Just weeks after resigning from Brewton-Parker College citing health reasons (but alleged to be for other reasons), Ergun Caner is back speaking at an Aledo, TX (David Barton’s home town) church youth conference.
[dailymotion]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ha40x_ergun-caner-new-river-feb-15-2015_people[/dailymotion]
He has some interesting things to say about people, to say the least.
Category: Religion
Simon & Schuster Has No Plans to Publish David Barton's The Jefferson Lies
Yesterday, I wrote about how Thomas Nelson removed David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies from publication in late July, 2012. According to philosopher Jay Richards, Barton’s book was investigated by Thomas Nelson and then removed from their catalog several days before anyone reported it publicly. Richards led an effort to gather information to inform Glenn Beck about the historical problems in Barton’s work. Beck, along with other religious conservatives, eventually chose to ignore the evaluations of academic historians in order to preserve Barton’s reputation and influence.
For his part, Barton minimized the devastating critique from various historians. He also said publisher Simon and Schuster was prepared to publish The Jefferson Lies.
After Thomas Nelson dropped the book, The Jefferson Lies was subsequently reviewed and then picked up by Simon & Schuster.
Clearly, Thomas Nelson’s public statements about the reason for pulling the book are incongruous with the above facts, so was there perhaps some other reason behind their announcement? Quite possibly, for only two weeks prior to suddenly dropping The Jefferson Lies, Thomas Nelson had been taken over in an acquisition by Rupert Murdoch and HarperCollins Publishers.6
Thanks to Throckmorton and other critics, The Jefferson Lies will reach a far larger audience through Simon & Schuster than it would have with the Christian publisher Thomas Nelson.
To my knowledge, this claim has never been withdrawn. The rumor that Simon and Schuster was about to publish Barton’s book has been going around since The Jefferson Lies was pulled. Today, I can announce that Simon and Schuster has no plans to publish the book. According to Jennifer Robinson, Vice President and Director of Publicity with Threshold Editions at Simon and Schuster:
There are no plans for Threshold to publish The Jefferson Lies.
Threshold is an imprint of Simon and Schuster which has published books jointly with Mercury Ink, Glenn Beck’s publishing imprint. I wrote Ms. Robinson again to ask if Mercury Ink was going to publish the book and she referred me to Kevin Balfe at Mercury Ink. Balfe has not responded as yet. According to Mercury Ink’s website, Simon and Schuster is a partner in some manner (probably distribution) which led me to ask Ms. Robinson if publication by Mercury Ink could be construed as publication by Simon and Schuster. In her reply, Robinson said I needed to hear from Mercury Ink and added:
S&S is not publishing the book.
If Mercury Ink provides an update, I will add it to this post. For now, according to Simon and Schuster’s representative, there are no plans for them to publish The Jefferson Lies.
John Hagee's Bad Moon on the Rise
John Hagee must like to scare people. Not only is he bringing out a movie about his Four Blood Moon prophecies, he has David Barton as an — dare I say it? — historian in his movie. Sometime between April 2014 and September 2015, according to Hagee, Israel is going to live out the Creedence Clearwater Revival song Bad Moon Rising:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/4YlTUDnsWMo[/youtube]
I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin’.
I see bad times today.
Don’t go around tonight,
Well, it’s bound to take your life,
There’s a bad moon on the rise.
I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.
Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.
If Hagee doesn’t have this as his theme music, it won’t be nearly as much fun.
I’ve got my copy of When Prophecy Fails handy.
For a little balance, read this CNN Belief Blog op-ed by Kenneth Waters, Sr. and this Space.com article about blood moons; they are fairly common.
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.
American Family Association Touts Free Speech for Radio Hosts Except When Hosts Criticize the AFA
In a letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center yesterday, AFA attorney Patrick Vaughn said the American Family Association is a “free speech zone.”
In 2012, AFA Tim Wildmon took essentially the same stance regarding Fischer’s views while Fischer was serving as Director of Issues Analysis. Now, in the face of a firestorm of controversy involving the Republican National Committee, the AFA backs away from most of the outrageous things Fischer has said while he represented the AFA.
The AFA claims to be a free speech zone but not that long ago the AFA targeted Worldview Weekend host Brannon Howse because he criticized the AFA’s involvement in Rick Perry’s prayer meeting, The Response. The AFA issued an ultimatum to two other radio hosts who worked with Howse: Todd Friel and John Loeffler. Both hosts were told they had to break ties with Howse or lose their spot on the AFR network. Friel eventually stayed with the AFA while Loeffler decided not to acquiesce to the AFA’s demands.
Howse and his colleagues clearly were not a part of the AFA nor on their payroll. Fischer on the other hand remains an employee of the AFA. Free speech allows Bryan Fischer to spew positions which now the AFA says they repudiate. However, not that long ago, free speech did not allow Brannon Howse to criticize the AFA’s involvement in Rick Perry’s coming out party.