Podcasts about deistic

You've heard of secondhand smoke...but have you heard of Secondhand Suffering?  Today you will learn what that term means from someone who has lived it herself.  My guest is Camille Block...and she will fill you in.  Are you suffering?  If so, it might be of the Secondhand variety.Reach Out to Me:Website: www.dontignorethenudge.comPatreon: www.patreon.com/dontignorethenudgeIG: @dontignorethenudgepodcastPrivate FB group to WATCH interviews: www.dontignorethenudge.com/facebook__________________________________________________________________________________________Business/Personal Coaching with Cori:www.corifreeman.com(951) 923-2674Camille Block links:Email: camilleblockauthor@gmail.comIG: @camilleblock.authorFB: @camilleblock.authorWebsite: www.camilleblock.ccLink to order book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Tt6xEW

As we locate ourselves in the entirety of Romans 8, it seems clear that God calls Christians to be where the world is in pain so that in them, God, by his Spirit, may be where the world is in pain. Let's look at a few ways to translate Romans 8:28: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ESV In everything, God works for good with those who love him. RSV We know, in fact, that God works all things together for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. NT Wright Drawing from NT Wright: The verse doesn't say that ‘all things work together for good to those who love God', which seems to give God's people a kind of inside privilege of knowing that things will turn out how they want them to. I think a better translation is the NT Wright's and the RSV, which assigns God as the subject of the main verb: it is God who is ‘working,' rather than the ‘all things.' This avoids a sort of Deistic determinism and places God as the subject and at the center of working out his eternal purposes, not centered on merely the here and now but on the overall outworking of God's purpose. Paul is saying that ‘those who love God' are those in whose hearts the wordless groans of the spirit and Abba Father is going on—those who love God are God's co-workers, or co-laborers, related to the metaphor of labor pains. God is working all things together WITH US for His ultimate ends.

David Icke Genealogy:    icke.pdf (mileswmathis.com)   Templarsign A Seal of the Knights Templar, with their famous image of two knights on a single horse, a symbol of their early poverty. The text is in Greek and Latin characters, Sigillum Militum Χρisti: followed by a cross, which means “the Seal of the Soldiers of Christ”.   pilgrim database | Mayflower Heritage […] The post 3/4 -WHO Were The Mayflower Passengers? George Washington Practiced DEISM. What Is “Deistic Satanism”? First Trans-Atlantic Voyage =TRANS = Transgender. *OMG* Norfolk UK Church FOUNDING Place of Pilgrims. appeared first on Psychopath In Your Life.

Washington’s “practice of Christianity was limited and superficial, because he was not himself a Christian. In the enlightened tradition of his day, he was a devout Deist—just as many of the clergymen who knew him suspected.”   The post 1/3 WHO were the Mayflower Passengers?  George Washington Practiced DEISM. What is “Deistic Satanism”? First Transatlantic voyage, =TRANS = Transgender.  Pilgrims RUN it all today. appeared first on Psychopath In Your Life.

The Poopygate 2024 Iceberg | Ep #003 (youtube.com)    What Does The Talmud Say About Jesus And Mary? | World Events and the Bible    Necromancy – Wikipedia    Talmud Says Jesus Is Boiling In Excrement Gittin 57a:3-4 “Onkelos then went and raised Jesus the Nazarene from the grave through necromancy… What is the punishment of that man, […] The post 2/3 WHO were the Mayflower Passengers?  George Washington Practiced DEISM. What is “Deistic Satanism”? First Trans-Atlantic voyage =TRANS = Transgender.  WTF is with Jesus and Feces? appeared first on Psychopath In Your Life.

If you can please consider supporting the channel Paypal: www.paypal.me/TomJump Patreon: www.pateron.com/TJump Church of the BPW: churchofthebestpossibleworld.org Start your own church today!

If you can, please consider donating to my paypal/patreon to keep these debates and conversations going To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/TJump To donate to my PayPal (thank you): https://www.paypal.me/TomJump CashApp: $TjumpsChair Youtube Membership Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHXrvsK33VUEcpa4Ar0c0Sg/join Sponsor: Don Fullman, Skeptics of Middle Georgia https://www.facebook.com/groups/591799015097830/?ref=share TJump merch: https://linktr.ee/TJump.Merch (Mugs) https://www.etsy.com/shop/CustomLaserShop?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=626272860§ion_id=34163225 (Shirts) https://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n:7141123011,p_4:TJump+Merch&ref=bl_sl_s_ap_web_7141123011 TJump NFT's: https://opensea.io/collection/tjump -----------------------------------------CONNECT------------------------------------------ SOCIAL LINKS: Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/tjump Discord: https://discord.io/tjump Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TJump_ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tom.jump.982 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tjump_/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tjumpschair Tictok: @tjumpschair TJump Gaming: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE6PnoL9QDYnkiUvykmlLQQ ----------------------------------------CONTACT------------------------------------------- Business email: tejump@comcast.net ---------------------------------------- Further Goals ------------------------------------- Publish my book on epistemology and morality Publish academic papers on solving problems in these fields Become President of the United States Solve world's biggest problems World domination #Atheism #Secularism #Humanism

How does the wrong view of God shape an entire culture?

This week, new music from Deistic, Groove Armada and Todd Terry. The track of the week is Playa by Andrea Oliva Enjoy & Happy New Year. Delistic - Don't Push [Snatch! Records] Brad Shu - Dance (Extended Mix) [Innocent Music] Dwson - Summer Dayz [IMPLSV] Carlo Riviera - Organico [Dusty Editions] Finger Trips - Love Inside [Rewind Ltd] Diamond Fingers - Never Hurt Me (Original Mix) [BH Records] Ale C - Dark Night (Dub Mix) [Cyanide] DJ S.K.T, Iris Gold - 4AM In London feat. Iris Gold (Harry Romero Extended Remix) [Armada Music Albums] Dompe - Loopy Loop (Soul Speech Edit) [Snatch! Records] Horo (Ita) - Say That (Extended Mix) [Innocent Music] Morelly, MERANNA - Nada Es Eterno (Original Mix) [Heartbeat Records] Low Steppa - Make It Through (Extended Mix) [Armada Music Albums] Demarkus Lewis - Funk City (Ricky kk Remix) [HOUPH] Agus O - Janets Groove [Habitat] Todd Terry, Royal House & Furious George - Yeah Buddy (Furious George Edit) [Freeze Records] Groove Armada - Brace (Original Mix) [ORIGINS RCRDS] Andrea Oliva - Playa (Extended Mix) [Armada Music Albums] Jose Díaz - Hot Colors [Vidogue Records] Vkira - Pratigí (Joal Remix) [Plano B Records] Juliet Sikora, Tini Gessler - Mandala Acid (Extended Mix) [Kittball] D.O.D - Isolate (Extended Mix) [Armada Music Albums] Kemp & Thompson - Hell Kitchen R4 (4Peace The Devil Jacks Remix) [Juiced Music] Fatima Njai & Jerome Sydenham - Preacher (feat. Roland Clark) [Kraftmatic Records] Flaunt - Its Such A Joke (Christian Prommer Remix) [Anticodon] Dance System - Strings 4 Love [Snatch! Records] Kill Your Heroes & Dave Giles II - Locked in (Darius Syrossian Remix) [Snatch! Records] CHRONIC808 - Akai (Extended Mix) [Innocent Music] Connors - Phantasy [Snatch! Records] Curlyone - Second Sun [Natural Rhythm] Support the Artist @Beatport & @Tracksource

Summary: In this episode, we explore the conventional secular and the traditional spiritual ways of understanding scrupulosity, bringing in the experts to define scrupulosity, tells us the signs of being scrupulous, speculate on the causes of the trouble, discuss that standard remedies in the secular and spiritual realms.  Then I share with you my views on it, looking at scrupulosity through an Internal Family Systems lens, grounded in a Catholic worldview.   We discuss how parts have different God images and the role of shame and anger in the experience of scrupulosity.    Description of Scrupulosity Suddenly my stomach tightens up, there's a choking in my throat, and my torture begins. The bad thoughts come. . . . I want to drive them out, but they keep coming back. . . . It is terrible to be in a struggle like this! To have a head that goes around and around without my being able to stop it; to be a madman and still quite rational, for all that. . . . I am double. . . . at the very time that I am trying to plan what I want to do, another unwanted thought is in my mind. . . . Distracting me and always hindering me from doing what I want to do.  --  Quoted in Albert Barbaste, “Scrupulosity and the Present Data of Psychiatry,” TheologyDigest, 1.3 (Autumn 1953) 182. Fr. William Doyle: Around 1900  “My confessions were bad. My confessor does not understand me, he is mistaken in me, not believing that I could be so wicked. I have never had contrition. I am constantly committing sins against faith, against purity. I blaspheme interiorly. I rashly judge, even priests. The oftener I receive Holy Communion, the worse I become,”  Around 1900 My story just turned 19 -- terrible bout of scrupulosity.   Around sexuality Just started dating the first woman I might consider marrying Physical touching -- romantic contact How far was too far? Thoughts of sex with her -- plagued me.   Do I break up with her?  How do I handle this?  What was sinful, what was not?  Was I on the road to hell?  Was I putting her on the road to hell?  I thought I was going crazy.   Review: I encourage you to review the last episode, number 86 -- Obsessions, Compulsions, OCD and IFS That episode went deep into obsessions and compulsions and  serves as a basis for today's episode.   Today's episode, number 87 is entitled Scrupulosity:  When OCD Gets Religion and it's released on December 6, 2021, St. Nick's Day.  I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist and passionate Catholic and together, we are taking on the tough topics that matter to you.   We bring the best of psychology and human formation and harmonize it with the perennial truths of the Catholic Faith.    Interior Integration for Catholics is part of our broader outreach, Souls and Hearts bringing the best of psychology grounded in a Catholic worldview to you and the rest of the world through our website soulsandhearts.com Overview Start out with definitions of scrupulosity both from spiritual and secular sources, really want to wrap our minds around what scrupulosity is and the different types of scrupulosity. We will discuss the connection between scrupulosity and OCD -- discussion of OCD  We will then move to the signs of scrupulosity -- how can you tell when there is scrupulosity?  Then we will get into the internal experience of scrupulosity.  What is it like to experience intense scruples?  Had a taste in the intro, but we will get much more into that.   We will discuss what religious and secular experts have to say about the causes of scrupulosity  Then what religious and secular experts have to say about the treatment of scrupulosity -- that most recommended therapy approach and the medications typically prescribed.   After we've discussed the conventional secular and spiritual approaches to treating scrupulosity, I will how I think about scrupulosity, the root causes of scrupulosity, and how scrupulosity develops and how it can be treated.  I will give you an alternative view, grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person and informed by Internal Family Systems thinking.   Definitions:  You know how important definitions are to me.  We really want to make sure we understand what we are talking about.   Scruple comes from the Latin word  scrupulum,  "small, sharp stone" -- like walking with a stone in your shoe. Ancient Roman weight of 1/24 of an ounce or 1.3 grams.     Something tiny, but that can cause a lot of discomfort.   Definitions from Spiritual Sources Fr. William Doyle, SJ.  Scruples and their Treatment  1897: Scrupulosity, in general, is an ill-founded fear of committing sin.  Fr. Hugh O'Donnell:   Scrupulosity may be defined as a habitual state of mind that, because of an unreasonable fear of sin, inclines a person to judge certain thoughts or actions sinful when they aren't or that they are more gravely wrong than they really are… Scrupulosity involves an emotional condition that interferes with the proper working of the mind and produces a judgement not in accordance with object truth, but with the emotion of fear.  Fr. James Jackson, article "On Scrupulosity"  A very good definition Scrupulosity is an emotional condition, an ultra-sensitivity to sin, which produces excessive anxiety and fear from the thought of eternal damnation…This condition is a religious, moral and psychological state of anxiety, fear and indecision. It is coupled with extreme guilt, depression and fear of punishment from God. However, each person who suffers from it does so uniquely. Fr. Marc Foley:  The Context of Holiness: Psychological and Spiritual Reflections on the Life of St. Therese of Lisieux Excellent, very psychologically informed study of the Little Flower  Not only the best psychological profile of St. Therese of Lisieux, but the best psychobiography of any saint from any author I've read.  A very in-depth look at her mother, St. Zelie as well and the limitations and lack of attunement in the Martin family  Highly recommended reading -- all of chapter 12 is on The Little Flower's scrupulosity.   Scrupulosity is an extremely painful anxiety disorder. It consists of annoying fear that one is offended God or could offend God at any moment and that God will cast her into hell. To protect yourself from eternal damnation, the scrupulous person dissects every thought, motive, and action in order to ascertain if she has send. And since she is deathly afraid that she might have sent, the scrupulous person seeks absolute certitude that she hasn't send in order to assuage her fears.   Definitions from Secular Sources Timothy Sisemore, Catherine Barton, Mary Keeley From Richmont Graduate University   Scrupulosity is a "sin phobia."  Jaimie Eckert, Scrupulosity Coach:  Scrupulosity is where faith and OCD collide.   International OCD Foundation Fact Sheet:  What is Scrupulosity?  By C. Alec Pollard:  A form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) involving religious or moral obsessions. Scrupulous individuals are overly concerned that something they thought or did might be a sin or other violation of religious or moral doctrine.   Bridging the Secular and the Spiritual Joseph W. Ciarrocchi's The Doubting Disease: Help for Scrupulosity and Religious Compulsions -- published in 1995, and still the most cited text in Catholic circles, even more than a quarter century later.   Dr. Ciarrocchi, a former Catholic priest, trained as a clinical psychologist and served as professor and chairman of pastoral counseling at Loyola University in Maryland prior to his death in 2010. Scrupulosity refers to seeing sin where there is none.   He viewed scrupulosity as a sub-set of obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD), basically a kind of “religious OCD.”  He distinguishes  developmental scrupulosity  self-limited form of scrupulosity  often occurring in adolescents  or shortly after a conversion experience (e.g. St. Ignatius of Loyola)  Temporary, usually disappears.   emotional scrupulosity -- symptoms of OCD More enduring conditions  Can vary in intensity over time, from being overwhelming to just mildly irritating  Can last for years.    Core experience of scrupulosity:  "an intrusive idea, often associated with a sinful impulse, which the person abhors but cannot shake."  "The French label the emotional condition which is sometimes part of scrupulosity "the doubting disease."  Signs of Scrupulosity What do we see.  A lot we don't see.  Fr. Thomas Santa, past director of Scrupulous Anonymous and Author of the book Understanding Scrupulosity When people struggle with the scrupulous disorder, most of the suffering, fear, and anxiety they experience happens in isolation. Scrupulosity is mostly an interior struggle, seldom manifesting itself with easily identifiable or observable mannerisms or behaviors. You can't tell if people are scrupulous by looking at them. While some compulsions of obsessive-compulsive disorder are identifiable, most of the suffering associated with the disorder is personal. Only the sufferer fully knows its debilitating nature.   Sources IOCDF Fact Sheet  Jaimie Eckert Scrupulosity Coach  The Gateway institute website  Doubting Disease 1995 by Joseph Ciarrocchi   Obsessions -- excessive concerns about Fears of Blaspheming, accusing God of being negligent or abusive or evil, cursing God  Fears of Sacrilege, abusing our Lord in the Eucharist for example  Fears about impulses -- taking one's clothes off in Church, screaming obscenities during Mass Example of the man concerned about touching his infant daughter's genitals  Sexual thoughts about a romantic partner  Sexual thoughts or images about a religious figure -- Jesus, Mary, a saint, or possibly a priest or religious.   Fears around harming others  I might cause the death of someone if I sneeze or cough during Mass --  I coughed.  Maybe I'm sick.  Maybe I have COVID.  Maybe I'm a spreader.  A pharmacist worries she will fill prescriptions incorrectly and poison customers at her pharmacy.   Fears around aggression -- Driver goes over a bump in the Church parking lot in the dark after the parish council meeting.  Is concerned he may have run over the pastor.   Cooperating in the sins of others "Man participates in a discussion about a historical figure dead for more than 1000 years, who is alleged to have been a homosexual.  He worries that he has committed the sin of detraction." -- Example from Joseph Ciarrocchi.   Being a sinful person, dishonest, lacking integrity -- honesty  Ruminating about past mistakes, errors, past sins  Purity -- looking for moral perfection  Not Loving Others enough -- Mother worrying she doesn't love her children enough.  Going to hell  Death  A loss of impulse control   Cyclical Doubts Often about salvation, selling your soul to the devil, in mortal sin   Intrusive thoughts and images 666, Satan, Hell, pornographic images, etc.   Compulsions  Behavioral Compulsions Excessive trips to confession  Repeatedly seeking reassurance from religious leaders and loved ones  Repeated cleansing and purifying rituals  Acts of self-sacrifice  Repetitive religious behaviors  Avoiding situations (for example, religious services) in which they believe a religious or moral error would be especially likely or cause something bad to happen  Avoiding certain objects or locations because of fears they may be sinful   Mental Compulsions Excessive praying (sometimes with an emphasis on the prayer needing to be  perfect)  I compulsions about praying.  Tithing prayer.  1.6 hours vs. 2.4 hours.   Needing to pray perfectly or at least adequately enough.   Repeatedly imagining sacred images or phrases Repeating passages from sacred scriptures in one's head Making pacts with God to avoid hell or buy time or just to get a little relief in the present moment.   Intense sense of guilt-- feeling guilty all the time -- about things that don't carry moral weight.    Inflated sense of responsibility Not distinguishing between thoughts and actions.   Example: Joseph Ciarrocchi The Smith family traditionally joins hands around the dinner table to give thanks in prayer before the meal. Susie, age 4, and Billy, age 6 sometimes are fidgety (and always hungry). Mrs. Smith worries that Susie, Billy, and perhaps herself haven't not “truly prayed” due to the multiple distractions: Susie is scratching her mosquito bite, Billy is leering at the chocolate pudding, and Mrs. Smith remembers she has a school board meeting after dinner. She doubts that their prayers were “heard,” and so request of the family repeat their prayers. Sometimes she makes the whole family repeat them, and sometimes only the children. Once the children needed to repeat them four times, even the Mr. Smith tried to intervene after the second time. Mrs. Smith sought advice from her pastor who urged her not to repeat the prayers, either for herself or the children. When she attempts to follow this advice, however, her entire meal is ruined as she attempts to sort out in her head whether this is acceptable to God. She will continue to worry about it throughout the rest of the evening, including her school board meeting.   Distinguishing Scrupulosity of normal religious practice IOCDF Fact Sheet:  Unlike normal religious practice, scrupulous behavior usually exceeds or disregards religious law and may focus excessively on one trivial area of religious practice while other, more important areas may be completely ignored. The behavior of scrupulous individuals is typically inconsistent with that of the rest of the faith community.     Internal Experience of Scrupulosity  Plutarch: a first century priest for the Greek god Apollo at the Temple at Delphi. He wrote about the so-called “superstitious” man, who… And so is the soul of the superstitious man. He turns pale under his crown of flowers, is terrified while he sacrifices, prays with a faltering voice, scatters incense with trembling hands, and all in all proves how mistaken was the saying of Pythagoras that we are at our best when approaching the gods. For that is the time when the superstitious are most miserable and most woebegone....   OCD Center of Los Angeles:  One of the first documented references to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) was in a 1691 sermon by Anglican Bishop John Moore of Norwich in which he discussed men and women who were overwhelmed with unwanted thoughts, and tormented by feelings of guilt and shame over what he described as “religious melancholy.” Priests had started to notice that some churchgoers were attending confession several times a day, and repeatedly confessing to the same sins and shortcomings that they feared would result in divine judgment and eternal damnation. Their penance and absolution would provide only a fleeting glimpse of peace, and then their fears would come roaring back. William Van Ornum, A Thousand frightening fantasies: understanding and human scrupulosity in obsessive-compulsive disorder 1997 24-year-old computer programmer writes, “what worries me is that at any moment and in only a few seconds I can commit serious sin. The only remedy is confession. I worry about what I've done until I confess it; then it's all over. The problem is that I fall or worry again and need to go back.” Fr. Thomas Santa:   Being possessed by a thousand frightening fantasies Constructing a spider web in the mind. People with the disorder often feel as if they are isolated in darkness. They describe this feeling as a “cloud” that perpetually engulfs them. They feel the disorder constantly and uncomfortably, even in the background of day-to-day living.  Scrupulosity demands constant attention and can feel like a severe and unrelenting master. At best, most people who suffer with the disorder have learned to live with it. They hope it does not get more pronounced or spill into other areas of life. Relief does not exist, so any promises of relief through activities like rituals are essentially dead ends. For those who are religious, consistent spiritual practices can help and at the same time be debilitating. From Joseph Ciarrocchi's Book "Doubting Disease Bob is 28-year-old married Jewish man who works for an accounting firm. He is thrilled with the birth of his first child, a bubbly infant girl. Bob is about to be totally involved with her as a parent and share in all aspects of childcare. He was shocked by the following experience: Bob was changing his daughter's diaper when the thought, idea, or image (he wasn't quite sure which close parentheses flashed through his mind – “Touch her private parts.” The first time it happened he shuddered, tried to dismiss the idea, and hurriedly completed diapering her. All they tried not to think about it. The next time he changed her diaper, however, the idea came back, but this time in the form of a graphic picture of Bob engaging in the dreaded behavior. This time he felt nausea, became dizzy, and called his wife to finish, saying he thought he was ill and would pass out. The idea began to torment Bob. He found himself not wanting to be alone with his daughter, Les T “give in” to the simples. He refused to bathe her or change her diaper. Sensing something was drastically wrong his wife urged him to seek help. He talked to his rabbi who tried to assure him that he was not a child molester and should dismiss the thoughts.  Psychodynamic perspective  Sources Nancy McWilliams Psychoanalytic Diagnosis --  Psychdynamic Diagnostic manual   Thinking and Doing predominate over Feeling, sensing, intuiting, listening, playing, daydreaming, enjoying the creative arts and other modes that are less rationally driven or instrumental  Hold themselves to very high standards, sometimes impossibly high.   Central conflict: Rage and being controlled vs. fear of being condemned or punished.   Cooperation and rebellion Initiative and sloth Cleanliness and slovenliness Order and disorder Thrift and improvidence  Polarizations inside.   Emotion is unformulated, muted suppressed, unavailable, or rationalized and moralized.  Except anxiety and sometimes depressed mood Consign most feelings to an undervalued role, associated with childishness, weakness, loss of control, disorganization and dirt Cognition Condemning oneself for internal thought crimes -- consciously or unconsciously   Body states Hyperarousal -- expressing anxiety through the body  Often health problems due to excessive washing   Difficulties with  Play Humor  Spontaneity Pain about isolation.   Shame about being considered weird and unacceptable to others Capable of loving attachments, but often not able to express their tender selves without anxiety and shame Relational patterns -- seek relationships in which they can control the partner, sometimes partners who can reassure them  Being intimate in relationships Emotional connection  Sexuality   Causes of Scrupulosity  Spiritual Sources  Fr. James Jackson The Fathers of the Church considered scrupulosity – or psychasthenia, as the Greek Fathers called it – to be a spiritual problem which leads to a psychological malfunction.   Timothy A. Sisemore. Catherine Barton, Mary Keeley -- The History and Contextual Treatment of Scrupulous OCD  15th and 16th Century -- connected scruples to moral reasoning, addressed under conscience -- concept of erroneous conscience.  -- frees the person to act without resolving the doubt.   Secular Sources IOCDF Fact sheet:  The exact cause of scrupulosity is not known. Like other forms of OCD, scrupulosity may be the result of several factors including genetic and environmental influences.   OCDUK.com  Lots of controversy. Biological factors  Strep infections affecting the Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders associated with Streptococcal Infection  -- PANDAS   Genetic factors Runs in families -- 2001 metaanalytic review reported that person with OCD is 4 times more likely to have another family member with OCD than a person who does not have the disorder   Cognitive theory  Everyone experiences intrusive thoughts at times People with OCD have an inflated sense of responsibility and interpret these thoughts as very significant and important Caught up in a pattern of Try to resist, block or neutralize them  What is the meaning of the thought to the person?   Joseph Ciarrocchi citing David Barlow -- OCD causes Those temperamentally disposed to having high levels of nervous energy, more pronounced bodily reactions to stress, greater levels of anxiety   OCD is different from other anxiety disorders because those with OCD believe that certain kinds of thoughts are dangerous in themselves If I think certain thoughts those events will happen.  If I think certain thoughts or spontaneously imagine certain things, or if I have an impulse to do such a  thing, then I am the kind of person who would do such things.   No moral distance between the spontaneous thought or image or impulse and actually doing the act.   I must be bad.  Unclean.  Unworthy.   Model for the development of Scrupulosity Strong belief that certain thoughts are dangerous and unacceptable  Leads to the occurrence of these same intrusive thoughts  This generates significant anxiety  Leading to strong efforts to suppress the thoughts  Which accelerates the frequency of the same kinds of thought   Leading to a need to "turn off" the anxiety by any means Mental rituals  Physical rituals  These rituals are the compulsions   And then there is a temporary respite, a bit of relief.  The compulsive rituals are reinforced because they temporarily decrease anxiety.  But then we loopback to the occurrence of the intrusive thoughts again.     Psychodynamic understanding Nancy McWilliams -- Psychoanalytic Diagnosis Obsessive and Compulsive Personality styles:   Marc Foley's Approach in The Context of Holiness about St. Therese of Lisieux's scrupulosity Parental figures who set high standards of behavior and expect early conformity to them E.g. making little kids sit still during Mass   Strict and consistent in rewarding good behavior and punishing malfeasance Risk of condemning not only behaviors but the feelings that go with them Especially anger   Issues of control in families of origin.   Alternative -- a really lax family in which children are underparented Child concludes he has to model himself after a parental figure that he invents himself  Child might have an aggressive, intense temperament -- projected on to that idealized parental figure.   Self esteem comes from meeting the demands of internalized parental figures who hold them to a high standard of behavior and sometimes thought.   Value self-control over nearly all other virtues.   Discipline Order Loyalty Integrity Reliability Perseverance Is a particular religion a cause?   No: Timothy Sisemore, Catherine Barton, Mary Keeley:  A tendency to blame religion, but no more than counting OCD to be blamed on math class  Joseph Ciarrocchi "Religion doesn't cause scrupulosity and more than teach someone French history causes him to believe he is Napoleon.  All human beings exist in some cultural context.   IOCDF Fact sheet:  Scrupulosity is an equal opportunity disorder. It can affect individuals from a variety of different faith traditions. Although more research is needed to truly answer this question, there is currently no evidence to link scrupulosity to a specific religion. OCD Center of Lost Angeles It is worth noting that Scrupulosity is not partial to any one religion, but rather custom fits its message of doubt to the specific beliefs and practices of the sufferer.  Yes:  Joseph Ciarrocchi …religion may contribute when its content is presented in an overly harsh, punitive manner.  Students of such presentations are likely to associate the context of the religious message with fear and anxiety.   Jonathan Edwards, 18th Century Pastor and Theologian in the Congregational Church The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.   Heresies from Fr. James Jackson: Manicheanism:  Manichaeism states, on principle, that all matter is evil. If, for example, a child grows up with an extreme attitude to modesty – where the flesh is seen as evil because it is the cause of forbidden impulses – then the slightest catering to the demands or needs of the flesh can result in a torment which rejects the goodness of the body.  Pelagianism:  There was once a British monk named Pelagius, who taught that a man can observe God's laws by human effort alone, that grace was not needed to do so. If the heresy of Pelagianism works its way into the soul it is an easy step to thinking that any lack of perfection is entirely one's own fault. One thinks, “this business of salvation is my work, so I'd better be perfect when I …” Thus salvation becomes something one must achieve by personal effort instead of by cooperation with grace.   Jansenism:  Jansenism is another heresy in which scrupulosity can grow well. It emphasizes that Christ did not die for all, stresses man's sinfulness, and requires extreme penances on a regular basis. It leads to infrequent communions and flowers into scrupulosity as a matter of course. Jansenism flourished within Roman Catholicism primarily in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but was condemned as heresy by Pope Innocent X in 1653. Jansenism was also condemned in 1713 by Pope Clement XI in his famous Bull Unigenitus.  Jansenism focuses on how it was impossible for men and women to obey the Lord's commandments and to be redeemed without God's special, divine, irresistible grace. Jansenism taught that Christ died only for the elect -- a real sense of predestination  Fr. Marc Foley agrees:  Jansenism identified as the "remote cause: of St. Therese of Lisieux's troubles growing up.   Biographer Conrad de Meester: "Zelie's mother, who taught her daughters an excessive fear of offending God, used to harp on the phrase 'that's a sin' to curb the least imperfections."   Zelie had an excessive fear of sin and hell. Zelie was terrified that her five-year-old daughter Helene was in purgatory or perhaps even in hell, because she once told a lie.   Spiritual Means of Recovery Joseph Ciarrocchi “Scruples in the History of Pastoral Care” (chapter four of the Doubting Disease) puts scrupulosity in the context of church history before it was viewed through the modern lens of psychiatric diagnosis.  He describes several principles for the treatment of scruples from the pastoral care tradition. Act contrary to the scruples.   Follow the example of others without lengthy and burdensome moral reasoning.  Rely on the guidance of one spiritual advisor rather than consulting multiple spiritual authorities.  Put oneself in situations that trigger the obsessional thought.  Avoid religious rituals/prayers, which serve as compulsions.   Ciarrocchi writes that these main pastoral principles “contain  the seeds of modern behavioral treatments” that include modeling by  others,  exposure to the upsetting situation, and blocking the compulsive response. Fr. William Doyle 1873-1917 -- more than 100 years ago.   General Remedies from Fr. William Doyle Prayer -- pray in temptation  Vigilance  Struggle against depression -- sadness increases scrupulosity   Obedience to an experienced confessor -- perfect, trustful and blind obedience Obedience of action putting into practice the freedom of conscience  Obedience of understanding -- soul remaining in revolt and persisting in its own erroneous ideas. Vanquishing errors of the intellect.   Generosity in Self-Conquest -- acts of self-denial   Particular remedies from Fr. William Doyle 19th century Doubts must be ignored  Belief in the easiness of forgiveness  Presuming decisions (of the spiritual director)  Lenient view of one's faults -- magnifying glass  Promptness in acting on decisions  Broad-minded interpretation of advice -- broadening the way.   Not piling up questions   Ten Commandments for the Scrupulous -- Fr. Thomas Santa, CSsR (2013) Without exception, you shall not confess sins you have already confessed.  You shall confess only sins that are clear and certain.  You shall not repeat your penance or any of the words of your penance after confession—for any reason.  You shall not worry about breaking your pre-Communion fast unless you put food and drink in your mouth and swallow as a meal  You shall not worry about powerful and vivid thoughts, desires, and imaginings involving sex and religion unless you deliberately generate them for the purpose of offending God  You shall not worry about powerful and intense feelings, including sexual feelings or emotional outbursts, unless you deliberately generate them to offend God.  You shall obey your confessor when he tells you never to repeat a general confession of sins already confessed to him or another confessor.  When you doubt your obligation to do or not do something, you will see your doubt as proof that there is no obligation  When you are doubtful, you shall assume that the act of commission or omission you're in doubt about is not sinful, and you shall proceed without dread of sin   You shall put your total trust in Jesus Christ, knowing he loves you as only God can and that he will never allow you to lose your soul Pastoral approach here.  Predestination for heaven, Jesus will make us go to heaven.  A lot of scrupulous clients are well enough formed to not believe that.   Secular means of recovery IOCDF:  Scrupulosity responds to the same treatments as those used with other forms of OCD.  Cognitive behavior therapy featuring a procedure called “exposure and response prevention” is the primary psychological treatment for scrupulosity. A certain kind of medicines called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) is the primary drug treatment for OCD. Treatment for scrupulosity may also include consultation from  leaders of the patient's faith tradition.  Exposure and Response prevention See the last Episode   Difficulties with ERP for scrupulosity. Joseph Ciarrocchi "Doubting Disease":  My opinion, based on the clinical and theoretical aspects of scruples, is that scruples are resistant to change because their religious nature places many of them in the domain of overvalued ideas. In other words, the person sees the stakes are so high in religious doubts (i.e. salvation depends and being correct) that the senselessness of the behavior is less evidence. After all, faith itself implies looking beyond sensory experiences in the surface meaning of reality. Scrupulous people usually know that their peers do not act the way they do. But since religious salvation is such an individual experience, can one really take a chance and ignore that's “inner voice”? Therefore, the religious aspects of scruples create a motivational drive around the symptoms which become overvalued ideas, and hence resistant to change.  Jaimie Eckert Scrupulosity Coach:  ERP can feel like it has deep moral and spiritual implications. Although it is a method that is helping you develop a normal spirituality, it can feel terribly frightening. For example, the woman who prays compulsively, repeating her prayers dozens of times until she feels they are done “right,” might be asked to pray only once and then stop, no matter how she feels. This can easily feel like a denial of faith. So scrupulous sufferers begin dropping out of treatment when ERP gets more intense.  Kevin Foss, Founder of the California OCD and Anxiety Treatment Center in Fullerton, CA:   People suffering with Religious Scrupulosity struggle with the ERP process because they fear that exposure therapy will result in a genuine sin, convey that they are OK with sin and that they do not respect God or God's will. Furthermore, Scrupulosity sufferers are generally knowledgeable of their faith's doctrine and Biblical texts, so they are quick to present chapter and verse explaining why they should avoid exposure and give in to compulsive acts. Despite my reminders of clients' logical arguments, they respond with “But you never know” and “But what if God mistakes my intention in the exposure and I'm now really guilty of sin?” So, to do anything that could potentially put that into question or undermine it was experienced as possibly damaging the practice of faith, challenging one's fundamental belief in God, or leaving one vulnerable to shifting beliefs and a slippery slope into sin. Psychodynamic approaches for treating OCD but can be applied to scrupulosity.  McWilliams  Ordinary kindness -- they know they are exasperating for reasons that are unclear to everybody Priests get frustrated.   Parents get frustrated   Do not hurry them, advise them, criticize them.   Avoid becoming the equivalent of the controlling, demanding parent -- no power struggles  But still relate warmly.  A lot of acceptance.   Avoid intellectualization  Help them express anger.   Discover their emotions and help them enjoy them.   Joseph Ciarrocchi. Doubting Disease Treatment program is laid out in his book, Doubting disease.  It is essentially exposure and response prevention.   Target the scruples you want to change Identify your obsessional scruples through self-monitoring.  Write them down.   Identify you compulsive scruples -- write them down.  Avoidance acts to reduce anxiety  Record the circumstances surrounding the scruples  Making ratings of the intensity of the anxiety triggered by each of the obsessions and compulsions.   Record the amount of time spent worrying about the scruples  Lots of forms and charts, all in the book.   Increase your Motivation to Change Looking at how motivated you are, and where you are in Prochaska and Di Clemente's stages of motivation to change.   Developing a Personal Motivation Plan Listing the Benefits of eliminating scruples  Listing the Costs of not changing scruples   Preparing for Change Setting up the plan for repeated exposure to the feared object or condition.   From the very start of the fear response, the body actually starts a counter-response mean to return the body to normal activity levels. Habituation.  Nervous system gets bored with the danger, returns to normal.   Example of jackhammer breaking up the asphalt on your road.   Exposure must be prolonged Exposure must generate significant anxiety Exposure must be repeated The compulsive response must be blocked.  Prevented from happening so it breaks the cycle of some relief from the compulsion.  Blocking the physical compulsion or the mental compulsion.   More charts and forms What I think about scrupulosity.  IFS-Informed Approach  I'm going to start with the bottom line.  I think scrupulosity is generated by a desperate attempt to find safety from a terrible, dangerous and uncaring God for shameful, undeserving, despicable sinner Scrupulosity is a twisted, frantic attempt to find some kind of safety from an angry, heartless God for me, a reprobate, a delinquent, an evildoer.  At the core, scrupulosity starts with really appalling, awful God Images -- and the scrupulous person usually isn't aware of the how terrible his or her God images really are, because they are not allowed into conscious awareness.   I discuss God images at length in episode 23-29 of this podcast, a seven episode series, all about God images, so check that out.   God Images =  My emotional and subjective experiences of God, who I feel God to be in the moment.  May or may not correspond to who God really is.  What I feel about God in my bones. This is my experiential sense how my feelings and how my heart interpret God. God images are often outside of our conscious awareness  Initially God images are shaped by the relationship that I have with my parents.     My God images are heavily influenced by psychological factors  Different God images can be activated at different times, depending on my emotional states and what psychological mode I am in at a given time.   God images are always formed experientially; God images flow from our relational experiences and  Also how we construe and make sense of those images when we are very young.  My God images can be radically different than my God concept. God Concept  = What I profess about God.  It is my more intellectual understanding of God, based on what one has been taught, but also based on what I have explored through reading.  I decide to believe in my God concept.  Reflected in the Creed, expanded in the Catechism, formal teaching.   Now I'm really going to apply IFS to Scrupulosity, grounding it in a Catholic understanding of the human person.  Discussed Robert Fox and Alessio Rizzo's Internal Family Systems approach to OCD in the last episode -- number 86 -- Obsessions, Compulsions, OCD and Internal Family Systems. Brief review:  Definition of Parts:  Separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with own unique prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, and world view.  Each part also has an image of God.   You can also think of them as separate modes of operating if that is helpful.   Brief review:  Self:  The core of the person, the center of the person.  This is who we sense ourselves to be in our best moments, and when our self is free, and unblended with any of our parts, it governs our whole being as an active, compassionate leader.   Here is the critical idea:  Each Part has a God Image -- each part has a way of understanding God based on its limited experience and how it understands that experience We have as many God images as we have parts.   How God images form in parts.  Parts have distorted God images for three main reasons:  Parts learn via experience and the ways they interpret experience, especially in their spiritual inferences, can be markedly different than what God has revealed about Himself through the Catholic Church -- for example, a part whose role is to be dissociated from the rest of the system so as not to overwhelm the core self and other parts with its burden of interpersonal trauma may see God as distant, disconnected and uncaring, in a Deistic way;  Parts may be very afraid of, angry at, disappointed with or disinterested in God and therefore refuse to connect with Him, preventing them from having needed corrective relational experiences of a loving God Part's understandings of God can vary wildly.  One part may be angry and rejecting of God, another parts may be terrified of God, a third grieving the loss of God, a fourth distant and cold toward God and a fifth part, in the same person, may not believe that God even exists.   As different parts come up and blend with the self, becoming more prominent in the system, they bring their God images into conscious awareness.  That explains how our conscious perspectives of God can shift.  Whichever part of us has taken over, which ever part of us has blended and is driving our bus, that part's God image is dominating in the moment So, in my view, a scrupulous person's parts are in a life and death battle with each other about God.  It's more than physical life or death.  It's about spiritual life or death, eternal life or death, the stakes couldn't be higher.   The scrupulous person's managers believe that if they don't suppress parts with negative God images, the consequence could be to be damned to hell for all eternity.   Manager parts are trying to appease God -- seek his approval, make things all right, strive to meet his demands, to be perfect Fr. Thomas La Santa:  I will make God love me by becoming perfect.  In this way God will have to love me.  An enormous amount of energy is wasted by the scrupulous person trying to "fix" himself or herself or trying to become perfect.   Fr. Marc Foley: The command "Be ye perfect..." does not enjoin us to strive for a flawless performance in the various tasks of life, but to do them as God wills us. We feel driven to do an A+ job on projects in which we have overinvested our egos. But doing God's will often demands the courage to do a C+ job because God bids us to spend our time and energy on other tasks.  In order to do that, the manager parts have to suppress or exile the parts that have "offensive" God images or who may otherwise seem inappropriate or unacceptable to God.   Those that are angry at God Those that are disappointed in God Those who are disgusted with God. Those that are indifferent toward God. Those that don't believe God exists.   All those ways of construing God makes sense if you understand the part's experience and how it construes its experience.  They are not accurate, they don't correspond to how God really is, but the part doesn't know that.   Those that generate impulses to get God's attention via acting out in negative ways.   Manager parts reject any part that experiences God in any negative way.   Parts seeing other parts as evil, harmful, and terrifying.   Demons  Lepers Tax collectors Prostitutes Dangerous sinners -- banishing them.   Manager Parts can speak for God -- they assume they know what God wants.  Not in relationship with him, though.  Really following a code or a list of rules or expectations.  It's not about relationship, really.   First two conditions for secure attachment -- 1) felt safety and protection; 2) feeling seen known, heard and understood.  Drawing from Daniel P. Brown and David S. Elliott 2016 book Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair.   Felt safety and protection In Scrupulosity, there is no felt sense of safety and protection for so many parts, because of their God images and their fears about the God images of other parts being expressed.  .   The first primary condition of secure attachment is not met.   The most basic relational need is not met -- no felt safety, no felt protection. The first primary condition for secure attachment is felt safety and security.  It has be felt.  And not just by other parts, but by the target part.   We all have heretical God images.   Pastor Jonathan Edwards:  The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. It is true, that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God's vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the meantime is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.  How are you going to feel safe with a God like that?   Feeling Seen, Known, Heard, Understood   because there is no feeling of safety and protection for some parts, they don't want to be seen, heard, known and understood by God.  They don't want to be near God, they don't trust him And that makes sense, given how they see God.   Some parts may want to be seen heard known and understood by God, even if they don't feel safe -- they are desperate for attention, any kind of attention from God, even negative attention, so they signal distress by intense impulses toward acting out, especially in ways designed to get God's attention -- blasphemy, for example.  Just like a neglected little kid, desperate for some kind of attention from his father may act out.   Scrupulosity is the son of anger and the grandson of shame.  Core issues of shame that are suppressed and generate anger.  Anger is suppressed and generates fear and scruples.   Shame -- the root of so much psychological and emotional distress -- whole 13-epsiode series on shame, from episode 37 to 49.  All goes back to identity.  Who am I and Who is God.  Scrupulous individuals have a very hard time allowing their anger with God to emerge into conscious awareness and with anger in general.  Dangerous emotion But look at the unreasonably demanding and exacting God images their manager parts have -- Their God images are unjust.   Who would want to be with a God like that?  No part has a really positive God image Not wanting hell  But not really wanting heaven either -- to be face to face with a God like that for all eternity?  So God has no opportunity to show the scrupulous person, in relationship, who He really is.  Self-perpetuating. I wrote a blog on this on the Souls and Hearts website last week, on Inner Pre-Evangelization: A Focus on Internal Trust.  My Approach Lead from Self --The core of the person, the center of the person.  This is who we sense ourselves to be in our best moments, and when our self is free, and unblended with any of our parts, it governs our whole being as an active, compassionate leader.   We want to be recollected, we want the self governing all of our parts Like the conductor -- leading the musicians in an orchestra Like the captain -- leading and governing all the sailors on a ship.   When we are recollected, in self, 8 C's Calm  Curiosity  Compassion  Confidence  Courage  Clarity  Connectedness  Creativity  Kindness   Self as the secure internal attachment figure for the parts.  Parts coming to trust the self  -- Blog on  Working collaboratively with the parts -- contracting with them to not overwhelm Really accepting the parts right now, where they at.  Trusting that God is good enough to understand and tolerate our parts' feelings.   Scrupulosity as a gift, a signal. Look for the disorder underneath it.  Not a question of willpower.   Diabolical aspects Leaving people to their own devices  Discouragement, inward focus, despising self,  Spiritual Approach Not about overcoming scrupulosity  Blessed are the merciful for mercy shall be theirs  Childlike Simplicity and trust lessens our burdens.  Parvulos.  Little Children.  Dust and ashes.   Example of a parent -- would you prefer your child to be working on self-perfection  Perfectionism draws us to be big, perfect, competent, having it all together.  Jacques Phillipe:  The Way of Trust and Love -- particularly helpful for those struggling with scrupulosity.    p. 7 :  The heart of Christian life is to receive and welcome God's tenderness and goodness, the revelation of his merciful love and to let oneself be transformed interiorly by that love.   “We would like to be experienced, irreproachable, never making mistakes, never fall, possess unfeeling good judgment and unimpeachable virtues. Which is to say, we would like to have no more need of forgiveness or mercy, no more need of God and his help.  41 If we accept ourselves as we are, we also accept God's love for us. But if we reject ourselves, if we despise ourselves, we shut ourselves off from the love God has for us, we deny that love. 48-49 We need to practice gentleness toward ourselves so as not to get discouraged and condemn ourselves when faced with their weakness while also nurturing a great desire for holiness. But not a desire for extraordinary perfection. Holiness is different; it is a real desire to love God and our neighbor, and, issuing a kind of halfway love, go to loves extremes. 52 …we shouldn't fall into a kind of stubborn “therapeutic obstinacy,” with the aim of ridding ourselves absolutely of all imperfections or healing every wound. In doing that, we risk becoming impatient and concentrating our efforts on something God isn't specifically asking of us or, ultimately, paying more attention to ourselves than to him. 56-57 The more we accept ourselves as we are and are reconciled to our own weakness, the more we can accept other people and love them as they are. 49 What this podcast is all about.   Contrast that with Pastor Jonathan Edwards -- sinners in the hand of an angry God:  The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.  Remember, you as a listener can call me on my cell any Tuesday or Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM.  I've set that time aside for you.  317.567.9594.  (repeat) or email me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com.  The Resilient Catholics Community at Soulsandhearts.com/rcc.  So much information there and videos.   I want to invite you to the Resilient Catholics Community The Why of the RCC --  It's all about loving with your whole heart -- all of your being.  Getting over all the natural level issues that hold you back from tolerating being loved and from loving God and others.   Who  Who is the Resilient Catholics Community for? It's for you. If you really are into this podcast, if these ways of conceptualizing the human person and integration and human formation and resilience are appealing to you, then the Resilient Catholics community, the RCC may be for you.   I am looking for listeners who want to be with other like-minded Catholics on the journey, on this adventure of human formation with me.   Who deeply desire a personal, intimate relationship with God and with Mary, a real human, close connection  And who recognize they have some natural-level impediments to that deep relating  and  who are willing to make sacrifices in time, effort, money, humility and courage to grow in human formation and overcome natural-level impediments to being loved and to loving  What want to shore up their natural foundation for the spiritual life, because grace perfects nature.   Who want to become saints.   Who are willing to be pioneers at the cutting edge in this adventure of human formation.  Really at the tip of the spear, the first explorers of this human formation ground for laymen and laywomen.   First of all the RCC is My Tribe, my people, bringing together two groups into one First, faithful, orthodox, serious Catholics who are wounded and suffering and know it  And Second, who are psychologically minded (or at least want to be psychologically minded), who believe in the unconscious and who embrace the unity and multiplicity of the human person  And who want to see through the lens of a core self and parts.  Unity and multiplicity make sense.   What of the RCC $99 nonrefundable registration fee gets you the The Initial Measures Kit -- which generates the Individual Results Sheet and the Personalized Human Formation Plan 5 pages of results about your parts  -- we've done about 70 of these now, and our members are amazed at the results, how accurately we are in helping them identify their parts and how their parts relate to each other, and the why behind their parts' desires and impulses.   Weekly premium Inner Connections podcast, just for RCC community members --Lots of experiential exercises.   A complete course for working on your human formation 44 weekly sessions over the course of a year for $99 per month subscription  Daily check ins with your companion -- accountability and structure  Weekly company meetings with 7 or 8 other members in your small group.   Office hours with me  Conversation hours with me  All this for $99 per month.  And we make it financially possible for anyone who is a good fit for the RCC to join through write-offs and scholarships.  The fees are not the tail that wags the dog.   And there also is opportunities for some parts-based individual coaching as well.   Essentially, the What of the RCC is a pilgrimage together.   The When of the RCC We open twice per year to new members in December and June, open until December 31..  We are open now.  Soulsandhearts.com/rcc to register.  Call me with questions!    317.567.9594.  (repeat) or email me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com.  So sign up Soulsandhearts.com/rcc.   

A new MP3 sermon from Rocky Springs Presbyterian Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Deistic and Theistic Evolution & The Fossil Record Subtitle: Creation &The Age of the Earth Speaker: Scott L Fleming Broadcaster: Rocky Springs Presbyterian Church Event: Sunday School Date: 3/30/2014 Length: 36 min.

Kanye wants to unite America under God. That is normally heard as religious nostalgia, but is it? Pageau sees it as a structural necessity. Peterson, even with his weaker idea of God may very well agree. It pushes my assumptions about how a nation should work. Jonathan Pageau Kanye for President https://youtu.be/2wbxVVKr89g Pageau on the Stoa https://youtu.be/Tas2LPWEh4Q Jordan Peterson Biblical Series 1 https://youtu.be/f-wWBGo6a2w Jordan Peterson Maps of meaning 2017 03 https://youtu.be/Us979jCjHu8 David Rubin Tweet https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1282798976568135680 Faith of the Founding Fathers https://amzn.to/30bwRqV American Religious History https://www.audible.com/pd/American-Religious-History-Audiobook/B00D7MLV1U Click here to meetup with other channel viewers for conversation https://discord.gg/jdVk8XU If you want to schedule a one-on-one conversation check here. https://paulvanderklay.me/2019/08/06/converzations-with-pvk/ There is a video version of this podcast on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/paulvanderklay To listen to this on ITunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/paul-vanderklays-podcast/id1394314333 If you need the RSS feed for your podcast player https://paulvanderklay.podbean.com/feed/ All Amazon links here are part of the Amazon Affiliate Program. Amazon pays me a small commission at no additional cost to you if you buy through one of the product links here. This is is one (free to you) way to support my videos. To support this channel/podcast on Paypal: https://paypal.me/paulvanderklay To support this channel/podcast with Bitcoin (BTC): 37TSN79RXewX8Js7CDMDRzvgMrFftutbPo To support this channel/podcast with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) qr3amdmj3n2u83eqefsdft9vatnj9na0dqlzhnx80h To support this channel/podcast with Ethereum (ETH): 0xd3F649C3403a4789466c246F32430036DADf6c62 Blockchain backup on Lbry https://lbry.tv/@paulvanderklay https://www.patreon.com/paulvanderklay Join the Sacramento JBP Meetup https://www.meetup.com/Sacramento-Jordan-Peterson-Meetup/ Paul's Church Content at Living Stones Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh7bdktIALZ9Nq41oVCvW-A  

Episode 23.   Sinning, God Images, and ResilienceJuly 6, 2020 Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis:  Carpe Diem, where you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview.   We are going beyond mere resilience, to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before.  I'm clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski your host and guide, with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com.  Thank you for being here with me.  This is episode 23,  released on July 6, 2020 and it's called Sinning, God Images, and Resilience.I am really excited to be with you today, we have a great episode coming up, where we will be bringing together all the conceptual information from the last three sessions and seeing how it all works together in real life, in real situations, real adversity and real hardship, all from a Catholic worldview.  Let's start with a brief review, spiraling back to the critical concepts that we have been studying about resilience from a Catholic perspective.  If you are new to the podcast, first of all welcome, I'm glad you're here.  All you need to know conceptually we will cover in the next few minutes or so.  You can review the last three episodes, episodes 20, 21 and 22 if you want to get into more detail about the concepts in this brief review.  Let's start with the definition of Catholic resilience – you will see how it is really different from secular understandings of resilience.  For our purposes, I'm defining Catholic resilience as “the process of accepting and embracing adversity, trials, stresses and suffering as crosses.  Catholic resilience sees these crosses as gifts from our loving, attuned God, gifts to transform us, to make us holy, to help us be better able to love and to be loved than we ever were before, and to ultimately bring us into loving union with Him.   That is what I want for you.  For you to transform your suffering into a means of making you holier, more peaceful, and more joyful.   Not to take away any necessary suffering from you – not to take away the crosses God has given you.  I am here to help you reduce, to eliminate your psychological impediments to not only accepting those crosses but embracing them, and transforming your suffering into the means of your salvation.  You have to be resilient to do that, and not as the world sees resilience, but resilience firmly grounded in a Catholic understanding.    Remember how we need a deep and abiding confidence in God, especially in God's Providence in order to be resilient?  That resilience is an effect – it's a consequence of the deep, abiding confidence in God, especially in God's Providential care and love for us.  If you have the deep, abiding confidence in God and His providential love for you, you specifically, you will be resilient.  Repeat. Remember also how the main psychological reason why we don't have that deep abiding confidence in God is because we don't know him as He truly is.  We have problematic God images.  Our God images fluctuate, they can be as unstable as water. These are the subjective, emotionally-driven ways we construe God in the moment.  These are automatic, spontaneously emerging, and they are not necessary consented to by the will.  These God images stand in contrast to our God concept, which is the representation of God that we profess, that we intellectually endorse, that we have come to believe intellectually through reading, studying, discerning.  It is the representation of God that we endorse and describe when others ask us who God is. When our problematic, inaccurate, heretical God images get activated, they compromise our whatever confidence have in God, whatever childlike trust we have in God.  So here's the key causal chain:Bad God images lead to lack of confidence in God, which leads to a loss of resilience.  And psychological factors contribute to these bad God images.  Here's the idea. Think about al little child.  12 months old or 18 months old, looking at his father.  To that toddler, his father seems like a God – really huge – probably 10 times his weight, more than twice his height, so much stronger than he is, able to do so much more in the world.  That toddler, as he comes into awareness about God, is going to transfer his experience of his parents and other caregivers into his God images.  Here's an important point for you to know as you wrap your mind around God images.  God images are always formed experientially.  God images flow from our relational experiences and how we construe and make sense of those images when we are very young. And that's critical – we shape our first God images in the first two years of our lives.  Those first two years of life have huge impact on the formation of our initial God images.  And that makes sense, because our first two years of life have a huge impact on how we experience and understand relationships generally.  Our experience of other important caregivers, especially parents, but also grandparents and others shape our psychological expectations of what God is like.  And often we are not aware of those expectations.  Our assumptions may be unknown to our intellects, to our conscious minds.    Simply put, our God images are often unconscious.  Our God images may be unconscious, but they still affect us, they still impact us and exercise influences on us.  We can choose to accept that we have these problematic God images and deal with them directly, or we can deny that they exist and try to shove them away, ignore them, suppress them, and drive them into the unconscious.  Ok, now for a little speculative Malinoski theology.  Bur first, you need to know that I could be wrong about some of these concepts that I am discussing.  Now I'm really serious about this.  As a professional who has teaches publicly and speculates publicly about the intersection of psychological and Catholicism, I am acutely aware that I can be wrong about things.  If any of you listeners, particularly those who are well formed theologically and philosophically, detect that I am ever teaching anything that contradicts the Faith, I want you to tell me.  This is really pioneering work we are doing together.  For more than a decade, I didn't teach this kind of thing publically.  I wasn't sure about getting into God images and God concepts, for example.  What if I was wrong?  What if I started leading people astray?  How can I be sure that don't make mistakes?  And then I realized I was making the bigger mistake of burying my talent, the mistake of omission.  I needed to become more resilient.  To become more resilient, I needed to have a deeper and more abiding confidence in God.  I need to know at a deep level that whatever public teaching I did wasn't happening in a vacuum, with God millions of miles away, leaving me to my own devices, letting me persist in my errors.  No.  God is near.  God is minding me, minding this store.  And if I fell down, if I went astray, He would come looking for me, like the shepherd who lost one of 100 sheep and left the 99 behind to find the stray one.  So here's the thing.  We hear about the First Commandment still from time to time, right?  You know, the first Commandment, the first one from the Ten Commandments.  I am the Lord thy God and Thou Shalt have no strange Gods before me.  You might recall from Exodus 32 that Moses brought the that as Moses was bringing the Ten Commandments, newly inscribed in stone tablets by the finger God, the Israelites were dancing around the golden calf.  Bad news.  Truly terrible.  OK.  So we know that God really doesn't like the worship of idols. But now I have to say, I have never been tempted to melt my wife's jewelry and make a golden calf and dance around it.  No, I mean it, I've struggles with a lot of temptations in my life, had my ups and downs, but this calf making business – in all seriousness, calf-making and the dancing and all that has never been on my radar.  I listen to people a lot and this whole crafting and worshiping molten idols doesn't seem to come up much nowadays in Catholic circles, it's just not a thing, nowadays.  Not many confessions lead off with “Forgive me Father for I have sinned, it's been two weeks since my last confession, and I did it again, I stole some of my Father's bling, including his favorite gold Saturday Night Fever medallion and some cuff links and stuff and melted them into a calf and I was glorifying it, I was dancing around it again…  Did it two times, last Thursday and last Sunday.  So what are the false gods, the idols that we practicing Catholics struggle with in the present age?  It's common in Catholic circles to hear about how money could be our god, or fame, power,  career success…  Popularity may be our god, or our carefully curated images on social media, or physical health, or a sense of security, or a mansion in Martha's Vineyard.   Yeah.  Ok.  I get it.  These are things that people can pursue with an intensity of religious fervor.  But do they really mistake them for God?  Really?  Like the Israelites did with their calf idol?  Let's go back to Exodus 32.  The Israelites were saying to each other “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”  So now really.  Does anyone say that about money, power, health, social image, security or a mansion in Martha's Vineyard?  No.  Now I'm going to share with you what I think is the number one most prevalent modern day offense that Catholics commit against the first commandment, against the great commandment.  The number one most prevalent sin against the First Commandment that we serious, practicing Catholics commit is…. Allowing our problematic, heretical God images to dominate us, to exert influence on us in subtle but powerful ways.   The most prevalent sin against the First Commandment among us serious Catholics is defaulting to our negative God images, and letting them rule us, not resisting their pull on us, letting them draw us away from God.   What I'm saying is that it really harms our relationship with God when we give in to those problematic god images, and when we don't resolve these problematic God images to reduce their pull on us.  It's not that we create a physical idol and worship our God images directly, usually, but we let them hang around. We give them space and time, we don't seek to resolve them.  We might not even know about God images, we may not think about them or we may try to ignore them, or we just chalk them up to being temptations, or we think just deny or suppress them.    So how does that happen?So let's say your dark place is feeling alone and abandoned by other people and your mood is depressed.  In this dark place you don't feel like anyone understands you, that no one cares about you.  And subtly you generalize this feeling to God. Your Deistic god image is activated, your image of a god that is distant, uncaring, a God who made the world, but then left all of us to our own devices.  And now let's say that you give this Deistic god image some room and space to grow.  Since you're feeling that God is distant, uncaring, unkind, disinterested, not connected, you go with your this feeling, this God image, rather than your God concept, the knowing that God is loving, caring.  You let your distant, uncaring, Deistic God image drive your behavior, you don't resist it.  And you know what?  You begin to drift away from God.  You don't pray any more, because what's the point?  It feels like God just isn't listening.  You roll with your feelings, let that apathy get a tighter grip.  And now things seem even worse.  You ask yourself, see how God doesn't love me?  See my sorry plight?  But you may not be giving God a chance to reach you.  You might not be letting him find you.  God isn't separating from you – the opposite is true.  You are separating from God – it wasn't primarily your negative God image that separated you from God – it was your response, your giving in to your Deistic God image – buy not seeking God, by acting as though he were indeed uncaring, distant, and uninterested in you, you distanced yourself from him.   You treated him, you gave him the worship that was due him if he was indeed and uncaring, distant god.   Here's the kicker.  The more we give into our negative, heretical God images, the more they color our God concepts, leading us to entertain doubts in our intellect about God's love, his power, his mercy, his goodness.  And once we abandon our God concept to the notions of our heretical God images, look out!  We are headed for blasphemy.  Let's go back to Genesis 3 – we started that story last time, let's pick up where we left off. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”After eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve's eyes were opened.  But those opened eyes were still not seeing God accurately.  Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be dominated by their problematic God images – we are not absolutely certain, but perhaps they had images of a wrathful god, a god seeking vengeance.  This was not who they had known God to be in their original God concept and God image.  After the fall, Adam and Eve let their fear drive their behavior – God was looking for them, looking to reconnect with them, reaching out to them, letting them know he was coming so as not to surprise them… think of the tenderness and consideration in that… And they hid.  They hid from God.  God reached out to them as a tender, loving, firm Father and they hid from Him, they wanted to get away, to flee, to try to “save” themselves.  Now those God images that trouble us usually correspond to the difficulties we have with relational bonds with other people, in our attachment style.  Our attachment style is basically how we relate, and connect in close relationships with other people, and there are a variety of psychological factors that impact it.  Brown and Elliot describe five conditions for secure attachment and secure relating.  I've modified these to describe the issues that people experience in negative God images.  If there is a problem with a God image, it always is because one or more of following conditions for a secure relationship with God are not met.  1.       Feeling seen and known by God2.      Feeling safe and secure with God3.      A sense of being comforted and reassured by God4.      Having a sense the God cherishes you, rejoices in you, and delights in you.5.      Knowing at a deep level that God wills what is best for you.  Note that these do not include the dimensions that are spiritual, this isn't including the theological virtue of faith.  But the grace of faith is still going to perfect nature, it is still going to work with your nature, so even though these psychological factors are obviously not the whole story, they are still important, they still exert an effect.  Now is the last episode, you did a dark place exercise, where you reflected on your God image when you are in one of your own particular dark places.  Now you can go back to that God image from that dark place or another one.  Get descriptive about how you feel God to be in that place.  You can expand your description, maybe include a drawing if you are inclined, but really get back into seeking out that God image, not to give into it, of course, but to identify it.  Now let's go through the five conditions for secure psychological attachment to God to see which ones you struggle with.  Write them down.  And now you may be able to reach out relationally to God in the specific ways you need, in order to develop that secure attachment.  So if you are hiding like Adam and Eve in the bushes, you can come out and experience being seen and known by God.Sometimes it's too much for people to start with God.  We might start with Mary.  Or St. Joseph.  Or a guardian angel.  If you join the Resilient Catholics Carpe Diem  community, put it up on the discussion board there – that's private only for the community members.  You can also email it to me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com or leave me a voicemail at 317.567.9594 – if you call, be warned that sometimes I pick up the phone and answer, just saying… And here's the next big thing.  Friday, July 10, 7:30 PM to 8:45 PM Eastern time, I am hosting a Zoom meeting for RCCD community members to hang out and discuss together this podcast episode and the next one, Episodes 22 and 23.  So put that on your calendars, register in the Zoom meeting section of the RCCD community discussion boards.  It's going to be great.  Friday, July 10, 7:30 PM to 8:45 PM Eastern time.  And pray for me, I'm praying for you.   Patronness and Patron

Thankful for fiends that will approach me and help me get it MORE right.

1st; who God isn't dictator, controlling Father, dictator (task originated), need to be perfect for love, bargaining god not Deistic, therapeutic, moralist 2nd Who is God? Ps 103:8, Rom 3:23-26, Eph 1:7, Lk 1:49, Heb 13:8, Deut 32:4, 1 Jn 4:16, Jm 32:7, Jerem 23:23-24, Ps 139:2-4, Ps 145:17, Daniel 4:35, Titus 1:1-2 Pray with the ones that you have the most resistance to believing, to be True. The Lord will show you the wound and heal it if you will allow Him! Humility will lead to healing in this retreat! Can wait to journey with you all!

One of the key things that Jesus brings to light with the incarnation is the Christian belief that God is a father. He is not just some distant being in the universe, but ultimately and eternally paternal in nature. This is very different from the Deistic and even some theistic views of God. Ultimately, Jesus reveals the divine fatherhood, through the divine sonship. This should change how we view God and interact with him.

William Moulton Marston, a scholar from Tufts and Columbia universities, the inventor of Polygraph (lie detector) technology stepped out of academia and into the world of pop culture in the October 1941 edition of All Star Comics.    Marston was a sort of Alter Ego to the marketing genius of Stan Lee who fascinated boys across America with heroes like Captain America, the X-Men, Hulk, and Iron Man.  Marston feared that comic books were becoming too violent with their, “blood curdling masculinity”. So to curb the descent to depravity Marston conceptualized a new character - Wonder Woman.    This woman would be stronger than her male counterparts, from an Amazon Island was uninhabited and uninfluenced by men. She would even employee Marston’s polygraph technology with her golden lasso of truth.    Wonder Woman became an icon of the feminist movement throughout the 50’s and 60’s.    Not surprisingly, Wonder Woman re-emmerged last year to become the highest grossing superhero origin film of all time.    What is happening in our culture to create an environment for Marston’s Diana to re-emmerge? Perhaps at no time since the 60’s has there been more bewilderment and confusion over the role of women in our culture.    ILLUSTRATION: The “Boy Scouts of America” have been caught in the quagmire of this cultural confusion.    The concept of scouting began in 1907, when Robert Baden-Powell formed the organization as an avenue for the development of “muscular Christianity” among boys.   In the mid 1900’s Boy Scout organizations around the world began to move away from distinctly Christian lingo in it’s handbooks in preference of a more broadly Deistic language.    In 2005 accommodations were made for those who were Muslim, Wiccan, and others according to the Times of London “Scouting is available to all faiths and, therefore, must take account of the different religious obligations of its members,” according to new scouting guidelines.   In 2015 the role of openly gay scouts and scout masters came into question. As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced to the National Meeting of B.S.A., “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.”   Recently, the B.S.A. dropped the word, “Boy” from it’s branding - opting for the more gender neutral, “Scouts” and opening the door for girls and to participate in the organization.   ILLUSTRATION: The #metoo movement has radiated through Hollywood annihilating producers and movie stars in it’s wake. News icons like Matt Laurer and Tom Brokaw were not immune, now Politicians are feeling the effect.    ILLUSTRATION: Churches aren’t immune either.  Just this week - a coalition of Southern Baptist women released a open letter to the trustees of Southeastern Seminary regarding sermon excerpts taken from that institutions President Dr. Paige Patterson. Someone had uncovered statements he made some sermons, some over 14 years ago and compiled them to create a narrative that seems indefensible.    IN THIS IS THE CULTURE to which we desperately need a new and better Wonder Woman. That is what God gives us in Proverbs. Before introducing us to her - Solomon Introduces a couple of other women to which we may compare and contrast Pro. 31.    The Foolish Woman Proverbs 14:1 (NASB95) 1 The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.   The Hebrew Word for Foolish Means- Thick, dull and sluggish or lazy to the things of God. She is bent on destruction. She tears down her home with her own hands.    Notice what marks the life of a foolish woman. The Foolish Woman is Boisterous Proverbs 9:13 13 The woman of folly is boisterous,  What does it mean to be boisterous? Constant commotion and turbulence. It literally means to murmur in the heart. Or to murmur under one’s breath.   It was for murmuring in the dessert that God ended the life of his own people.  Paul wrote the Church at Phillipi and warned them to do all things without murmuring or complaining.  God didn’t tolerate it in His people and you shouldn’t tolerate it in yourself.   This girl finds the pattern of her life to be one of chaos.  She is the quintessential drama queen.  Never learning how to lead a quite life in all godliness.    Beware Parents; the boisterous, murmuring daughter will one day be what God calls the foolish woman. She will take that same foolishness into her job, her family, your grandkids will be raised by that kind of a mother.  Not only is she boisterous… The Foolish Woman is Naïve  Pro. 9:13b She is naive and knows nothing. Now that doesn’t mean that she literally knows nothing.. she knows how to tie her shoes, she knows how to work a cell phone, But this is speaking of a girl or a woman who is void of weighty knowledge.   Someone said, There are no lighthouses in the harbor of her soul. She finds herself regularly thrown against the rocks of turbulence. She does not think deeply She does not examine carefully.    We have said in this series - the Wise Woman can zoom out and see how decisions effect many people over a long range of time… but the foolish woman only sees the immediate effect of her decisions, what is right in front of her.    As a result she is a victim of the person, the philosophy, the theology with the greatest emotional sway.    It’s not to be that way among you ladies, you are to know  those things that are worth dying for, and thereby those things that are worth living for.    You learn to discriminate between that which is of temporal value and that which is of eternal value. Learn the difference between the sacred and the common.    The foolish woman is boisterous, she is naïve… The Contentious Woman Proverbs 19:13 13 b. the contentions of a wife are a constant dripping.   The Word Contentious Means – One given to strife, one easily angered, never content and never satisfied.    This girl will argue for the sake of arguing. Invariably the outcome is misery for those around her.    THOUGHT - I’ve met gals like this before and I thought to myself , I’m glad I’m not married to her. But someone is. ILLUSTRATION; During the Korean War, the Koreans would take our POW's, isolate them in a room and they would let water drip because they knew that 24 hours a day. Constant dripping could break them down emotionally, and breaking them emotionally, they could get anything they wanted to out of them. God's Word says a quarrelsome daughter is that kind of a thing. A constant dripping.    Living with a contentious woman is like getting nibbled to death by a Chihuahua.    Chuck Swindoll said,  It is my observation that all things being equal contentious mothers raise contentious daughters.   Compare and Contrast the Foolish and Contentious Woman to… 3. The Excellent Woman    We are all very familiar with Prov. 31, but you may not know that in the Hebrew it was written in the form of an Acrostic, working it’s way through the Hebrew Alphabet verse by verse. This is a clue that it was written to be memorized and taught to the youth of Israel. Also, notice it’s from the Mother of Lemuel… that is significant you and need to remember it.    Proverbs 31:10–31 (ESV) 10 An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.    This wise mom is creating a challenge for her son. She knows something about male psychology. Men love a challenge, and men love competition. They prefer the elusive, the rare, the valuable.    The wise mother of Lemuel peeks his interest in her description of her preferred daughter in law by talking about her rarity.   11 The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. 12 She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.   One of the great needs in a man’s life is certainty. Lemuel’s mom is saying - you can trust this woman. Notice also the scope of her, “doing good” to her husband - all the days of her life. That means as a high school student, before she ever meets her husband - she is doing him good. How? Perhaps she prays for him, perhaps she prepares for him, and no doubt she stays pure for him.     13 She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. 14 She is like the ships of the merchant; she brings her food from afar. 15 She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens.    Do you see what that is saying... notice she has maidens... that is she has employees. Now the maidens are supposed to rise while it’s still dark and feed her. But she’s taking care of them.   If your concept of a Godly Woman is an uneducated, un-engaged woman, staying home barefoot and pregnant, cleaning house all day - YOU NEED TO READ PROVERBS.    This woman has a staff. This woman generates a profit. Notice she’s also engaged in real estate and a winery…   16 She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.    This woman knows the real estate market, she’s able to discern when to buy and when to sell.    She’s an “IMPROVER” she buys a field - the field becomes more fruitful. No doubt she adds value to her friends, her employees, her family as well.    One of the ways you know you’ve found this sort of woman - look around her. Things around her are getting better. An excellent woman is like an antidote against the perpetual decline of things in this sin cursed world.   17 She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong.    This woman is marked by confidence and strength. She is a strong lady both internally and externally. 18 She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night.    This is not to say that she never sleeps, although it may seem that way for many of your women. This is a Hebrew quoloquialism that means in effect, “The sun never sets on her work”. If I said, “the sun never sets on the ministry of FBC... I am saying, we have work all around the world... even while you sleep, your dollars are funding ministry.    This woman’s life is that way. She’s making a difference not just in her family, but beyond her family to the world. She’s not only working hard, she’s working smart.    19 She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.   She is personally engaged in the production of her enterprise. She oversees from the 30,000 ft level and the 3ft level. She’s working.    20 She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.   This woman realizes that God has blessed her, but she is not blessed simply to enjoy life - but she is blessed to be a blessing.    She is engaged in philanthropy. She’s working to help those less fortunate than herself.     21 She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet. 22 She makes bed coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple.   This speaks of the fact that she knows that the needs of household are met even when Murphy comes to visit. Murphys law - anything that can go wrong will go wrong. But she knows that her family is safe, because she has planned ahead.     23 Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.    Now this verse has a couple of implications.    This woman didn’t settle for just any old man. She married a true Godly leader. Her man is known in the gates.    But another way to look at it is this - because of HER influence, the husband has grown, he’s changed, he’s arisen as a leader over time.    24 She makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers sashes to the merchant.    She delivers sashes to the merchants, not to the buyer… think of it - she is at the Wholesale level of the fashion industry.    When I read this I thought of Sara Blakely, the Founder and Inventor of Spanx was born in Clearwater, FL. She became the first female billionaire to join the Gates-Buffett Giving Pledge and the youngest woman in the world to earn 1 billion dollars on her own. 25 Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.    One commentator said, “If honor be your clothing, the suit will last a lifetime; but if clothing be your honor, it will soon be worn threadbare”   Notice also, she laughs at the future - she is not given over to worry and fret. She confidently looks at tomorrow and laughs… not smiles… laughs….that is the essence of confidence.    26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.   This woman isn’t an accident - she understands how her decisions have led to a favorable outcome and she is willing to share her information. She teaches others.    27 She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.    She is a household executive. Now remember, she has servants. But she doesn’t delegate everything to others, she is hands on.    28 Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”      30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.   Notice that the fear of God is NOT a deficit that hinders her from accomplishment. Rather, it is the source of the strength that allows her to go further and accomplish more.     31 Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.     THIS WOMAN:    Is not foolish - she sees the big picture and proceeds accordingly. She doesn’t have time to be boisterous. She’s experienced too much to be naive. She would she be contentious? She and her husband are both working in the same direction.    Some of you read this chapter and find it very discouraging. Perhaps you feel that you are so far from the mark that she sets. Perhaps you messed up, you’ve sinned, perhaps you made some huge mistakes.    Well let me tell you something that might encourage you. The best scholarship suggests that Lemuel referenced in this passage is actually the mother’s pet name for Solomon. If that’s true and she is Solomon’s mother… what do we know about Solomon’s mom? Her name was Bathsheba. 

This lecture begins a detailed discussion of Deistic thought, starting with the early Deists, Herbert of Cherbury, later plagiarized in Charles Blount’s Reglio Laici, and Baruch Spinoza, with responses from Stillingfleet and Boyle.

Part 5: Were the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution drafted to uphold the moral laws of God—or were they Deistic humanist documents? If these were Christian documents and America was founded as a Christian nation, where have we gone so far off track?

This episode of CS is titled Results.Now that we've taken a look at some of the movements and luminaries of the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment, it's time for a review of the results and their impact on The Church.Once we embark in the next Era of Church History, we'll find ourselves in the weeds of so many movements we're going to have to back up and take it in an even more summary form than we have. Turns out, the warning Roman Catholics sounded when Protestants split off turned out to be true. They warned if Luther and other Reformers left the Mother Church, they'd commence a fragmenting that would never end. They foretold that anyone with their own idea of the way things ought to be would run off to start their own group, that would become another church, then a movement of churches and eventually a denomination. The hundreds of denominations and tens of thousands of independent churches today are testimony to that fragmenting.The problem for us here with CS is this – There's no way we can chronicle all the many directions the Church went in that fragmenting. We'll need to stand back to only mark the broad strokes.Though the Enlightenment heavyweight John Locke was an active advocate of religious tolerance, he made it clear tolerance didn't apply to Catholics. The fear in England of a Catholic-Jacobite conspiracy, valid it turned out, moved Locke and the Anglican clergy to be wary of granting Catholics the full spectrum of civil rights. On the contrary, the English were at one point so paranoid of Rome's attempt to seize the throne, a 1699 statute made the saying of a Latin mass a crime.Many Roman Church apologists were talented writers and challenged Anglican teachings. In 1665, Bishop Tillotson answered John Sergeant's treatise titled Sure Footing in Christianity, or Rational Discourses on the Rule of Faith. Sergeant worried some Protestants might convert to Catholicism for political reasons. His anxiety grew in 1685 when the Roman Catholic Duke of York, James II, became king. King James's Declaration of Indulgences removed restrictions blocking Catholics from serving in the government.The arrival of William III and the Glorious Revolution ended James' efforts to return England to the Catholic fold. He was allowed to leave England for France at the end of 1688. Then in 1714, with the Peace of Utrecht ending the War of the Spanish Succession, France's King Louis XIV, promised he'd no longer back the Stuart claim to England's throne.During the 18th C, Catholics in England were a minority. At the dawn of the century, there were only two convents in England, with a whopping 25 nuns. By 1770, the number of Catholics still only numbered some 80,000. They lacked civil and political rights and were considered social outsiders. The Marriage Act of 1753 disallowed any wedding not conducted according to the Anglican rite, excepting Quakers and Jews.This is not to say all English Protestants were intolerant of Roman Catholics. Some of the upper classes appreciated varied aspects of Roman culture. They owned art produced by Catholic artists and thought making the continental Grand Tour a vital part of proper education. One of the chief stops on that Tour was, of course, Rome.Still, anti-Catholic feelings on the part of the common people were seen in the Gordon Riots of 1780. When the 1699 statute banning the Mass was removed, a mob burned down Catholic homes and churches. Catholics didn't receive full civil liberty until the Emancipation Act of 1829.While Anglicans, Baptists, and Catholics sniped at each other, they all agreed Deism represented a serious threat to the Christian Faith. England proved to be Deism's most fertile soil.In 1645, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Father of English Deism, proposed five articles as the basis of his rationalist religion.1) God exists;2) We are obliged to revere God;3) Worship consists of a practical morality;4) We should repent of sin;5) A future divine judgment awaits all people based on how they've lived.Charles Blount published several works that furthered the Deist cause in England. John Toland's Christianity not Mysterious in 1696 opened the floodgates of Deistic literature. Contemporaries of John Locke viewed his The Reasonableness of Christianity as preparing the way for Toland's explicitly Deist work. Locke tried to blunt the accusation by saying while Toland was a friend, his ideas were his own and had no connection to his own.The first half of the 18th C saw an onslaught of literature from Deists that seemed to batter Anglicans into a corner and make the Gospel seem insipid. So much so that in 1722 Daniel Defoe complained that “no age, since the founding and forming the Christian Church was ever like, in openly avowed atheism, blasphemies, and heresies, to the age we now live in.” When Montesquieu visited England in 1729 he wrote “There is no religion, and the subject if mentioned, excites nothing but laughter.” The Baron certainly over-stated the case since other evidence indicates religious discussion was far from rare. But in his circle of contacts, the place theological discussion had once played was now greatly diminished.Eventually, in response to this wave of Deist literature, Christian apologists embarked on a campaign to address a number of -isms that had risen to silence the Faith. They dealt with Deism, Atheism, a resurgent Arianism, Socinianism, and Unitarianism. Their task was complicated by the fact many of their Deist opponents claimed to be proponents of the “true” teachings of the Christian faith.Richard Bentley observed that the claims of Deists attacked the very heart of the Christian faith. He summarized Deist ideas like this – “They say that the soul is material, Christianity a cheat, Scripture a falsehood, hell a fable, heaven a dream, our life without providence, and our death without hope, such are the items of the glorious gospel of these Deist evangelists.”A number of Deists argued that God, Who they referred to as the Architect of the Universe, does not providentially involve Himself in His creation. Rather, He established fixed laws to govern the way the world runs. Since the laws are fixed, no biblical miracles could have taken place. So, the Bible is filled with errors and nonsense, a premise deists like Anthony Collins claimed was confirmed by critics like Spinoza. Prophetic pointers to a Messiah in the Old Testament could not have been fulfilled by Christ since prophecy would violate the fixed law of time.Deists maintained that salvation is NOT an issue of believing the Gospel. Rather, God requires all peoples to follow rationally construed moral laws regarding what's right and wrong. Since a measure of reason is given to everyone, God is fair, they contended, in holding everyone accountable to the same rational, moral standards.The astute listener may note that that sounds close to what some scientists advocate today. We hear much about the growing number of once atheist scientists coming to a faith in God. That report is true, but we need to qualify the “god” many of them are coming to faith in. It's a god of the small ‘g', not a capital “G” as in the God of the Bible. The god of many recent scientist converts is more akin to the Watchmaker deity of the Deists than the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and The Apostle Paul.Deists believed what they called “natural religion” underlying all religion. We learn of this religion, not from the special revelation of Scripture. We learn it from, as Immanuel Kant would say “the starry heavens above, and the moral law within.”Christian apologists unleashed scores of books in an anti-deist counterattack. One of the most effective was Jacques Abbadie's Treatise on the Truth of the Christian Religion. Published in 1684, it was one of the earliest and most widely circulated apologetics for the truthfulness of the Christian faith based on “facts.” Abbadie was a Protestant pastor in London. He countered Deist arguments against the resurrection and alleged discrepancies in Scripture. The points he made remain some of the most potent apologetics today. He pointed out the public nature of Christ's appearances after the resurrection. The change in the disciples' attitudes, from trembling in fear to confidence in the truthfulness and power of The Gospel as evidenced by their preaching and willingness to die for the Faith. In the 18th C, Abbadie's work was found in the libraries of more French nobles than the best-selling works of Bossuet or Pascal.You may remember a couple of episodes back, our brief coverage of the work of the skeptic David Hume. Hume attacked the concept of “cause and effect,” claiming it was only an unsubstantiated presupposition allowing for it that made cause and effect a rule. Hume's criticism turned those who bought his ideas into inveterate critics unable to come to conclusions about anything. John Wesley described Hume as “the most insolent despiser of truth and virtue that ever appeared in the world, an avowed enemy to God and man, and to all that is sacred and valuable upon earth.”The Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid developed an erudite response to Hume's skepticism. In his An Essay on Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, published in 1764, Reid critiqued Hume's theory: “The theory of ideas, like the Trojan horse, had a specious appearance both of innocence and beauty; but if those philosophers had known, that it carried in its belly death and destruction to all science and common sense, they would not have broken down their walls to give it admittance.” Hume's principles, Reid showed, led to absurd conclusions.While Skepticism and Deism gained many adherents early on, and Christianity struggled for a while as it adjusted to the new challenge, it eventually produced a plethora of responses that regained a good measure of the intellectual ground. This period can be said to be the breeding ground for today's apologetic culture and the core of its philosophical stream.In 1790, Edmund Burke rejoiced that Christian apologists had largely won out over the Deists.At the dawning of the 18th C, the Scottish clans with their rough and tumble culture and the warlike tradition continued to reign over a good part of the Scottish Highlands, which accounts for about a third of the total area. In contrast, the capital of Edinburgh was a small city of no more than 35,000 crowded into dirty tenements, stacked one above another.By the Act of Union of 1707, Scotland and England became one. The Scottish Parliament was dissolved and merged with the English. Scots were given 45 members in the House of Commons. But tension remained between north and south.In the Patronage Act of 1712, the English Crown claimed the right to choose Scottish pastors; an apparent end-run by the Anglican Church of England around the rights of Presbyterian Scotland. Seceder Presbyterians refused to honor the pastors appointed by England. They started their own independent churches.Then, in 1742 the Cambuslang Revival swept Scotland. For four months, the church in Cambuslang, a few miles from Glasgow, witnessed large numbers of people attending prayer meetings and showing great fervency in their devotion to God. In June, George Whitefield visited and preached several times. In August, meetings saw as many as 40,000. The pastor of the church wrote, “People sat unwearied till two in the morning to hear sermons, disregarding the weather. You could scarcely walk a yard, but you must tread upon some, either rejoicing in God for mercies received, or crying out for more. Thousands and thousands have I seen, melted down under the word and power of God.”Whitefield then preached to large crowds in Edinburgh and other cities. Other centers of revival popped up.In the second half of the 18th C, Scotland gained a reputation as a center for the Enlightenment under such men as David Hume, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, and Francis Hutchison. Voltaire wrote that “today it is from Scotland that we get rules of taste in all the arts, from epic poetry to gardening.”An interesting development took place in Scotland at that time, maybe born by a weariness of the internecine conflict endemic to Scottish history. A cultured “literati” in Edinburgh participated in different clubs, but all aimed at striking some kind of balance where people of different persuasions could hold discourse without feeling the need to come to blows. They sought enlightened ways to improve society and agriculture. In the inaugural edition of the Edinburgh Review, 1755, the editor encouraged Scots “to a more eager pursuit of learning themselves, and to do honor to their country.”Evangelicals like Edinburgh pastors John Erskine and Robert Walker hoped to reform society using some of the new ideas of Enlightenment thinkers. They embarked on a campaign to safeguard and expand civil liberties. But unlike more moderate members of the Church of Scotland, they believed conversion to personal faith in Christ was a prerequisite for reform. Erskine appreciated George Whitefield and edited and published a number of Jonathan Edwards' works.In Ireland, the Glorious Revolution was not at all “glorious” for Catholics. On July 1, 1690, the armies of the Protestant King William III defeated the forces of the Catholic James II at the Battle of the Boyne and seized Dublin. In 1691, Jacobites in Ireland either fled or surrendered. The Banishment Act of 1697 ordered all Catholic clergy to leave Ireland or risk execution. Poverty and illiteracy made life miserable for large numbers of Irish Catholics.English restrictions on Ireland were brutal. Power resided in the hands of a small group of wealthy Anglican elite of the official Church of Ireland. Even Scottish Presbyterians who had settled in Ulster were excluded from civil and military roles. And the Irish had to pay the cost of quartering English troops to keep the peace.Not to be denied, some Catholic priests donned secular clothes so as to continue to minister to their spiritual charges without putting them in danger.In the last decades of the 18th Century the Irish population grew rapidly. Methodists numbered some 14,000 in 1790 and allied with other Protestants who'd come over from England, settled the north of the Island. Protestants in Ireland, whatever their stripe, typically held fierce anti-Catholic sentiments, just as Catholics were hostile toward Protestants.In 1778 the Catholic Relief Act allowed Catholics to buy and inherit land. In 1782 the Irish Parliament gained independence, and laws against Catholics were changed. But the English monarchy managed to maintain its authority and put down the Irish Rebellion of 1798.The upshot is this à The Gospel faced a withering barrage from some of the most potent of Enlightenment critics, skeptics, and foes. The Church was slow to respond, which allowed the ideas of rationalism to poison the well of much Western philosophical thought. The challenge was eventually answered, not only with an eloquent reply but by the stirring of the Holy Spirit Who brought winds of revival for which the most elite skeptic had no comeback.Christianity was tested in the British Isles during the 18th C, but it passed the test.