“We are strongest when we are connected to others. Why do we run from this reality? Could it be that in our pride we don’t like the idea of exposing our weaknesses to others?”
This is a Spiritual Roofie.
“Well, you know that Iron sharpens Iron. You need to have more friends that will hold you accountable. You need to come be a part of our group.”
This is a Spiritual Roofie.
“…But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We need each other everyday to offer unbelief-splitting encouragement to love God through the cross and only at the cross. If God loves you, my desire is to love you the same. We should get together.”
This is a Spiritual Roofie.
As are comments like “Confess your faults, that you may be healed…” “They met from house to house…. “ “Lay hands on no man suddenly…” that get sprinkled liberally into conversations where one party demands a level of intimacy they have not earned nor do they deserve.
A Roofie, of course, is the drug of choice for those men or women who can’t manage to demonstrate enough value to anyone and need to acquire intimacy by force. The drug is used to compensate for a profound lack of personal definition and values. Its use reveals the criminal pathology of those who will exploit others for their own lack of emotional and social and relational development, by taking from them the right to have personal limits.
Flunitrazepam is the drug’s trade name for Roofie. Its medical uses include anticonvulsant, anti-anxiety, and a sleep aid. But like all drugs with a righteous use, it is used in the despicable practice of disarming men and women so others can use them. Said another way, the use of the drug steals the right of an individual to have and enforce personal boundaries. Said another way, the use of the drug grants unearned intimacy.
The above bible passages and quasi-spiritual sentiments, and many other such comments are really used the exact same way. Of course, like the drug, the passages and sentiments have their own truths to be revealed and benefitted from.
It is true that strength is multiplied by numbers. Specialization is the single greatest lever of human existence, so partnering with others of different skill sets gives exponential power to any individual life. But specialization and complementary partnership is not a function of weakness, and connectedness is too ambiguous to be a yardstick of intimacy. Partnership is profoundly different than collective participation.
And Friendship is not the default outcome of Group participation, neither should it be. Friends do sharpen each other but not everyone is destined to become friends.
Friendship grows from the soil of mutual life philosophy. Those who walk together must agree. Agree on what? The fundamental assumptions of how life is supposed to be lived: the integrating ideas that define values and moral action, truth, and ethics. Before friends can ever be friends, they must first be individuals with a defined identity. THEN, they can search out relationships that COMPLEMENT.
Those who have no individual identity search out interactions (typically GROUP interactions) that compensate for their vacancy. They have no defined values and moral action, nor truth and ethics. They are social moochers, and their moral and spiritual vacancy prevents them from sharpening anyone.
Doctrines of “Community” and “Relationship” are making the rounds in Christianity, AGAIN, for the umpteenth time, trotting us down the path to where collectivism ALWAYS ends: Bloody Despotism.
The Doctrines play on our feelings of isolation and our fears of inadequacy. It appeals to our deep-seated drive to be KNOWN, to embrace and be embraced. It uses a series of bible passages to set a standard of transparency and vulnerability that is utterly absent personal boundaries, or common sense.
Let us all link arms in communal brotherhood, sing Kumbaya in “relationship” with each other. Oh the unity, oh the fraternity, oh the brotherhood!!!! Makes me shiver!!!!!
>snicker<
There is no such emotional/relational utopianism because there is no such thing as community. What I just said, for some of you, is like telling a six-year-old that Santa does not exist. Community is really the aggregate mass actions of people and masses are always INDIVIDUALS acting out their assumptions.
People’s assumptions are always the content of their life philosophy.
Metaphysics: How we define the nature of existence.
Epistemology: How we know what we know.
Ethics: How we Value what we know.
Politics: How we interact with other people.
If your philosophical assumption–your integrated ideas that are the motive power of your actions–is that the group gives you identity, gives you value, you can never have intimacy. Relationship intimacy is not a magic function of location, or imputed from groupy participation.
Intimacy is EARNED. Anything earned is the result of work, and investment, and commitment, and perseverance.
The use of Spiritual Roofies is really a manipulative method to demand intimacy that has not been earned. The use of Spiritual Roofies is really a despicable shortcut around the work, investment, commitment, and perseverance necessary to demonstrate the true value of another human being and the resulting privilege of participating in their mind and spirit and time and talents.
Dosing Spiritual Roofies is in pitting the value of group participation and group validation against the demand for spirit and soul transparency. The side effect is that it disarms men and women so others can use them for their own social gratification. It steals the right of an individual to have and enforce personal boundaries, and justifies a demand for unearned intimacy.
People are not entitled to know what is inside of you. You may gladly share yourself with those who reciprocate value, but you have no moral obligation to open yourself to the core.
Just because someone at church says, “Iron sharpens iron, so for us to get sharp I will be your friend. I want a deep relationship with you.” If someone wants to have a relationship, they can INVEST. And here is the important part: YOU get to define the person with whom you will interact and the value of that INVESTMENT.
Most Christian wounds stem from the use of Spiritual Roofies. People are compelled to enter the “Community.” They are told that authentic Christian participation requires baring their inner selves. They are told their inner self will be safe. They eventually realize that not all people have an inner self to share, and many that do are not really worthy recipients. They soon realize they are not safe, but they are compelled to continue with the transparency.
Spend enough time in churches and you will encounter a man or woman whose real motive for the enforced transparency is to supply information for critique, condemnation, judgment, qualification, and authenticity. These are the college frat boys who can’t get a woman, can’t get ANY form of intimacy without criminal, despicable actions. These are the folks who couch their appeal to DEEPER relationship so that refusal to open up to THEM is part and parcel of falling away, part and parcel of rejecting GOD, and the Church.
These men and women are the worst sort of humans, using the heady power of personal insecurity and spiritual manipulation to command intimacy, command transparency, demand familiarity. And if you cannot recognize them with my above definition, notice that these despicable souls offer no commitment to specific outcomes, and condemn with impunity any expectation to reciprocal transparency. For all their overtures to Brotherly Love and Eternal Fraternity, they reserve the right to define the nature of “relationship” to fit however they want to act. The moment you are not willing and compliant, they drop you faster than a one-night stand.
The next time you are standing round the church frat house, drinking your grape juice, and a sorority sister or fraternity brother start demanding unearned intimacy, quoting scripture, and implying you are not an authentic Christian if you are unwilling…
Check your drink… they are slipping you a Spiritual Roofie.
64 comments
1 ping
Dan
March 14, 2009 at 4:20 pm Dan(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My gosh…too funny. If you wanted to marry Captain Kirk, he was part of the Original Series. But he only liked green women…are you green by chance?
Juli
March 14, 2009 at 5:47 pm Juli(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
hehehe..he only liked green women – Captain Kirk liked ANY woman..I think his true “mission” was to search out the universe for any signs of female life.
Wow. how quickly we digress into such silliness on this blog..makes me laugh everytime – you never know where things will lead.
yes anon, you are old enough for reruns anway! You’re not THAT young
Happy Anniversary! Have fun today!
Juli
March 14, 2009 at 9:33 pm Juli(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hey Dan, a while back you posted some lyrics from Prince – I heard this Billy Joel song on the radio today and laughed hysterically – it has taken on an ENTIRELY new meaning! And it goes along the lines with the roofies we’ve all been offered:
I don’t need you to worry for me cos I’m alright
I don’t want you to tell me its time to come home
I don’t care what you say anymore this is my life
go ahead with your own life, leave me alone
I never said you had to offer me a second chance
I never said I was a victim of circumstance
I still belong, don’t get me wrong
you can speak your mind, but not on my time
Dan
March 14, 2009 at 10:21 pm Dan(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Very nice — and I am a big fan of Billy Joel
anonymouslyyours
March 14, 2009 at 10:39 pm anonymouslyyours(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Nope, not green…Irish, but not green.
Juli
March 18, 2009 at 5:22 pm Juli(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I got slipped a spiritual roofie last night – here’s how it went (paraphrasing of course):
“We can come together in this group and share our struggles and ourselves with one another. And as we open up and discover more about ourselves and grow in relationship together then we can begin to have a place to ask each other questions like: ‘so what made you react like that?’ and hold each other accountable.”
this of course was prefaced with a “confession of sin” by the person pushing the roofies. Only the level of intimacy this confession illustrated was indicative not of an adult, but my ten year old son. Simple social interaction with others and the struggles that are attached. Now if that is the definition of “struggles” then we need go no further.
What I struggle with is indeed far more complex that his own admissions. And actually, if he has already identified the problem in his own life, what does he need me for in terms of accountability? So I can ask him every week – “so how are you handling the snarkiness in your life?” as much fun as that sounds, I don’t WANT to be accountable for anyone else’s actions.
Come on…who wants or needs that level of irritation – I don’t see the purpose or need for such accountability. I can’t control them, so why would I want to be accountable? Now, if I could control them, then perhaps accountability would then serve me well..hmm..now that’s a thought…
I’m thinking accountability is just a means of creating the moral backdrop of eventually exerting control in the relationship. The very need for accountability presumes a few things: (to start)
1) I have a problem
2) I can’t fix this problem on my own
3) to not ask for help is prideful
4) because these people want to help me, I should let them
right there I have laid down my arms (not to mention my mind) and surrendered to the notion that I am incapable of living my life as God intended it, I cannot know truth, I cannot have ability, gifts, etc apart from someone else intervening. I have surrendered myself to the control of another person.
No wonder my single status drove everyone crazy. If I didn’t have a husband, who would EVER “keep me in line”?? Guess the Calvinisitic God of SGM isn’t so sovereign after all. He needs husbands to help him out with those unruly women He created.
Dan
March 18, 2009 at 5:29 pm Dan(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Zinger today Juli. Now if you should want help, would you ask for it? And the thing about the husband — that is simply silly.
A great saying: If I want your opinion, I’ll beat it out of you…
Juli
March 18, 2009 at 6:01 pm Juli(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dan – Sure, if I wanted help, I’d certainly ask for it, and certainly have in the past. But that is ME setting the terms and conditions of the exchange..not someone else. And I already have “accountability” with the people I have chosen to based on mutual understanding and trust- not with those who have simply chosen to hold me accountable.
Last night’s roofie would be like a man walking up to me in person and saying “Hey Juli, nice to meet you. I’d like to be intimate with you. So here’s the deal, I want the ultimate goal in our relationship to be for us to have sex. In order to acheive that goal I am going to spend time with you and let you get to know me and trust me and eventually we’ll have sex.”
I mean, how insane is that? Someone you don’t even know coming up and telling you the context and purpose of your relationship with such presumption. What nerve. Yet, this is what they do in care groups ALL the time – “just open up and share yourself with us.” We don’t do that in the physical for very obvious reasons – why do we think it’s ok to do it in the “spiritual” setting? We shouldn’t do it in care groups or anywhere else for the same reasons we shouldn’t in the physical – it leads to one party feeling used as a result of an disproportionate exchange of intimacy. And who is defining what intimacy is in the first place?
No wonder people feel used and abused by churches, esp SGM.
Dan
March 18, 2009 at 6:13 pm Dan(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yeah, I remember the care group experience well. The guy that was in charge felt leadership meant bullying the members in the care group to do what he wanted them to do. I guess care groups are supposed to be places where you are supposed to feel safe to openly vent your spleen. Unfortunately, it appears that was never the case and the people involved can use the stuff you say against you. It really does not harbor a good feeling about other people, now does it?
Juli
March 18, 2009 at 7:02 pm Juli(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dan, no it does not. I despise the name: Care Group. (blech)
these people don’t care about anyone but themselves and their control- their silence proves it. they logically can’t read hundreds of different stories of abuse, hurt, confusion, rejection…and say nothing and do nothing, while thinking it all deception, and still make the claim “we care about your souls”
give me a break. Gee, I guess I have “vacancy” written across my forehead.
Dan
March 18, 2009 at 7:30 pm Dan(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You are very correct Juli. But then again, there is no way they could or would actually comment — they have far too much to lose.
Control = Money
Money = Control
If word got out they posted a response on a blog, it would undermine everything they have said. It doesn’t matter what is “right” — in their mind, they are right. Logic, I am afraid, does not enter the equation here.
Sopwith
March 18, 2009 at 9:09 pm Sopwith(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Holding out hope… for people…
” Today I found myself after searching all these years
And the man that I saw
wasn’t at all who I thought he’d be
I was lost when you found me here
I was broken beyond repair
Then you came along and sang your song over me
Feels like I’m born again, feels like I’m living
For the very first time in my life.”
–Mac Powell, Third Day
“Every believer can relate to those words. We’ve all had those times of confusion, hurt and disillusionment that have been replaced by the sweet comfort that comes from the loving hand of our heavenly Father.” What we are simply doing here is “giving voice to the emotions all believers feel as they attempt to reconcile everyday struggles with the hope born of salvation.”
Capturing “The complexities of the Christian walk”.
“When you get older in your faith, you don’t necessarily have fewer questions,” confesses Mac Powell. “I used to get mad at myself when I’d have questions about my faith, but I’ve learned through the years that God has answered so many of those. Sometimes it’s not right away, sometimes it is years before you get the answer, but He’s proven himself. Now when I have questions, I get excited about it, not angry at myself, but excited because I know that God’s going to show me something new.”
Coming “to terms with the fact(s) [we] don’t have all the answers, but that [we] know the One who does, and [we] can glean comfort and peace in that knowledge. “Sharing God’s love with people has always been core to us,” says Third Day drummer David Carr. “We want to reiterate that God loves us. That is a concept that should never get old.”
There are “complexities of living out one’s faith in today’s world”.
What?
Yea!
There “are different processes in life: there’s faith and there’s prayer and there’s salvation. I think within those, you have this place of brokenness. There’s a place of coming before God in prayer and saying I need some help and then there’s the process after that of being changed and moving forward with what God has shown you and is teaching you…”
And then some!
Yea!
…It’s “about prayer, coming before God and saying ‘I need to be changed, I want you to change me because I can’t do it on my own,’ and then it’s “about being ready to move forward in the direction that God is wanting me to go.”
Note(s): Taken & adapted, from an interview with Mac Powell, Third Day http://www.thirdday.com/revelation.htm
**
It’s about “holding out hope for people.” I think that people really do relate to a lot of the struggles that are in the posts/blog comments here at Spiritual Tyranny, Refuge, & Survivors, but at the same time “one finds strength –finds hope and encouragement.”
In a little,
Sopwith
Sopwith
March 18, 2009 at 9:18 pm Sopwith(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Holding out hope… for people…
” Today I found myself after searching all these years
And the man that I saw
wasn’t at all who I thought he’d be
I was lost when you found me here
I was broken beyond repair
Then you came along and sang your song over me
Feels like I’m born again, feels like I’m living
For the very first time in my life.”
–Mac Powell, Third Day
“Every believer can relate to those words. We’ve all had those times of confusion, hurt and disillusionment that have been replaced by the sweet comfort that comes from the loving hand of our heavenly Father.” What we are simply doing here is “giving voice to the emotions all believers feel as they attempt to reconcile everyday struggles with the hope born of salvation.”
Capturing “The complexities of the Christian walk”.
“When you get older in your faith, you don’t necessarily have fewer questions,” confesses Mac Powell. “I used to get mad at myself when I’d have questions about my faith, but I’ve learned through the years that God has answered so many of those. Sometimes it’s not right away, sometimes it is years before you get the answer, but He’s proven himself. Now when I have questions, I get excited about it, not angry at myself, but excited because I know that God’s going to show me something new.”
Coming “to terms with the fact(s) [we] don’t have all the answers, but that [we] know the One who does, and [we] can glean comfort and peace in that knowledge. “Sharing God’s love with people has always been core to us,” says Third Day drummer David Carr. “We want to reiterate that God loves us. That is a concept that should never get old.”
There are “complexities of living out one’s faith in today’s world”.
What?
Yea!
There “are different processes in life: there’s faith and there’s prayer and there’s salvation. I think within those, you have this place of brokenness. There’s a place of coming before God in prayer and saying I need some help and then there’s the process after that of being changed and moving forward with what God has shown you and is teaching you…”
And then some!
Yea!
…It’s “about prayer, coming before God and saying ‘I need to be changed, I want you to change me because I can’t do it on my own,’ and then it’s “about being ready to move forward in the direction that God is wanting me to go.”
Note(s): Taken & adapted, from an interview with Mac Powell, Third Day http://www.thirdday.com/revelation.htm
**
It’s about “holding out hope for people.” I think that people really do relate to a lot of the struggles that are in the posts/blog comments here at Spiritual Tyranny, Refuge, & Survivors, but at the same time “one finds strength –finds hope and encouragement.”
In a little,
Sopwith
Juli
March 19, 2009 at 12:34 am Juli(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dan, sometimes control seems to be about status, reputation, respect…security in a different form. I think eventually, the more control you have over a group, it certainly does lend itself to the eventual love of money, etc..
Ultimately - I think it is all about POWER.
Money=power
control=power
When you look at the history of powerful leaders be them political, military, cultural, or spiritual they had one thing in common: power.
the power to define what is right and wrong. the power to determine motives. the power to forgive and the power to condemn. The power to say who gets what. The power to determine who has value in life and who doesn’t. The power to say who lives and dies.
When it all boils down, they seek the power of God, really.
Canary
March 19, 2009 at 1:38 pm Canary(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hi all,
This is my first post, and I am a recovering Pharisee.
Having said that, I so enjoyed reading your post, John. It took me years after leaving PDI to understand how to think for myself. I had been part of it since the age of 18, too young to understand who was trustworthy and who wasn’t.
The freedom to think for myself is part of my freedom in Christ. Then, there is the “spiritual roofie” thing. Holy cow, I cannot believe that I lived like that, once upon a time. I still haven’t figured out the “church” thing, yet. I don’t go anywhere, either. Yet my faith in Jesus continues to grow.
Just wanted to pop in and say what an insiteful post you wrote. Thanks!
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