Famous Fundies: Lester Roloff
Although Lester Roloff is perhaps best known for his homes for troubled youth, he was also very active in fundamentalist circles with everything from radio broadcasts to revival services. His sermons against television, alcohol, tobacco, pork, psychology, and Communism are largely regarded as classics by many fundamentalists.
After the State of Texas passed laws in 1975 that required licensing his youth homes, Roloff was arrested twice for refusing to comply. In 1982 Roloff’s plane crashed during a storm killing himself and three women on board. Incidentally, the crash occured on the same day that Governor Mark White — who had promised to shut down the Roloff homes — was elected. The wreckage of the crashed airplane in which he died is the centerpiece of Roloff Park at Hyles-Anderson College.
Presented here for your listening pleasure is one of his more famous “sermons” entitled “And the Mule Walked On” in which are addressed the topics of: long hair on men, short hair on women, makeup on women, hippies, buying gas on Sunday, too many people going swimming on Sunday, too many women cooking on Sunday, reading the newspaper on Sunday, newspaper delivery boys who go to the devil for delivering on Sunday, “homosectals”, professional football and baseball, people on dope from their family doctors, public schools, sex ed. and many, many others.
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(Note: the audio quality is poor for the first few seconds of intro. It clears up once the actual message begins)
Many thanks to James for his help in summarizing this amazing collection of topics
Posted by Darrell
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Wow, that’s a pretty impressive list for one sermon! And thanks for (once again) making me grateful for leaving fundyism for a church that *gasp* preaches from the Bible!
Fundies are like little Johnny Cochrans, they love the word plays…LR @ about 16 minutes in says we have turned weekends into the wicked end.
The Roloff Memorial at HAC:
That Roloff Memorial is just sick! Yuck yuck yuck. I did not grow up in a fundy home but many extended family members did. I’m so thankful for my Lutheran/later non-denom background.
Thank you God , for a man who stood in the Gap !!!!
I think “Dr. Law and Dr. Grace” may be a little more famous than “And the Mule Walked On.”
“the colored man gave me this verse”. . .
Hippies. Hippies?! How old is this?
“Thank you God , for a man who stood in the Gap !!!!” ??????????
What does that mean?
What Gap did he stand in? (the gap in the truth?)
Where is that gap? (Texas?)
What did he acomplish?
(Olen King and Mack Ford are former employees and passionate followers of Lester Roloff. The New Bethany Home for Boys and Girls was a product of the Roloff legacy and it has a long history of abuse and run-ins with state and local officials. There are scores of reports of torture and abuse coming out of New Bethany, which is now officially closed. Olen King and Mack Ford were the Director and founder of New Bethany School, respectfully)
How many lives were ruined in thoses so called homes?
(Eventually, 16 girls would come forward and tell of whippings, imprisonment, and being handcuffed to drainpipes at the hands of Rebekah Home staff. Lester Roloff defended these methods as solidly rooted in scripture. Of the charges pending against his abusive methods, Roloff said, “Better a pink bottom than a black soul.” Attorney General Hill said it wasn’t pink bottoms he objected to but ones that were black, blue and bloody. (Texas Monthly))
Beyond the Hype, Behind the mask: A look at the real Lester Roloff
http://www.nospank.net/colloff.htm
and
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/31378
There’s his legacy… put that in the gap!
ok- i’m starting to think that the “random post”s at the top are reading my mind…
i will say one positive thing about the roloff homes: it was the bible reading i did while at the roloff homes, as well as seeing baptist lifestyle being lived in its fullness, that helped convince me that the whole baptist scene: theology, history, lifestyle, et al, was a complete sham. thank you, Lord, for delivering me from those who think themselves Thy servants
@Don: thanks for those links! i had seen the first one before, but i hadn’t seen the 2nd one. looking forward to my lunch break to give it a good read!
doing some searching online, and it turns out that the guy in charge when i was there went ahead and died of injuries from an explosion. so there’s that.
@Don I remember at my church, a local one you are familiar with, when I was a kid there were abuse allegations brought against one of the men you mentioned in your post who started a local boys’ home, and we all wrote letters defending him, stating that there couldn’t be any truth to those allegations. Even though I was a kid, I wrote one too and the thought now makes me sick because I had nothing but our pastor’s word, there was no way we could’ve actually known that nothing happened.
I should say former church…
@Alm517
That is a perfect example of the cultic qualities of the IFB. The One man rule, and he can get “his” people to whatever he wants all he has to do I stand up there behind the “sacred desk” and say what he wants done. The modern church template gives too much extra biblical authority to the professional hired gun, aka. self-apointed Man o Gawd. The caste system that is the Clergy/Laity system, sets the “common” saint up as the one who has to be lead and is somehow lesser than Gawd’s anointed super saint.
Hey don’t feel bad, I staked my reputation on, and gave my friendship and fidelity to, one of these phoney-baloney con artists who turned out to be a felon. He fooled the entire local cadre of IFB Übermensch Under-shepherds and fooled his flock into thinking “he” was being persecuted by a Secret Society of Homosexuals which had infiltrated the entire justice system, the local police, The DA’s office… oh they were everywhere. And their network was so good they only attacked him when he was by himself.
H-E-L-L-O???? McFly!?? Yeah, now I look back and go…DUH! But at the time, I was a grown man drunk on the IFB’s, “honor the man-o-gawd-no-matter-what,” kool-aid and a bit psychotic from breathing the “we-are-the-only-ones-who-have-the-truth” poisoned air, trapped in the IFB Bunker’s airlock. You want to know a good description of the particular brand of Fundy crap we went through?
Yep, that about sums up the IFB cult as I know it. Three of the Six pastors I have sat under in my 47 years were IFB dictators, why didn’t I learn sooner? It is the herd mentality, and the need to be accepted and be a part of something you perceive is greater than yourself… and the con-artists running the IFB are masters at providing the setting for you and once you are hooked they play you for all they can, until you either submit and kowtow to them, you leave turn your back on God and blame Him for all the crap, or you get fed up and get out. I’m out and I can’t go back to it.
Oy Vey! Did I write so much? I apologize for the novel.