Holidays

Fundy Christmas Day 7: The Greatest Gift

145 Comments

Christmas is a time of cheerful celebration and sacred reflection. It’s a time for family and friends to enjoy sweet fellowship while eating, drinking and being merry. For the fundamentalist child it is also time to receive the holy and precious gift of yet another KJV Award Bible from the church bookstore — preferably the one with the plastic cover and .05 sized type (Retail value $12.99).

A KJV Bible is the perfect gift for the young fundamentalist. For if this child expresses anything other than delight at receiving his twelfth copy of the Holy Writ he will be branded as a materialistic and ungrateful wretch. It’s best just to smile and declare that a new Bible is exactly what you needed since your other dozen copies are getting a little worn out from constant use.

There are other possible gifts to receive in this same vein. A devotional book written by the pastor, a neighborhood-sized pack of gospel tracts, or a Baptist Flag tie may also take their proper place in the fundamentalist gift-giving repertoire if an award Bible is not available.

A copy of the KJV is the fruitcake of the fundamentalist gift-giving world.

145 thoughts on “Fundy Christmas Day 7: The Greatest Gift”

  2. There is seriously a story in one of the first or second grade “A Beka” readers where these twins are excitedly looking forward to their birthday and what they might get. . .and in the end, after much anticipation, they each receive a brand new KJV Bible (i.e. “the greatest gift”). Of course, the children in the story are overjoyed at such a wonderful present! It’s also the only gift they get. HAHA. I can’t imagine pulling that one off on my kids. πŸ™„

    1. Actually, I would have liked these as a kid! (But I’ve always been a bookworm.) We didn’t buy comic books of any type nor did we have a television, so I read these sensationalized tales of sin, including murder and child abuse, with wide-eyed curiosity. I’d never been exposed to such things, and I was quite fascinated. I never forgot this one: a little boy whose drunken father beat him then threw him out of the house. He found refuge from the cold in a box in an alley. An angel comes to get him, and the next drawing shows the box with his skinny, little arm lying limp and dead on the ground. That image haunted me for a long time. It broke my ten-year-old heart. Little did my sheltering parents know what they were actually letting me read! 😯

      2. After reading some of those Chick tracts, it’s a miracle we’re not all permanently in therapy! *headdesk* (…and some days, that’s not a bad idea. πŸ™ )

        Off-Topic: Please keep Hubby and me in your prayers. The Fundy guy we had to sever ties with sent me a major nastygram which not only confirmed everything I knew about him, it showed that things were even worse than we ever could have imagined. I got the note at work, and I was so physically and mentally shocked I could barely get through my shift. Hubby is still having a hard enough time with the whole situation, and he’s not even the one getting any contact.

        1. πŸ™ I’m so sorry you had to deal with that. It’s incredibly sad when people who are supposedly Christian behave in the way that man did. *hugs!* I will be praying for you!

        2. @LMcC,
          That is so like them! Maybe it’s time that your husband call him and request they not have contact with each other anymore…ever. This guy is a constipated jerk and is’nt happy unless he is making others miserable.

        3. The guy’s dad is a retired cop. I’m really tempted to let him know what his son has been doing and let him know he’s dangerously close to a restraining order.

          Not only has he decided he’s God for Hubby and me (which would have landed me an assault charge had he said what he did to my face), he has been belligerent when witnessing, got himself kicked out of at least one restaurant for not leaving the waitresses alone, and has had at least one Sunday School teacher tell him to back off. And this SOB is an ordained deacon!?

          What’s sad is that the guy clearly belongs on the autism spectrum but never has been formally diagnosed. It makes him a great Fundy, but not good for much else. My dx’ed autistic nephew has more social skills.

        4. LMcC, I’m sorry you received such a commuication, and I just said a prayer for you and your husband to be delivered from this particular pestilence.

          The one bright spot is that I really like your phrase “major nastygram.” I’m going to look for an opportunity to use that term myself (not to write a nastygram, but to call something one when it is).

        6. Current pastor may not know. The guy comes off as a naive, devoted young man who really loves talking about Jesus and his favorite sports teams. He’s a Fundy pastor’s dream, and an introvert’s nightmare.

          Only later is it discovered that he’s really middle-aged and has a completely imbalanced life and no ability to empathize whatsoever. He thinks everyone thinks exactly like him, or they’re in complete sin. You know those “so spiritually-minded he’s no earthly good” types? Bingo.

          It’s a long story. It might have to go up on FB.

        7. OH LMcC, I am so sorry that this happened. I have a family member with these Asberger’s tendencies who also thinks he’s God to us . . . praying (as BG said) for deliverance from this pestilence.

          On a thread a few days ago someone mentioned the increace of OCD tendencies when in fundy land . . . I think the Autism Spectrum tendency to like routines and rules fits with fundies – must.follow.rules. Panic and anxiety of not following rules becomes guilt for not being right with God.

    2. Like all art by psychotics (or “Art Brut,” as the French like to call it), Jack Chick tracts have an undeniable power.
      The undiluted paranoia of the JC tracts makes your jaw drop the first time you see one. And something about the drawing style induces dread and terror on a subconscious level.

      However, the fact that some people, in addition to Mr. Chick himself, view them as communicating sound theology is even more disturbing than the tracts themselves.

  4. A KJV is the fundamentalist fruitcake — couldn’t have said it better. A gift that many people give and no one really wants. Oh, the chick stuff is just priceless, too.

      1. Let me explain it thusly; there’s the yummy, fruit filled, spirit soaked, tender pastries homemade by really good bakers (like your wife, I assume). And then there’s the nasty, heavy, sugary, fake fruit filled massed produced bricks that big box stores put out so you have something to give the people you don’t really like but have to by something for.
        A KJV falls into the later category.

        1. Ah yes. As a family, we tend to not go in for mass-produced stuff at all. Home-baked bread, cakes (NOT FROM A BOX), hoe-grown vegetables, meat directly from the farm etc etc.

          (Also home-made wine, fruit-wine, cider, beer, mead, pulque, rootbeer, ginger beer….. πŸ˜‰ )

        3. I usually make stuff (baked goods and knitted/crocheted stuff), but this year I was feeling materialistic, and so everyone got bought gifts. πŸ˜‰

        4. I make fudge. Pounds and pounds and pounds of it. This year’s tally so far: 25 lbs. (Which include the 2.5 lbs my son made under my direction.) Varieties this year: plain, chocolate walnut, mint, maple, and cookies ‘n’ creme. πŸ˜€

        5. One year my siblings and I made chocolate-covered cherries (from scratch!) for everyone we knew for Christmas. We were quite popular that year, for some odd reason.

        9. Somebody used to give my mother a brandy soaked fruitcake. I was the only who would eat it. I’d be tipsy by the end of the day on Christmas and would have to spend the night. It was the best way to be with my family at Christmas.

      2. The fruitcake referenced in the main posting is the non-alcoholic, dry kind full of nuts and fake fruits. The fundy fruitcake, if you will. 😈

        1. Sorta like the fruit quick bread my son likes to make, full of raisins and other dried fruits. Probably a little different consistency, but yummier than what you’d buy at the store. :mrgreen:

    2. Every year at this time I get tired of all the hatin’ on fruitcakes. I like fruitcake. If you gave me one, I’d be happy.
      Of course, there are good fruitcakes and bad fruitcakes, but isn’t that true of every type of food?

      1. A good fruitcake is the ultimate anti-IFB Christmas food because in order to be good, it must be soaked in booze, preferably to the point that a thin slice is translucent and two thin slices on an empty stomach will make you tipsy.

      2. Good Fruitcake and Bad Fruitcake?

        Is the metaphor to be drawn that there are good study Bibles and bad study Bibles? Wait, a bad study Bible I’ve never seen one of those.

    3. Confession…I was such a die hard IFBX back in the day that on my wedding day hubby and I gave away white KJV Bibles as our wedding favor.
      😎
      Brownie points were added when when during my ceremony we gave a full invitation with piano accompianment…every head bowed, every eye closed…

      1. You poor thing. Sounds like we were similarly entrenched. I spent most of my 20+ years in that world trying to please a man.

      3. Feel free to not put me on the listb of any social events you host till further notice! LOL! I’ve seen wedding masses obviously, have never in my life seen a wedding every head bowed, every eye closed full boar invitation!

      5. I have a couple of friends who exchanged Bible rather than rings at their wedding ceremony. It was a weird ceremony from start to finish.

  5. I was thrilled out of my gourd when I got a Life Application NIV for Christmas one year, so… Again, I’m thankful I was never this deep in the abyss. But I have definitely known people like this.

    And I definitely identify with the “twelfth copy of the Holy Writ” thing. I didn’t understand why most of the top prizes in Neighborhood Bible Time were Bibles, because the tasks required to win them were things like verse memorization. You know–things you’re only good at if you already have a Bible.

    1. It’s sorta Forest Gump-ie…
      Gotta King James Bible in the bathroom; gotta King James Bible in the kitchen; gotta King James Bible in the dash of the car; gotta King Jimmy hid under the floorboards with a gun so when they come and take all our Bibles and our guns I’ll have one. I gotta case of Old Scofield King James hid special for the 144 thousand witnesses to use in the tribulation. 😯

      2. I just have to ask why all the hate toward the KJV? I have tried the other version when I was younger, but buy the time I got out of college, I was convinced of the superiority of the KJV. Is it only because in your Fundemental days is was held above all other versions? I am trying to figure this out as one who seems to taken the reverse route.

        1. It’s a reaction against the KJVO crazies who say ridiculous things like:

          Other translations aren’t real Bibles, they are tools of Satan.
          The KJV is the literal, perfect word of God despite the fact that none of the scriptures were written in English.
          You aren’t saved if you didn’t read the gospel in the KJV.

          Here are just a few examples of KJVO craziness.
          http://www.stufffundieslike.com/2009/02/kvj-only-author-gail-riplinger/
          http://www.stufffundieslike.com/2009/07/fwotw-av1611-org/

          I don’t think the KJV is the best translation available today, but you and I are both entitled to our opinions.

        3. The KJV was a very good translation for its time, but things have moved on in the last 400 years.
          The meanings of many English words have changed. Older manuscripts that were unknown to the KJ translators have been discovered.
          The KJV has some ovbious translation errors (“unicorns”?) that have been corrected, or just avoided, in later translations from the original languages.

          But the point isn’t that people shouldn’t read the King James Version, if they prefer it. It’s that there are other translations at least as authoritative, and it’s a mistake to make an idol of one translation of the Bible. The claims that the KJV was the only inspired translation and is equal to, or even superior to, the Hebrew and Greek original scriptures, are ludicrous and are based, at best, on bad historical information and on ignorance of how translation works.

          As a translator, I am keenly aware that every translation is an interpretation, and that every translation contains errors and questionable readings, so it is useful to compare several different translations– especially if you can’t read fluently in ancient Hebrew and New Testament Greek, which, let’s face it, most of us can’t.

    2. I was actually thrilled a few years back to get leather-bound Old Scofield KJV because it was the same Bible my dad has always used and I wanted one just for that reason.

      It was the constant stream of bibles, devotional books, and assorted paraphernalia from some of my other fundy friends and relations that got a bit old. It’s doubly bad when you’re a pastor’s kid or a missionary kid because people just assume that you don’t want normal toys like other children and you’d much rather have something “spiritual.” It got old in a hurry.

      1. I can only imagine. I made the Old Scofield remark because I remember a time when Oliver B. Greene was squirrelling away Old Scofield King James Bibles because, “belov-ed” he didn’t like the New Scofields and was afraid that they would no longer print the Old, “belov-ed”.

      2. people just assume that you donÒ€ℒt want normal toys like other children and youÒ€ℒd much rather have something Ò€œspiritual.Ò€ It got old in a hurry.

        I wasn’t a missionary kid but I have been the beneficiary of that impulse, and I agree.

      3. Whenever I helped to send packages to missionaries’ kids, I always made sure to buy them toys or games or something like that, since I figured they probably had about as big a Bible collection as I did.

        It’s kind of amazing how one can accrue so many Bibles in such a small amount of time. When I moved about six months ago, I found no less than ten Bibles scattered in various places throughout my house, and there were many different translations represented (of course, I didn’t bring those “heathen bibles” to church with me). Now, after I’ve moved, I’m back up to … 5 already. But no KJV in that mix. It makes me giggle when the pastor of my new church refers to the NKJV as “the older translation.”

      4. That’s how my husband feels about his Old Scofield. Since his daddy has one, he wanted one too and was so happy to get it.

        Of course, these days I get my kicks when he borrows my Bibles for church or devotions. He likes changing up translations, and it doesn’t bother him a bit that many of my Bibles are pink. πŸ˜€

      5. My parents gave me a lovely white KJV Bible with silver edged pages and beautiful photos of the Holy Land in it for Christmas when I was eleven years old. This was a long time ago and I really had no idea there were other translations. A Bible was a Bible. A few years later we moved to ND and joined a fundy BBF church where the pastor announced each text by both chapter/verse and page number “in your Scofield Bible.” KJV only wasn’t much of an issue there as I recall, other than comments about the Reversed Stupid Perversion. I think the KJV insanity was just getting started. I had a perfectly fine KJV, which I treasured because it was beautiful, it smelled good, and Mom and Dad gave it to me. One day when we were visiting the pastor’s family he tossed me a box. In it was a gaudy red Scofield Bible. Now I was “in”. However, I still tended to use my white KJV. A few years later, these people betrayed my family, accusing my sweet mom of things she would never do just to get rid of my dad who was onto them but not budging. We hit the road and never looked back at BBF churches. Funny thing is, that red Scofield kept getting lost. I’d have it out for awhile, then I would lose track of it. I can’t even remember if I used that one in Bible college. I’ve lost it many times. It has been 40 years and I can’t tell you now where it is. I do know it’s not here in England with me. I think it’s a psychological thing that I misplace it. Brings back bad memories, especially when I open the front and read the note written by the MOg who hurt my family.

    3. I would welcome a Bible if I didn’t already have one, but everybody in the demographic we’re taliking about does have at least one.

      The Bible as a prize in a Bible quiz is funny.
      I once won a vocabulary contest, and the prize was some of those books that help build your vocabulary. I already knew all the words in the books. It seemed to me that they should have give that prize to the person who placed last, instead of the one who placed first.

    4. I specifically told my own kid to NOT try to accumulate the most points since she had won before and how was the prize Bible any comparison to her lovely one. If I recall, I gave her a gift card to the bookstore and let her do her own shopping afterward.

  6. You gotta add in the obligatory guilt: think of all the kids in China (or the USSR back in my day) who would LOVE to have a Bible and don’t! We would be regaled with stories of people who would listen to a secret radio to the Bible being read and avidly write down every word and how they would treasure those scraps of paper. We would look at our shelf-full of Bibles and feel double guilt: first, just for having them all when others didn’t and secondly, for not wanting those Bibles so desperately as the really dedicated believers in China.

    2. These days, I imagine that everybody in the former USSR has an attic full of Bibles, thanks to all those programs to smuggle Bibles into godless Russia.

      1. Always nice to know that if I avail myself of the Freedom of Information Act I will probably find this activity under my name. You mailed a package of books from yourself (personally) to a recipient with a real name and address, with a handwritten personal letter attached. You paid the postage out of your pocket. I’m sure all the customs agents and various bureaucrats in the former USSR were totally fooled. πŸ™„

    3. I was just thinking this when i arrived at your comment! This is the Fundamentalist version of the same guilt trip your mother uses to make you eat vegetables.

  7. Gotta love the .05 type…the kid will have Coke bottle thick lens by the time he’s 15. I happen to sport a Cambridge University Press large print KJV with no notes, no cross references, it forces me to us a concordance (which it doesn’t have either). Even then I use a Cruden’s concordance because it gives me the freedom to make up the definitions rather than using a Strong’s that suggests I use THEIR definitions.

  8. My mother accidentally gave me (to her horror) a New Scofield with the archaic words banished to the margins. I think that she believes that this faux pas started me on the road to ruin (not abandoning church– but even worse–attending a church that uses electric guitars).

    1. I guess you read this comment in the margin near Romans 14:1.(Old or New) Here it is direct from the Old Scofield:

      “for decisions of doubts, ie doubts about meats, etc. The church has no authority to decide questions of personal liberty in things not expressly forbidden in Scritpure vs2-6(I found this in the scofield notes and I am not sure if Fundamentalist know its there: page 1207 commenting on romans 14:1)

      That pretty much ruins the entire model of fundamentalism.

  9. I only got Bibles from people in the church. The little white or pink Bibles when I was a kid.

    Thankfully, my parents were heathen enough to get me what I really wanted.

  12. how does one properly dispose of a Bible that’s so worn out that the pages are falling out in chunks and the binding is beyond repair?
    i still cannot trash it in good conscience.

    1. I feel the same way. I usually give mine away, but with the binding falling apart, I don’t know what to do with it. I guess you can rebind it and give it away.

        1. The first time I chucked a Bible I felt bad about it, but I had no use for it, and was in no condition where anyone else would want it. Once they’re used I don’t mind discarding, and I never mark any of my books (or Bibles) so I’m not really losing anything. Not something I do regularly, but have enough times it doesn’t bother me anymore.

    2. Every time an old Bible is thrown away an angel loses it’s wings. Only the seraphims though. Since they are the only angels that have wings. . . πŸ™„

      Our old fundie pastor instructed us to keep worn out Bibles in a special place because they were testaments of our spiritual journey. Only the KJV ones though. All other Bibles were burned in a barrel.

    4. Jenn, make a small raft and place the worn out tome on a bed of sticks and dry leaves and some gasoline….place the raft-ette on a pond bank and give it a gentle push, when it’s far enough away, light an arrow with fire and shoot it towards the raft…it all is working correctly (like in the movies) it should hit the raft and the flames should consume the raft and the old bible. Do that or just place it on a shelf, never to be used again.

    5. It bothers me too to just throw a Bible into the trash. I wrap it up in paper and throw it away. I understand that either way I am disposing of it, but the image of a Bible with the trash does bother me, so I just cover up the image. One other strategy was to put it in a box with a lot of other books I was throwing away, and then just set the box out on the curb.

    6. Salvation Army and other Christian ministries take worn Bibles. Also check your area for a annual book sale because they will usually take any books donated.

    7. Burn it! A book burning is a good old fashion, god-fearing, old paths, family valves, Christian tradition.
      My fundie school wanted to have a good old0-fashion book and rock music burning until the Baltimore Sun sent a reporter. My school instead buried the offending materials, including my friendÒ€ℒs 45rpm copy of Glenn CampbellÒ€ℒs Ò€œSouthern NightsÒ€!

      1. Actually I think I remember a fundie sermon about an angry man who hated the Bible and threw it in the fire, and the page that remained uncharred was the one where God spoke to him and he was gloriously saved. Urban myth perhaps.

        1. I have also heard that if you throw a Ouija board in the fire, it will let out a audible scream. Maybe that’s a myth to but I’ve never wanted to find out!

        3. I’m pretty sure Ouija boards can’t scream (being inanimate and all), but that story almost makes me want to try burning one, to find out.

        5. I was watching Discovery a while back and the the story of the Ouiji board burning is, that if you burn the board then you close the gateway for the demon/spirit of the board and it will be bound to you and it will take an exorcism to rid you of it. If Discovery’s Ghost stories are to be believed.

          Two thoughts. We should’nt make the mistake of overestimating the power of our enemy. He is powerful but he is a defeated enemy and his bounds have been determined.
          Likewise, we should not underestimate our enemy. The greatest mistake is to deny he or any demons exist at all. Our warfare is against these principilities and powers. I don’t believe they are manifested like Paretti or LeHaye portrays them but just as real today as they were 2000 years ago none-the-less. Do they inhabit Ouiji boards? Why dabble with the occult at all?
          How did we get off on this rabbit trail?
          We now return to your regularly scheduled comments already in progress… 😯

        6. Ouija boards have no power at all. They are a complete fraud.
          The Powers and Principalities are in people and their institutions, not in mindless things like wood, cardboard and plastic. And if someone, somewhere has a solid gold Ouija board with a diamond pointer, it has no power, either.

  13. I do think the KJV is a good version (imo) but if I were to get a Bible for Christmas, I’d prefer one of the more modern versions (such as NASB or ESV… I already have several NIV’s). But I’m not suggesting being given a Bible for Christmas; I already have eight.. (although I would like a good study Bible..)

    1. I wanted a study Bible last year and got that crazy Kay Arthur study Bible – no offense to KA and her fans but I’m not coloring every word.

    2. Wanting a good study Bible? Might I suggest the “Common Man’s reference Bible” by Hoffman. I hear you can purchase it at $72 a steal of deal.

      He find nuggets in the Bible that no one else does. Literally, no one

        2. Oh, if you want a neat Bible that’ll really drive fundies nuts, try this:

          http://www.greenletterbible.com/

          Everything involving the environment, caring for animals, etc., is in green, and it’s NRSV. Even though I already have an NRSV, this one would still be an interesting addition to the collection.

        3. ok… i totally missed something here didn’t I. 😳 I just realized you were talking about that crazy Santa-is-Satan Bible. Sorry! I wasn’t paying attention to the link at all. 😳

  16. I noticed yesterday that I have a boxful of Bibles. I’m not sure how I got so many. I bought one of them, and got one or two others as gifts. They’re mostly all different translations, but I seldom read more than one or two of them.

      1. I donated a bunch of Bibles to an emerging church. (No, not all of them were KJV.) I got a parallel Bible and a few full Bibles of certain translations, so I passed on the New Testaments and the single translations.

    2. @BG,
      Me too. I think that is part of the recovery pathology. In my case, it was almost like with each new bible, I was in a sense “starting all over” and then it almost had a manic quality to it. It took me years to break that habit. All that said, if I see a REALLY nice bible in a store that is pleasing to the eye and I see that it is good for food, I’ll find it hard to resist the purchase. To this day, it’s been almost a year since I’ve purchased a bible…new or otherwise.

  17. I remember getting a KJV for a gift only once as a fundamentalist (not counting the few odd ones I got as awards for various things in Sunday School). It was either my 17th or 18th birthday and my parents bought me a really nice calfskin Cambridge. They got it for me with the idea that it would last me for years. Little did they know that I would switch to the NASB (and, from there, to other modern translations) just a few short years later. My Cambridge really is a very nice Bible (sturdy yet flexible cover and excellent binding) and I (almost) wish I still used the KJV to I could use it. Alas, I’m KJVN.

    1. I have a KJV Cambridge wide-margin French Morocco leather Bible. I love it but I should have gotten calfskin instead of French Morocco because the calfskin just feels way better. I love wide margin so that I can write in it, especially all those fundy sermons….

      1. I will write the points of a sermon in the margin if I really like them. Once, I was at a Christian school conference and someone from BJU was preaching. I realized I’d heard the sermon a few years earlier AT BJU; I had written his points in my Bible. I amused my fellow teachers by whispering to them the next point before the preacher could say it. I DID like the sermon, but thought it very funny that it was the exact same one!

        1. At a teen camp a few years ago, a preacher’s sermon was in my youth pastor’s bible (also Cambrige wide-margin) because that preacher preached it at my church before. In fact, the preacher mentioned in front of the camp that he preached that sermon at my church and that our youth group can go to sleep for the rest of the service. He was a funny guy.

        2. We had Spirit Week at the school where I used to teach, and one year we had an evangelist come who preached ALL the exact same messages he had preached only three or four years before. It was like he only had his howevermany set messages and he just repreached them everywhere he went.

          It wasn’t so bad that I noticed this, but my students commented on it, too.

        3. Several years ago I would end up at my parents’ church for a couple of months every winter due to the down-time in our music tours. That pastor always has February as “stewardsihp month.” One year I realized he preached the exact same message the year before because the notes were in my Bible! I always thought stewardship month was a good excuse to recycle old material and take a month “off” and make the people feel gulity at the same time. This church also has a favorite evangelist, great guy, really, who comes every year or two AND my church in Wyoming had the same fellow every year or two. Believe me, evangelists do preach the same sermons over and over in different churches. It’s a show and you memorize your material and delivery just as you would a musical performance. I heard the same ones several times in my bouncing back and forth. I sometimes saw this evangelist twice in a year. We thought it was quite funny and I consider him and his wife friends as we kept running into each other.

  18. When I first became a fundy, I bought my brother a Kids TNIV, because he was about 12 and wasn’t the best reader. I felt guilty that I had condemned him to hell by buying him a Satanic counterfeit. He is now a Christian in a grace church πŸ™‚

    (not because of the Bible I got him, but in spite of my attitude and fear mongering that he observed while I was an IFB).

    1. You liberal compromiser! Aren’t you aware that buying a child a TNIV will condemn them to a life of gender confusion? All of those “brothers and sisters” expansions are evil, don’t you know? 😈

  19. I have a KJV Bible of my mom’s signed by Bob Jones Jr and the Rev Ian Paisley. I never understood that practice of having ‘famous’ preachers autograph a Bible.

    I just downloaded a Douay-Rheims on my Nook. :mrgreen:

    1. Would this be the same Rev. Ian Paisley who is associated with Unionist terrorist groups in Northern Ireland?

      1. Big Gary – if it is, I would have to say that although I disagree with the man’s theology etc., to his credit he did co-operate with Jerry Adams and Sinn Fein (in the end)in forming the government, working towards a lasting peace and all that.

        But theologically speaking he could be called a Presbyterian Fundamentalist.

    2. I don’t care what version it is I would really like to get a Bible signed by Billy Graham. I would also like one signed by Elvis but at this junction in time that may be problematic.

    3. I remember when that Paisley guy would come to speak. I could never understand what he was screaming about. The accent plus I had no earthly idea what was going on in Ireland.

  21. I can think of one time that I would be thrilled to receive a Bible (yes, even a KJV) as a gift. My grandfather passed away when I was young, single digits, probably. I don’t remember much of him but I do remember that he loved God and he loved people, and that he was constantly reading, studying, and praying when I would stay at my grandparents’ house. (In fact, he passed away while praying having his morning devotions. My grandmom didn’t realize it until a few minutes later because she just assumed he was still praying.) I’ve had a chance to peruse the notes in some of his study books and that’s given me a chance to learn from and about him even though he’s been with the Lord for 20-some years. My aunt just offered to give me the rest of his library, including a few Bibles, which I’m looking forward to getting my hands on.

    So yeah, unwrapping that gift on Christmas day would probably bring a few tears.

    1. Mounty, I hope you get it, and let the tears flow when it’s in your hand.

      I have my grandfather’s Bible. Nobody’s getting it from me except for one of my nephews when I pass on. That’s not leaving the family.

      1. I have my grandmother’s Good Shepherd Bible, and I cherish it. There are so many family members I’m missing this year.

  22. Dude, hate to be the legalistic Pharisee here and risk getting either a resounding “NO DUH” or “who cares?” but the 12 days of Christmas are the days between Christmas Day and Epiphany (January 6, traditionally known for 2 events: Visitation of the Magi, hence many Latin tradition celebrating Dia de los Reyes – Three Kings Day and the Baptism of Jesus). There seems to be such an anti-climatic holiday hangover feeling in the US on Dec. 26 unlike in other countries, but I reckon the fatigue with all the carols, commercialism and ho-ho-hoeing make preparing for New Year’s all the more welcome.

    1. Being an independent Baptist nearly all my life, I never followed the liturgical church calendar, but I HATE that Christmas seems to end here in the USA on the 26th. The holiday is supposed to be from Dec. 25-January 6; I would like to hear Christmas music that whole time. The problem is that some radio stations start playing Christmas music November 1st (I HAAAATE that!) and they are so heartily sick of it that by noon on Christmas day they’re back to their regular programming. I think that’s ridiculous. IMO, Christmas music shouldn’t start until after Thanksgiving, but no one’s asking me! πŸ™‚ Also retailers start pushing Christmas as soon as Halloween is done, and once the orgy of gift-unwrapping is done Christmas AM, the stores are done with Christmas. I REALLY wish we would celebrate 12 traditional days of Christmas though.

      1. Oh, PW, you should see Christmas in England. You’d get your wish! They do start commercially as early as the US, maybe earlier because Halloween isn’t as big a deal and there is no Thanksgiving except among us expatriot Yanks. But the liturgical year is a big deal because of the Chruch of England. The base chapel (Protestant) did the Advent wreath this year and is was wonderful! I do SO agree with you about how in the US it all dwindles away by the 26th! Here, the 26th is Boxing Day and is considered like another Christmas Day for fun with friends and family without the church services to attend that come on Christmas.

      2. Call me uptight, but I think only Advent songs should be sung through December 24, and Christmas songs from December 25 through January 5. January 6 is, of course, Epiphany.

        I’m talking about songs that have some reference to the actual Christmas story.
        As for all the songs about Santa Claus, etc., I don’t know– maybe the week of Dec. 18 to 25?

        It seems fairly ludcirous to me that “Christmas” music also apparently has to include songs about snow, frost, snowmen, and riding around in sleighs, even for those of us who live in tropical climates. The other day, I heard “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” on the car radio as I drove past palm trees and cacti in the 90-degree heat. I’ve never seen a horse pulling a sleigh in my life, so that doesn’t symbolize Christmas time for me. As a little kid, I thought somebody was making all that up.

        1. I’ve never been in a church that observed Advent so, although as a church pianist I hate admitting this, what IS an advent song? I think “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is the only one in our hymnal that would qualify. Maybe “Breath of Heaven” – although that’s not a congregational song.

          Having grown up in New England, my Christmas imagery could be taken straight from a Currier and Ives lithograph. For a short while, I lived outside the “snow belt” and it was WEIRD walking on the beach at Christmas. I like snow for Christmas – then I wish it would go away again! πŸ™‚

        3. Thanks for the links. I checked cyberhymnal first, and out of the 44 listed, I only knew two: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus”. I’ve never sung or even heard of the others.

        4. I’ve seen “Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending” but never sung it. I thought I knew “Comfort, Comfort Ye My People”, but I think I was remembering the Messiah.

          I know hundreds if not thousands of hymns, but never even heard of nearly all of those! I’ll enjoy reading them.

        5. “Comfort, Comfort, Ye My People,” has a wonderful tune. (There may be other tunes to the same words– but at least one has a beautiful lilt to it.)

  23. I remember winning a bible at some contest or other when I was a kid. A nice blue hardcover that had “Published by the Gideons” on the front page. I am not making that up. I still have it in a box somewhere in the basement.

    1. When I graduated from nursing school, someone from my IFB church gave me a white Bible with Ò€œPublished by the GideonsÒ€ on the front page.

      Never felt more honored. πŸ™

      2. If it makes you feel any better about it, Kitty, the white cover Gideon Bibles are the ones they print specifically for giving to people in medical professions.

  24. KJVs also make “good” graduation presents; I got three when I graduated from my fundy high school. When I went to college, I promptly bought a NASB for chapel and a NIV for devotions and those gift/award Bibles are still sitting on a shelf at my parents’ house.

  25. Okay I must be a fruitcake lol. I bought my children ages 7 and 5 their first Bible for Christmas. Nope I’m not joking. The Bibles are pink and purple with their name on it. They asked for a Bible and seeing my husband is still KJVO they got KJV. Now they are getting toys and other things they asked for. I wouldn’t be a grinch and just get them a Bible for Christmas .

    1. Well hey, that’s different. Your first Bible is special πŸ™‚

      It’s the fifth and sixth that stop being so special lol

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