Standards

Just Making Stuff Up: North Valley Style

262 Comments

I’ve hear rants against a lot of strange things in my time but today’s featured warning may be the strangest one I’ve ever encountered. Not content to merely warn against the normal fundy bogeymen, Jack “I Have Four White Pianos” Trieber now warns us against the evils of: sharing sonogram images.

He says in part:

Perhaps I am an old-fashioned “fuddy duddy,” but is that not sacred? As our home began to be blessed with children, it never even crossed my mind to display such an image to others. Every baby is a gift from God, hidden in the sacredness of a mother’s womb until the day of birth.

Hookay, Jack. You take the weirdness prize for sure.

262 thoughts on “Just Making Stuff Up: North Valley Style”

  2. Wait! Is he saying what I think he’s saying?

    “Perhaps you will come to the same conclusion as I—that the body of a woman is sacred and not to be revealed to anyone but her husband.”

    So seeing a woman’s ultrasound of her uterus is now pornographic???

    Wow. I’ve heard of some pretty odd fetishes, but old Jack has really jumped the shark with this one.

    2. I’m guessing they’re planning unattended childbirth at home since she’s not able to “reveal” her body to anyone. I’d hate to think her OB or midwife were exposed to unnatural lusts by delivering her baby … She’d be guilty of their sin for her harlot-ish ways.

  4. Awww, she’s gorgeous 🙂

    I’ve just recently regained possession of the cd-rom that contains my son’s ultrasound images. I haven’t shared them before because I wasn’t on facebook then. I’ve been tempted to upload them to facebook now with no explanation and see if anyone pays attention to the date on the image or if people assume they’re recent 😈

  5. I’m not even sure what to say. Why not keep his own children’s ultrasounds private and MHOB about what everyone else does with theirs? If he has dirty thoughts about people’s uteri, he’s the one with the problem.

    1. Exactly? What about personal boundaries? What about the individual priesthood of the believer?

      Why not preach JESUS and let the Holy Spirit convict people whether to share their ultrasound pictures or not?

      1. They don’t believe in the priesthood of the believer. Instead, they take the clause “no man comes to the Father unless he comes through me” and apply it to themselves, rather than leaving it with Jesus where it belongs.

  6. Do you know what the REAL porn stats are Jack? Half of ALL men sitting in the pews in our country are addicted to porn and yet you preach on sacredness of an ultrasound?!

    Give me a break!

    And I’ll bet those porn stats are even higher in the IFB.

    1. That’s a good point. Talk about straining at gnats and swallowing camels.

      I think sometimes that fundamentalists assume everyone knows that certain things are wrong – like porn or child abuse – so they point out petty things in order to show how serious and committed they are about purity. Of course, this ends up with them spending all their time and outrage on truly unimportant issues while egregious wickedness rarely gets preached against.

      1. I should also say that the 50% also includes pastors who use porn. It’s an epidemic which is rarely ever preached on.

        In fact, I’ll bet Jack Schaap’s computer was loaded with it b/c his sermons show how absorbed his mind was with sex.

        2. I apologize for my last post, it was a little tmi, I truly hope i didnt offend anybody.

        3. I didn’t find anything offensive in your sharing that. The law (or the IFB’s strict rule) does not destroy the flesh; it may dress it up or teach it to hide, but it cannot conquer the impulses of our sinful nature. The power of Christ’s forgiveness, His grace, and our utter reliance on HIM not our own righteousness is the answer.

        5. PW, not for the first time have I thought you may well possess more wisdom in your pinky finger’s fingernail than the entire IFB combined. We won’t even begin discussing the grace ratio here. I consider it a joy and a blessing to be able to read your words.

        6. Amen and amen PP. PW is always a blessing to read. She’s a voice of reason in the middle of this madness. PW, you are appreciated.

    2. You are so right! There is a reason there are so many sex shops and strip joints near and around Hammond – in fact, having worked in many different states in my life, I have noticed that there are many billboards and sex shops/strip joints in “holy areas” like the Bible belt. We really don’t seem to have as many in liberal New York as the amount I saw down south.

      This also brings to mind a funny little HAC anecdote. While I was at HAC, I had my own car and had a pass to see my brother before he deployed to Iraq. As I was getting ready to leave one of my male friends (yes, I had MALE friends! 😯 ) slipped me some money, a note, and a chocolate candy bar. As I walked to my car and opened the note, I realized that he had given me his dorm floor’s porn shopping list to bring back with me. I didn’t oblige him, but it sure was an eye-opening experience! 😳

        1. Yeah, it was quite creepy. I kind of avoided him for the rest of the semester – it was just TMI for me.

        2. former – you were just upset that he didn’t give you enough money for your porn shopping list. :mrgreen:

          Just to make sure you know, I am just kidding.

      2. Yeah, that’s a bit creepy. Expecting you to just pick it up like a grocery list. Not bothering to even find out if you were comfortable with it. I guess they were hoping the chocolate would erase any comfort issues, LOL.

        1. The chocolate was a running joke between me and half the college – no matter what I did, from picking up your groceries to typing your college term paper, I expected to be paid in chocolate.

          I worked pretty cheap back then!

      4. The reason is Hammond is a very poor, blue collar area. Nicer cities would have zoning ordinances to require such establishments to be disguised in some way. Also, prostitution is more common in economically depressed areas and areas with a lower average education level. I guarantee you if you go into a poor neighborhood of Boston or NYC you will find strip clubs and sex shops.

        2. There is also a porn shop right around the corner from Victory Baptist College in Arkansas. And several around Landmark Baptist College. I don’t know about PCC, but there are several in the area (within an hour) of BJU. I have no idea why I know this, but I tend to remember where stores, porn shops, and Long John Silver’s restaurants are. Weird, but those are what stick in my mind when I drive around an area or move to a new place.

    4. 50% of men are not [b]addicted[/b] to porn. Something like 70% of men and 30% of women are occasional porn viewers. About 6-8% of adults are believed to be addicted.

      http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Porn-addiction-destroys-relationships-lives-3272230.php

      Among regular church attenders, about 50% of men view porn on occasion.

      I am familiar with a study of seminary students. About 30% view at least once every six months. About 8% view it at least once every two weeks.

      Porn is a lot more common than some people think, but addiction is less common than we’d be led to believe.

      1. That’s because so may porn addicts believe they can beat it whenever they want.

        Yes…I did

        1. No, it’s because there’s a difference between porn use and porn addiction.

          90% of adults have had sex outside of marriage. That doesn’t make them sex addicts.

          About a third of adults regularly drink to the point of drunkenness. That doesn’t make them alcoholics.

          It’s hard for people from fundagelical backgrounds to understand, but indulging in a sin and addiction are two different things.

      3. Elijah, that’s a study of seminary students not IFB men, which is what Mominator said. I’d also bet they used self-reporting, which would not be terribly reliable in a study of IFB men since I suspect lying would be extremely common.

        1. Oh, nm. Just went back and re-read the comment. I have no idea about the first half or statistics regarding the first part of her comment, but I do believe the numbers would be astronomically higher amongst IFB men, which is what she said in the second part of her comment.

      4. Elijah Craig, we honestly can’t figure out if you are really this naive, or if you are just this good at trolling. LOL 6-8% of people are addicted to porn!!! Only a guy who lives in a cave would believe that. The numbers in real life are MUCH higher than that. And that joke about beating it also went way over your head.

      5. Back when a boyfriend of mine was down in Bible College in Florida (Mickey Carter’s school – not too extreme), he told me that he had never seen so much porn in his life when he moved into the Bible college dorms. And he used to work construction, so he was used to being around younger men. It really is a rampant issue in the IFB.

        1. Of course it is…that’s why they preach so much against it. You scream at someone elses sin to stop hearing your sin screaming at you. Hyles 101

  7. Where has Jesus gone?

    Much of modern fundamentalism is characterized by this sort of one-ups-manship when it comes to standards: “I’ll see you strict rules and raise you my even higher ones.”

    Apparently unaware of the freedom that the Gospel offers, they keep coming up with laws in their zeal to be holy (or to at least appear holier than other people). They contradict Scripture by violating the individual priesthood of the believer by turning their own preferences into rules binding on all Christians.

    Is it any wonder people longing for the Gospel are LEAVING these kinds of churches?

    1. Exactly! The church I grew up in was like that. The preacher started out with “If you watch 2 hours of TV a day you ought to read your Bible an hour! Don’t you love God at least half as much as the Boob Tube?” Then a pastor in a nearby Fundie church said “If you watch an hour of TV a day you should read the Bible an hour…don’t you love God as much as TV?” Then it was twice as much Bible as TV then it was throw the TV out the window. John Lithgow’s character in Footloose was mild by comparison

      1. It would be even worse if it was a televangelist who said such things; such would be very heterodox and hypocritical, IMHO.

    2. @PW: Right. Nowhere is this more obvious than that dating realm.

      John R Rice taught that a dating couple shouldn’t kiss, but once they are engaged, it was silly to think that the should just shake hands. He thought a sedate kiss was fine.

      The next level was: “We’re more spiritual; engaged couples are not allowed to kiss”

      And then: “OUR church doesn’t even let engaged couples hold hands”

      Followed by: “We don’t let engaged couples ever be alone – chaperoned dates all the time.”

      And then: “We’re better because we ensure that there is a hynm book’s distance between couples”

      NOTE: I have heard all of the above from people; I’m making up the next ones…

      And then: “We don’t even let engaged couples sit together”

      And then: “We are more spiritual; we don’t even let married couples sit together”

      Finally: “We are better than all of you; our men and women attend different services.”

      1. Of course the ultimate in sexual segregation would have been the Shakers: no contact of ANY form, EVER, between male and female, not even in marriage. 😕
        One reason there aren’t any Shakers around anymore.

        1. Bet the instances of masturbation and homosexual contact was fairly high, too. I mean all that sexual energy has to go SOMEWHERE!

      2. I come from a background where you weren’t allowed to date, even after getting engaged – so obviously sitting together / kissing / holding hands / phoning /visiting was all off limits. Married couples could sit together, but holding hands was frowned upon, and public kissing a non-no.

  8. Unbelievable. I had NO idea I could be causing men to stumble by showing them images of the inside of my uterus!! lol Nothing like fundamentalism to show you how any and every innocent little thing you can imagine is actually some horrible transgression against God. 😯

    1. My husband was honored with the site of the inside of my uterus — not even a picture version! Even though we were married at the time (my third kid, after all), I’m 99 percent certain he wasn’t inspired to lust by the site of my body cut open and babies dragged out. I’ll have to ask him to make sure, though. “Honey, do you find my uterus sexy?” 😯

      1. Seriously, George? Site? I am not in the mood for your nonsensical ridiculousness.

      2. Ha ha, I had a c/s as well, I will have to ask hubby what he saw, and how it made him feel. 😉 I’m pretty sure he wasn’t thinking anything sexual, but ya know, I could be wrong lol

        1. My husband didn’t even want to cut the cord. So I agree. He wasn’t thinking anything sexual either. It was more like “blech” on his part. Lol.

      3. I missed out on seeing that much of my wife. Our second was a “semi-emergency” c-section. I was told to sit in the waiting room, that my presence was one too many people in the delivery room. Everything turned out fine, but I sure paid for a bunch of (happily) unnecessary people to be there.

    2. Everything between your shoulders and your knees is a weapon designed for nothing but making men stumble. If men even SUSPECT that you aren’t shaped like a moving box under your denim jumper, they’ll fall into sin and it’ll be all your fault! 🙄

    3. Can you imagine the depravity it would take to learn how to read x-rays, CTs, MRIs and, of course, ultrasounds? All those pictures of chests and abdomens!?!

  9. I like the way that the cavity of the uterus looks like an upside down heart. The miracle of life never ceases to amaze me and cause me to be awed by the greatness of God. I’ve never looked on it as something that should be covered up in shame.

  10. Wow. On one hand I find him to be a total idiot, but on the other hand he did come up with something brand new to make you a sinner.

  11. *gasp* the ultrasound image has a pornographic word right there in the upper right hand corner. Proving what Jack was alluding to. “Unclean!…Unclean!”

    1. Lol! I had to go back up and look! Unclean! My poor virgin eyes will never be the same! 😳

    2. I would have missed that had you not pointed it out! I wonder how many “fundies” would miss things that make them stumble, but since their MOg points them out, they look for them, and then stumble?

  12. Does it occur to these people that, when their statements are viewed by those outside the fundie world, that they are not just “quaint” or “old-fashioned” but creepy and disturbing? The idea that an ultrasound of a fetus is akin to “sharing a woman’s body” seems like a truly bizaare kind of fetishism, the back-away-slowly-while-making-calming-sounds kind of weird that you get from someone who constantly talks about, say, the used coffee stirrers women in the office toss away. (“And they put them in the hot, hot, coffee and stir it around, and around, and around, and then they take it out and toss it in the trash… don’t you ever want to, you know, take them out and lick them off?”)

    ‘Cause that’s the vibe I get from this.

      1. Neither have I, but I wanted to come up with something as bizarre as “sonograms are porn”. I seem to have succeeded.

        This being the Internet, of course, having spoken of a fetish, it will come into being, retroactively, if need be.

    3. Sometimes when the coffee is really, really hot I take some sips using the stirrer like a straw! Bet that would really get someone with a coffee stirrer fetish going! 😈

    5. “And they put them in the hot, hot, coffee and stir it around, and around, and around, and then they take it out and toss it in the trash… don’t you ever want to, you know, take them out and lick them off?”

      Hey! Isn’t that a scene from “Fifty Shades of Earl Grey”?

  13. You know, I believe Communion is sacred, yet I share that with other people as we partake together.

    My showing ultrasound pictures does not mean that I do not believe life is precious and sacred.

    He calls himself old-fashioned and a fuddy-duddy. Fine. He can be one. But it’s not right to lay his squeamishness on other people or to try to put shame and guilt on people who are filled with excitement and joy at the beauty of the miracle of their unborn child.

    1. Amen! My heart grieves for the young couple there (well, my heart grieves for ALL the people there) who are excited about their baby & now feel shame & guilt, not from God, for recently showing people their sonogram or wanting to show people their sonogram. Absolutely ridiculous! Jack really should be ashamed. For this, and for all the nonsense he “preaches”. Does he not realize this message is a burden he is heaping on his people and has NOTHING to do with Jesus or the Gospel?? So sad.

  14. I’m assuming this is because the uterus is part of the reproductive system, and we’re all supposed to pretend those don’t exist? Or is it out of some bizarre sanctity of unborn children, that we can’t look at them?

    I don’t *think* he’s saying it’s pornographic, because he says it “perhaps” is acceptable for the “girl’s” mother to see (not the woman’s mother? The “girl’s” mother?), but he’s so vague about what’s wrong with it that I’m just left confused.

    But of course it’s much easier to just rail against something you dislike without offering a word of Scripture or even the faintest hint of a supporting argument than it is to actually present logical, well-thought-out ideas…

    1. “I’m assuming this is because the uterus is part of the reproductive system, and we’re all supposed to pretend those don’t exist?”

      I think you got it. You mean babies aren’t delivered by a stork??

  15. Let me rephrase his third paragraph:

    To Pastor Trieber:

    As the Lord blesses your life with the power of the internet, I implore you to think twice before committing such an action that would debase the birth process of a child. I understand that, in this modern day, our hospitals have equipment that allows us to see a baby prior to birth—and to have such an opportunity can be weird and new-fangled for an older man such as you say you are. Perhaps such a picture is utterly appropriate for everyone. So, why in the world would you even consider posting online scruples of such a personal nature or haphazardly shaming the joy and innocence with which young couples share that image with others?

  16. I’m happy to say that I’ve had that “sacred-may-cause-a-weaker-brother-to-stumble” organ removed!

    I’m sure that I’ve somehow crossed a bridge of no return in some fundy circles. 🙄

    1. You’d be a saint…except that would be idolatry and we don’t abide such wikittniss like the Whore of Babylon does.

  17. Wait a minute. Isn’t this Jack guy the one that sent the e-mail wanting results because nobody was showing up for soul-winning?

    The beginning of the articles starts:

    “A new phenomenon has captured America…”.

    Someone corrcet me if I am wrong but hasn’t sonagram pictures been around for quite a while? I don’t think there is anything new with this. But leave it to the fundies to be about 25 years behind the times.

    1. Yeah, that first line did strike me as very, very odd. New phenomenon? I’m pretty sure my dirt-poor parents were still able to get sonograms of my oldest sister, who’s about 25 now… which means that sonograms for the wealthy were probably around substantially before that.

      Actually, I just looked it up. The first paper on the subject was published in 1958, with the first scanner developed by 1962 and entering commercial production in 1963. So yeah, it’s been around awhile!

      1. There’s the issue, 1963. Prayer was taken out of the public schools and ultrasounds were brought into hospitals. Coincidence? I think not.

        1. I don’t think he is against sonograms as much as the far more recent trend to post them everywhere.

  19. I notice you could leave comments. I’d say we should all go over and argue with him about this till he’s blue in the face, but the Bible DOES prohibit us from casting pearls before swine. 😎

    2. I just left one myself. Tried to keep it neutral, just “Hey, it’s a picture of the BABY, let the parents celebrate.”
      Now I’m wishing I’d been more snarky. Let’s all do it, folks! 😛

      1. here’s what I wrote:

        You have not indicated HOW this debases the birth process. Please clarify HOW this is a bad thing. Showing an ultrasound picture with friends and family does not make the birth process and the mother’s womb less sacred. Unless you have an actual reason, of course. Otherwise, what you said is just your opinion that shouldn’t be cast onto others.

    4. This is the comment I made. (I tend to be a bit wordy! lol):

      I would like to ask you your title question: is anything sacred?

      Young couples are sharing something in innocence and purity, filled with joy at the beauty of impending birth, and you made it seem dirty and perverted for them to do so.

      Certainly you have every right to chose to NOT share such pictures, but I don’t believe you have the right to place the burden of your preferences on others by shaming them for showing ultrasound pictures.

      You ask if appropriateness, propriety, dignity, and respect are outmoded or no longer dictate our actions. I ask you the same. I find it inappropriate for you to place your own scruples on others who obviously do not share them (or they wouldn’t be showing the pictures to start with). It also seems that you are violating the dignity of the individual believer; we are given freedom in Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If we use that freedom to share our pictures, it seems wrong for you to question us as if we do not care about God’s standards of holiness. And respect? Can you not respect that we who show these pictures are doing so in purity of conscience? “To the pure all things are pure.”

      My four living children and the one who died unborn are all gifts from God, incredibly precious, treasured and valued, and my displaying their ultrasound pictures does not in any way mean that I do not value holiness, sacredness, or decorum.

  20. Trieber says that those who share their ultrasound pictures are debasing the birth process.

    Let me just share this verse with him: “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled” (Titus 1:15).

  21. I even let my son and daughter come in when I had an utltrasound during my third pregnancy.

    It’s such a cool thing to share with the older kids to prepare them for the arrival of their sister.

    To equate a picture like that to something dirty is so foreign to me b/c of the good memories attached to it.

    1. And that’s why I’d ask HIM, “Is anything sacred?” He’s trying to take something precious, joyful, and special and make it dirty by his silly scruples?

      His preferences should have been kept between himself and God not shared, potentially diminishing the formerly untarnished joy of excited new parents.

      BTW, I had my children come see the ultrasound of my youngest, and my only son, on seeing that it was a girl, said, “A girl??? I want to kill myself!!!” I was embarrassed but had to laugh.

  22. And there is this statement opening the final paragraph of his disturbing monograph: Perhaps, I am part of a dying breed.

    One can only hope.

  23. I hate to say Jack Trieber has a point, 👿 but there is something a tad yicky at looking at sonograms. Of course it is wonderful, beautiful, miracle of life and all, but in the end it is a rather personal thing, looking at someone’s insides. To the parents and relatives it is very special, to outsiders it comes off as a series of blurs and blobs, what can you say? “I think it already has your nose”? 😕 Sadder is when something goes wrong (it happens), and the baby is miscarried or stillborn; you’ve seen the sonogram and made plans, and then what? 😥
    Just saying it’s always wise to use discretion about things like sharing sonograms, not everyone *wants* to see or share. Altho I will agree that any man who gets turned on by seeing a woman from the inside-out does need help. 😳 😈
    Also, you’d think he’d be in favor of this. Abortion-rights speakers claim pro-lifers promote the unborn baby at the expense of the woman carrying it; this is the ultimate expression of that. 😡 🙄
    Just one woman’s two cents.

    1. Can’t parents just be excited, and share that excitement with their friends and family without being accused of “promoting the unborn baby at the expense of the woman carrying it?” Most people don’t walk around showing the picture to strangers, so the “outsiders” thing is moot.

      My wife and I both shared our first child’s utlrasound pictures and recently our second child’s who is due in a few months. We aren’t trying to make a statement other than, “We are expecting.” Nothing “ick” about it. You don’t have to fabricate any comments regarding his nose or whatever. Just say you are happy for us.

      1. “This Fundie is a whack job! In my mind you can’t show pictures of your kids soon enough! Their so precious at that age. I love pictures of little kids. Especially girls. The younger the better!”
        –Jack Schaap

    2. I would have LOVED to have had a sonogram photo of the three children that were conceived in our marriage who did not survive to full-term. We loved them from the moment we knew about them. Not having a picture of them does nothing to lessen the pain of not ever being able to hold them. A sonogram might have. A sonogram has now made me love and anticipate our first grandchild in a way that we’ve never experienced. I’m thankful to the Lord for the gift of intellect which has allowed us to enjoy his handiwork in new ways with every advance in science and technology.

      1. So sorry for your loss, I agree that in your case even a sonogram photo would have been some memento. 😥
        I’m just saying that it is a personal thing; whether the family wants to share sonograms or not is their business. Also, even the most wanted, beloved child is still somewhat indistinct when seen that way, not everyone can see the details.
        Again, all sympathies. 🙁

      2. My parents have a sonogram of my brother’s never-born son along with all the photos of their other grandchildren. He’s one of them, even if we never got to meet him.

    3. It’s OK to feel that way, Panda Rose! We’re all unique with different preferences and personalities.

      The issue for me is that Trieber is uncharitably assuming that those who share the pics are violating the sanctity of the mother’s body. Why can’t he just leave it at “it makes me uncomfortable and I prefer not to do it” instead of escalating to “is nothing sacred?”

      2. My response was cut short (thanks, Gene) {Gene is like George, but he causes ENTER to to be pressed early :)}.

        I tend to agree with Panda Rose; we didn’t post any sonograms far and wide; we shared them with relatives. Naturally, *ours* were exciting, but everyone else’s just looked like fuzzy blobs. :mrgreen:

    4. I had 3d ultrasounds of all my kids. We could definitely see what they looked like. In the later ultrasounds (32 – 34 weeks), they looked identical to the way they would look on their birthdays. It was a very cool experience.

    5. As someone who has experienced miscarriage, I will say that sonogram pictures are a great blessing. The only sonogram I have from my recent miscarriage was taken after the baby had already passed away. I wanted the picture but was too afraid to ask in case the nurse practioner thought I was morbid, but then she actually offered it to me. My husband and I both wanted it very much as the only tangible evidence that our child had existed. Thankfully, God quickly blessed us with another pregancy: twins due in about three months. I still occasionally pull out the picture of our deceased baby to just remember that he/she did exist and was a very wanted member of our family. I’m not trying to “refute” you or downplay your opinion: I just thought you might be interested in the perspective of someone who’s been there.

      1. I’m sorry for your loss. I don’t have anything to show that the child I miscarried existed; I bought a beautiful sterling silver ornament to hang on my Christmas tree in memory of my child. I hang it somewhere private on the tree just for me.

        Congratulations on the upcoming birth of your twins!

    6. You are not looking at someones insides. You are looking at a digital interpretation of sound waves being reflected off of tissue that attenuates at differing frequencies (5-5K Hz if I recall from utlra-sound school). The newer machines are 4-D, but being a digitized interpretation of how sound interacts with various elasticities, the nuance of a visual image is lost. I’m not sure why you would think this is “icky”. Everything you wrote against sonograms could also be used against taking photos of your children.

    7. Panda Rosa, you said it better than I could.
      I’m just not that interested in looking at my friends’ internal organs. It’s not a turn-on (in the “Playboy” sense of “turn-on”), but it is a real conversation killer.

      And what is the proper response to the display of an ultrasound image? “Awwww … your fetus looks so blurry!”?

      Lot of things are bad ideas without being sinful, and this is one of them.

  24. If we really want to freak this guy out, someone find an ultrasound of a set of twins and then photoshop a red ribbon on the hand of one of them. Send it to him under the guises of being an “End Times Prophecy Expert” and how this was discovered in a hospital in Haifa but the government is covering it up

  25. He’s probably the ONLY person in the world who thinks sharing an ultrasound picture is wrong. I guess that makes him the holiest now, right? What does he win for this distinction?

    1. I have to admit, there were times when I wondered how my son would feel in 15 years if/when he found out everyone was examining the ultrasound pic with a circle marking the spot where we found out he was a “he”.

  26. I’m confused. My shoulders are sinful, my legs above the knee are sinful, my toe cleavage is sinful and my cleavage cleavage is…well, we’ll just leave that there. But somehow my uterus is sacred? And the lord in his wisdom took this sacred vessel and surrounded it by all this sinful flesh to somehow….protect it? Should I only see a woman gynecologist? But wouldn’t that mean that a woman would have to go to med school and hold down a job outside the home for me to then go see her? How does that work??

    What is it about women that scares fundy men so?

    1. Madam not only should you see a FEMALE gynecologist but you should…bless God I said you SHOULD insist she stop using that Speculum and only use a Specul’er. The female version.
      Nothing that pertaineth to a man ought to be intrudin’ on your innermost parts. Or as we like to call it “Gawd’s knittin’ room”

      1. Perhaps you are right. maybe we should invent a Selfinspeculum with a video guidance system so she needs neither spear nor distaff to explore her Holiest of Holies.

      1. Oh my…I just can’t….I was being FACETIOUS for goodness sake!!! Really, Anderson? REALLY?

      2. Wow! read the link and even read another “sermon” by him against physicians. that man speaks nothing but ignorance. what a fool. and unfortunately he is leading other foolish people astray.

        1. Those articles written by that sad man is a throw back to the backwards primitive cult mentality when religion ran governments and they forbade any medical study with cadavers etc. Thank God there were men who rejected the foolishness of their “leaders” and pursued their study incognito.

          I have such mixed emotions about fundamentalism and this crap that is spewed forth. On one hand I pity them but on the other it angers me that there are grown adults whom consciously make the decision to support and follow men like Trieber and Anderson fully exposed to their backwardness on a weekly display.

        2. the good news is that virtually everyone sees him as a sideshow freak, and not a real pastor. So, he’s not really leading that meany people astray. I think his “church” is very small.

        3. JoeR:

          On their website, I counted seven pastors, not counting music, childrens, business, and IT directors.

          The pictures of the auditorium do not look small and they claim to have a 65,000 sqft church building, plus Bible College.

          I think it’s the 2nd largest IFB church in the United States.

        4. JoeR, we can only continue to hope that this kind of sub-culture and the mentality that permeates it will wither into oblivion in our lifetime. It just boggles my mind sometimes how people can sit there listening to this tripe and just nod their head as if everything made sense.

        5. EC – I believe JoeR was talking about Steven Anderson’s compound.

          Need more coffee today? :mrgreen:

  27. Seeing that the people are committed to a full-term birth, don’t you think they realize the sacredness of life? A medical image does nothing to minimize that. Good grief, Bats-in-the-belfy. 🙄

    2. When I first saw that, I thought you said “bats in the belly.” Maybe he has bats all over?!? :mrgreen:

  28. I wonder if he thinks women shouldn’t have their appendix removed, or bones reset, or cancer operated on, since that would be showing their inner bodies to someone other than their husband.

    1. You’re probably joking here but honestly…have you never seen an unspoiled gall bladder? Mmmmm I need a Cig.

  29. Well, here’s my comment on his page…we’ll see if it gets through moderation:

    It’s almost as bad as leading someone to the Lord in front of other people. When someone is up praying at an old-fashioned altar, they’re in the spiritual birth canal. That’s why everyone should have their eyes closed for the invitation.

    1. How amazing that you realized this great spiritual truth. You may be called to preach with insight like that. God don;t give that sort of knowledge to just anybody

    2. In fact, sometimes during our Altar Services when a sin-sick soul is heavily under the conviction and he’s resisting, some of our elders will gather ’round him at the Altar of Repentance and pray “Push Holy Spirit…PUSH!”

  30. “It is a fact that young mothers considering abortion think twice and often choose life after seeing the sonogram of their baby. Sharing pictures of the infant in utero promotes and celebrates life. Quit knocking young couples celebrating life. Get out there and lift of the arms of the clinics helping celebrate life and quit whining about baseless unbiblical issues. Surely you can think of better use of your free time.”….is what I posted on his article comment section. We shall see if it remains there. So tired of the Christianity game.

  31. According to him, women should never reveal their bodies to anyone except their husbands. No doctors, ever. Period. Taliban Trieber.

    1. Funny you would draw that analogy to the Taliban. Brother Trieber and I are working on a new line of women’s undergarments just for that purpose. We call it the “Vagurka”. There’s a tiny slit for doin’ yer bizniss and other than that you’re a covered as a well made bed.

  32. Congratulations on the little one, Darrell.

    This man’s opinion on this matter is really, really strange. This is the first time in all my years that I have heard this nonsense. On the upshot, at least it was only in print and not preached from the pulpit!

    2. I have no reason to think that he did not preach that from the pulpit at some point. If he put it in a blog, he probably preached it, too. Just a hunch, based on what other pastor/bloggers do.

  33. He gives himself away with ” I feel, at times, as if I am against everything…”
    I know it’s a cliche, but it’s all too common in fundamentalism to find distinction in what you stand against, rather than what you stand for.

  34. I don’t have a problem with this guy having a quirky personal opinion – do what you want, within the law, with your own wife’s ultrasound, and let her do the same. However, I have a problem with this guy not qualifying his personal opinion with a statement such as – “This is how I feel – you do what you want.” You know, if to him it is sin, he shouldn’t do it, but it may be acceptable to someone else. His comments seem to claim some sort of personally-defined biblical truth that he now expects other to automatically accept an follow.

  35. Just for the record – my name is JACK but I’m NOT a funny-dam-mental-ist! Did you go to this guys webpage/blog. He has an opinion on EVERYTHING! Amazing how he parses words to the depths of utter nonsense. 👿

    1. “Parses words to the depths of utter nonsense.” Now, THAT sentence is a winner! I might have to borrow it someday! 😆

  37. No matter how inventive we are when we mock the fundies we will never be a match for them. Their capacity for self-parody is limitless.
    If someone came on SFL spouting the nonsense that Trieber believes he would be immediately branded a Poe.

    1. Oh, probably one of the verses in the prophets about God bringing judgment on some pagan nation by disembowling their pregnant women would suffice. Exposing the contents of a womb pre-birth is clearly a sign of God’s judgment on a nation.

    2. Indeed. Especially considering my mom used to hang all of her sonograms on the fridge. 😛

  40. Related story, by way of a friend who attends a very strict IFB church (I call it IFBx):

    The pastor one day went on a rant about how the loss of “mystery” with parents learning the sex of the child before it was born. (Personally, I doubt he really said ‘sex’ – he either said ‘gender’ or ‘knowing whether the baby will be a boy or girl’). He railed on about how things were not that way in the old days.

    An expecting couple decided to honor their M-O-G by NOT finding out.

    After the child was born, they “woke up” and realized how silly it was not to take advantage of modern technology… but it shows the mindset of people in these kind of churches.

    1. Usually those kinds of rants are appended to a longer discourse on how finding out the gender is only for the purpose of sex-selective abortion. Because as we all know, it’s a super common practice in the UNITED STATES for women to have sex-selective abortions. Or not.

      1. According to my friend, the rant didn’t go anywhere else… just on how it was somehow “bad” that in modern society we have “lost mystery” (is that a good thing?) in being able to tell the child’s sex before it is born.

    2. Finding out the sex beforehand would certainly have changed the course of English history. Or do you think Henry VIII would have been just as happy knowing about Elizabeth I?
      So there.

    3. I found out the gender with all five of my babies, and it really, really made me angry when people found out that we knew what we were expecting and they said, “Oh WE didn’t find out because we didn’t want to spoil it.”

      If you don’t want to know, then you don’t want to know and that’s perfectly fine. But you know what? At the birth, I found out how much hair they had, what colour it was, how precious their tiny little fingers looked like, and felt when they curled around my finger, how their tiny little noses looked… goodness, we got a surprise with one of our little boys, didn’t know he had cleft palate until after he was born!

      A child is a beautiful bundle of surprises. You can find out the gender beforehand, but their person is hidden, and you will find new surprises about your child as they grow and travel through life.

      I loved being able to name my child before birth and refer to them normally as part of the family as we awaited their arrival. To me, it was lovely, and nothing was spoiled.

      At the end of the day I think what we need to do is know ourselves. Think about the situation and know yourself well enough to know which scenario would cause the more disappointment. There is no sin involved, so feel free to make a choice guilt-free.

      /gets off soapbox.

    4. I wonder if they excise the portions of the Bible in which God tells ladies that they are going to have a son. Surely we all recall reading how crushed those women were…how disappointed to be told the sex of their coming baby.

      Silly God. Ruining the excitement and the mystery.

    1. It probably has more to do with the fact that people like this guy are terrified of women – more specifically, a woman’s ability to conceive and bear children. It’s like this huge taboo topic with men in fundamentalism. Why is that?

    2. It’s probably because that little part at the bottom of the screen (foot?, umbilical chord?) looks like a winkydoo.

      (According to that kind of logic, this can’t be Darryl’s daughters ultrasound pic. It’s clearly a Illuminati conspiracy. The hospital gave them any old pic, and Darryl and his wife are deceived.)

  42. Maybe it never “crossed his mind” to share the image because….um…..they didn’t have photo sharing websites to show everyone at once?? It’s a lot more work to show every person you know one by one! 🙄

  43. I find the “display the ultrasound pictures” trend distasteful and a little creepy, but for none of the reasons Jack Trieber has in mind. He says it “debases the birth” of a baby? How do you debase a birth?
    Does he know anything about birth? It’s pretty messy, no matter how you package it.

    Anyway, all of you who like showing the ultrasound image can be glad I’m not in a position to inflict my personal hang-ups on anyone else– nor do I even want to.

  45. I echo the above comments about one-upsmanship and also the yearning for fake “olden” days when everything was better than now. Our pastor once preached that it was indecent to use the word “pregnant” and that it used to be shameful to speak of such things.

    Yes, indeed, women of a certain social class used to go into seclusion when they were expecting. This presents a classic fundy dilemma: how to reconcile the need to make pregnancy into something shameful with the requirement that every pregnant woman attend every church service.

    1. “This presents a classic fundy dilemma: how to reconcile the need to make pregnancy into something shameful with the requirement that every pregnant woman attend every church service.”

      THIS. :mrgreen:

  46. Silly. Everyone knows the process of taking a picture sucks the soul out of the subject.

    Saw it in a TV program. Years ago. I think it was an especially good episode of The Lone Ranger.

  47. My Comment to Dear Old Jack…Which will probably not see the light of Day

    I think you’ve gone off the reservation. Modern technology is not evil. God even ordains people from the womb. Maybe people looking at actual living beings in a womb may prevent others from aborting God’s creation.

  49. He says “the sacredness of a mother’s womb” but of course he means that the rest of the woman is still a shameful daughter of Eve and Jezebel.

  50. I was a pastor’s kid. We had to attend these charming monthly events called “Preachers Fellowships”. These events featured a select few of the gathered blowhards who got to get up and show off for their friends.

    Not infrequently these events would turn in to a game of who-can-be-the-mostest-separated. We would often return home with some new and improved conviction that my dad had caught from one of the other preachers.

    I think Jack Trieber has a winner with this belief. He shouldn’t be wasting it on his blog though. He should guard these beliefs until he is in a group of other Mogs so he can spring it on them and they can all be jealous that they didn’t think of it first.

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