In the book “The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists” there is a list of questions to help you find out if you are in relationship with a Narcissist:
1. Do you frequently feel as if you exist to admire his or her special talents and sensitivities?
2. Do you frequently feel hurt or annoyed that you do not get your turn and, if you do, the interest and quality of attention is significantly less than the attention you give?
3. Do you sense an intense degree of pride in this person or feel reluctant to offer your opinions when you know they will differ from his or hers?
4. Do you often feel that the quality of your whole interaction will depend upon the kind of mood he or she is in?
5. Do you feel controlled by this person?
6. Are you afraid of upsetting him or her for fear of being cut off or retaliated against?
7. Do you have difficulty saying no?
8. Are you exhausted from the kind of energy drain or worry that this relationship causes you?
9. Have you begun to feel lonely in the relationship?
10. Do you often wonder where you stand in the relationship?
11. Are you in constant doubt about what’s real?
12. Are you reluctant to let go of this relationship due to a strong sense of protectiveness?
13. Are you staying in the relationship because of your investment of time and energy?
The author of the book points out that this struggle, of course, reflects codependent tendencies, but the author also points out that almost anyone will sink into these behaviors when involved with a severe Narcissist.
Narcissism is manifested on a spectrum, mild to severe. But someone who is hard-wired with this disorder will never change.
Does any of this sound familiar? Did you answer yes to any of these questions? If so you are in a relationship with a narcissist.
I worshiped a narcissist. His book promised me that he would meet all my needs according to his great riches in heaven. He did not. Oh, I convinced myself that as long as I woke each morning, had a place to sleep and clothes on my back that my needs were being met. I felt I needed more than that, but I dare not ask. After all look at all he had done for me. I was lucky my narcissist gave me that much. Looking around I see he withholds even the barest of necessities from a large sector of the populace.
Do you know what happens when parents feed, clothe and provide shelter to their children but do not meet their emotional needs? They die on the inside. They have difficulty forming emotional attachments and trusting another. Yet they inevitably seem to chase after that which is most elusive: the attention of the one who neglected them, trying oh so hard to appease and please. Always consumed and expending energy in an attempt to keep the relationship going.
What happens when one realizes they are in such a relationship with an invisible God? When the denial isn’t enough anymore? When there is nothing left but the ashes of nothingness in a tightly clinched fist? There is nothing left to do but open your hand and blow scattering ashes to the wind.
Out From Under the Umbrella 
May 16, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Wow. That list provided a spot-on description of Israel in the Old Testament, fearing a narcissistic Yahweh.
It’s so liberating not to live in fear of an invisible narcissist in the sky.
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May 16, 2012 at 3:22 pm
It is also a spot-on description of a Christian’s fear of judgement and the threat of hell and/or being cut off from God. He watches your every move, controls your actions and thoughts and then the Christian laps up any.little.thing. that they can construe as a blessing.
What is so puzzling to me is that we classify it as a disorder if we recognize these traits in an actual person, but when it’s an invisible force we call him god and bow to him.
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May 16, 2012 at 2:43 pm
I sometimes wonder if I’m the narcissist. I answered all the questions as if I was my wife and it came across a bit scary.
Hence why I’m trying to fix my life.
Thanks for posting this.
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May 16, 2012 at 3:11 pm
I think if you were a true Narcissist you wouldn’t know it. You’d be in complete denial about it. Good on you, though, for recognizing narcissistic tendencies in yourself and, moreover, for being willing to acknowledge them and improve on it. 🙂
I’ll have more about this in another post soon.
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May 24, 2012 at 12:08 am
I think D’Ma’s right. My mom is a true narcissist. I recently read an in depth list of 24 things narcissist do, my mom does all but one or two of those. It took me my whole life to figure this out about her, but I no longer feed the monster. It’s been ugly sometimes and I hate to say that my other siblings might have gotten some back lash because of that.
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May 16, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Amen and beautifully written.
I have come full circle I think. I’ve decided God gets a bad rap that is fundamentally unfair, given the fact that he’s an invisible imaginary dude. The perfect scapegoat for the real narcissists who hide behind him. Time to give credit where credit is due.
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May 16, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Hear, hear!
It did take a lot of narcissism to write what’s in that book. 😉
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May 16, 2012 at 6:12 pm
I don’t know. I have a young school friend who is painfully shy. But he is extremely smart. So I admire him so. And we’re friends, but we always talk about him. He never asks any personal questions. So it makes me feel like he doesn’t care.
But, he loves to help me. So, I don’t think he is a narcissist. I think he just doesn’t know how to relate to a woman, let alone an older married woman.
As much as I love the kid, though, I feel like I give much more than he does. Yes, I do a lot care taking. I am almost twice his age, so it’s not surprising.
I know some narcissists, though. I keep dodging this “friend” who thinks she is the centre of the universe. So, so annoying.
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May 16, 2012 at 9:26 pm
Ah, yeah, and as for Bible God being a narcissist, I say that’s a mild term for him.
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May 16, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Just because someone may display one or more of these tendencies sometimes doesn’t make them a narcissist. And, to be fair, we all display some of these behaviors every now and again. That’s how we get our needs met.
If someone consistently displays these tendencies and you feel obligated to appease them, they are most likely a narcissist.
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May 17, 2012 at 2:43 pm
A little fun with your post. Expanding the descriptive label: Severe Narcissist, Advocates Reverent Kneeling (SNARK).
Another fun to do: repeat narcissist out loud 5 times rapidly. (I can’t be serious all the time.)
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May 18, 2012 at 10:58 am
I couldn’t do it exrelayman. It came out all…well…profane.
Thanks for keeping things balanced. 😉
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May 18, 2012 at 10:38 am
This mostly made me worry that I might be a narcissist.
Great post though. I remember occasionally wondering about this as a child. “But *why* does God want us to worship Him forever?” It seems like insecurity. And when you look at an insecure God, it’s hard not to see him as made in man’s image.
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May 18, 2012 at 11:01 am
As I understand it, jonnyscramanga, narcissists wouldn’t worry that they were, in fact, narcissists. Moreover they would be highly offended that you thought that they were. They don’t see these traits in themselves and think other people are crazy or wrong for being offended by their bad behavior.
Maybe you’re just a bit self-absorbed(j/k). 😀
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March 29, 2013 at 5:32 pm
Sovereignty issues. Yep, it’s His way or else. But guess what! His universe. His rules. Jesus is Lord – like it or lump it. Have a happy Easter.
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March 30, 2013 at 10:05 pm
Thanks for your comment, Sue.
All his minions seem to have that attitude as well. Winning friends and influencing people. 😉
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May 27, 2013 at 1:33 am
Perfection. Absolute perfection. I love this.
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July 6, 2013 at 6:11 am
Thanks, notabarbie. It definitely describes how a relationship with the Almighty feels.
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July 6, 2013 at 3:10 am
one sided certainly seems accurate. I could right a post on just that.
Guess guess what it is. I pray to it but it cannot answer. It refuses to speak with me.
It left no signature or footprint. I cannot see, hear, or feel it. Yet somehow it caused the universe to be. No trace of it is in any obvious way left. If I look far back in time through the galaxies, I cannot see its light. It was powerful . . . . but it helps no one now. It left an amazing order in the universe, as if by design, yet I seek a designer and cannot find him. It does not answer my prayers. I speak to it but it does not talk back. It made the world I see. What is it?
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July 6, 2013 at 6:30 am
Thanks for commenting, pencil. Welcome to the blog.
You said some interesting things. And you know what? I’ve been right there. The conundrums seem endless. The thoughts race through your mind. You’ve always believed one thing but your reality tells you something completely different. It’s a difficult place to be. And according to your beliefs your questions should be answered by your faith. Even if you don’t understand something faith should be enough. Except it’s not. You still have questions.
“It left no signature or footprint. I cannot see, hear, or feel it…No trace of it is in any obvious way left….If I look far back in time through the galaxies, I cannot see its light.”
If this is true, why are you convinced of this:
“somehow it caused the universe to be….It left an amazing order in the universe, as if by design….It made the world I see.”
I don’t know what you believe, or why you believe it. It isn’t my aim to shake anyone’s faith. This has been my story of how I went from faith to non-faith. But perhaps it would be a good idea for you to research the scientific answers to the origin of the universe and the earth.
Talk Origins might be a good place to start, but there are numerous websites out there about this topic. If you begin a search you might come to see that there isn’t nearly as much order to the universe as there seems to be. Here’s the link if you’re interested:
http://www.talkorigins.org/
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March 13, 2014 at 11:10 am
Reblogged this on Out From Under the Umbrella and commented:
Narcissism is a very ‘searched’ topic. I get a number of visits to this post each day from web searches for the term ‘narcissism’, or ‘one-sided relationships’, or ‘drained by a narcissist’. I’m going to reblog this series over the next few days while I work on some new material.
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March 13, 2014 at 12:31 pm
The lucky thing with recovering from a narcissistic god is that once you recover you realize that he/she was an illusion.
It can be worse when people revere a real narcissist in the form of, say, a dictator, or a boss, or a spouse. When they recover, they realize that this person is still there and need to be careful that he/she won’t find out that an admirer was lost.
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March 13, 2014 at 12:37 pm
Indeed. Unfortunately for me the former caused me to revere one in the latter category. It was in recognizing the latter for what they actually were that opened my eyes to the true nature of god.
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March 13, 2014 at 12:43 pm
Sorry to hear that. It can be painful. One could also use the term “emotional abuse” in such cases–I believe. It is playing with our weak points that religion does to us and so do people who want us to admire them, be dependent on them, and so on. They give lots of “candy” in the beginning, and, before not too long, when we are deeply dependent on the “candy”, we find ourselves trapped. If we realize it, it is a start for liberation. But if we don’t? We can be suffering miserably.
I see that this kind of thing happens in relations, say, between students and teachers (I work in a university), where the former may revere the latter. And this is so wrong. And it happens in politics too. And in families, and so on.
What we don’t learn well when we grow up is how to be strong and have an independent way of thinking.
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March 13, 2014 at 12:55 pm
My ultimate goal in life was to be a “good girl”. I don’t think that’s the message that was necessarily being taught in my household (by my dad anyway), but being good gets you accolades and rewards. I thought the best way to accomplish that was by being obedient. I’ll have to admit it’s been kinda fun finding my “little hellion” inside. 😀
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March 13, 2014 at 2:15 pm
Ruth, this was a great post. After reading the Bible from an unbelievers lens, it became apparent to me that the behaviors exhibited by the Abrahamic god were that of severe mental illness.
This Psychology Today article was written by FBI agent Joe Navarro. Take note of the 50 traits of a pathological cult leader.
“Here are the typical traits of the pathological cult leader (from Narcissists Among Us) you should watch for and which shout caution, get away, run, or avoid if possible:”
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher/201208/dangerous-cult-leaders
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March 13, 2014 at 2:48 pm
“After reading the Bible from an unbelievers lens, it became apparent to me that the behaviors exhibited by the Abrahamic god were that of severe mental illness.
An absolute sociopath/psychopath.
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March 13, 2014 at 3:03 pm
Sociopath/psychopath absolutely. I also wanted to post information about Stockholm Syndrome, because I think a lot of believers were not so much co-dependent as much as they were experiencing traumatic bonding. People can especially be affected if they experienced abuse as a child and/or from a spouse/partner.
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March 13, 2014 at 3:09 pm
Thank you for posting that. I may add that to the series after I’m done reblogging. It is important to know that just because you’ve been caught up in this kind of relationship does not mean you’re co-dependent. I’ve read quite a bit about co-dependency as well. I don’t particularly think I fit the co-dependent profile. I think Stockholm Syndrome definitely best describes me. I did a lot of the things I did as coping mechanisms and survival. I’m actually quite independent, but anytime I tried to spread my wings they were clipped. So I eventually stopped trying to spread them. In the end I couldn’t be caged that way. It was very claustrophobic. I just wish it hadn’t taken me 20+ years to figure that out. O_O
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March 13, 2014 at 3:38 pm
You’re most welcome. I can relate to the wing clipping and also the SS. When my husband was in college (before we got married) he sustained a traumatic brain injury. Sometimes symptoms, such as personality changes, won’t show up for a couple of years, even decades. So he pretty much got a clean bill of health after his initial recovery. Then out of the blue he had a sudden religious conversion, which happens in a certain percentage of people who experience partial seizures, often caused by brain injuries. So he became hyper-religious, and made his way into a fundamentalist church which made his symptoms, his behavior much worse.
At the time we got married he was not religious at all, and had never shown signs of abusive behavior. He was also an agnostic. But gradually his personally change, and he began to mentally abuse me. Mostly stuff like “you’re fat”, when I was 110 lbs and fit, belittling me, and really messing with my head which affected my self-esteem. Then 6 years after we were married, I found myself pregnant, and that’s when he began to physically abuse me. Soon after our daughter was born, he committed suicide.
People would say to me “why didn’t you leave him?” I asked that question over and over through the years. It’ wasn’t until I found a lot of neurological research about brain injuries, hyper-religiosity and mental illness that I made the connection. Then the discovery of Stockholm syndrome, which has similar symptoms as Battered-person syndrome. He would wake me up in the middle of the night and read the Bible to me.
I generally don’t share such personal information with just anyone, and it took me over 20 years to open up about this, but when necessary, I try to use my own personal experiences to help bring awareness about the link between specific brain injuries, neurological disorders, hyper-religiosity, and anti-social behavior.
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March 13, 2014 at 3:48 pm
I appreciate you sharing it with me. You said so much in there that I can relate to, except to my knowledge my ex-husband never had any type of brain trauma. I guess he was just born that way. I wish I could say he never showed any signs but there were red flags. I was just too enamored to see them. I’ve written pretty much my whole story on here. It was therapeutic to do so but I’ve thought about taking it down. Each time I do someone comes along and it seems to help them so I leave it. I’m so, so sorry that anyone else has been through or will go through any of that but it does help to know that they aren’t alone. It sure helped me.
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March 13, 2014 at 4:43 pm
Thank you, Ruth. I can understand that feeling of vulnerability when sharing something so personal and emotionally painful. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there like you have, and I really admire you for that. I haven’t been following your blog for very long, so I’ve not read that many posts from you yet, but I do remember you mentioning that you had had an abusive partner.
Also, it might be possible that your ex sustained a brain injury when he was an infant, or child, and it went undiagnosed (very common to go undiagnosed due to symptoms or lacking symptoms initially). Brain injuries are so common in children that it’s the number one cause of death and injury in children according to the Brain Injury Association.
Brain injuries, especially concussions where the person stays conscious, have often gone undiagnosed for years and as I mentioned, decades. There are certainly other causes for these anti-social behaviors such as pons dyfunction that can occur between one and five months of age, which can lead to attachment spectrum disorders.
It’s possible your ex was born that way, but it’s highly likely that it was due to gene expression (environmentally related — even in utero).
But your post is definitely spot on regarding the OT god — a projection from humans with suspected neurological disorders. Interestingly enough, most if not all authoritarian religions were invented by men, and men experience brain injuries at twice the rate of women. Delusions and hallucinations are not uncommon even with mild traumatic brain injuries (concussion). The Middle East is the hub of 3 major authoritarian religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) and brain injuries are the signature wound of war according the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense.
Has there ever been a time when there wasn’t a war in the Middle East over the last 5000+ years? Even if they didn’t experience a brain injury, just being subjected to extreme stress (even in utero) and/or in an unsafe environment, e.g.., war or domestic abuse, it is understandable how these authoritarian religions and dictator regimes came to fruition.
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March 14, 2014 at 5:17 am
It is possible that he suffered some type of brain trauma I’m unaware of, but more likely it’s genetic. His father is also quite narcissistic. I didn’t realize this (nor have a name to associate with it) until much later since for a good portion of our marriage they didn’t have much of a relationship.
On this side of the thing it is so easy to see that religion and authoritarianism is man made. The ills of the world are very complex and cannot be put down to one thing or another but this makes a lot of sense. Individuals want to be in control of their own situations. It’s too bad that the only way some have worked out to do that is to have their boot at the throat of another.
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March 14, 2014 at 9:19 am
Ruth, I couldn’t agree with you more that the ills of the world are complex and cannot be put down to one thing. But what is certain is that genes and environment are intertwined. You wrote:
“but more likely it’s genetic. His father is also quite narcissistic.
He didn’t have a fighting chance, did he? In Psychiatry Times, NPD — Rethinking What We know, it states that there is no consistent evidence for a heritable component of NPD, and that no genetic marker for narcissism have been identified. http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/personality-disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder-rethinking-what-we-know
From what I have read, even if a genetic marker was found it would most likely be the environment that would trigger the gene to be expressed. Even in twin studies, which haven’t been consistent, I never read one study that took in utero into account. We now have evidence that pregnant mice subjected to high stress during gestation produced pups with larger hindbrains (fight or flight) and smaller forebrains.
What concerns me the most is that authoritarian religions create the very environments that would turn on such a gene if it does exist; and further wire the brain for such a disorder. Think about this for a second — girls and women have historically been devalued in authoritarian religions. That deprivation can cause attachment disorders, and therefore mothers are unlikely to bond with their children, which in turn can cause these children to have problems bonding with their own children and having healthy relationships. Then there is corporal punishment, which exacerbates the problem and leaves children vulnerable for psychological and neurological trauma.
To top it off, men in these religions are told that they are special, godlike, the gory of god, where as women are the glory of men (1 Corinthians 11:7), and they are to have the ‘rule’ over their wives (Genesis 3:16) — that women were created for them, not the woman for man (1 Corinthians 11:8-9). Is that narcissistic teaching or what? As you know, there are many more scriptures like this. Anyone who thinks this isn’t still being preached today is living in la la land.
This is such a fascinating and important subject for discussion. I look forward to the day when we can stop being so damn PC and fear offending someone’s religion, and shine the light on the reality that such teachings promote environments that wire the brain for NPD, and create the very brain disorders and injuries that lead to anti-social behavior.
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March 14, 2014 at 9:41 am
“As you know, there are many more scriptures like this. Anyone who thinks this isn’t still being preached today is living in la la land.
Oh boy, do I know it! “Your body is not your own” was a favorite in my house. Ugh!
Even if the authoritarian religion doesn’t turn the gene on (my ex displayed these traits even before we dove deep into the church) it certainly creates an environment that feeds these tendencies and validates them.
To be honest, I dove deep into the church to try to find a way to live with the situation, to try to be what a ‘godly’ woman was supposed to be to satisfy him, but he never – even though he became a deacon – was ever very “religious”. It was mostly a facade.
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March 14, 2014 at 9:49 am
“To be honest, I dove deep into the church to try to find a way to live with the situation”
This is so interesting. In my situation, my late husband got indoctrinated in a fundamental church after his sudden religious experience, which was initially caused by his brain injury. Then he became obsessed with the Bible, and like I mentioned would wake me up in the middle of the night and read to me (while my brain was in a theta/alpha suggestive brainwave state).
I was then forced to submit to him — sanctioned by the church. I was already dealing with low self-esteem because of his mental abuse, so I was ripe for indoctrination. At the time, my feeling was that Jesus was the only one who understood. But I was truly convinced that it was my duty to submit, and that made Jesus/God happy.
Talk about effed up, right?
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March 14, 2014 at 10:08 am
Oh, I already believed, don’t get me wrong. I believed that I was supposed to submit, but I thought I must be doing it wrong since it wasn’t enough. I studied and studied the Bible to learn how to do it the right way. I, too, was convinced that I was making Jesus/God happy even if it wasn’t enough to please my husband. I was storing up rewards in heaven. For a very long time I wouldn’t even let the notion of divorce enter my mind. I wasn’t an option. Jesus had forgiven me so much, how could I not forgive my husband. For me forgiveness equaled reconciliation. He never even asked for forgiveness. I just gave it because that’s what I was supposed to do. Finally, it was just too much. I was either going to hurt myself or him or wind up in a padded room. I decided I’d rather displease God and divorce him than to live that way any more. That’s when my whole life pretty much unraveled – or at least I thought it did. Turns out life does go on.
Sometimes, if I think too much about it still, learning how much of that isn’t his fault – he can’t help it, I feel guilty that I left. I have to remind myself that it’s okay; that I had to do what was best for me.
So hey, we’ll just be effed up together, eh?
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March 14, 2014 at 10:44 am
“So hey, we’ll just be effed up together, eh?”
😀 Yep. Your comment reminded me of a time when I had remarried, and found myself in the same predicament — which didn’t show its ugly face until after the honeymoon period — that was that it was my duty to submit to my husband. My ex didn’t even go to church, but he expected me to submit. Well, the thought of divorce felt like a knife going through me, and I also felt like a failure because I went into this marriage with the idea that we could work anything out. Unfortunately, I was always having to do the compromise. But my very brief time with a counselor (psychologist) changed my way of thinking.
She said to me “Is death better than divorce?”
It hit me like a ton of bricks. After that, I couldn’t get a divorce fast enough. lol And yes, life does go on.
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March 14, 2014 at 10:54 am
“It hit me like a ton of bricks. After that, I couldn’t get a divorce fast enough.”
Omg..if only I’d been that smart. I went to a counselor(psychologist) who said that, without evaluating my husband for herself she couldn’t say for certain, but that my husband sounded like he displayed some sociopathic behavior. She obviously couldn’t tell me what to do, but if I insisted on staying that I would have to change and that I needed to be prepared for things to get worse before they got any better. I dug my heals in and didn’t go back her. I started reading everything I could get my hands on and slowly but surely started creating boundaries for myself. I hadn’t even thought I should have any before. Five years later we were divorced because, as she predicted, it got way worse when he felt like he was losing his power over me.
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March 14, 2014 at 11:13 am
Wow. Well, when I went to my therapist, I wrote a very long letter describing my situation to help expedite things — rather than it being stretch out over the course of many 1 hour sessions. Plus, I had medical records that backed up my dire circumstances, which I won’t go into here. But your therapist was spot on to say that you would have to change, and that you needed to be prepared for things to get worse before they got any better. I seriously doubt they would have gotten better and I think you knew that.
I know in my case, they wouldn’t have gotten better. I do think you were at an advantage to some extent in learning boundaries before you got divorced. That took me a while after my divorce, but when you are a Bible believing believer, those boundaries are blurred. I had to shed my belief system before I could understand what the boundaries were. Therefore, I established boundaries during my de-conversion period — the best thing that ever happened to me (de-conversion) besides bringing my daughter into the world. Too bad it took me so long, but I live in a culture that believes that being an unbeliever is worse than being a harden criminal. I suspect you do too.
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March 14, 2014 at 11:22 am
Oh, definitely. And looking back on it, the boundary-setting was the start of my de-conversion although I didn’t know it at the time. Before that I would have said a Christian woman had no business setting any boundaries and I didn’t really get very good at it. When my husband and I went for joint counseling at the very end with a Methodist Pastor, he(the pastor) affirmed my boundaries, but not my desire to leave. I told my husband I’d give it a shot with joint counseling(long story), but I pretty much knew what I was looking for in terms of behavior from him. When I saw I wasn’t getting and had little likelihood of getting it, it didn’t take me long to move on separation(against the Pastor’s recommendation). But by that point I was done. I didn’t have much left to put into it and I was done playing games with it. My friend tells me that I’m the only person she knows who went from married to done in 2 seconds flat. What she doesn’t understand is that was, literally, years in the making. I just had to get okay with doing it.
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March 14, 2014 at 11:28 am
“I just had to get okay with doing it.”
Can completely understand. I sought counsel with my pastor, and a few other people I thought were ‘spiritually enlightened’, and he and they gave me the BS speech that I was the sacrificial lamb, and that ‘God’ had put me in this marriage to help my husband have a closer relationship with Christ. Jesus H. Christ — how many women have been guilted into staying in unhealthy relationships?
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March 14, 2014 at 11:38 am
Quite a few I’m afraid. 😦
I wrote about part of my experience with that here:
https://gulliblestravelsdma.wordpress.com//?s=what+do+i+do+with+this&search=Go
But the best one ever was when Young Pastor of my church was doing a sermon series on marriage/divorce. His summation was the only legitimate “biblical” reasons for divorce were adultery and abandonment. When he got to the part about abuse my ears perked up. He smacked his hands together and said, “Now ladies, unfortunately, according to scripture abuse is not a reason for divorce. You can separate but you may not divorce.” My heart sank. He didn’t give any advice or offer of counsel even. I don’t think he meant harm. I think he genuinely was unaware of how it came across or how many sitting in his pews might be dealing with this issue. He may have even been under the false impression that no one sitting there had this problem.
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March 14, 2014 at 12:00 pm
Sadly, it is so common; many people really don’t see it or embrace it as ‘truth’. I was taken aback when President-elect Obama asked Rick Warren to deliver the Inaugural Invocation, all the while his mega church was teaching the message that abuse was no excuse for divorce.
“Tom Holladay, teaching pastor at the megachurch founded by best-selling author Rick Warren, says the Bible only gives two cases where divorce is acceptable: abandonment and a physical affair.
“I wish there were a third in Scripture having been involved as a pastor with situations of abuse,” Holladay said in an audio clip posted on Saddleback Church’s Web site. “There is something in me that wishes there were a Bible verse that says, ‘If they abuse you in this-and-such kind of way, then you have a right to leave them.” http://www.thenewagenda.net/2009/01/02/rick-warren-abuse-is-no-excuse-for-women-to-seek-divorce/
It’s been downhill for women in the U.S., no thanks to the 2010 House takeover by the religious right. I will check out your post. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
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March 14, 2014 at 12:05 pm
I’m very familiar with that quote right off the Saddleback Church website. I searched everythang I could get my hot little hands on, one way or the other, about it. The information out there for women in abusive situations…well, it’s just effed up in a major way.
This bullshit website freaked me the hell right out:
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Family/Marriage/divorce_not_ok.htm
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March 14, 2014 at 12:07 pm
Oh, and I meant to say earlier. Don’t feel obligated to read that post. I know we all have a lot of blogs(and other material) we like to read and time is limited.
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March 14, 2014 at 4:05 pm
“Oh, and I meant to say earlier. Don’t feel obligated to read that post.”
I’m so glad I did. I just realized that I was commenting in that blog post rather than this one, lol. When I wrote in your other post “Wow — talk about a narcissistic post”, I hope your readers don’t think was referring to yours, as the comment was regarding the link you shared with me here from Jesus Is Savior.com.
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March 14, 2014 at 4:07 pm
Haha! No worries. I’m sure they can figure it out.
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March 14, 2014 at 4:11 pm
😀
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March 14, 2014 at 9:26 am
Correction: *Psychiatric Times
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March 13, 2014 at 2:50 pm
I also enjoyed that article you linked to. I’ve read quite a bit about Narcissism/Psychopathy and that article is pretty much right in line with what I’ve read so far.
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March 13, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Thank you for taking the time to read it. I figured you knew quite a bit about this, and I hope your post and the information within it will serve to help people be more aware of how many clergy/pastors/evangelicals exhibit several of these behavioral symptoms as noted on the list. Case in point:
Agent Navarro states:
In spite of these less than charming traits, they had no trouble attracting those who were willing to overlook these features.”
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March 14, 2014 at 1:47 am
A few people have asked if I have a heart.
I make no demands on any one except we be kind to each other and I think maybe this is too much to ask for others except much more than I can possibly manage.
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March 14, 2014 at 5:06 am
Aw, Mak, I think it’s too much for anyone to be kind all the time. We all have bad days. I agree that is the goal. “Do unto others” isn’t a bad mantra, but I’d change it a bit. “Do unto others as they would have done to themselves.” Everybody’s level of acceptable behavior isn’t the same.
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