More than a few years ago, my family decided to begin attending a small church in the tucked-away town of Elkton, South Dakota.  The church was called First Baptist Church of Elkton.  It was headed up by the lying snake of a control freak, Tim Henderson (you’ll see why I call him that, in a bit), whom I’ll refer to as T Boy.

Note: You’ll notice the church is now pastored by some other “KJV Only/Brother this, Brother that/Bus Ministry, numbers matter more than people/Women’s Ministries because men just don’t need it” nut job.

Tim Henderson had the perfect wife, perfect kids, and perfect hair.  He was trained as a “pastor” by the prestigious child pornography “seminary”, Hyles Anderson College.  T Boy had all the characteristics of a good HA “pastor”.  He controlled his wife.  He controlled the church.  He yelled fire and brimstone against anyone that didn’t agree with him, perceived (mostly) or otherwise.  He scoffed at anyone – to their face – when they were obviously beneath him.  He touched young girls and budding women inappropriately.  You name the deviant IFB behavior, he lived it.

FBC of Elkton was heavily affiliated with this cultic Independent Fundamental Baptist group, as well. The young people would go down to First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, the church run by the moron Jack “I Worship Hyles” Schaap to the indoctrination conference once a year.  The young men would come back, hootin’ and hollerin’, fully expecting all women to bow to them and then dance around, spouting filthy humor, knowing they were free to do so because they were little earth gods.  On the other hand, the women came back quieter and more inwardly angry at their god ordained position of submission.

When we first started attending this church, we were a young family.  We saw the “godliness” of the young people and the “boldness” of the “pastor” and were hooked.  The honeymoon phase lasted a good three months and then reality set in.  We became Sunday School teachers, church cleaners, carnival organizers, pastoral pray-ers, and much more.  I went out on four hour lunches with T Boy every couple of weeks to discuss nothing but life.

We began to lose sleep.  All the work we were doing turned into drudgery.  The church kids were bused in from all over the region and we were expected to teach them as if they believed in the Bible.  Rather than teach anything we ended up swatting away discussions of sex, including bestiality (I was teaching 3rd graders),  and spent the rest of the time trying to get the kids to shut-up so we could get a word in edge-wise.  It was a pathetic system, but it was required by Hyles.

We learned to thumb our noses at other stupid denominations and mock Catholics for their belief in infant baptism.  We learned to hate Muslims and all other religions.  We discovered that all our societal problems stemmed from the homosexual agenda and the fact that forced prayer in schools was no longer forced.  We learned that just the presence of the Ten Commandments, hanging on the school walls, would eradicate all demonic elements in all children for all time, causing all school’s test scores to rise, and all children to come to Jesus.  We learned that the church split a few years earlier was all due to a misunderstanding of the true heart of T Boy.  We learned that rock music was evil and yet Bill Gaither derivatives were very good, only because it was T Boy’s wife’s preference.  We learned that, even though T Boy would agree with me on something at a lunch the previous week, he would rain fire and brimstone down on me, citing the exact opposite opinion from the pulpit (which he never stood behind – the pulpit, that is).  We learned that friendship with T Boy and his family was only as deep as the work you would promise to do for him.  We learned a lot of things.

And we got tired – very tired.

So, one Sunday, we decided to leave.  My bride and I wrote a letter to T Boy and emailed it to him.  The first half of the letter jokingly referred to our conversion to Jehovah’s Witnesses and that we firmly disagreed with everything T Boy espoused.  We told a mock story of some very nice Jehoves, showing up at our door, and winning our friendship and souls.  Then we got serious and revealed that the JW part was a joke.  We then discussed our need for a break and some rest and the fact that we were removing ourselves from church membership.  We ended by asking him if he would read the letter to the church.

T Boy sent back a one line email message thanking us for the letter and saying that he would most definitely read it to the church.

And that ended our contact with the T Boy.  Contact that I admit to, anyway.

Six months later, my bride caught up with another family from the church that had recently been excommunicated.  They asked her, in all seriousness, how our marriage was doing.  My bride wondered why the question was asked in the way it was and answered in the positive sense.  Then she asked the following simple question.  “Why?”

The woman said, “Well, of course, due to your husband’s infidelity.  You must be torn up.  Two women at the same time, no less!”

My bride was shocked and inquired as to how this woman had heard the fake news.  She was informed that T Boy and his wife had gotten up on their show stage at the church the week after we sent the letter and told the congregation to pray for us.  They told the people that my bride had recently discovered that I was involved in affairs with two women at the bank I was working at and that our family needed some time alone to rebuild our marriage.

What a pile of cow dung!  How awkward do you think it was for me to march up to all the women at my bank and find out which ones I was having an affair with?  Maybe I should have just picked two to go and apologize to.  Maybe I should have felt deliciously virile, having T Boy vicariously live his dreams through lies about me.

We could have done much, but we just laughed.  After apologizing to my bride for my imaginary affairs, we got on with our marriage and the rest of our lives.

T Boy?  He was run out of the church.  His funeral.  Who cares.

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