54 thoughts on “Accountability”

  1. I may have to turn off the location-based services on this app, at least when I join the other baptists at the liquor store who don’t see each other 🙂

  2. Tyler – you stole my idea. 🙂

    I was thinking that it needs to come with a safety-off switch for when the baptists sneak to the bar, liquor store, video store, or theater.

  3. fundy apps! old paths on the information superhighway! bravo! The Holy Spirit* is telling me that there should be a whole fundy app suite. the “internet registry of nice fundy information (for a) solid testimony, or ironfist for short.

    *personal hunch having absolutely no divine origin but which I arbitrarily ascribe to God.

  4. “internet registry of nice fundy information (for a) solid testimony, or ironfist for short.

    I’m standing. I’m applauding.

    Well done.

  5. I love the proximity feature…that is epic. Pastor: “I see you went mighty close to that movie theater yesterday.”
    Church Member: “Yea we were shopping in the mall.”
    Pastor: “Just be careful, there is temptation everywhere.”

    They should make another for parents.

  6. Pastor: “I see you went mighty close to that movie theater yesterday.”
    Church Member: “Yea we were shopping in the mall.”
    Pastor: “Just be careful, there is temptation everywhere.”

    That conversation is almost too realistic to be funny.

  7. @Tyler. Fundys bow their heads in church, and when they pass each other in the liquor store.
    Catholics drink in public and pray in private. In the long standing tradition of fundies being opposite of the catholics due to something I call Cathlophobia, fundys do the opposite. Drink in private and pray in public.

  8. @Tyler @Mike I always like the joke that Baptists are the only ones who won’t drink w/ their friends! 🙂

    @Reader Mo There are no words to describe your genius!

    @Darrell I assume future iterations would have some kind of a modesty check, and that the app would OBVIOUSLY need to regularly check the contents of your itunes music & movies!

  9. @RobM & @Tyler

    It’s like the old joke:
    Q: How do you keep your Baptist fishing buddy from drinking all your beer?
    A: Bring another Baptist!

  10. Now if there was an app that pinpointed where the pastor was going to sit for a covered dish supper, the big ol’ church ladies would be all over that. Everyone knows the pastor eats first, so sit next to the pastor and you won’t be relegated to eating Mrs. Nelson’s Almond-pretzel-green jello ring-a-round!

  11. This app has sync with an online database in case the iPod/mobile gets damaged by exposure to rebaptismal waters.

  12. Point of order question. If one is caught utilizing this app during the pastor/soul winner worship service doesn’t this impede the Pastor’s ability to “possess” said offending device, and hinder his own ability to monitor the testimonies of his congregation?

  13. How dare we replace the time-honored tradition of “church spies” for an electronic device. The Shame!

  14. Oooo! Oooooo! Baptist jokes! My favorite.

    Q. Why are Baptist couples only intimate while laying down?

    A. They don’t want to be accused of dancing.

  15. The KJV (in all its clearness) defines a testimony:

    Ruth 4:7

    “Now this was the manner in former time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning changing, for to confirm all things; a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbor: and this was a testimony in Israel.”

  16. A real fundy would eschew any and all iPhone apps because it might look like he’s searching for photos of scantily-clad women.

    But seriously–during my time at BJU iPhones were or were almost banned from chapel (not sure–I’ve never had a web-capable phone so I didn’t pay attention) because they couldn’t tell whether people were reading electronic Bibles or surfing the web.

    Also, “Ironfist” was the funniest thing I’ve read this week.

  17. A “Quiet Time” app might be helpful. I could enter my start and stop times for devotions and see how much time I’m *really* spending. Then there could be a rating based on time spent. Rankings could start at “Backslidden”, and go on to “Dedicated”, “Stick Thrower” and “210% Christian”!!! I need an objective ranking like this to see how spiritual I truly am. I get weary of comparing myself to the same people all the time – none of them are better than me and it’s easy to get complacent.

  18. Wasn’t there a post a while back about recording how much time you spend doing various activities (Bible reading, witnessing, etc.)? Combine that with Laura’s app idea and you have a winner.

  19. Wait–there needs to be an app for those at BJU, PCC, or other similar institutions: demerit detector!!! It would warn you if you were starting to get close to a behavior that might earn a demerit, like if a guy’s hair is getting too thick on top or if a woman’s earrings are too worldly. Alternately, you could input the behavior you wish to engage in and see what the resulting demerits would be. For instance, if you want to sit with your significant other on a bench (0 demerits) outside the library (add 10) on a weekend (add another 15) after dark (hitting the red zone now!).

  20. Or perhaps an app like “I Write Like” that takes an aggregate of your Facebook content, blog posts, and troll posts on SFL and assigns you a comparable Fundy hero. Lots of deep theological Facebook notes and a certain physical resemblance to Dom DeLuise? C.H. Spurgeon! Vein-pulsing verbal attacks on the apostate written with less than a fifth-grade education? Billy Sunday! Photos of you and your college buddies pissing against a wall? Steven Anderson!

    Might have a few glitches.

  21. Wait . . . hold that thought . . . . if the app got too good, the deans could just assign each person a phone to carry around with them and it would automatically notify them of whatever demerits the student had earned. But then what would half the people on campus do with their free time, if they didn’t have anybody to turn in? Forget it.

  22. The best baptist joke of all time (from Lew Grizzard, god rest his soul)-
    There were three couples, a Lutheran minister and his wife, a Methodist minister and his wife and a Baptist preacher and his wife who all went on vacation together. On the way home, their plane crashed and all six were killed and sent to the Pearly Gates. The wives were all good christian ladies and had no problem getting past St. Peter but when the Lutheran minister stepped up, St. Peter stopped him.
    “I’m sorry, Reverend,” he said, “But I can’t let you into Heaven. It says here in the Book that you lusted after money. You never actually had any but you lusted in your heart for it and that’s just as bad. According to our records you didn’t marry until you met a woman named Penny, so I can’t let you into Heaven.”
    The Lutheran sadly kissed his wife goodbye and turned to the stairs down to the nether regions.
    When the Methodist minister stepped up, St. Peter shook his head. “I’m sorry, Reverend, but I can’t let you in either. It says here that you lusted after alcohol. You You never actually drank but you lusted in your heart for it and that’s just as bad. According to our records you didn’t marry until you met a woman named Sherry, so I can’t let you in.”
    The Methodist sadly kissed his wife goodbye and turned to follow his friend.
    St. Peter turned to speak to the Baptist but he was already kissing his wife.
    “So long, Fanny”

    1. phatchick,

      loved it, and I’ll be passing it along. And I’ve got one for you.

      What’s the difference between a southern Baptist and an independent fundamental baptist?

      The southern baptist believes everyone is goint to hell. The independent fundamental baptist does too, especially the southern Baptist!

  23. @Phatchick even funnier to tell that one in England (although probably is going to be awkward too).

  24. An app for fundy women: detects physiological levels in males in range, such as accelerated pulse rates, pupil dilation, and second looks, thereby allowing her to check her denim hemline and white cotton sock levels and top button on blouse. Call it Pastor’s Wife in a Pocket. Call it the MicroBurka. Call it the iMom.

  25. Kate made me LOL. PWP – Pastors Wife in a Pocket. Coming soon to an iPhone near you. 🙂

  26. You know now that I think about it at BJU the cars had a special radio device that would remotely open the front gates. I think they were pretty new when I started as a freshmen. I remember some of the jokes that were going around that this is some sort of device to track student’s cars around G’ville. One friend of mine loved to have freshmen in the car and when something sort of, but not really, scandalous came up he would sssh them and cover over the devices as if it had ears. Funny thing was some freshmen believed them. Worse than that most of us agreed that if BJU thought they could get away with that sort of thing they probably would.

  27. Ah, the car tags at BJU!! Those were no problem. The first year I had a car there they had those little black boxes. My boyfriend (now husband) cracked it open and put a switch in it. I would turn it off while going through the gate so it couldn’t log me, then turn it back on while the car was parked overnight (in case they did a check to see if the tags were working). The next year they replaced the black boxes with cards with a magnetic strip of some sort in it. I just stuck mine in the microwave for a few seconds to solve that problem. I don’t think I made a single pass my senior year. . . .

  28. @Mark Rosedale @Kirsten

    LOVE those stories! Fundy college students working around the rules brings me glee! 🙂

  29. Worse than that most of us agreed that if BJU thought they could get away with that sort of thing they probably would.

    Oh, yes. My friends and I had many discussions about that. Some of us were convinced they were tracking us regardless of legality. We were supposed to return those things at the end of each year. I usually destroyed mine–not out of malice, but because I wanted to know what was in them.

    @RobM, speaking of working around the rules, I had a BJU flashback the other day at Wal-Mart. Where I’m from our Wal-Marts don’t have self-checkout, but the ones in Greenville and here in Clemson do. I used the self-checkout a few days ago and the moment I heard the prerecorded voice I was back in Greenville, sweating at the Wade Hampton Boulevard Wal-Mart while I swiftly checked out a DVD hidden between two unneeded file folders.

  30. @Jordan M Poss HAHAHAHAHA! I used to stop at Blockbuster on pizza deliveries in Pensacola. Best job ever. You can explain being just about anywhere as “was delivering a pizza there!

  31. Since I had family in the area, while at BJU, I’d just tell them what I wanted, give them the $$, and make an overnight pass. No one was the wiser 🙂

  32. i had decided that if i ever got enough demerits to be expelled… (for lame things like hair and frayed cuffs)… that with a smile on my face i would let them know about all the much more serious infractions that they had never known about… (movies, concerts, makeout sessions, the works) just to see their faces. kind of sad that never happened. but… kind of glad too.

  33. When did BJU start the “key card”? When we went there, the school just relied on spies to look for parking stickers in movie parking lots. The key card just lacks that personal hand (you know, the one holding the knife conveniently located in your back) that we so relied on to help us maintain that “peculiar people”-ness.

  34. “Wait–there needs to be an app for those at BJU, PCC, or other similar institutions: demerit detector!!! It would warn you if you were starting to get close to a behavior that might earn a demerit.”

    Sorry, not possible, the iPhone only has 32GB.

    1. “Droid” is a word taken from Star Wars which everyone knows is a Satanic film involving demonic worship of “The Force”

      No good fundamentalist would ever own or use one.

  35. Uh oh, if they had had one of these during my college days, they might have caught me sneaking off to watch Toy Story with my girlfriend. Aaagh, the shame, the sin, the rebellion! I think I might have to get saved again.

  36. @Darrell use one what ?$ A DVD player or own Star Wars. I own both trilogies. Its more or less a mix of Greek mythology, Some Christian ideas and Buddism.

  37. “Droid” is also the name of a fancy cell phone, along the lines of iPhone. Ask BASSENCO. She has one.

  38. According to Jobs Droid is only for people who want porn on their phone…and the iPhone can’t…unless of course you browse to any website that has porn on it.

    Anyway that was good enough for my fundy church to ban those phones (Just in case you don’t know I don’t go to fundy church so that was all said in jest, but the Jobs part is totally true and totally absurd).

  39. @Kirsten HAHAHAHAHA! There’s a fringe group of crazy people at the place I work that think only liberals like apple products. Like they call ipod owners at work political liberals. Wanna guess what kind of a church they go to?

  40. @Kirsten and Rob–do people really think like that? Seriously? So what happens if the wife (like me) is too cheap to buy Apple products for herself, but the hubby (like mine) has several Apple products? Would that mean they’re “unequally yoked”?

  41. @beth it’s not many in my experience, but there really are people out there that paranoid, and they are convinced it’s a total bellweather for sniffing out secret liberals. Fundies are the only group I know of who can take the “Paranoid Style of American Politics” (an old old paper based on the emergence of the John Birch Society) and not just 1 up, but 2 or 3 up it. Pretty sure Darrell has blogged/posted on here about sniffing out secret liberals at church in IFB’ism. The detectors are alway on, very sensitive, and no crazed theory is too out of it to be rejected. 🙂

  42. Anything that the IFBers do not agree with is not only from the evil liberal camp but also of satan himself.

  43. Yep, libs are straight out of the pits of hell! (you know, hell…. where the devil lives: 666 Brimstone Court, Hell Pit, Lake of Fire 61666.)

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