I always wondered why shepherds washed their socks by night. (correct lyric: watched their flocks)

MaggieNJ

I used to believe that Hosianna was a character from the Bible because of the line "Hosianna, Son of David!" in a religious hymn. Unfortunately, the religion class I attended only reinforced this belief: We were told that King David had many different children, and imagining the mysterious Hosianna as a less prominent son among several siblings made a lot of sense to me. It took a couple of years until my father found out about this belief of mine and set me straight.

Mary

In the first verse of the Harvest Festival hymn "Come ye thankful people, come" there is a line that reads "All be safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin". For a long time I thought that meant "Everyone be safely gathered indoors, before the winter storms begin". Only recently did I find out that it refers to crops, rather than to people!

Alan, Sheffield

When I was little, I thought the lyrics for silent night. "so tender and mild" was referring to baby Jesus like he was a piece of meat. I was really confused as to why they were going to eat Jesus.

Anon

My brother and I are preacher's kids, so we were at church all the time. I was very gullible and my brother was very mischievous and in the hymn "Jesus is a Rock in a Weary Land," my brother told me the lyrics were "Jesus threw a rock and away he ran!" Then he went into this big explanation about how in olden times people were stoned to death for doing bad things, and if I wasn't good, Jesus was going to throw a rock at me. I think my brother was a religious terrorist.

Janie

In our baptst church we sing a song entitled "Trust and Obey".  The lyrics in one of the verses say "as we walk by His side IN THE WAY".  We always laugh because it sounds like we are holding up progress.  WE'RE IN THE WAY!  Boy that speaks volumes doesn't it!

choir director in the south.

In about the 7th grade my friends and I would never be able to make it through church with a straight face whenever the congregation sang the hymn "Lead On Oh King Eternal". It always sounded like they were singing "Lead On, Oh Kinky Turtle." - Still makes me laugh!

Beckiboo

I always wondered what a "sino" was in "Jesus loves me the sino..."

Dan

I was raised Catholic, and one of the hymns we used to sing at communion contained the line, "You satisfy the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat." For the longest time, I thought that it was "You satisfy the hungry FOX," and I couldn't figure out why a fox would be satisfied with wheat. Surely foxes didn't really eat wheat!

Kristin

I took "Gods got the whole world in his hands" a little too literally. I believed if we dug too deeply into the earth we would reach God's hand...oh and the sky was a handkerchief or a blanket to keep us warm.

Apple

We sang a hymn/religious song (I think it was more modern than a hymn judging by the informal lyrics) at school with the line "who made Earth and Mars?" This always annoyed me because the Bible says God made Earth, but has no mention of the other planets. I had also learnt from science books that the planets were formed naturally with no influence from God. So whenever we sang the hymn, I wouldn't say the words "and Mars", because I knew God had nothing to do with making it.

HB

I thought the hymn "Bringing in the Sheep" was "Bringing in the Sheets" and that people would sing it when taking dry laundry (sheets in particular) off the cloths line.

Anon

A few years ago I went carroling with a church group. We were singing "Hark, the Haroled Angels Sing." One line of either the second or third verse goes, "Hail the incarnate deity." When I first heard it, I thought they were saying guillatine instead of deity.
The same day, I found out out I'd been singing "What Child Is This" wrong for years. I always thought the chorus went, "Haste, haste to bring him love." I felt like a goofball when I realized that the correct word was laud instead of love. Really, that's not a word youhear every day.

keyboardplayer

I don't know if this qualifies as a belief, but when I was real little, we went to a church where they sang out of the old redback hymnal. If you're from the south and you're Baptist, you know what I'm talking about. Well, back then I had an obsession with words, and liked for people to read the dictionary to me. I loved the way certain words sounded, but hated other words. For some reason, I hated words that ended or sounded like they ended with ATION. That's weird, but it sounded ugly to me. I have no clue why.
I would get so irritated in church when we sang songs that had words like that. I didn't like singing those words, and I thought someone should rewrite the songs. When I told my grandmother about it, she sort of chuckled.
Now I love those gospel songs, but every now and then, I think of that, and feel like a goofball. I'm glad nobody remembers that.

keyboardplayer

Whe I was a kid, we would sing this one song, "Gladly The Cross I'd Bare." I always thought of it as, and even when I was older and knew better, as an inside joke, "Gladdy The Cross-Eyed Bear." I always pictured a cross-eyed bear romping around, as in a comic. I still get a laugh when I think of it.

Warren Karben