Warren Throckmorton

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 suspect this RNC state committeewoman is in Israel if her scheduled permitted.
Tamara Scott is a member of the Republican National Committee from Iowa who has heard David Barton speak. On a radio program (video is on YouTube) called a View from the Pew, Scott lamented the removal of mandatory prayer from the public schools. RWW excerpted a segment of the program, watch:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/iSXb8bFoE-g[/youtube]
At about 55 seconds into this clip, Scott cites David Barton’s “studies and research” which show that schools used to deal with “gum, tardiness and talking.” Now she says, the crimes are “assault, rape and murder.” Long time readers of this blog will know that violent crime spiked in the mid-1990s but has fallen dramatically since then. Barton frequently claims that crime has gone up nearly 700% since Bible reading and prayer were removed from the schools. Not true.
There are more shenanigans. The clip opens up with one of the hosts saying America was founded as a “Protestant republic.” The RNC committeewoman agrees.
She said we never should have allowed prayer to be taken out of our schools. Actually, if students want to pray in schools, they can. God does not need to have the permission of the school teachers for a student to pray.
She opposes the stronger anti-bullying bill in Iowa and doesn’t believe Iowa should have the statute already on the books.
Some within the church question why I believe David Barton’s distorted history matters. Ms. Scott illustrates why it is scandalous for evangelicals to feature Barton’s narratives as being historically sound. It was scandalous when Southern Baptist president Ronnie Floyd hosted Barton last week at his business lunch meeting, the Summit. And it is scandalous that a group of PA pastors will feature Barton as a celebrated historian in March.
Politically, if the RNC has been taken over by Christian nation campaigners then there is no reason to spend a dime on a primary season. Just hand the keys to Hillary; it is over.
 
 

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.
 
 

Politico’s Ben Schreckinger reports tonight that the Anti-Defamation League privately discouraged the Republican National Committee from participating in a trip to Israel paid for by the American Family Association. I wrote about this trip last week.
In addition, more details about the trip are given (they apparently went despite the concerns) and Christ and Pop Culture editor Alan Noble and I are quoted.
The RNC really should acknowledge this mistake, especially in light of other efforts to field a better primary season this time around.

Demonstrating that the fall out from Mars Hill’s demise is ongoing, former Mars Hill pastor James Harleman posted an essay of confession on Saturday. It begins:

I sat on a bed upstairs in our room at the retreat home, my head in my hands, asking my wife if our lead pastor was fit to be an elder… if the state of his marriage was in a place wherein he needed a sabbatical, and if his verbal evisceration of another elder’s wife – simply for offering a gentle word of counsel – was anything but deplorable. I didn’t know what to say, or even what to think.

All the elders had been there and seen it. No one had countered or interceded in any way.

It was summer 2006, more than a year before the infamous bylaw change and terminations at Mars Hill Church that many would see as the first sign of a problem. I was just over a year into my tenure as a pastor but still felt like the new guy. The unspoken acceptance of all the other pastors at that elders’ retreat became a justification for my own omission.

Not a true justification, mind you – simply in my own mind.

Harleman is apparently speaking about Mark Driscoll in the first paragraph. He is also one who was involved in trying to bring change internally before he decided he could not.