eChurch Blog

Every now and again I have to post an article simply for the freakishness element, and what follows is a prime example.

The Copenhagen Post

Jon Knudsen, the pastor of the Løkken Free Church in the Jutland town of Vendsyssel, loves Christmas, but he hates elves.

This weekend, Knudsen’s hatred for the creature he says “comes from the devil” manifested itself in the form of a mock execution by hanging of a Christmas elf outside his church.

Around the elf’s neck was a sign reading “we reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises”, a reference to the Christian baptism rite.

Knudsen said decorating with elves at Christmas was “comparable to decorating with Nazi flags”, and described elves of all sorts as “poltergeists that come from the devil and make children sick”.

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You have been warned. Be afraid…..very afraid….

Hat-tip Dr Jim West.

A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:

Lisa Graas – Riding the Roller Coaster with Jesus

Clayboy – Does God love ET?

Cranmer – England’s shame

Protect the Pope – Anti-Christian vandals have cut down St Joseph of Arimathea’s Holy Thorn Tree

Bad Vestments – COCK-A-DOODLE-DON’T

Blimey don’t often see a Christian win a payout in these sort of cases.

MailOnline:

Police have been ordered to pay compensation to a Christian street preacher who was hauled off in handcuffs for saying that gays will go to hell.

A judge condemned the arrest of Anthony Rollins, who quoted the King James Bible on the subject of the ‘effeminate’ as he preached in Birmingham.

Mr Rollins was handcuffed and then held in a cell for nearly four hours after a passer-by dialled 999 and complained that his language was ‘hugely offensive’.

The ruling – which ended with West Midlands police ordered to pay more than £4,000 in damages to the 45-year-old preacher – appears to set a new landmark in the battle between the gay lobby and Christians who want to say in public that homosexual sex is wrong.

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I do oft wonder why they feel the need to major on issues of sexuality whilst ‘street preaching’ and I wonder how many converts they win.

I know many disagree with me, but I don’t like ‘street preaching’ – see the Bullhorn Guy – and this was confirmed yet again a couple of days ago in Gloucester, when I took a few moments out to listen to one and he was pants. The Lord alone knows what on earth he was blathering about, but whatever it was, it involved him spelling the word “s-h-i-t” many times over, I kid ye not.

As regular readers will know, the intersection of spirituality, psychiatry and mental illness is of particular interest to me.

There’s an interesting piece over at Psychology Today entitled: Religious Beliefs and Psychiatry, which examines the convergence of religiosity and psychiatry.

I have noted in the past my anecdotal observations of the preponderance of religious believers as in-patients on a psychiatric ward, which is a source of ongoing fascination to me.

I thought the article interesting in that it touches on ‘religious mania’ and notes certain religious behaviours such as “speaking in tongues” as appearing somewhat mad bizarre to an outsider.

Note this comment in particular:

It is common for the psychiatrist to hear from the patient that “my religious beliefs prevent me from committing suicide.”

And this goes to show that our religious beliefs can indeed be literally life saving in times of crises.

Anyway, the article is well worth a read in my opinion.

Psychology Today – Religious Beliefs and Psychiatry

Both the MailOnline and the National Post are reporting on new research which indicates going to church makes you happier because of the social rather than spiritual dimension.

The research entitled: Religion, Social Networks, and Life Satisfaction by Chaeyoon Lim and Robert D. Putnam was published in the American Sociological Review and sadly the link to the research appears to be broken.

I can however bring you the abstract and some conclusions from the research:

Abstract:

Although the positive association between religiosity and life satisfaction is well documented, much theoretical and empirical controversy surrounds the question of how religion actually shapes life satisfaction. Using a new panel dataset, this study offers strong evidence for social and participatory mechanisms shaping religion’s impact on life satisfaction. Our findings suggest that religious people are more satisfied with their lives because they regularly attend religious services and build social networks in their congregations. The effect of within-congregation friendship is contingent, however, on the presence of a strong religious identity. We find little evidence that other private or subjective aspects of religiosity affect life satisfaction independent of attendance and congregational friendship.

Conclusion:

Does religion make you happier? Many studies show that religious Americans report greater happiness and life satisfaction than do non-religious Americans. However, skeptics posit that this trend is due to the fact that happier people are more likely to attend church, rather than church attendance making people happier. Some scholars also suggest that religious people may share certain non-religious characteristics (e.g., a “happiness gene”) that make them happy. In a recent study published in the American Sociological Review, scholars Chaeyoon Lim and Robert D. Putnam examine the nationally representative Faith Matters survey, which interviews the same set of people twice in a one-year period, to show that increased church attendance during the period increases life satisfaction. Lim and Putnam find that the connection between happiness and religion is not a result of theology (what you believe and what religion you belong to) or private religious practices (e.g., frequency of prayer or feeling God’s presence in one’s life). Instead, they find that frequent churchgoers are more satisfied with their lives because they build intimate social networks in their congregations, anchoring a strong sense of belonging in these religious communities and receiving morally-infused social support. If one seeks life satisfaction, it is neither faith nor communities alone that are important, but communities of faith. For life satisfaction, praying together seems better than either bowling together or praying alone. These findings suggest that religious leaders should invest more of their time, resources, and talent in deepening the social dimensions of congregational life, such as through small support or worship groups, potlucks, and choirs. This is likely to pay dividends to their congregants in making them happier, while benefitting religious leaders by making their congregants more likely to stay active religious members.

Hat-Tip: Dr Jim West

The Guardian has asked: “What is the future of preaching?” As part of this question they posit:

The one form of preaching that seems to have died in the West is the traditional delivery, from a pulpit to a variously attentive audience. Will this come back? Will it entirely be replaced by digital delivery?

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Coincidentally, a few days ago Richard Littledale reflected on face-to-face preaching versus digital streaming, and concluded:

I’m a great believer in integrating visual media – whether moving or still, into preaching. However, they are no substitute for captivating speech. We need to hear the most important messages face to face – and that is something which no amount of video-goggling (or was that googling) will ever replace.

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Richard also notes that as much as we may love our videos – we are still hard-wired to engage face to face on the things that really matter.

Lin Pearson commented on Richard’s blog:

Biblical challenge can be conveyed digitally (and I am all for that) and viewers can be moved emotionally and spiritually. But it is my conviction that “live” preaching, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, carries a force that recording does not always pick up.

For me, these sentiments are intuitively correct and for the most part it would appear that God has ordained face-to-face preaching of the gospel for the purpose of saving the hearers.

Of course, the luxury of digital recording and streaming wasn’t available at the time of Jesus, nor for that matter the printed press.

Now I will say that I can’t abide ‘street preaching’ as they are all too often like the ‘Bullhorn Guy‘, however, I would view the traditional ‘live’ homily as the preferred method of communicating Gospel truths.

Am I being old-fashioned? Is there a qualitative difference between ‘live’ preaching and digitally delivered preaching?

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (due out in 2013, known as DSM-5 – or the “psychiatric bible” – published by the American Psychiatric Association) has eliminated five of the 10 personality disorders listed in the current edition.

The personality disorders due for the chop are:

Paranoid

Schizoid

Histrionic

Dependent

Narcissistic

Of these, the most well-known is the Narcissistic personality disorder and the removal of this disorder has caused the greatest stir amongst professionals. You can read about it over at the New York Times.

At the same time as this news broke, another seemingly unrelated controversial story appeared, claiming that some highly influential classic textbooks in psychiatry – published in 1999 – were in fact ghostwritten and financed by representatives from one of the giant pharmaceutical companies, namely, Glaxosmithkline. These textbooks were published by the American Psychiatric Association.

According to Psychology Today one of the academic psychiatrists accused of having his work ghostwritten, was in fact the most recent president of the American Psychiatric Association who publish the DSM.

And what links all of this together?

Personality disorders are renown for being practically untreatable through medication, especially the Narcissistic Personality Disorder. There is a tendency to favour behavioural therapies in such cases.

Coincidence, I think not.

Anyway, this leads me smoothly to a blog post by Brian LePort over at Scientia et Sapientia which looks at the phenomenon of pharmaceutically ‘drugging’ members of our society and asks:

What do you think? As a Christian theologian what do you say to the drugging of society? What is our response to madness? Should we support it because it is “good” in a utilitarian fashion or should we oppose it because all too often the drugs are not for the worst case scenario but for the control of those whom we find uncontrollable?

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Good questions, especially in light of the growing trend to use pharmaceutical medication on our children to control various mental ‘abnormalities’.

OK, I know this only measures the subjective perception of persecution, however, I thought it would be interesting nonetheless, given the heated and lengthy debates on this blog:

The poll can be found on the left hand side of the blog and I’ll leave this up for a week or so and blog the results.

Feel free to comment below also.

For personal reasons I’m always on the hunt for the Christian experience of mental health problems and Lisa Graas – one of my fav bloggers – has an honest, insightful, and encouraging post on this subject, which is well worth sharing:

Lisa Graas – The Blessing of the Passionists in my Life, and an Advent Meditation