Session Notes

FrontPagemagazine.com

Throughout the Islamic Middle East, men and women are taught to be vehemently opposed to pleasure, especially of the sexual variety. Men are raised not only forbidden to touch women, but to even look at them. Sex before marriage is not just a sin — but a criminal offence. It is punishable by a severe beating at best, and an execution at worst.

The sexual privileges that are allowed in Islamic cultures are permitted to men. Women’s sexuality and social independence represent major threats to male supremacy and are tightly controlled. Thus, as the Moroccan feminist Fitna Sabbah reveals in her book Woman in the Muslim Unconscious, there is a disturbing conflict in the Middle East between sexual libido and repression. A deep-seated fear of, and hostility to, individuality prevails, and its main expression exists in misogyny.

Ok, this is a disturbing article. Jamie Glazov writes about how deeply embedded same sex sexual abuse is within fundamentalist Islamic cultures identifying how the seeds of rage and fear combine to produce a hyper-masculinization (based upon conformity) that renders the affected male both powerless and controllable — even to the point of death.

His contention is that this damage is both legitimized and then rationalized by a society that teaches that the damage is nonexistent and understands the inflicting of such as a need.

In this culture, males sexually penetrating males becomes a manifestation of male power, conferring a status of hyper-masculinity. It is considered to have nothing to do with homosexuality. An unmarried man who has sex with boys is simply doing what men do. As the scholar Bruce Dunne has demonstrated, sex in Islamic societies is not about mutuality between partners, but about the adult male’s achievement of pleasure through violent domination.

I am unsure of the accuracy of this, though the author is rather prestigious. It has had me reeling intellectually for most of the day — first to assess, then to evaluate this info (and previous experience living in a predominantly Islamic culture) and finally to rethink the implications of such. I’ve run this past a number of evaluators this afternoon and all have — disturbingly — either confirmed or been unable to deny it. Additionally, those who have posted against it seem to be limited to nothing more substantive then mocking the author. (It sickens me to admit it but I have to wonder if Bush was right to invade Iraq — even if his stated reasons were nothing more then an attempt at thought control…)

Given the work I have done with the victims of the damage therein described, this article has a strange ring of truth. We know even from Biblical history that this twisting of sexuality and culture was well under way thousands of years ago. History has a way of repeating itself…

So many authors have recognized that negotiation with the Islamofascist world is nothing more then, “Allowing both sides to reload.” Perhaps it has something to do with an internal sense that to negotiate is to be penetrated again — and nothing will stand in the way of defending against that abuse. War driven by this deeply embedded of a wounding is irrevocable, nonnegotiable and to the death.

The spread of Islam across most of Africa was done under the banner of:

“Know that paradise is under the shades of swords.,” Narrated by Bukhari, Vol.4, book 52, 73

If so, democracy and North American culture/civilization is very possibly not going to stand against Islam for we clearly lack the backbone to exercise the only option we have: All out war to take out a culture (and likely, with it, a religion) and then hold it (as we did with Nazi Germany) for at least a generation to stop this abuse and, thus, the insanity.

*****************************************************
BTW: anyone who is going to email to tell me that Islam is a religion of peace should take note of the following:

“Islam spread by means of proof and evidence to those who listened to the message and responded to it, and it spread by means of force and the sword to those who were stubborn and arrogant, until they were overwhelmed and became no longer stubborn, and submitted to that reality.” Sayed Qutb: Fiqh Al-Da’wa, 217-220 – Fatawa Al-Lajnah Al-Daaimah 12/14

“I have been ordered to fight people till they say, “None has the right to be worshipped but Allah”, and whoever says, “None has the right to be worshipped but Allah”, his life and property will be saved by me except for Islamic law, and his reckoning will be with Allah, (either to punish him or forgive him). Narrated by Abu Huraira, Buchari, Vol.4, book 52, 196

All anyone has to do is watch his or her television to figure out that this, “Religion of peace,” will only be at peace when they have killed or subjugated everyone who disagrees with them.

Denver Post

Mike Jones, who has a forthcoming book, told The Denver Post that several people shook his hand and told him, “God bless you.”

“I had read a lot about the church, but there’s nothing like seeing it for yourself,” Jones told the newspaper. “It wasn’t to rub anyone’s face in it by any means. I was wanting to get some perspective, to see where they are coming from, what the magnet is.”

Haggard resigned last year as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after Jones alleged Haggard paid him over a three-year period for sex and sometimes took methamphetamine during the encounters.

Interesting how we have a double standard for grace isn’t it. We talk about grace and even (Correctly) show such along with strikingly unconditional love to the non-Christian broken in a welcoming of Haggard’s accuser to his home church. (The same church that just fired Haggard because — like all of us — he couldn’t perform…)

On the one hand, the entire story has stunningly ironic elements of, “You made your [legalism and performance based] bed, now lay in it…” Not that two wrongs make a right or anything but, maybe the experience will finally break his heart of legalism and heal him. (In any case, we can always hope that the new pastor will actually get the Gospel and rescue the congregation.) That being said though, it is a useful case study of our true beliefs here in the church so we can proclaim them to the world:

So, after all these years of mistakenly listening to Paul, let’s get this message of the Gospel straight once and for all: Now that grace and freedom has touched your life and brought you to Christ, the Jesus who died to set you free from the law now (apparently) wants you to get off your butt and perform to measure up to it?

I think the technical term for that is, “Bait and switch.” Trouble is, it’s not even that simple:

On the other hand though, Haggard has obvious talents given to him by God to do what he was doing. I’d love to see Haggard finally get the Gospel and, with all of his broken heart, be restored to ministering to others — but that’s not gonna happen either. Here in the church, we shoot our wounded; then keep them on life support so we can demand they perform anyway.

He’s as good as dead: Dead as in an outcast forever and dead as in forever consigned to the ongoing legalism (as penance and proof of a heart change) that will keep him trapped in the brokenness which was wreaking his life in first place. (Kinda like a wounded soldier being required to shoot himself dead as proof he is still alive…)

Now, we’d like to welcome Haggard’s accuser to join the same system? Do we really think Jones is that crazy? Are we???

VirtueOnline

“The thing that has sustained me through all this is God has seemed so very close that prayer has seemed almost redundant. … Sometimes God calms the storm and sometimes God lets the storm rage, and calms the child.”

Personally, “I couldn’t be happier. I think that’s the best revenge,” he said.

He said his 15,000-member diocese was healthy, but the news he seemed most eager to relay was that immediately after the luncheon he was leaving for the Sundance Film Festival, where a documentary film, featuring his story and those of four other gay families, has been nominated for a grand jury prize.

Titled “For the Bible Tells Me So,” it is about families split by their beliefs about homosexuality and Scripture. He said his own parents talked more openly to the filmmaker than they had to him after his own announcement at age 39 that he was gay and getting divorced.

Well, it’s happened again. This time it comes via the Sundance Film Festival. A new movie is released about the lives of a number of families who have had their children come out of the closet. The same tired, thirty-four year old arguments have yet again been trotted out by the left (E.g., Paul was only talking about homosexual prostitution) to try and make the Bible say God thinks homosexual sex is a wonderful idea and the same well worn rebuttal (Original design) issued by the right. The media is all over it with CNN devoting almost 20min to it.

Honestly, I wonder what’s next? “Gays can sneeze; details on channel four news at 11:00pm,” perhaps?

Frankly, it isn’t news and it hasn’t shifted anyone’s mind. It’s more of a tactic — a tactic to, yet again, pit two sides of evangelicals against each other. On the one side is the fundamentalist right ranting about how Gays are breaking the law of God. On the other is the liberal left trying to show how the law of God is actually not being broken. Strangely, neither side seems to see that they are both on the same side — and it’s the wrong one — and it’s making them both look like idiots.

Even more strangely, neither side has figured out that making them look like idiots was the whole point. As long as they are debating their respective standing as to the rules, they are essentially neutralized and the message of the Gospel is going nowhere.

A message that would clearly say:

God loves you regardless of what you have ever done or failed to do, He just loves you for no good reason and so do we.

He has set you free from the law — and that freedom is total — so that you would no longer have to run from relationship with Him based on your obvious inability to be good as measured by such.

He knows what it means to be fully human and fully alive and longs for you to move closer to such and thus closer to the fulfillment you were created for.

The gay life is so much less then what you can have — can we walk with you and love you towards all that God has for you?

But, of course, it’s just so much more fun to measure ourselves with the wrong measuring stick that the, “Healing of the nations,” can wait…

A letter from a son who left
The Capital-Journal/May 19, 1993
By Mark W. Phelps

“Many people have been asking me, over the past several weeks, about my father. They want to know what I think about him and ‘What is he really like?’ People’s interest in what I think baffles me, but after careful consideration, I decided to respond.

What is he like? Well, it’s been 19 years since I left home, but his behavior still appears to be the same. He considers his environment to be against him without admitting, acknowledging or taking responsibility for how he contributes to that. He likes to show himself as being moral, pro-family, pro-Bible, but his actions just don’t add up to that. I believe in God and the Bible, and my father’s behavior doesn’t fit the description of behavior that would show in the life of one who loves God; behavior characteristics such as Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control. Instead, my father’s behavior characterizes, I believe, Hate, Outbursts of Wrath, Contention, Jealousy, Vengefulness, Misery, Harshness, and Selfish ambition. He mis-states the truth about his own behavior, about others, about the Bible, with apparent ease and regularity. He behaves with a viciousness the likes of which I have never seen. He accepts no genuine accountability in his life and is subject to no one. His lifestyle betrays the sacred trust of what a pastor, husband, father and grandfather should be. I suppose if a comparison were made between the life of Jesus Christ and my father, there would not be much to compare.

I also realize that my father is a very unstable person who is determined to hurt people. And because he is so bound to be hateful and hurtful, and because he’s so untrustworthy, I believe it’s a good idea to respond to him with caution much like the caution used when dealing with a rattlesnake or a mad dog. You see, the causes that he crusades for, including the Bible, are not the issue here. He simply wants to hate and to have a forum for his hate. If the causes he focuses on were the issue, that is, if they really meant something to him in his heart and he meant for the things he does to be for the good, his behavior would not be what it is. He would not betray his message with his behavior. But, when he needs to, to vent his hate, he readily goes outside the bounds of any previously stated ‘value’ or ’cause’ he may have supported. He experiences no moral dilemma when it comes to doing what he wants to do. If it weren’t the homosexuals, it would be something else.

Yet checks and balances on his behavior are appropriate, on the part of the community, in order to at least confine his destructive behaviors and to limit his influence. I believe that Topekans are making a good effort to try and stop him and should continue to do so. He can seem very intimidating. He can use foul language and come across with a booming voice to the community, but the truth is, like the Wizard of Oz, when Toto pulls the curtain back, instead of this big powerful individual, it’s only a small, pathetic old man. I feel sorry for my father as I would for anyone who displays this kind of hate and evil viciousness. These can only be the manifestations of tortured, injured and agonizing souls.”

Westboro Baptist Church is a U.S. religious organization headed by Fred Phelps and based in Topeka, Kansas. It runs the website GodHatesFags.com, and GodHatesAmerica.com, and other websites expressing condemnation of homosexuals, Catholics, Muslims and other groups. The organization is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League, and as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

While its members identify themselves as Baptists, the church is an independent Baptist church not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations. The church describes itself as following Primitive Baptist and Calvinist principles, though it has been accused by others of Hyper-Calvinism.

This is a letter Fred’s son Mark Phelps wrote to citizens of Topeka and northeast Kansas. As of July 7, 1994, Mark Phelps said the letter still represents his feelings. He also cautioned people against taking the letter out of context, saying there is “gentleness” in the context of the letter and a hope that the community can better understand Fred Phelps based on what the letter contains.

Note: I refuse to link to the waste of digital space web site I got this from.

BBC NEWS

Sir Elton John has said he would like to see all organised religion banned and accused it of trying to “turn hatred towards gay people”.

Ok, first of all, he’s talking about Christianity, Judaism and Islam. (The rest of the religions mostly don’t care…) As Judaism has a firm policy of not proselytizing and Islam has a much bigger spread of antagonisms then just homosexuality, he’s basically talking about Christianity.

It’s always fascinating to me how those who would ban Christianity for intolerance fail to notice that it is, in fact, from within Christianity that the idea of tolerance was itself conceived.

It’s even more entertaining how, in the absence of that foundation, that their version of tolerance is actually so intolerant it would attempt to ban the freedom of religious practice of the largest belief systems/world views in the world for the sake of the rights of one of the smallest minority groups in the world to perform a particular sexual behavior without someone disagreeing with it. (Note: not controlling or arresting it — just disagreeing…)

However, what is most stunning about their logic is that they would see the stripping of religious freedom from billions as at least a lesser evil if not a blessing to humanity. Here we reach the tyrannical summit of postmodern egocentricity: Because you disagree with what I am doing, I must crush you so the world can finally be free.

11Alive.com

“These groups offer promises they can’t deliver, and deliver disasters they didn’t promise,” said Wayne Besen of Truthwinsout.org. “The destroy families in the name of family values.”

Hattie Ellis’ 25-year-old son is gay. She has a message for the hundreds of parents who signed their children up for the church group’s conference.

“Don’t do it,” she said. “If you try to change your child, you will lose your child. You will break their spirit and you may never get them back.”

Well, Focus on the Family is barely out of the gate with their latest Love Won Out conference (a conference seeking to connect GBLT individuals who deeply long to change their sexual orientation with resources to do so) and, predictably enough, the fur is already flying.

Forget about the reality that one of the key individuals involved in getting Homosexuality removed from the DSM as a disorder (Dr. Spitzer) has published evidence that homosexual individuals can change their sexual orientation to heterosexual and are remarkably better off emotionally for having done such, the strident cries against this supposed bigotry, homophobia and, most importantly, the imposition of beliefs on innocent victims still ring out.

It’s all strangely myopic from where I sit: Christians trying to turn gay people straight is no worse than secular humanists trying to make male children act like female children (because, well, all boys are just nicer on Ritalin…) Everybody has an idea of how to, “Improve,” their fellow man. The difference here is that Christians have to get people to volunteer for the effort, while secular humanism generally uses the public school system to force their more politically correct viewpoint of acceptable behavior on their victims.

Apparently though, they still need to rally against those who would simply invite those volunteers? Seems like a little too much in the way of smoke and fury here for this to really be about freedom…

Rocky Mountain News

Embattled minister Ted Haggard this morning admitted receiving a massage from the Denver man who claims to have exchanged sex for money with the Colorado Springs church leader for three years.

After years of pushing the White House to crack down on gays and to fight gay marriage, Ted again proves the above title is still as true today as the day the great play-write penned it.

More and more, the most vocal and aggressive voices of condemnation for same sex brokenness are beginning to be discovered as actually being the broken ones. Men who wear the cover of judgment and condemnation as a cover for their broken hearts.

Why won’t the broken ones willingly pursue healing? After all, no one is buying their religious fervor anymore — it’s too obviously a cover. It’s only a matter of time before they are forced into healing anyway — maybe it’s time for the church to rise up en-mass and tell these people to:

(A). Shut-up.
(B). Take the log outa yer own eye.
(C). Get healing so you can actually be of some real use to the kingdom.
(D). At least stop smearing egg on your own face and the collective face of Christianity by trying to act like you are holy.

Some of us are just plain tired of people playing out this pathetic parody we call holiness theology. (At least those of us who’ve figured out that the only righteousness we’re ever gonna have has got to be a gift.) The rest are tired of trying to play it out and desperately could use a rest — whether or not they know it yet.

Either way, no one except the press is listening — and they are doubled over laughing.

Haunted By His Absence :

“So, I spent much of my adolescence making my own rules, seeking my own way, and consequently hurting a lot of people.

There were the loyalties I broke, the girls I defrauded, and the responsibilities I neglected. I betrayed a friend by sleeping with his girlfriend. An aborted child could have been mine; I didn’t ask. And by the time I was a junior in high school, I was arrested for stealing; at the time, I had a pocket full of money earned at my summer job.

You could say I was arrested for being stupid. More precisely, though, my sins were maturing and controlling my life.”

This is a touching article on the effects of father abandonment. There is a hope in the fathering of God.

CBS News

For the first time since members of Westboro began protesting at military funerals, someone is using the courts to stop them. A distraught father has filed suit in Maryland against what he views as a gross violation of privacy and intentional emotional abuse.

And further down in the article:

At Arlington, Pastor David Foote of Franklin, Penn., saw the protest and attempted to engage the demonstrators. He told them that “God loves everyone,” prompting church members to descend upon him in a hail of insults.

“A lying, false prophet — that’s what this is,” Phelps-Roper told CBSNews.com, and dismissed him as a “dumb-ass” and a liar.

Though he will never win, all I can say is that it is about time someone at least tried to tie them up in court.

The ACLU has backed Phelps — correctly — arguing that this is an attempt to take away the right to protest. The law must fall on the side of this church (If I dare even call it that…)

However, I also hope that every single family thus treated sues them in civil court and eventually forces them into bankruptcy through legal bills. Freedom of speech laws were designed to control governments — not the actions of private individuals. A similar strategy was used against the KKK. They were and still are free to spread their crazed philosophy — but they were also free to be held liable in civil court for the deaths of the black people they incited.

It’s a bit more of a trick here but Phelps could easily be granted the freedom to speak that he wants — and then held liable for the direct psychological harm it caused. (In a general sense, His freedom to speak and cause harm in the public square is generally protected because those who wish not to hear him can walk away without suffering any further harm.) In this case, his freedom to speak is also protected but the people spoken to could not walk away — thus the harm was direct and intensified. Unlike with the KKK, it’s still probably not provable harm (unless they can prove slander — which is very possible) but it’s credible enough to create serial (And very expensive) court cases. Perhaps legal pressure will force him to come upon a new interpretation of Jesus’ words…

If these people ever actually read their Bibles, they would discover that while Jesus attacked legalistic religious institutions (Um, er, sorta like… THEM???) and leaders with a vengeance, He never once condemned sin in an individual. (The closest he ever came is with the woman caught in adultery — where He told her that He did not condemn her.)

Calling a fellow paster a “A lying, false prophet,” and a, “Dumb-ass.” Can’t you just feel the non-condemning love of Christ here???

Update:
Possibly one of the funniest videos I have ever watched. (Not Safe for Dial-up)

News from Agape Press

Cohen’s methods have raised some questions, however; and he has lately taken sharp criticism over a May 23 appearance on Cable News Network (CNN), in which he demonstrated a technique that involves cuddling a male client in his lap. Another of the unusual therapy techniques depicted involved a client hitting a pillow with a tennis racket while shouting the name of a parent or other individual who elicits painful childhood memories.

Cohen, who refers to himself as a reorientation therapist, explained the “holding therapy” exercise as a means of using “healthy touch” on clients, who very often were “touch deprived” as children. He says this technique is one of the most effective ways to help men and women leave homosexuality.

“They’re hungering for that intimacy and that bonding that they didn’t experience in primary relationships with parents and/or same-gender peers,” the psychotherapist asserts. “So what we have to provide then, in the Christian community, is really mentoring these men and women,” he says, “and a lot of them need healthy touch — hugging, holding, just palling around, buddying around.”

You know, some ideas are so colossally dumb nothing more needs to be said except to mention that this is not reparative therapy in any sense of the term and this is NOT PRACTICED HERE!!!!!