Narcissism As A Christian Virtue?

Yesterday or the day before I was in my work truck going for material or some such when I had the great misfortune to hear a broadcast of "Family Life Today." FLT is a branch ministry of the late Bill Bright's Campus Crusade for Christ. I cannot believe a godly man like Dr. Bill would think some of the things coming out of FLT these days are all that bright. For instance, not long ago I heard FLT puff vision casting (a New Age religious practice) and they did an interview with Emergent heretic, Donald Miller. When I emailed them to fill them in with Miller quotes indicating he hates the gospel, I was rebuked and the heretic defended, because not all his stuff was bad. There was some good stuff in there, too, you know.

Well, peachy. Too bad Joseph Smith is dead. He'd make a pretty good interview, doncha think? He was big on family. Especially wives.

Well, this particular day, Bob Lepine or the other guy was interviewing one really nasty, narcissistic woman who'd written some sappy book about "the language of love." (Don't ask. All I'll tell you is it's a self-centered quazi-Christian fad once quite in vogue with the comb-over crowd and their wives and now in the death throws of its usefulness for hawking imitation-Christian books and conferences to churchies with more time and money than sanctification and common horse sense.)

Anyway, back to the wicked witch of FLT...Proverbs 31 she ain't. Now as I entered the listening audience, I hadn't eaten recently so I chanced a short listen. It seems all men just really bite. Yep, men--especially if they don't act like women--are stupid, dumb, ignorant, and supposed to guess just exactly what their women want and if they don't guess right, well they should just be shot, and that's all there is to it.

At dawn.

With a very large gun.

Preferably in the groin area.

With the mood set, we go to the specifics of our conversation between the very sensitive, always-caring, never-doubting-the-word-of-a-woman, sweet, likely-to-buy-flowers-for-no-reason-at-all, never-kicks-the-puppy Family Life Today emcee manette and the wonderful interviewee telling all of America just how hell-bent all men are. (Except the aforementioned lilac of a guy from FLT, ie., the manette.)

The subject was something like, "A man should guess what his wife wants and just give it to her right this instant or be killed." Never once did the interviewer or the interviewee suggest the wife might TELL THE POOR GUY just what that could be. No, that, of course, would not prove his sensitivity (pronounthed thenth-u-tiv-u-tee.) Love language is a language you learn on your own, I guess. Does Rosetta Stone have a CD on that? On the other hand, if he got it wrong, that does prove his INSENSITIVITY, THAT DIRTY, ROTTEN MAN!!!!

The topic narrowed down to taking the wife out for a nice dinner or some event. Two things were important here. First of all, the man was to do so without any expectation of any sort of payback. He was not even to think about getting something for his efforts; the woman could smell his thoughts and be "turned off." Naturally, having an IQ only slightly below the legal limit for blood alcohol, I knew they were talking about...well...you know. And all this makes sense to me since the average bride marries in the hope that the suit next to her in front of the preacher finds her physically repugnant, right?

So, let's get this straight. If the woman wants something, the guy had better guess it right and give it to her pronto. On the other hand, the woman was actually under moral obligation to deny the man what she had known her husband wanted since they were 17. Yeah. That sounds biblical. Just ignore the Scripture. Paul said in I Corinthians 7:5, "Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time..." But what did Paul know? He was a man. And undoubtedly a dirty, rotten man, or he wouldn't have said such a thing.

It seems some of the Corinthians were Bob Lepine fans. Their translation of Genesis said, "Be fruitful and multiply with an abacus." And in Hebrews there's the section that says, "Let the marriage bed be undefiled by a husband." That's in the Hysterically Angry Women's Study Edition of the BLV (Bob Lepine Version.)

The second thing about taking the wife out for dinner, was that even if the man loved his wife enough to go to the vet for neutering, he was still just a dirty, rotten, evil man if he failed to get the dinner just right. If he got it right he would graduate from mere man to absolutely fabulous manette and be eligible to work for Family Life Today, calling all men everywhere to repent and be fem. And what made the dinner and flowers just right? Well, the wife had to feel loved. (I'm not exaggerating on this point. They were talking about the wife not feeling loved.) If he got the wrong kind of flowers or the dinner just didn't do it for her, that's it. The guy's a dud. In that case, the dirty, rotten man who got himself neutered (probably for his own selfish reasons) had to try harder next time. Keep guessing until you get the right flowers and pray her tastes don't change. (I'm not exaggerating. The correctness of the man's actions and the validity of him to his wife was based on her feeling or not feeling loved! Please, someone...anyone...if this isn't severe narcissism, tell me what is!) It was his job to keep guessing until he got it right and she...you guessed it...felt loved. Then she would actually like her husband, he would become a full-fledged, card-carrying, lilac-scented manette, and they would both move to wherever Family Life Today spews from and he could start work there as soon as he was properly fitted with a pink tutu and tights.

That was the conclusion of that part of the discussion. If the man did all he could to make the woman feel loved without any expectation of sex and she did not feel loved, it was the responsibility of the man to continue trying things to make her happy until something worked for her and remain celebate until death do us part.

Even the financial wastefulness is mind-blowing. Imagine a young husband blowing $100 for an evening. Then the wife tells him, "No, it wasn't right, Honey. I don't feel loved. Try again," either in words or in her pouty attitude. What is her responsibility? How much should be spent to make this hag happy? Why is she entitled to such waste? Why shouldn't she be thrifty and care for the welfare of the household? Why can't her husband find a cyanide capsule to bite?

I tell young guys, "Pretty lasts about 2 weeks." With a hag like that, there is no pretty. Five minutes with her and I'd put a gun in my mouth. Solomon called a selfish, hard-to-please woman a dripping faucet. The hag of FLT is a gusher.

Doesn't the Bible tell the woman to love the husband, too? Does that count? Or was that inserted by an evil male scribe too stubborn to wear a tutu? Is not this nasty wife worse than a spoiled, demanding child? After all, she's old enough to know better. This sort of thing isn't Christian. It's not even adult.

Why did it not occur to the interviewer that the woman in front of him was advocating rebellion against God? She promoted unthankfulness. When I was young and my cousin was busy discovering fire, if a total stranger gave me something and I acted unthankful, I'd get whipped until I apologized and said, "Thank you." The hag of FLT says a wife is not even supposed to live up to a simple biblical standard of civility recognized by the world! I tell you, as God is my witness, that woman deserves severe discipline. She is in sin and so is Family Life Today. They are meddling in hundreds of marriages, injecting them with sinful attitudes in the name of God. They do not recognize sin because they do not know God's character. They do not know God's character because they study self-help books and not the Bible. That's why it didn't occur to the interviewer. He doesn't think biblically. There's no Bible in his head--only self-help manuals written from the flesh and radio ratings figures in the 30-55-year-old-unhappy-women-who-go-to-church-because-they-fantasize-about-the-pastor-because-he's-so-much-more-sensitive-than-my-husband demographic.

Think of it for a moment. If you acted like that toward a co-worker, you'd eventually be fired for hurting morale. It's okay for an FLT-trained wife, though, to treat her husband that way. Why? And will she wonder why her husband is never home?

I couldn't take anymore. I turned it off.

On balance, I didn't go back to that program and listen to more sin called Christianity. Right now the divorce rate among Christians is virtually the same as the world around us. If Family Life Today gives the same sort of self-centered advice to husbands, we should be in first place shortly.

And don't get me wrong, if my daughter was married to a man as selfish as this interviewee was I'd be tempted to kill the guy. If she was going to marry such a jerk, I'd take her to lunch and have a little talk with her. In Siberia. For about ten years.

This is why I call the church back into the Bible. Nothing on that program was Christian. None of the thought patterns were biblical. It was carnal. It was selfish. It mitigated against the man as head of the home. It encouraged wives to be self-centered, demanding narcissists who abused their God-given husbands. It glorified and sanctified unthankfulness and rebellion. It called evil good and good evil. I pity any girl brought up by a woman like the hag of FLT. Such a girl will be as good as divorced before she reaches twelve because no man could stand her for any amount of time. And she'll bring the divorce because in her mind the man is evil. He has to be--he's the man.

Family Life Today says to hope your spouse makes you have nice feelings. Scripture says to deny yourself. Family Life Today says if your spouse doesn't give you nice feelings, deny him/her something he/she wants. Scripture says to deny yourself. Family Life Today says thankfulness is contingent on whether or not you like the gift given. Scripture says to deny yourself and give thanks in all things.
Family Life Today or Scripture. Narcissism or self-denial. The flesh or the Spirit.

I'll tell you what, though. The hag of Family Life Today sure made me love my wife more. I called her and told her right from the truck that day.

In Christ,
Phil Perkins.