Q. Why don’t Baptists make love standing up?
A. Because someone will think they’re dancing. We were taught that sin was all around us, and temptations were to be expected and overcome. We focused on the outward sins—drinking, smoking, swearing, playing cards (though an exception was made for Rook, because the game didn’t use regular playing cards), gambling, dancing (including square dancing), going to movies, listening to rock music, having long hair (guys) or wearing short skirts (girls). And of course, sex before or outside marriage was verboten; Christians have always been obsessed about sex. (Drugs had not yet become a big issue, or we would have heard about them, too.) The only sin on the list remotely appealing to me was going to movies, which I had done with my parents occasionally. The last movie I remember having seen in a theater was Father Goose, with Cary Grant and Leslie Caron. After I came home from church and announced I would no longer attend movies, I was bound to honor that commitment. When The Sound of Music hit the big screen, I was desperate to see it, and so asked my father, who was not a churchgoer, if we could go as a family. He refused, saying that if I didn’t have the courage of my convictions, he would have them for me. I did not go inside a theater again until I’d left the Baptists; a friend took me to see Forrest Gump. Yes, gentle reader—that’s a thirty-year gap. Eventually the college where I worked and where I was bound contractually to the same rules loosened enough to allow us to watch movies on VHS, which meant waiting only six months to see a movie on a small screen. This loosening bothered my black-and-white mind. If we couldn’t go to movies, even Disney movies, because someone might see us and be offended (we were very big on not offending unbelievers and thereby casting a stumbling block to their salvation), how did that differ from going into a video rental place? And if we didn’t want to support the godless Hollywood lifestyles, how would we not be supporting them if we rented a video? I would have done well in the Inquisition.
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Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
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