Lori Alexander Blog Post 4-6-18 Dead While She Lives

[louisa05]

Comments on two of her posts:

The nonsense about searching the Bible constantly for "how to live": First of all, the Bible is not a how to manual for life. That was one of the things that bothered me the most during my time in the evangelical world. You can't use a text written in ancient times to tell you how to live daily life now. Doing so requires an absurd amount of mental gymnastics. Believe me, I know this. (Sorry for the repetition, but it is my best example) I once sat through a two hour Christian school teachers meeting debating which colors of nail polish the Bible allows. But beyond the legalism and absurdity, a mature Christian should come to the point where they have a well formed conscience and understand moral living without constantly needing to search. That is an actual teaching in the Catholic church. The nun I student taught with pounded that into me when I was an evangelical college student--that all the fruitless searching for the right answer can be counter-productive because what we should really seek is to develop a mature conscience that answers that for us. In later years, I saw that she was more than right. Searching for an answer in the Bible to every question just causes legalism and confusion. Developing a mature moral conscience allows you to live your life. It occurred to me not long before I converted that the very devout evangelicals I knew wore their faith like a sandwich sign while the very devout Catholics I knew lived it out as a core part of their being. (Please don't come at me with flame throwers, I know that there can be people in other faith traditions in both categories--and my Protestant grandparents were in the latter--but in my years in evangelical world I, unfortunately, never met anyone in the second). 

And on the homeschooling boys post: Shut up, Lori, you "homeschooled" your kids for about 15 minutes and now you're writing as if you did it for ten years of their educations. 

 

[Lgirlrocks]

4 hours ago, louisa05 said:

Comments on two of her posts:

The nonsense about searching the Bible constantly for "how to live": First of all, the Bible is not a how to manual for life. That was one of the things that bothered me the most during my time in the evangelical world. You can't use a text written in ancient times to tell you how to live daily life now. Doing so requires an absurd amount of mental gymnastics. Believe me, I know this. (Sorry for the repetition, but it is my best example) I once sat through a two hour Christian school teachers meeting debating which colors of nail polish the Bible allows. But beyond the legalism and absurdity, a mature Christian should come to the point where they have a well formed conscience and understand moral living without constantly needing to search. That is an actual teaching in the Catholic church. The nun I student taught with pounded that into me when I was an evangelical college student--that all the fruitless searching for the right answer can be counter-productive because what we should really seek is to develop a mature conscience that answers that for us. In later years, I saw that she was more than right. Searching for an answer in the Bible to every question just causes legalism and confusion. Developing a mature moral conscience allows you to live your life. It occurred to me not long before I converted that the very devout evangelicals I knew wore their faith like a sandwich sign while the very devout Catholics I knew lived it out as a core part of their being. (Please don't come at me with flame throwers, I know that there can be people in other faith traditions in both categories--and my Protestant grandparents were in the latter--but in my years in evangelical world I, unfortunately, never met anyone in the second). 

And on the homeschooling boys post: Shut up, Lori, you "homeschooled" your kids for about 15 minutes and now you're writing as if you did it for ten years of their educations. 

 

This is true. We no longer take our kids out and stone them if they don’t listen. Plus the Bible is very grey on a lot of subjects like how to discipline your child. 

When I was home schooled I pretty much read and did math. Those are the only subjects I excelled in when I went out for school in the 8th grade. 

[Coconut Flan]

Because we're trying to get more new threads, please feel free to start up a new thread with each blog post or new Facebook challenge from Ken or whatever new thing she does.  Thanks! I've broken out this one.

[Coconut Flan]

Quote

Women who are dead while they live don’t search scriptures to see how they are to live: how they are to dress, act, and speak. No, they go along with what culture is doing. They dress immodestly. They act according to their emotions and feelings and do as they please. They speak negatively about others and have no problems using swear words.

As godly women, we are called to live lives that are pleasing to the Lord, not pleasing to ourselves. Many falsely believe that if they continually seek to be entertained that they will be happy but no, when we seek to serve others and deny ourselves is when we find true happiness. “Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.” (Psalm 144:15). Joy comes from obeying and serving the Lord, not from serving ourselves and our pleasures.

From Lori's latest: https://thetransformedwife.com/dead-while-she-lives/

Yet, I find Lori "Dead While She Lives" as she can't enjoy anything except being critical, argumentative, and being holier-than-thou.  She's the one who seems to be the empty sepulcher in life.  When I saw the blog post title, I first thought someone had told her that she was dead while she lives and she was going to refute it.

Lori can find no middle ground in life.  There is no need to cut joy out of life or deny all entertainment, to serve the Lord.  She takes a verse here and there to try to browbeat people into her kind of life.  That's our Lori.

[DaisyD]

I haven't read much about Lori, but I think "dead while she lives" describes a number of the folks we follow. FLDS and that ilk come to mind immediately. I've never understood the need in some people to cling to a rather unintelligible book (kjv puts me straight to sleep) in such a way. I guess I'm just not scared enough of going to hell.

[Jellybean]

It’s pretty grim, isn’t it? I agree that a lot of people that we follow have little appreciation for life and all its wonderful complexity. Lori seems utterly miserable all the time.

[December]

44 minutes ago, Jellybean said:

It’s pretty grim, isn’t it? I agree that a lot of people that we follow have little appreciation for life and all its wonderful complexity. Lori seems utterly miserable all the time.

Fortunately there are so many people out there, of all different religious or non-religious beliefs, that have a zest for life and its variety! 

[Jellybean]

@Georgiana put it wonderfully when she said that she was more passionate about the bad things in her life than Lori (and many of our fundies) are about the good things 

[louisa05]

3 hours ago, DaisyD said:

I haven't read much about Lori, but I think "dead while she lives" describes a number of the folks we follow. FLDS and that ilk come to mind immediately. I've never understood the need in some people to cling to a rather unintelligible book (kjv puts me straight to sleep) in such a way. I guess I'm just not scared enough of going to hell.

I'm not even sure that it is fear of hell. The people I know are not scared of hell as much as they are scared of not having the answers. That vast gray area that makes up most of life terrifies them. So they want someone or something to give them all the answers. A friend of mine who is a lifelong Catholic once told me that she stays Catholic because she "never has to think" since the Church can give her all the answers. I was blown away by that. Especially given what I shared above that I learned from an extremely intelligent and devout nun. 

Whenever uncertainty threatened the Christian school (and financial uncertainty was basically constant there), they lost it looking for magical answers to calm themselves. One common thing was staff meetings where after praying, a designated person would open a Bible to a random page and read a random verse that they pointed to then the whole room would interpret that verse with all the necessary mental gymnastics to mean that everything was going to be okay. 

[Jellybean]

I remember that. The opening the bible to a random page and finding the verse that had been ‘directed by the holy spirit’ in all sorts of situations...when my hamster died, when 9/11 happened; every situation from the banal to the very serious.

[Blahblah]

I dabble (at best) in Lori but the thought processes are the same for many of the families who are glued to an old book.

It amazes me that people are willing to restrict their entire lives to follow a book that was written hundreds of years after the events it describes, by people who at best could only have third hand accounts. And then translated who knows how many times over the years.

And the selective nature of what to adhere to is astounding. 

Many years ago I worked in a very small office with a Christadelphian and a Jehovah’s Witness who loved to debate interpretations of various contentious bits of the bible.  They were both lovely women and it was all very friendly but they rarely agreed on the exact meaning of anything. 

As an instruction manual, the bible makes a very good novel.

[Beermeet]

On 4/6/2018 at 7:35 AM, louisa05 said:

Comments on two of her posts:

The nonsense about searching the Bible constantly for "how to live": First of all, the Bible is not a how to manual for life. That was one of the things that bothered me the most during my time in the evangelical world. You can't use a text written in ancient times to tell you how to live daily life now. Doing so requires an absurd amount of mental gymnastics. Believe me, I know this. (Sorry for the repetition, but it is my best example) I once sat through a two hour Christian school teachers meeting debating which colors of nail polish the Bible allows. But beyond the legalism and absurdity, a mature Christian should come to the point where they have a well formed conscience and understand moral living without constantly needing to search. That is an actual teaching in the Catholic church. The nun I student taught with pounded that into me when I was an evangelical college student--that all the fruitless searching for the right answer can be counter-productive because what we should really seek is to develop a mature conscience that answers that for us. In later years, I saw that she was more than right. Searching for an answer in the Bible to every question just causes legalism and confusion. Developing a mature moral conscience allows you to live your life. It occurred to me not long before I converted that the very devout evangelicals I knew wore their faith like a sandwich sign while the very devout Catholics I knew lived it out as a core part of their being. 

 

Thank you for brining up the Catholic view.  I was a cradle Catholic and grew up with the teaching that I am responsible for how I behave given the teachings of Jesus, which do give an outline to follow.  At some point in growing up one is supposed to let that guide them in daily life and it had nothing to do with hair and make up or any minor thing like that.   "God is always watching".  That used to freak me out!  But, overall I still use those skills and general way of thinking.  I just don't feel threatened bu God anymore.  It does confuse me how fundies use the bible for every answer.  I agree, they are twisting the words and true meaning into an absolute answer.  I find it offensive and I no longer even go to church unless a wedding, christening or funeral.  When I do go, I enjoy the spiritual experience.  I was never shamed or guilted at mass and I think it wrong to do so while worshipping, as fundies do.  

[Beermeet]

12 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

Because we're trying to get more new threads, please feel free to start up a new thread with each blog post or new Facebook challenge from Ken or whatever new thing she does.  Thanks! I've broken out this one.

What's up with this?  What did I miss?!  FB Ken challenges and must needs more threads.  Hmmmmm......

[Coconut Flan]

What you missed was the announcement by Curious.  We're trying to reverse the trend from mega-threads to more individual threads to keep Google Ads happy and the revenue at a level to support the forum.  It has nothing to do with Lori and Ken.  I woke up at 5 AM this morning thinking about it and Lorken seemed a good place to start since we used to have a new thread on almost every Lori blog post. 

March 30 announcement by Curious:

Quote

Hi Folks,

We are going to be making a small change.  We will no longer be merging threads quite so aggressively.   We are going to try and phase out megathreads for the most part.  The whole reason certain families were moved to their own homes was so members could start threads with wild abandon and not have them overtake the rest of the forum.

So starting immediately please start posting threads again!  If we have a big news day and there are multiple posts on the exact same topic, those will still be merged into one thread, but topics that are "similar" or just happen to be about the same family are no longer going to be automatically merged into a megathread by a helpmeet.

Questions, comments, suggestions are welcome as always.

If you have further discussion about this, please take it to Community Discussion.  Thanks! 

[Jellybean]

What infuriates me about Lori is that she preaches one thing (hardline, sort-of based on the Bible) and does something entirely different. One rule for her, another for her followers.

The hypocrisy and judgemental attitude, as well as her itchy fingers for the delete/ban buttons just infuriate me.

I’ve been reading back through some of @Ken‘s old posts from when he came here a few years ago (2014) and even then he talked about Lori being very trigger-happy with the delete button. 

There were times in Lori’s early writing when she sounded happy about things and I can understand why people might have been drawn to that, along with her enviable lifestyle, but when her post went viral (did you know that Lori had a post that went viral? It went viral, you guys!) she seemed to change direction a bit. The viral post was horrible. Judgemental and hateful and didactic. There was a lot of hate-sharing, but I don’t think that mattered to Lori, so she has continued to write posts similar to the viral one, and many that are even more contentious. It hasn’t worked so far, but she’s still trying...

[EowynW]

I'm going to give Lori a tiny bit of  credit for something I hadn't paid attention to before.

 

atleast when someone tells her "my husband says I have to work/public school/etc." she usually does seem to accept that it's his decision and doesn't (from what I've seen)  place blame on the woman. She says pray and do the best you can. If I'm wrong correct me on this  

I had never thought of this before until today, after a very very bad encounter with my own fundie mother about a decision we made, and then her blaming ME for not manipulating/swaying/convincing  my (supposedly in her view head of the house) husband into making the decision SHE thought we should make, after I told her it was HIS decision. It made me think of Lori for some reason. 

[Jellybean]

I’m so sorry you had that experience with your mother @EowynW. Have you read ‘You’re not crazy - it’s your mother’ by Danu Morrigan? I may have asked this before, but I found it really helpful in understanding the excuses I’d been making for my mother, and the things that I thought were normal that were anything but normal.

I’m trying to think of examples when Lori has answered those questions, or spoken about the decisions of husbands. I’m sure @Koala or @AlwaysDiscerning or @Free Jana Duggar (or any other dedicated Lori-watchers!) can help, but I think you’re right...

[Hisey]

1 hour ago, EowynW said:

I'm going to give Lori a tiny bit of  credit for something I hadn't paid attention to before.

 

atleast when someone tells her "my husband says I have to work/public school/etc." she usually does seem to accept that it's his decision and doesn't (from what I've seen)  place blame on the woman. She says pray and do the best you can. If I'm wrong correct me on this  

I had never thought of this before until today, after a very very bad encounter with my own fundie mother about a decision we made, and then her blaming ME for not manipulating/swaying/convincing  my (supposedly in her view head of the house) husband into making the decision SHE thought we should make, after I told her it was HIS decision. It made me think of Lori for some reason. 

I'm sure you know this, but your mom should not have been criticizing a decision made by two married adults. None of her beeswax!

[freealljs]

Thank you @Jellybean for the book recommendation.  I just ordered it on Amazon. I also have a narcissistic (and co-dependent) mother, who I am no longer in contact with, since buying my first house in August.  Who would have known that buying my first house would be such an issue for my mother?   I spent most of my life trying to make her happy, to the detriment of my relationships and health.  Now, I focus on having a very different relationship with my DD and rebuilding my relationship with my DH, that I think, was compromised by my mother's "noise".

What drives me crazy about Lori is her lack of empathy.  Sure, not all of us have dealt with incest or abuse, but we can empathize with those who have. Lori just seems to not understand at all.  It seems that fundies skipped the lesson of empathy.

But, I think that Lori is a lot like my mother:  she is heavily dependent on the likes of FB and IG, and the adulation of her adoring fans in their comments on FB, IG, and her blog.  My mother, like Lori, is shocked that anyone says anything negative toward her, and says that everyone else is the problem.  My mother, like Lori, cares too much about keeping her house spotless and bland, goes on about dressing a certain way, but bends the dressing rules if it involves her, counting her (and everyone else's) calories, and cannot stand being wrong. In fact, my mother, like Lori, is never wrong.

I honestly can't figure Ken out.  He, at times, garners my sympathy, because he reminds me of my dad before he divorced my mother.  My dad was always placating my mother.  His last straw happened, he had enough, and he divorced her, which honestly surprised her, because like Lori, she was never at fault. I think that Ken would be a different, less bitter maybe, person without her driving him to comment endlessly on FB or the blog and only giving him lousy sex and nasty salads.  He probably goes along with a lot of what she says, just to survive living in their bland boring million dollar house.  

One day, I believe, that karma will eventually catch up to them, especially Lori.  But for now, I am very grateful for the life that I have now and remind myself that the Loris in the world end up doing themselves in.

 

Sorry for the long rant, and hope it make sense.

[EowynW]

16 hours ago, Hisey said:

I'm sure you know this, but your mom should not have been criticizing a decision made by two married adults. None of her beeswax!

Oh I know. Believe you me. And I can't believe she threw me under the bus even when I gave her the approved answer of "the man decided." It was a very very bad day. 

[SweetLaurel]

18 hours ago, EowynW said:

atleast when someone tells her "my husband says I have to work/public school/etc." she usually does seem to accept that it's his decision and doesn't (from what I've seen)  place blame on the woman. She says pray and do the best you can. If I'm wrong correct me on this  

When I told her my husband demanded I worked, she told me I wasn't winning him without a word or praying hard enough. I said I tried praying and winning him  for over 10 years and I did all I could...and crickets...  then, later,  I told her I was a widow with kids who had to work and got 'God's perfect plan - are you smarter than God?'   Yeah.  She has no clue about real life.   Oh - and blocked.  Hey Ken - wanna support us??  Bring on your horse of truth with dollars!

[Hisey]

1 hour ago, EowynW said:

Oh I know. Believe you me. And I can't believe she threw me under the bus even when I gave her the approved answer of "the man decided." It was a very very bad day. 

Yes, it’s hypocritical. “Obey your husband unless he does something I dont approve of.”