Playing Sorority Life - A Little Too Much Like Real Life

So I discovered this very addictive game on Facebook called Sorority Life. It started with just dressing up this virtual paper doll. I like dress-up. Then you organize little virtual events that gave you virtual money and virtual "glam" and you get points and move up a level. Then I discovered you could virtually "attack" other houses and steal their money. And there was strategy with figuring which glam to buy that had points for attacking and points for defense. And that was fun and challenging. But you needed more "sisters" for that - which meant more facebook friends. So I got more sisters. And pretty soon my virtual crops on facebook farmland were dying because all I wanted play on facebook was Sorority Life.

Ah but there was ANOTHER feature of the game. You could virtually "slap" someone. But a number of people playing this game had decided that it was socially unacceptable to push the slap the button. Whole houses had "no slapping" rules and would kick anybody out of their virtual "house" if they were caught slapping. These people take this seriously enough that they keep screen shots of virtual slaps.

But then it wasn't enough not to slap. You couldn't house or be friends with anyone who slapped. You couldn't belong to a house that was neutral about slapping. And there were witch hunts and if you were found to be the sister of a sister who was sisters with a "slapper" you were booted from houses. It was crazy.

And my rebellious streak set in and I started housing slappers. And got kicked out of houses for it. Then I started watching all the fun my slapper sisters were having so one day I did it. I pushed the slapper button. And watched grown women (there are actually a lot of men play too but I don't think they are as suseptable to the anti-slapper mania as women) go absolutely nutso on me, writing foul and disgusting insults on my board, as well as lame "Yea well you are an ugly old lady"

I won't lie. I got some satisfaction out of being able to do what you can't do in real life. Slap idiots and self-righteous uptight old biddies.

Well it was bound to happen. I wasn't as careful with my privacy settings on facebook as I should have been. And one day I got outed as I read on my board "Is this the way a PASTOR should behave---slapping people?" Which is pretty hysterical as no one seemed to have a problem with the main part of the game which is STEALING MONEY.

At first I was bummed that I couldn't be anonymous in the game anymore. But I didn't participate in the foul mouthed insults - I thought I kept my smack talk clean (except for the character I created just to slap people called "SMACKuratsass") and rather on the witty side and I never got personal like these people did. I mean who goes and looks people up and post personal information about you over a GAME? Apparently a lot of people. Lot of nuts on the internet. I've been online long enough to know that.

And then I started thinking. People decide slapping is wrong because they don't do it. And so everybody else has to do things their way and not only can slappers not be in your house - nobody else can have slappers in their house. Hmmm. Not only are WE not going to have a gay pastor. No other congregation in the ELCA can have a gay pastor.

Anti slappers would gang up on and drive to drive slappers out of the game. CORE trying to get its members to gang up on pastors who don't agree with them and drive them out of the church.

Anti-slappers acting all morally superior because they don't slap yet they engage in vile and rude and insulting behavior (and sometimes do actually slap). People who focus in on homosexuality as the only sin in the world and yet engage in vile and hurtful behavior (some of whom are in the closet themselves)

OMG SORORITY LIFE IS JUST LIKE THE CHURCH I WAS TRYING TO ESCAPE!

And yet, just as in the church there are good people who "get" it. I met some really cool sisters who slapped or didn't mind befriending slappers and that made it all worthwhile.

Purity. Trying to draw that line between them and us. This side is God's good clean side and I'm on it and THEY are not. And yet what did Jesus do? Constantly crossed over boundaries. Constantly held up the "other", the unclean, the sinner, the outcast, as the one who will be in the Kingdom of heaven before all these morally superior smug anti-slappers.

One crazy person who found out I was a pastor posted all over my board "WWJD" You know what I think Jesus would do? He'd call all those self-righteous biddies a brood of vipers and go have a party with the slappers.