Do you remember Sunday school pins at the churches you attended as a child? They were given out as attendance awards. Attend Sunday school for one year, get a pin, and then get a pin for every year after that. I have seen older church members with pins adverting thirty, forty, and fifty years of Sunday school attendance.
These pins were meant to be badges of honor; a sign that the wearer had dutifully attended Sunday school year after year. They were also meant to remind people that they had endured years of Sunday school lessons taught by unqualified teachers who often read from quarterlies instead of actually teaching them.
I taught Sunday school for years. I knew how bad adult classes could be, so I wanted to make sure that class members actually learned something and interacted with the lessons. At one Southern Baptist church I pastored in Clare, Michigan, the church had an adult Sunday school class teacher. Polly and I decided to attend the class. OMG, it was awful. I mean awful. Bad theology and interpretation. For example, the teacher said election means “we choose God.” Yepper, the Calvinist in me wanted to strangle him. I tried to gently correct him, but he took the “whatever it means to me” interpretive approach. Week after week class members would share what the Bible meant to them. Many of them had Sunday School pins going back decades. So much time invested in Biblical “truth,” so little knowledge and understanding.
Did you receive Sunday school pins (or buttons)? Do you have a Sunday school experience you would like to share? Comment away!
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
What follows is a humorous and tragic story of a man I met in church.
In 2003, my family and I moved to Clare, Michigan so I could assume the pastorate of Victory Baptist Church — a Southern Baptist congregation. I pastored Victory Baptist for seven excruciating months. This would be the last church I pastored. While at Victory, we lived in a gated community called White Birch — north of Farwell, Michigan.
One evening, my family and I drove to Mt Pleasant to do some shopping at Meijer. When we returned home, I noticed that the red light on the answering machine was flashing. I clicked play and heard the following:
Hello, this is Elvis. I am staying at the Doherty Hotel in Clare. I would like to talk to you. Please call me back at ______________.
I thought, “yeah right. Elvis?” I thought one of my preacher friends was trying to put one over on me. So I called the number, expecting to reach a jokester on the other end, but come to find out, it really was Elvis.
Well, actually it was a man named Barry, and Barry believed he was Elvis.
I don’t remember how Barry got to Clare, but he was on social security disability and lived in a rented apartment.
Barry wanted to attend our church. And so he did . . .
Barry didn’t come to church every week, but when he did, he came dressed in bright colors, scarfs, and spangles just like Elvis wore. When Barry arrived, everyone paused to look, not saying a word. He definitely stood out among the more “normal” people who attended the church. I would later learn that he was likely the most honest man in the room.
Barry had mental health problems, and quite frankly a lot of church members didn’t know how to handle him. He was “different,” and “different” is not something the church understood. Barry and I got along quite well. I learned that he had been sexually abused, misused, and taken advantage of by several Pentecostal churches and a homeless shelter in the South. They mentally and emotionally crushed Barry, and it is a wonder he didn’t end up in a mental hospital.
I tried to be Barry’s friend. I knew he needed people to love and encourage him. Unfortunately, Barry had a tendency to say whatever was on his mind, and a lot of church members found his verbal outbursts upsetting. One Sunday, we were sitting around the table in the Adult Sunday School Class — also known as the Heresy of the Week Class — discussing the Sunday School lesson. The Sunday School teacher, an older man by the name of Steve, asked if anyone had anything to share. Barry did:
I need prayer, I have a problem with masturbation.
Dead silence. Instant offense showed on the faces of many at the table. The teacher didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. I quickly told Barry that we would talk about this after church.
Barry definitely spiced up the church. I have often wondered what happened to him. I hope he found someone to help him, love him, and accept him for who he was — even if he thought he was Elvis.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
We have already covered some basic WTF-worthy aspects of Evangelicalism. Here are a few more WTF-worthy items for your enjoyment.
Sunday School/Bible Study
These were small groups segregated by age group, or by gender, or by marital status. Larger churches would have children’s Sunday school classes segregated by school grade. Children’s classes would be focused on a Bible story, perhaps singing, and an age-appropriate craft or game. Teens were generally segregated by gender and school grade, and life issues would be discussed in “context” with Bible verses. Adult classes could be segregated by gender or by marital status (couple’s classes) where life issues would be discussed in “context” with Bible verses, or Bible stories would be discussed in general.
Sword Drills
Students stand, Bible in hand at their side. The moderator calls out a Bible citation. The first student to find the verse and read it allowed correctly scores a point. (KJV Bibles only; no tabs separating books of the Bible allowed).
Pledging Allegiance to the American flag, Christian flag, and the Bible
This was done every day during Vacation Bible School and was done occasionally at church and occasionally at school. As an adult, I realized that this was a part of indoctrination of children into the concept of Christian Nationalism, that the USA was founded as a Christian nation and that our initial purpose has gone astray due to laws allowing “sin” and due to immigration of people who are not True Christians. And liberals – let’s not forget the liberals.
Vacation Bible School (VBS)
Summer Jesus-themed fun for the 12-and-under crowd, complete with Kool-Aid (the literal and the figurative). There was generally a theme for the week (or 2 weeks depending on the church and their ability to muster up volunteers) with Bible stories, games, songs, and crafts. Children were encouraged to invite friends, and churches often advertised with mailed fliers and banners outside the church. A successful VBS ended in a plethora of baptisms the following Sunday.
Youth Retreats
An emotion-filled trip for the middle school and high school “Youth Group” to go on with the purpose of saving souls and reminding us to live our lives for Christ (i.e., don’t have sex, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes; don’t listen to rock music or see rated-R movies; witness to friends; be “in the world but not of the world”). By the end of the trip there would be a lot of crying, and a successful youth trip ended with a plethora of baptisms scheduled for the following Sunday service.
Revivals
Often, a guest pastor or pastors, and sometimes guest musical groups, would be invited to preach with the goal of scaring, I mean, saving souls. Members would be encouraged to bring guests. Revivals could last for a weekend or for an entire week with special programming. Successful revivals ended in a plethora of baptisms scheduled for the following Sunday service.
Communion
Communion, also known as the Lord’s Supper, was celebrated with grape juice and crackers/wafers. Supposedly before Jesus was arrested, he shared a meal with his disciples. He broke bread and told them that the bread was his body, broken for them, to eat in remembrance of him. He told them to drink wine, as it was his blood shed for them, to drink in remembrance of him. Baptists believe this is a symbolic gesture of Christ’s offering his body as sacrifice for our dirty, filthy sins. In our church, only baptized members of our particular congregation were allowed to participate in communion, which was conducted quarterly (closed communion). Baptists eschewed alcohol so grape juice was substituted for wine. We (made fun of) disagreed with Catholics who thought that the bread and wine actually converted into the body and blood of Christ through Jesus’ Power.
Evangelicals pride themselves on being people of THE Book. The first church I worked in had a roadside sign that advertised the church’s location and service times. At the bottom of the sign was a commonly used Baptist cliché: The Blood, The Book, and The Blessed Hope. Despite their pronouncements about being Bible-believers, Evangelicals aren’t really people of THE Book. Like all Christians, Evangelicals pick and choose which verses they believe or consider important.
For example, how many Evangelicals have ever heard a sermon on Exodus 23? This passage of scripture details the sexual proclivities of two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah. It is quite explicit, and would today be considered pornographic literature. Verses 18-21 state:
KJV So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister. Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth.
CEV She let everyone see her naked body and didn’t care if they knew she was a prostitute. That’s why I turned my back on her, just as I had done with her older sister. Oholibah didn’t stop there, but became even more immoral and acted as she had back in Egypt. She eagerly wanted to go to bed with Egyptian men, who were famous for their sexual powers. And she longed for the days when she was a young prostitute, when men enjoyed having sex with her.
ESV When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.”
The Message
I turned my back on her just as I had on her sister. But that didn’t slow her down. She went at her whoring harder than ever. She remembered when she was young, just starting out as a whore in Egypt. That whetted her appetite for more virile, vulgar, and violent lovers—stallions obsessive in their lust. She longed for the sexual prowess of her youth back in Egypt, where her firm young breasts were caressed and fondled.
GNT
She exposed herself publicly and let everyone know she was a whore. I was as disgusted with her as I had been with her sister. She became more of a prostitute than ever, acting the way she did as a young woman, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. She was filled with lust for oversexed men who had all the lustfulness of donkeys or stallions. Oholibah, you wanted to repeat the immorality you were guilty of as a young woman in Egypt, where men played with your breasts and you lost your virginity.
Simply put, Oholibah liked having sex with men who were hung like donkeys, men whose ejaculated semen amount was that of horses. Imagine how entertaining church would be if pastors spent time preaching on Oholah, Oholibah, and their lovers.
One modern Bible translation team, knowing that this passage is pornographic, decided to edit out the explicit sexuality.
Living Bible
And I despised her, just as I despised her sister, because she flaunted herself before them and gave herself to their lust. But that didn’t bother her. She turned to even greater prostitution, sinning with the lustful men she remembered from her youth when she was a prostitute in Egypt. And thus you celebrated those former days when as a young girl you gave your virginity to those from Egypt.
I am sure an Evangelical will point out that Ezekiel 23 is actually about Israel’s unfaithfulness to Jehovah. Ezekiel 23:1-4 states:
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother. They played the whore in Egypt; they played the whore in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and their virgin bosoms handled. Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.
So then, to use an oft quoted Evangelical cliché, Ezekiel 23 is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Or better put, a pornographic story with a heavenly meaning. Why use porn to tell a spiritual story? Surely, God, the author of Ezekiel 23, knew that children would some day be reading this passage of scripture. Why didn’t Jesus say to his Father, Dad, think of the children! I am beginning to wonder if Jesus’ father was addicted to porn. He is, after all, the universe’s biggest voyeur.
