TBN Devotes Entire Nov 19, 2013 Praise the Lord Show To Marriage – They Never Devote Entire PTL to Singles
Today’s PTL (Praise the Lord) on the TBN Christian network is hosted by Kathy and Mike Hayes, with a panel of other preaching couples.
One of my un-favorite married people was on this show, too, with his wife – the guy who thinks that unmarried people are not quite as valuable as married people (see links at the bottom of this post for more about that). His name is Jimmy Evans.
Christian marital advisor Mark Gungor was also on this episode.
The entire 2 or 3 hour program has been about marriage and marital issues.
In the 8, 9, some odd years I have watched Christian networks (and I watch them a lot, so I’m quite familiar with their shows), this is probably the fourth or fifth all-marriage related Praise the Lord episode I’ve seen.
Other PTL episodes have had guests who discuss marriage, though those particular episode (unlike tonight’s) were not 100% devoted to the topic.
TBN has even had Christian guru Mark Gungor on a couple of other PTL episodes discussing nothing but marriage.
I have yet to see an episode devoted to the UN-married, to the singles or the childless and childfree.
Now, I have seen the hosts on TBN’s PTL broach the subject of singleness on occasion, like with the young guy, mid-30s (who later got married by the time he was 38, 39), who mentioned on the show how difficult it was to be unmarried at age 35.
Carmen, the Christian singer, mentioned on one PTL episode about two years ago, how hard it is to be single when your family is pressuring you to marry and have children.
Other than a very small number of examples such as that, I have not seen TBN do anything about singles or the childless.
In some ways, being unmarried past one’s 30s can be very difficult too, with its own sets of pressures and challenges, but do Christians ever think of this or offer 2 and 3 hour television programs where this is discussed?
Where are the Christian “singles” experts to advise and encourage single adults on TBN? Because I’ve yet to see one.
Why do Christians think only married couples need help or encouragement?
I do every so often see married people bitch and moan about how hard marriage and/or parenting are, on those rare occasions a blog owner of another blog devotes the thread to the issues facing mature singles.
I wrote about one such experience on this blog before; here is a recap: the blog owners at another blog devoted several posts to the Christian discrimination against mature singles after I brought this topic to their attention.
About a third of the way into that discussion in one specific thread, some married guy who did not get married until he was about 33 years old began bitching and moaning about how hard it was to be single until age 33, and a year or two later, he had a son.
Most of us in the thread were over 35 years of age and had never been married.
There is simply NO COMPARISON to being never married at age 40 to getting married for the first time at age 32 or 33.
The thread guy I speak of was utterly clueless about the topic of mature singlehood, but he considered himself a bit of an authority. It was so laughable. His was also fairly condescending.
Plus, thread guy hogged some time up yakking and complaining about how hard it was to be a father to a five year old kid.
Thread guy even disrespected the mature singles in the midst of griping about how so hard it was to be a married guy with a kid.
Thread guy kept telling us that his problems as a married guy with a kid were ten times more pressing than those of the singles in the thread were or singles in general (even though some women explained to him that they were caring for elderly sick parents all alone, some worked three jobs, etc)…
And yet, he kept blaming us for own own problems, saying we chose these things (really? Who the hell “chooses” something like having a parent with dementia?), but he wanted sympathy for his “husband and daddy” issues and on a thread about discrimination against singles. Remarkable.
Only a married parent would think it perfectly fine to commandeer a thread meant for problems faced by childless singles to bitch and moan about how hard married parents have life and to argue that childless singles have life so easy breezy.
Married people (and some parents) are some of the most self absorbed people I have ever come across.
Ironically, the more married people and parents hype their problems and minimize those faced by singles and the childless, the LESS sympathy I have for them.
But this appears to be pretty common in Christian communities: all the attention (when it’s not going to orphans, strippers, or crack addicts) is funneled to married parents.
Adult singles are either just forgotten, or it’s assumed adult, childless singles do not also face challenges and problems.
By the way, on this all-marriage episode of PTL, several of the old gender stereotypes, which have been pointed out to be in error by myself and other bloggeres, were brought up, such as (but not limited to) – some Christians really, really love these gender stereotypes:
-that sex only matters to men (or men are more keen on sex than women are);
-women care more about forming emotional bonds than men and do not care about sex;
-men want and need respect;
-women don’t care about respect but only desire emotional intimacy and “security”
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Related posts, this blog:
(Link): Groundbreaking News: Women Like Sex (part 1, 2) (articles)
(Link): Some Christian Women Use Pornography – No Duh. I’ve been saying this all along.
(Link): How Christians Keep Christians Single (part 3) – Restrictive Gender Roles Taught as Biblical
(Link): Top five women’s sexual fantasies in 2013
(Link): The Secret Women’s Porn Problem (article about Christian women who use porn)
(Link): Mark Gungor on Sexuality and Singles on Jan. 2013 TBN Guest Appearance
More on this Blog (re: TBN):
Related:
(Link): Scandals Galore at TBN: Sexual, Financial
(Link): Not that Story Again (Crouch Sr. on TBN Creation)
(Link): TBN Spends Time On Themselves – Not The Gospel
(Link): TBN’s New Line Up and Other Changes as of 2017
(Link): TBN Airing Special on Founder Paul Crouch Sr (2014) – Why?
(Link): TBN Programming Changes: Prophecy Teachers Out?
(Link): TBN is still doing tributes about deceased founder Paul Crouch Sr
(Link): Everything is Sweet and Precious on TBN – more over-used words
(Link): Jan Crouch of TBN Died – and According to Suit, Covered Up Rape of Teen Granddaughter
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