ONE MORNING AT SUNDAY SCHOOL
(What happened to an impudent boy
at Baptist Church)
(2 Screens)As a young boy, I attended Sunday School regularly at the First Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I had been baptized (I remember the "total immersion" very well, because I almost choked while under water) in this same church, and our mother insisted that my brother and I go to Sunday School every Sunday, "to learn something about the Bible," she had said.
Well, we went and did become better acquainted with some parts of the Bible, even though some of our teachers there were not very helpful in bringing this about.
I remember particularly the one who taught our class of ten-year-old boys. She was very "positive" and "sure" about everything, whether in the Bible or not.
I never really wanted to go to her class. Nor did I enjoy it while I was there. She did nearly all the talking, and "discussion" was allowed only on such assigned subjects as "why Eve should not have picked the apple," or "the exact dimensions of Noah's ark," or "why I like the Sermon on the Mount." But I went to that class, nevertheless, because my mother thought it was important. In fact, she said I had to go.
One Lesson I remember very well. The teacher (Miss_XXX) (I remember her name but I will not reveal it, in deference to some members of he family who still live in Bowling Green.) was reading something to us about Jesus talking to Simon Peter. It was the part in the Gospel of St. Matthew where Jesus told Peter he was going to build a church on top of a rock--or at least, that's what it sounded like to us ten-year olds. No one in that class knew what all that meant, and so we were not very attentive, I suppose. But when Miss XXX began to explain it in her own way, I sat up and took notice.
"Now, the Catholics believe that Jesus made Peter the first Pope," she continued with an air of certainty. "In fact, the Catholics don't know what they are talking about most of the time. They just make u tings--things that are not true--and then teach those falsehoods to their young children, so that the children will grow u to be bound to the Catholic Church and a slave to the Pope for life."
"Do you mean the Catholics at St. Christopher's School down on Church Street here in Bowling Green?" I asked.
"Yes, of course, and all the other Roman Catholics, wherever they are," she replied, obviously irritated at being interrupted. "They are all ignorant and misguided about religion. They won't even acknowledge that God intended for us all to be Baptists," she continued in a louder voice.
"How's that?" another boy in the class asked. "Where does it say in the Bible that everybody's supposed to be a Baptist?"
"Well," the teacher responded angrily, "He sent John the Baptist to baptize Jesus, didn't He?"
"Oh, " my friend said in surprise. "I had never thought about that."
The teacher then went on for another ten or fifteen minutes criticizing the Catholics in all sorts of ways--what terrible people they were, why we should not associate with them, and warning us never to attend a Catholic mass.
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