GABBA GABBA GOOOOO!

September 12, 2007 6:05 PM

The Pentecostal Church and The Holy Ghost Want You To Wear Pig Panties. [Via ectoplasmosis.]
posted by homunculus (42 comments total)

Oh man, this brings back memories.

I never saw panties at the Pentecostal church when I was a kid, but man, I could waka-waka-do000oo00ooo with the best of 'em.
posted by Avenger at 6:14 PM on September 12, 2007

Your favorite religion sucks.

I was raised Pentecostal. Once I reached adulthood, I made my own decisions about religion. But I surely don't feel the need to wax on about how idiotic I might think they are. People believe what they want to believe. Why don't you just let them?

The people I knew in that church growing up were some of the nicest people I ever met. Does it really matter if they believe in speaking in tongues and the holy spirit? Does making fun of them make this guy superior?
posted by Roger Dodger at 6:35 PM on September 12, 2007 [3 favorites]

THIS IS A RELIGIOUS BOOKSTORE. THERE IS NO HUMOUR SECTION HERE.
posted by fish tick at 6:41 PM on September 12, 2007 [7 favorites]

People believe what they want to believe. Why don't you just let them?

Didn't you read the link? Farm animal panties, amigo. Farm animal panties.
posted by lekvar at 6:53 PM on September 12, 2007

Mormons once used to speak in tongues, but now discourage the practice.
posted by hortense at 6:55 PM on September 12, 2007

I was raised Pentecostal. Once I reached adulthood, I made my own decisions about religion. But I surely don't feel the need to wax on about how idiotic I might think they are. People believe what they want to believe. Why don't you just let them?

I think it's perfectly plausible to allow people to believe what they want and still have a good laugh at them. Mockery doesn't have to be judgmental.

Some people like really really weird porn. That's fine. I think it's also fine to laugh at them, as long as you're not trying to tell them to do otherwise.

From the other side, I'm a complete weirdo. I know people laugh at me all the time for my weirdness. That's fine for everyone involved, as long as they don't try to change me.
posted by Alex404 at 6:55 PM on September 12, 2007 [3 favorites]

... point being that I think this guy was having a good laugh at Pentacostal's expense. I don't think that means he thinks everyone involved were simply kidding themselves. If that is what he thinks, then he is in fact a dick.

If I were a kid seeing this though, I probably would have had the same reactions.
posted by Alex404 at 6:57 PM on September 12, 2007

Better to look back on it with a sense of humor than going out and strangling hookers.
posted by 2sheets at 6:59 PM on September 12, 2007 [5 favorites]

Feh, Violent Acres was somehow involved in the death of Trainwrecks.com, so he or she is DEAD TO ME!
posted by Biblio at 7:20 PM on September 12, 2007

er, trainwrecks.net, that is.
posted by Biblio at 7:22 PM on September 12, 2007

I grew up in a Pentecostal church, well several, I wish at the time I could have thought it was funny, but I did not. No I took it deadly serious , and frankly it scared the shit out of me. Imagine being 7 years old and in a room full of people that are being affected, to put it lightly, by unseen forces. I'm just glad the author was having a good time. I wish I'd had a sense of humor then about it, maybe some perspective.
posted by nola at 7:38 PM on September 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Fucking awesome story.
posted by WolfDaddy at 7:43 PM on September 12, 2007

I've experienced the frenzy, much as described, many times. A couple times, far more extreme than this. It is very much like a good rock concert, only with much better drugs (well, better than anything in a post-Osley world anyway, I never had any Osley with which to compare).

In an extreme example, I had to help carry some people (and lead others) out of the church when it got too late. It's hard to do this when you yourself are laughing and giggling uncontrollably--Not because it was funny, but because that was the mood of the group. It is amusing to note, there was supposed to have been a church business meeting that evening, after the service (Wednesday night), but the service didn't end in timely fashion. Some elders were critical, IMO, very wrong, suggesting the worldy business was more important than the truly fabulous time we had, "drunk in the Spirit".
posted by Goofyy at 8:06 PM on September 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

. . .among the kids, there was a kind of electricity in the air. Half of the time, we could barely contain ourselves. We knew that if things went well, it was likely we’d see some crazy ass shit.

Funny that sex clubs have to be private and hidden from Main Street, but this crazy ass shit is right next to every suburban shopping center - ✞ marks the spot.
posted by four panels at 8:10 PM on September 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Interesting that everyone assumes the writer is male--other posts on the site suggest a female author.

Personally I thought it was a nice bit of memoir that was neither positive nor negative toward Pentecostals. If anything it made them more sympathetic for me--I basically despise the charismatic sects that intentionally scare children, but this suggests it doesn't always work by a long shot.
posted by texorama at 8:10 PM on September 12, 2007

buh-buh-buh-woooooh fritzayowyow twizzlyporkanoshasemilubixtits!
posted by bruce at 8:14 PM on September 12, 2007

I didn't find this very plausible. The adults are all crazy and the wise kids are have too much detached perspective to buy it? Sounds like a disenchanted adult's wish-fulfilling projection, imagining that he or she was a secular wise-ass at the age of ten.
posted by sy at 8:16 PM on September 12, 2007 [3 favorites]

Oh great, another LOLPIGPANTIES post.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:26 PM on September 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sounds like a disenchanted adult's wish-fulfilling projection, imagining that he or she was a secular wise-ass at the age of ten.

I wondered about that too. It's a great story, but this aspect of it seems a bit odd.
posted by homunculus at 8:32 PM on September 12, 2007

I went to a Pentecostal church in Florida a few times. Only, my Girlfriend didn't tell me it was Pentecostal, so I was clueless. It scared the shit out of me the first time a dude flopped out of his pew onto the floor, and started writhing around. I thought for sure he was having a seizure, and why the hell wasn't anyone helping him? Then he started in with the talking, which went something like "Hallabaloobalaaa!"

My GF and I got married by the preacher from that church, and he was a really nice, sincere, old man who gave us a very nice talk in his parsonage about the importance of trust.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:39 PM on September 12, 2007

hilarious - and quite true to life

The adults are all crazy and the wise kids are have too much detached perspective to buy it?

no, the wise-ass kids, like so many wise-ass kids, don't see the seriousness and solemnity of the tradition and so focus on things that they can understand, such as sister ruth's pig panties

this is dead on - there isn't a false note here - and yes, pentecostals can have a sense of humor about their church and what goes on in it
posted by pyramid termite at 8:48 PM on September 12, 2007

Sounds like a disenchanted adult's wish-fulfilling projection, imagining that he or she was a secular wise-ass at the age of ten.

Actually, I was in much the same circumstances as the author of this piece - my single mother went church-hopping when I was 10 or 11 looking for Jesus, a suitable father figure and maybe even some friendly ladies to befriend. We did Baptist, Sectarian Fundamentalist (like, one step away from dumping all the trappins of satanic modern life to go hide in the hills like some twisted sort of Evangelical Amish, just to get away from the devil , that degree of fundo) Anglican and Pentecostal over a two year period, and by the end of it my little brain was rather a lot more critical of the adults than perhaps I should have been. I would have been one of the kids shimmying down towards the front to take reports of the pigs back to the other kids.

For kids raised secular then dropped into it neck-deep, it's like a trip to the circus. Not to say that a lot of the people I met in that tour of various churches, halls and ampitheatres weren't lovely people, but between the fossil-deniers, the tongue-speakers and the guys who saw the devil literally everywhere, Kid Jilder had a ball.
posted by Jilder at 8:55 PM on September 12, 2007

Are pig panties like bitch's britches?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:00 PM on September 12, 2007

Reminds me of Mencken's reports of the giant outdoor fundamentalist revivals during the Scopes Trial.
posted by orthogonality at 9:04 PM on September 12, 2007

"Suck it, Jesus."
posted by homunculus at 9:47 PM on September 12, 2007

ah... that story really made my day. funniest thing I've read in a long time.
posted by PercussivePaul at 10:05 PM on September 12, 2007

Does making fun of them make this guy superior?

No. However, making fun of them does make me laugh.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:14 PM on September 12, 2007

I was raised Pentecostal. Once I reached adulthood, I made my own decisions about religion. But I surely don't feel the need to wax on about how idiotic I might think they are. People believe what they want to believe. Why don't you just let them?

The author is writing about his/her own experiences. I think he/she is allowed to take whatever tone he/she damn well pleases.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:31 PM on September 12, 2007

I lost a key to my honda.
See my new bow-tie.
posted by The Deej at 11:52 PM on September 12, 2007

Violent Acres is a woman. Hell of a writer, too.
posted by Space Kitty at 12:20 AM on September 13, 2007

that was fucking hilarious. I feel like I missed out -- there were no pig panties in my pentecostal childhood. Someone was always quick to drape a jacket over slain-out women. I always did wonder why 90% of the slaying out happened to women.

@Rodger Dodger: Violentacres is a woman, who writes in an unapologetic style about everything she writes about. It was her experience of her childhood -- like Artifice_Eternity says, I think she can write about it however she wants to.
posted by lastobelus at 12:31 AM on September 13, 2007

This piece really deserved being read aloud. My husband and I both ended in tears after I read it to him.
posted by onhazier at 6:29 AM on September 13, 2007

I seem to remember them spending the majority of the time trying to scare the shit out of the kids and if you were under 10 or so it usually worked. Jilder raises the critical point above that the experience would have to be fairly entertaining if you weren't raised in it to begin with. There were a few good times but on the whole I would like a refund for the thousands of hours of my life I was forced to spend in church.
posted by well_balanced at 7:11 AM on September 13, 2007

Jilder raises the critical point above that the experience would have to be fairly entertaining if you weren't raised in it to begin with.

I think that's a very critical point too. Very young kids mostly believe what their parents tell them. If she had been getting the holy spirit since day 1, she may not have been so critical. Or we might have never heard from her ...

I enjoyed the slice of life and found it fairly believable. I'm sure there was a bit of color added. Not Mark Twain, but she definitely has a nice pace and style.

By the time kids are 10 (4th grade?), they're definitely already talking about sex and stuff, so farm animal panties? Yes, that would have been something to see.

Jilder's experience of mom serially joining churches to find a decent man is a great idea for a novel, I think. Unfortunately, I have nothing near the sort of experience/knowledge it would take.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:45 AM on September 13, 2007

As someone raised in a batshit-insane fundamentalist religion I found this article very refreshing. I don't think the author was making fun of them per se. She was just recollecting her experience as a child, and how any normal person confronted by such such stupidity would and should react.
posted by gallois at 8:53 AM on September 13, 2007

The "making fun of religion is off limits because it's a deeply held belief" thing is weird.

It's rude to make fun of people, and can be unpleasant and cruel, but that has noting to do with whether the subject is pimply faces, basket weaving or speaking in tongues, or belief in Zeus.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 9:56 AM on September 13, 2007

That was great. I wish my childhood Pentecostal experience was like that. I faked being slain in the spirit too, but not because I thought it would be funny. I thought that since I was the only one who wasn't feeling anything, I must be the only one Jesus didn't love. I couldn't let the rest of them know that, so I "gabba gabba gooo'd" with the best of them.
posted by arcticwoman at 10:27 AM on September 13, 2007

People believe what they want to believe. Why don't you just let them?

Uh, was someone trying to stop them?
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:51 AM on September 13, 2007

Imagine being raised in a church like this (actually Primative Baptist) and your grandfather is the minister.

One room, unheated church with an outdoor outhouse. Two sides of the church, one for the women, one for the men. The children allowed to sit with the women until puberty and baptism. Footwashing. Lots of chanting, people jumping up and down. Bibles being 'thumped'.

As a kid, much like the author, it was all I could do to keep from laughing my ass off at 'sister Elza' jumping up and down, all 300 pounds of her, shaking the whole church and rattling the pictures on the wall. I sat between my mother and grandmother and was the recipient of many, many thumps to the head for barely contained snickering and open mouthed awe and amazment. The worst part was that it wasn't unheard of to have up to 4 ministers at each service. We usually went from about 9 until 12. It was brutal!

It was entertainment, it was also a dying part of my family history and it was ultimately responsible in large part of my opting out of organized religion.
posted by UseyurBrain at 5:13 PM on September 13, 2007

Great thread guys.

This is a great book on snake handlers in rural appalachia. Seriously good read.
posted by vronsky at 5:51 PM on September 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

href="http://www.amazon.com/Serpent-Handlers-Three-Families-Their/dp/0895871912/ref=sr_1_2/105-5609964-3534810?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189732247&sr=1-2"> this one is even better.
posted by haikuku at 6:12 PM on September 13, 2007

thanks haikuku - link
posted by vronsky at 6:25 PM on September 13, 2007 [1 favorite]