Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

This was a popular topic on the old ex-COC message board that I thought might be interesting to bring up again. The mention of the cross necklace in another thread reminded me of it. I can think of several things that were strictly forbidden when I was a kid in the COC in the '80s that aren't forbidden anymore, at least in the branch of the COC that most of my family is associated with -- "conservative," Florida College-affiliated, southern US. Here's a partial list to jog our collective memory:

Cross jewelry
Listening to Christian music on the radio (with instruments, duh)
Listening to baby-Jesus-themed Christmas music (but still not singing it at church between November and February)
Women wearing post-1890 (not a typo) bathing suits at the beach
Playing cards and pool
Seeing R-rated movies
Praying directly to Jesus

There are also some interesting things that are still officially "sins" but I think are beginning to change, at least based on the activities I see my still-COC friends participating in. I would imagine that, twenty years from now the list above would grow to include these, among others:

Social consumption of alcohol in moderation
Clapping hands while singing in church
Use of euphemisms like "dang" and "gosh"

Of course there will always be the holdouts that think any change is wrong. They'll represent the unchanging core of the COC and will become a smaller group year after year. It's interesting that there would be any evolution of morality at all in the COC, especially considering that one of their central identifying characteristics is their supposed direct link to the original church of the 1st century. There seems to be a widening gap between the COC in practice and the COC in its own self-image.

Lev

Wearing shorts.
Going to public swimming pools (aka "mixed bathing".)

Moogy wrote:"mixed bathing"

That phrase always sounds so much more scandalous than it really is.

Lev

*Women talking in bible class
*women wearing pants to church
*tattoos and piercings (in moderation, lol)
*easter egg hunts
*holiday parties and harvest festivals (around Christmas and Halloween)

I'm kinda jealous. All of these would still send the coC congregations around here (maybe with the exception of the bathing suits, but that's still iffy) into a fit.

Most of those things are still verboten at the church I grew up in. I noted during my time at home during the holidays something I hadn't before - a burgeoning anxiety about what's going to happen to them in a few years' time. What's keeping them on the CofC straight and narrow is an eldership who holds the line. Those guys are in their late 70s and 80s now, and the writing is on the wall. They've also chosen not to replenish the eldership with younger men, fearing the creeping influence of "the world" on their little congregation. They know, deep down, that even their conservative hold won't last forever, and they know that their replacements won't be as doctrinaire as they've been.

Praying directly to Jesus was considered a sin??..???
Am I reading this wrong?

.

I went without a shirt outside.

Lev wrote:

Moogy wrote:"mixed bathing"

That phrase always sounds so much more scandalous than it really is.

Lev

HAHAHAHAHA!!!! You're right, it does......

....and.....what's up with the "bathing" thing? Swimming and "bathing" are
two different things, no?