298 thoughts on “‘Tis So Sweet (To Wear Long Dresses)”

  2. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!

    “He’ll always show you what is modest – never shorts or pants” – Oh, really? Because riding a horse in a skirt is SO modest (or playing tug-or-war or climbing a ladder or swinging on a swing, etc.)

    I really hope this was done tongue-in-cheek. But if fundies are liking it, they are showing the emptiness of their religion — that it’s become about outward standards and not Jesus.

    Why not just sing about burqas while she’s at it?

    1. Oh, Pastor’s Wife, you should know by now that if a woman cannot do it modestly in a dress that she should not be doing it at all. *shakes head sadly*

        2. If you stand in the kitchen as you’re making supper the baby can just drop onto that quilt you made and no one needs to see your lady parts.

        4. Ladies ALWAYS keep their lady parts properly covered. Me, for example … my doctor very considerably draped all of me and cut right into me so that no one was ever exposed to my dainty bits.

        6. Ooooo! There’s an argument skirts-only fundies could use: one cannot give birth in a pair of pants so it’s obvious that women were not meant to wear them.

        7. Scorpio, you were fallen long before I met you. You can’t stumble if you’re already on the ground.

        8. I was going to say that I always keep my lady parts covered but then I realized I’m no lady. A woman, yes; a lady, no.

        9. Semp, every woman is a lady in the sense of being worthy of respect, and in being capable to deal with anything.

      3. Semp, as much work as goes into making a quilt, there’s no way any baby is going to be delivered on one of mine!

        4. Dr F, I’m shocked and disappointed you would say that. We all know that good fundy wimminz grow their own cotton and shear their own sheep so that they may weave their own cloth to make a safe landing pad for their offspring.

    2. “But if fundies are liking it, they are showing the emptiness of their religion — that it’s become about outward standards and not Jesus.”

      Beautifully said, Pastor’s Wife!!

    4. It’s sad. There’s no difference between a “heathen” looking at a girl in bikini and saying “She’s hot” and a MoG checking out a woman in a frumpy sweater and a long denim skirt and saying “She’s holy”. They’re both sexually objectified and the overall value placed upon them is determined by their appearance.

  4. In fairness, many fundies are willing to laugh at themselves and go right on fundying. They know the grass isn’t greener on the other side of the fence. Their pastor told them so.

    1. That’s a good point! They may laugh at their idiosyncrasies (or the extremism of another fundy camp) but they don’t usually change.

      1. They enjoy being that stupid. They don’t mind saying their ideas are out that. It plays into the martyr syndrome they hold so near to their hears.

    2. Exactly. I have seen that attitude.

      Also, they like to point and laugh at “those more extreme fundies”, when they really are just as bad.

    3. I think there is an ability to laugh at themselves but then have a smug piety about it. “Ha, yes some of us fundamentalists worship the law but I follow the law because I have a pure heart.”

  5. I think this is parody. A couple of times in the video she cracked a smile that gave it away.

    2. She looks kinda like Emma Stone.

      Now that I’ve brought it up, Stone’s film Easy A is one of the best parodies of modern fundamentalism that Hollywood has come up with in a while.

      1. Yes, I think “Easy A” is an underappreciated movie. It’s far from perfect, but it has some brilliant bits in it.

      1. Even if it is comedy, the saddest part is the fundies will take it as gospel.

    1. “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus” is replaced by these lyrics. It’s a beautiful indictment of those who replace simple trust in Christ with non-biblical ‘standards’.

  8. Long hair – check
    Hymn-playing – check
    Sweet demeanor – check
    Praising old-fashioned modesty – check
    Lady-like top – check
    MAKE-UP – horrors!!!! What a harlot!!!

    (See? That’s the fun of judging people by external standards: you can always find something to criticize. There are others who’d hate that her hair wasn’t covered or think that she’s sinning by singing in a church building and not being silent or she’s exposing too much arm, etc., etc. It never ends. That’s why the law KILLS and why the Gospel of grace is such good news.)

    1. You missed judging her for a big fundy sin from my experience. She allowed herself to be videotaped. Which proves she is not singing for the Glory of God but for her own worldly attention.

        1. It is easy……….

          The neckline of that dress can only be described as plunging. And with her hair hanging down it only draws attention to her bare skin. This will cause me to stumble. Does anyone have a Sharpie that we can use to cover her lusting flesh?

        3. Not only that, but those sleeves are so short you can almost see her shoulders. Or at least think about seeing them.
          It’s causing me to stumble.

          Yessiree, it’s the game that everybody loses.

      2. Exactly! She should have stepped aside and let her husband be the one filmed while singing and wearing the dress. :mrgreen:

        4. Ok Semp! I just spewed watermelon all over my laptop. I am sending you the bill for cleaning it. LOL! That is a good one!

    2. She also clearly is from a part of the country where people are allowed to embrace certain styles of secular music, namely the countrified pop music that comes out of the cesspool of Dollywood in Nashville. Its obvious that she has not been taught the truth my particular branch of fundamentalism had been handed down from God through the careful scholarship of Frank Garlock and Tim Fisher, that truth regarding the superiority, nay the exclusivity, of the western classical style and its strange bedfellow, the early 1900’s gospel song which is actually popular folk music in style but can be transformed by the addition of the cheesy orchestration and a frigid choir of white folks into something that at least from a distance looks like the great music of Hyden, Bach, and their contemporaries if you squint (and use autotune)

      This sliding and embellishment of the notes along with the sultry sutherin accent (and the fact that she is behind in the pocket all the way through) is not of God, it is of the World, and we are not to be worldly, haymen!

      While her evangelistic style of hymnplaying is to be commended, she needs to be taught properly from the Bible about how her singing should not distract people from the text because it sounds like she is in a nightclub. These things might be subtle, but the devil is the angel of light, he was the music director of heaven and has infiltrated even such a godly young lady as this with his evil sensuality in her singing. This mixture of the holy and the profane evidenced in the style vs. the truth in this video leads to all kinds of confusion and we know God is not the author of that.

      Someone may need to come alongside her like Priscilla and Aquilla did for Apollos and show her a more excellent way. I nominate Scorpio.

      2. Yes, we certainly wouldn’t want to distract anyone from that profound text about how God doesn’t want us to wear pants!

      3. I think you meant a more “accurate” way.

        oops…

        That is from the NASB. I’m sorry, that make me a heretic.

      4. *adjusts tie and clears throat*

        Yeeeaaah. What’s Happening? We need to go ahead and talk about your singing style. I also need to measure the length of your skirt. Be in my office Friday at 8pm. I’ll bring the ruler. That would be great. Mmmkay?

        1. Generally we ask the girls to get down on their knees around here……………..you know, to make sure the hem touches the floor.

      6. She also seems to be playing the piano by ear. I was once warned about playing “by ear,” as that opens up my piano playing to fleshly rhythms, chord progressions, and worldly “runs.” Unless a person is playing from a piece that has been properly composed (under the leadership of the Holy Ghost) and penned accurately on a grand staff, then peer reviewed by the authorities on what is proper Christian music and what isn’t, that person is clearly being guided by the flesh rather than the Spirit!
        Those chord progressions and country swing hot licks are indicative of the fact that she has fallen under the influence of music that doesn’t meet those criteria!
        She also was crooning and spooning, both being attempts at vocal seduction. What may of you took to be humorous gazes into the camera would be considered ocular intercourse at some large Christian colleges near the panhandle of Florida. A lady should not look directly into the camera when being filmed–some poor preacher might fall into adultery, and it would be all her fault!!!!

        1. How can these people not recognize themselves as modern-day Pharisees when they load such extra-Biblical regulations on other believers?

          (Not to mention how creepy it is that everything seems so sexualized to them.)

  9. This has to be a parody because a real Fundy would not commit sacrilege by turning a serious song about Jesus into one about dresses…lol

      1. the essence of Poe’s law, if this is parody we should praise it, for it is good, but we can never quite be sure it isn’t someone’s idea of what actually should be.

        A Corollary to Poe’s law would be that for every legit parody of fundamentalism, there are a number of people or institutions that would amen the parody as truth instead of realizing it was tongue in cheek.

        As they say, a joke isn’t funny if it isn’t at least a little bit true.

        1. There’s another corollary that you can’t start a joke religion for kicks without a bunch of people actually becoming zealous followers of it.
          The Church of the Subgenious and Pastafarianism are two examples.
          Some people would have it the Christianity is another example, but I’m not having that argument.

        2. Try that last sentence again, George:
          Some people would have it that Christianity is another example, but I don’t buy that argument.

        3. In the late 1990’s my cousin and I made a website explaining how interdimensional, highly intelligent gerbils were utilizing mechanical cow constructs to infiltrate our society with the goal of world domination. They were devout followers of a beef-based religion and hailed from Cowgrala.

          We were sent a notice one day that our site had been shut down because some church in the Ozarks spearheaded a petition to have our offensive and heretical material removed from the hosting server. They sent us a strongly worded email about how evil our”doctrine” was = )

        5. I think it is sad that we are having to even question it. It is sad that from where we all come from it could actually be real. Me oh my!!

      2. In the “it’s parody” ledger, it is filed under a comedy, however it looks like the default on that account is to file everything under comedy, I only saw 1 video that was something other than comedy and it was something like entertainment. Feels like 50/50 if it’s parody or legit.

    1. In my circles, white pianos would have been frowned on as ostentatious and thus worldly.

        4. Big G, at an ATI conference in Sacramento once, there was a nude sculpture outside the conference center. The first day, all the little children (aged 0-25) said “oooh, nudity!!” The second day, an ATI momma made a Roman-style toga to wrap around it. The third day, another ATI momma made a SUIT complete with dress shirt and tie, and adorned the statute modestly therewith. In her mind, even the toga wasn’t modest because it was a “pagan garment.”

        7. Our church is not overly concerned about modesty, but until just very recently we always had to put lots of plants around the piano, because we wouldn’t want anyone to know that the piano player actually has…..LEGS!

        8. BIG G:

          I guess the derogatory “what a boob” comments really got to Ashcroft.

          I loved the statement in the article: “The attorney general was not even aware of the situation. Obviously, he has more important things to do.”

        9. When people said “What a boob!” they weren’t talking about a statue.
          W appointed Ashcroft to the AG job as a consolation prize after Ashcroft earned the distinction of being the only U.S. Senator to be defeated in a re-election bid by a dead man. (The Democratic candidate died so close to election day that the ballots couldn’t be changed.) From there, Ashcroft went on to distinguish himself in like manner in the Justice Departmen.

          The claim that he didn’t know about covering the statue was by one of Ashcroft’s spin doctors. Other reports said that he insisted on having the statue either covered or removed because it didn’t comport with his Fundamentalist standards of propriety.

        10. I won’t give Ashcroft much credit, but I do give him this: (1) He was better than Alberto Gonzalez, and (2) He was willing to say no to Cheney occasionally (which is sort of related to being better than Alberto), just not often enough.

        11. (1) and (2) are really the same thing, but I agree with you, Rob.
          Although “better than Alberto Gonzalez” is a bar so low it isn’t above the ground at all.

  12. I think a lot of people took it for what it was, a joke. I saw another video, which was pretty funny; it was a revival-esk song called “I got a kidney stone”. But, I’m sure a lot of people will think its real too.

  13. I’m having a bit of trouble with the lyrics. Can someone type them out for me?

    1. ‘Tis so sweet to wear long dresses
      They always come well past my knee
      The Bible teaches me to be modest
      So that is what I want to be

      Dresses, dresses oh long dresses
      Let them come right to the floor
      Dresses, dresses oh long dresses
      Let me wear them more and more

      ‘Tis so sweet to keep it holy
      Dress your best for God on high
      Wordly clothes are of the devil
      It’s too short if you see thigh.

      ‘Tis so sweet to ask the Spirit
      What is wrong and what is right
      He’ll always show you what is modest
      Never pants or shorts [unclear]*

      *first time sounded like “or glowing/flowing eyes”, which makes no sense; upon repeats, it may be “for stumbling eyes” – I have to admit failure here

      Dresses, dresses, oh long dresses
      Let them come right to the floor
      Dresses, dresses oh long dresses
      Let me wear them more and more.

      Dresses, dresses oh long dresses
      Let us wear them more and more.

        1. Never pants or shorts or clothing tight – yep, that’s got to be it, but I certainly cannot hear the “t” in “tight”

      2. Thank you so much. Now I get it. But I hope God will forgive me if I prefer the original version of this song, “‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.” It may not be full of Fundy standards but it sure makes my heart happy.

  14. Do these people even ever think about the effect to their credibility re anything in scripture when they start claiming the bible says for women to wear long dresses?

    1. In my circles, while the implication was clearly that God WANTED women in skirts, if pressed, the fundies would admit that the Bible didn’t ACTUALLY say it, but they’d immediately add how it does tell us to come out from the world and be separate, to be a peculiar people, to want to please God, and why WOULDN’T we want to give up pants for Jesus who gave up everything for us?

      1. Of course, the message young people are hearing is “The Bible says I have to wear skirts” and when they discover that isn’t so, it can totally damage the credibility of those people who taught that.

        1. Or then you have people like my sister who went to West Coast because “she knew it was a sin to wear pants but didn’t know how to prove it from the Bible.” She still doesn’t know how to prove it from the Bible, but West Coast taught her that she should still hold that standard high (or, in the case of skirts, low??) no matter what!!! She recently stated that she wants to be a missionary to England to work among British Christians because “some of their women don’t know that it’s a sin to wear pants!” My sister = the IFB Pantsvangelist.

        2. @DS, I sure would like to live in England someday, but I would not have the goal of manipulating women into wearing long dresses. If your sister moves there, I could use a heads up of where she is to avoid it!

        3. D’sS: Please keep us updated about your sister. Going to England will prove enlightening, both ways. :highfive:

        4. Well, I should clarify, she isn’t actually GOING to be a missionary in England. She is going to be one of those IFBers who spend their whole life telling people they are “called to missions” and stand in church when the pastor says “all the missionaries please stand” and get a portion of the missions’ conference offering take and such but never actually get off their asses and go to a foreign field. At some point, later in our lives, I expect to hear her say, “well, I WAS a missionary to my local community, you know” and hide behind that until she dies.

        5. @D’sS: I admit, I wish your sister would fall in love with a Scotsman, one in full kilt no less. God does move in mysterious ways.

      2. Ask the Spirit, he’ll tell you. And when he tells someone from that church down the street something different, well that’s just proof that not everyone is actually listening to the right spirit, and we all know who the real Spirit is, the one who would tell you not to wear pants.

        I mean, you wouldn’t drive as close to a cliff as possible right?

        1. If the cliff in this metaphor is women in short dresses/skirts and tight clothes, I’m going to be metaphorically driving very close to it. 🙂

        3. RobM, I often go right over that cliff these days. In fact, on any particular day I can be over one — if not several cliffs. Today I’m wearing jeans. Later I will have a drink. Tomorrow I will probably wear a sleeveless top with low neckline and relatively short skirt. No denim jumpers with cutesy embroidery for me.

        5. DS
          I would love it if your sister came here to the UK to tell us British Christians that it ‘is a sin to wear pants’. She may find that a response which involves British women ceasing to wear pants is not the one she expected…

      3. In my circles, it was all based on the verse that says women should dress with modesty. The IFB interprets that to mean skirts or dresses at or below the knee. It’s a completely arbitrary definition (nothing new there). When I pointed that out to someone, I was told that, in the original Greek, the word translated as “modest” means “long and flowing.” I checked–it doesn’t. It means “in accordance with accepted standards of behavior.”

        1. Right.
          So if you’re a traditional native of the Amazon Rain forest, wearing only a woven belt and some paint is modest.
          I’m serious.

        2. That is correct, BG. Unfortunately, Paul’s exhortation is somewhat lost because we have tended to conflate modesty with the amount of skin showing. In actuality, showing a lot of skin can be a subset of immodesty (as you rightly point out, depending on context). Immodesty is actually about flaunting oneself, specifically showing off one’s superiority to others. Bragging about how many souls one saved (to use their language, not mine) is just as immodest as a woman wearing a stripper pole to church (threw that one in for Scorpio).

        4. In some circles, the katastole has become the Baptist burqa. This mythical garment stands in as a proxy for muumuus and denim jumpers.

        5. Dr Fundystan, just how does one wear a stripper pole to church? Stripper heels I can visualize, but the wearing of a pole, not so much.

        6. @semp I think that’s a question that can only be answered by an in person investigation. If the good Dr can provide the address I think we can all get to the bottom of this one!

        8. EXACTLY! I was going to write just that about the long and flowing malarkey. I have friend who says that. I researched modesty from the Bible and every time I have done so I get behavior out of that and not clothing. Now the modest apparel doesn’t mean long and flowing in my studies. So I suppose I have the wrong KJV Bible.

        9. In the context, I think it means don’t wear fancy clothes to show off. It’s not a question of how much skin you expose (unless you’re doing that to show off).

        3. Actually, word has it that during the last maxi skirt fad, Bob Jones University had a “medium length” skirt rule which banned BOTH mini and maxi skirts!

          The rationale for the maxi skirt rule, I was told, was that women generally wore sleeveless tops with maxi skirts, so maxi skirts were immodest.

        4. Maxi skirts were popular when I was at Bob Jones in the early ’70’s. We were allowed to wear them then. I had several. So, Deacon’s Son, if what you heard is true & they couldn’t wear them at one point in time, it goes to show how the fundies’ standards keep changing. If the rules were really based on the Bible, they wouldn’t keep on changing. So, glad that I don’t have to follow those stupid rules anymore.

    2. @RobM

      Scripture says that women adorn themselves in modest apparel. The word modest in the Greek means a long flowing garment.

      I heard that at a fundy church service a few years ago.

      1. Actually, it’s the word for “apparel” that they say means a “long flowing garment.” Query why the word needs the modifier “modest” if the garment is already long and flowing?

      2. I’d also add that katastole was used for men’s and women’s apparel, so if the word really does mean dresses, then presumably God wants everyone to be wearing a dress.

        1. I never heard of katastole.

          Is that like the Mormon’s magic underpants?

        2. It is the Greek word translated “apparel”. Kata meaning down – a garment flowing down; and Stole – a long garment, covering or wrapping.

        3. Ah, thanks. I wondered if they were compromising with the Mormons like Glenn Beck.

  15. FWIW, it’s one of the mental leftovers from my own Born Again days; even after 30 years I just don’t feel comfortable in anything that doesn’t come to the knee. And in truth, I’m not crazy about wearing pants either (don’t even own a pair of jeans or khakis).
    The dress our singer is wearing actually looks nice; I honestly wish more women would wear dresses and skirts, long or short, though I know pants are probably more convenient for most things. I’m getting old fashioned some days. 😕

    1. I think dresses look pretty! It’s fun to be out somewhere and have people dressed up. But I don’t like being forced to or being told I’m ungodly if I don’t.

      (I put on a loose knee-length flowy skirt this morning because we hadn’t turned our AC on and it was 80 degrees and my capris were way too hot!)

        2. I live in the extreme south of Texas (the Rio Grande Valley). The tippy-toe of Texas, as someone on TV called it once.

      2. 80 inside the house at 6 a.m.! (We did turn on the AC.)

        And 97 outside – blech. I love weather in the 60s or 70s. If it’s in the 80s or more, I want to be on a beach.

      3. I do like a nice skirt. Sadly I find myself not wearing them because I don’t want to be in the same league as them. If I am in a skirt around the house, I need to do laundry because all my breetches are in the wash. LOL!

        It has been an interesting ride coming away from all of their ideas. The amount of shunning blows my mind, but I know I should not have been surprised.
        One thing I learned….’If you want to lose a fundy friend really fast….start wearing pants’. UGH!!

      4. I agree! I like wearing dresses and skirts as long as it is MY choice, and I’m not being forced or guilted into it.

        1. My feeling on the “wearing dresses” thing was if God is omnipresent and omnipotent — He sees me when I first wake up and when I go to bed and every second in between — why does a dress make me “holier” or “closer to God” than all the other moments in the day.

        2. When I bother to attend church at all, which is probably 40-50% of the time, I wear a skirt. I just do it because I like it. Jeans are okay but not really my thing. Even if all I’m doing is having breakfast with friends at IHoP, I prefer to wear a skirt. Nothing holy in my intentions at all.

        3. When I bother to attend church at all, which is probably 40-50% of the time, I wear a skirt. I just do it because I like it. Jeans are okay but not really my thing. Even if all I’m doing is having breakfast with friends at IHoP, I prefer to wear a skirt. Nothing holy in my intentions at all.

        5. Yes! Today I’m wearing one of those dresses with the high-low hemlines: right above my knee in front, slightly below in the back. It’s stretchy and swishy and I love it. Not a big fan of dress pants but love me some jeans and shorts <3

  16. I sure hope this is a parody, cause she too pretty to be that way….

  17. Yeah, I know, I know. Poe’s Law. But come on, there is no way this is not a piece of satire. It just has to be.

    2. I thought so at first, but now I’m not too sure; she has some other videos, and she is always wearing dresses. I’m guessing that her father or a friend did the camera work, and that was the cause of the looks she was giving.

      1. Her father wrote the lyrics, according to the note on the YouTube page.
        Whether or not his intentions were ironic is not indicated.

  18. I also think it is a parody, though I do think she is a current fundy based on her YouTube profile and subscriptions. But, a fundy on the edge if you ask me since she “liked” contemporary Christian videos. Such a slippery slope into full-blown liberalism compromisin’.

    1. Similar to Amish rumspringa, I have noticed a trend in fundydom in recent years to allow the young people a bit of “flirtation” with the world (a Facebook “like” of Casting Crowns here, an Aeropostale hoody there). This is smiled upon with patronizing tolerance because the mommas and daddies and pastors know that since they are only going to allow these kids to go to Bible college they will get straightened out soon enough. It has the added benefit of giving the preachers ammo for sermons against “the teenagers.”

    2. A friend of mine (who belonged to whole different kind of crazy fundy church) once did a parody of southern gospel music. He sat down on the piano and composed a song on the fly, using all the cliches and catchphrases of those types of songs. Went to a fundy church, definitely not a fundy.

      I’m guessing that’s what’s going on here.

  20. I’m going to throw my vote for parody as well. But I hope PW will get on youtube and repeat her comment that leads us to the gospel of Grace as our only hope. That was well put.

  21. I’m not so sure it’s a parody. The youtube channel this was posted from has several likes, including a video with Curtis Hudson. I say it’s supposed to be funny, but also true.

  22. If this is indeed a parody, it just proves that some things can’t be parodied because the reality already looks like one.

  23. Clearly a parody. It will probably go over the heads of most of the commenters her though just like the port-a-pulpit video. SFL regulars don’t like anyone but Darrel to do fundy parody.
    Also, sweet voice.

    2. Ahh, I was waiting for someone to make the obligatory “nice voice” comment. As if having a “nice voice” justifies doing anything you want with that voice. I’ll wager if she was singing an ode to Satan you wouldn’t be so quick to comment on her “nice voice.”

      2. Quite to the contrary- she’s using a vocal style that not only do I find grating, but that will ruin her voice completely if she doesn’t stop.

        1. Yes, that’s what I thought.
          She’s really pounding that piano to pieces, too.

    3. Its not a sin for people not to have similar senses of humor. And it has been stated that this is more than likely a parody. And fundies can and do laugh at themselves through parodies….although there is usually a self justifying–“I don’t worship the law like those foolish fundies, I do it out of pure worship.” So thanks for being condescending.

  25. Here is an anecdote that will shed some light on why it is so hard to tell for sure if this is parody or not. I once had to take a road trip with my fundy sister. (This was about 10 years ago.) To pass the time, I brought a bunch of random CDs that I thought would be “safe” but also push the envelop with my sister a little bit. One happened to be the cast recording of Elton John’s Aida.

    When the song “Dress has Always Been my Strongest Suit” came on, my sister became very excited. After the song was over, she turned off the music and said, “it’s so wonderful that even the world recognizes that a dress is the best clothing for a woman!!” I had to explain to her that “dress” (as used in the song) and “a dress” (in the fundy sense) meant two very different things. She was quite disappointed.

    1. “it’s so wonderful that even the world recognizes that a dress is the best clothing for a woman!!”

      My husband — who is neither a fundy nor a child of fundies, absolutely prefers dresses.

      The reason for that isn’t modesty but convenience.

      Which, come to think of it, may well be why pervy MoGs also prefer skirts.

  26. Deacon’s Son–

    Going to England as a missionary?

    I hope she visits the great cathedrals and the village churches and realizes that the Christian faith has been in England for a long, long time. They’re doing very well without her, thank you.

    1. If they wear pants in England, then they are not the right kind of Christians. Thus, my sister’s desire to come to England to teach the Christians to be her kind of Christians. (A/k/a she came up with what she thought was the easiest missionary work possible – a full time vacation with some “dresses only” Bible studies thrown in.)

      1. Deacon’s Son, what’s it going to take to get you to write that book?!?

      2. She may not find England easy as a ‘mission field’. There has been a smallish KJV only group in our area for around 20 years. I assume it is an IFB mission as they had Sam Gipp over to speak some years ago. They have been a small group AFAIK for all that time.

        1. Aside from learning the language, there’s not much work involved in being an American missionary to England. Oh, and learning to drive the wrong way.

          They have electricity, hot and cold running water, a reasonable climate, and the interwebz. What more could lazy, rich Americans want in a mission field?

    2. Jay – I’m not sure that Christianity in the UK is doing that well. If you measure it by church attendance it is on the decline and the number of people identifying as Christians in the census has also declined.
      Whether we need USA missionaries to make it better is another question, of course…

      1. “If you measure it by church attendance it is on the decline and the number of people identifying as Christians in the census has also declined.”

        It seems that I’ve heard of another large, English-speaking country where that’s also the case. Which one was it? Trinidad? No, a bigger one. Australia? No, it was in the Northern Hemisphere. It’ll come to me in a minute. Just let me think …

      2. True, Jo A. The days of the “official state church” are done, but I don’t think hard-core fundamentalism is the answer.

    1. Don’t even need to watch the video. I know it’s full of cold, dead Protestants. (Says my mother every time I have tried to show her something like this.)

      1. Plenty of cold, dead Protestants and even some cold, dead Roman Catholics are buried in Westminister Abbey. And even more are memorialized with plaques.

      2. “‘Cheer up, old man,’ he said, and winked.
        “‘It’s kind of fun to be extinct!”
        — Ogden Nash, from “The Carnival Of The Animals”, the Fossil section.

    2. Any good fundy will tell you that these people are just trying to sing their way into heaven. When was the last time any of them knocked on a door. Amen?

      1. Fundy logic:

        Religious activity done by groups we don’t like: Vainly trying to work their way to heaven

        Religious activity done by ourselves: Showing God how much we love Him

        1. You don’t have to be ‘fundy’ to be able to point out the bad doctrine of other ‘groups’.

        4. Religious correction 3.0: Telling gid how much we expect to see our enemies squirm under the MOg’s heels.

        5. Pulverizer, of course a church should teach doctrine and in so doing teach how it is different from other churches’ doctrines.

          However, the point Scorpio and I were making was not that fundies were criticizing doctrine but that they might judge the motives of the people singing. (If they sing, they’re trying to work their way to heaven; if we sing, it’s to worship.)

          Another point on criticizing doctrine also: it is essential that one represent the other church’s doctrines accurately.

          For example, I was taught that most churches did not teach the Gospel. I almost dissolved in tears a couple summers ago at a church rummage sale at a local Methodist church when I saw a hand-made poster on a Sunday School classroom wall clearly spelling out the plan of salvation. The Gospel WAS being presented at that church, despite what I’d been told all my life.

        6. P, W,.
          I like your Fundy logic statement. I’m going to add it to my list of quotations I save for occasional use.
          I will even try to remember to give proper credit when I use it.

  29. Just wanted to say I read your username originally as “Sing a Song of Six Plants”

  30. Cough. Cough.

    Yes, I like to see girls in dresses. Particularly, the nice SYTs for sore eyes (sweet young things). Not too long, of course. And there should be a definite swish about the skirt.

    Sigh. My wife and my daughter do NOT like to wear dresses. Or skirts. They are quite practical, and of course the husband and father’s words about such things fall on deaf ears.

    No, if a young lady is going to turn my eye, a dress will do it better than pants or shorts will. There is something soft and inviting about such clothing. Another sigh. I am too old and unpreposessing for any young ladies to look my way anyway.

    Which begs the question. Isn’t the idea of “modest” dress to take attention away from yourself? In today’s world, dresses do not seem to be fulfilling that role, even the long ones.

    1. It’s so confusing for women: we are told that we are not to draw attention to ourselves through our clothing, yet wearing skirts does do that, especially in situations where no one else is wearing a skirt (like exercising at the gym). We’re told that if men lust after us, it’s our fault, but we’re also told that we should wear skirts because men like women to wear skirts.

      1. Well, the truth is, women are the most beautiful thing God created. Period. So, good luck not drawing attention to yourself. Having said that, I don’t believe this is what modesty is about.

        1. My mother would beg to differ. She has always taught me that it’s MEN who are beautiful; often citing Michelangelo’s “David” and arguing her own mother down.
          For some fun with that, check out the M’s David Magnet set.
          Mother really doesn’t have much use for our sex.

        3. I realize I’m really late on getting in on this conversation, but that was very well put!

          After reading through some of this stuff, I’m realizing that my IFB upbringing wasn’t NEAR as crazy as some of you poor people on here!!
          My parents didn’t “allow” us girls to wear pants…but we could do the whole 2 inches above the knee “culotte” thing… which never made a bit of sense to me.
          We were also “allowed” to wear sweat pants in the house if we were cold.
          Still, that never really made any consistent sense to me either…?!

  31. At our former IFB, there were even women who would get on the back of their husband’s motorcycle in a dress! Now, I have always agreed with and believed in the Bible’s “concept” of modesty, but IFB blows it so out of proportion — like thinking wearing a dress while riding on a motorcycle is appropriate or modest!

    BTW: I drive/ride my own motorcycle — not on the back of the hubby’s!

    1. I came across a blog where a woman was advocating skirts-only. She said none of her daughters had ever worn pants except her oldest daughter who needed to while in South America because of the bugs. However, the girl was so worried about it she called her mother long-distance, agonizing about whether she would displease God if she wore pants, even though a skirt is impractical and even dangerous in that situation.

      1. My sister did exactly the same thing when she did “rustic” missionary work at a camp in Russia. For the first week, she decided to go with the flow and wear pants. But God convicted her and showed her that she was out of fellowship with Him and that was why no one was getting saved. So the second week, she switched to dresses even though the leadership at the camp asked her not to do so. THEN, ta-da!!!, lots of people got saved!! (Actually, I made that last part up. Because it didn’t happen. But she tells the story in such a way that you are supposed to infer that by implication.) This was, no lie, part of God showing her that she was not called to be a missionary to a “rough” country, but rather one that was clean, and neat, and tidy . . . like England!!!

        1. Like England? It’s not neat and tidy everywhere. I’ve had to choose my steps carefully to avoid sheep droppings. There are parts of London, for example, you wouldn’t want to be after dark.

          And then there’s “those dark satanic mills”–

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yIWBO_7nio

        2. Yeah, some parts of England are pretty rough.
          But it’s still an attractive destination to Americans who can’t be bothered to learn a second language.

      2. That is sooooooo stupid! Our former pastor used to tell us from the pulpit that we should even pray about what God wanted us to wear that day, what route to take to work, etc. Thankfully my husband agreed with me — that’s nuts!

        There were and still are people at that church that ask the pastor how to punish their children when they do something wrong and follow his directions on punishment!

        1. So if I don’t get a revelation tomorrow morning, I should stay in my pajamas and stay home until God tells me to get dressed and go to work?

        2. Yes, I remember often hearing from the pulpit that we should pray about how we should dress each day. Apparently, the only correct answer to this prayer was for a woman to choose a dress or skirt.

          My former fundy pastor seems to think he gets special dress revelations from God. And all this time I thought Baptist referred to the Bible for all matters of faith and practice. Silly me.

  32. Of course, the dress mustn’t be black, or she’s going to look like (gasp!) a Roman Catholic PRIEST! 😯

      1. But-but-but, black is such a GLOOMY color, and Real Christian Helpmeets, aka wives, are supposed to Happy Little Sunbeams for JAYzuz at all times. At ALL Times, amiright? Can we get us a HAYmen here? 😈
        (-er, um-sorry, dropped my Sarcasm Hat )
        Let those priests keep their gloomy ol’ black dresses, denim, pastels, and pretty flower patterns, that’s all any RCH needs, gimme another HAYmen, all you sistern and brethern. 😛

  34. Guess wearing a dress is ok – as long as she isn’t wearing open toed shoes…..

    1. Our former pastor’s wife wore a dress or skirt all the time. In fact, our pastor used to brag about buying his wife’s clothes for her. IRONICALLY, her blouses were all tailored and snug. Her skirts usually showed off her “trouble spot” — aka her butt, and had a slit going half way up the back.

      She typically wore button down blouses that were “fitted” — there wasn’t any “looseness”, and I always wondered how that could be better than a lady in a pair of loose fitting pants! The term “modesty” can be manipulated easily!

      In IFB churches, the term modest apparel is a very subjective term and the definitions vary to the church member’s status.

      1. I think the only time my wife will let me buy her clothes for her will be if she dies first, and even then she’ll probably come up with a way not to let me pick her outfit for the “viewing.”

      2. You got that right! The pastor’s daughter can wear a sleeveless dress but the peons have to be covered from head to toe.

        1. I am so thankful that I was never subjected to this hypocrisy. We were always members of small churches and there weren’t any big IFB churches nearby. The Christian schools I attended were very small. My parents tended to be stricter than any pastor I ever had.

    1. That’s rather true even out in the Big Bad Real World, there’s something about a woman in the right kind of 1940’s outfit that does catch the eye, mmm, mmm, mmm… 😈

  36. I think dresses that go down to the floor look very nice; love the way my wife and daughter look in long dresses!

  37. I assume that she attends Heritage Baptist Church; one of her videos is of their summer camp – she’s in it – and the music is pretty contemporary, but it seems all of the girls were wearing dresses.

    She also has a video about a guy named Heath and her; looks like they fell in love in 2010/2011 — but it looks like this guy was killed a month ago – the picture the news media posted certainly looks like him. I feel very sorry for her if this is indeed the case.

    1. I went to my first Fundy Camp in California in ’74. I was a brand new believer. I brought a dress for the Saturday banquet. No one told me that I had to wear a dress every time we had a service (twice a day). That dress almost stood up by itself on Saturday afternoon when I packed it in my suitcase! Next time, I had one pair of jeans and a suitcase full of dresses and skirts….pure craziness!

  39. Sounds like southern Appalachia. Maybe Ashland or Pikeville in Kentucky?

    7.5/10 would hit that

  40. Oh my mercy!! That song raises my blood pressure. The very sad thing is that fundies TOTALLY dig that kind of absurdity!! They are liking it because that is right down their alley. That is EXACTLY the mental thinking of some of my (not so) friends. UGH!! I am horrible trouble because I now wear pants and I am buying shorts..(gasp) and my daughters have shorts.

    Recently my son went to a fundy “friend’s” house and I had their daughter here. He told my son that his daughter better not come back home with an attitude after being at a house where the woman thinks it is okay to wear pants. He said he’d be PO’d. Oh my ever loving goodness. You see, when we were in the daze of thinking that we should wear dresses, I NEVER one time told my girls it was wrong to wear pants. But when you are told by little girls that you will go to hell for wearing pants, we have a HUGE problem!!

    1. Well… I have plenty of more serious sins that would send me to hell were it not for the blood of Jesus Christ!

    2. It’s sad that children are growing up under the impression that THAT is Christianity: “Let’s be arrogant and judgmental and harsh and arbitrary and legalistic toward others and insist on man-made dress codes as a sign of purity and, oh yeah, Jesus died for your sins.”

      No! Being a recipient of His grace makes me want to be a conduit of grace to others.

      1. I totally agree PW. My heart is so sad at the things kids think are what Christianity is about. ): My husband and I never taught our kids the insanities. Well, once we got to where we are now, they are all about teen camps and you are a VERY bad parent for not sending your kids. We would not send them. I did NOT want my babies to be crammed with that crazy stuff the guest preacher would call gospel.

        The other thing I would do is research guest speakers and evangelists. All that I came in contact with was involved with bad stuff one way or another. I was getting pretty fed up. I came up with 3 C’s of IFB: Corruption, Cover-up and Condoning. It never ceases to amaze me the churches that allow these guys in their church to speak.

        At the one we left I was so frustrated a year ago. The preacher was on vacation so he had church members stand in for him. One of the guys preaching (or actually self edifying himself) was dating a girl whom he was so incredibly verbally and emotionally abusive to. I mean to the point of cussing her out regularly. It made me sick to think it was okay for this jerk to be allowed to grace the pulpit.

        1. How pathetic! They’ll nit-pick people over made-up rules about music or clothes, but they won’t confront a “brother” who is willfully and continually violating Scripture by using filthy language to degrade another. The fact that they overlooked that proves that they were morally BANKRUPT.

  41. Big Gary–

    There’s a saying: “The United States and England are two countries separated by a common language.”

    Over there, a truck is a lorry. Napkins are what you put on babies’ bottoms; you wipe your mouth with a serviette. A car’s hood is its bonnet and its trunk is its boot.

    I remember seeing a sign, “Boot Sale,” and I thought it was about selling shoes. Turns out that it’s sort of like a flea market. People line up their cars, open the boot and sell what they’ve brought in it.

      1. In my neck of the woods, this kind of market is called a “pulga.”
        (“Pulga” is Spanish for “flea.”)

        1. I always want to bring a dog to a flea market, saying I’ve got plenty to sell or trade. (rim shot)

    2. Plenty of us Yanks watched plenty of BBC sitcoms thanks to PBS growing up. I feel like I would do well in England.

    3. I was in England briefly years ago. I remember seeing a sign for “rugs” in a shop, but they looked like blankets to me. 🙂

      1. A sweater (to keep warm; not someone who’s overheated) is a “jumper” over there. No, not a suicidal person threatening to dive off a bridge.

        1. We wore jumpers all the time back in the day at BJU: long, bag-like sleeveless dresses with a blouse underneath. Sometimes the waist was cut high like a maternity dress; sometimes it was extra-low. Neither look was at all flattering to young women. (Jumpers with a waist at a regular waist spot aren’t that significantly more attractive either.)

        2. A pullover sweater is a jumper in Britain (and Australia and some other former colonies). A button-up sweater is a cardigan (maybe they make them in Cardigan, Wales?).

          When I first heard a guy say he was wearing a jumper, my eyebrows went up. Disappointingly, he just had on a sweater.

    2. @Liutgard: I agree; I don’t like the vocal style, but she has talent: Just being able to play the piano and sing at the same time isn’t that bad.

      1. That’s the best part! Actually, it probably sounds halfway decent in person; the recording does no one any favors.

  43. There was a Youtube video floating around Facebook a few months ago that was a parody of “That’s What Makes you Beautiful” ( I think One Direction sings it). It was called “Modesty Makes you Beautiful”. I didn’t watch it because I am so over the whole fundy idea of modesty being skirts down to the floor, neckline up to your chin, especially when it’s paired with 15 pounds of makeup, 6 inch stiletto heels and a self-righteous, nasty attitude.

    1. If IFB’s are really worried about modesty, why don’t they make women dress like the Muslim women??

      1. They’re not worried about modesty per se; they’re worried about appearances or rather keeping up appearances.

        3. I love that at the beginning of this one, Onslow is reading “Principles of Condensed Matter Physics” in bed.

      2. Don’t give them any ideas. Already the fundy dress code for women is close to what the muslims demand. The only difference is we don’t have to cover our hair… YET.

        2. The head-covering movement waxes and wanes with the times. BJU used to “encourage” all the ladies to wear hats to church. No longer. There are still churches in Greenville that adhere to this by convention.

        3. BJU did not “encourage”; they demanded – female students were required to wear a hat to the Sunday morning service held in the FMA. A large bow (this was the 80s) did NOT count; it had to be a hat. If you went off campus to evening church, there was no expectation of wearing hats and none of us that I ever saw did. Mt. Calvary Baptist required hats of their female church members, at least if they were on the platform in any way – choir, piano, special music, etc. – but there was no constraint put upon us college students.

          In the fall of 1990, the hat rule was revoked. Some people might still wear them (especially if they already had a fully-stocked shelf of hats from previous years), but the student body in general that I observed no longer wore them and were not encouraged to wear them. There was no pressure to (and BJU surely knew how to apply pressure when they DID want something).

          The reasoning among the students at the time was that Mrs. Bob Jones Sr. had died so they no longer felt the compulsion to hold to an antiquated Southern rule of proper feminine Sunday dress. (I used to wonder why the hat rule remained but no one ever demanded gloves because in mid-century both hat and gloves were considered proper. Perhaps the reason one was discarded and the other upheld is the passage in the Bible that talks about women’s heads being covered though obviously BJU didn’t feel that binding on women today since they changed the rule. Also, I wonder if BJU recognized the irony of their being similar to conservative Catholic churches in this regard?)

        4. Good to know more about the history of the hat rule, PW. When my wife was at BJU from 2002-2006 she said that there were young ladies who had taken to wearing hats again to prove some point about being super-sanctified and following the old rule because “right and wrong don’t change just because the rules change” and so on. (Apparently the practice of following the rules even when they aren’t rules anymore is becoming somewhat of a “thing” at BJU as more of the old fuddy-duddy rules are quietly deleted from the handbook.)

        5. Adhering to old rules in order to prove their holiness? How can BJU not recognize that they’re producing little Pharisees, more focused on following man-made rules to show off their self-righteousness than humbly loving one another in response to the grace bestowed on them by Christ?

  44. This girl is 100% serious about the content of the songs. I know her and her father well. He is a pastor and an off the charts legalist. They believe and teach everything in this song. It might say its satire but when she posted it on her facebook the comments she got were mostly “Praise God for young people standing for old time religion”! This girl is brainwashed by her father!

    1. I am terribly sorry to hear this news. When I went to her youtube page trying to decide for myself, I saw videos of one IFB preacher/pastor that truly upsets my stomach to the point of nausea. In fact, I heard this particular preacher talking about “be careful of Phariseeism”, and then his very next breath was “I’m against everything. I have a conviction against wearing contact lenses, I just can’t find it in scripture yet.” HOW can he not see that he is the EPITOME of what a Pharisee really is? Has God blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts? I know the Bible says this HAS happened (Pharoah) and Rom 9:18 sounds like God hardens anyone’s heart that He wants too. That thought scares me a little, I hope God doesn’t choose to harden MY heart. And if this is why “these (IFB) people” can’t see through the “fog” it saddens my heart for them also.

      1. How can he not see, you ask? Because…he doesn’t wear his contacts!

    2. If so, how amazing it is then that they should so thoroughly reveal what they are doing: replacing Christ with man-made standards. My delight and my joy should not be in my dresses (or in my sweet compliance to wearing them) – it should be in Christ alone.

  45. One of the many things I find hypocritcal and/or ironic about fundy dress codes is pantyhose. Young ladies are required to wear nylons at a lot of Bible “colleges” yet years ago, when nylon stockings first hit the scene, they were considered too sexy, much like the bikini.

    1. That’s a great point!

      One of the things that fundies often don’t like to admit: time sanctifies all things. Usually anything new or popular is bad; once it becomes mainstream, there is less opposition. Eventually, they allow the once-forbidden thing, and sometimes, in the case of pantyhose, they REQUIRE it!

      1. My wife worked at the BJU dry cleaners, and even in that hot, humid environment, they were required to wear hose.

        2. They require suits and dresses…can’t have all that cleaning revenue going to the heathen dry cleaner down the street.

          Cha-ching!!!

  48. Aww, they pulled the video off Youtube.

    Comments on Youtube were assuming it was a parody…makes me think they really believed the lyrics are couldn’t stand the “scorners” mocking them.

    1. I guess I was wrong about it being an intentional parody.
      And it was such a funny one, too.

  49. I think what actually happened if you monitored the comments was some or several fundies would post how great it was that someone was singing the praises of “Godly clothing”, etc, and other commenters would be like WTF, and they were deleting the WTF replies and then eventually deleting the original dipsh*t comment about how great “modesty” was, and got tired of deleting comments and pulled the video. From the comments they were leaving and the comments they were deleting I’m 99% sure it was indeed a parody.

    1. They were *not* deleting comments like “wow, that is a spectacularly hilarious parody comments”, one of which I left, and it never got deleted until the video now has been deleted.

  50. I will say I don’t think it was a parody (She’s taken the video down), because I know of this girl. Her father is Terrell Hopkins pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Locust Grove Ga. I met him once and he seemed surprised that I, as a woman, would shake hands with him.

    http://www.hbcga.com/#!about2/c10ga

    A friend of mine says that to be a part of their choir you have to sign an agreement to never wear pants, not even in the privacy of your own home. She wanted to work in the nursery at their school to help pay for her daughters to go there but she was declined because there were some pictures of her and her daughters wearing pants on Facebook.

    Now does it sound like this girl was parodying?

    Here’s the same girl here:
    https://www.facebook.com/bridgette.r.hopkins/videos/vb.1476803138/10204682501610566/?type=2&theater

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