An insight I had during the Christian Singles free-for-all over at Cerulean Sanctum. One of the commenters posted about hearing “all the prayer requests for unsaved husbands” and we’ve both encountered the paradox of single Christian women lamenting they can’t find a Christian man and single Christian men lamenting every single Christian woman has rejected them. I think I have a partial explanation:

In another comment (on the thread), I said how I longed to hear “I love you” without the attached “…as a Brother in Christ”. I think that might be part of the problem: Within a church or church-associated singles group, we have not only established a tribal identity but a FAMILY identity. And you don’t get the hots for your brother or sister, but only for someone outside your family.

This is called “exogamy”, and acts biologically to prevent incest/inbreeding. I know I didn’t want a “sister” (even though I never had one for real), but a girlfriend who’d become a wife, a co-equal partner through life. Maybe the Christian single women doing all the rejecting are seeing the single Christian men only as “brothers” instead of potential husbands.

This is a biological reason for the “lure of the exotic”, where over-familiarity acts as a brake on attractiveness and the exotic Other becomes very attractive. (I’m in Furry Fandom, and a lot of the attraction for semi-human “furry ladies” (such as Mrs Fox in Fantastic Mr Fox is that they are the ultimate Exotic Outsider.)

Those women “with unsaved husbands” may have rejected Christian suitors because they were Christian and thus “family”, while being attracted to those men on the outside outside because they weren’t of the Christian “Family”. Too familiar, not enough different/exotic.

And the attraction of women to Users & Abusers. Too different/exotic.

I was a kid genius (approx 160 IQ) and natural-talent speedreader from age 4. In the years that followed, I ended up speedreading so much information into my brain while my bingo-balls were still floating in the draw-tank that it’s now a massive database with NO retrieval algorithm. Any item from 50 years of reading or experience can pop up any time — when IT wants to, not when I want it to. Any factoid can trigger a linked-list of other factoids that crowd out everything else. (Good for adding richness to writing, but still a pain.)

In Medieval Catholic theology, this was called “Mortification” and could really get out of hand. For an example on how out-of-hand it could get, Google “St Rose of Lima”. Who was so far into Mortification that she tore her face into scars and scabs to destroy her looks , who gargled lye to scar and destroy her voice after being complemented on it, whose self-destructive abuse of her body led to her early death. To this day, I’m not sure if St Rose was a very messed-up woman who was holy in spite of her self-destructiveness, or whether her self-destructiveness itself was mistaken for holiness.

And if doing uncomfortable things was not enough, doing uncomfortable and diametrically opposite things made it worse, but in their eyes made you more spiritual

The world (flesh) takes a left, we (the Spirit) take a right.
The world (flesh) drinks Coke, we (the Spirit) drink Pepsi.

“WHATEVER IT IS, I’M AGAINST IT!”
– Professor Wagstaff (Groucho Marx), Horsefeathers

(Although this attitude is a lot less funny IRL than in a Marx Brothers movie.)

Sounds like some of the intricate elaborations and classifications you got in Medieval Demonology and Witchfinders-General. (I wonder if they copped the names and rankings from period grimoires or something?)

Doesn’t the preface to Screwtape Letters say something about two errors we make regarding “the race of Devils” — either discount their existence at all or “take an unhealthy interest in them”?

“Racism I understand — it’s one tribe shaking its spears at the other: ‘You not like Us!’.” — Steven Barnes at a Westercon panel several years ago

In some of these extreme Charismatic churches, there are actual people called ‘discernment teams’ who view everyone coming in and if someone piques their interest as either ‘demonic’, ‘enemy’, or potential skeptic, these people alert other members of the team, the pastoral staff, and the prayer warriors in order to have more ‘pentepolice’ eyes watching to see if they can pick up signs that the person under suspicion will start “manifesting” and disrupt the service while praying spiritual warfare during the entire service to ’silence the enemy’.

“Discernment Team” = “Thought Police Commissars”?

If so, your tribal identity (and the accompanying urge to protect your tribe from the Other) has gotten WAY out of hand. Sadly, this level of tribal identity and reaction to the Other is fairly common. It’s not only chickens and turkeys who peck the Different One to death in the barnyard.

We had about 10 people dispersed in the auditorium, and each stood up at a different time, reading Scriptures to Todd about adultery, and about godly sorrow, and urging him to repent.

About 10 others, including myself, discreetly passed brochures which explicitly and scripturally explains why Todd is a false prophet. Noone was arrested, but everyone who stood was kicked out of the church. If you have any more questions, feel free to email me at a_mighty_roar@yahoo.com.

Te ministry I am with posted this on their website about the event: http://www.operationsaveamerica.org/735.htm

Please feel free to read and comment my blog: http://amightyroar.blogspot.com

And “Holy Ghost Enemas” and Shaking Stacy sure ain’t helping.