100 thoughts on “Jokes.”

  3. Question: Have “Pass It On” and “He Touched Me” been used as hymns in IFB churches?

    Way back when, “Pass It On” might have seemed a bit daring, a bit too modern. Now, when I hear it, I wish I were carrying a big bucket of water.

    1. “Be Touched Me” — the favorite of Jack Schaap’s erstwhile youth group girl’s class.

    2. Anyone else pass the time during boring services or other church activities by going through the hymnals and adding the phrase “in the bathtub” to the end of the titles?

      Getting to “He touched me” was always about when an adult in the vicinity shut down our fun.

      3. No, but I’ve heard of people adding “under the sheets.”(And I used to think it was “Bringing In The Sheets”–as in laundry.

        1. “Bringing in the sheets.” Bahahaha.

          There were so many song lyrics that I misunderstood as a child. I can still remember singing at the top of my lungs at Christmas time: “With Anne Jelly Coast proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem!” I thought the Anne Jelly Coast was some beach with a lot of jelly fish, but wasn’t sure what it had to do with Christmas.

    1. Not to mention your tie, slacks, and shiny black shoes.
      (Or your long skirt and high-heeled shoes if you’re a lady.)

      1. Not to mention panty hose – but you’d better not be wearing the patterned kind that Bill Grady despised.

        4. I have a couple of clients whose office dress code is super conservative. When I go to visit them I err on the side of caution and wear hose. There are less horrifying options than L’eggs, though. Calvin Klein makes decent ones that last through a few washings.

        5. My wife wears nylon stockings on very formal occasions, such as when she appears in court (she’s a lawyer).

        6. So, are hose even a thing any more?

          Cough, cough. The Woman Who Works for Hanes is NOT amused.

          Actually, tights are a huge thing. And I keep hearing that sheers are coming back into style, especially in large cities that are abandoning business casual for a dressier, more career-focused aesthetic. I’ve yet to see this phenomenon around my neck of the woods, but then, Manhattan we’re not.

          Then there’s Kate Middleton. She wears sheers. So there.

          And BTW, we make L’eggs, too. They are what they are. Inexpensive. 😀

        7. CGC, if it makes you feel better, I have tights. And patterned sheer hosiery.

          Yup. I’m a heathen.

  8. The speaker at my church this past Sunday read the story about the bathroom commode/Baptist church as a sermon illustration. Besides the fact that it didn’t fit the topic at all, the five minutes of potty humor didn’t go over all that well. I don’t go to a Fundy church anymore, but it’s important to know what is actually funny and in context.

  9. Dear SFL Reader:

    The Idiot’s Hymn: I’m Inright, Outright, Upright, Downright Happy All The Time…

    Christian Socialist

      1. Dear Dwelling in Imladris:

        All BS, All the Time…

        A new definition of fundyism. Bravo!

        Christian Socialist

      1. Hate seems to be an acceptable emotions for fundies except when they perceive themselves to be the target

    3. I remember that song pissing me off even as a kid. It just didn’t seem right to be expected to be happy ALL the time.

      2. Compare and contrast: “Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.”

        And let’s face it, it really is a vale of tears. Joys, too. But also tears.

        In Heaven He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Except in the case of fundies, because they haven’t got any. Tears, I mean. They DO have eyes. 🙂

  10. There’s also–

    The Girdle Hymn: “How Firm a Foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord”

    and the Elevator Hymn: “Rise Up, O Saints of God”

    1. Instead of the elevator song, could that instead be the viagra song? That was just nasty of me, remove it if you need to Darrell 🙂

  13. This was posted on FB by my EXTREMELY unFundy music pastor – corny music jokes are always good for a laugh! Don’t think this list will EVER die off FB now; stuff like this goes around, and around, and around. +100 for the hover text, BTW.

  14. The IRS Agent’s Hymn “I Surrender All” was actually used as the Building Program hymn at my former Fundy church.

      1. Over the years I have expanded the list of songs I will not sing. One of those is a fairly recent creation by one of the BJU-associated artists (I forget who) called “God’s Refining Fire.”

        Honestly. If God thinks I need judgment to purge me of sin, I’m sure He’ll (or is it Hell?) do it. But to ask for more suffering?

        Someone in the congregation requested this song at a time when things were very hard. It caused a lot of bitterness as I felt God was being quite unfair anyway.

        1. I’ve heard a similarly themed song on Christian radio in which the singer asks to be broken in order to be closer to God. I think that’s a song that comes from a place of prosperity and comfort, perhaps even naivete. When you are actually suffering, it seems foolish and morbid to ask for more; instead I ask God for strength, rescue, help, courage, rest, etc., not to be in more pain. If He brings it, I can choose to “praise Him in this storm,” but I don’t think I have to ASK him to bring anguish into my life.

        2. Some people feel guilty during hard times, thinking that God is judging them for some hidden sin or general lukewarmness. So they ask to be purged in order to be in good standing with God once more and not suffer so much. If only they could realize that everyone suffers at times whether or not they are ‘right with God’, and that much internal suffering can be avoided simply by rejecting such a schizophrenic view of God.

  15. The preacher announced that he was about to preach on the role of sex in marriage. He asked for the audience to select a hymn to sing.

    An elderly gentleman slowly raised his hand: “Precious Memories” he requested.

    3. On a related note, I just Googled and found the following:

      With well-chosen, direct words, the minister delivered his sermon on premarital sex. Sex was good, he said, but it should be reserved until after the marriage ceremony. The congregation was unusually quiet. As the minister neared the end of his sermon, the worship leader at the time, spotted several people trying desperately to suppress their laughter. He was even more shocked to discover that his wife was among them. It was then he realized that the hymn he had chosen to follow the sermon was “O Why Not Tonight?”

    4. Another one I just Googled and found is as follows:

      A preacher was completing a temperance sermon: with great expression he said, “If I had all the beer in the world, I’d take it and throw it into the river.”

      With even greater emphasis, he said, “And if I had all the wine in the world, I’d take it and throw it into the river.”

      And then, finally, he said, “And if I had all the whiskey in the world, I’d take it and throw it into the river.” He sat down.

      The song leader then stood very cautiously and announced with a pleasant smile, “For our closing song, let us sing Hymn #365: ‘Shall We Gather At the River.'”

  16. Um…..I don’t know what kind of liberal, compromising church YOU went to, but our church was much too spiritual for bulletins! Order of service? Please! How can the Spirit work if you are telling Him what you are going to do? Not to mention that if the sermon topic/text is printed for all to see, the MOG would have to plan ahead (and maybe even study), rather than coming up with a message during the special music! And, no, it doesn’t matter that the order of service is always exactly the same, the point is that it is not written down!!!
    (Shakes head sadly at the demise of true fundamentalism)

  18. Exterminators hymn-Another One Bites The Dust. I couldn’t think of any fundy ones

    1. Well, you can do the Weird Al treatment of that song. “Another One Rides the Bus” is the theme song of every bus captain. It’s all about the numbers and never about the people.

  19. It is said that “Nearer My God to Thee” was played on the deck of the Titanic as the ship sank. An appropriate metaphor for Evangelical/IFB movement as a whole?

      1. Tragically then, perhaps “Nearer My God to Thee” would have been an appropriate hymn for some of the folks who were sitting at the front of the FBCH auditorium during the reign of Hyles.

        1. There was the FBCH-produced video (since purged from the interwebs, i think) where members were shown saying that the church marriage retreat was important because it let them have “a closer relationship with the pastor.” (This was during Jack Schaap’s reign.)

      2. “nearer to the MOG”, and that’s no joke. I was at a mission conference a couple days ago and heard the speaking missionary make the statement that you should never make a decision without the Pastors advice and input and, in fact, he should be the head of your home. I about fell out of my chair. I’ve heard other preachers say that but they were of the Hyles stripe. This guy was a WCBC guy, but older with old ties to Hyles.

        2. Oh, trust me, it goes right out the window when they want to preserve power. When my fiancee and I were in “counseling” with her “pastor” and we were trying to deal with serious family conflicts, he flat-out told me (about said fiancée), “Her mother speaks to God for her.” Which meant, of course, that any insanity her “authority” cooked up had to be obeyed.

          And, also of course, since I was engaged to someone who still lived at home, my priesthood got tossed out the window, too. I was expected to let my future mother-in-law dictate where I lived, where I went to church, and pretty much what kind of a job I had.

          Fucking bullshit.

        3. Dear HiddenExfundie:

          He should be called for that one. Publicly.

          Christian Socialist

  20. Fundies sing The Church’s One Foundation? Uh ok, if they do I’d be willing to wager that they don’t know it’s based on the 9th article of the apostles creed. The author was profferring textual proof in a debate about orthodoxy in the late 1900’s. I would sing my little heart out if I was ever in a Fundy church and they sang this.

    3. It wasn’t commonly sung in the compounds where I was interned, but it wasn’t beyond possibility.

      The protestant church I’m marginally part of occasionally sings it.

  21. The portion linking road speeds with hymn titles is mildly amusing, although 65 mph is Nearer My God to Thee? That’s below the limit in a lot of places!

    1. This “list” was made up many, many years ago, probably at least from the 1950s.

      I can remember when Bishop Fulton J. Sheen on TV would admonish, “Those St. Joseph statues on your dashboard don’t work at over 40 mph.”

      1. Our Texas Legislature has raised the limit to 85 m.p.h. on some roads. I believe the morticians’ trade groups lobbied for that one.

        1. And the hospital lobby, and the collision repair shop lobby, and the car dealer lobby, and . . .and . . . .and . . .

        3. I would assume on some of those long long long stretches of mostly empty space roads in Texas. Modern cars are capable of driving 85-95 safely in non-congested weather free flat spaces, and Texas has a lot of that is my understanding (never been there).

        5. What can I say, Linn? Our politicians hate Planned Parenthood and sex education, and they love guns, so …

          The conclusion is inescapable.

        6. Does Texas still allow open containers of alcohol in moving vehicles? It was still allowed when I left there in 1993…

        8. So, open container (if you don’t follow the law after the trip to the Beer Barn), open carry, and 85 mph–nobody ever tell me again that Californians are strange!

        9. 85! That’s awesome!

          When I was a kid, we drove across the panhandle of Texas. The nationwide speed limit at the time was 55. It was excruciating to have to go that slow on an empty, flat, straight freeway under a bright blue sky – no traffic, no exits, no curves, no reason at all to not be sailing along at whatever you could handle.

          (I regularly drive 70-75 on the highways around the major metropolitan area in which I live so 85 in Texas sounds completely reasonable. )

        10. Here in Michigan the speed limit is 70, but we typically drive 80 to 90, especially during rush hour when everyone’s in a hurry to get home.
          the Admiral

        11. I should have added, when I said that I regularly drive 70, is that the speed limit is 70!!!

    2. Has anyone else heard sermons or Sunday school lessons about how you should never, ever drive over the speed limit because that would be disobeying the civil authorities? Even if driving within the speed limit would cause a traffic jam because all the other cars are traveling faster?

      1. Yes! “Obey all the ordinances of man.” Being a perfectionist, people-pleasing first-born, I felt guilty not following the speed limit, especially with those sermons that stressed, “If you’re really saved, you’ll obey the Bible; the Bible says to obey EVERY ORDINANCE of man”. But, as you say, sometimes it’s wiser to move with traffic. My husband always said that as long as he was willing to pay the fine if caught, it was OK.

      2. I heard that, but then I also observed The Beautiful People regularly disregarding speed limits and other laws/regs pertaining to driving. Heard a lot of boasting about it as well.

      3. Try doing that on the urban interstates around here in St. Louis. Most of them have a posted speed limit of 60, but if you try that, you’ll do nothing but back up traffic, since most traffic seems to do about 70, maybe 75 if conditions permit (I set the cruise control on 65 myself).

  24. I actually thought it was mildly funny until the little prayer at the end. If you have to ask the Lord for a sense of humor you probably don’t have one and probably would not be capable of using it even if you did have one.

    1. Amen, preach it, Brother BamaMan!!

      And we are baaaaaaack!!! I am a little worried about LSU – that Fournette dude is a beast – but we are getting better and better every week. Roll Tide Roll!

    2. BTW…I cannot stop thinking about the horribly untimely death of Altee Tenpenny. Lord have mercy. He was only 20!!! Praying for the repose of his soul and for the comfort of his grieving family.

      1. CGC…tragic when these players have such an opportunity and throw it away. Tenpenny is just one of many who have done so. Death came to soon for him.

  27. The public defender’s hymn – Just as I am (without one plea)

    150 mph – I’ll Fly Away

Comments are closed.