Fighting Fundies and Mental Illness

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'"

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and after a long, extended, and might

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I say, Steve, controversial sabbatical, you are back. Well, you know, it was very controversial.

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I did go globetrotting, went all over the place. Oh, did you? Yes, most people for their sabbaticals, they usually go to some baths in Germany or something.

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What did St. Virgin do? He went down to the Mediterranean for a little bit of good sea aroma.

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What'd you do? I went to a gun store in Maine. You did? But I don't think you had the right paperwork, probably, to buy one there and then bring it across the

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DMZ there. Yeah, it was all set. And then I said, I just have one question.

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You know, I live in Massachusetts. How do I? And he goes, oh, stop right there. You live in Massachusetts.

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You can't buy it. I think he said one word to you in response to your desire to buy a gun, and it was, forget you.

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I have one word for you, forget you. So, Steve, for the listeners who are tuned in as of late and the last three months haven't heard you, tell us who you are and where you've been.

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Well, I'm a, I don't know, I'm Steve Cooley. I'm associate pastor here at Bethlehem Bible Church, saved by grace, former

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Mormon. Would love to play basketball, but I can't even move. And let's see, what else?

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Oh, and what have I done? Well. What'd you do on sabbatical while you were there? Well, entertained my granddaughter, who's been with us for a couple months and is moving out on Saturday.

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Welcomed a new granddaughter into the family as she was born in our upstairs bathroom. That was fairly exciting.

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You were just outside the door doing what? I was downstairs holding Devaney and just praying because there were a number of complications and potential complications, and it wasn't supposed to be like that.

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And then all of a sudden, baby Karis was screaming and the Lord brought her safely into this world, so.

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Did the ambulance come, or you just quick zipped in the car down to the hospital? No, the police were there, because Joey, my son -in -law called 911 probably within, well, just a minute or two of the baby being born.

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And then the police showed up just a couple of minutes after she arrived. And then the fire units and the ambulance, and they all went charging upstairs, and it was like eight guys carrying her down the stairs.

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It was pretty crazy. Well, Steve, I'm glad you're back for lots of reasons.

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I read even on the Facebook No Compromise page yesterday, some lady responded, where is

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Tuesday guy? I don't blame her. You know, I've really missed Tuesday guy, and I'm glad he's back.

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Steve, I think this is a catchy thing. This is a fad that's sweeping the nation because Kim Abendroth, my wife, was working with some of the ladies while your wife was on her she -batical.

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I just made that up. That's not too bad. Yeah, it's not bad at all. It's not really good, but it's not bad. And they kind of got a little moniker called the

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Tuesday Girls, when they go visit people and do other things. And so we've now gone from Tuesday guy, singular,

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Tuesday guy, no definite article, but implied. Yeah. And now we have the

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Tuesday Girls. This is a, it's sweeping the nation. We're going to soon have

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Tuesday services. And, you know, it'll be. They have Monday, Tuesday services.

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Now I have to admit for those who are just not used to hearing Steve's voice, Steve and I do shows on Tuesdays together.

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That's why he's called Tuesday guy. He does do some Saturday shows. And the thing is, he adds a good comic element, a comedic element to the

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Tuesday shows. Although they're less biblical, they are funnier. Well, you can't have one without the other.

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It's like a see -saw. As we say here in New England, the see -saw. You know,

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I'd bring a little balance. See, when I hear see -saw, I think that's parsing a word kind of thing.

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I can't even, I can't even figure out what it, you know, is it sea salt or is it sea? There's so many possibilities.

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Steve, tell us about the book that you're working on that you were working on in your sabbatical time. Well, tentatively titled,

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Are You Out of Your, and then in parenthesis, biblical, in parenthesis, mind.

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Are You Out of Your Biblical Mind? And basically what I want to do is just, you know, as Protestants, I think there are a lot of things that we do without thinking.

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A lot of, I guess, traditions that we have or whatever. And so I'm just kind of like, this is what we typically do as Christians and this is why it's wrong.

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So stop doing it. And you offer, of course, the proper response.

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You just don't attack. You're just not known for what you're against, but you put what you're for. I want to be known what I'm for, you know.

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Maybe that should be a new book. I want to be known for what I'm for. That would be excellent title for a book.

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Steve, one thing that I have missed, in all honesty, in our Tuesday Times, is when I make a pop culture reference, somehow it's embedded in my unconscious, subconscious mind, and then it comes out of my mouth because what's in your unconscious mind flows out of your heart,

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I think. I don't think that's exactly what the Lord said. And I can't remember the song title or I can't remember who, like, for instance,

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Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign. And I think, who wrote that? Five Man Electric Band. See, and Steve, I knew would know that.

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Well, you know, that's why he hired me. That's exactly right. So Steve, today we could just talk about ourselves the whole time, but since this is

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No Compromise Radio, we probably should talk about something biblical. You think? Or maybe we should compromise.

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You know, just to start things off in a new direction. Well, I don't know when this show is going to actually be aired, but you'll be preaching this summer for me.

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What are you preaching this summer in case somebody wants to come by and visit? I don't know. Actually, I'm going to be in the

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Gospel of John. Are you out of your biblical mind? I'm going to be in the Gospel of John. Where are you?

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Chapter four, maybe? Chapter four, yeah. The Woman at the Well. And you know, every time I say that, I always think about,

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I remember Bill Shannon, our old pastor at Grace Community Church, saying next week, it's

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Tony McCracken, the Woman at the Well. You don't want to miss that. And I went, Tony McCracken. Well, I think my all -time favorite tie -in,

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I'm sure you'll address with the folks here, is John 3 .16, for God so loved the world.

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And then there's all kinds of debate about the world. Is it the elect? Is it humankind? Is it, you know, each and every person?

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Is it the globe? Does he, you know, does he like the globe? God loves the earth's crust, right?

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But then we see who, what's he talking about is connected with chapter four.

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God loves, he doesn't just love Gentiles. Here he's loving this woman at the well,

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Samaritans. A Samaritan who, you know, I mean, we really don't understand the whole concept of Samaritan, you know, people, the good

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Samaritan or whatever. Samaritans were just seen as vile because they were this, you know, mongrel race, at least in the

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Jewish mind, you know, they were half Jewish, half Gentile, which is to say they were neither one.

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And so they were the worst of the worst. They had a mixture of Jewish religion with pagan religion.

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And there were just all kinds of reasons that the Jews really, they hated them so much that they would go out of their way not to go through Samaria.

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And they wouldn't want to use their utensils or anything. Have nothing to do with them. And, you know, for Jesus, you know, a teacher to speak to a woman, that was shocking.

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To speak to a Samaritan woman, that was just over the top. To quote Steve Cooley, uber shocking. Yeah, it was mind blowing.

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You know, it was uber mind blowing. It was hyper uber mind blowing. Now, I was gonna say, we should talk about Tim Keller missional church, but that might take a whole show.

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So since we don't have the full show time left. We don't? No, well, whatever's left we do.

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The remainder of the show. We have the 100 % remainder is still there. Okay, good, I was worried.

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Are you gonna go see any concerts this summer or anything? None, we're just, we're, you know, as evidenced by the fantastic time we had on our sabbatical, we have an unlimited budget and we're just going crazy.

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Now, I want the listeners to know that I did offer our little tiny place there in California for Steve to go to our little trailer there in the trailer park, but Steve didn't want to be known as trailer trash the rest of his life, like his pastor, so.

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Well, my wife said, oh, that'd be so great. We won't get to see the grandkids for three months.

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Awesome, so that was summarily vetoed. You could Skype. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Okay, here we go. Almost the same as being there. Religious fundamentalism could soon be treated as mental illness.

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Wait, John, it's not already? Yeah, by most people it is. The digital journal,

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June 2nd, 2013, Kathleen Taylor, a neurologist at Oxford University, so that must be good then.

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She must really know what she's doing. Exactly, unbiased. Said recent developments suggest that we will soon be able to treat religious fundamentalism and other forms of ideologically potentially harmful blah, blah, blah to society as a form of mental illness.

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Okay, now is it just me, but does that sound like, you know, we will soon be able? That's anticipatory, right?

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You know, we'll soon be able to announce that we're gonna have 300 new members. That's not a bad thing, you know?

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So it seems like she's pretty excited about this. She told the Times of London, so therefore it must be true.

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One of the surprises may be to see people with certain beliefs as people who can be treated. Oh. Someone who has, for example, become radicalized to a cult ideology.

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I've been called a cult leader for at least three weeks. We might stop seeing that a personal choice they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance.

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Well, so maybe electroshock therapy, some waterboarding, something like that. That'll get it out of you, right?

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We've got to get rid... You know what I find fascinating is, let's see, it was only up until maybe the late 70s or something like that that they considered homosexuality to be a mental illness.

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Now being a Christian will be a mental illness. So we were talking earlier off the air about how things, you know, are just kind of upside down.

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Well, this is another one. Here is Isaiah 5 before our very eyes. Right is wrong and wrong is right, and evil is good and good is evil, and it's nice to be nice, it's good to be good.

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No, it's not nice to be nice. It's gonna be bad to be nice, right? Steve, you are going to freak when

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I say this here. Go ahead and say it though. Here's what she told us. I am not just talking about the obvious candidates like radical

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Islam or some of the more extreme cults. I am talking about things like the belief that is okay to beat your children.

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Beat your children. Well, who thinks it's okay to beat your children? Out there in the radio audience, just raise your hand if you think it's okay to beat your children.

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Yeah, I think that's the new Hasbro game, beat your children. I mean, how dumb is that?

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And she's gonna redefine beating. What she means is spanking. She even means biblical spanking, appropriate

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Solomonic spanking. And so now if you believe in that, you've got a problem, and then they force you to take your meds.

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I guess the upside, Steve, is then I'll get a lot of money from the government for being mentally ill and home and not being able to have a job.

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Yeah, because you'll be, what do you call that on? Oh, disability, right? Yeah, why is it now?

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If you have a mental illness, then you must be disabled, so we'll send you a check. It's interesting, as a pastor, you meet people and they'll say things like, you know,

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I'm abused at home. Maybe a lady will say that. And of course, I don't like any kind of abuse.

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But we have to ask now as pastors, does that mean you are physically abused as your husband hits you?

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No, it's verbal abuse. Or emotional abuse. And the bad news, Steve, for me, at least as a sinner who doesn't wanna compromise, but does, thankfully, we know someone who doesn't compromise.

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I've verbally abused, Kim. I've verbally abused the children. And so is that grounds now for divorce, grounds for all this other stuff?

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I've raised my voice. I've said things out of anger or whatever. But this, why do people lead with that when they wanna talk to you?

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I think they want pity. My husband abuses me. I don't know, but the one thing I do know is that you should be getting treatment for that.

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You know, it's a mental illness. Well, I think, didn't the Stones write a song about Mother's Little Helper? Yeah, you know,

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I heard that the other day, and I'm just like, this is the world we live in, right? Got a problem, take a pill. So similarly with this illness,

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I meet people and they'll say, I'll ask them. You know, I'm just trying to get to know them because if I know more about the person,

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I think I could help them more. And so tell me what you do, how long you've been a Christian, what's your testimony, when'd you get baptized?

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You know, just questions like that. What do you do for work? Well, I don't work. I'm disabled. Well, now

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I have to ask the question, what kind of disability? Now, if someone's seated in front of me in a wheelchair, it's obvious,

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I don't ask the question. But if they seem like they are ambulatory and that they have their eyesight and everything,

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I ask them, how are you disabled? Well, and you know what, that's a good question because you see me and I can walk, you know, but I have a 71 % disability rating, why?

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Because I have bad shoulders, bad knees, bad wrists, bad back, bad neck, you know, and this is all documented by Los Angeles County doctors, thank you very much.

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But you know, when people say they're disabled, what's the number one disability that we run into these days?

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Biblical ignorance. I'm a pastor, I suffer from depression.

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Yeah, I know, I know. Now we all suffer bouts of being down and downcast and why are you downcast, oh my soul.

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But then to say I no longer can work because of it, that's when we step in at No Compromise Radio and say, we think this is a spiritual issue and there's hope for you if you do the right thing.

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Absolutely. Okay, so here we're talking about Digital Journal and Kathleen Taylor basically saying, eventually,

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Steve, don't you think she could say you've got to give them medicine? So you don't believe that homosexual marriage is for today?

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We're required by the state for you to take this medicine. And then who's gonna push that down my throat kind of like Nurse Ratched on One Flew Over the

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Cuckoo's Nest? I don't know, but it's gonna separate the, you know, we used to say the men from the boys.

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I don't know, can you say that anymore? You can't unless you're Episcopalian. You know, it's gonna, the direction that not only our country, but our world is evidenced by this fine article here, the way they view

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Christianity, it really is a mental disorder. It's something defective, it's something to be corrected.

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So who's to say that they won't say, well, you know what, it's fine, you can be a Christian, but you have to take whatever pill three times a day, four times a day, because you're not mentally well.

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The Huffington Post, a bastion - Of conservative thought. Yes. Reported that this is not the first time

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Taylor, the author, has written a book about extremism and fundamentalism. In 2006, she wrote a book about mind control called

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Brainwashing, the Science of Thought Control, in which she examined the techniques that cultic groups use to influence victims.

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So I guess part of my preaching on Sunday, how do I do this, Steve? So I'm not trying to influence people to think biblically and to think exegetically, to think

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Christianly. What do I do? Just kind of throw it out, maybe just a little story, a little maybe metanarrative story.

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What do I do? How do I work this? Well, the most important thing is that you relate to them, you know, identify with them so that they know that you're struggling with the same issues they are.

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Well, friends on No Compromise Radio, when we think about religious fundamentalism as a mental illness,

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I just think to myself, Steve, tell me if I'm right or wrong. At least I feel, you can't correct my feelings, of course, but why do

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I feel like this is going so fast? This is basically, it's out of control with the homosexual agenda, with this mental illness thing.

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It is just going so fast. I mean, we're not recognizing the country anymore for what it was. Well, and I think you're right, but I think, you know, on the positive side of this article,

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I think what a number of people will attempt to do is to say, and I think this maybe is why it gets some acceptance, is they're trying to say that these

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Islamic fundamentalists are out of their minds. You know, the reason they do terrorism isn't because they're bad people, it's because they believe something bad and they believe it in such a way that they really are not in control of themselves.

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There is no evil in the world. There's just evil systems of thought, mostly religious thoughts.

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Steve, she says something about the us versus them mentality and how bad that is.

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You know, we all have to get along in the us versus them. I think maybe if we go back in time, don't you think she would think

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Jesus was mentally disturbed? Oh, absolutely. She would fit right in with the

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Pharisees and the scribes, Herodians, or anybody else. And then basically, instead of saying he's got a demon, she would say, well, he's got an illness.

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He's out of his gourd. And that's what she, only, you know, I'm sure she'd have a proper

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British accent because isn't that where she's from, I guess. But I really do believe, and when you interact with,

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I don't know how many atheists you talk to, but when I interact with atheists, they all just, you know, it's like, they do treat me like I have a mental illness.

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I mean, seriously, you know, you poor, deluded, it reminds me of the old Batman show, you know, where he'd run into some girl who was, you know, under the

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Joker's dominion or something, and he'd say, you poor, deluded child, you know, and this is how they treat you.

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It's very condescending, you know, and you, I'm sorry, you're such an idiot that you believe that, you know, and, but other than that, they're perfectly nice to me.

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Titus 3, three, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

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And Steve, I think you hit the theological nail on the head when you said, they've got to figure out a way to make sure we're all good and we're all fine and upstanding.

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And so how do you explain the contrary? Well, in the old days, we said sin, even

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Carl Menninger's book in the late 70s, early 80s, whatever happened to sin, now it's just a mental illness.

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Where's sin? Sin's gone, and if sin's gone, then the remedy's gone. Who needs the rest of the part of the passage in Titus 3?

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But when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior appeared, He saved us. Well, and you know what, it's interesting.

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I have not read that article, but I can almost guarantee you there is no reference to Islam in it, because the one thing you cannot do is criticize

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Islam. Now, she may or may not refer to Christianity, but that would be perfectly acceptable.

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Oh, wait, she does say Osama bin Laden. She does, and she did say earlier, like, radical

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Islam. Really? She did say that? Yeah. Well, I guess if you're in England, you have to deal with it, because you've got a bunch of issues there with radical

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Islam. Well, yeah, they're surrounded by it, but it's become kind of, well, especially if you go to Sinbook, aka

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Facebook, or any other - Sinbook. I've got a book of all my sins in there, forever logged in the cyberspace.

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If you go there and you interact with people, what you'll notice is there's very little criticism of Islam, but there's a lot of criticism of Christianity.

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I even have a friend who tried to tell me what Christianity is and isn't, and then

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I finally just said, are you a Christian? And he says, no. And I'm just like, I feel like I'm confused sometimes.

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And then I realized, no, other people are confused. Well, Steve, while I'm thinking about it, we have

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Pat Abendroth coming to Bethlehem Bible Church this fall, 2013, October 4th and 5th, talking about men's issues at Friday night, and then

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Saturday, Behold the Lamb is the conference title. So maybe we could tell Pat that he needs to change his topics and he can talk about how,

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I don't know, something about radical Islam, mental disorders, something like that, probably pack it out more.

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Yeah, but a lot of the people might be angry and stuff and wearing turbans. Steve, why would it be that we're going to have one half the people for the let's talk about Jesus conference,

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Behold the Lamb, versus if we had a marriage and sex conference, that would be packed?

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Well, because sex sells. I mean, true or not, yes, because people want to deal with, they want to have their felt needs met.

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They want to deal with interesting issues like that, theology, talking about Jesus, getting to know

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Him, focusing on Him, worshiping Him. Maybe that's not so fascinating for people, but I have to say this.

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And Pat didn't send me any money in the mail, and, well, not very much anyway, but he is the handsome and smarter

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Abendroth. Yeah, well, he's definitely thinner. Yeah, well, yeah, he's ready for the

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Tour de France. But everybody knows that smoking ain't allowed in school.

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Who's saying that? Smoking on the station, yes, yes. And so everybody knows that preaching dogmatically and biblically is not allowed at church because it means like we're trying to control your mind.

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Which introduces mental illness. Well, I thought it's supposed to be the renewing of your mind. Weren't we supposed to be doing that through the scriptures?

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That's what the Bible says. You know, I'm just amazed. You know, here Christianity really is reduced to some kind of Jonestown, kind of Guyana, that's from the, what, 70s, right?

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Massacre. Just biblical Christianity is just under assault like that.

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It's disturbing. Now, Steve, on this digital journal that I printed out, so it's no longer in digital form for the printout, it's got a picture of Kathleen Taylor.

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Wasn't she in some of those Romancing the Stone shows and stuff like that? That was Kathleen Turner. I know, just kidding.

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Anyway, she looks very sad. She looks very unhappy. Actually, I was just looking at her eyes and I'd say there's almost a crazed look.

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I think that's a glazed look. Yeah. Crazed, glazed. I'd say she's 51, 50.

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I would say that maybe that's a new Dunkin' Donuts donut. It's the crazed glazed.

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Wouldn't that be good? Now, lots of us can have our pictures taken on - Glazed donuts with jalapeno.

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The crazed glazed. Might be able to get Mike to eat one of those. It's like that place that sells the

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Krispy Kreme donut cut in half and you've got the burger and cheese and stuff like that. Oh, well, you didn't see this.

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I posted this on SYNBOOK last week. I have to make this fast, but I was inviting guys. They actually have now a sandwich where they open up a glazed donut and they stick, it's barbecue beef.

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They sell it now. Yeah, the donut place does, Krispy Kreme. Mike Abenroth here with Steve Cooley.

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Steve, glad to have you back. I hope we have some Saturday shows with Tuesday guy. Me too. Me too, nocompromiseradio .com.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abenroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.