The Games We Play
The Schadenfreude Files: Mar-a-Lago Mood is ‘Dispirited’ Lately, Y’all (LSP #176)
Today, Lord Snow Presides over the ‘dispirited’ feel at the Mar-a-Lago resort, leading to its recent hemorrhage of paying members.
The Games We Play
Narcissistic Rage: Of Game Admins and Presidents (LSP #175)
To borrow a phrase and wreck its meter: ‘the time has come,’ the walrus said, ‘to speak of many things: Of shoes and ships…’ And narcissistic rage, of dysfunctional game admins and extremely seditious presidents. In the case of those last two items, these two groups have some very important traits in common: their narcissistic desire for attention, the mind-boggling extremes to which they are both willing to go in order to get it, and their catastrophic rage when it is denied. Today, Lord Snow Presides over how I learned to spot narcissists in a game I once loved.
The Games We Play
Hilaria Baldwin: Yet Another White Person Faking Her Ethnicity (LSP #172)
It’s barely even news anymore, what happened with Hilaria Baldwin this past week. But it illustrates a point I wanted to address: it might be getting harder to fake one’s ethnicity these days. Today, Lord Snow Presides over the mediocre white people faking their ethnicity — and getting caught.
The Games We Play
Unca Pat Robertson Tells Donald Trump to Take His L (LSP #171)
Today, Lord Snow Presides over Pat Robertson telling Donald Trump he just needs to accept his loss and move on with his life, while not noticing that he and his entire tribe needs to take that same advice.
Analyzing Christianity
A mean god for mean people: Performative piety fools no one (else)
Today, let me show you why nobody will ever convince evangelicals to be less cruel: they’ve found a performative brand of piety that lets them believe their own marketing about themselves without having to do all that tough work that goes along with real self-improvement.
The Games We Play
The Big Problem Here: Singleness Edition (LSP #168)
Seriously. How could I possibly resist the spectacle of an evangelical offering up The Big Problem Here for unwanted singleness? Now add in the fact that these two stories intersect with our current topic of evangelism. How how how how could I resist? I couldn’t. That’s how.
The Games We Play
How Evangelical Husbands (Don’t) Repair Their Troubled Marriages
Evangelical men get taught completely impractical rules for marriage, and then — once everything goes completely pear-shaped — take disastrous advice to fix their ruined relationships. Today, let me show you some of that disastrous advice — and why it absolutely doesn’t work, and what evangelical husbands learn as a result.
The Games We Play
How Evangelical Men Try (And Fail) to Pick Perfect Wives
We’ve been talking lately about right-wing Christians’ conceptualization of marriage. Uniformly, their marriage rules don’t work well, and their expectations of mates skyrockets well above what they can reasonably ask of anybody. But there’s one aspect to the evangelical dating game in particular that stands as a disaster amid everything else they do around marriage. Today, let me show you how evangelical leaders advise the men in their group to choose wives — and then we’ll check out who they actually pick.
The Games We Play
The Love Narrative Fouling Up the Evangelical Husband Hunt
A few days ago, we started talking about a 2008 book, Where Have All the Good Men Gone by A.J. Kiesling (who is one of those women). We’re discussing it to get some ideas of why single, middle-aged evangelical women just can’t find husbands within their faith community. And it turns out that one major hindrance for them is their own fixation on a particular love narrative — a cherished fantasy that interferes with the reality of their situation. Today, let me show you the false love narrative that holds these single evangelical women back — and how far they’re willing to go to hang onto it.
The Games We Play
Single Evangelical Women Ask ‘Where Have All the Good Men Gone’
I recently ran across a 2008 book by A.J. Kiesling called ‘Where Have All the Good Men Gone?’ Its subtitle reveals its main focus: ‘Why So Many Christian Women Are Remaining Single.’ And we’ll all be happy to know that she landed on some explanations for the growing number of frustrated single women. Today, I’ll offer up a review of this book — and present its main failing, an over-reliance on false narratives.