I went to a wedding, my girlfriend’s friend was getting married.
For context I’m a brown skinned native American man and my girlfriend was a white girl.
The pastor of the wedding had never met the people he was marrying and assumed that I was the groom.
I told him I wasn’t and he moved on.
I thought that was the end of it.
Queue the pre-wedding little religious ceremony thing and the same pastor who had met me assuming I was the groom and shook my hand said that he believed that with the power of Christ any relationship can work, even ones between people of different races.
He looked directly at me when he said it.
I was the only non-white person at the wedding. I’ve never wanted to beat an old man’s ass before. I didn’t know I had that urge within me.
And now I know.
I’ve blanked a lot out of my memory but I do remember one particularly awkward time where the pastor spent way too long explaining how god designed the asshole and its not for fucking.
How about “it’s usually got at least a little poo on it”?
I mean I know it’s not particularly effective, but if it were true of something like ice cream I bet sales would drop. (Tangentially related: https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/coogee-bay-hotel-gelato-poo-2008/)
When we were young and first married, my wife and I decided to try a church that we had saw online. The website and name made it seem like it would be alright and more modern thinking. We were wrong.
We pull up and the church building is a double wide trailer, a congregation of about 30 people. The preacher appears to be in his 70s.
He sees that he has guests and singles us out and puts us on the spot to introduce ourselves to whole congregation. He never refers to my wife by her name instead just calling her “Wife”. He prays for us multiple times during the service and bring us up during the sermon. (Still just referring to us as TORFdot0 and wife)
Speaking of the sermon, he begins the sermon talking about the gay democrat agenda and how the gays are ruining God’s institution of marriage and how it will soon be illegal to be married to a woman. This gets an audible sigh from the ladies in the front row.
He also preached to cherish our Bible before the black socialist devil in the white house takes them from us.
He compared the Bible to an old hound dog and started barking for going on two minutes. It’s like a dog because it warns us of things to come.
After what seems like an eternity of a sermon, he invites the kids up to the alter for some “Hallelujah” Candy (it’s the Sunday before Halloween). One child takes a second handful of candy and the elderly pastor chastises him and then bends him over his knee and starts spanking him in front of the congregation.
Needless to say we did not give that church a second visit.
I don’t know why but the more I read of your story, the more the pastor turned into Baby Billy in my mind. Perfect match.
Next time I’d recommend reporting them to the IRS for promoting political activity.
A Mormon service… the amount of brain-washing and misogyny was incredible…
All of them except the one where they handed me a collection plate and I thought they were giving me the money so I took it.
I didn’t grow up in a church that had one of those. So I’ve always wondered what would they do if you came to Sunday service, in a hobo outfit and took some of the money in the collection plate. The defense being, ‘What? I’m poor. I’m homeless. Jesus would have given.’
Nowadays? Depends on a whole set of indeterminate variables.
But odds point to tazing. arrest, something on that end of the spectrum.
I was around 9 or 10 when this happened. I went with my best friend and his mother. Everyone made a big deal about there being someone new at the church. Then i was handed a gold plate bowl thing of money, so i started stuffing handfuls of money into my pockets thinking everyone was welcoming me with cash. My friend was giggling, i looked at his mother and she was shaking her head. I passed the plate along but kept what was in my pockets.