For many reasons, this “live” video is hilarious. Despite the cheese, this is not from the Onion.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/MkIYLUAItno[/youtube]
Apparently hoping to attract more straight men and lesbians, the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality’s new spokeswoman (the NARTH girl) breathlessly announces the formation of a new organization which looks about like the old organization. NARTH becomes the NARTH Institute and the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity (see NARTH’s made over website and the Alliance’s unfinished website).
An examination of the conference schedule an organization board members indicates that the Alliance is really NARTH in new clothes.
In March 2012, NARTH was notified that the organization’s tax exempt status was revoked due to failures to file necessary paperwork (990 forms). They claimed they would get it back but have not done so. They are calling membership dues “donations” so perhaps this new organization will file to become a charity in order to solicit tax deductible donations. I can see nothing on either website which claims a tax deduction so buyer beware.
In any case, there appears to be nothing new under the sun or at NARTH. The name is new but the empty promises appear to be the same.
Category: psychology
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.
Christian Post Provides Free Advertising for International Healing Foundation
I missed this a couple of days ago. The Christian Post provided free advertising for the following activity masquerading as therapy:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJXWFZz0Qjo[/youtube]
This video cannot be shown enough. This is what the Christian Post is advertising with their puff piece on the International Healing Foundation. Doyle says being attracted to the same sex is a matter of poor parenting. Richard Cohen, the founder of IHF, says the therapist should establish a parent child relationship as a means of replacing what clients didn’t get from their parents. This is a dangerous and false premise. Some gays and some straights didn’t get what they needed from their parents, but this doesn’t make them gay or straight. Putting the therapist in the role of a nurturing parent is reflects a wrong diagnosis and potentially sets up an unhealthy dependence on the therapist. Furthermore, a robust line of research suggests that the pillow beating catharsis treatment is fundamentally unhelpful.
Perhaps these points and more are why no graduate training programs offer these approaches for the purposes designated by IHF. I know of no graduate training programs housed in Christian colleges which teach these techniques. Even at Liberty, Doyle was not allowed to consider Cohen a clinical supervisor, nor was he allowed to count his experience there toward his school internship.
Chris Doyle says the IHF does therapy. However, I even wonder about that. According to their 2012 990 form, they took in very little money in program services fees with the lion’s share of their income coming from donations.
I hope the reporter will consider doing a counter point article in response.
David Myers on Animosity Between Similar Groups
On Sunday, Politico published an enlightening article by Hope College psychology professor David Myers on the divide between Shia and Sunni Muslims. In the article Myers provides four points to help explain why people who share so many things in common are such enemies.
Myers also briefly illustrated his point with the historic Northern Ireland conflict between Protestants and Catholics. It occurred to me that on a lesser level, we see these conflicts arise all of time within Christianity. Charismatics and non-charismatics, Calvinists and Arminians, and so on share many points of agreement but war over the fewer differences. Myers article is well worth reading; his four basic points are:
1) No matter our similarities with others, our attention focuses on differences.
2) We naturally divide our worlds into “us” and “them,” ingroup and outgroup.
3) Discussion among those of like mind often produces “group polarization.”
4) Group solidarity soars when facing a common enemy.
Number three is a point which concerns me most about noticing differences. Such polarization can become especially hot if people fail to talk to those in the other camp. I see no problem with freedom of expression as long as we make sure everybody has it. We need to talk to each other rather than cloister and polarize further. Myers expresses it this way:
Turning today’s closed fists into tomorrow’s open arms requires recognizing the relative modesty of our differences, finding our deeper commonalities, defining a larger “us,” communicating across group lines and discovering transcendent goals.
Mark Driscoll’s Spiritual Warfare Teaching and Mental Illness
Yesterday, I posted a link to the We Love Mars Hill website and a story about a woman who mentioned Mars Hill spiritual warfare protocols. The procedure Mars Hill pastors use to put a demon on trial is here.
Since the post came out, readers have sent some other stories and I was reminded that the I had written previously about the spiritual warfare series. Here I want to add some additional information.
Before I do that, let me add that for a Christian, this is a complex issue. I believe Satan is real, but I don’t believe it is helpful to link diagnosed mental illnesses to any kind of demonic activity. In 35 years of experience, I haven’t seen an instance where Mars Hill like interventions were necessary or helpful.* When I have been aware that an individual went through something like that, it was never helpful in a lasting manner. In general, I think it stigmatizes persons with mental illness to include brain-based problems (depression, eating disorders, mental illness) in any kind of spiritual warfare inventory. People with these illnesses suffer enough without a minister telling them that their problems may be due to demonic influence. Persons with the kinds of trauma and problems listed in the Mars Hill spiritual warfare inventory should be seen by professionals trained to recognize and treat such conditions.
Hopefully, the awareness raised by re-visiting these issues via the Mars Hill experience can take us a little further toward ridding the church of stigma and antiquated methods of helping those with mental and emotional illnesses. Furthermore, I hope Christians working in medicine, psychology, and the helping professions will speak up in support of those they help.
In 2012, Matthew Paul Turner posted a story of a girl he called Amy who said she went through an exorcism like experience with Mark Driscoll. According to Turner, Mars Hill declined to comment but instead referred him to the spiritual warfare lectures on the Mars Hill website. Those lectures are now missing. In the mean time, I have heard from others who sincerely doubt the story. However, since Mars Hill hasn’t commented, it is hard to know. Some of what is described sounds similar to the spiritual warfare trial and other aspects seem exaggerated.
I was also reminded that I had posted a segment from the spiritual warfare teaching previously. In this post, I cover Driscoll’s claims to see the sins of others via visions which he then discloses to those he is with. These incidents come directly from Driscoll and are, in my opinion, completely inappropriate.
Then this morning I saw a promotion for Western Seminary’s partnership with Mars Hill. I wrote Western to ask if they will teach this kind of spiritual warfare trial and they have yet to reply.
*I realize that I have not experienced everything and remain open to hearing from people with different experience. All I can do is go on what I have seen in experience and reviewed in research.