VeryBerry Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 I didn't wear pants until I was 18 years old. I am 35 now. I didn't start drinking until I was in my mid twenties ( yes I am a late bloomer). Some weird rules from my former churches: - women could only wear dresses and skirts to church - women couldn't preach - women couldn't hold the position of elders in the church - divorced folks with living former spouses were not allowed to remarry - women couldn't serve communion - deacons, elders, and other head of ministries were suspended if their daughter got knocked up out of wedlock - no dancing - no drinking - no kissing before marriage - all secular songs were considered evil I could go on and on and on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edie Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 Oh yes, women were not allowed to preach or hold any position of authority within my church. They could make tea or teach sunday school. They could even wear trousers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 I still don't drink, and I'm 30, but not for religious reasons, I just don't like the taste of alcohol and have no desire to get tipsy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadrunner Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 I still don't drink, and I'm 30, but not for religious reasons, I just don't like the taste of alcohol and have no desire to get tipsy. me neither and like James Randi says I need to be 100% so nobody pulls a fast one on me. I was duped for 28 years wont happen again. I did have wine on our anniversary but it was terrible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeryBerry Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 I still don't drink, and I'm 30, but not for religious reasons, I just don't like the taste of alcohol and have no desire to get tipsy. I have a few friends who don't drink because they don't like the taste of alcohol. Unlike you, my friend, I love the taste of alcohol lol. I don't like hard drinks. I like fruity drinks like margaritas, martinis, mojitos and so on. I will have one for you my friend. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edie Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 The church I went to sounds so liberal compared to so many of these. From the outside they did seem that way. Although some people dressed up for church, many people dressed very casually, and it was perfectly acceptable for women to wear trousers. Their role in the church was very much limited to making tea and teaching sunday school, but that was something that just happened and no one really spoke about. It didn't feel like a major issue to me. A lot of the rules were the unspoken type. Being autistic, many of these rules went over my head and I broke them without realising. When I left school I got a job in a supermarket. This was too "real world" for the church and I was offered many jobs by people in the church who ran their own businesses. Several families offered to have me move in with them (my parents weren't christians). I just politely declined these offers, not realising they were actually instructions. Although I'd kept my thoughts to myself when I first started having doubts, the moment I expressed them I was excommunicated and I think that was due to my long period of "disobedience," without even realising I was disobeying. The only other people I know who were excommunicated in this way were a girl who had a non-christian boyfriend, and another who got pregnant - these were both very much spoken rules. Funnily enough, the teenager who had an abortion was treated nowhere near as harshly. Perhaps because it could be brushed under the carpet more easily. They spoke to her very gently, kindly, and privately (I only knew because I was her friend). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rando Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 When I read about the no-dancing rule, it reminds me of an old joke- A male pastor and his female choir director had fought temptation long enough, and finally decided to give into their lust after a Sunday service. They went into the pastors tiny office. "Not much room in here.....I guess we could lift our robes and do it standing up.", said the choir director. "Good Heavens, no!", responded the pastor. "If someone walked in they would think we were dancing!" 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akheia Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 Rando - ha! That was good. The UPC (United Pentecostal Church) didn't like dancing, obviously, though dancing "in the spirit" was totally fine. They also disapproved of: * Cut hair on girls (the stick-thin fundie daughters SINGED their hair instead) * Makeup on girls (the stick-thin fundie daughters wore powder foundation, subtle eyeliner, and mascara, all carefully done to look "natural") * Pants of any kind on girls * Shorts on anybody * Short sleeves on anybody * Tight clothes on anybody * Movies, sporting events, parades, concerts (except *some* Christian concerts) * Any music not made with an organ/piano and/or acoustic guitar alone * PDA before marriage (most of the married couples however had their first child about 6 months after their weddings) * Owning a television (CCTV was okay to get church sermons) * Video games and consoles (THAT DAMNED MARIO!) At least celebrating holidays and birthdays was okay. All in all my church seemed a bit more reasonable than most UPC churches; the one I attended at one point had a pastor who thought that "feminine" pants were okay on women, like if they were printed with flowers or something or were obviously not "men's clothes." Heresy! No idea what happened to him--a beacon of toleration in a sea of crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeCoastie Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 I remember a crazy campus preacher berating the men for wearing shorts. Calling us whores who want to show off our legs... Sir this is south Georgia and its August! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rando Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 Hey Akheia, When I lived in Biloxi, Mississippi I went to (I think) a UPC once; I know it was "Jesus Only". Anyway, one strange rule they had was that the men sat on one side of the church, and the women on the other. I remember seeing lots of dancing in the spirit at the more "down home" pentecostal churches I went to. Some of the folks looked pretty scary, with the bobby pins, a'flying! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 Rando - ha! That was good. The UPC (United Pentecostal Church) didn't like dancing, obviously, though dancing "in the spirit" was totally fine. They also disapproved of: * Cut hair on girls (the stick-thin fundie daughters SINGED their hair instead) * Makeup on girls (the stick-thin fundie daughters wore powder foundation, subtle eyeliner, and mascara, all carefully done to look "natural") * Pants of any kind on girls * Shorts on anybody * Short sleeves on anybody * Tight clothes on anybody * Movies, sporting events, parades, concerts (except *some* Christian concerts) * Any music not made with an organ/piano and/or acoustic guitar alone * PDA before marriage (most of the married couples however had their first child about 6 months after their weddings) * Owning a television (CCTV was okay to get church sermons) * Video games and consoles (THAT DAMNED MARIO!) At least celebrating holidays and birthdays was okay. All in all my church seemed a bit more reasonable than most UPC churches; the one I attended at one point had a pastor who thought that "feminine" pants were okay on women, like if they were printed with flowers or something or were obviously not "men's clothes." Heresy! No idea what happened to him--a beacon of toleration in a sea of crazy. I once dated a girl whose dad was a Baptist minister. Things didn't work out past friendship with the girl, but I really hit it off with her father. The reason I liked the guy so much is he turned all the old rules upside down and just took an approach to his faith that is somewhat similar to the way Antlerman approaches the idea of spirituality. He challenged all the ideas of following rules and discussed his beliefs in terms of deeper meanings that usually related to humanity and love. I still respect that in this guy. He was a good human being even if he was both a Baptist and a pastor. Your post reminded me of him as he used to really wax poetic about how misguided those who focused on the kind of rules you just listed were. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akheia Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 Don't you suddenly wonder (as I do) if that minister was one of the smart ones who knows the Bible's totally flaky? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadrunner Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 Don't you suddenly wonder (as I do) if that minister was one of the smart ones who knows the Bible's totally flaky? this is why im interested in the clergy project. i think that is a widespread issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 Don't you suddenly wonder (as I do) if that minister was one of the smart ones who knows the Bible's totally flaky? He was definitely one of the smart ones. I even suspect had he been younger (he was getting up there in years) he might have even had the perspective to completely see through the BS. His generation in the religious-oriented community he was from made him pretty isolated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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