I decided not to go to the IFB church I been attending (page 2)

garyneal

Good Lord - it sounds like the witnesses, only without the false prophecies and blood transfusion laws...

Then he has not been in the IFB church long enough.

I can attest from personal experience how they are as I was one for about 3 year some twenty years ago. For me, I just faded. I left one church and told them I wanted to go to another, so they recommended one and I began attending it. That pastor pressed soul winning from the pulpit and preached how we constantly had to do more, do more to be good Christians.

They are a cult and I know this now but for a while when I was attending meetings with my wife, I was getting the same bad feelings there that I would get at the IFB churches and I did not understand why at the time.

Andy's may have a lot of the old IFB mentality in his head just as I did for a while after I left. Things like, no other church has the correct teachings. This includes Southern Baptists and definitely Pentecostals. It will take a while to undo that but it will happen. For me, it happened while I was in college and met great Christian people from various denominations.

garyneal

Here are some of the doctrines I was exposed to as an IFB.

You may be able to play the piano at church, but how many souls have you won for Christ?
If you are a member of one church (presumably theirs) and you go visit another church, you are committing adultery against the home church.
Don't listen to rock, that includes Christian rock, also don't listen to rap or country music.
Women should strive to go to Bible colleges and become preacher's wives.
Women must wear dresses that go below their knees, anything else invites too much temptation for the men.
Men should not wear earrings or tattoos.
Women must under no circumstances wear jeans to church.
Spare the rod, spoil the child.
Children should not live in their parents homes after they turn 18.
You must be in church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. When the church doors are open, you must be there.
Don't you dare stay home and watch the superbowl when you should be in church.

Wacky sayings:

The B.E.A.S.T. in Revelations is a super computer in Belgium.
The mark of the beast is a barcode.
Proctor and Gamble are run by Satanists, boycott their products.
Stay away from the Internet, it is full of porn.
College will teach you things that go contrary to God's Word.
The KJV is God's Word.

james_woods

Wacky sayings:

The B.E.A.S.T. in Revelations is a super computer in Belgium.
The mark of the beast is a barcode.
Proctor and Gamble are run by Satanists, boycott their products.
Stay away from the Internet, it is full of porn.
College will teach you things that go contrary to God's Word.
The KJV is God's Word.

Fascinating - I did not even know that they had a supercomputer in Belgium. And I thought the Proctor & Gamble witchhunt had been over for decades...

Mad Sweeney

I would think having the word "Fundamentalist" in the name would have put up the warning signs.

Live and learn, andys. Religion is a snare and a racket. ALL of it.

garyneal

James,

Fascinating - I did not even know that they had a supercomputer in Belgium.

It's an urban legend, just like the Proctor and Gamble thing.

Bear in mind that I haven't been an IFB for nearly two decades so my list of wacky sayings is dated I'm sure. But never-the-less, the pastor regularly went over the top with his sermons, often adding his own interpretations and presenting them as gospel. Frankly, I thought that they had learned a lesson long ago on how to not be so legalistic, demanding, and controlling. However, after watching the latest 20/20 special on them, I was shocked and dismayed.

Several people left the old IFB churches I use to attend and the fallout is similar to what I see here on this board.

james_woods

I guess there is never any end to religious wackyness and human gullibility.

garyneal

My advice to andys, just leave and don't go back.

I guess it was simpler for me because my family was unchurched so I did not have family in it to shun me. Well, my step-dad's brother but I had left his church earlier so.

jay88

Do they make you tithe?

jay,

TDaze

The mark of the beast is a barcode.

Oh yes, I know that urban legend. They say it is because if you look at the number six on an EAN-13 barcode, you'll see it's two thin lines. And the lines at the beginning, the middle and the end of the barcode are also two thin lines. THAT'S 666! GASP!

What they do not (want to) know is that a number in a barcode consists of 7 bits in binary for the actual numbers (six being 0000101, where 1 is black and 0 is white) and the guard bars (the beginning, middle and end) have only three bits (101).

Here's a picture to look at.

garyneal

Do they make you tithe?

They do highly encourage it much like other churches.

I decided not to go to the IFB church I been attending

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