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The young woman above, in Istanbul Turkey, is facing a dilemma. What will she do with the body piercings on her back? If she wants an education, she’ll have to make changes. The government of Turkey has been leaning toward a more conservative and Islamic way of thinking, and pupils in school have been banned from have body ink and body piercings. The law may be difficult to enforce and seen as repressive, but that hasn’t stopped President Erdogan from trying. A Muslim country, since the days of the reformer Ataturk who founded the current Republic, Turkey has walked a fine line between secularism and Islam. Now things in the country that was once a cradle of Christianity are moving in the direction of Islamisation.

My point isn’t to debate the political aspects of government infringing upon personal rights. What’s apparent is that some Muslim countries are moving in a moral direction that is shameful to America. No, I don’t want the government telling me or anyone what they can or cannot do with highly personal habits or predilections. But isn’t it a little topsy-turvy when Islamic countries find distasteful what some Christians extol with their “liberties?” What a conundrum that one can find more body piercings and hideous tattoos in a Sunday morning, emergent mega-church than in a Istanbul high school classroom. One reason that the ISIS/ISIL terrorist movement is gaining steam is because they appeal to a stricter way of thinking than even U. S. Evangelicals have. I’m not for legalism, political repression, or equating spirituality with outward appearance. What Turkey is doing may be undemocratic, but is the American Christian way of trumpeting tattoos all that much better?

NOTE: To read other blogs by Bob about tattoos, see “Tattoo Removal” (09/21/12), “Cremation Tattoos” (11/11/13) and “Christian Tattoos” (2/11/14)

“What goes on here, stays here.” Just one of the many salacious slogans associated with the gambling and show town of Las Vegas. The billboards above are just a few of the extra-curricular activities promoted in the Nevada city of lights and action. Even for a state in which prostitution is legal and regulated, it appears that there is at least some moral territory that’s too much for the city that truly never sleeps: unsafe sex. California passed a law mandating condom-controlled acting in porn files, and the multi-billion dollar industry located the Southern California now wants to head to the desert were there would be less restrictions. Not so fast. Some legal experts in the state are arguing that porn won’t be legal in Nevada because it’s actually prostitution, which in Las Vegas means condoms are required.

All this is a bit bemusing: a state and city in which sin is the main industry, now trying to regulate the particulars of sin for public health reasons. The irony of it all – a city that doesn’t kiss and tell having a public debate about, well, morality; not that having indiscriminate sex on screen is bad, but that not protecting one’s partner from disease is a moral lapse. It’s almost Orwellian the way that language and laws are being debated. I suggest a better billboard that would avoid the eventual wrath of God: FLEE FORNICATION. Paul’s words of 1 Corinthians 6:18 would accomplish two goals: 1) keep an unsavory industry out of town, and 2) help to avoid the very health risks that concern the citizens of Nevada. 

 

Some things sound silly. So ridiculous there ought to be no debate about the merits. But in our present upside-down world, unfortunately, logic often gets turned on its head. Witness the case of Bernard Pritchard, serving time in a New Mexico state prison. Pritchard was sentenced for aggravated stalking charges. As a danger to the public, found guilty in a court of law, he has nevertheless filed a lawsuit in state court demanding that he allowed to follow his religion behind bars. Not only that, he alleges $140,000 in damages because of unspecified limits upon his rights to worship. His religion? Satanism. He worships the devil and demands that taxpayers facilitate his right to do so and cough up a large sum of money because he was supposedly denied his “rights.”

Here’s the logic. It’s the devil who drove him to dangerous criminal activity, and now Prichard wants the public to pay for his desire to worship the devil whose influence put him behind bars in the first place. Before you laugh, I make a prediction. In today’s climate of liberalism and moral relativism, he’ll get at least some of that $140K and special arrangements will be made allowing him to do exactly as he wishes. And if he wants to sacrifice an animal or be provided a chalice to drink someone’s blood, he’ll likely get that too. Americans must soon decide whether as a nation we’ll continue to accommodate whatever moral and spiritual craziness comes our way, all in the name of equanimity and fairness. I wonder what the individual he stalked and terrorized thinks of all of this. If Pritchard doesn’t like the prisons of America and feels discriminated against, he should be offered the alternative to live in the so-called caliphate of ISIL. A one-way ticket to Syria would be cheaper than $140,000.

 

Big Brother may not be watching, but his Little Brother is, a.k.a. THE INTERNET. Obviously, not all of the Internet is bad, but the potential for great harm is there. A recent article in the international journal The Economist detailed some aspects of the “brave, new world” of internet commerce that are chilling. The data breach at Target aside, the loss of personal freedoms, and the ability to track anyone, anywhere, anytime is way out of hand. According the article:

• Americans spend more than 12 hours a day consuming media and web media is half of that.
• 1.7 billion people have smartphones and the number is rapidly rising.
• More and more people are volunteering more and more information about themselves without realizing the consequences.
• Advertisers (and God knows who else) are able to identify over 100 data points (confidential pieces of information) about any selected individual via mobile phones, including where you are, what you buy, when you buy, and why you buy it.
• By your giving any site access to personal information, you have no idea what so-called “third parties” will also know a lot about you. For example, a well-known shampoo company teamed with the Weather Channel to target specific hair products based on weather reports according to zip codes. What if the object was attacking a certain belief system, not damp hair or dandruff?

Remember when prophecy buffs were up in arms at the possibility of grocery store scanners? That seems archaic now. And lest we get all worried about the abilities of unscrupulous individuals or companies knowing more about us than we wish, imagine where all this is going? Can the Thought Police be far behind? Can the Anti-Christ be chuckling in the wings, ready to take center stage? Don’t panic, but do get free! Get delivered. As the trends above continue, you need to be battle-ready to fight Satan before his little brother demons do a number on you. 

Let’s start by being clear.  There are some things schizophrenia is not. It isn’t a “split personality,” Jekyll-Hyde style. That’s a misconception. So-called split personalities are actually more like Dissociative Identity Disorder, multiple personalities in common parlance. Schizophrenics suffer from delusions and are often incapable of knowing what is real and what is not real. Their false beliefs may include voices in the mind or beliefs which have no relationship to reality. (Classic case: the schizophrenic who thinks he’s Napoleon or Jesus Christ.) Speech may be disordered or even unintelligible in serious cases. Severe depression and suicidal thoughts may occur.

But here’s something really interesting. The hallucinations or psychotic perceptions change with the times. Eighty years ago a schizophrenic may have thought that voices were speaking from a 78 r.p.m. disc on the phonograph or from a dial-up phone handset. Today, such delusions may target messages from hidden video cameras they think are taping them for some reality show. One thing hasn’t changed: the idea of some schizophrenics that demons are speaking in their heads. That doesn’t seem to be a time-specific phenomenon. The reason? Of course, these demons might not be real spiritual entities, only products of a dysphoric mind; but on occasion these demons are real. The tough part is knowing which came first: (a) the demons which became the voices, or (b) the voices which became a place for demons to hide.

Deliverance ministers shouldn’t jump to conclusions. That why in our International School of Exorcism� (TO ENROLL CLICK HERE) we teach how to identify various psychological disorders as being different from demonization. Our DVD series “Advanced Deliverance” (to order CLICK HERE.) also teaches how to minister to the mentally challenged. In my experience, schizophrenics may suffer mentally without direct demonic involvement; but because this disorder is based on unreality, schizophrenics are a prime target for deceiving evil spirits who hide behind the delusions they created.

Google “exorcism photos” and the above is mostly what you’ll get; bizarre and stereotypical images of casting out demons. Ask most Christians what they think about deliverance and you’ll get equally strange answers. When the topic of demons comes up, the devil has done a good idea of getting people to engage in what’s known in philosophy as “hasty generalization.” It’s the fallacy of faulty conclusions reached by inductive generalization, ideas based on insufficient evidence and quick judgments. Hasty generalization can result from basing opinions on inaccurate samplings and a small amount of information. The result is conclusions that are sloppily reached, ill-informed, and often based on prejudice.

Deliverance and exorcism suffer from this philosophical fallacy. Real deliverance is seldom what you see above and almost never what is depicted in movies. At its best, it is thoughtful, introspective, compassionate, caring, empathetic, and pain-staking. It takes time, much prayer, careful listening, and often prolonged battles. It involves physical and emotional healing before the demons are confronted. It results in changed lives that turn from destructive to productive. Marriages are restored. Addictions are broken. Relationships are healed. Deep emotional pain is expunged. The next time you hear a pastor or layperson dis deliverance, call them out on their “hasty generalizations” and fight back with truth against the exor-phobic (I just invented a new word.) blindness of ill-informed critics.

“That’s me in the corner. That’s me in the spotlight. Losing my religion.” So sang Michael Stipe in a song dissected from every angle by rock journalists for whatever hidden meaning was intended. Whatever, be certain of one thing: don’t lose your religion. That’s the conclusion of a recent report according to the Association of Religion Data Archives. In a published report some interesting facts were revealed regarding parents with spiritual faith. According to research presented to the Association for the Sociology of Religion by Baylor sociologist Jeremy Uecker and Samuel Stroope of Louisiana State University:

• Daily prayer reduces stress for married mothers.
• Single mothers who attended religious services weekly were more likely than those who rarely or never attend services to strongly agree they are happy in their role as a parent.
• Fathers who said religion is important were more likely to strongly agree they are happy in their role as a parent
• Religion can be a positive influence on parenting, providing a resource for a less stressful and more joyful parenthood.

This isn’t exactly rocket science, but it is backed up by hard research. The message? If you want to be a happy parent, get religion, and don’t lose it!

You’ll give away your age if you can remember the TV commercial of eggs frying and a voiceover dead-panning, “This is your brain on drugs.” Well, the above is your brain on microchip. We’re all accustomed to the amazing advances in chip technology. I use a lot of external hard drives with my computer, and I remember how excited I was to get a drive, almost as big, in size, as my laptop, that could hold 256G. Then I saw one for 500G. Then 750. Then 1T (terabyte). Now even OfficeMax carries off-the-shelf 2 and 3T drives. Next? I’m holding my breath. But compared to the human mind, just how big is this? The latest estimate is that the brain’s storage capacity may be close to 2.5 petabytes (1 petabyte equals 1,000 terabytes). Keep in mind that a 1T (terabyte) drive is HUGE and will likely take all the videos and photos you’ll compile in a lifetime. In perspective 2.5 petabytes is 2,500 times the size of a hard drive’s storage that will hold all you’d ever want to put on it, unless you decide to catalogue every movie ever made in Hollywood. Put another way, based on the 2.5 petabytes model, your brain could store 3 million hours of TV shows. (Video requires the largest storage capacity of anything digitally saved.)

Now we now what your brain can hold, think about what the devil can put in your brain? What are you feeding your brain/mind? Can you now glimpse why it is so easy for demons to enter and hide inside the soul of an individual? No wonder we are told to in 2 Corinthians 10:5 to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Do you really think you are so spiritual that all 2.5 petabytes are filled with the Holy Spirit? If not, could the devil or demons be occupying some of the space that hasn’t been surrendered to the Lord? Better sign up, as soon as possible, for a Skype or Personal Encounter so we can find out. Call now, 303-980-1511.

It’s a helpless baby that everyone is trying to save. It was found last week, lying outside a building in Fontana, California. The mother’s health is critical to the survival of this infant so everything is being done to nurture her. Health officials are trying to keep this baby alive until it can start eating solid food. No cost or effort is too little for this precious, diminutive life. It can barely survive outside the mother so extraordinary measure are being taken. It’s so small it can fit inside the palm of a human hand, but it’s not human. It’s a baby opossum. The mother was found almost dead, beaten with a rock by some cruel person. Police are looking for the perpetrator of this crime of cruelty. Admittedly this small animal is cute and stirs our sympathies for its suffering. But there is a question worth asking. Why would a culture that makes such a fuss over an animal show so little regard for the lives of innocent human babies who are mercilessly aborted every day? The numbers are staggering: fifty million a year worldwide, 1.3 million a year in the U. S, nearly 3,700 a day! I ask you. Which photo concerns you most? The answer says a lot about your politics, your morality, and your religion.

He doesn’t look like a killer. Family and friends say he was a good father. But the 700 mile journey of Timothy Jones Jr., from South Carolina to Mississippi, ended when he was picked up by the Sheriff’s department of Lexington County. He had driven almost the whole way with his five children in the back of his SUV, decomposing in garbage bags. He had stuffed them there after he killed them. The murdered children ranged in ages from 1 to 8. Jones was a computer tech at Mississippi State University, and had dumped the bodies in Alabama along the way. He showed authorities the location. He had been picked up at a police checkpoint in Mississippi, disoriented and violent. Jones’ father faced the press and said, “. . . anyone who knows little Tim will agree that he is not the animal that he will be portrayed through the media,” and that his son was “a very loving father, brother and son . . .” Really? “Little Tim?” Who is kidding who, and who is in denial? “Little Tim” is being held on drug charges as well. Jones shared custody with his ex-wife.

There are many unanswered questions. Why so many children so young? If that many kids were presumably wanted, why were they killed? What precipitated the divorce? Why was he living 700 miles from his family? Were any of the kids illegitimate? Was he married to the mother? If he was such a great guy, how could so much go so wrong? My experience as a deliverance minister tells me some things are glaringly obvious. Only very powerful generational curses could lead to such a tragedy. Something was not right with the way this man was raised. Good sons from good families don’t turn out to be cold-blooded killers of their own kids. Drugs and demons played an obvious role. Jones was likely mentally ill, dissociative, and demonized.

How many more tragedies like this have to happen before Christians get their heads out of the sand and admit that we live in an age of heightened demonic activity that must be aggressively confronted with the power of Christ!