"Love Bomb" Misses the Mark

From Deconversion Bible, a new Atheist blog:

This post was inspired by vjack's article on Christian Culture.

I don't know how many atheists are intimately familiar with the evangelical and cultist tactic called a love bombing. I saw an article about it on Truthdig. The article discusses overt, sinister examples of the tactic where evangelical leaders consciously direct the group members to carry this out. I think sometimes it's just a little more subtle and love bombing is far more extensive than what we give it credit for. I'd like to broaden the applicability of love bombing here because I think it gives valuable insight into a whole set of Christian behavior.

I've always been aware of many Christian behaviors that are built into and thought of as the Christian lifestyle itself. The group members themselves often aren't even meant to be aware of the reasons for their own actions. And often, the group members are so well conditioned into this lifestyle that the group can carry out sophisticated coordinated efforts even with no leader at their center. It's automatic.

I don't think there's a single atheist who hasn't heard Christian leaders calling on their churches to go out into their cities and treat everyone in a loving, caring manner. They always stress the homeless, prostitutes, and even those "inner city" people. Churches then encourage their members to put together friend-making activities such as progressive dinner parties for new recruits. And smaller groups are encouraged to voluntarily go off the deep end with things such as cuddle parties or "ice breaker games" such as this. Christians are obsessed with inventing or adopting superficial friend-making activities.

(Full post)

The full post is well worth reading, along with vjack's Christian Culture post that inspired it and in turn How do you escape a cult when it's all around you? posted by layla on exchristian.net to which vjack responds.