I’ve been enjoying a couple of funny church experience threads, including Wiz’s Adventures in Arizona and Susan M’s Primary Stories. But, I haven’t seen one on Sunday School comments, which tend to be my favorites.
My all-time favorite happened a few years ago in a Gospel Doctrine class about the Plan of Salvation as we were talking about the different degrees of glory with an earnest Gospel Doctrine teacher.
Class member: So where does Spawn fit into this picture?
Gospel Doctrine Teacher: Excuse me?
Class member: You know, Spawn, the comic book character.
My husband and I had to not look at each other and try so, so hard not to start the giggles that would have turned into full-on “outside voice” laughter. Fortunately, the teacher is nicer than we are and was quick-thinking. He responded that we don’t have to worry about what degree of glory others will obtain (creatures from Hell or others) because ultimately it is up to God and the individual to judge.
What are some of your most memorable Sunday School comments?
During a lesson on the Word of Wisdom a woman was going off about the evils of white flour and then admitted at the end of the comment that she enjoys an occasional glass of wine.
The Spawn question was actually an interesting one, since the creator deliberately treats Christianity as a mythos (Spawn is an assassin who is recruited by the ruling demons of Hell to be a general in the final battle of Armageddon). In spite of this office, Spawn struggles to retain his humanity. The central question is one of redemption–how far gone do we have to be to be unredeemable?
I taught older boys in primary, scouting and Young Men’s for years, and were I in such a position now, I would use this to generate some good discussion!
A few years ago, when I was teaching gospel doctrine, we had a psychologically challenged class member who would say the most unexpected things, sometimes at great length. Because I believed he needed and deserved to feel part of the community and to contribute, I’d call on him once a class, and then frantically try to make some tenuous connection between whatever he had said and the lesson.
This particular class member was obsessed with our church’s failure to follow the Pauline injunctions against women speaking in church and was very concerned that women weren’t covering our hair and were insufficiently obedient to our husbands (it’s fascinating to me that the mentally or emotionally handicapped often see straight through the inconsistencies in our practice around which we like to wrap a lot of hemming and hawing). Sometimes he’d break down and try to confess his sexual transgressions to the class, which I always tried to head off by urging him to go to the bishop and changing the subject before he got too far.
But maybe my favorite remark he ever made had to do with his explication of menstruation. He explained to all of us that we women have a natural process to cleanse us and make us holy, but men had a much more difficult time being obedient to the law of chastity because they didn’t menstruate.
I have no idea what I said in response, but I’m sure it was wholly inadequate.
Eve, that is hilarious. So glad someone’s finally figured that whole thing out … 🙂
This isn’t quite along the lines of “I can’t believe someone said that!”, but my husband likes to tease me about a comment I made a few weeks back. The week before I had been trying to talk about some wordplay in the greek that reinforced the theme of atonement in “one shepherd, one fold.” I didn’t think much of it until DH pointed out the saying the words “in the original greek” in Sunday School might be going a bit far in our ward. So I told myself I’d avoid the word “greek.” Unfortunately, I tripped myself up the next week by saying something like “yada yada yada, and in the greek … oh wait! Shoot! I told myself I wouldn’t say greek this week! Darn greek!” Yeah. That kind of had the opposite effect of what I was hoping for. DH was shaking with silent laughter beside me, and everyone woke up enough to see what the fuss was about … the teach said “ah … thank you …” and went on.
There was one week when the teacher was discussing the growth of the church and was drawing a rough graph of the numbers. One man raised his hand to inform us that the graph was ‘asymptomomical’ and that very soon the church would be infinitely large. He was trying to say that it was asymptotical, but ended up mangling the word hopelessly.
The teacher said “thank you for that” and just kept on going.
Mine is from a teacher, not a commenter. Our friend was investigating the church and was in the class, and the teacher proceeded to list which kingdoms the suicide bombers, american military, and sadamm hussain would go to. I bet you can guess which she said.
And yes, this was a ward in Arizona 🙂
Once, on the first Sunday of the year, the teacher was introducing the course of study, which was the Old Testament. She invited people to raise their hands and tell the class their favorite parts of the OT. As a joke, I nudged my friend sitting by me on the back row and dared him to raise his hand and say the the Song of Solomon was his favorite part.
He did. Every head turned.
Like Mark, I was in an OT class and the teacher started the lesson by asking for favorite bible stories. I commented that I enjoyed the stories of Deborah and Esther. After me a man behind me remarked that his favorite OT story is Samson and Deliliah because “women will screw you over real bad”. The teacher said, “Well, I’m not going to write that on the board becasue my wife is here, and I would still like to go home”.