254 thoughts on “S.M.I.T.E.”

  1. Who in the hell thought that using the acronym S.M.I.T.E. was clever or a good idea? Why would you ever use the word smite in reference to evangelizing children? So f—ing creepy…

    1. Couldn’t they have named it the Summer Missionary Institute of Love and Evengelism?

      2. They could have named it the Paramount Educational and Developmental Orientation Planetary Health Institute for Learning Early.

        But they didn’t.

  2. On the website, three little kids and three older men. Nothing creepy about that.

  3. “Missionary Jerry Purtell started going to fairs and festivals in the very early part of his ministry. At the beginning, he did not have an air conditioned theatre style trailer, but an old bus with a fan in the back showing the one hour burning hell film.” What the ? A one hour burning hell film?

    1. The burning hell film – an unforgettable piece of work that will leave you thinking “what has been seen cannot be unseen”.

      1. Ok, I found it, watch thirty seconds of it, turned it off and threw up. Who could you possibly get to watch and hour of that at a fair?

        1. Even if you are feeling woosey from the tilt-a-whirl and just want to pull the trigger and upchuck, you should only need 1-2 minutes of that, and job done and can go back to riding the rides & eating the corn dogs!

        2. They must have locked the door as soon as several people came in out of curiousity.

        1. Gee. Thanks, Scorpio. Someday when I am too bored to poke pins in my eyeballs I will watch that.

      4. “Burning hell films”– the Fundy equivalent to snuff films.

        I once watched “The Burning Hell” voluntarily.
        There’s something wrong with me.

        1. Is that the one by Estus Pirkle? I had to watch that one probably 10 times as a kid. I knew parts of it by heart.

        2. Yes, Estes Pirkle– who should get an Oscar for having the best name in Fundy films.

        3. Estus Pirkle, that is. The least I can do is spell the name right.

        4. I didn’t grow up with TV in the house (It’s of the devil! The subliminal advertising will make you obey the antichrist!), and got to see very few movies. so to be exposed to Pirkle’s movies (remember Footmen?) was bloody traumatic. No, not traumatic. Abusive. It traumatized my youth and kept me bound in fundy’ism much longer than necessary.

      5. I see all those kids and think how as long as they are in those walls they will be yelled at that God hates them and is desperate to smite them until they accept his yoke which turns out to be very heavy and if they fail to carry it in any way God will again hate them and desperately search for ways to smite them. You HAC people have any different experience?

        1. That’s my experience exactly. Their yoke nearly broke me, yet for years I blamed myself. I thought it was some flaw in me, that I could t hack (haha) their “hothouse” environment.

    2. I’m not into sports so I would have to do some serious shirt shopping. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sports shirt without graphics. So all men’s shirts would have to be examined for graphics suitability? What would unsuitable sports graphics be? Anything not New Orleans Saints?

      And I’m going to call liberal because nobody shows their mid-drift these days, nor evendors Rick Warren or Bill Hybels or John Piper. REAL Fundies would have a “No Showing Your Upper or Lower Drift” rule.

      There, I moved the goalpost to where it should have been. Beat that.

  4. I’d like to know more about these Detention Centers. Of everything on their website that sounds the creepiest.

    1. That sounds promising. I’m wondering if there needs to be an official investigation to see how people were treated at these places. Would they find decent living conditions or handcuffs on beds?

    2. That actually brings great satisfaction to me. I don’t care if I never see that place open again.

    1. Spend enough time around fundies and one of two things will happen.

      1. Nothing will surprise you with how terrible, creepy, egotistical, egocentric, unrepentant, ungodly, unbiblical, uncompassionate, misogynistic, racist, cruel, hate mongering that they can justify

      -OR-

      2. You will believe their unrelenting diatribe and think that a place like this may be the last bastion of godliness and hope for both America and the world.

      Separation is the hallmark of the IFB. The battle call is “those who aren’t our friends are our enemies”. By their very nature they make enemies of those that would be indifferent to them. To my shame I would have thought this was a great bastion of godliness at one time.

  8. I wish this website were a POE. I’ve known “Uncle Jerry” Purtell for most of my life, and in my opinion he is a humorless fanatic. I have no love for CEF with its emphasis on teaching small children about sin and hell, but it does not sponsor this camp, though Jerry is a CEF employee.

    Note first paragraph on the home page: “… and other child evangelism outreaches” is in small caps. I believe it is worded as such to add some legitimacy to this camp.

    1. I was curious because the CEF workers I know in my area talk about heaven and hell, but they are not coercive, nor are they scary. If anything, from what I remember from trainings I had with CEF years ago, they are much more about teaching children truths from the Bible at a developmentally appropriate level. They even have materials now specifically aimed at the preschool set. Some people may still not approve of what they do (I do, by the way), but their techniques are much more updated and very similar to what many kids get in any evangelical church Sunday School.

      1. Right. CEF is nondenominational. I know a woman who holds Good News Clubs at the school where I teach (public: gasp!). She grew up fundy, but left it. The club leaders are not fundy: the women wear pants, and it’s all pretty laid-back.

        1. That was my experience with CEF “back in the day.” Mother used to host a weekly club in our home after school. The leader or experience wasn’t remotely similar to SMITE laws.

        3. I did some work with CEF for about 3 summers in a row while at university , here in Ireland. That was a long time ago, though. I also attended CEF meetings as a kid, which was even longer time ago. At NO time did CEF preach about the horrors of Hell or try to scare any children into “getting saved” or praying “the sinner’s prayer”. My experience of CEF meetings as a kid and of working with them as an adult was very positive. Here in Ireland it was completely non-denominational. Any Fundy-types tended to seperate themselves from such things so it’s wasn’t “Fundyfied” in any way. The organisation did not use any “hard sell” techniques either. I guess you could put it down to “cultural differences”

  9. Did anyone notice that they actually use the word “cleavage” in their description of appropriate dress for women? Kind of a risque word for fundies isn’t it? Does just using the word stir up the passions of lust? And of course it’s the woman’s fault for having cleavage which forces a man to use the word which will inevitably make him lust.

    And what grades were these camps for? If they were for young kids, likes those pictured on the website, why is cleavage even an issue?

    1. It’s for teens as well. Not to mention there will be males over the age of 18 there.

  10. Mwahahahahahah!!!!!!

    Dress code for men: Basically, don’t try too hard to be a cool dude.

    Dress code for women (er, sorry, ladies): Insert long document prescribing every last detail of every stitch of your clothing.

    Ugggghhhh.

    And is it just me, or is their use of “ladies” where anyone else in civilization would use “women” making me read that part in a cheesy faux-seductive Billy Dee Williams voice? Verrry immodest. Mmm Yeahhh.

  12. But seriously, this can’t be real, is it?

    Please tell me this isn’t actually real.

    Sigh.

    It’s probably real.

  13. Unfortunately I spent several years of my life not only attending and graduating from SMITE, but traveling around the summers with their director, “Dr.” Jerry Purtell. Welcome to the “real” fundie network!

  14. I just realized the necklines for women is close to turtleneck. That’s hot. I don’t mean sexy hot. I mean hot as in getting overheated because it’s summer and the neckline is too restrictive hot.

  15. Why don’t they just cut to the chase and require all females to wear a burlap sack? I don’t mean wear it as a dress; I mean remain inside the sack at all times lest one male’s holy thoughts be led astray. The young lady can simply cut a couple of holes for her eyes and one for the nose. The mouth won’t require a hole since nothing she has to say is of importance anyway. Being kept in a sack is modest, portable and a daily reminder that you are property and completely disposable.

    1. So they are tied up? Wow, that’s so…50 shades of gray. We need more women in burlap bags…wait, I mean no, no burlap bags, they cause LUST! Well, maybe my wife could have just one bag for when we are alone.

    2. A woman’s eyes, and even her nose, can be quite alluring. And god forbid someone sees her naked feet slip out from under the burlap.

  17. “All shoes must have at least a strap around the back of the foot!”
    My favorite of all the “modest” dress code rules for godly christian ladies. Haven’t heard that one since circa 1980. Haven’t forgotten it either though.
    We had a youth pastor who preached to us that the popular “Candies” style shoes of that time were wicked and sinful, because if a woman wears shoes with no back they are causing men to lust. Must be true because this rule has extra emphasis added by ending the sentence with an exclamation point!
    If anyone googles them to see what they look like, it is my IFB responsibility to warn you that the pictures are graphic. And viewer discretion is advised for males!

      1. This is the IFB. Probably one man, 50 years ago, decided that no back on a shoe caused lust so he started preaching about it. Because the IFB preachers can’t let someone be more conservative than them more preachers started preaching it. This is how extremism is propagated in the IFB circles.

      2. Actually, I think the premise was that they (shoes-with-no-backs) could be removed faster than godly shoes WITH backs. And once the guy starts thinking about that fact, he has helplessly been pushed down the slippery slope of lust. Which then leads to people “laying around with each other like barnyard animals (used that one a lot too).” I still think about that whenever I see one. Maybe barns cause lust?

  18. Dang lol I can’t say anything else other than that about this one 🙂 This post made me chuckle because I am sure somewhere in the world this is really happening.

  19. They could have simplified the women’s dress code by saying “Ladies must wear burqas.”

    1. Oh, but what’s the fun in that? I mean, we provided a lovely visual aid so our menfolk could drool…er, um, so our ladies can see what’s appropriate. And we have to impress on our ladies the importance of protecting our men from impure thoughts.

      Gag me with a chainsaw.

  20. I remember during my BJ days there was a rash of these high heeled clear strapless shoes. They looked horribly uncomfortable to me and to be honest they were not practical for walking around on a college campus….but some women liked them. One of my friends called then ‘streetwalker shoes’.

    To his credit Bob III mentioned it from chapel. Someone actually asked him ‘what are we going to do about these ‘backless shoes’. He didn’t know what the person was talking about until it was pointed out to him. He said those kind of shoes had been around for a long time and if a man was turned on by a woman’s heel he had a major problem to deal with. So the shoes were not banned but they didn’t stay around that long either. I think the women decided on their own that they just weren’t suited for the wear and tear of college life.

    1. I might be inclined to give him some credit as well except for 2 things:

      1. The fact that someone talked to him about it shows that there are men in the organization that had an issue with it. He mentioned it from the pulpit but he didn’t really address it the way it needed to be, proven by:

      2. The recent GRACE report show that Bob Jones and the university have a major issue with how women are dressed and how they respond to abuse of women.

      1. Do any other men in the entire world spend so much time worrying about what women are wearing? Is there really a need to spend one second thinking about the kinds of shoes that might make men lustful. Why not worry about things that matter? This is what bothers me so much about my time in Fundyland. We were not fed real food so we went hungry but worse than that we were fed this kind of garbage that made us sick. The abuse was more than just the fact that we were not fed, it was worse than no bread, it was stones for bread. It creates sick minds.

  21. The only SMITE I know of is a video game infamous for it’s scantily-clad large-bosomed women.

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