As usual, the ethos, bravery and finesse of the intellectualistas who act like they are molding tommorrow's minds can take your breath away in the midst of the ongoing apostasy.
Stop me if you've heard this before: the Christian faith is trampled on by a college professor singlemindedly pursuing teachable moments in the bold quest to encourage rational thought. As usual, you really just can't make this stuff up.
And it's a Mormon I've got to give the kudos to for standing up to this learned moron. Another weird day in the falling away and part of the New Normal.
I hope his community service gets him all the publicity he deserves. If I was in Palm Beach county, I'd definitely give him some debate. But that's why blogs are helpful. I think I'd like to ask him why the name of Mohammed wasn't put on that paper and walked upon.
Excuse me while I email the good doctor. Oh, it's invalid now, is it?
Pity.
Religious abuse as we have defined it in other places in our website
articles, is the
inner psychological and emotional trauma suffered by members of
churches/religious organizations which have used authoritarian and
manipulative teachings and practices to control both their thought and
behavior - whether the abuse was
intentional or not. The bottom line of spiritual abuse is that it occurs
when edification is cloaked manipulation.
Unscrupulous leaders inflict
spiritual abuse through the domination and control of followers who are
compelled by induced fear or pride to adopt lifestyle changes that serves
their own agenda - not the love of God or the spiritual health of the
follower. Ultimately, this exploitation leaves them in a piteous dependence
upon their association with the church or religious group to provide them
meaning, a relationship with God, and even any notion of personality or
significance. This is a tragic and all too common reality in both cultic
movements and aberrant churches.
What is even more tragic, however, is that
most spiritually abusive leaders of aberrant churches sincerely believe that
the degree of unbiblical submission they are demanding of their followers is
necessary for their good. There are few more devastating personal intrusions
into life then the spiritual trauma inflicted by twisted people who claimed
divine authority to gain trusted access into the deepest part of someone's
heart, soul and mind and to manipulate them at their will in degrading,
terrifying ways beyond belief.
These are the kinds of things you'd expect would occur in "those" people "over there." You'd never suspect to see it anywhere else among a bunch of fanatics in the backwoods of Appalachia or among the neanderthal Islamic jihadi culture. But when it occurs in church settings, it is almost always systemic, generational and deeply entrenched as a pillar of the larger community, in a household of faith harboring hundreds of thousands of souls featuring dazzling programs, well-scrubbed children, and the reputation of being a moral repository of Christian values.
And you'd never dream it could become a global engine of institutionalized abuse that colors the lives of hundreds of thousands, even millions with a blacklight of twisted doctrine and practice that enslaves them, and makes them subject to the dictates of unquestioned and yet highly questionable authority figures.
When I left Chicago for Tennessee in 1986 to go to Lee College to prepare for the ministry, I never dreamed about such a thing. Like many, I thought cultism and religious abuse was something only among "those" out there. Upon moving back to the Hammond area in 2012, I was so completely focused on the transition at hand (buying a home, packing, saying goodbye to the area and ministry partners in the Volunteer State, etc.) that as part of my look ahead, I completely forgot about how great a black hole of anti-spirituality exists downtown off Sibley Avenue. It is a prime example of how excess, sin, depravity and exploitation has been sanctified as "old time religion".
Let this tragically necessary yet altogether disturbing article tell you a little bit more about the abyss called First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana and the "higher institution" it spawned called Hyles-Anderson College. It's not for the faint in heart. But it needed to be written. Stay tuned ..
Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.
With all the evangelical zeal of an Elmer Gantry plugging atheism, Dr. Richard Dawkins is one of the atheist culture's most enduring superstars, having become successfully ensconced in the larger global culture as the poster child for disbelief. He has taken his skeptic's road show around Western civilization speaking circuits, published best selling books on what he calls the "God Delusion" articulating with his richly erudite delivery his rationalization for the non existence of God on the basis of the sacred reality of science.
It is funny, however, when you realize that Dawkins' diatribes only seem to work and find traction in Judeo-Christian social settings. When the good doctor was asked about how Islamic views of theism in the Koran stack up to his airtight fortress of intellectual atheistic impregnability, he became curiously quite silent.
Douglas Murray on why Richard Dawkins is so quick to indict the God of the Bible but goes quiet when asked about the God of the Koran..
In a recent Al-Jazeerah interview, Richard Dawkins was asked his views on God. He argued that the god of "the Old Testament" is "hideous" and "a monster", and reiterated his claim from The God Delusion that the God of the Torah is the most unpleasant character "in fiction". Asked if he thought the same of the God of the Koran, Dawkins ducked the question, saying: "Well, um, the God of the Koran I don't know so much about."
How can it be that the world's most fearless atheist, celebrated for his strident opinions on the Christian and Jewish Gods, could profess to know so little about the God of the Koran? Has he not had the time? Or is Professor Dawkins simply demonstrating that most crucial trait of his species: survival instinct.
Yep. Oh wait, there's more:
Listeners to BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday may have been left open-mouthed as the Reverend Giles Fraser, former Canon of St Paul's Cathedral, wiped the floor with devout secularist Richard Dawkins.
The pair clashed over a poll commissioned by Professor Dawkins designed to show that since most Britons had not read the Bible thoroughly in the last year or that they were unaware of details of the New Testament, this meant that Britain could not be designated a Christian country.
Far be it from us to crow on the matter but it would seem a delicious irony that Dr Fraser, who is of Jewish extraction, stopped Prof Dawkins in his tracks by challenging him to give the full title of Darwin's Origin of Species. He couldn't. Game, set and match to religion.
