327 thoughts on “Friday Challenge: Be Biblical”

  2. I know I’ve heard some real facepalm worthy doozies, but I think my brain has blocked out the memories to keep it from destroying itself.

    1. Sitting, facing a corner in a dark room and rocking back and forth while humming and covering my ears was my favorite way of dealing with the insanity of Fundyland.

  3. If I think about this during the day I know I can probably come up with a lot of personal opinions that people have come up with that had me shaking my head and saying “Huh??” 😕

    Right off the top of my head.

    The former pastor said his tithe paid for the air he breathed. He was deadly serious. I wondered how the unsaved or even saved non/tithers paid for their air. He implied they were ripping God off by breathing unpaid for air! I kid you not 😯

    Then there was the ladies meeting I did not attend so I got this second hand. It was one conducted by the ladies of first baptist of Hammond of course. They told the ladies that wearing denim is a sin. When I heard this I was in a ladies Sunday school class and this was mentioned. I was appalled as denim is about 75% of my wardrobe. I wear denim skirts, jumpers and vests all the time. So I went to the lady who brought that up and asked if she was sure she heard it correctly. She was. I asked if they used a Bible verse to defend the position. No. Of course not. How could they? Denim was not invented til the 1800’s I think. Where do these people get this stuff? 🙄

    Then there was the elderly lady who told me she felt it was sinful to wear comfortable clothing to church, you should wear uncomfortable clothing. I thought that was so ridiculous. I wanted to dress comfortably because when I come I want to be concentrating on what’s going on there, not thinking I can’t wait til I get home and can get these uncomfortable clothes off. 😈

    I can’t wait to see what others have to say on this! :mrgreen:

    1. I heard a story about some guy who didn’t tithe, and then he got convicted (guilted) about tithing, and he realised he’d been robbing God, so he went back and worked out how much he had earned in his adult life thus far, and started BACKPAYING his tithe to God.

      I wish I were joking.

        1. George just visited me. I told him to go away.

          I meant to say, “I have *heard* stories like this during Faith Promise Guilt Month sermons.”

      2. My husband and I actually did this. 😳 We were so broke when he worked for the church we often were unable to tithe, so when he got a “real” job he “paid God back” what he owed Him.

        1. and yet when you look at the scripture for this it does not make sense. The context refers to those who bought back (redeemed) their tithe for a specific purpose. Used to believe the same thing though until I studied it out.
          I quit tithing after studying it. I give now. cheerfully. Without restraint. No guilt associated at all. Wish I could give more, but guilt about it is gone.

        2. Now that I realize that I was under the influence of pink Kool-Aid, during my IFB days, and was falsely taught OT “tithing” for NT believers, wonder if they would they give me a refund?

      3. I have a friend who attends a church where they were taught to tithe on all of their increase. So, if you gave someone some shoes, they had to figure out how much the shoes were worth and tithe that much. They had people refusing gifts because they couldn’t afford to tithe off of the gift’s worth.

        They were told (encouraged?) to include the tithe in gifts – so, if I wanted to give you $100, I actually had to give you $112, since the tithe would be $11.20 on the gift, which they would (naturally) round up to $12.

        Seemed to be a terrible abuse of the teaching about giving… people seemed to live in fear that they had missed something or had mis-evaluated it.

        Sad… all from the verses about “as God has prospered you” and “of the increase”

        2. I believe that teaching came from Hyles. The former pastor taught and believed it. I found it to be like most of the utter hog slop he preached. It’s a wonder I didn’t sit there shaking my head incredulously at the nonsense he came up with.

          But this I had already heard. Once while we were back in Michigan I gave my raggedy old kitchen chairs to a friend who had gone to HAC. These chairs were SAD! I told her how raggedy they were but she was desperate for any chairs she could get. When she and her husband came to get them she told me about this tithe on your increase stuff. She told me of having received a winter coat from someone and the price tag was still on it, the coat had cost $100. So though she and her husband were extremely financially strapped, they felt they had to come up with the $10 tithe or God would curse them. So the friend who gave her the coat unwittingly placed her under a financial burden when that was the last thing she intended.

          It wasn’t only for this kind of gift, it was for ANYTHING at all you were given. I of course did not practice this since I felt it was falderal, but I often wanted to ask how I was supposed to tithe on the apple pie someone gave me, or when someone invited me out and paid for my meal or gave me some used thing of theirs that they didn’t want or bought me a cat trinket of some kind they found at a yard sale and thought of me. It would take away the joy of receiving anything thinking oh now I have to figure out how to tithe on that. There were people who actually had to write down every little thing. Someone bought in donuts at work and you had one? Jot it down. Someone at church gives you a bag of hand me down clothing for your kids? Jot it down. Every tiny thing… jot it down. At the end of the week when you’re figuring your tithe, look over your list and throw in an extra ten bucks.

          It’s just making me so disgusted to write this down, I have to stop now and find something to do that makes sense! :mrgreen:

        3. You hit the nail on the head – it IS sad; instead of enjoying God’s provision for us, it turns us into bookkeepers for Him. It reminds me of the Jews who focussed on having their tithe of mint exactly right, but left off justice and mercy and the “weightier” matters Jesus mentioned.

        4. One pastor I had (a HAC grad) said he tithed on sodas that people gave him. Then he blew out his knee, and the state health care system paid for his ACL surgery. We speculated about if he paid tithe on the $40,000 surgery he had for free. And we didn’t hear about tithing for a while. :mrgreen:

        5. So sad to read of people painstakingly and fearfully attempting to tithe on EVERY little thing they have lest God punish them. They have been taught such a warped view of God – that He is a cruel and exacting taskmaster (see the third servant’s attitude toward the master in Mt. 25:24-25) instead of a gentle Father who cares for them. They claim to love Him but seem to primarily feel only fear. (Or they think they can manipulate Him – “See! I tithed EVERYTHING! Now You, God, are OBLIGATED to bless me!”)

    2. I’ve heard the denim thing, vague memories of it being too manly for a female comes to mind.

      2. Last time I checked at WCBC, students are not allowed to wear denim on campus unless they are working or going to work. I am not sure why.

        Oh, and Hollister was unofficially banned circa 2007; Starbucks was demonized circa 2006; and if memory serves me right, blogs and those who had them were unofficially added to the axis of evil circa 2004.

        My how things change.

    3. After reading the uncomfortable cloths comment, I’ve decided to try and convince my wife that wearing comfortable cloths to church is sin. Can’t wait to get home from church tomorrow. 😀

      1. Fr. Ted: “What was that sermon about?”
        Fr. Dougal: “Sorry, Ted, I was concentrating too hard on looking holy.”

    4. Hyles invented “Blue Denim and Lace” club for the younger girls. Talk about contradicting themselves. Don’t know what to believe about the man’s personal life, but I don’t care for his preaching. He rode that hobby horse on how boys needed to be manly, instead of playing the piano, all the way from here to way out there, past Pluto, where that new planet zooms around. How was my boy supposed to feel about himself, had he heard that? He plays the piano, and football is not his big thing at all….

      1. Probably the most hurtful thing Jack Hyles did is what you’ve alluded to – that he tried to turn people into copies of himself instead of encouraging them to be who God wanted them to be.

      2. Um, playing the piano is probably not gender -associated (any more than eating food or collecting stamps), but history is full of men who greatly enriched our culture through their piano music – Bach (his organ is better though), Beethoven, Mozart, etc. And of course, there are all the hymns these confused little people sing…mostly the music was written by men. You know, I’m convinced that fundies are just generally gender-confused.

    5. Fr. Ted: “What was that sermon about?”
      Fr. Dougal: “Sorry, Ted, I was concentrating too hard on looking holy.”

  4. Wearing v-neck tops brought too much attention to the bosom. Of course, the usual modesty verses were cited.

    Have you ever noticed that a lot of the weirdo rules had more to do with women?

    2. If a v neck shirt directs attention to the bosom, what does a necktie point to? 😆

      2. Oh Yes, I really think the “Modesty Tie” should be added to the wardrobe requirements 😯

        1. Like the 80’s ties that were cut-off square on the bottom so they did not look like an arrow pointing towards sin and debauchery. 😯 Either that or bring back the modesty of the vest, which covered the sin of the pointy tie.

      2. I remember a book (self-published, of course- I have lost track of it, I wish I could remember the name of the book or the author) that said the tie aligned with the “V” formed by the coat represented the male and female genitalia.

        1. That does it. I’m never wearing a coat and tie again. Now I just need to find a KJV to look up some obscure verse I can pull way out of context to prove my point. Of course that brings me to my next question? What about a bow tie or maybe a bolo tie? Maybe I should just break down and buy a clerical collar?

  5. My mom tells the story of hearing a preacher using the story of Jesus casting the demon into the pigs, and the pigs jumping into the water. His point was that mixed swimming is a sin.

      1. I just keep missing the point! I thought we weren’t supposed to swim with demons!

    4. I’ve always wondered what those good Jewish folks were doing keeping “filthy/unclean” pigs. I’m about half-serious.

      1. If I recall correctly (wasn’t this in Gadara?) this area had a large Gentile population, so that was why they had pigs. Someone correct me if I’m wrong…

      2. Pigs are also a way of dealing with organic trash.

        When Egypt ordered the Coptic Christian’s pigs killed as part of their response to the swine flu (which didn’t do anything to stop it, because all the transmission in Egypt would have been human to human anyway), there were suddenly waste disposal issues because those pigs had eaten pretty much ALL of the food trash in Cairo for decades. No pigs, no backup disposal plan, big sanitation nightmare.

  6. Matthew 5:13: You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

    As Christians, we’re to be salt to the world. Have you ever put salt on a cut or open wound? It causes pain. In essence, then, the world is an open wound and we should be stirring it up and making people feel uncomfortable, because that’s what Christians do. You just can’t make this stuff up.

    1. Oh, man. That explains a lot about why Christians aren’t nice people……I knew they weren’t but didn’t really know why. (And I grew up in this stuff.)

      1. Aha! So THAT’s why fundies raise my blood pressure so badly — becauase they are the salt of the earth!

    2. @Lawfeli: I’ve heard the same teaching – at least similar teaching: that as salt, we are going to be painful to some. But the emphasis was not on trying to be painful, but on not changing just to be accepted.

      1. I get that to a certain extent. But this was just a basic, “We’re salt and will cause pain and discomfort to the world” with absolutely no mention of any of the other fine qualities of salt.

  7. The most preposterous because it has such serious implications is when they say that we can’t worry too much about the poor because of the verse that says “the poor you always have with you.”

    1. I hate when my pastor from high school says that. Like it is wrong to get rid of poverty.

  8. In Fundy High School, our girls B-Ball and V-Ball teams, naturally, had to wear culottes. Our teams, despite that, were actually quite decent, and we loved to play, as it was the only normal thing we were allowed to do at school. Well, when we pointed out to the approriate school officials that the culottes were immodest, and flew up when we ran or fell, the teachers became furious, and explained that if out teams couldnt play modestly and in culottes, then the girls would not be able to play at all. We were also told that if we did not ease up on our aggressive playing, (this was just not ladylike), the we would be forced to end the girls sports programs altogether, and we would instead be forced to become cheerleaders (in modest mid-shin length skirts of course) for the boys teams. UGH.

    At Fundy U, a hall leader discovered us painting our toenails blue, and chastised us 1)for our worldly choice in color and 2)for painting them in the first place. HER boyfriend, after all, did not allow her to wear toenail polish, because, other men would see it, and then look at her ankles, then her legs (which were hidden by pleats and gathers galore) and “upward.”

    1. I had no idea that blue was not a biblical colour choice for nails.

      What are the fully sanctioned colour choices? I have daughters, and I don’t want their nail polish choices consign them to a lake of fire eternally.

      1. What?!?! How can u not know?? Did you not attend Fundy U?? TSK TSK for shame….LOL Well let me enlighten you. The ONLY appropriate shades of nail polish for teenagers (no one under 13 should be wearing any) are clear, light to mid pink, or a tasteful shade of mauve. (You know, like your grandma would wear.) Anything else like purple, blue, green, etc, and ESPECIALLY anything with a hint of glitter, we were told, are the nail polish preferences of prostitutes. I hope this clears things up for you.

        1. Yes. By all means, those things which “adorn” must look NATURAL! If it isn’t a color that could have occured naturally then it is drawing attention to whatever part you are trying to adorn. The color green might be natural enough if your toe had a fungus… Anyway, yeah, what is the point of “adorning” if the idea is to draw attention AWAY from anyone looking at you? So many mixed messages, so much confusion. 😕

    2. The fundy U I went to actually had an official rule against any “unnatural” colors of fingernail polish, which to them meant that girls could only paint their nails varying shades of brown. Yep, not red, pink, or anything like that. Of course, some of the floor leaders had their own special set of standards that they expected others to follow as well.

      1. A Christian school staff faction spent some time pushing for a rule against “unnatural” nail polish colors. But they would allow only pastel pink and peach colors.

        They didn’t win that battle; the female admin loved her dark red polish too much. There was a lot of carping and dissent over greens, blues, purples, anything metallic or with glitter the entire time I worked there.

        This inspired me to always have metallics even if they were pinks or peaches on my fingernails and blues, greens and purples on my toes with no apologies when they glared at me!

    3. I’ve heard Sam Davison preach against Fundy schools having women’s basketball teams.

  9. Of course, if one attended the Fundy U that I did, you do not need scripture to justify your odd beliefs. You merely need the Book of Berg (Changed Into His Image by Jim Berg) No lie. When i got expelled, the Dean of Women kept quoting Berg whenever i dared question anything. I finally insisted on seeing him personally. Everytime I challenged him, he would either quote an obscure verse, or quote his own ridiculous excuse of a book….

  10. 2 Kings 22:14: “So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asahiah, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college;) and they communed with her.”

    I once heard this verse used to defend the existence of Fundy U’s.

    I also once heard that Adam and Eve probably tithed in the Garden of Eden.

    2. @Stan – re Adam & Eve tithing; I heard a preacher; I think it was Jack Hyles; it may have been someone else (but you know how preachers steal each others’ ideas all the time).

      Anyway, this man said that he believed that there were ten types (varieties?) of trees in the Garden, and God reserved one for himself, teaching tithing to those with the insight to see it.

      1. I just LOVE how they can twist anything to suit their agenda. And I do mean anything.

  11. I heard the “skirts above the knees make men think of breasts” argument many times. Because, you know Proverbs 5:19 clearly states “Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts (oh sorry hon, didn’t realize those were your knees) satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.”

    1. Only when the breasts hang down to the knees. I think that this was due to the LandOLakes Indian Girl logo. Research this on line if you like.

      1. Well, I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who has lusted after the Land O Lakes girl…

      2. I’m almost 47 and wear a D to DD cup and don’t have THAT problem! Of course, if it’s a “sin” to go to the better lingerie shops, I probably would by now. Gravity makes for sag in a few short years if the ‘girls’ are only supported by inferior products!

      1. True enough. I try to distract myself from impure thoughts by thinking of baseball stats, then I think of Bull Durham, and then I think of Susan Sarandon’s impressive balcony.

  12. Not exactly a fundy pastor, but Mark Driscoll that masturbation was a homosexual activity because you were playing with sex organs just like your own

    1. Not exactly not a fundy pastor either.

      But that’s a whole ‘nother conversation.

      1. Best answer ever 😛

        That’s why I have to say I like Piper a lot better, who said that watching Avatar is probably awesome because humans love to bask in glorious things and one day we get to bask in God.

    2. Mark has also blessed us with “gems” like the statements that watching Avatar and doing yoga are sinful.

    4. Not “just like” one’s own. They are one’s own. Very slight, but probably important nuance there… 😐

      1. If they’re just like yours, but they’re not yours, maybe Mark has a point. Not otherwise.

  13. I heard a preacher say that nakedness is sinful so Adam and Eve weren’t naked in the garden but rather were clothed in the Shekinah glory of God.

    He tried to demonstrate it by saying that when they weren’t stupid so they would have known if they were naked previously to Genesis 2:25.

    2. I never heard anyone say that it was sinful that Adam & Eve were naked, but I did read in a commentary (John Phillips, I think) the concept that Adam & Eve were clothed in light that went away when they sinned, and thus they “saw” that they were naked.

      I thought it was a neat idea, even if unprovable.

    3. I guess he skipped over the verse that said “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.”

      1. Yes, well. Sometimes the text gets in the way of our comfortable theories.

  14. “He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.” – Psalm 147:10

    This is why it’s sinful for men to wear shorts.

  15. Come on people! We all know what the Word of God and the Managawd has to say about Christmas Trees being a sin in the eyes of Christ. Take your King James Bible and open with me to the book of Jeremiah chapter number 10. When you find your place say Amen and let’s stand in honor of the reading of the Word.

    The Bible says…(let the yelling begin)

    Jeremiah 10:1-4

    Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

    Now get to your houses right now and take those Baal bushes out to the dumpster immediately!!!

    3. Wow! Little did I know that my being too, *cough*, *cough*, lazy to put up a tree or decorate in any other way for Christmas for the last few years I was actually being BIBLICAL!!! And know I have a proof-text. 🙄 🙄 😛

  16. Touch the junk, lose a hand.

    Deuteronomy 25:11-12

    11 If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, 12 you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

    1. You know, that one really bugged me, so I did a little study on it. The word for “hand” there is- gasp- mistranslated in a way. That word for hand just means “curved surface”…..as in the palm of the hand….which is hard to cut off by itself. It can also mean spoon or crotch. The word for “cut” can also mean “shaved.” Since a form of lex talionis “an eye for an eye” is in effect, cutting off a hand is not a just punishment for embarrassing a guy by grabbing his genitals in a barroom fight (life-or-death isn’t in view here….anything was fair in those situations.) The just retribution for embarrassing a man by touching his genitals was to have her genitals shaved, which was considered very embarrassing.

      That’s probably more info than anyone wanted to know, but that sort of preaching and teaching needs fixed by our pastors so we don’t get the wrong impression! 😯

      1. People will think it is some kind of protest at Muslim law, and you may get into trouble for “hate crimes”

    3. Wait, but if her husband gets killed, she loses the “use” of his private parts so then shouldn’t the other guy’s hand get cut off too??? Oh, wait, I forgot, women don’t matter… she was just trying to cop a feel in all the confusion of the moment and should be severely punished for it… 👿 👿

  17. In the 50’s and early 60’s, public school was almost a nondenominational religious school. Around 1960 we had a discussion with our sixth grade public school teacher. Why could men be doctors and women could only be nurses? Why men could men be high and college teachers, but women could only be elementary school teachers? Why did most women only work as housewives and mothers while men gained the prestige of careers? The answer was that women achieve satisfaction by pleasing their husbands. In the naive 60’s, it was probably a year or two before we considered that she in her answer, she was talking about things other than careers (just lie back and think of the nation).

    1. Don’t worry, Alexis, the Calvinistas are trying to bring that mentality back by any means necessary!

  18. Our high school principal said that “britches” were only worn by men in the Bible so therefore only men should wear pants. When I looked it up myself, the word was actually “breeches”….underwear!! So I guess only Levitical priests should wear underwear. Good grief.

    2. I once read a tongue in cheek essay on why women shouldn’t wear underwear. Used the same scriptures and logic as is used in why women shouldn’t wear pants. Can’t find it now, though. If I find it later I’ll post the link.

  19. Going to a doctor who got his education from the WORLDLY system of universities was putting your faith in the world’s system. (good thing we were always basically healthy) Prooftext: Psalm 1 about walking in the counsel of the ungodly. We had homeopathic cures for EVERYTHING.

    1. We also had homeopathic cures for everything. I am about tired of being told that seaweed will cure lupus – it doesn’t. I took so much flack for going to nursing school, as I was clearly chasing the world’s wisdom and spoiling myself so that no man in his right mind would ever want me.

      1. the homeopathic stuff REALLY is cult-like. Some of this stuff (like ignorant opinions) I shake my head at and laugh. but the homeopathy stuff is no better than scientology.

      1. Even better, some of them don’t go to school at all. I had a friend in school whose mom was a self-proclaimed “healer” because she read Prevention magazine and grew her own herbs. She was always coming up with “cures” for things that tasted bad or were awful to endure. Of course my mom believed every word she said and eventually became a pretty good “healer” in her own right. As for us kids, we were just too scared to get sick so we survived.

  20. Modesty and worldly people…that’s all you can come up with? You all need some time in Christian school staff meetings.

    I sat through staff meetings where there were attempts to attach a Bible verse to why students were not allowed to chew gum. I have blocked out which one they chose.

    I have sat in meetings where fervent prayers were sent up to heal the first grade teacher’s lawn mower.

    And, my favorite, a debate over which method of teaching cursive to third graders was biblical.

    Answer: the Palmer Method. Again…I have blocked out which scripture proves this.

    1. We have verses that explain why a student in high school can’t put his chin on his hand while in class, why legs can’t be crossed while sitting in class, and why students shouldn’t do any talking to other students (including group work ❗ ) during any class at any time for any reason.

      Our proof text is I Corinthians 14:40 “Let all things be done decently and in order.” That verse from the Gospels where Jesus makes everyone sit on the ground is also referenced for some reason. All I can think when the principal starts talking is wow.

      1. One of the principal’s pets was lauded in a staff meeting once for having a different verse to justify every rule in her classroom. There was even one for why you should use a pencil on your math homework.

        So…you know, one general one…not impressive. :mrgreen:

  21. I hate seafood–all of it. When my friends try to tempt me to eat anything with lobster or shrimp, I tell them it’s an abomination and point to Leviticus. It’s a lot more fun than trying to pretend that I’m allergic…

  22. I was often puzzled by my preacher’s explanation of Christian liberty as being the liberty to submit to God’s (aka the preacher’s) will. OK, that more or less means that I am free to choose slavery?!

    2. This is a normal Islamic argument. Cf. Mark Durie “The Third Way”

    3. “you’re free to do what is right” screamed from the pulpit, “some christians try to get as close to sin as they get” “you should be seeing how far away from the edge you can get, blah, blah, blah”.

      1. It took me many years, but I finally figured out that the “stay as far away from the edge of the cliff as you can” is unbiblical. Throughout Scripture (like in Deut. 5:32 – “So be careful to do what the LORD your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left”), God warns us that we can stray away from Biblical principles not just in one direction but in the opposite extreme!

  23. You never have to apologize for anything said from the pulpit. This is based on one of Fundyland’s ‘4 ManOGawd pillars’ that states: “Proclaiming The Authority Of God’s Word Without Apology”. This pillar is derived from 2 Timothy 4:1-5.

  24. the premise that some people in the parables were real people that people in that time knew, on the basis of Jesus starting them with “a certain man” in the KJV…
    (ex. prodigal son and rich man and Lazarus)

    1. That’s not an example, that’s the example. That’s the one it’s used for. It’s not a parable cause the Bible does not say it is. Plus parables don’t use names peolpe’s names like Lazurus. That argument is used because they think that if it’s a parable then there is no hell. Atleast that’s what I gather. Every time that passage is preached it’s on hell, and every time it’s preached they have this boogeman objector saying “it’s a parable” to dismiss the existence of hell. So all thise arguments I listed are what they use to dismiss the boogeyman one-liner.

  25. In an Assembly of God church by a traveling evangelist; “I use a real Bible. I use a King James Bible. Because when God spoke English, he spoke King James English”.

    Even at the time I thought, WTF.

    1. Or that Adam and Eve spoke Elizabethan English. Yep, I’ve heard that one, too.

  26. I heard (secondhand from my kids, they must have picked it up at Youth Conference or something) that when a woman wears make up regularly, so that people are familiar with seeing her face with make up on, THEN it was immodest to just drop the make up for a day and show your nude face. That would be too much intimacy, to show your bedroom face, so to speak. UNLESS you always show your bedroom face every day.

    I also heard second hand that one Bob Gray “preached” that women with hoop earrings are sluts.
    (My son heard that from a former Bob Gray staff member, whose wife sat with him during that preaching, and yes, she wore hoop earrings. There went that career.)

    1. Let’s not forget about “dangly” earings. I’ve been told that they are just as bad.

      1. Yeah, they draw the attention to the sensuous air space between the earlobe and the shoulder… 🙄 🙄

      1. So the very rare occasion that I might put on makeup I feel like I’m “tarting it up”. Like for a wedding but I rarely do it for those anymore either.

  27. Romans 12:2 “be transformed by the renewing of your minds”. Biblical proff that born again, Bible believers can’t have any mental illnesses.

    1. When I heard that teaching, it took everything in me to not get up and walk out of church.

      1. The brain of a Fundy is impervious. Period. It is there to keep your ears apart. Nothing else.

    3. As someone with family who has clinical depression because of a chemical imbalance (NOT because they sit around feeling sorry for themselves, as some fundies seem to think that all people with depression do) I too get sick of hearing that verse misused. The brain is a physical organ, just like the heart, liver, etc., and so just as open to being damaged or negatively effected by chemicals in the body.

      1. I agree. I was in a Bible study one day when it was pounded into us that any mental problem was a sin problem. Yuck. No, it’s a chemical/wiring problem in our brains. Yeah, that was a real encouragement.

        1. One of the books on the staff reading list this year is a Biblical counseling book that is hammering away at this exact idea. According to this book, obsessive-compulsive disorder is the direct result of some horrible, embarrassing sin like masturbation, not a coping mechanism due to chemical abnormalities in the brain. This book is a real fundy gem! 🙄

      2. My dad’s been depressed for years and years. Both fundy churches proclaim that depression is a direct result of sin. I wanted to punch someone.

    4. I have always had depression. And, although the churches I had been in weren’t IFB, they were fundy enough to teach that it was due to not trusting God enough, being in sin, etc. That added so much to my depression, and it took a looong time for me just to say “to heck with it”, get diagnosed by a doctor, and go on antidepressants. I wonder how many depressed fundies take the route of suicide because their depression is made worse by the church’s teachings. 😥

      1. Of all the areas that the IFB gets wrong, this might be one of the worst. Some of the most selfless people I know battle clinical depression. When I “feel’ depressed, I need “a good swift kick in the pants” and refocus on God and others. For many people in my life it isn’t that simple. When Scriptures command us about being salt and light, I’m beginning to think some of these teachings need to be lit up.

      2. Mandy, Beth D – I want to hug you both. Same boat. My family is predisposed towards clinical depression due to a genetic neurotransmitter imbalance: my mother has schizophrenia, my brother and I both have clinical depression, and I additionally have ADHD.
        My poor mom got pretty sick of preachers telling her she needed to ‘get right with God’ to get rid of her schizophrenia. Cripes.

  28. Ok. Enough of modesty, denim and nail polish seduction. let’s get into deep doctrine on this one.
    Did you know that between Gen 1:1 & 1:2 the Gap Theory is fully proven? Most of the folks I know who espouse this teaching call it the Gap FACT (emphasis on FACTah) as if the scripture is so incredibly clear on this.
    They will fight tooth and nail for this little tidbit of scripture, then treat their wife like a doormat. They know their “doctrine”…..but they don’t know scripture.

  29. I had a Sunday school teacher use 1 Corinthians 12 to explain why some people chose to not clap in church (with the clear implication that we should not clap at all). The explanation was that God gives talents to everyone, saved and unsaved alike. But the spiritual gifts are only given to Christians. Because we often applaud people who use their talents (ie singing, sports, entertainment), when we clap in church, we would be prone to acknowledge the individual rather than God. But if gifts are being used, we don’t clap because God gets the credit for them.

    Of course, using logic and reason did no good in this situation. For example, I pointed out that many people applaud because they are recognizing that God gave that person such incredible talents or gifts, and some like clapping to the music (Psalm 47:1). Or that shouting a hearty, “Amen!” isn’t that much different–it just makes a person seem to be more spiritual. Furthermore, by his thought process, if the use of talents is something that could potentially lead to sinful recognition of the individual instead of God, and since things like, “singing,” and, “piano playing,” aren’t spiritual gifts, then they should probably be avoided.

    Then again, critical thinking wasn’t exactly encouraged in this Sunday school class.

    1. When I clapp after a song during worship, I am clapping as an amen to the truth that we just sang and proclaimed and in praise to Almighty God. But fundies just don’t get it. Your are supposed to stand perfectly still and not move any body parts while being enraptured by God’s love for you… yeah, THAT’s biblical…NOT. 🙄 🙄

  30. Darrel Dunn tried to tell us that ET was bad because it was desensitizing us to the end times. He referenced some verse in Revelation about fire breathing frogs or something. It was ridiculous.

  31. My dad once, almost 30 years ago, not long after entering the cult, found some obscure verse in Levicticus about eating blood or something like that. From that he concluded that eating meat any less than well-done is a sin. From that, he has now extended that command to sushi as well.

    2. Those same verses were used by my fundy pastor to condemn anyone who ate blood sausage or black pudding (I live in a part of WI with a lot of germans). He was so firm in his belief and teaching, and I was rather young when I heard this, so to this day I’ve never eaten them. I’m sure they’re very tasty, but I just can’t make myself even think about it. 😐

      1. I heard that same thing about the blood sausage and black pudding when I was a kid in IFB. Now I live in England where black pudding is often served with a full English breakfast. I finally tried it, even though my subconscious was ready to dodge a lighting bolt. Yuck. I should have taken the fundy myth as fair warning.

    3. Ok. That’s funny! So you can eat cooked blood, but not raw blood?? LOL! I don’t like my meat rare, either, but….

  32. My dad’s first wife left him when my dad became a Christian. She remarried right away while my dad raised 5 boys on his own for the next 3 years. He then married my mom (who had never been married). Fast forward 15 years. One of my dad’s closest friends and the man who worked the bus route together with him for the previous 4 years told my dad that since he was divorced and remarried to someone who was not his first wife he was living in active adultery. Since he was carrying on in unrepentant daily sin the only thing he was qualified to offer in service to the church was to clean toilets. No joke. 🙁

    2. Guess that pwerson had been under the influence of Bill Gothard a real nutcase. To him it didn’t matter if your mate divorced you, you were still obligated to keep your vow to them. They could remarry but you can’t until they die. To their way of thinking your dad was still married to your mom, never mind that she was married to another man. He was supposed to live the rest of his life alone and raising those 5 boys on his own, and never remarry til she died. I think this guy is a nutjob. 👿

    3. @Eric – Your dad is a real hero, who chose Jesus Christ over his wife. I imagine he will receive a big reward for his standing for God in this manner.

      Many preachers have compromised and are not as brave.

    4. In the Catholic Church your dad would have qualified for an annulment. I’m no canon lawyer, but I know a few, and this sounds like a textbook case. For a marriage to be sacramentally valid, both parties must be serious about its being permanent and “for better or for worse.” A woman who leaves a guy because he becomes Christian and who also abandons her five kids obviously did not take the marriage seriously to begin with. So, it wasn’t a sacramentally valid marriage. Therefore, in the eyes of God, there was no divorce. Your dad’s second marriage was his only real marriage. Yes, I know this sounds positively byzantine, but it goes along with the very definition of marriage — which is more than just temporary shacking up with a piece of paper. Anyway, my point is — even Catholics make legitimate allowances for situations like your dad’s. (My bro-in-law had a similar situation, although no kids were involved, thank God.)

    5. As Jo A has already said, this is covered exactly in 1 Cor. 7:15. The “friend” in this story is claiming that Paul is advocating people live in “unrepentant sin.” Nice one. And why was this OK for four years of acquaintance and suddenly not? They no longer needed your Dad on the bus route? Idgits. 👿

  33. It’s unbiblical to own a motorcycle because the gang associations could hurt your testimony. That rule however was quickly scrapped after a few families left.

    1. What about gang members, drug deals, and crime bosses that own CARS? Should we get rid of our cars now to? 😉

      2. Well Mandy the Amish and the fundamentalist/anabaptist types shun technology for lots of those reasons I think! It’s a step away. Evil comes through technology. I have heard that the Plymouth Brethern will refuse to “break bread” with a non believer. If they are eating outside on a workbreak, they will stop eating if some outsider comes and sits by them. Serious.

        1. My Mother had a second cousin who was ultra-strict Plymouth Brethren, who was like that. He would not eat any meals with Non-Christians. He even would not eat with memers of his own family until they became “Born-Again” 😯

        2. @paul the kids are allowed to “set no evil before their eyes”. A few years ago before they opened their own school they would have to turn away if the teacher turned the tv on to show a video. Now I think they run their own school.

  34. Secret codes contained in the KJV! Serious!
    Was my last Sunday at my old IFB.

    Where’s ol brother Bill? You didn’t hear? He had a heatrt attack…..Pastor, God’s getting his tithe back.

    1. Heard that one. “If you don’t put it in the plate, God will take it some other way.”

  35. Don’t go to restaurants that serve alcohol, not a good testimony.

    Always made me wonder where they got their groceries.

    1. Maybe they drive all the way to New Jersey. One of our many weird laws here is that you can’t buy alcohol in supermarkets.

      1. Is that right? Never heard that before! Look here, make fun of folks and learn stuff all at the same time! 😀

      2. Actually, my folks live in Kansas, and you can’t buy alcohol in the stores there either. It was utterly surprising to me when I moved away to find the wine sections everywhere, even in Walgreens!

        Not that I’m complaining . . . . 😀

    1. Huh?
      I live in the desert, so to me, they are a sign of being able to walk on loose sand on a hill, or an inclined rock, without falling!

  37. Wearing knee-length skirts- there was a verse to back that up in some minor prophet passage about uncovering the thighs and behaving like a whore, but I can’t find it.

    1. Sad to say, it took me 36 years to realize the verse talking about breeches covering nakedness (Exodus 28:42) says they will cover it if they go from the loins TO the thighs, not past the thighs, and certainly not to the knees.

  38. “If you don’t want to say the pledge of allegiance in church…well you obviously haven’t been reading your bible.”

    I still have not found the doctrine of allegiance to the USA in my Bible…but then I use the NASB so I suppose I’m doomed anyway.

  39. It’s clearly wrong for men to grow facial hair. Facial hair is identified with the world. We should not be worldly.

    (Obviously if God wanted men to have facial He would have created them that way.)

    1. Actually read a portion of a sermon by Dr. Cedarholm, founder of MBBC, where he said, “Jesus did not have facial hair. When the gospels record the guards plucked out his beard, that meant they were pulling out that days growth as Jesus had been unable to shave since being arrested in the garden.”

      1. Dr Cedarholm may have been a good man (I don’t know him at all, but I’ve heard some good things)… but on MY planet, you cannot “pluck out” a mere one’s day growth of beard on any man… it takes many day’s growth.

        Of course Jesus had a beard.

        But now I know how people get around the verses that talk about His beard.

      2. I had a roommate at MBBC, who believed that. Of course, he got that idea from Dr. C. I told him that they must have used tweezers when they plucked out Jesus’ beard!

    2. Hahaha! I have Eastern Orthodox cyber-chums who claim it’s sinful for a guy NOT to have a beard. 😉

      1. Oh, thank you Jesus! I am totally never shaving again! In the interest of fair disclosure, I do shave with a straight razor…

  40. One…colored socks are wicked. “Then the speaker pulled up his pants to show he was wearing white socks.” That was second hand from a professor at my IFB University.

    Two…wired rim glasses are wicked. “They are two trendy and therefore show a love of this world.”

    1. …the wire rimmed glasses, that wasn’t the Bott guy from Kansas City was it. I heard that crap too.

    2. I’d never heard the colored socks one before, but I do remember hearing that wire-rimmed glasses were evil.

      I know there’s more suppressed memories…not sure how much I want to try to bring them out.

    3. …white socks….I can’t help but think of that old Country song, “My Redneck, my white socks and Blue Ribbon Beer.

  41. Zechariah 11:8 Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed them, and their soul also abhorred me.
    Pastor Nutcase said this was a prophecy of Hitler, Moussolini and FDR who all died in April 1945 — the only time in history 3 world leaders died in the same month. And of course they all hated God. Uh, yeah. What in the world this all meant in the grand scheme of scripture I never figured out.

  42. I made the choice to be a vegetarian for my health. When. I mentioned this to my Food loving associate pastor, I was told that the Bible says we have to eat meat. He referenced the vision of the animals on the sheet as proof that God said we HAVE to eat meat. He quoted a verse from the passage to me and tacked on at the end “so you have to eat meat” at the end. When challenged that a) meat eating isn’t even the point of that passage and b) he just misquoteded the KJV, he threw his hands up and the conversation was over.
    Let’s not even talk abt how Adam and Eve were created vegetarians and that God gave every green plant for MEAT. Oie…. You can’t even eat differently without being yelled at!

  43. Again, this attitude is actually totally unBiblical. Paul says we shouldn’t judge people by what they eat.

  44. Blessing woodchips. My own father said that they did this at NACIE ’94, and he approved of it.

  45. Actually, the worst I remember isn’t the message; it’s the proof text. A preacher at FU reached an infamous sermon defending Christian education as THE biblical option.

    Rather than pick a halfway logical verse from the New Testament, he went to the story of Elisha in the Old Testament. Elisha established a school for prophets, and this proves that Christian schools are God’s way for His people to be educated.

    Right.

  46. I heard once from my boyhood pastor that the Sermon on the Mount is totally irrelevant to the Christian life, because it wasn’t intended for the present dispensation — it pertains to life in the coming millennial Kingdom where everything will be perfect. I don’t know where he got that one. Is it common belief among Dispensationalists?

    1. I think I heard that one once. I believe it is a dispensionalist interpretation. It made me want to bang my head on something.

      1. Well, that’s convenient! What do they do with Matthew 25: 31-46? Is that also not for the current age?

    2. The one in Matthew is definitely considered millennial but the one in Luke can be used in our dispensation… from what I have heard.

    3. There may have been faint inklings of this from time to time, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I heard this flat out from my husband as what they were teaching at seminary. 😯 I said if being a dispensationalist means I disregard the very words of Jesus (no matter how scholarly you try to sound when dismissing them), then I don’t want to be dispensational. My husband no longer accepts that interpretation either.

    4. See, I think that’s nuts. And I’m a dispensationalist. Or at least I believe in the concept of dispensations in that there are different periods of time in which humanity’s relationship with God is different (law vs. grace, for example), and I do believe in the rapture/tribulation/millennium. Not sure I’d want to get lumped in with the wackos.

      But of course the Sermon on the Mount applies to us! All of God’s teaching applies to everybody. It’s like, do the basic underlying morals of the law still apply to us? Of course, even if the specifics don’t. Same for any passages talking about the future. Which I don’t even think that passage is talking about.

  47. One former teacher at Fundy High liked to quote “Great peace have they that love Thy Law, and nothing shall offend them.” (Psalm 119:165) Therefore if you are offended by what I say, you don’t love the word of God enough. 🙄

    3. Ugh! I HATED that one!

      Somehow it never worked the other way: it was always OK for THEM to be offended at OUR music or OUR clothes or OUR entertainment choices. 😡

    4. I heard that. And thought to myself, “Big deal. You’re still mean and crazy.”

  48. When defending their non-biblical standards of behavior/activities (at least when they couldn’t find a verse of Scripture to twist convincingly) my fundy U was fond of misusing the verses on the vinedresser taking care of the vines (there are several, I won’t list them here). It wasn’t even something that was explicitly stated in the Bible, more of a process of thought that goes like this:

    1) Read one of the passages that talks about a vinedresser taking care of the vines (context unimportant).

    2) Instead of teaching what the Bible really says, use this passage as a springboard to talk about how the vinedresser would prune the vine by cutting away some of the smaller branches to encourage the overall growth of the vine.

    3) Spiritualize this man-made illustration by equating the listeners with the vine and the smaller branches that get cut away with certain activities and behaviors that the Bible does not actually say are wrong but that the pastor/fundy U doesn’t like.

    4) For application, defend the rules imposed on the listeners by claiming that they are put in place only to help them “grow spiritually”, therefore disobeying them means you are spiritually “stunted” and not right with God.

    “So, as you can see, even though you’re all adults, watching movies that are rated anything higher then G is totally against the Bible.” The issue of movies can be replaced with any pet issue the preacher wishes… 🙄

  49. shoot. My mom had a list of 20 something things that were “convictions” with her. I can’t remember any of the Bible verses unfortunately but my favorite one was that it was Biblical for women to wear ruffles on their clothes. It had to be either around the neck or around the hem of the skirt/dress.

  50. I heard once, back in the 80s a particularly juicy bit of nuttiness. Even as a boy I thought this sounded weird. Granted, the Mog didn’t even try to base this on Scripture, rather on his version of politics. Anyway, here it is:

    You shouldn’t shop at Toys R Us because they are Communists who want to control your children’s minds. The backwards R in the title is the Russian word for “I” or “me”. (I looked this up and it does seem to be the case. I don’t speak Russian. I do speak Google 😀 ) Anyway, the Mog seemed to think this meant that the Toys R Us people were controlled by Communists who wanted to tell your children “You are nothing more than a toy”.
    I think he was a special kind of crazy.

    2. It’s true that the letter “Я” (pronounced “ya”) means “I” in Russian. It’s a rather wonderful leap from there to the conclusion that “Toys Я Us” is therefore a Communist organization.

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