Marriage Ministry: The drinking game.

2005/03/22

Categories: Personal

There’s a forum at Christian Forums called “Marriage Ministry”. The advice given ranges from brilliant analysis of the needs and beliefs of those involved, to painfully inappropriate pat answers, to platitudes that may or may not even suggest a potential relevance to a poster’s question.

If your marriage isn’t quite the American Dream, you will find no comfort here. The people giving advice often come across as playing house with Ken and Barbie. The number one problem faced seems to be the terrifying possibility that a man might look at pictures of naked women. Apparently, some horrifyingly dysfunctional people might enjoy this. The kinds of questions the people I know have faced in their marriages are not at issue. We see no wrestling with what vows mean, or how to deal with a sick or dying loved one. We don’t see people talking about dealing with taxes together, or spending problems, or wanting to move to another state; instead, we have five or ten pages of reassurances that your husband is essentially cheating on you by having female friends.

The very thought of talking about a spouse’s struggles with, say, being bisexual or gay, or transgendered, produces nervous laughter. The advice given would go straigh past “bad” into “offensive and cruel”. Oh, your spouse isn’t Christian? Into the “unequally yoked” ghetto you go, where you sit around with other people who have never in two thousand years wondered what the word “unequally” was doing there, if Paul meant to say “do not be yoked with unbelievers”.

Needless to say, attacks on spouses are fairly common, and tend to be made without regard for the dim and distant possibility that a married person might care about his or her spouse, and take it personally. Oh, and by the way, broken bones are not an excuse to move out in this forum; you should just be properly submissive.

It’s not all this bad, but the bad is deeply ingrained.

You can either laugh, or cry. Or both. The best way to do both is to get stinking drunk, and that implies a drinking game.

Section 1: Abuse of forum.

Section 2: Abuse of Bible.

Section 3: Abuse of authority.

Section 4: Abuse of language.

Section 5: Abuse of users.

Bonus section: Adultery and suspicion.

Extra special bonus section: Sex.

Comments [archived]

From: fando
Date: 2005-03-22 23:11:51 -0600

A recepie to go blind if I ever saw one!

From: Jeremy
Date: 2005-03-22 23:44:46 -0600

Ye gods, Peter. That’s hilarious!

From: PlaidMan
Date: 2005-03-23 12:34:34 -0600

Re: Recommending Bible as cure for “lustful thoughts”: Drink.


I suppose it’s too much trouble to post: “I just tried that and opened my Bible to Songs of Solomon… could someone please tell me the non-lustful interpretation of the following…?"

From: Rising Tree
Date: 2005-03-24 18:46:56 -0600

People are gonna get toasted if they actually follow this. And it would only take one thread to do it.


Such as this one.

From: ThePhoenix aka Alarum
Date: 2005-03-29 12:53:31 -0600

Wow, I guessed it was bad. I didn’t guess it was this bad. My brain is starting to collapse.


P.S. I found your journal by reading Fireball’s journal off Kagerou. Small world?

From: Fear and Trembling
Date: 2005-04-29 21:29:00 -0500

I think this post was totally inappropriate - I haven’t drank this much in months, ewven weeks . . .

From: judy clauson
Date: 2006-08-19 06:35:19 -0500

hello i just want a new life we are newley weds and i want a fresh start we both believe in GOD and i want my husband to be with me sober when i go through my surgey on my lung cause i smoke