Have you ever been inside a Christian Evangelical Church?

[sasquatch]

I was this weekend when my brother was getting married. His new wife's family are fundies and I had to bring a flask to the reception so I could have a drink or two during the reception.

[Shell Beau]

1. Did they not serve Champaign or Wine?

[sasquatch]

7. They, get this, had sparkling grape juice

:rofl:

[Shell Beau]

11. They wanted you to feel like you were drinking champaign!

Weird! My church allows it. I am Episcopal though.

[elshiva]

40. heheh! Episcopalians were called Whiskeypalians

by fundies in the old days because we have some strong water.

[bertha katzenengel]

21. Why is that funny? Not criticizing your laughter; I just don't get it.

over my head?

[sasquatch]

24. It was so cheesy that it was something out of a Coen brothers film

[hfojvt]

30. that's Coen brothers

and they are from Minnesota, eh. So cheesy to some, is midwest reality to others.

[bertha katzenengel]

31. Too bad it was cheesy. That stuff is good and is frequently used when

teetotalers have something joyous to toast.

[MissB]

43. Oh my.

Extravagant.

[Shoeempress]

2. Many years ago. Also no alcohol. They are divorced now and she

returned to normal.

[sasquatch]

8. That's what I'll think will happen

She can't change him and he'll get caught and it'll turn to shit before my eyes.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. All the time. I married into a conservative Christian family, but

my website keeps me sane:

http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/liberalchristians.htm

[leftofthedial]

4. why'd you do it?

the marriage, not the website

[Shell Beau]

5. Probably love!!!

Love conquers all. Isn't that what "they" say?

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. Well of course it was (and is) love. :^D I just can't talk with him about

politics or religion. Other than that we do very well together. :)

[Shell Beau]

28. That has to be hard. I am so glad that my hubby

and I are on the same page with religion and politics. B/c both are so important to me! I am glad y'all make it work!

[GreenPartyVoter]

32. Very hard at times, but we manage. :^)

[Shell Beau]

34. Good for y'all.

Strong marriages and people can survive all! :D

[GreenPartyVoter]

36. Yes. As long as there are ground rules. ;^)

[Roland99]

6. Is it working? Keeping you sane?

:)



BTW, ever thought of using a CMS for your website? Would be much more effective with a better layout. But, I'm just picky. ;)

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. I have no idea what a CMS is.. and I am the master of designing bad

websites. *g* I have a slew of them.

I am a great researcher and good at content, but webmastering is not my forte.

[Roland99]

20. Well, depending on your host, they can be installed with one click!

CMS is Content Management System. Packages like phpNuke, PostNuke, Xoops, etc. that many web hosts provide.

Take my blog, for example. Took 5 minutes to get it installed on my domain and then I tweaked a custom theme.

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. That's a nice looking blog, but how would it manage static content like

all the links and stuff I have? :)

[Roland99]

29. That's where the CMS packages come in

You can design a main page which could be an intro and have links along the sides or make the main body the series of links.

Lots of options. Even a blog package could work (you see how I have my links down the left side and then it maintains the middle section automatically (I have to add the categories, though, but I can specify which category each article applies to by clicking a checkbox when I write up an article)

You could just write one article and put html in it to fill in your main body.


Just thought I'd offer up some food for thought. :)

[GreenPartyVoter]

33. Thanks for the idea. I'll look into it.

[Left_Winger]

9. Once, during a friend's wedding

Why he married this fundie weirdo is beyond me. But I felt obliged to attend regardless of how I felt about the surroundings. I did manage to leave as soon as possible.

[sasquatch]

10. It was a short reception

People just said hi and left because there wasn't anything to talk about or watch.

[Left_Winger]

45. Hit that one on the nose!

Most of us left right after the ceremony, which was dry and most of my friends like booze.

[KamaAina]

12. Services for a colleague of mine were held in one

off I went.

Hmmm... sign language and Deaf culture classes offered on-site... not shabby...

on to the service itself.

Right in the middle of it, this guy gets up from the front row and starts running around on the stage waving his hand in the air, as though he'd managed to get open in the end zone.

Hoo boy. Back to seeker/agnostic status for me.

[sasquatch]

13. I need to bring a football with me if I ever go to a fundie service

When I let go of it and hit'em in the head I'll yell "HEY YOU GOTTA KEEP EYES OPEN WHEN YOU GO OUT FOR A PASS, YOU WERE WIDE OPEN MAN!!"

[readmylips]

14. Attended Pentecostal church with my grand parents....

when I was a kid. It scared the hell out of me. Never went back. It looked more like satanism worship then Christian.

When my grand mother joined this church, they told her she couldn't wear any type of jewelry. She was to turn her jewelry in to the pastor, which she did and so did all the members. The so-called-pastor had been a criminal on parole. He spoke the good talk of Jesus with a smooth tongue and bible versus he learned in prison. He stoled every penny for the church and ran off to south America.

My grand parents went back to the Catholic church. Died Catholics.

[sasquatch]

18. Did they handle snakes?

[Ladyhawk]

27. Even when I tried to be a charismatic / Pentecostal type,

the whole thing felt weird to me. There is a huge charismatic fundy church up the hill called Chapel in the Pines. They do some weird shit in that church. I attended it for awhile in my teens...never was comfortable.

I did the speaking in tongues thing and the casting out of demons thing...still wasn't ever comfortable. Strange to look back on it now...you couldn't get me into a church nowadays, unless it's for a concert. Some churches won't let the community chorus sing ANY secular songs inside the premises, not even "Jingle Bells." The more atheist I get, the less I like "sacred" songs...yuck. I don't want anyone thinking I ascribe to that nonsense.

[ghostsofgiants]

41. I was raised Pentecostal

My church never made women remove their jewelry. It was a weird experience though. I hated it. My parents stopped forcing me to go when I was 13 and I've only been back once, for a funeral, sadly.

Now I'm agnostic/secular humanist in my ways.

[sasquatch]

49. Has all the Snake Venom left your body yet?

:D

[Maestro]

15. Yes my Menonite girlfriend

in the late 80's brought to one here in Dallas. I was scared! :scared:

[sasquatch]

23. I got really nervous in this place when I saw Evangelism fund raising-

poster.

[hfojvt]

37. they have those in Dallas?

were they traditionalist? Did they sing a capella and sit with men on one side and women on the other? Were the men all unshaven?
I kind liked the singing, but that Mennonite was the worst preacher I have ever heard. He would just jump from verse to verse making almost no sense and he talked for fifty minutes. Clearly he just about had the whole Bible memorized, but was incapable of making a point.

[Maestro]

56. She was actually ex-Menonite from Lancaster, Penn.

She took to me to, (get this, are you ready?), asshat Robert Tilton's church. They had people crying, rolling on the floors, yelling, screaming, "speaking in tongues," some band playing music that I guess was gospel in nature, big TV screen with Tilton praying for money. It was all quite pathetic and disgusting. I don't know who I was disgusted with more, Tilton or the lunatics that believed in him. She gave that church up as well, but we broke up soon after because I just couldn't believe she was that gullible.

[bertha katzenengel]

19. Of course.

Many evangelicals don't drink. Many do. :shrug:

[Crazy Guggenheim]

25. I was in a Mormon Church once. Wasn't what I expected. But

it was cool.

[sasquatch]

26. Well that's nice

[grace0418]

35. Yes and it scared the bejeesus outta me.

Those people were so brainwashed it was scary.

[NoPasaran]

38. I have been in several because of work

Installing cameras so they can televise their services :scared:. It never fails to creep me out. Even creepier are the decor schemes some of them have. People, carpets should NEVER be bright magenta.

[Modem Butterfly]

39. Oh my yes

My best friend growing up was a hardcord fundie. I went to her church once, and people were speaking in tonuges, getting "slain in the spirit" (i.e., fainting) and doing that weird spiritual bowling thing that some fundies do (where the power is tossed around like a ball while people are screaming freaky "Goonie-goo-goo" sounding-shit).

[Sgent]

42. My best friend growing up

was Church of Christ, and I've been to his church a lot -- both services and things like lockins and stuff.

The youth counselor was a good guy, and I never heard a word about not being Christian (my family were members, but not regulars, of the local Jewish Shul). Don't really remember too much about the services.

Been to a few Catholic serves, some baptist, etc. The worst were the "non-denominational". Bunch of people speaking in tongues and the like.

The last time I was in a "fundy" church was a non-denominational about 10 years ago for a wedding. The seemed to have started to change, requring the wife to submit to the husband, etc. I though my mother was going to jump up and strangle the preacher.

None of the above of course served wine, but rather grape juice.

[realisticphish]

44. define "Evangelical"

my church is ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church Of America), so technically, yes, I have been. However, we are NOT fundies.

Evangelical DOES NOT equal fundie

[sasquatch]

50. They house the people that like mega-churches

[donheld]

46. Only for about the first 28 years of my life

:crazy::nuke::crazy::crazy::nuke::crazy: :puke:

[sasquatch]

53. When did you "see the light"?

[JVS]

47. I went to a friend's Pentecostal Temple a few times

Also I've been to Evangelische churches in Germany, but I don't think that is what you mean

[funkybutt]

48. Many times as a child....scarred me for life

actually it was probably a "blessing" LOL that I was exposed to this insanity and manipulation at such a young age.

[Tafiti]

51. Have I?

How about twice (sometimes 3 times) a week for probably over 15 years! My dad used to be a fundie minister and 2 of my uncles still are - awesome, huh?

[sasquatch]

52. Did you ever talk in tounges?

[Tafiti]

54. Uh, no.

There was a time when I took it all very seriously, but then a very profound thing happened to me - education. The shedding of my faith took place gradually over my 4 years of college, and now I can look back and have a unique perspective on the fundamentalist Xian mindset and worldview. After all, I used to be a young one myself.

[MrScorpio]

55. I grew up Apostolic

Very Pentacostal and holy roller.

But is was a black church.

It's a very different experience from the white fundies running around today.