Session Notes

The Denver Post

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is “completely heterosexual” and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.

Ya, ok, not so much… (To say nothing of the idiotic delusion of reparative therapy being completed in three weeks…)

ap.org

Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard’s former church disclosed Friday that the gay sex scandal that caused his downfall extends to a young male church volunteer who reported having a sexual relationship with Haggard – a revelation that comes as Haggard tries to repair his public image.

Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, told The Associated Press that the man came forward to church officials in late 2006 shortly after a Denver male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard.

But of course, the church is clearly living out their commitment to a transparent, open reflection of a new life in Christ… We think… Ok, maybe they are mostly covering it up better then even Haggard himself and even paying hush money…

Boyd said the church reached a legal settlement to pay the man for counseling and college tuition, with one condition being that none of the parties involved discuss the matter publicly.

Boyd said a Colorado Springs TV station reached him Thursday to say the young man was planning to provide a detailed report of his relationship with Haggard to the station. Boyd said the church preferred to keep the matter private, but it was the man’s decision to go public.

But no, of course it’s not hush money — it’s just compassionate assistance… Um, no wait…

“It wasn’t at all a settlement to make him be quiet or not tell his story,” Boyd said. “Our desire was to help him. Here was a young man who wanted to get on with his life. We considered it more compassionate assistance – certainly not hush money. I know what’s what everyone will want to say because that’s the most salacious thing to say, but that’s not at all what it was.”

Boyd said the church will not take action against the man if he tells his story in the press.

“We have legal standing to do that, but not the desire to,” he said.

Yep, compassionate assistance — with a Non Disclosure Agreement. I’ll bet the church also makes patrons of their food bank sign one though so I’m sure it’s all standard procedure…

It isn’t often that Evangelical Christendom manages NOT to make me ashamed to be associated with them — this is not their lucky day…

2 Alberta children treated for meningococcal infection:

“Meningococcal disease can be spread through close contact, such as coughing, sneezing or kissing. An infection can cause sepsis, a serious infection of the blood and other parts of the body. It can also cause meningitis, the inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord, which can be fatal. Since 2002, Alberta has vaccinated children against three of the most common bacteria that cause meningitis, including meningococcus. ‘While very effective, the vaccines do not protect against every strain of these three bacteria,’ the Alberta Health Services release said. Alberta sees, on average, 20 cases of meningitis each year, of which about four are fatal.”

Steve McVey:

“emember that there is nothing wrong with the Law of God. God’s Law was given to open the eyes of the self-righteous to their own unrighteousness. The fact is, though, that you and I have been released from the Law (See Romans 7:6) through our death with Christ on the cross. By His grace, we saw our own unrighteousness and, by His grace, we repented of the folly of our sin and turned to Him in faith. At that moment, we were born again and now have no connection to the Law whatsoever. (Read Romans 7:1-6 for the biblical explanation.) If we don’t realize that we have moved out of the bondage of Babylonian captivity, we will still live under the terroristic threats of legalism. But you have been delivered from Babylon. You aren’t under the Law anymore. The religious Al-Qaeda have no rights or authority over you anymore. Your Liberator has set you free “

This is a good brief article on the law vs Jesus. I see repentance as a change in thinking from the Counsellor/Sprit.

Times Online

Scientists have found that the pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their partner’s bank balance.

They found that the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms.

“Women’s orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner,” said Dr Thomas Pollet, the Newcastle University psychologist behind the research.

Ok, this is so striking it just screams out for a comment. One of the foundational rules in statistics is the law that, “Correlation does not equal causation.” In other words, just because you can prove that the rising or falling levels of one thing (Say the number of rum runners in Boston during prohibition) are exactly linked to the same in another (Say the number of Baptist Ministers in Boston during prohibition), you have NOT proved that they actually have ANYTHING to do with each other (No, all Baptist Ministers are not rum runners — they are all a function of population growth).

Oh yes, every researcher on the planet is taught this fact.

So, then we have this genius — Dr Thomas Pollet claims that because he can link the success of a man giving a woman an orgasm with his success in making money, women must be biologically programmed through some strange evolutionary adaptation to like sex (And therefor have better orgasms) with men who have money.

Of course, there’s a problem with this — Ros has had the same number of orgasms from our lovemaking today that she had when I was a starving grad student living on student loans. Shouldn’t her sex life have improved dramatically since I started earning a living?

Or, perhaps men who can make a decent living tend also to be educated men — men who are willing to get off their butts and read a book about sex — men who are willing to learn from someone smarter then Hugh Hefner…

Naw, couldn’t be that — gotta have something to do with a woman’s vestigial primate tendencies to be a gold digger…

Just remember this the next time someone says, “But Science says…”

London News

A man has been told he cannot adopt a child because he is overweight.

Damien Hall was told by Leeds city council that his weight – 24-and-a-half stone – made his morbidly obese.

The council told him his body mass index, BMI, was more than 42 and informed the 37-year-old it would have to drop to below 40 before he could be considered a potential parent due to risks he could become ill or die.

Just for a little entertainment, let’s swap, “Fat,” out and replace it with, “Functionally rotating five way polyamorous union currently consisting of two women, one post-operative transsexual male who self identifies as a lesbian and two bisexual men.”

Wow, look at all the politically correct masses lining up to decry the obvious absence of stability in this one — oh wait, ya… Never mind.

Isn’t political blindness correctness entertaining? It can actually maintain a straight face as it determines that this dude who, (Fat or not) has a pretty good chance of living for the next two decades, offers a less stable home for these children then the above…

Yep, clearly it’s all about the children…

Libertarian thought has been right here all along: Governance should always be handled by the lowest order of organization capable of managing it — because as soon as it rises above that level, it’s taken over by ideologues and nitwits who really should be told to just crawl back down their holes and shut up…

Steve McVey:

“When Jesus said that the Scripture in Isaiah had been fulfilled that very day, He was revealing that He was the personification of the anointing of God. The anointing has come to us in the person of the Anointed One! Because Jesus Christ lives inside you, you have everything you need to do anything that God has planned for you to do! Paul wrote that, In [Christ] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete (Colossians 2:9,10). If Jesus Christ lives in you, everything you need to succeed in life resides within you. You have need of nothing else. God’s grace within you is the anointing you need to accomplish everything He has planned for you. Grace equals enablement! You have miraculous, supernatural, God-given, enablement. That sets you apart from others whose dreams depend on their own ability. The early church grasped this fact and accomplished miraculous results. The same is possible for you. John reminds us, ‘But you have an anointing from the Holy One (1 John 2:20). Notice that he doesn’t say you still need it, but that you have it. He further notes, ‘As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you (2:27). The word here means continue to be present and not depart. In Jesus Christ, you already have all you need to have to do all that you need to do to accomplish God’s plan for your life. Do you understand your ability? Like the anointing of Aaron, you haven‘t been given a small dab of ability. It just isn’t His nature to give sparingly. When He gives, He really pours it on! You are drenched in divine ability to do all that He has planned for you to do.”

We often think we do not see miracles very much anymore. Is it because we are doing things in our own strength rather than allowing Him to work through us? May just the Divine in us show.

6 Reasons to Drink Green Tea:

“6 Reasons to Drink Green Tea The steady stream of good news about green tea is getting so hard to ignore, that even java junkies are beginning to sip mugs of the deceptively delicate brew. You’d think the daily dose of disease-fighting, inflammation-squelching antioxidants — long linked with heart protection — would be enough incentive. But wait . . . there’s more! Lots more. “