Robert Jeffress Questions Tim Tebow's Manhood

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

It's getting ugly between Robert Jeffress and Tim Tebow. Well, Robert Jeffress is getting ugly. Tim Tebow seems like a decent enough guy. But he bowed out of a scheduled appearance at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, when Jeffress's record was made clear to him. And Jeffress, who made a series of more politic statements in the immediate aftermath, seems to have finally snapped. Some of the statements in the sermon posted above seemed to be aimed a bit south of the belt-line.

Jeffress is no stranger to controversy. During the Republican primary, for instance, his anti-Mormon views created a little trouble for his good friend Rick Perry. But his belief that Mormonism is a cult wasn't as controversial as his belief that Catholicism is "a Babylonian mystery religion that spread like a cult," which demonstrates "the genius of Satan."

He says things like that but somehow he always manages to look completely mystified when he gets push-back. In the video above, for instance, he explains that he just doesn't understand why anyone thinks he's antisemitic simply because he believes that all Jews will go to hell unless they accept Jesus. It's not like he's singling Jews out. He believes Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, atheists... they're all going to hell, too. He's not antisemitic. He's anti-everything that isn't Christianity, because it's all evil and hellbound. What's wrong with that? And he doesn't know why people think he's anti-gay just because he says that sex should only be between a man and a woman.

You see? It's so crazy the way people take the things he says out of context like that.

The Papal Resignation and the Prophecies

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

In a few short hours, Pope Benedict XVI will surrender the reigns of the Vatican. For those who are interested in such things, it will be live-streamed here and there and everywhere.

After that the real fun will begin as we see who the next pope will be and how the dynamics of having a new pope and retired pope living in Vatican city will work. And we will see how the escalating dramas, scandals, and intrigues will play out. Whether you're Catholic or not -- and I'm not -- it's hard not to stop and stare in disbelief at this slow-motion train wreck.

The day Pope Benedict announced his pending resignation, my mind went straight to the Malachy prophecy. I don't really know why it did, but it did. Maybe it's just my overall interest in eschatology, but I can't help but be intrigued by speculation that we are about to see the election of the last pope.

Prophecy researcher John Hogue is speculating that the likeliest candidate is none other than Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the current Secretary of State, and the man considered by many to be the current power behind the throne. The final pope in St. Malachy's chronology is Peter the Roman, or Petrus Romanus, and a number of the Papabile have Peter in their full names somewhere, but only Cardinal Tarcisio Pietro Bertone is also Italian. The prophetic ring to his name is by no means the only reason to speculate about Bertone. He's a very sharp, political operator and one to watch for many reasons.

Fox's War on Paganism

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The news network that every, bleedin' year goes on and on about the "war on Christmas" has never had much interest in the religious holidays of other, non-Christian faiths. As Jon Stewart famously said to Bill O'Reilly, "If you think Christmas isn't celebrated in this country, walk a mile in Hanukkah's shoes."

Fox did, however, go out of its way to marginalize Wiccan and Pagan holidays. In fact, they were outright derisive.

The trouble started last year when the University of Missouri added the eight sabbats of the Pagan year to the university's holiday guide. Graduate student Christopher White was not amused by the move towards inclusiveness and took to The College Fix to complain

The Wiccan and pagan festivals are listed right alongside major religious holidays such as Easter, Christmas, Ramadan, and several other Jewish and Buddhist observances.

Their inclusion in the religion guide may be considered an indication by some of the mainstreaming of Wiccan and pagan beliefs in America.

. . .

While the percentages of Mainline American Christians have declined over the past twenty years, from 86.2 percent in 1990 to 76 percent in 2008, they still, in terms of percentage, dwarf the 1.2 percent of American Wiccans and Pagans, according to the American Religious Identification Survey of 2008. These statistics beg the question: why put both Christianity and Wiccans in equipollency?

The Vatican and the "Ticking Gay Bomb"

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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According to openly gay, former friar Mark Dowd, gays are "overrepresented" in the Catholic clergy. His back of the envelope calculation tells him that about half of the men drawn to Catholic seminaries and religious orders are men who love men. This, he believes, is a "ticking time bomb" in the Catholic Church.

Days before Pope Benedict XVI is officially set to resign from papal office, two bombshells rocked the Catholic Church. First, On Feb. 21, an article published in Italy's La Repubblica newspaper alleged that Benedict was influenced to resign by an unsourced report claiming the Vatican has been influenced by multiple internal lobbys, including a gay one.

The report also claimed members broke the Sixth Commandment, which is "linked in Catholic doctrine to the proscribing of homosexual acts," according to The Guardian.

Then, three days later, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, known for his anti-gay rhetoric, was accused of "inappropriate" behavior with other priests and offered his resignation.

In a recent CNN interview, the former Dominican friar discussed the challenges of a half gay Church that doctrinally oppresses gay people.

Cardinals: When Will Abuse Victims Stop Whining?

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Say what you will about Cardinal Keith O'Brien. He may have made unwanted advances on young priests. He may not have. He may be a hypocrite -- publicly condemning homosexuality while privately pursuing dalliances with men. Then again, he may simply be a bigot. He deserves his day in court. But whatever the case may be, at least he had the good grace to step down. It appears he saw the wisdom in bowing out of the upcoming conclave given the cloud of suspicion over his head. And the Scottish Catholic Media Office also gets mad props for this little turn of phrase:

Given the imminent Vacant See, the Holy Father has now decided to accept the said resignation definitively.

Vacant See... vacancy... get it?

Although I have to admit, I have some lingering concern that the expediency of this decision had more to do with O'Brien's having wandered way off the farm when he said that the celibate priesthood is "not of divine origin" and that it might be better they should marry. We all know by now where illicit sexual behavior falls on the list of priorities as compared to publicly breaking with the Church's most regressive doctrines. Leave say, I wish I could have been a fly on the Vatican wall for that discussion.

Be that as it may, Cardinal O'Brien has acceded to mounting public pressure to recuse himself from the selection of a new pope and graciously stepped aside.

The same cannot be said of Cardinal Roger Mahony.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Finding True Love

The spirits teach us about love, one way or another, in each and every contact with them in journeys and out in nature, in dreams and meditations, in ritual and ceremony. So why do humans struggle so to find love? Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores finding true love in the New World. The Old World Story told us that love was scarce and we had to go out and find it. The deeper truth about love it that is exists within all things and our task is simply to cultivate the love innate within us. That doesn't sound very sexy or dramatic, but the pull of attraction doesn't have anything to do with love. Attraction is orchestrated by our Shadow and the aspects of our self not yet held in love, so following our attraction is our second mistake. The journey to find true love is the journey of becoming the person that you see in that vision and letting life take care of the rest. Join us in the New World where the messages of true love are all around us and love is abundant.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Rupert Sheldrake's Takedown of Scientism

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Hat-tip to Graham Hancock for this wonderful TEDx presentation by Rupert Sheldrake. In it the biochemist enumerates a list of assumptions that are accepted as indisputable facts among those for whom science is a belief system rather than, well, science. I've been whining about the dangers of scientism and its bedfellow new atheism for some time. It's dangerous to those of us who see more to the world than meets the eye, but worse, it's dangerous to the practice of science.

Pay particular attention to an anecdote Sheldrake shares at around the 11 minute mark, because it's really telling. After finding records of the speed of light having apparently slowed between 1928 and 1945 -- which raises a question as to whether the constants of physics are actually constant -- Sheldrake took the problem to the head of metrology at the National Physical Laboratory. He described it as an "embarrassing" episode but said they had solved the problem. How? They fixed the  definition of the speed of light in 1972. If the speed of light were to vary, no one would notice because the speed of light is now the standard metric. Defining reality by adjusting the rules to marginalize painful truths is a process I've seen way too many times in scientific practice. It's handy if your goal is making reality appear thoroughly predictable. If you define a scientific principle carefully enough, outliers aren't even outliers anymore. For all intents and purposes, they cease to exist. Which is all well and good unless you're experiencing one of those things that "can't be," and are, therefore, "imagining things."

The title of Sheldrake's newest book, The Science Delusion, is an obvious parody of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion. (The title of the US publication is Science Set Free.) Needless to say, it's now added to my must-read list.

An Astronomer's Paean to a Solar Flare

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

In what some might call "sun worship," astronomer Phil Plait waxes rhapsodic on how the sun giveth and the sun taketh away.

That barely constrained violence can be difficult to square with the grace and elegance of the motion. The Sun can damage our civilization, yet we also depend on it for our existence. But there you go: The Universe is full of such dichotomies.

It is harsh, inhospitable, destructive, and capable of crushing indifference.

It is pleasing, habitable, serene, and capable of life-altering beauty.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The video is a time-lapse movie of a solar flare raining in beautiful arcs onto the sun's surface. It is hard not to appreciate the beauty of the thing as we offer thanks to Sol Invictus for not taking out our entire power grid and plunging us back into a pre-technological era.

So what causes the fiery phenomenon? Coronal rain occurs when plasma in the solar atmosphere cools and gets attracted by magnetic field lines on the Sun's surface. As NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center explained in a written statement, "This plasma acts as a tracer, helping scientists watch the dance of magnetic fields on the sun, outlining the fields as it slowly falls back to the solar surface."

. . .

This eruption was special, NASA said, because it combined three out of three possible events: a solar flare, an ejection of solar material (called a coronal mass ejection) and coronal rain.

Vatican Predictably Attacks the Messenger

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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For the second day in a row, the Vatican responded to the "gay lobby" report in la Republicca. After an evasive statement on Friday, in which he refused to either confirm or deny the existence of a damning, internal report or its contents, Father Federico Lombardi took to Vatican Radio on Saturday to strongly condemn the media... and to refuse to confirm or deny the existence of the internal report or its contents.

Lombardi impugned the motives and methods of reporters in one of the longest, run-on sentences ever uttered.

"There is no lack, in fact, of those who seek to profit from the moment of surprise and disorientation of the spiritually naive to sow confusion and to discredit the Church and its governance, making recourse to old tools, such as gossip, misinformation and sometimes slander, or exercising unacceptable pressures to condition the exercise of the voting duty on the part of one or another member of the College of Cardinals, who they consider to be objectionable for one reason or another," he said.

It gets better.

Lombardi also questioned the moral authority of the media. "Those who present themselves as judges, making heavy moral judgments, do not, in truth, have any authority to do so," he said.

Christianist Group v. "Neopagan" Yoga in Encinitas

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Well. I knew it. As soon as I saw that a group was suing the Encinitas school district over its yoga program and claiming it violated the separation of church and state, I knew it was only a matter of time before I could draw a straight line to some Christianist group far more concerned with what religion these kids might be exposed to than with religion in schools per se. And I was right. Both the plaintiffs and the attorney are every bit as supportive of Christian-based school programs as they are derisive of the vaguely Hindu incursion represented by yoga.

One of the parents spearheading the lawsuit, a Mary Eady, works at Truthxchange, a Christian group dedicated to stopping the "rising tide of neopaganism." Attorney Dean Broyles works for the National Center for Law & Policy, or NCLP, whose slogan is Faith + Family + Freedom. It's an affiliate of the Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, a conservative Christian advocacy group.

In a broad sense, the plaintiffs could have a point. Yoga is born of religious tradition and has some spiritual overtones, even if, as practiced in the West, those overtones are, dare I say it, spiritual but not religious.

If anything I'm as ambivalent about the idea of yoga as a strictly secular exercise program as I am at the targeting of yoga as if it were equivalent to prayer in the schools. That spiritual lineage is now not only secularized, but trivialized. I'll never forget the sense of horror I felt when I first saw a yoga shirt with the printed slogan "Have a Namaste." Namaste is a mystical concept that roughly translates to "me bow you," and translates idiomatically as "The God in me bows to the God in you." There is something a little sickening about yoga as a commodity, completely devoid of all spiritual context or that subverts the spiritual precepts that underlie it.

The Pope, the Vatican, and the Gay

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Did Pope Benedict resign because of a powerful gay lobby within the Vatican? That's the contention behind a newly published article in la Republicca. If, like myself, you don't speak Italian, there's always the Google Translate version. It's possibly even less intelligible than a foreign tongue but it's worth reading if only for lines like, "What's the weeds, there are the bad fish."

Fortunately there are some breakdowns of the story for those of us who read better in English. A brief overview of the story can be found in The Huffington Post.

The problem apparently started with an internal report -- one that had been commissioned by Pope Benedict following the Vatileaks scandal. The findings of Cardinals Julian Herranz, Josef Tomko and Salvatore De Giorgi, who were tasked with the investigation, point to massive corruption within the Vatican. As per la Republicca, it was actually these revelations that Pope Benedict was referring to in comments widely interpreted as referring to the sex abuse scandal.

In the article, it is claimed that the cardinals reported that various lobbies within the Holy See were consistently breaking the sixth and seventh commandments, namely "thou shalt not steal" and "thou shalt not commit adultery".

The "stealing" was in particular related to the Vatican Bank, IOR, whilst the sexual offences were related to the influence of an active gay lobby within the Vatican.

Last week, when presiding over the Ash Wednesday celebrations in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Benedict spoke of "divisions" which "besmirch" the face of the church. In a famous homily at the 2005 Via Crucis Easter celebrations in Rome, just days before the death of John Paul II, the then Cardinal Ratzinger had spoken of the "filth" in the church, a comment interpreted by many as a reference to the worldwide clerical sex abuse scandal.