Trading Spouse and the religious nut case

Trading Spouses is one of those reality television shows. Often such shows illustrate more aspects of human life than they intend. The premise of the show is that they take two individuals and have them swap families for a short period of time. And they try to find families with conflicting values.

Twice I’ve known of episode where one of the spouses was a fundamentalist Christian. And each time they were horrible human beings who were rude. But the most recent example bordered on the insane.

A massively fat born again woman from the deep South was sent to live with a wacky New Age family. This woman was a stereotypical born again. She’s massively obese, rather unattractive, missing a tooth in the middle of her upper jaw, and absolutely demanding that everyone cater to her every whim and need. Now if I thought mental illness was a reality I’d say she was insane.

She’s a religious fanatic. She starts out the show telling everyone: “I can hear God and I’m constantly talking to God and he’s talks a lot.” Okay, when someone thinks God is talking to them I start to wonder about their stability. She says: “If you don’t believe God died on the cross and is your Saviour that bothers me.”

She seems to be completely disconnected from reality. She tells the new family “I promise, you are going to like me. I promise you I’m normal.” Neither was true.

She immediately assumes that something evil and satanic is going on. “I just had this feeling. I can not explain it,”she says. No surprise she can’t explain a lot of things. She starts running around the house pretending that she is vomiting. She claims to smell things no one can smell. This is because she assumes everything around her is Satanic.

She is obviously convinced that anyone who plays with New Age mysticism instead of her Bible mysticism is satanic. And throughout the show it becomes obvious that as time goes by she will become more and more obsessed with the beliefs of this family and become more and more vicious to them.

When the poor New Age woman meets the friends of the religious blob she finds herself under attack by these vicious born again types who demand to know if she believes in God and then they question her to find out if her beliefs are sufficiently fundamentalist to make them happy. The one woman who is friends of the blob says that the New Age mother is “of the Devil”. Another says that she hopes one day she’ll be “saved”.

Meanwhile the New Agers are having a Solstice Party and the blob is standing around looking down her nose at everyone. She tells the television show “I don’t like anything that is not of God.” She storms out and runs off to pray saying that the “Holy Spirit” is rising up in her.

What was apparent was the difference in world-views of these two types of mysticism. The New Age type, loony as she was, was not about to attack others. She didn’t want to control the lives of other or demand that they follow her way. She had her nutty beliefs but didn’t care if others had different views. But the born againer had no such sense of tolerance or respect for others. She was demanding and insistent that the world comply with her teachings. And her friends came across the same way.

This is the hallmark of the fundamentalist mentality. It is the intolerance and hate for differences that makes the fundamentalist so dangerous. The born again fundamentalist is very much like the fundamentalist Islamic who sets off bombs. People who hate others who don’t follow their mystical beliefs are always dangerous.

The morning after the Solstice Party the blob awakes saying she’s sick of the “dark side” and asked God to give her “wisdom” and show her how to “reach” this family. The fundamentalist doesn’t understand that people don’t need to be “reached”. They need to be respected. But the fundie insists that everyone be just like herself.

As part of the swap she has to replace the New Age wife in all her activities. The New Ager and her husband hosted a radio show and our Born Againer is asked to co-host it as well. During the taping a so-called psychic comes in as a guest sending the Born Againer into fits and obsessing again over the "dark side". She blurts out to the audience.

“No more. I will take no more. Margeret Perrin is very unhappy to be here today. He’s not of God.” When the psychic says he’s a Christian she tells him he is not and won’t listen to him. “I don’t believe in dark side stuff. I will have God in my life and when I die I’m going to heaven.” Then she tells the camera that the new Age people can shove it up their ass. She insists that the show find her a church immediately.

“I’m not fence riding. I don’t want anything dark sided. This is a God test. I feell that I just need prayer.” She burst into tears and started having a fit in the hallway of the radio station. She came across entirely insane.

This woman is a real mental case. Next week is the conclusion of the swap and what they’ve shown in the previews is a real major mental breakdown. They show her screaming “Get the fuck out of my house. In Jesus’ name I pray.” I don’t mean just screaming. She shrieks. She’s shrill, vile and vicious. No doubt this makes her very popular among the fundamentalist Christians. She horrifies the children she is caring for as she tries to impose her religious beliefs on them.

Watch the next episode if you can bear to see a born again Christian at work. These people are seriously unhinged.