The Backsliders at the Ponderosa Steak House

When I was growing up, my church had a huge number of prohibitions.  We discussed them and memorized them for prizes in Sunday school class, heard sermons about them on Sunday mornings, heard testimonies about them on Wednesday nights, and received our own black-bound copy of them when we became members of the church at age 12.

Some were harder to follow than others, and therefore caused more guilt when we backslid:

1. No restaurants or stores that sold alcohol.
2. No movies.
3. No work on Sunday, including homework.
4. No buying anything on Sunday, including eating out.

It seemed that my unsaved friends were constantly trying to get me to go to Dewey's Candy Store for ice cream or Schneider's Drug Store for comic books on Sunday afternoons!  Sometimes I gave in, only to feel a combination of intense guilt and fear, as if God was about to strike me dead and fry me in the Lake of Fire for all eternity.

My parents found the rule difficult, too.  On vacation, we usually rented a cabin or stayed with friends so we didn't have to drive far or cook on Sunday.

And at home, Mom usually put a roast beef in the oven to slow-cook while we were in church. If she didn't have time or was out of roast beef, we had to wait until around 2:00 pm for her to cook something else (cooking didn't count as #3).

One Sunday morning in the spring of 1969, when I was in third grade, Mom was out of roast beef, so she said she would make a tuna casserole when we got home.  My brother and I griped and complained, but what could we do about it?

She didn't realize that this Sunday was the start of the Spring Revival!  Instead of Brother Tyler, our usual preacher, who let us out at 11:45 sharp,  we got Brother Smith, an evangelist, who screeched and stomped about how we weren't meeting our Christian obligation to save souls until well after noon, and then led us in endless choruses of :

Faith in God can move a mighty mountain.
Faith can calm a troubled sea
Faith can make the desert like a fountain
Faith will bring the victory.

Repeat, then repeat again, 3,241 times, until you have thought of at least 12 ways to make fun of the lyrics.

THEN he had the audacity to hold an altar call!

By the time we got out of there, it was 12:45!  By the time we got home, it was 1:00.

We changed into our street clothes, and then Mom and Dad pushed us into the car again.

"Wait -- where's dinner?" I asked.

Mom turned around to the back seat.  "We're going to Ponderosa Steak House.

I liked the Ponderosa Steak House.  We usually went on Tuesday nights for their special -- a ribeye steak, baked potato, dinner roll, and salad.  But...

"We can't eat out!  Today is Sunday!"

"There's not enough time to cook," Mom explained.  "Your little brother and sister need to eat."

"But it's a sin!  God will strike us dead!  We'll spend eternity in the Lake of Fire!"

"Just be quiet.  It's an emergency."

Seething in righteous indignation, I was silent all the way down 38th Street to 7th Avenue.  I was Daniel going into the Lion's Den.  They could bring me into that house of abomination, but they couldn't make me eat.  No drop of food, no sip of water, nothing.  I would starve before I disobeyed a law of God!

We parked.  I trudged across the parking lot, so slowly that they told me to hurry up.  Into the jaws of doom.  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

It was cafeteria style: you paid, got a tray, and grabbed what you wanted from steam tables.

And just ahead of us, waiting to buy on Sunday, was Brother Tyler and Brother Smith, and their wives.

It was like seeing your priest in a meth lab.  It was like Young Goodman Brown, who discovered that all of the good churchgoers in his village were really witches.

Brother Smith didn't recognize us, but Brother Tyler did.  He looked down at his feet, heavily embarrassed.

No specific gay content in this story, but it did allow me to see that sometimes people don't exactly practice what they preach, which made it easier to reject the Nazarene rules later on.

No nudity, either, but here's a naked man to tide you over.