Over 15 years ago, Ros and I were in the heartbreaking process of wrapping up our work at a church we were employed by and had poured our souls into. As we helplessly witnessed the Synod barely even attempting to mask its systematic efforts to destroy the community of healing we had built,
Read moreEarlier today, I walked two separate clients through the exact same material: An understanding of 8 key barriers to escaping from addiction and how those barriers actually represent a very clear roadmap out of addiction and into healing.
Read moreRead moreTradition: It can make life rich (big ethnic holiday feasts) and sometimes limited (seemingly arbitrary social taboos about clothing), but where does it stem from?
New research out of Karolinska Institutet’s Emotion Lab in Sweden attempts to answer that question, by creating a psychological model behind the notion of tradition. It turns out that humans have a tendency to be quite sheep-like: the researchers found that it likely comes from a threat of punishment – as well as people’s willingness to copy others.
Read moreYou don’t need to be a churchgoer to pray. That’s one of the findings of a sweeping new poll on faith from the Angus Reid Institute, conducted in partnership with Dr. Reginald Bibby of the University of Lethbridge. The recent survey of 3,041 Canadians showed that even as our affiliation with organized religion continues to decline we still believe – just in our own, often deeply personal, ways. Here’s a snapshot of how faith shapes our behaviour and our views of one another today.
Read moreEverybody asks during and after our wars, and the continuing terrorist attacks all over the globe, “What’s gone wrong?” What has gone wrong is that too many people, including high school kids and heads of state, are obeying the Code of Hammurabi, a King of Babylonia who lived nearly four thousand years ago. And you can find his code echoed in the Old Testament, too. Are you ready for this?
“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
A categorical imperative for all who live in obedience to the Code of Hammurabi, which includes heroes of every cowboy show and gangster show you ever saw, is this: Every injury, real or imagined, shall be avenged.
Read morePeople who are overconfident in their own abilities are considered more talented by others than they really are, a new study finds.
These overconfident individuals are probably more likely to get promoted, to become the leaders of organizations and even nations.
On the other hand, people who are not so confident in their abilities are judged as less competent than they actually are.
Read moreThe scandal around Phillips is just the latest in a long line of ugly shocks to the far Christian right that threatens to destabilize and possibly capsize the community. As The Wire reported in early March, Bill Gothard, the leader of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, resigned his position in the wake of a series of accusations of alleged sexual abuse from dozens of women in the organization.
Read moreFor most of my career as a teenager I was preoccupied with being cool, with cultivating a counter-culture, bohemian persona (assuming clove cigarettes, On the Road, and a pile of mixed tapes constituted “bohemian”). Rolling my eyes at my mother was a near-constant affectation.
I was certain that I knew it all; I had the rest of my life all figured out and I rejected anything that didn’t fit with my narrow understanding of the world.
I was questioned earlier this week over a comment I made to a client that going to church alone would do little to protect marriage and that divorce rates were higher in the pews. That statement was both desperately right – and yet, the more I look at it, somewhat wrong.
Now that I’ve done the research, I may as well post it…
Read moreRead moreThe simple formula to spotting all false movements:
I know personally how hard it can be to spot these movements – I’ve been involved in all 3 at some point in my life to pretty serious degrees! I even preached some of this stuff!
These are just what I believe to be 3 of the biggest false movements in the church, there are many, many more though.
