Sister Cindy brought her controversial preaching to Flagler

By Gloria Goodner

Flagler College students swarmed the street in front of the Proctor Library when they heard the news of someone big being on campus. Students skipped class, and some convinced professors to even have class outside in order to see her perform. Her teachings may be controversial, but the students screamed and cheered while she preached against being a “slut.”

On Feb. 2, the social media-famous Sister Cindy paid a visit to the Flagler campus. This renowned “Tik Tok” personality was in high spirits as hundreds of students gathered around to listen to her sermon. On her social media pages, she preaches how being a “ho no mo” is the key way to get into heaven, she calls her sermons the “slut shaming show.”

How did the campus react?

Taylor Wells, a sophomore at Flagler College, spent 2 of the 4 hours watching as Cindy was there. “She is a world class phenomenon, a great lady. [I heard of her] through Tik Tok and social media, pretty much how I hear about anything these days,” Wells said.

She sat with her friends in the front row watching as Cindy preached her views. “I saw her because she is pretty funny, and you know, she goes to a lot of schools and I never thought she would come to Flagler College, and she came. I was like ‘wow, she’s actually here. That’s pretty cool.’”

Sister Cindy became a viral sensation at the start of 2021 on Tik Tok with a video of her visiting another college campus.

“First of all, I think she is serious,” Well said. “I don’t think she is faking it; I think she believes everything she is saying. Which, power to her, even though some of it is pretty crazy.” Wells went to the show strictly for comedic purposes, and to see the star for herself in person.

Jenna Boerst, a junior at Flagler, kept seeing more and more videos pop up on her feed and had to see for herself.

“She’s pretty popular on Tik Tok, so I’ve seen other videos of her at other schools and stuff…Honestly, I don’t understand, I feel as if she can’t be serious about being an actual Christian for what she is teaching,” she said. “I almost feel as if she is being satirical and it’s more a comedy show than actual teachings. But if she is being serious about what she is teaching, it’s very absurd. I feel people go to laugh at her.”

The event got pretty out of hand at some points. A student was seen throwing off her shirt and asking for Sister Cindy to sign her chest. Later, towards the end, a tourist trolley train carrying 30 to 40 kids on a field trip road by and the large group of students started to chant “ho no mo!” Safe to say, these shows are not boring.

“I really think she does [turn people away from Christianity]. I feel like it is really easy now to get the true values mixed up,” said Boerst, who is also a Christian and believes her teachings do more harm than good.

Grace Bernstein, another sophomore at Flagler, stayed only for a few minutes before she left because she was concerned for those who were there. “I think she is a cooky older woman feeding off her newfound popularity,” she said.

Bernstein doesn’t like her teachings at all and considers them harmful. “I thought it was funny, but I was also slightly concerned,” she said. “A lot of people gathered to listen to [her], and everyone thought what she was saying was really funny. But no one really talked about how some of the stuff she says is harmful or just old ways of thinking.”

“I do believe that some people agree with what she says. Her original platform was for her conservative ideals and people who supported her,” she added.

Sister Cindy was not always this popular, and her teachings were more aggressive before her rise to fame. She has been teaching since the late 1980’s, and through the years she got more intense in the words she would use.

“I don’t think she actually believes all of the radical ideas she says she has,” Bernstein said. “But the fact people give her attention for saying out of pocket things is making her even crazier.”

Wells agrees that she was not always like this. “But the reason, I think, she uses the language that she does and says the crazy things that she does is because she realized that we were watching her and that she was getting money from the views that she got, so I think it is all a big act. I don’t think she acts like that behind closed doors. Money, attention, she also feels like this is the only way she can get the word of God out to people our age, which I don’t think is true. Ad also the word of God she is preaching is a little outdated and ‘cray cray’.”