Newt Gingrich crosses the Tiber (Becomes a Catholic.) Pictures of Newt Gingrich Wives, Jackie, Marianne and Callista

I am about a day late with this news, but I thought it interesting that Newt Gingrich has finally joined the Roman Catholic "church" that his mistress (now wife) is a member of.

Regular readers will recall that the late Jerry Falwell invited the adulterer Gingrich to deliver the commencement  address in 2007. And while Falwell dropped dead not long after praising Gingrich,  the soon to be Catholic, thrice married Gingrich, delivered the 2007 commencement address to the largely Southern Baptist University.

He was no doubt warmly received.......

Who should decide medical care? The doctor and patient or the state?

Medicaid Suit Could Determine Who Decides Care: Doctor or State

Keep an eye on this one folks. The State wants to dictate the medical care you can receive, and for how long.

Billy Graham grandson to lead famed megachurch Coral Ridge

By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writer – Sun Mar 15, 

A widely-known megachurch founded by an architect of the religious right and seen as a national political force selected a grandson of Billy Graham on Sunday as its new leader.

The overwhelming vote by congregants at Coral Ridge Presbyterian inFort Lauderdale to appoint the Rev. Tullian Tchividjian could represent a softening of the message spread by the Rev. D. James Kennedy, who was pastor at the church until his death in September 2007. (snip)

Tchividjian insists he holds the same theological positions of Kennedy, but he cuts a far different image.

His hair is spiky, his beard sometimes scruffy, his skin tan. He offers a classic prodigal son story of youthful forays into drugs and sex, then his return to the fold. He has said he wants people to know what Christians are for as much as what they are against, and has rejected the idea that politics is the most important way to change the country.

"I think that politics is one strategic area of cultural engagement," he said Sunday. "But I also think that the sphere of art and the sphere of education and the sphere of media and technology are also strategic."

Tchividjian, 36, is the middle of seven children born to Stephan Tchividjian and Graham's eldest daughter, Gigi. He attended Coral Ridge — where Graham delivered the dedication ceremony — and its adjacent school as a young man, but at 16 he dropped out, spending the next five years partying on South Beach, seeking the company of women and getting high. (snip, full article at this  link.)

An Interview with Tullian Tchividjian

Q.You did your MDiv work at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. Which happened first—you became Reformed, then went to RTS, or the other way around?

"Soon after God saved me (if indeed I was saved at 21 instead of 5), God gave me an overwhelming hunger and thirst to study, to read, to learn. I wanted to go to college but with only a GED and no SAT scores, I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this. So at first, I simply began reading books that my pastor (we were attending a PCA church at the time) encouraged me to read (this included books by Packer, Sproul, Lloyd-Jones, the Puritans, etc.). I really wrestled with the doctrine of election. But after a long hard struggle with the Bible I came to the realization that I could choose not to believe this doctrine but I could not in good conscience say that the Bible doesn’t teach it. It was clear to me that from cover to cover Scripture highlights God’s sovereignty in salvation. After I was convinced of the Doctrines of Grace, however, I became a real pain in the neck. Every non-Calvinist was an idiot, so I thought, and I made sure to tell them. Thankfully, God quickly tempered my zeal and I came to realize that an arrogant Calvinist is an oxymoron."

(snip, interview at link.) 

GRIEF COUNSELING PSYCHOBABBLE

GRIEF COUNSELING PSYCHOBABBLE (Friday Church News Notes, March 13, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -

 Grief or bereavement counseling is big business. The Grief Recovery Institute claims that “hidden grief costs U.S. companies more than $75 billion annually.” Whenever tragedy strikes today, from plane and car crashes to shootings and bombings to wild animal attacks to divorce and untimely deaths, you can be sure that grief counseling is not far behind. 

he firefighters who sought for survivors after the Twin Towers fell on 9/11 were given extensive grief counseling. After the shootings at Virginia Tech in April 2007 that killed 32 people a memorial fund was created to provide grief counseling and other aid to the “survivors.” After an ape viciously mauled a woman in February 2009, grief counseling was offered to the doctors and nurses who provided medical care. The logical question is whether all of this grief counseling is proper and effective and how did people get along for thousands of years without it, and the answer is that it is nothing more than psychobabble that can cause more harm than good. 

Dr. Tana Dineen, in Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry Is Doing to People, gives the following warning: “A battalion chief in a large metropolitan fire and rescue agency, writing about the ascendance of the CISD movement in his field, noted a comment made decades earlier by a hook and ladder captain. ‘We used to have steel men and wooden wagons; now we have steel wagons and wooden men.’ He is one of an increasing number of people who are expressing concern that such procedures undermine the natural support and adaptation that keeps those with jobs like firefighting resilient. 

Adding support to this concern is the growing scientific literature that finds that the debriefing movement appears to have no appreciable preventive or palliative effect, and may, in fact, be responsible for an iatrogenic effect of causing the problems it claims to treat” (p. 184). “[James] Pennabaker, critical of this simplistic approach [e.g., pop grief counseling] says: ‘Not everyone progresses through stages in grieving or coping. In fact, as many as half of all adults may face torture, divorce, the loss of a loved one, or other catastrophe and not exhibit any major sign of depression or anxiety’” (p. 207).

“Another researcher, George Bonanno, a clinical psychologist at Columbia University, offers his empirical analysis of the so-called grief-work hypothesis: the widely held assumption that venting negative emotions and ‘telling your story’ are necessary for regaining mental health. ... ‘There’s really no evidence that these things are effective--and there’s even some to suggest that they can actually be detrimental,’ says Bonanno” (pp. 207, 208).

"Jesus is the only answer."

First funeral held in South Alabama killings

Michael McLendon, 28, shot and killed 10 people, including five of his family members before committing suicide at a metals plant where he used to work. Six people were gunned down at his uncle's house -- two blocks away from where Jenkins lives.

Sonya Smith, 42, was shot and killed as she walked out of a Big Little Stores gas station in Samson on Tuesday. Mourners remembered her as a loving wife and mother of three who wouldn't hesitate before helping someone in need.

  

"We're all asking how could a deranged gunman come and bring so much pain, so much grief to our community," Rev. Donnie Earls told the hundreds gathered for Smith's funeral at Shady Grove Assembly of God Church in Coffee Springs.

"Even in times like this -- in horrific times -- only God has the answer," he said.

Mourners in this rural Bible Belt community said burying the people who were taken from them so suddenly and violently was the first step toward moving forward, but it would take time.

Wade Smith said his wife of 16 years was the "backbone of our family," and losing her at the hand of a random killer made the pain even more difficult.

"Why didn't he just take his own life if he wanted to do anything and leave all these other families alone?" Smith said while holding his wife's photo and a red rose following her burial in the church cemetery.

It started raining as he spoke, and Smith said it felt like his wife was "crying down from heaven on everybody and all the families that are going through this."

"I got angry," he said, hugging the framed picture to his chest to keep it dry. "The sadness has turned to anger, so you've got to turn to Jesus. Jesus is the only answer."

Former Fundy's cry out for access to the counselors of the World.

Former Fundy's cry out for access to the counselors of the World, but thinking what? That it might make things all better?

"I’m not sure how to apply what I’m wanting to talk about here, but it seems to be a big problem I’ve started to notice. Many ministry kids grow up being told they’re living in a glass bowl, and many times they are. They feel like they have to be perfect all the time. They learn early on to put on a face showing how they’re strong, and spiritual, and how their family has it all together. They never get attached to friends like many other kids do either because they move around, travel from church to church ministering, or because they’re afraid that if anyone finds out the truth about them and their family then the gossip will get around. 

Too many times the father and sometimes the mother are so involved in ministry and counseling everyone else in the church that they never realize that they’re children are wearing this mask and hiding what they really are. 

When they become disappointed or hurt they have no one to talk to about it so they just hold it all in. They go to church and hear preaching that tells them psychologists are of the world and are anti-christian so if they need to talk to someone, they need to just go to the pastor. They’re told that if they’re feeling depressed they need to minister to others and their depression will go away. They hear over and over not to become bitter against those that have hurt them and just to forgive them but never figure out how to fully forgive someone."

We'll just let Sharon Osborne speak to that, if we may. After all, she's certainly spent her life trying the counselors of the World.

"I've lost count of the number of them that have been in this house,' she says cheerily. 'I've had therapists. Ozzy's had therapists. The kids have had therapists. They've all trooped in and out. I like to think that I've taken something from all of them, but, at the end of the day, how do you know?

'What I do know is that none of them has given me any sense of serenity, and that's what I crave. I like the idea of that acceptance and calm that religion brings.' "

Of course Mrs. Osbourne has that part wrong. It isn't religion, it is Jesus Christ. 

Former Fundys Team Blog

There's a new blog on the block. Former Fundy's Team Blog. Go there by clicking here.

Go easy on them. They are young people who have not really found anything they are willing to suggest in place of their former beliefs. But I thought some of my readers might find it interesting to take a peek at the mindset of some of the younger set who have left Biblical Fundamentalism.