Month: June 2015

Hillsong's Brian Houston Interviewed Mark and Grace Driscoll After All (VIDEO) (AUDIO)

Update: Campaigners against Driscoll’s appearance have expressed betrayal via statements about the interview.
Just a little while ago, Brian Houston showed a taped interview of Mark and Grace Driscoll at the conference in Australia. I have some video below. The source of the video stalled out near the end, so this is not the complete interview.
Despite the fact that Houston told the world Driscoll would not attend the conference, he brought him to the conference via video anyway. At that time, Houston said:

However, I do not want unnecessary distractions during our conference, particularly as this 30 minute interview was only a small part of this five day event.

I couldn’t understand all of it (update: there is better quality audio available below) but it seems Driscoll strikes many of the same themes of persecution but also at times seemed more contrite than in past public appearances.
At one point, Driscoll said those who have reached out in love have been those outside of his tribe. This seems like a real slap at his elders who reached out to him with a plan of restoration. However, as we now know, Driscoll resigned rather than respond favorably to his elders.
Houston asked the Driscolls when they were converted and Driscoll described his call to the ministry saying God told him to marry Grace and plant churches.
He said he wouldn’t now advise any 25 year old to do what he did then. He said he wasn’t ready.
Driscoll again spoke of the problems his family has experienced.
Driscoll said he hoped not to be a divisive figure in the future. He acknowledged anger. However, as far as I can tell, he did not indicate any plans to meet with anyone specifically.
The problem with this is that Driscoll said he wants not to be a divisive figure but he hasn’t reached out to the people where there is division. If one wants to be a person of peace, that person should try to make peace.
Houston has given Driscoll quite a PR gift with this interview.
My understanding is that Driscoll’s plans will soon come into focus. After initially signaling a move to Phoenix, it appears there might be a new plan. He said in the interview that he doesn’t know what he is going to do next.
Houston urged the Driscolls to heal and make amends with others.
This video is difficult to hear but some of it can be understood. I suspect Hillsong will post it soon. I have now received audio of the interview which is much better.


Those campaigning against Driscoll’s appearance at the conference have issued statements. See those here.

Glenn Beck to Appear at Ed Young's Fellowship Church on July 5

Glenn Beck will be interviewed at 11am Sunday morning at Fellowship Church near Fort Worth, TX. According to the website, the event will take place at the Hawkins/Allaso Ranch retreat center.
glennbeckfellowship
Fellowship Church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
It seems surreal to have an unabashed Latter Day Saint apologist address a Baptist congregation on Sunday morning.
 

Glenn Beck Says David Barton Has a PhD, Barton Says He Doesn't

Right Wing Watch’s Kyle Mantyla picked up on Glenn Beck’s claim last week that David Barton had a PhD in Education.  Mantyla remembered that Barton once said he didn’t have a PhD. Watch the video:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/JEeW8E4tMiI[/youtube]
So yes, Mr. Beck, Barton is a guy who thinks he knows history.
In the clip above, Barton talks about a book in which he was involved where he claimed to debunk his fellow PhD authors on chaplains at the University of Virginia. Check out these posts (here and here) which school him back.
When Brian Williams embellished his biography to the public, it was a major story and Williams lost his job. However, in Glennbeckistan, where the truth goes to die, fraudulent credentials are handed out and people who mislead you and your audience with pretend history are brilliant.

Which Same-Sex Marriage Related Action is Lawless?

The Supreme Court last week ruled 5-4 that the 14th Amendment required the states to recognize same-sex unions as legal marriages.
Today, the Family Research Council released the following press release:

Family Research Council Commends Texas Officials for Declining to Blindly Follow Five Justices
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a statement calling the U.S. Supreme Court ruling an act of “lawlessness” and provided guidance that “county clerks and their employees retain religious freedoms that may allow accommodation of their religious objections to issuing same-sex ‘marriage’ licenses. The strength of any such claim depends on the particular facts of each case.”
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins issued the following statement in response:
“I find it refreshing and encouraging that state officials are declining to blindly follow five justices who have redefined society’s most fundamental institution — marriage. The Court got it wrong in their ruling and they got it wrong in thinking their edict would force Americans to accept same-sex ‘marriage’ and the corresponding loss of their most basic freedoms. States must ensure the government does not use this ruling to discriminate against those who continue to believe in natural marriage,” concluded Perkins.

The effect of the AG’s opinion appears to be to allow a clerk to avoid doing their duty while referring it to someone who doesn’t mind doing it, analogous to a pharmacist who doesn’t want to fill a script for a drug that might cause an abortion.
Paxton says the Supreme Court ruling was lawless, then he tells the clerks they may not have to comply.
I wonder if the Texas clerks who are fundamentalist Christians explore the sexual morality of the straight couples who request a license before issuing it. If licenses are issued to those who meet the various clerks’ standards, then I suppose Texas could have a hodgepodge of standards which vary from clerk to clerk. Surely, if the clerks’ religious beliefs about same-sex marriage can be honored then a clerk who believes people of different religions shouldn’t marry could decline to issue a license.
There is a word for when government officials decide to do what they want to do instead of what the law requires.
A.G. Paxton, what is that word?

Daily Jefferson: June 29, 1812 Letter from Jefferson to James Madison on the Declaration of the 1812 War

Jefferson was a mentor for James Madison. The men corresponded often. Jefferson had some definite ideas about the aims of the 1812 conflict and communicated those in this letter.

Dear Sir,—I duly received your favor of the 22d covering the declaration of war.  It is entirely popular here, the only opinion being that it should have been issued the moment the season admitted the militia to enter Canada.
To continue the war popular, two things are necessary mainly.  1. To stop Indian barbarities.  The conquest of Canada will do this.  2. To furnish markets for our produce, say indeed for our flour, for tobacco is already given up, and seemingly without reluctance.  The great profits of the wheat crop have allured every one to it;  and never was such a crop on the ground as that which we generally begin to cut this day.  It would be mortifying to the farmer to see such an one rot in his barn.  It would soon sicken him to war.  Nor can this be a matter of wonder or of blame on him.  Ours is the only country on earth where war is an instantaneous and total suspension of all the objects of his industry and support.  For carrying our produce to foreign markets our own ships, neutral ships, and even enemy ships under neutral flag, which I would wink at, will probably suffice.  But the coasting trade is of double importance, because both seller and buyer are disappointed, and both are our own citizens.  You will remember that in this trade our greatest distress in the last war was produced by our own pilot boats taken by the British and kept as tenders to their larger vessels.  These being the swiftest vessels on the ocean, they took them and selected the swiftest from the whole mass.  Filled with men they scoured everything along shore, and completely cut up that coasting business which might otherwise have been carried on within the range of vessels of force and draught.  Why should not we then line our coast with vessels of pilot-boat construction, filled with men, armed with cannonades, and only so much larger as to assure the mastery of the pilot boat?  The British cannot counter-work us by building similar ones, because, the fact is, however unaccountable, that our builders alone understand that construction.  It is on our own pilot boats the British will depend, which our larger vessels may thus retake.  These, however, are the ideas of a landsman only, Mr. Hamilton’s judgment will test their soundness.