Eugene, the 56 Year Old Man, Tells Christian Show Host He’s Tired of Being Single

Eugene, the 56 Year Old Man, Tells Christian Show Host He’s Tired of Being Single

On today’s “The 700 Club,” host Pat Robertson got a question from a guy who says he’s 56 year old and tired of being alone. (The guy is single and would like a girlfriend, or to marry.)

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – single adults of America (but especially women!) please (Link): stop asking Pat Robertson for relationship advice.

I’ve watched his “700 Club” show for many years, and Robertson always gives the same 3 to 4 answers to single adults who write him asking him why hasn’t God sent them a spouse, or how do they get a spouse?

And Pat Robertson always tells lovelorn single adults to “go fishing where the fish are,” (i.e, visit locales where you are sure to find single adults), and, he will tell you that “God puts the lonely in families,” which is a load of sh*t – no, God does not always put single adults who may be lonely “into families.”

For women who write in, especially if they are age 40 or older and single and want a spouse, Pat will insultingly tell them that they “sound desperate.” (Seriously; he has done this in the past, see the links below under “Related Posts” for links to examples of this atrocious behavior.)

(I’ve noticed that Robertson never tells the older single MEN who write in saying they are lonely and want a spouse that the MEN “sound desperate.” Robertson only tosses that sexist, insulting comment at single WOMEN.)

Pat Robertson also wrongly believes (and many Christians are like this as well, not just him), that (Link): if you want a spouse and pray for one, that God will of course send you one – which also a bunch of garbage.

So, here is what Eugene wrote in to Pat:

What do I have to do to find that special woman in my life? I’m tired of living alone in life. It’s been 56 years. Please help me, Pat. I read the Bible, but it never seems to help. I love all you guys and enjoy your show.

[Signed] Eugene

You can view / listen to Eugene’s question in this video on You Tube, and it’s around 44.25 into the video.

You can also listen to Pat Robertson’s unhelpful advice in that video to Eugene.

But… Eugene… should you read this, I have this to say to you:

Christians Who Marry Non-Believers Must Be Ex-Communicated, Says John Piper

Christians Who Marry Non-Believers Must Be Ex-Communicated, Says John Piper 

I have many problems with this view point of sexist John Piper for reasons I will explain below these excerpts, so stay tuned!

Those views will be expressed below the excerpt here:

(Link): Christians Who Marry NonBelievers Must Be ExCommunicated, Says John Piper

Excerpts:

December 2020
By Leah MarieAnn Klett

Christians who marry nonbelievers have “compromised” their love for Christ in acting in “open defiance of the teaching of the apostles and of God” and thus must be removed from church membership, according to pastor and author John Piper.

In a recent (Link):  blog post on his popular DesiringGod website, Piper replied to a reader who asked how the church should respond when a Christian knowingly marries an unbeliever.

The pastor first stressed the seriousness of such a situation, explaining that there are multiple “layers of sin” when a professing believer “rejects the counsel of the church elders and marries an unbeliever.”

Woman Says She is Lonely in Marriage to Husband Who Ignores Her in Favor of His Job, Watching TV, etc.

Woman Says She is Lonely in Marriage to Husband Who Ignores Her in Favor of His Job, Watching TV, etc.

A woman named San wrote to Christian program “The 700 Club” to say she’s in a marriage where her husband is ignoring her in favor of TV shows and his job and so forth. Pat Robertson’s son Gordon answered her letter.

Here is her letter to The 700 Club:

I have been very lonely in my marriage.

My husband’s priorities fall in this order: work, television, and then his phone. I have brought it to his attention so many times. I find myself only relying on God and Him being my true friend but I am still lonely.

Yes, I have God to turn to and I talk to God all day, every day, but it would be nice to have a husband in my life who I can truly share my life with. What should I do?

[signed] San

I didn’t completely agree with the host’s answer.

Kind of Bad Analogy by Christian Marriage Guru Mark Gungor

Kind of Bad Analogy by Christian Marriage Guru Mark Gungor

Mark Gungor used to have his own Christian TV show where he dispenses advice to Christian married couples. He has also been a guest on TBN’s “Praise the Lord” show (which they have since renamed to “Praise” as of Jan or Feb 2017).

Anyway. I saw a repeat of a Gungor marriage show several months ago.

He was taking letters from the audience.

I don’t remember the exact nature of the complaint or question in one letter.

Some lady (or it may have been a guy) wrote in to say she was married but felt like the love had died in her marriage. She didn’t feel attracted to her partner anymore. Marriage felt lackluster, dull, and so on. She was wanting to know if divorce would be acceptable in such a marriage scenario.

Gungor basically told her no, it would not be okay to divorce her husband just because she didn’t feel like being married to him any longer.

He compared this to a job. He said, “What would happen if you slept in tomorrow, on a work day, and just called up your boss and said, “I don’t feel like coming in today.”

He was saying, that is not an option –  you would be chewed out, demoted, or fired.

Women: Stop Asking Pat Robertson For Romantic Relationship Advice

Women: Stop Asking Pat Robertson For Romantic Relationship Advice – Whether You Are Divorced or Single 

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Aug 16, 2016 edit: Just a few days after I made this post imploring women to stop asking Robertson for romantic relationship advice, Robertson did this:

(Link):  Christian TV Show Pat Robertson Says Wives Who Want Emotional Support from a Husband Are Immature and Should Not Expect Emotional Support

Then Robertson turned around and did this – November 2016 edit:

(Link): Pat Robertson’s Incredibly Insensitive Advice to Gail the Unmarried Woman 

Yep. This is why I beg you, women of the world: stop going to Pat Robertson with dating, singleness, divorce, or marriage questions! You are not going to get valuable advice or empathy for your problems, but a lot of victim-blaming and shaming.

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So, yesterday (August 2, 2016), on the TV show “The 700 Club,” Christian host Pat Robertson fielded a question from some woman who wrote in saying she had been divorced four times (I placed two videos of that segment in this post, towards the end).

If I understand the woman’s letter correctly, she says she accepted Christ as her savior, or turned to God, after her fourth divorce.

She said her first four husbands were abusive. She wants to know, now that she has rededicated her life to God, will God send her a loving husband?

Look, I knew before Pat ever opened his mouth how he would answer this woman. And I cringed in anticipation. And I was right about his reply.

I’ve watched The 700 Club every single day since the year 2005, and off and on prior to that. My mother used to watch his show when I was a kid, so I was exposed to it back then. I suppose I still watch it out of habit.

I have seen so many episodes of this show, I already can tell you how Robertson is going to answer before he opens his mouth, and I am correct about 90% of the time (regarding relationship questions he receives).

More often than not, if you are a woman and you write Pat Robertson for relationship advice, especially if you have been divorced, he will most likely blame you. He will tell you that you have a “failed relationship picker” and you should stay single.  He figures that since you have failed at marriage once or twice before, there is little sense in trying again, because you will only fail again.

Robertson will shame and blame you for having married abusers, duds, and losers.

Robertson is also not kind to single women over 40 who have never married but who would like to marry.

On Not Filtering Every Choice Through the Bible

On Not Filtering Every Choice Through the Bible

This is one of those topics I’m working my way through right now. Maybe a year from now, my opinion will flip on it. But here is where I am now.

I was first made aware of this post from John Piper’s “Desiring God” web site via someone posting to SCCL Facebook group.

Here it is:

(Link):  How to Drink Orange Juice to the Glory of God by John Piper

Excerpts:

• I said that one of my reasons for believing this comes from 1 Corinthians 10:31. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” I asked, “Is it sin to disobey this Biblical commandment?” Yes.
• …Some of you then asked the practical question: Well, how do you “eat and drink” to the glory of God? Say, orange juice for breakfast?
• ….Orange juice was “created to be received with thanksgiving by those whobelieve the truth.” Therefore, unbelievers cannot use orange juice for the purpose God intended—namely, as an occasion for heartfelt gratitude to God from a truth heart of faith.
• But believers can, and this is how they glorify God. Their drinking orange juice is “sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.”

Yes, it’s an entire post explaining why and how Christians may drink Orange Juice to the glory of God.

This is a part of Christianity that I am glad to leave behind. In my faith crisis of the last few years, there have been some advantages to ceasing turning to the Bible as an authority in decision-making in life in every area.

I’m Not Pining for a Long-Lost Love. I’m Single by Circumstance by S. Reed

I’m Not Pining for a Long-Lost Love. I’m Single by Circumstance by S. Reed

I wish more articles addressed the “single by circumstance” situation as the one I am linking to in this post does.

Unfortunately, I don’t see too many articles about that topic, and in the meantime, a lot of conservative Christians who rail against delayed marriage, or declining marriage rates, assume that most or many single women are intentionally avoiding marriage.

So, these conservative Christians (and sometimes secular conservative groups or people) scold women for being single, and they engage in fear mongering, where they do things like tell women they will supposedly die sooner or live miserable lives if they don’t have a husband (Bella DePaulo has refuted many of these types of claims, and I have a few posts about her work on my blog).

Many single women – such as myself – wanted to get married and still want to – and I find it either hurtful, frustrating, or absolutely insulting and infuriating to see these articles (usually by conservatives) who assume I’ve remained single by choice, so they then shame or scold single women such as myself, or they feel they must argue me into getting, or convince me to, get married. However, I don’t need to be “sold” on marriage.

I don’t need to be convinced that marriage is nice. I’m already sold on the idea or marriage.

However, the fact remains that wanting something like marriage does not magically make it come to pass.

Then, you have conservative authors (such as (Link): this one), assume I could easily get a boyfriend or husband if only I made myself weak and stupid to attract a man (or dropped a hell of a lot of standards).

You see, it’s supposedly that pesky feminism or that stubborn insistence that I have self-confidence, or be independent, (or that a guy feel like a good match for me), that is keeping me from landing a man (*roll eyes* at all the backwards thinking and sexism in those assumptions).

The simple truth is, you can be a great person – smart, funny, attractive, and have a host of other great qualities – and just not be able to meet a comparable person you would like to partner with. Nor should you dumb yourself down and become clingy and needy in the hopes doing so will attract a partner.

Speaking of all that, like the author of this article does, I too tire of societal assumptions that if you are single, or have not married past a certain age, it must necessarily mean you are horribly flawed in some way. You can be a good person and a good catch but simply never run into anyone decent, or not anyone who is compatible with you.

(Link): I’m Not Pining for a Long-lost Love. I’m Single by Circumstance by S. Reed

Excerpts:

• ….Countless movies, books, televisions shows, musicals and operas teach us to believe there’s someone out there for everyone: Just wish on a star, or get a makeover, or take a chance and boom! True love will find you. So if you haven’t found that person — or lost him somehow — people have trouble understanding why.
• ….For some, that glaring absence can be explained only by some horrible flaw I must possess or a love gone wrong in my past. Although I have many faults, I’ve never noticed that folks who are in relationships are perfect. And when I look back at my romantic history, I think: “That’s a lot of bullets dodged.”

Complementarian Churches and the Single Adult Woman by J. Dyer

Complementarian Churches and the Single Adult Woman by J. Dyer

This is a page by a woman in her mid 30s who thought she would have been married by now but still finds herself single. She describes how the gender complementarian churches she has attended don’t minister to adult single women properly.

She also notes in this page how following all the usual Christian dating advice has not worked – she’s tried it all and is still single; this is a phenomenon I’ve blogged about before.

(Link): Complementarian Churches and the Single Adult Woman by J. Dyer

Excerpts:

• …But it [meeting a spouse at church] didn’t [happen]. Well-meaning friends told me all manner of things about how God must be teaching me something (it appears I’m a slow learner). Or–my favorite–if I could just delight in the Lord, when I least expected it, God would bring “the man” into my life.
• Churches often try to tell women how to be women without considering the whole range of God-inspired possibilities. There will always be outliers to the model they create.

Women Are Still Being Told To Lower Their Standards / Stupid Sh*t People Say to Singles by S. H. Weiss

Women Are Still Being Told To Lower Their Standards / Stupid Sh*t People Say to Singles by S. H. Weiss

One thing the author of this page brings up is something I have as well: women are just as visually oriented as men are and do care about what men look like. However, women are conditioned by secular society and religious groups to think they should not care about a man’s physical attractiveness.

Women are conditioned to look past a man’s ugliness to consider his other traits – is he smart, financially stable, and so on.

Now, I do think some people are in fact way too judgmental or picky regarding physical appearance in dating or whom to marry.

But, on the other hand, there is absolutely nothing wrong in wanting to date or marry someone you consider attractive. I don’t think people of either gender should be super picky about looks, but it’s okay to have some preferences or standards.

The woman who wrote this says she caught some guy she knew lying in his dating site profile – he was 35 years old but claimed on his dating profile he is 25 or 30 years old. She asked him why he lied about his age.

He claims it’s because he wants to start a family and a woman in her 20s is guaranteed to be fertile.

First of all, women in their 40s (and 30s) still menstruate and get pregnant, so you don’t need to marry a 20 something to have babies. Some women in their 20s are childfree or infertile.

Secondly, as I noted before, I advised single women who read this blog to lie on their dating site profiles about their ages, to make themselves younger than they are.

As so many men are this very shallow and particular about age in a woman (many of them have a cut off age of 29, while for others, it’s about 35), go ahead and cite yourself as being 20 or 30 something on your profile if you are over 40 and want dates.

The worst thing that will happen once the guy gets to know you after he meets you via a dating site is that he will decide to stop dating you. Big whoop.

I have seen or read about a lot of men ages 45 and older who lie about their ages on dating sites. I’ve had guys who are obviously 65 or older (they have all white hair) who contact me on dating sites, who claim to be 41 or 42 years old. Men lie out the ass about their ages (and their height, according to other women) all the time on these sites.

(Link):  Liberated Shmiberated!: Women are Still Being Told to Lower Their Standards (& it’s messed up!) by S. H. Weiss

Excerpts:

• February 2016
• …It is Traister’s message that I would like to share with the women I have spoken with lately, women who feel they need to defend themselves to others about why they are not married, why they are not “just settling down already” and why they are “being too picky.”
• The women I speak of range from early 30s to early 40s. Some of them have never been married, while others were married briefly. A third of them are divorced and have children. The one thing these friends have in common is that they all say that are not “single by choice.” They express the desire to find their perfect life partner.
• ..However, there are Yentas everywhere, some well-intentioned and others questionably motivated. This is especially true for those who are part of a tight-knit or religious community (ranging from the Mormons to the Modern Orthodox Jewish).

Husband-Hunting is the Worst Part of a Christian Upbringing – Christianity Made Me Obsessed with Finding a Husband – by B. Ramos

Husband-Hunting is the Worst Part of a Christian Upbringing – Christianity Made Me Obsessed with Finding a Husband – by B. Ramos

(Link):  Husband-hunting is the worst part of a Christian upbringing by B. Ramos 

Excerpts:

Christianity made me obsessed with finding a husband 

June 30, 2015

…Now that I am “old” and married with two kids at the age of 31 (and wasn’t married as I intended at 21), I’m so glad I didn’t go down that road. There’s nothing technically wrong with young marriage, though I personally believe and will tell my children that it’s so, so important to take time to get to know yourself and other people before you make a lifelong commitment.

There is something wrong with being coerced and even brainwashed into thinking you need to get married at a young age to be complete — in the eyes of God and in the eyes of other people.

No, I did not grow up in a Duggar-like cult. I grew up in a fundamental Christian home, which was quite common for my area of South Texas.

I’ve spoken to a number of friends, including my husband who was the son of a Baptist pastor, and our stories match up.

Young people are still being led to believe that young marriage (implying abstinence from sex) is the only way to please God, and these young people who follow this path are not being told the whole story.

Five Unhelpful Things Singles Are Tired Of Hearing by R. Duncan / Eight Things You Should Never Say To Your Single Friends by K. Wilkinson

Five Unhelpful Things Singles Are Tired Of Hearing by R. Duncan / Eight Things You Should Never Say To Your Single Friends by K. Wilkinson

There is also a link below to “Eight Things You Should Never Say To Your Single Friends”

(Link): Five Unhelpful Things Singles Are Tired Of Hearing

Excerpts:

by Ryan Duncan

Life as a single adult (Link): can be difficult. Life as a single Christian, on the other hand, can be just plain exasperating. While never short on community, single Christians often find themselves bombarded with well-meaning, but unhelpful advice from their married peers.

In response, (Link): Krysti Wilkinson of Relevant Magazine decided it was time to compile a list of things you should never say to your single friends. Coupled with a few of my own favorite gems, here are five things your single friends are tired of hearing.

“Wow, You Must Have So Much Free Time!”

“This is usually an attempt to point out the silver lining. But this sometimes implies that your single friend’s schedule, and life, must be empty (and void of anything meaningful) when there isn’t a significant other in it. True, those of us who are single have just one person’s schedule to keep track of instead of two, but there are so many other important parts of our days that have nothing to do with our love lives.”

A Response To J D Hall’s Vomit-tastic Post about Village Church’s Handling of Certain Members, Covenants, and Marriages

A Response To J D Hall’s Vomit-tastic Post about Village Church’s Handling of Certain Members, Covenants, and Marriages 

Before we get to the post by J D Hall:

Background:

• The Village Church (TVC) of Texas has placed Karen, who was once a member of theirs, under church discipline because she did not, according to them, abide by the church covenant she signed.
• Instead of conferring with the church on what to do, Karen, on her own, sought an annulment from the state of Texas, once she discovered her then-spouse, Jordan, was a pedophile.
• Karen said she spent about 50 days conferring with other Christians (not from the TVC), and in prayer, mulling over what to do, before seeking the annulment.
• This action of hers has ticked off TVC leadership, because Karen did not get their permission to get the annulment.
• Matt Chandler is the lead preacher of TVC.

You can read additional reporting of this situation here (additional material is at the bottom of this post):

• (Link, off site): She Wanted an Annulment from a Pedophile. What Happened Next Ignited a Controversy

Here is the page I am responding to:

(Link, off site): A Rational Response to the Criticism of Village Church  by  J D Hall, Pulpit and Pen blog

The covenant that Hall is so rigorously defending – TVC’s membership covenant – here does not even mention annulments.

As Karen explains (off site Link, Source):

• …it is worth noting here that although The Village Church claims [in their e-mail] that “We see an annulment as a subcategory of what Scripture defines as a divorce in Mark 10:9” …, this cannot be found anywhere in their Membership Covenant or Bylaws.
• In signing their Membership Covenant shortly after my 24^th birthday, I had agreed to nothing in regards to the possibility of annulment should I come to realize that my marriage had been a complete sham from the beginning.
• There is a vast difference between a divorce and a marriage that is voided on the grounds of fraud, and I had no way of knowing that the leadership of The Village Church would respond to it in this fashion.