When I read about Aunt Ida meeting that hard Baptist [“Aunt Ida meets at hard Baptist,” Herald, July 24], it brought back so many memories of when I was a teenager in Alabama. I was about 14 when we moved our membership from the big-city Baptist church in Decatur to one in the rural neighborhood where my mother was teaching. Many of the students and their families attended that church. She always felt that she could get to know her students and their parents better if she had connection with them other than at school.
Well, as it turned out, they were pretty much “Hard Shell Baptists.” It was a real “hell-fire and damnation” church. They thought it was a sin to smoke, chew tobacco, drink, go to movies or go “mixed-bathing.” “Mixed-bathing” means girls and boys swimming in the same swimming pool at the same time. (I do agree that smoking, chewing tobacco and drinking are not acceptable.) They said anyone who did any of those things were going straight to hell! They really “put-down” anyone that they heard were doing any of those sins. At that time, Southern Baptists were considered too liberal, so they pulled out of the convention. They were also sponsoring a missionary in Cuba that they dropped because she sent pictures of activities she organized for the youth in her congregation. Boys and girls were swimming together in the ocean. How terrible!
Well, after a couple of years at that church, we moved our membership back to our home church. When I was 9 years old I accepted Christ and was baptized there so I was pleased to be back among my fellow Christian family. Eventually, I was married there. By the way, I was the girl in the song, “She don't smoke and she don't chew and she don't go with boys that do! She ain't got no boyfriend! She ain't got no boyfriend!”
Through all my years I have wondered how some people who call themselves Christians can be so critical of others and not admit that they are not perfect either. When my brother first went into the ministry, he was a real “hell-fire and damnation” preacher. After several years, he said he realized that he could win more people to Christ by sharing his love than by trying to “scare the hell” out of them. He was an excellent minister in so many ways.
Just thought I would let you know that I think Aunt Ida was “right on key!”
Ann Kitchens, Richmond