips. I was very proud of mine because no one else in our church had such modest culottes and I made them myself.

  8. 13. By the way you dress, you must be better Christians than those Methodists.

    1. Of course, women around here never seem to get the idea that wearing skirts when the desert wind is blowing 30+ mph might not be so modest… 🙄 😯

  9. 14. What? Plants grow away from music with a heavy beat? That settles it, it’s just Patch the Pirate for me from now on.

    1. That remind’s me of my friend’s high school science fair project. He was trying to show that gerbils would show signs of stress if you played loud heavy metal music at them all day.

      Unfortunately, halfway through the study, the family dog ate the experimental subjects, so we never found out the answer to that particular question.

      One of those stories I wish I were making up, but I’m not. 😐

      2. “The dog ate my homework! No, really. See, little hamster bones!”
        Yeah, riiggghhhhttttt. :mrgreen:

    2. I had the song, “Do Right” stuck in my head the other day and no amount of exorcism would get it out.

      1. Just listen to Joan Jett, “Crimson and Clover” – it will unstick any song.

    2. I was going to get saved, until I saw you drinking soda pop from a brown bottle.

    3. I was going to be chaste, until I saw a man and a woman, who were not married to each other, riding in the same car together.
      Now anything goes.

      1. I was going to be as well, but I couldn’t find anyone who wanted me enough to make the effort.

        1. Dang I originally misread that. I thought it said “Chased!” No-one made the effort to “chase” me… and I never did find the perilous hallway of peril, the girl with the frizzy hair or the car.. oh wait, I did find the car eventually… *never mind* 😳 😉

    4. I went to a movie theater yesterday for the first time since… elementary school, maybe? (It was a prize for a contest at school. I’m still a bit surprised my parents let me go to the movie.) The ticket taker was a girl I went to high school with. Shockingly, she did not immediately fall to the floor and begin worshipping the devil at the sight of me buying a ticket to see The Avengers.

      Which was awesome, by the way. I’m so glad it’s not a sin to have seen it in a theater! 😛

  11. You have such a wonderful testimony. I could tell because of the way you skipped the alcohol aisle in the supermarket.

      1. In which case you’ll either starve to death or have to grow your own food. Just try to find a grocery store that doesn’t sell at least beer. 🙂

  14. 17. I was so close to accepting Jesus into my heart until I saw you buying that sparkling grape juice that I mistook for wine.

  15. Pastor, I saw the deacon loading cases of IBC Root Beer in your car in the parking lot. You really are Christ-like by avoiding all appearances of evil.

    True story. The first part anyway. :mrgreen:

  16. Hi neighbor, I noticed that your wife never wears pants. Even when she is gardening. How can I be sure if I were to be hit by a bus today that I would go to heaven?

    1. Add to your comment “while I was bent over looking up your wife’s skirt” :mrgreen:

    2. Marriage according to my SIL:

      “I’m so glad my husband doesn’t LET me wear pants.”

      Is THIS the 1800s?

      According to her, I need to get saved.

      1. Never mind you; she needs to be rescued from that marriage.

        For real. I know this is a jovial thread, but I mean this in the most serious way possible.

        1. Yes; this mindset by women and behavior by men is so prevalent, and is encouraged in IFBism.

        2. My husband and I decided to cut off communication b/c his family, even the non fundy ones, is full of manipulative control freaks.

          Glad we moved 1,000 miles away from them years ago.

  17. Pastor, I just accepted Jesus as my savior. Why do I feel the urge to give you 10% of my gross income?

      1. By the time the preacher lectures about the giving fund, the missions fund, the Christmas offering, the capital improvements fund, the children’s offering, the Sunday School class offering competition, you’ll be broke before the end of Watch Night!

  19. I was SO IMPRESSED by the way you bowed your head for so long in prayer before you ate your meal at the restaurant and how you left that tract and a quarter for the tip! Will you PLEASE disciple me??? 🙄 🙄 🙄

  20. All I need to do to overcome my depression is pray more and read through the Bible in a year? Great, I’ll get started right away.

    1. Yep. Or, read and pray everyday, and everything will be ok!

      Just put a fake smile on your face and deal with it!

    2. The sad part is some depressed people really DO believe that. Then they try it, and get even more depressed, and maybe blame themselves for “not doing it right” when it doesn’t work. Just what a depressed person needs. And then there are those who have never struggled with the illness of depression who sit so smugly and blame the depressed person for not relying on God enough. Also what a depressed person needs. Whatever happened to compassion?

  21. It doesn’t matter that my husband is cheating (beating…etc.) on me, come Hell or high water, I won’t get a divorce (and neither should you)!

  22. I think you left out the number one thing they expect to hear from us…”SORRY”. Because, after all, it is all my fault.

  23. These are all hilarious. Especially Scorpio’s

    “Hi neighbor, I noticed that your wife never wears pants. Even when she is gardening. How can I be sure if I were to be hit by a bus today that I would go to heaven?”

    Awesome.

  24. #18. “Oh, you don’t want to come over and visit because you think you are allergic to house cats? We will pray that away that sin, because its all in your head anyways”. True story. 😯

    1. Oh for heaven’s sake. NO Baptist pastor likes cats! Our current pastor is no exception. His wife is afraid of cats. So they can’t come to our apartment. I never knew it was a sin for them to feel this way. 🙄

      1. Yeah what is the connection between Fundy Baptists and ailurophobia*?

        To all the other benefits of owning cats, I guess I can add freedom from home visits by “soul winners.”

        *http://www.allaboutcounseling.com/library/ailurophobia/

        2. Only the pastors were cat haters. Not many of the people. I have always had cats. So when I was going “soul winning” if people had cats that was a foot in the door for me.

        3. Why don’t they like cats? Because you can’t control a cat. A cat does what it wants, when it wants.

          I’m always suspicious of anyone who truly detests cats. They’re very likely a controlling personality at best.

        4. I think you’re right. They like dogs because as a rule a dog is more slavish which is the way they want their people to be. Obedient, and slavish to the fundy pastor master. Yeah right. 🙄

        5. I don’t mind cats too much. but they can’t stand me. I go into friends houses who have “the nicest cat you’ve ever met.” Within a few minutes of sitting on the couch minding my own business, I get claws in my arm.

    1. That’s how I always feel about *Dilbert.* I work for a huge corporation, and sometimes *Dilbert* is so REAL I can’t believe Scott Adams hasn’t been a fly on our cubicle walls.

      Sorry for off-topic…

    2. Any good cartoonists visit this site? What about creating a comic strip of a Christian (possibly Fundamentalist) Dilbert? I wish I could draw because I would have plenty to say.

  26. Pastor, I’m currently reading “Escape from Camp 14” about how a North Korean escaped from a work camp in his own country in 2005. In it he describes how ratting on your friends is expected, no questions are asked of your leaders, the complete adherence to written and often arbitrary rules, total submission to authority is demanded, and only if you come from the right family can you expect any mercy. Can you recommend a Bible college like that for me?

      1. No, unfortunately not. Just started reading it and can’t believe the parallels.

        1. HAC anyone? 😮
          I’ve also read that book, the parallel’s are striking.

    2. Many people call my former Fundy church (it is also a Fundy U) “The Compound”

      Lovely reputation…

        3. Sorry to hear that. It is not too late for him to change his mind and go to a real school (sans dictator) with real transferable credits that can go toward a real accredited degree.

          WCBC is a frustrating, shallow place where you waste money for a “degree” that is not worth the paper it is printed on.

        5. Yeah, I know, I went to PCC..I think Bible colleges like those are a waste. But..I’m the only one in my fam that’s had the courage to leave Fundyism. So, my plans are to visit him, maybe stir up a riot. 🙂

  27. I’m so glad your church has a Christian school AND a Bible institute. Now we can give you all our filthy loot for decades!

  28. Your family doesn’t get along and yells at each other, but we know you’re Christians because you don’t drink alcohol or play cards. How can we learn to be more like you?

  29. My boyfriend hasn’t lusted yet at your ankle-length denim Baptist Burqha. What must we do to be saved?

    1. A denim burqa… my word, that would be even less attractive-looking than a regular one. I think even the most devout Muslim woman would pause at the thought of such a thing!

  30. After seeing your book burning the other night at the church, I’ve realized that I need to be more totally surrendered to your cause and remove all my “idols” from my home like my tv, dvd player, and xbox. Sieg Hyles!

  31. Your shapeless jumper, downcast eyes and complete lack of personality incite me to an epic passion of Pride-and-Prejudice-esque proportions.

  32. Thank you for showing me the error of my rebellious ways. I am now going to get my tattoos removed, all forty of them, even though it will take 4 or 5 years, cost thousands of dollars and cause exruciating pain. It will be worth it to gain Heaven, when they are finally all gone. In the meantime, please please pray that I will not die before they are all removed or I will burn in hell forever.

  33. Thank you for your teaching on Homosexuality. I will no longer have any sympathy for Gays, because I do not want God to pour His judgement on me as well.

  34. – Until I visited your church, I thought my hair was short… now I feel like a heathen!

    (this actually happened to a friend of mine; while in college, he invited a Southern Baptist friend to his IFB church, and the above is what he said (reportedly).

    1. God’s Law (male version): Whoever has the shortest hair wins.
      God’s Law (female version): The husband of whoever has the longest, uncut hair wins.

  35. Gay marriage is against the law? Okay, I will never respond positively to gay or lesbian people again.

    Alternatively: Drinking is against the law? Oh, okay. I will never drink beer / wine / mint mojitos again.

  36. #6 is never said in this way, but I’ve heard it called “strong preaching” or “high standards”… then I HAVE heard this one said.

  37. Thank you for your detailed teaching on four reasons why Paul seems to not recognize the high priest Ananias (Acts 23:5). This has changed my life and I will forever live in obedience to God.

    *Note: A FU professor spent about twenty minutes on Acts 23:5 in the middle of a class. I just sat there thinking, “Why does this even matter?”

  38. “The way you make it obvious that you don’t drink alcohol, the way you make sure to tell me you can’t come to things on “church nights” the way your kids let our kids know what you really think about the way we dress and live our lives makes us understand that we are so lowly and sinful that we have decided you MUST hold the truth! Teach us the ways of Jesus!”

  39. At our old church we were never taught about tithing or giving an offering way above and beyond a tithe. Thank Gid Pastor cared enough to teach us about this. It is amazing how much of our money Gid can use toward the ministry here.

    (I have actually heard this given as a pre-banquet testimony by a deacon.) 🙄

  41. There is something sinister about the Smurfs. Very, very sinister. One minute they’re all “lalalalalala” the next their eyes are red and they’re stripping the flesh from your bones like a horde of blue army ants.
    Yeah don’t tell me you didn’t think it.

      1. This is pretty much identical to a service in an IFB church, sad, very sad. 👿

    4. I know one pastor who believed Cabbage Patch kids were little demons. I kid you not and you weren’t supposed to buy one for your children.

        1. A few months after Cabbage Patch dolls were the #1
          Christmas gift, my mom was in a toy store and saw one for the first time. She turned to the lady next to her and said “If I had a baby who looked like this, I would leave it on someone’s doorstep.”
          The lady gave her a dirty look.

  42. You only wear pads because tampons are a sexual tool of Satan? Thank you for showing me how to be a better Christian and saving me from years of promiscuity. I will teach on this in my next Christian womanhood session. @truestory.

    2. …I’m going to need a moment. If you need me, I’ll be in the corner, hugging my box of tampons and weeping for humanity.

      Honestly, all these things… the culottes, the ugly outfits, the bizarre swimwear, did somebody deliberately design it to be as demeaning to women as humanly possible or was it an accident? Am I not allowed to feel attractive or self-confident in my appearance at all?

      Oh wait, no, I forgot: I’m not. As First Hyles chapter 7 verse 38 says, “And let your women have low self-esteem and let them not ever once feel good about themselves, for women feeling good about themselves is clearly an abomination that must be wiped out.”

      1. Aimed at women? Exactly. The ratio of instruction to men regarding “their eyes and thoughts of women” to “women dressing ‘modestly'” are grossly opposite of the ratio God thought was necessary when giving us His Word. Course, thats not difficult to understand since men that rarely reference that Book are the ones railing against women.

        I saw a picture that I’m having trouble posting here that has a girl in a long skirt and close toed shoes that was captioned “Dress how you want other women to dress around your husband”. First of all, don’t we already do that? If we wear what we wear most likely it’s because we are OK with people wearing that around our husbands….Secondly. If we all have to dress like nuns around your husband to keep him from thinking forbidden thoughts, perhaps the problem lies not with us, but with His wayward eyes and mind. 💡 Juuuuust sayin!

        1. I saw that picture on Facebook. All the Fundy women were like “That’s so true!” and “Wow this really hit home!” Me? I put: “I trust my husband more than that.”

      2. Yes, it’s deliberate– no accident.
        The major theme in all the Fundy preaching on gender roles, marriage, and family is hatred of women. They go to great lengths to try to keep women in “their place.”

        1. I agree. I always wondered what they were afraid of.

        2. Amen to that! I can’t remember a single modesty sermon in 20+ years of IFB churches that wasn’t degrading to women.

  43. Brother Soldout is such a great father. He knows the best kind of quality family time is family time spent together in church. It is too bad his wife and daughter and not able to hear this tribute as they are both serving in nursery, but his sons are in the service today.

    He is a faithful soul-winner, knocking on doors in our city for many hours each and every Saturday to bring kids in on his bus route. He is faithfully serving as a deacon and also serves in choir all three services each week. This man knows it is best for his children to know he is serving gid on Saturdays than wasting time at some park with unchurched families.

    Did you know he walked away from a good paying job because they wanted him to move? Bro. Soldout serves God, not mammon! He stayed right here so he can serve the church, praise gid! Their family doesn’t let the fact they can not afford to send their kids to the Christian school, buy a newer car, save for retirement, or take a real vacation get in the way of giving to the annual building banquet each and every year – above and beyond their tithe, of course.

    Sons: “I’m gonna be like you, Dad. You know I’m gonna be like you”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OqwKfgLaeA

  44. You never drink, go to concerts, movies or sports events, watch television, or do anything fun? Tell me how to get saved so I can have such a fulfilling happy life!

  45. Pastor: I am going to be retiring soon and would like you to consider hiring my nephew to take over the pastorate when I am gone.

    He was a youth pastor in Connecticut and then replaced his father as pastor at a church in California (after his father was caught in adultery), so he brings in a lot of varied experience. My nephew has apologized for molesting the youths and for sleeping with several married women and has put all this behind him. Gid is not done with him yet!

    Shall he be our new pastor?

    All in favor say “aye”, all opposed get out now.

    Church: Aye!!!!

    1. It pays to be choosy with the accomplishments and credentials you pad out your resume with. Some things are just not worth speaking of ever again.

  46. ^^^
    (hit enter too soon)

    Visitors: Hurry, let’s run up during the invitation and join this fine church!

  47. Thank you for exposing the evil conspiracy of Satan known as the Catholic Church. I now know that regardless of what their Catechism says they really do worship Mary and the Wafer God! I know if I had just read their literature, I would have been lost eternally!

    Also, thank you for outing such apostates as Billy Graham and Mother Teresa–I thought of them as examples of Christian piety before you exposed their wickedness.

  48. I saw you put the Sports Illustrated Swm Suit issue back where it belongs, after praying over every model in there. The amount of time you spent over every single one of those harlots was moving. Would you teach me how to pray like that?

    1. “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray …”

        1. All together now:
          “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door… let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

  49. Wow, it’s amazing how your children flinch at the sight of a wooden spoon! Can you teach me that trick?

  50. About # 7 – For what it’s worth and from a purely academic level, the KJV is on a lower reading level compared to the NIV. KJV is 5th grade and the NIC is 8th grade.

    1. Uh-huh.
      Anyone who knows some fifth-graders knows they find unedited early-seventeenth-century literature much easier to read than a contemporary translation of the Bible. 🙄

    4. That’s a complete misconception. It’s likely that idea was determined by the length of words/sentences, and it’s true, the KJV contains mostly one- and two-syllable words. The problem with such an analysis is that it doesn’t take into account what kinds of words those are. The KJV uses a number of archaic words or archaic phrases that are completely unintelligible in modern English, even if they are made up of one- or two-syllable words. And the KJV’s syntax is much more complex and convoluted.

      Besides, not everyone would agree with the 5th grade assessment to begin with. See, for example this, which gives the KJV a 12th grade reading level and the NIV a 7th/8th grade level: http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/cms_content?page=652502&sp=1003

      And furthermore, I just ran an Flesh-Kincard test on Genesis to Judges and got a result of 60, which means “easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students”, again only looking at word/sentence length, so I have no clue where the silly 5th grade idea came from. (It also has a 15 on the Gunning Fog index, indicating it would take about 15 years of formal education to “easily understand the text on the first reading”.)

      1. I think the claim that the KJV is easy to read comes from scoring systems that consider only the lengths of sentences.

        Sentence length is, indeed, an element of reading difficulty, but it’s only one of several.

        I guarantee that a short, simple sentence in Sanskrit is going to be harder to read for most Americans than a long, convoluted sentence in modern English.

        1. My thought is the claim came from 60-70 years ago, when Bible reading was part of Public pschool education. Most students at the time were familiar with the Bible since they were exposed to it daily/weekly. Since the Bible is no longer read in school, obviously 5th and 6th graders have problems reading/understanding it. I teach teens, and I constantly have to explain what the KJV says.

      2. Its a claim not worth responding to, Annie, because it is entirely fabricated. That is to say, it is a fiction. Im trying to politely suggest that it is a lie. Or to be more scientific, by what metric would one conclude that a book is at a certain grade reading level? ANd what exactly is the difference between a 5th grade and 8th grade level? In the words of Sherlock Holmes, “It is a lie, Watson. A great, fat, thumping, obtusive lie.”

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