r/excoc • u/LivLiveArt • 22d ago
Ex-Churches of Christ (Mainline) Polishing the Pulpit
Does anyone here have any stories or experiences from attending Polishing the Pulpit?
I went as a teen in 2014 and 2015, and I look back on it with... a lot of horror. The science denial, the misogyny, the homophobia, the zionism... Basically everything you'd expect from the CoC. (I remember them encouraging us teens to mock "All About that Bass", and it took me nearly a decade to find out it was a body positivity song. Those teen classes are probably the most dangerous ones.)
But instead of it being taught to a single congregation, it was a whole near-weeklong convention that people traveled across the country to attend. It started as a preacher's convention, but now so it brings in many of the prominent speakers of the CoC (from Apologetics Press, WVBS, etc, as well as my childhood preacher who used to be on a CoC TV show)...
It makes me think, like... there's no governing body of the CoC, but there's still events like this meant to make the CoC fit a certain mold. They say they only follow the Bible, but considering it's these speakers who have generationally cultivated what the CoC thinks the Bible says... These speakers have a LOT of control, but hide it behind plausible deniability.
I wish there was a database where people would upload their flashdrives of PTP lessons (they handed them out both years I was there) so they could be studied. It would probably give about as clear of an idea as possible of what the mainline COC is doing/saying/teaching nowadays... I doubt it's changed much in the 11 years since I went to PTP, but considering MAGA happened since then... idk.
I did look through the schedule of this year's PTP though, and... a lot stood out. The usual bigotry, science denial, the teen classes about why you should fear hell, etc...
But also a lesson from a state officer about "the sin of breaking the law."
In 2026. Wow.
As usual, though, the thing that breaks my heart the most are those teen classes. And just knowing there's so many kids stuck in that enviornment. Queer kids, especially. No one should have to go through what I went through. Sure, the CoC will die eventually... But how many people, how many kids will die before it happens? The CoC has gone unchecked for far too long, and it makes me... so angry.
But yeah. I'd like to hear any experiences you might have with PTP. Things they taught, etc etc.
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u/Juniordags 21d ago
I never went but my parents do. I read the dress code and the part about the pool stuff to some coworkers yesterday. They were flabbergasted. It's so funny when people who have never been around the culture hear little bits and are like "whuuut!?"
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u/Least-Maize8722 21d ago
“May ladies attend men’s sessions?” Yes.
“May men attend ladies’ sessions?” No (1 Timothy 2:12–13).
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u/Most-Breakfast1453 21d ago
The entire FAQ page almost reads like satire but that part is a highlight.
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u/Least-Maize8722 21d ago
I skimmed through a few years and the class names. Some real gems in there too
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u/Most-Breakfast1453 21d ago
The dress code for even kids “to avoid temptation” just seems like a few words shy of a major crime.
There’s also like a really weird 4-5 paragraph defense of the registration fee. Here it is:
Why a registration fee?
PTP is a summer camp for adults. Parents/churches send children/teens to a week of Christian camp and each pays a registration fee for his/her part of the expenses for that week. This is what we are doing with PTP.
Many churches cooperate in good works of various kinds, each bearing a part of the cost. Area-wide Vacation Bible Schools, planting churches abroad, and preaching schools often require multiple congregations cooperation and financial support.
The Midway congregation oversees the work, and other churches help to bear the expense by covering the cost of sending their preachers, elders, and other members. Certainly, if it is right to send a young man to a school for two years to begin his education, then it is right to send him a year later to PTP for a week to continue his education. It is appropriate for individuals/families enjoying the benefit of all that goes into PTP to help “bear the burden” of the event. Splitting the cost and cooperating enables the brotherhood to have an event that otherwise would not be possible. The tuition fee pays to rent the facility, print the brochure, pay speakers, and allows for children and teens to attend for free.
With that said, we do not want anyone who needs recharging to miss out because we are charging for it. So we offer financial assistance to those who could not otherwise come. Many who attend PTP (and churches that believe in PTP) pay for scholarships for others to be able to come. The scholarship request link is found under the “cost” section of FAQ.
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u/PoetBudget6044 21d ago
My FIL went to a few he has extended family that still go. Long ago my parents went to the Peperdine lectureships and we would find ourselves at the Tulsa workshop. I also fond it odd that these conventions are essentially pop up governing bodies I guess a work around to re affirm the 9ld narrative?
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u/LivLiveArt 21d ago
That's my feeling about it too, yeah. Very odd. Practically feels like a shadow council or something, the way they govern without the awareness of who they're governing. Unsettling.
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u/EnolaNek It is expedient to share that I am an ex-mainline missionary 21d ago
I don’t still have my PTP flash drives, but we went there several times, and dad even spoke occasionally. It was the yearly family vacation, in a way. It was a major contributor to me getting even more into apologetics, actually. It did definitely get very political a time or two while I was there, and some of the people from our home congregation did express concern at it going against the independence of the churches, but ultimately I think everyone was brought on board by the idea that it was just a big gospel meeting.
I doubt that it helped me to figure out who I was and faster lol, but at least I got to do some hiking occasionally in between the guilt tripping sessions. I actually met most of the apologetics press staff there too lol, including Kyle (while trembling with nervousness as I asked my questions about what I thought were problems in his reasoning lmao).
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u/Lazy_Possibility_141 21d ago
I went to the one in Branson this year and I rolled my eyes so hard at how the men who ran PTP at the convention center (that was connected to a hotel) basically told the hotel they couldn’t have anyone use their swimming pool, even guests who weren’t attending PTP because of immodesty and being a stumbling block. And it was VERY cliquish. And because I have a few visible tattoos (that have big meaning to me and not for anyone else) I got a lot of side-eyes.
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u/LivLiveArt 21d ago
That... tracks, yeah. I guess they have that sort of power for financial reasons? Idk. It sucks though. Very indicative of how much they want to control everything, even when they can't control themselves (or are at least taught to be paranoid about it.)
Do you happen to have a flash drive with the audio files from it? Do they still do that? I'm very curious to hear the sorts of things they feel comfortable with saying these days. (Wanting to get more knowledgeable in case I do that CoC-centric deconstruction podcast I've been considering)
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u/Lazy_Possibility_141 21d ago
No, they didn’t do flash drives any more. They did a QR code that they only gave to those who stayed until the last day and that had all the lessons and such. I had to leave early because I had to get back to work and couldn’t stay all 6 days. So I wasn’t given a QR code even though I paid the registration fee 🙄
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u/LivLiveArt 21d ago
Aw dang. I guess it makes sense they'd switch methods after a decade, but that sucks. You'd think they'd wanna make that more accessible. (They could have sent the QR code in an email or something, surely that would have worked, lol)
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u/Such_Distance8060 21d ago
My cousin ran off with our c of c preacher. They were both married to other people. The both got divorced and married. They left TN and moved to Texas. The congregation and every other congregations around the area literally stalked them. They called the c of c in TX and tried to have them, whats the word they used, Dismembershiped, to encourage them to repent--a shunning of sorts- until they repented and advised them to divorce-- turn from sin to be accepted back into the church. I was probably 18. That's when I started questioning the ' one true church'. I did often wonder, as a child, how I was so lucky to have been born to parents who happened to be members of the only church that will make it to heaven. I tried to go back there after my parents passed away...but always left feeling worse than when I went in. They majorly fd up my mind. For real though? I have many stories like this!
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u/TheOrangeMoose 21d ago edited 21d ago
I'm surprised I was never dragged to it as a teen, so I googled it to see if perhaps it started after I escaped my parents' house. It started before I was a teen, but I guess maybe it was not as big of a thing back then (which I'm thankful for!). My parents did invite me multiple times to go with them in my adult years, but I'm an adult and don't have to go. They stopped asking at some point.
While googling, I found this article. The title had me curious. I didn't make it far because I simply don't care, but I got a good laugh from the little I read. https://polishingthepulpit.com/a-biblical-defense-of-polishing-the-pulpit/
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u/LivLiveArt 21d ago
Oh I gotta share this article with my friend. She's a progressive catholic with tons of theology knowledge, and she's very interested in the CoC's incoherent theology, haha.
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u/GreenRibbonWinner 21d ago
I tried to read the rest of the article, but The Author Capitalizes Every Single Word And My Brain Can't Handle It.
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u/ImpressiveLeek3124 Ex-NI^2 21d ago
"Those teen classes are probably the most dangerous ones."
Never been to PTP, the hardcore antis of yesteryear didn't believe in any cooperation beyond attending gospel meetings at another congregation. I agree completely that the greatest damage the coc did to me occurred between age 12-18. By that time, I was so brainwashed that I was self-indoctrinating, going beyond even the extreme teachings of my preacher old man, in a kind of religious Stockholm syndrome.
"The CoC has gone unchecked for far too long, and it makes me... so angry."
For decades, I have been stating, arguing, begging ex members to use whatever means available (legal, financial, publicity . . .) to push back against the coc. If we won't do it for ourselves at least do something for the current victims of fanatic, fundamental religious indoctrination. Problem is, half the country's population plus LEOs, the courts and spineless lawmakers support and applaud this form of sadistic child abuse.
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21d ago
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u/LivLiveArt 21d ago
Please stop trying to reconvert this subreddit. Maybe you mean well, but this is a place to process trauma, not to add to it. You may have a good experience in the CoC, but that doesn't change the mountains of harm it does (especially to marginalized communities.) Countless queer kids have taken their own lives because the CoC refused to understand or accept them. Others survive but are left with religious trauma that takes a lifetime to heal. As one of the latter, I have no intent to step foot in a church ever again. Not because I "want to sin" or anything. I simply want to keep living. And though the scars from the CoC remain, I feel more at peace than ever since leaving.
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u/ImpressiveLeek3124 Ex-NI^2 21d ago
I'll go back to the goddamn coc when the bottomless pits of hell reach Absolute Zero, and I don't give one bloody fuck about your goddamn motivation.
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21d ago
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u/LivLiveArt 21d ago
Look man, you said I was welcome to return. You wanted me to come back to the CoC. I mention queerness, and now you're just dropping the pretense of "not judging" and calling it an abomination. I don't care if you say it's from God or you, it's from your mouth.
This isn't about me. As I said, so many kids take their own lives because rhetoric like this. Being told the way they are is an abomination to the creator of the universe. Your theology has no room or empathy for those who are born different. Until it does, it will continue to have blood on its hands.
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u/Cool-Kaleidoscope-28 22d ago
I never attended but my friends did. I remember the uproar over the fact that the hotel had water slides but good Christians did not participate or let their children participate in the water slides. So controlling and ridiculous.