First Williams turned over his desk to Lester Holt, now he has canceled his appearance on Letterman.
On Friday, President of NBC News Deborah Turness failed to endorse Williams in a memo to staff and announced an investigation. One suspects this isn’t over.
I taught the misinformation effect on Friday and am aware that memories are not tape recordings that can be retrieved with perfection. The “Lost in a Shopping Mall” paradigm illustrates that memories for event that never happened can be suggested and then remembered. However, there has been little explanation about how the event went from being accurately reported at the time to a fabrication of late. It is not at all clear where the misinformation was introduced into the narrative. Whether innocent or not, trust will be an issue for some time to come.
If Brian Williams had the kind of help David Barton has, Williams wouldn’t have anything to worry about.
Category: Media and society
I Am Michael: The Retelling of Michael Glatze
Michael Glatze burst into the awareness of those in the ex-gay world in July 2007. He was a gay activist who in a panic turned to God. At that time, I had turned from my days supporting sexual reorientation change efforts and had established the sexual identity therapy framework as the better approach to traditionally evangelical believers who were also attracted to the same sex. I was very curious about his experience and he discussed some of it with me in an interview very shortly after the his coming out as straight with WorldnetDaily. At the time, I wrote, “I know nothing about Mr. Glatze beyond this article, although I suspect we may be hearing more about him in the coming days.”
Initially, Glatze was portrayed by the evangelical press as an orthodox Christian convert. However, he confirmed to me, albeit reluctantly, that he had converted to the Mormon church. He later left the LDS church and at one point joined a Buddhist retreat center. He gave two interviews to Joe Nicolosi (most recent in 2014) about change of orientation that somehow Nicolosi and Glatze spun into support for reparative therapy (recall that Glatze was not involved in any change therapy efforts).
Glatze resurfaced a couple years later with a series of blog posts sharply critical of President Obama. One, in particular, was featured by ExGayWatch and seemed to express racist overtones. Glatze later provided an explanation to me about the comments which seemed more like unfocused rage at Obama.
I was a little surprised when I heard that James Franco was going to do a movie about Glatze’s changes. The film, I Am Michael has been getting good reviews but may not be available widely. In any case, as a biopic, I am sure it is interesting but at some point I would like to explore what really happened to Glatze. There are clues that he might not have been exclusively gay or that he might be bisexual. Is his experience generalizable to others, or is there some infrequent alignment of circumstances that led to the dramatic change? The writing I have done previously gives me little that’s solid.
In his 2014 interview with Joe Nicolosi, Glatze denigrates the experience of LGB people in much the same way he did in 2007. However, in this video below, he seems to articulate what the American Psychological Association calls “organismic congruence” or being who you experience yourself to be. It is hard to tell what he believes now, at least from this interview, but he seems much more at ease.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/DERC4kpd5Ag[/youtube]
As I wrote before, I suspect we may be hearing more about him.
The Atlantic on the Art of Whistle-blowing
Writing on a topic of interest to my readers these days, Kate Kenny says whistle-blowing depends more on public interest than the importance of the content.
From my experience over the years, I lean toward agreement.
Over and above Seattle and other Mars Hill cities, many people are obviously interested in what happens with the church and Mark Driscoll. The interest has been strong and consistent. However, when I posted evidence that David Jeremiah and Les and Leslie Parrott used the same book list scamming approach (Kevin Small’s company ResultSource) as Mark Driscoll, the response was tepid. In fact, Jeremiah and the Parrotts make Driscoll look like an amateur. Those authors have used Kevin Small’s genius for multiple trips up the NYT ladder. However, that news has been a snooze compared to the latest dispatch from Mars.
In any case, this article helpfully reviews some factors that whistle-blowers consider when deciding whether to step forward or not.
Letter From Mars Hill Church to Those Who Donated to Mars Hill Global
A Mars Hill Global donor forwarded this letter to me. In the wake of ongoing questions about how funds donated to Mars Hill Global since 2012 were spent, the church leaders issued this letter to 6,000 donors.
This is slightly a reworded statement from the Mars Hill Global FAQ page on the Mars Hill website.
In fact, the Global Fund was a giving option until at least May of this year. As I demonstrated by means of videos that Mars Hill wants to hide, the leaders of Mars Hill did not simply consider Mars Hill Global to be non-member, online givers. Sutton Turner said in a video you can watch here that Global is a part of Mars Hill Church. At 30 seconds into this video, Sutton Turner said:
Mars Hill Global is the arm of Mars Hill Church that makes disciples and plant churches all over the world.
Later in the same video, Turner clearly addressed current members when he said:
So whether you’re a member of one of our Mars Hill Church locations in the United States or you’re one of 100,000 podcasters every single week, we encourage you to pray about giving above and beyond your tithe to Mars Hill Global.
In fact, the person who received this letter is not a podcaster, but rather was a member at the time the donations were given. The receiver of the letter serves as a contradiction to the content of the letter.
It was not the terminology alone that was confusing. The messages from Mark Driscoll, Sutton Turner and the Mars Hill website referring to Mars Hill Global as the way the church supported missions were especially confusing. They clearly called Global the arm of the church which supported missionaries; now they want to call Mars Hill Global the donations given by people who are not members.
Mars Hill Church Again Issues Copyright Takedown Notice on Mars Hill Global Video
Earlier today, Justin Dean, acting on behalf of Mars Hill Church, requested that You Tube remove video clips of Mark Driscoll and Sutton Turner talking about Mars Hill Global. In the video clips, which were made available to illustrate my commentary on the subject, both Driscoll and Turner clearly identify Mars Hill Global as a ministry of Mars Hill Church for the purpose of supporting international missions.’
I have contested the notice and will await You Tube’s decision, which could take up to 10 business days. I firmly believe that the video clips are covered by Fair Use and are necessary to report accurately the relationship between Mars Hill Church and Mars Hill Global.
Last Friday, Mark Driscoll told his congregation that he was glad for the freedom of the press:
In addition, I really am blessed to live in a land where the law allows me to have freedom of speech, to have freedom of religion, to have freedom of assembly, freedom of the press. That means we get to assemble, and I get to open the Bible and teach whatever I believe to be true. But it means that others have that same legal opportunity. They have that same freedom, and so, and so others are free to, to say things as well.
One aspect of that freedom is the ability to use copyrighted materials to report news, or provide commentary and/or criticism. Clearly, the purpose of the videos in question is report news and provide commentary on Mars Hill Church and Mars Hill Global.
For all articles on Mars Hill Global, click this link.