the "Hate Me" phenomena

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[theresearchpersona]

I once heard a [GC's] pastor-in-training's own story about the gal he liked for years and who he started not "treating"...i.e. not interacting with at all because he liked her and it really really got to him/stayed on his mind and he had hard time even being in around her.

One day he was sitting right next to her but was turned to the left (she on his right) and completely ignored her as usual...and she asked him point-blank, "do you hate me"? And after this he said he realized how aweful it was that he wasn't even treating her like a sister.

Have you guys ever seen this in GC among people? I think it's symptomatic. From my own experience I can say that (prior to learning about the messed-up and evils of GC and its leadership etc.) I remember talking to a brother about a gal who I was thinking of talking to (we were both silent but things were getting awkward) and I noticed that he advised me to say nothing and referred me to the above-mentioned message (which in there too the pastor-in-training said "you shouldn't say anything" to someone if you're in love because it gets "awkward"). Personally I think GC tends to by nature and structure and teaching make things awkward for people rather than the other way around...for instance, I wonder about this thing where they refer to a man who started a worship-time with his wife even before she was his wife and use that to say be faithful in having a worship time with your family, but then of course there's all the taboo and teaching not to be alone with a woman...?

And has this, perhaps, ever become the case between leaders and non-leaders, i.e., not a "love" thing, but perhaps leadership for some reason just begins to neglect people?

[wastedyearsthere]

I had to chuckle at this post.  

This was DEFINITELY the way it was at the GCC church I was at.  If a "brother" liked a sister he would ignore her and not spend any time with her.  It was WEIRD in my opinion.  There were couples that got together that never had any time together at all -- they never dated, courted.  The brother got counsel for years and then went to a sister out of the blue and proposed marriage.  I know of at least 15 couples that was the case with.  

The relationships are very dysfunctional.  I wish I had left years earlier.

[Immortal_Raven]

I agree that it turned out to be dysfunctional.  I'd be hanging out with a couple guys and we be chatting.  Then one of them would say, "Did you know so -and-so are courting now?"  And my reaction was shocked, I wondered to myself, "I didn't even think they knew each other?  Am I not in the loop?  Do I want to be in the loop?  This is weird."  It's one of those out of the blue things that just took you by total surprise.

-Immortal_Raven

[wastedyearsthere]

Well at least they are now allowed to court!

In the 80's and 90's -- you got approached by a brother out of nowhere and proposed marriage!!  Seriously -- there were couples I knew of they barely knew each other and they married without courting/dating.  It is amazing they are still married (who knows if it is happily though)

You were not allowed to spend time with the opposite sex -- that was partiality.  I broke lots of rules -- but then I was not allowed to be a leader either!

[Linda]

In the 80's and 90's -- you got approached by a brother out of nowhere and proposed marriage!!

How widespread do you think this type of "arranged marriage" was?

The way I find myself picturing it is that the leaders sat around and decided who they liked and told the other leaders they thought God wanted them to marry this person (by the way, isn't that showing partiality just to come up in their mind with a person they liked and wanted to marry?), asked each other for "counsel" (permission), asked the girl (who had carefully been taught that obeying the leader was obeying God), and presto, the leader gets the girl he wants.

To quote Mel Brooks, "It's good to be the king."

I'm guessing the groom to be ran it by the elders rather than the bride's parents first.

This getting approached by the brother out of nowhere method is only a small step from what is happening in Texas at the moment. At least the girl got to say, "No." But, how hard would it be to say no to someone who you had been taught was speaking for God.

When a leader stands up and says you are to give the controls of your life to him in order to be in obedience, and you want to follow God, it would be really hard to say no to the "brother".

I was there 10 years and had no idea that this was common. I knew of one case where this had happened, but assumed it was the exception and not the rule.

Next time, I'll ask more questions and assume less.