My educational journey started out at a Bible college in Tennessee. I briefly mentioned the school in one of last week’s articles. Extremely strict in all aspects. But, when you know the rules going in, you play by the rules. A baseball game would be chaos if Team A decided in the 4^th inning that from now on they would get three balls and four strikes per hitter instead of four balls and three strikes. And, this rule change wouldn’t apply to Team B. You can’t change the rules during a game or a presidential election or at a strict college. You agreed before you got there. So this school was strict. Among other things, we were required to go to either the Campus Church or some local church that was approved of by the school. Obviously, they wanted you to attend the Campus Church. As strict as the school was, the church was even more so.

          Laughing was frowned upon. Married men and women sitting next to each other had to be at least the length of a songbook apart. If you were not married you had to sit even further apart. Outside of calling out a hearty 'Amen' or 'Preach it, Brother' you were to remain both emotionless and motionless.

          When we had services there the choir remained in the choir loft for the entire service. The choir loft was situated just below the baptistery, which was elevated up the back wall. While the baptisms were going on (we baptized by immersion) the choir would hum a song, which, I suppose, was intended to imitate the heavenly host.

          On one particular Sunday there were seven or eight people to be baptized. (They baptized every Sunday. It was kind of neat.) The second to last was a nine year old boy who could not get out to the pastor by walking, so he started to dog paddle. The whole front of the baptistery was clear acrylic and you could see down to the pastor’s feet, so it was sort of cute to see the little guy swim. There were a few titters in the crowd of about 3,000. The pastor reached out and grabbed the boy and then stared at the congregation. After a fifteen second glare he told us that this was a sacred moment and not a time for levity. While he was lecturing us he was holding the little fellow up by the shirt and we were treated to seeing the boy’s legs kick furiously under the water. It made the whole situation extremely funny, but we were doing our best to not even smile. Finally, he was baptized. 

          The last person baptized was a jolly man who was simply overjoyed with his new salvation. He only stood about 5'5", but he was also just about that same size around. When he stepped down into the water he was so happy that it made most of us smile, which further angered the pastor. He took the man and said, "My Brother, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Buried in His likeness..." At that point he pushed the man backward under the water. We all saw his feet leave the bottom of the baptistery. The next part of the phrase is, “Raised to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus.” As the pastor said the word 'Raised' the man’s highly buoyant body surged to the surface and broke water. As his body shot upward it pushed a lot of water before it. When he got to the surface the water kept going, surging out of the baptistery and washing over the choir. The quite humming turned into gasps and squeals and screams. The congregation, already on the verge of forbidden merriment, broke out in actual laughter. The pastor was furious and kept us there an extra thirty minutes scolding us by preaching an intense sermon on proper decorum in the church. He preached this sermon while standing in the water of the baptistery, which just made it all the funnier.

          The way the baptistery was set up there lent itself to humor anyway. As I said, the front was clear. When anyone went forward at the close of the sermon for salvation, they were baptized immediately. Since you only went forward due to the moving of the Holy Spirit, it was unplanned. Therefore, when folks were baptized they were baptized in their street clothes. Women were not allowed to wear slacks at that church, so women were baptized in their skirts or dresses. When a woman stepped into the baptistery she was to keep her arms rigid to her sides to hold the dress down. She was to stay like that the whole time, even while she was put under. Now, the natural reaction to being pushed over backward and forced under the water is to reach up and grab the person's arm that is pushing you under. It happened about half the time, which allowed the dress or skirt to float up. You would think that after all those years they would have caught on. But then again, maybe not.