159 thoughts on “Consequences”

    1. If you didn’t already know the ending based on the title your Fundy Cred might be weak. 😆 This is guilt-trip 101.

    1. True story. It’s like He’s just sitting up there with lightning bolts, poised to strike down rebellious teens.

      “Gabriel! More bolts! The ’60s are coming! No, just put that box of Grace anywhere. I don’t need it.” 😈

  5. Makes you realize just how unforgiving an environment the writers of these stories live in. I’m a teacher, and it drives me nuts when students skip class just ’cause. Yet I would never wish paralysis on them!

  6. Yeah, God it sitting up there in His Heaven, just waiting for us to rebel… then he will break our necks to teach us a lesson. Although noy Oficially Fundy, I grew up in Northern Ireland, in an environment which taught this sort of thing. I have a lot of friends who don’t want to follow a God who would do this to them. 🙁 😥

  7. So, are we to be led to believe that, if typical teenage girls skip school to go SHOPPING (horrors), God will punish them by causing a collision with at tractor trailer that will lead to paralysis? I’m confused. 😕

    1. You’re not confused– you got it right.
      Girls going shopping is the main cause of paralysis. 😐

      1. Stop Big Gary you’re killin’ me! I am in my office with 3 office mates and they all want to know why I am laughing out loud to myself. 😳 Your humor puts it all in perspective though. That’s like telling little kids that the closet monster is gonna get them if they don’t behave and go to sleep. Just plain mean and nasty to do to kids of any age.

      1. Laird Donald, I wondered the same thing! As an e-commerce / catalog copywriter, I have to be super-careful to get all my trademarking right…if I mention any outside brand with a registered trademark, I have to clear it through Legal first.

        But I guess Godly People don’t have to follow those evil worldly rules. :mrgreen:

  8. This reminds me of the story Jesus told in the Bible, about um…..um…..the one where, um…..you know the one um…..

  9. I’m on my phone and can’t read the whole thing, but this must not be the same story cuz in mine, the girl gets a call that her mother died in a car crash and she realizes that the last thing she did was disrespect her mother. Moral: if you don’t obey, God will kill your parent to make you feel guilty for the rest of your life.

    2. Obviously the story is crap, and God doesn’t kill people to teach us lessons. But it’s true that you will always, always remember the last thing that happened before someone you love dies. Someone I know last told her mother that she didn’t have time to talk to her on the phone. That was the last thing she ever said to her mom. The last thing I said to my mom was, “Love you, too.” I will always remember that, too.

  10. Force and violence is truly irresistible grace, I guess. It is a little scary how quickly Christians learned that it is much easier to threaten and compel than to convince. Why do I get the feeling Jesus was slapping his forehead within five minutes of sitting at the right hand of the Father.

  11. Nice to have your daily dose of Glurge served up, with all those nice Bible verses just brimming with guilt and schmaltz thrown in. :mrgreen: 😛

  12. Where are the fundy stories about unjust suffering? oh wait, that’s too catholic a topic. in fundy world, bad people suffer and good people are rewarded, it’s all very black and white.

    1. This is a remarkably insightful comment. At seminary we had a whole course about the evolution of the wisdom tradition and the failure of lex talionis. Its interesting how books like Job or Quohelet put this into perspective.

    1. “One would have to have a heart of stone to read of the death of little Nell without laughing.”

  14. My goodness. If spinal chord severing and paralysis is God’s punishment for skipping school to go shopping, I shudder to think of what would happen for engaging in (gasp)premarital hanky panky or going to the movies…… 🙄 🙄 🙄

    2. Premarital hanky panky gets you kicked out of Fundy U. Well, if you’re the female. If you’re the male, you get a staff position.

      True story.

  15. Well, since it was just a dream, then it doesn’t mean anything at all. Too bad the writer’s “creativity” actually ruins her whole point. The girl was only rebellious in her dream, since she had been sleeping during the entire story. So why was she convicted? This just doesn’t work.

    1. Because even involuntary thoughts (including dreams) can give rise to sin in the eyes of fundies. Proof text = “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” I once heard a fundie speaker state that spouses must confess to each other any sins that they commit in their dreams or their marital unity will be destroyed.

      1. Even the ones that include ducks? No, no, I’d rather die of shame than share one word of what happened with the duck. 😈

        2. IIRC, the great Byzantine Emperor Justinian first caught sight of Theodora, his future wife, when she was performing in a sort of 6th-century burlesque act involving ducks. (Um, let’s just say that she had a novel way of feeding them.)

          Justinian took one look and said to himself, “Aha! That gal clearly has what it takes to be an empress.”

        1. I once had a dream that my wife had an identical twin that I never knew about before. I got to “know her” and my wife together. That was a fun dream.

  16. I remember as a child seeing an illustration of two families. One was on there way to church and the other was on there way to a picnic or something….next picture was the picnic family in a car accident.

    So no one is ever in a car accident on the way TO church?

    1. No, they come upon the scene of an accident. One of the fundy men uses his necktie (you need to wear one to choir practice, dontcha know?) as a tourniquet on a badly wounded victim. As a reward for this selfless action, he is denied the privilege of choir practice. He may very well have saved the victim’s life, but that is secondary to the dress code for CHOIR PRACTICE.

      (Personally, if they are going to have a fundy dress code, they should ban flip-flops. I hate flip-flops!)

      1. Never assume that any fundie man would EVER stop on the way to church to help someone in need. The parable of the good samaritan is not much favored in fundie circles.

        2. No insult implied to your husband, but I think his fundie cred is seriously impaired if he believes that helping an accident victim is more important than making it to choir practice in proper dress. A good fundie man always keeps an extra tie in his vehicle anyway. And you know that people who have wrecks on Sundays are being punished by God for not being in church.

          I’m being sarcastic. Your husband did the right thing. The church I grew up in didn’t care who was in the choir (the more voices, the better, was their novel philosophy) but I attended a fundie church in college that had a page and a half of “choir rules.” Choir members were required to attend church all three weekly services, and go on visitation on Tuesday evenings, and attend Saturday afternoon choir practice. The choir had 4 members. One time the pastor chewed out the college and career Sunday school class for not being in the choir and I pointed out that most of us college kids simply did not have time to be at church five times a week. He glowered at me for a moment and said, “I don’t see how you are getting five times a week out of the choir rules.” I left not too long after that. 😉

        4. I don’t say that pastors need to be math whizzes, but if a pastor can’t count to five, it’s hard to take anything he says seriously.

      2. When I was a fundie I was also a volunteer firefighter. One Sunday afternoon we got a call for a structure fire, I was already in my suit and tie. Late to choir, or structure fire.. hmm.

        Needless to say the structure fire won, I don’t consider a suit to be broken in until it has been through at least one structure fire.

        I made it to choir practice, late, and smelling like smoke. Sad thing is I beat the piano player there.

    2. Our music director once had a wreck as he was pulling into the church parking lot. But we all assumed God was punishing him because his car was a red Lebaron convertable – sinful, sinful car!! And we were right about him – he was later fired for showing up one Sunday morning drunk. (Sad story, but true.)

      Some in the church, my parents included, believed that it was a sin to drive red vehicles. That is, my parents held that belief until they found a red vehicle they really wanted. Then, they bought it but it was okay because it was a red 15-passenger van.

      1. Oh I almost forgot about that Fundie law. That one kind of died down in the mid 90’s. I think by 2000 it was ok to have a red car, at least at our church.

        2. “Only bold women drive red cars” sounds like a slogan from the auto industry to market cars to women.

      2. My intentions are good and earnest and true
        But under my hood is internal combustion power
        And Satan is my motor
        Hear my motor purr

        That’s what’s happening when you get behind the wheel of a red car.

        (Cake – “Satan is my motor”)

  18. Wow, now thats gooooooood preachin’ material there… If you don’t do what you’re told you’re gonna die or wish you were dead cause God is going to GET you!!!

    I’m so glad we’re not in that world any more. My God is loving, patient and not waiting till I screw up “to put the hammer down”. I fail to see how this group still has people following them. I can see the mog’s flocking to be their “leader/dictator”, but how the sheeple still follow them is interesting.

    1. ” I fail to see how this group still has people following them.”

      Fear. Clearly they believe that one step out of line will result in God cursing them.

  19. 1. Come on Darrell! What’s with putting spoilers in the hover text?

    2. Does the Holy Spirit convict people for what they do in their dreams? I would be interested to read the Bible verses they use to back up that belief.

    3. What caused the Buzzzz Buzzzz! Is it the chainsaw murderer God sent because she slept in pants?

    4.Personally, I am glad that God is forgiving toward teenagers who don’t like to do chores or go to school. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here and I suspect many others would be here either.

    5.”Trailer” not “trailor”.

    2. Re: (4.): If God worked that way, I would have been dead or paralyzed by about age six.

  20. Fear is the #1 tactic of the IFB. If it wasn’t for the fear they instill in people, their churches would be empty because people would be free to explore other churches and realize that the church is much bigger than their little 2 by squirt compound.

    I remember various MoGs telling a story about a man who questioned his pastor on something and the holy spirit told this man that God was going to kill him for questioning his pastor. The man allegedly checks himself into the hospital claiming that he is going to die and God was going to kill him. Nurses and doctors are confused as the man seemed to be in perfect health. They call in the man’s pastor and the man confesses his “sin” to the pastor and the doctors tell him he will be OK. Meanwhile while the doctors and pastor are talking in the hall the man suddenly dies for no apparent reason.

    Heard this story over and over again and it held me in bondage for years thinking that God was going to kill me if I ever left the church or did anything against the wishes of my MoG.

    1. This is no Christian doctrine. This is from Stone Age tribal societies where it is generally believed that otherwise healthy people can be killed by something like pointing a bone at them or burying their hair and fingernails with a talisman.

    2. Wow, not even disobedience to God but disobedience to the Lord High Pastor? Give me a flipping break.

      And isn’t it interesting that even though the man confessed his sin and repented, this “God” still struck him dead?

    3. Yes, we were regularly regaled with stories about people who had criticized the “untouchable” “man of God” and the horrible things that befell them later. It used to scare me. I still retain a healthy fear of God, but not of the pastor.

  21. Good example Darrell. The result of this kind of stuff/teaching floating around when he was a kid has caused my husband to struggle with the idea of God sitting up there with a huge fly swatter waiting… 😥

    1. Yep, I was raised the same way. My mother made us memorize the verse that she quotes at the end of the story and the verse after that (Phil. 2:14-15) on the occasion of my Catholic grandparents coming to visit us. My sister and I were told that what the verse meant was that if we had any arguments or “bad attitudes” while my grandparents were visiting, that it would be our fault if they didn’t get saved and ended up going to hell.

      1. This is why super religious people are so weird. Who could possibly function normally under that kind of pressure?

  22. Fear is all it is.

    I remember hearing a story in high school chapel about how you could get AIDS by making out with a person, because all it would take is for them to have a small cut on their lip and it could be passed on to you. 😯

  23. Manipulation
    (to the tune of Carly Simon’s “Anticipation)

    We can never know about the days to come
    But we think about them anyway
    And I wonder if I’m really right with you
    Or waiting for your wrath to come my way.

    Manipulation, Manipulation
    Is making me shake
    Is keeping me quaking

    And I tell you how hard it is to be with you
    And how I fear to think of you around me.
    But I, I rehearsed those magic words late last night
    When I was thinking how the Altar Call tonight might be.

    Manipulation, Manipulation
    Is making me shake
    Is keeping me quaking

    And tomorrow we might not be together
    I’m no prophet, Lord I don’t know your way
    So I’ll sit under the eyes of your MOg right now
    And pray right here, ’cause these are the good old path ways.
    These are the old path ways.
    And pray right here, ’cause these are the good old path ways.
    These are the old path ways
    These are the old path ways
    These are the old path ways.
    These are the old path ways

    *my sincere apologies to Carly Simon

    1. Wait… *gasp* are you the one who rewrote the lyrics to You’re So Vain for Fighting for the Faith?!?

        2. I like that version!
          I know I have rewritten sever parodies on here. I thought you were talking about SFL. 😉

  24. “The author, Debbie Lundy, is a Registered Nurse and lives in Dallas, Texas.”

    She obviously has extraordinary talents. It’s very rare for someone to become a registered nurse when she is only twelve years old.

    1. She’s a registered nurse – therefore has seen many, many Christian kids come in who were paralyzed for being rebellious. 🙄

  25. The thing about stories like this is that they start off admitting the fact that they are made up, but then within a year or two, some MOG starts telling this story that a nurse in Dallas, TX told him (leaving out the dream part), and next thing you know, it gets added to the fundie cannon of “true” stories.

  26. This could have a different ending. How about going to Chicago, visiting the art museum, lunching at a fancy-shmancy restaurant, crashing a German heritage, engaging in mixed swimming, and ending it all with destroying a friend’s father’s Ferarri. Hey, every student at HAC should try such a day off!

  27. So…didn’t Jesus say that the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices were no worse sinners than anyone else? And same for the people on whom the tower of Siloam had fallen? IOW, bad things can happen to anyone, even to the non-rebellious. And so can good things: “He makes His rain fall on the just and the unjust.”

    1. One problem with the whole “good things” / “bad things” issue is that we simply don’t see things the way God sees them. Most people base their perception of what is “good” or “bad” on what they WANT. Thus, I don’t want my car to break down, so if it does break down, then that is “bad” and why would God let that happen to me??? How often we forget to stop and think maybe its happening for a good reason or a good purpose. After all, the Bible does say that “all things work together for good to them that love God.”

      Now, I realize that there are many things that are simply black-and-white “bad” or “good.” (E.g., child abuse is unquestionably a “bad” thing.) But I think we humans put a LOT of things into the “bad” column that don’t belong there at all. Then, we spend an inordinate amount of time pondering why God did that to us instead of looking for the good in the situation.

      Of course, fundies see the concept of God’s rain falling on the just and on the unjust as a “bad” thing too because it just isn’t “fair” that the unrighteous don’t get smitten straight into hell from the moment they first draw breath. Fundies are Jonah, sitting under the vine, waiting for Ninevah to be destroyed, and getting mad at God when it isn’t.

  28. Crap! I’d better go clean my room!

    On a side note, what a vindictive God. 🙁

    1. Well, He did let the poor girl off, even if it was the lamest ending in the world, ie “it was all a dream”. 🙄
      In another way, that is maybe THE best way to remember to “Always wear clean underwear, you could be hurt in a car accident!” 😆
      Even Jesus had a Jewish Mother. :mrgreen:

  29. Dear SFL Reader:

    Heck of a vision of God! A life of works-based grace, or live life waiting for the great shoe to drop from glory.

    Christian Socialist

    1. CS – This is Fundy Subservience 101. My old fundy church propogated this exact view of God…that of a vindictive super-being that was ready to “chastise” at a moments notice. This is how the MOG asserts his power…he (MOG) becomes the person that can intercede with God to be nice to the fundy. (FYI, this is a first cousin to how some Catholics view Mary and the saints…that she can go to God/Jesus and make them be nice to the parishoner.) I almost – NOT! – feel bad for the MOGs…how would like to have to stand before Almighty God and have this charge leveled against you? If I may quote David: “I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them mine enemies.”

      1. Dear Bro Bluto:

        Moreover, as the KJV becomes more archaic with each passing generation, the Bible closes to the public — just as with the Latin Vulgate.

        Christian Socialist

        1. CS –

          We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one 😉 My kids are learning to read via the KJV and Shakespeare.

          Bro Bluto

  30. Yes, teens need to obey their parents. But correct me if I’m wrong don’t most if not all teens have a rebellious streak? Doesn’t that happen when young people grow from being dependent into being more independent? I have plenty of friends who did rebellious things in their teens and still grew into mature, responsible adults. Yes, we need to protect our teens but a teen who has an attitude at times is not the end of the world. Besides, two of the most godly people I have ever known died of cancer at a young age. Does that mean they had some deep, dark, hidden sin?

    When we emphasize God’s anger and judgement to the neglect of God’s love and mercy we become motivated by guilt and fear. Guilt and fear do have their place in the Christian life. They make good supplements, but they make terrible motivators. We do not have to be afraid of God and we do not have to be rescued from God. Yes, we can make bad decisions that can affect us for the rest of our lives but God is not sitting up in Heaven with a baseball bat waiting to smack us upside the head every time me screw up.

    1. As usual I made a typo that I did not catch even after proofreading. That last sentence should read “every time we screw up.” 🙂

    2. Well, a lot of behaviors get called “rebellion” that really aren’t. One of my sisters gained more weight as a teen than my mother approved of, and my mother told her that she had a spirit of rebellion. “Rebellion” is one of those fundiespeak words that mean whatever the authority figure says it means. Thus, “rebellion” is usually defined as “pissing an authority figure off.”

      1. “pissing an authority figure off”

        aka being the topic of this week’s sermon illustration

      2. Isn’t that the truth? I saw that a lot in Bible college. I was saw students get yelled at for sins I had never even heard of.

        1. Well said Jason, I attended the Bob and saw the same things you describe. I was the closet rebel who mocked the “authorities” silly rules and regulations.

      3. One of my sisters gained more weight as a teen than my mother approved of, and my mother told her that she had a spirit of rebellion.

        Oh my gosh, that is soooo wrong. That poor kid. Is she OK now?

        1. I imagine that if my mother had stopped to think for a moment, she would have realized the absolute absurdity of attributing teenage weight gain to rebellion. But by that point in her parenting, she was accustomed to attributing everything she didn’t like about her kids to rebellion, no matter what it was. One of her favorite things to say to us was that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and God says to kill witches and that is why God allowed parents in the Old Testament to stone their rebellious children.

          My sister seems to be doing fine but another sister has a borderline eating disorder.

  31. This looks like it was taken from one of the PACES (A.C.E.)

    Whatever happened to David and what does he think of his brother-in-law Jack? The apple didn’t fall from the tree.

    1. Someone with adequate art skills needs to revisit those comics. I can still remember Ace, Pudge, and was it Reginald? Or am I confusing these with Archie comics?

      I only attended ACE schools from 1980-1982, when I was in the 3rd, 4th, and first half of the 5th grade. I guess I did learn something from those PACEs after all…

      1. Yes PACES reminded me of Archie or MAD comics.

        Hyles’ school bounced back between PACES/Bob Jones/Abeka for the most part of the 80’s and 90’s but when Hyles made it public he hated PCC he stopped using Abeka but I believe after he passed they went back to Abeka as Schaap tried to make peace with PCC but Larry Brown and Larry Smith were anti-PCC ’cause the girls were allowed to wear pants and shorts in the dorms.

        2. Look up the YouTube video “Bob Jones Blue Jean Baby” some girls at Bob Jones made a video of them wearing pants in the dorms set to secular music. Hyles would have had a fit while Schaap would want to “conference them privately”.

  33. See…you guys thought my story about Darrell Dunn and the woman who lost her legs to cancer because she wore pants was all make believe. 🙂
    I don’t know about you guys, but this story makes me love God so much more.

  34. Shannon later had a consoling session with Jack Schaap. “And now you know the rest of the story”

  35. Larry Brown has a video on YouTube where he and Hyles pleaded with Jerry Falwell to go back IFB’s and disown DC Talk and Point of Grace and women wearing pants and he didn’t. Brown then said that is why Falwell won’t receive a “Star in his crown”

      1. Are we aloud to post videos on here without getting in trouble?

        Go to YouTube and look up “Larry Brown on Jerry Falwell and Stryper”.

      1. This crap makes me plenty mad. I knew Doc and I know Jonathan ans Jerry Jr. Doc thought DC Talk was GREAT and couldn’t have cared less about women wearing pants. As for Stryper…heck I don’t like them either! But only because they kinda suck musically. How dare this arrogant lying piece of crap sign Doc’s name to his own check. Jackass

      2. This crap makes me plenty mad. I knew Doc and I know Jonathan and Jerry Jr. Doc thought DC Talk was GREAT and couldn’t have cared less about women wearing pants. As for Stryper…heck I don’t like them either! But only because they kinda suck musically. How dare this arrogant lying piece of crap sign Doc’s name to his own check. Jackass

  36. I love the story about the Rebel who skipped Tuesday Night Revival meeting because he was angry at the Dr. Reverend Man-o-Gid Evangelist for calling him out in-front of everyone on Monday Night, shouting that “he needed to git saved by gitting down to that Old Fashioned Altar and git right with gawd.” That Tuesday evening on the way home from the services he and the preacher rode by a horrific car crash only to find out later it was this young man. The impact was so violent it ejected the CD which nearly decapitated the rebellious teen. The first responders said when they arrived on the scene and and approached the charred remains of the vehicle the CD player was still at full volume playing “Highway to Hell!”
    Hey-men! 🙄

      1. yep, it’s those pesky little inconsistencies that can ruin a good guilt sermon if the M-O-g isn’t loud enough and fast enough to keep up the manipulation.

        1. Yeah, there’s another inconsistency there. Any impact producing a projectile would almost have to be a head-on collision. In which case, the projectile would be moving forward, not towards the driver.

          And as to the OP story, did anyone else notice that it was a 4-way stop but apparently the truck didn’t stop either.

    2. This is how old I am: Highway to Hell was on a cassette tape back in MY day. 😈

    3. That one sounds familiar. Must have been blessed by that one at some point in my christian edoctrination

  40. God presents Himself as the Heavenly Father in Scripture. Any father who punished or threatened to punish their child this brutally for a minor infraction would be jailed.
    This story slanders God. Disgusting.

    1. “Do not attempt to challenge my authority. I have eight weeks to turn you gaggle of maggots into a well-discipline cadet unit. From this day forward your sorry asses belong to me. You will not eat, sleep, drink, blow your nose or dig in your buts without my say so. Know this, killing is my business, ladies, and business is good.”

      Yep, now that you mention it…

  43. Standard Fairy Tales. Don’t go out in the Forest or you will never come back! Don’t sass your mother or God will get you! Don’t disobey the Preacher or disrespect him or a bear will come out and rip you to pieces.

    God is angry with the wicked (scratch that) the curious every day. God is ready to strike you down. Keep a look over your shoulder! You have a rebellious heart even if you don’t know it and God is going to judge you.

    I lived with that all my life from childhood to middle-age. I am struggling to see God from a kinder perspective, but some days it is really hard to do. Frankly, I would almost (almost) turn atheist than continue to think of God the way I was brought up, the way that fundamentalism portrayed Him.

    There was this Ron Hamilton song, “Refining Fire” where people sing asking God to put them through the fire. At one point as I was singing, I stopped and thought, “This is stupid!” After all, the Scriptures say that if we would judge ourselves we will not be judged. So why was I asking for God to hurt me?

    I never sang the song again. I know there are going to be hard times. But God is not in the business of looking for ways to make us suffer for trivialities.

    1. I always thought that Hamilton’s song was a fundy alternative to the Steve Green song “The Refiner’s Fire.” Reading Green’s song in the context of a loving, gracious God Who is working to bring me closer into the image of His Son, I find it a moving song.

      But if the view of God taught in church is scary and mean, always looking for people to step out of line so he can punish them, why would we ASK Him for hardship?

  45. Hmmm, well, what about the guy I knew, who suffered a severe spinal injury during a bus activity (he was the captain)? He was fundy gold – a talented preacher boy, who followed the rules, worked hard, and was faithful in every way. So…that was what? A loving refining fire, while Shannon suffered because of rebellion? Hmm. I notice that the preachers’ sufferings are ALWAYS suffering for Christ, while people they disagree with are suffering as punishment for perceived sins (especially lack of tithing). Sick.

  46. Let me propose an alternative story.

    The girl goes to school, and during the day the a crazed shooter enters the school and murders everyone who happens to be in the cafeteria. She then wakes up and realizes that she would be better off skipping school and going shopping, and she does so. When she gets home, her mother hugs and kisses her and thanks God that her daughter was not in school that day.

    1. Obviously they are not really super-duper fundies if they send the little darlings to school. Mom should be home nursing the youngest of 10 children and teaching the others as she bakes bread from scratch and makes all the girls’ jumpers. Of course, this is in between going out on soulwinning night, going out on Sunday School visitation, not to mention attending choir practice and ladies’ Bible study.

  47. Thank you, Darrell, for posting this. It made for a good discussion with my kids about the foolishness of Fundystan. It also tied in well with a writing lesson I was giving them. The post was a great example of how not to live and how not to write.

    1. Did she go to school with this guy whose cousin lived next door to the woman who taught my second daughter’s boyfriend? If so then I think I know her. 😀

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