Religious schools are as old as religion itself, and there's nothing wrong with keeping the "God" in education(g). But when college students are sent to live at a Christian school where their every move is monitored, well, there is a certain potential for things to get weird. Pensacola Christian College, for instance, has come under fire for what has been described as a cult-like atmosphere, along with the little matter of not having any accreditation at all.
We spoke to one former student who we'll call "Lilith." She attended PCC and told us ...
#5. There Were Pregnancy Witch Hunts
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The most traumatic event in Lilith's tenure at Pensacola Christian College occurred in the spring of her freshman year. She and her boyfriend had sneaked away to enjoy a rare moment of nuzzles, because no physical touching was allowed between genders at all. Well, someone must have seen them in this obscene act of awkward adolescent pecking, because shortly thereafter ...
"I received a call slip in my mailbox ordering me to the dean's office," she says. "I remember that it was really weird, because it came on a Sunday." When she got there, she found a waiting room full of other fallen women. "When I was called into the office," she says, "the dean and one of her assistants were waiting. 'How are you?' they asked. 'How are you feeling?'" She told them she felt fine, and they cut right to the chase. "We're concerned about your health. We're concerned you might be pregnant."
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"Have you been visited by any storks lately?"
That seemed unlikely to Lilith, a currently menstruating virgin. "They told me 'People said you've been feeling sick and vomiting in trash cans,'" which was only slightly less confusing, because she had never been that sick the whole time she had been at school. When she explained all of these things, they asked "Would you be OK with taking a pregnancy test to prove your innocence?" That's verbatim what they said, as if pregnancy was a crime.
Lilith had a feeling that not being OK with it wouldn't be OK, so after five hours of being called in and out and asked all kinds of questions presumably with a flashlight in her face, she was marched down to a bathroom to take the (obviously negative) test. This was during a busy time of day, when there were tons of students in the halls, all watching her being trotted out to take her pee of shame.
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At least a walk of shame at other schools means you got laid.
Apparently, this kind of thing happened all the time. In fact, Lilith's roommate was called in for the same routine a few weeks later. They just rounded up anyone suspected of Thought Sex and gave them the Room 101 treatment. Well, not just anyone. As far as she could tell, it was just the girls. But we'll have more on that in a moment.
#4. It's Like Being On House Arrest
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In theory, it makes sense that a Christian college would continue to enforce biblical law after hours in their dorms. It doesn't do any good to teach good Christian values in class only to have the students spend their evenings in a nude, coke-fueled conga line. But in practice, it means the schools take on an overbearing Big Brother role. We don't want to go nuts and say that Pensacola Christian College was like prison for Lilith, but it does sound a lot like house arrest. Here's the procedure for leaving campus:
"You had a student ID card that you had to scan to sign out, after which you selected from a touchscreen a preapproved list of locations you intended to visit," Lilith says. "Everyone in your party had to scan out and choose the same locations, because you had to travel in groups. If you were anything less than a senior, you had to travel with at least three other girls, depending on where you were going." (Note: Boys could travel in smaller groups, for reasons that are probably in the Old Testament somewhere.)
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"It's straight out of Numbers, as in 'you need to number more before you can leave.'"
If she wasn't back by 10 p.m., she would be locked out. Violating any rules could mean getting "campused" -- meaning these legal adults were being threatened with grounding. Students weren't allowed to visit anyone's house, couldn't leave town, and couldn't go anywhere near the local naval base, which included a lot of shops but also a lot of sailors ready to destroy the girls' innocence (it was almost kind of disappointing when, in an outrageous bout of senior rebellion, Lilith visited a vintage clothing store near the base and no one so much as glanced at her innocence).
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"Pbbft. We've got a whole box of that no one wants next to the wigs."
She was basically limited to Walmart, the mall, and the local restaurants, with the explicit exception of Hooters (there was a rumor at the time that if students went to Hooters and showed their PCC ID card, they'd get a free t-shirt). She could also go to the beach, but the boys and girls had separate designated beaches that were miles apart, lest anyone be driven wild with lust. After all, how can anyone handle bathing suits when ...
#3. The Dress Code Is Even More Hard Core Than You'd Think
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Every girl at the school inevitably ended up wearing the "PCC uniform," which was khaki skirts, blue polo shirts, brown loafers, and always, every day except Saturday, pantyhose. That may seem like a minor irritation, but it often meant a gynecological one -- urinary tract infections became common.
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Yet another reason we should just wear pajamas all day, erryday.
That was a small price to pay for chastity, according to the dress code, which came to be known sarcastically as the Book of Barbie after the dean of women. "According to the Book of Barbie verse one, if thouest not wear hose, thouest may recklessly be raped," Lilith recites. "I actually got in trouble once because a shirt I was wearing apparently showed 'cuppage' on my breasts," meaning that it showed that she had breasts. That's how sexless the clothing was so supposed to be. She got so used to wearing potato sacks that when she went home on break, pants felt weird.
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"Mom, why are you dressed like a harlot?!"
There was a Book of Ken, too, but it was much less strict. Boys had to wear collared, button-up shirts and ties before chapel in the morning (though they could take their ties off in the afternoon) and blazers or dinner jackets to dinner. That's it. There appears to have been no concern for their cuppage. If you're noticing a running theme, it's because ...
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