Anglican Archbishop: We Were Wrong on Gays

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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"We've not exactly been on the forefront of pressing for civic equality for homosexual people, and we were wrong about that," said Rowan Williams, the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury. He apologized for not doing more to hold together the fracturing Anglican Communion as the Episcopal Church here in the States advanced and other Anglican bodies... did not.

"I don't think I've got it right over the last 10 years. It might have helped a lot if I'd gone sooner to the United States when things began to get difficult about the ordination of gay bishops, and engaged more directly," he told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper in an interview published Saturday. "I know that I've, at various points, disappointed both conservatives and liberals."

The archbishop reiterated the church's opposition to gay marriage but said it had been "wrong" in its past treatment of homosexuals.

So, wrong on gay rights but still right on blocking marriage equality. I guess Church politics are still something of a balancing act -- even at retirement. Ah well. Baby steps. Baby steps.

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Amish Bishop Uses the C Word

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Prosecutors in the Amish hair-cutting trial were proscribed from using words like "cult" to describe the Bergholz clan, in a pretrial decision by Judge Polster. But nothing prohibits witnesses from such characterizations and one of the brutally butchered bishops, Myron Miller, did so.

Pressed by the prosecutor to specify his concerns, Miller mentioned without details "cultic" activities and reported "brain-washing" of community members required to submit to Mullet's authority.

. . .

Ed Bryan, defense attorney for Mullet, asked Miller whether the dispute involved personal issues instead of religious differences as the government has argued in calling the attacks religion-based hate crimes.

"I have nothing against Sam Mullet," Miller responded. "What's going on in that community, or was going on, we were very concerned about interaction with any of our members."

Miller's excommunication of one of Mullet's sons was one of the key triggers to the series of attacks and he was the second victim to be targeted.

Days later, on the night of Oct. 4, Miller said, Amish men from nearby Bergholz rousted him from bed, grabbed him by the beard and pulled him outside. "I saw the flash of scissors, I knew what they were going to do, and I was powerless to stop them," he testified.

. . .

Miller was the second Amish bishop to have his beard chopped off. Witnesses described another attack, earlier that same night, on Raymond Hershberger, a 79-year-old Amish bishop from Holmes County.

Police described the aftermath of the first attack.

The officers recalled that clumps of gray hair lay on a rocking chair and on the floor of the living room, and a crowd of people were crying and yelling in Pennsylvania Dutch, their first language.

Hershberger’s son, Levi, told the officers that “Some guys broke in and gave Grandpa a bad haircut,” a Sheriff’s Department detective said.

. . .

Detective Joe Mullet, who is not related to any of the defendants, and his boss, Sheriff Timothy Zimmerly, described Raymond Hershberger as tearful and disconsolate, his hair and beard chopped off in chunks, and cuts bleeding on his scalp.

Hershberger’s son identified the “Bergholz Boys” as the attackers.

The "Berholz Boys" struck again against David Wengerd.

Another beard-cutting victim, David Wengerd of Knox County, south of Mansfield, said two of the Bergholz defendants, Levi Miller and Emanuel Shrock, lured him into a field to look at crops, then sheared him.

Wengerd said the men told him the attack was payback for Wengerd allegedly having spread rumors about Bergholz and for calling the sheriff to report them. Afterward, they snapped his photograph with a disposable camera.

The picture that is evolving in the prosecution's case is one of tensions built over time as Bishop Sam Mullet's Bergholz community was increasingly marginalized by other Amish communities who considered his bizarre leadership to be a growing danger. Their fears were only confirmed when Mullet's followers began to terrorize them with raids targeting their Amish identity -- so much so that they took the unusual step of involving the authorities.

The defense seems to be arguing several things at once and, to me, some of it seems mutually contradictory. On the one hand, they counter that these were simply personal and family disputes. Ed Bryan, for instance, raised the issue of dispute over a horse-and-buggy during his cross examination of Myron Miller.

On the other hand, they argue that Mullet was "disciplining" members of other sects, which I can't help but think only reinforces the prosecution's argument that these were religiously motivated attacks. According to some reports the defense has even argued that the defendants were acting out of compassion and concern for their victim's souls -- so this was more love crime than hate crime. Again, I think this argument actually works for the prosecution. It only reinforces the idea they targeted their victims for their religious practices.

The compassion argument seems like a long shot given the naked hostility exhibited in these raids. Levi Miller, for instance, claims to regret the attacks but mostly, by his own admission, he regrets getting caught. He also regrets that he didn't cut off more beard hair if he was going to get caught anyway. There's a real sense that the gang was gleefully taking these trophies, Sam Mullet's son reportedly telling his father, "We got two of them." And the motivation for their hostility seems clear from the statement of Mullet's grandson Melvin Schrock, Jr. "Because they weren't living right."

When they're not arguing that it was loving concern for the victims' souls, the defense argues that such harsh judgments were typical family spats, not religious differences.

Hair-cutting attacks against people in Amish communities outside the city were tinged with squabbles over money, child-rearing and even the way some women in the conservative settlements dressed, more like a family feud than a series of hate crimes, say attorneys for members of a breakaway group accused of carrying them out.

The defense attorneys, while not denying that the hair-cuttings took place, want to convince jurors that religious differences between the Amish were not the motivating factor and that the attacks didn’t amount to amount hate crimes — the most serious charges against the 16 defendants.

But the way women dress -- like their uncut hair -- is at the very heart of Amish religious practice and identity. And changes in women's apparel authorized by Sam Mullet, such as smaller caps that expose the ears, are seen as emblematic of his radicalism and debauchery.

Jury members and spectators alike received a crash course in Amish culture from testimony during the first week of the trial. They had heard a prior witness snap at an unwary lawyer who referred imprecisely to a hair covering, telling him, “It’s a cap, not a bonnet."

To many outside his clique, Mullet’s decision to have the women switch from caps to what others disparaged as “skimpy scarves" was one more sign that he was isolating his flock and leading them into sin.

Of course the fact that Mullet has been demanding sexual favors from a number of his women followers would actually seem to confirm those fears.

Sam Mullet himself has said from the beginning that this is a religious dispute and this case has been repeatedly characterized as a church-state issue by defense attorneys and journalists. I've been saying from the beginning that it's hard to argue that Mullet and his followers had a First Amendment protected right to abuse people but it only gets harder when you're also arguing that religion wasn't even the reason for those attacks.

Some of the confusion and inconsistency may be a result of having too many cooks as I believe some of the sixteen defendants have different attorneys. Maybe they're not all on the same page strategy-wise. It's kind of hard to make sense of all that from news reports. But so far, it seems like kind of a muddle. Of course, muddying the waters and confusing the jury is also a tried and true defense tactic. Perhaps it will be clearer when the defense attorneys present their various cases.

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Cafe

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

What is the change in 2012 asking of us?

What is our part in the global crisis we find ourselves sharing in September of 2012? What is the nature of the challenge ahead of us? How can we use our shamanic skills and mature earth-honoring consciousness to actualize the shift All Life is asking of us? Join host, Christina Pratt, and her guest, C. Michael Smith, PhD, (aka Mikkal) author of Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue as they discus what the great and compassionate thinkers of our time are saying. In their own way each confirms the need for a heart-open and earth-honoring shift in the way we all live all parts of our lives. Mikkal is director of Crows Nest International, Centers for shamanic Studies in USA, France, Belgium, and South Africa. He is a Jungian scholar, clinical psychologist, and international shamanic teacher. He is also trained in both North and South American shamanisms, undergoing a 14-year initiation and apprenticeship with Cherokee medicine woman Ai Gvhdi Way and an 8-year initiation with Iachak don Alverto Taxo. This is Part 1 of a two-part series exploring how we transform a global crisis into a global shift.

This week's guest:
C. Michael Smith (aka Mikkal)

C. Michael Smith, Ph.D., (aka Mikkal) is an internationally recognized pioneer in the synthesis of Jungian psychology and Shamanic Healing. His most widely known book is "JUNG AND SHAMANISM IN DIALOGUE: Retrieving Soul / Retrieving the Sacred." Mikkal's teachings are a synthesis of shamanic principles, learned from inner and outer teachers, and the principles of Jungian and archetypal psychology. These teachings are a heart-centered shamanism offering skills that cultivate the daily expression of Spirit and the spirit-helpers through the heart, the absolute core of our being and of a life. Mikkal's training and apprenticeship programs, and the intentional heart-centered and earth-honoring shamanic communities that have grown around them in France, Belgium, and South Africa are known collectively as Crows Nest International.

At Crows Nest Center for Shamanic Studies, his home base in Michigan, Mikkal conducts his USA based workshops, retreats, and individual apprenticeship intensives. Mikkal is currently teaching in North America, France, Belgium, and South Africa and sponsors an annual Wounded Healer Wilderness Quest on South Manitou Island in Lake Michigan. Mikkal will be a featured speaker in July 2012 at the 8th International Amazonian Conference on Shamanism, in Iquitos, Peru. He is also in the private practice of psychology (Jungian and transpersonal psychotherapy).

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Log on to Listen
Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Awakenings with Michele Meiche

Astrology of Transformation with Astrologer Lisa Barretta

12pm PDT --- Host MICHELE MEICHE shares her weekly Soul Insights, Meditations, Healing, Activation and Acceleration work for Soul Alignment. What is your Soul's Purpose & how can you actualize this? What is your role, your path, and what are the signs in your life and in the world telling you? Call in for channeled guidance readings, and psychic mediumship readings. Michele is the author author of the DailyOM course to Learn how to align to your Soul's Purpose and create from your Soul Blueprint 2012: Navigate Through Your Greatest Soul Shift http://bit.ly/izvzS1Call in and share your path of awakening and Soul Alignment. You may also email your questions to be covered on air at awakenings@selfinlight.com. The second portion of the show is Conversations with Awakened Guests. Michele dialogues with spiritual teachers, healers, conscious experts, visionaries, awakened leaders, authors, conscious beings and people of all walks of life that are focused on living consciously. This week’s conversation is with Lisa Barretta, a practicing astrologer, intuitive counselor, certified Reiki practitioner and researcher in the fields of consciousness and psychic sensing. Through her own journey she has tapped into the realms of the higher dimensions and she shares her insights about the consciousness evolution in The Book of Transformation. She is also the author of The Street Smart Psychic's Guide to Getting a Good Reading, an informative and at time humorous book which offers insider advice on how to tap into the world of psychic energy. www.lisabarretta.com

Wed, September 5, 2012 03:00PM ET

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/awakenings

Just Energy Radio

David Weatherly & Philip Coppens

Dr. Rita Louise is joined on Just Energy Radio this week by two guests this week. In the first hour she will talk to David Weatherly about the phenomena know as the "Black Eyed Children". In the second hour she will have Philip Coppens back on the show to talk about the enigma of ancient civilizations.

David Weatherly
David Weatherly is a paranormal investigator and author. For over 35 years he has explored the world of the strange, investigating cases around the country and abroad. He has written and lectured on a diverse range of topics including Cryptozoology, Ufology and Hauntings. David has also studied Shamanic and magical traditions with elders from numerous cultures including Europe, Tibet, Native America, and Africa. He has appeared on numerous radio programs including: Darkness Radio, Project White Paper, Haunted South and Paranormal Live.

Philip Coppens
Philip Coppens is an author and investigative journalist, ranging from the world of politics to ancient history and mystery. He co-hosts The Spirit Revolution radio show with his wife Kathleen McGowan and is a frequent contributor to NEXUS Magazine and Atlantis Rising Magazine. Since 1995, he has lectured extensively and has appeared in a number of television and DVD documentaries, including Ancient Aliens: The Series.

Fri, September 7, 2012 03:00PM ET

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/just-energy-radio

Awake: Now What?

LBGT Empowered and Free: Top 10 Things Gay Men Should Discus

Empowering the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community to embrace their authentic selves and ignite the power within.

1. HIV/AIDS, Safe Sex

2. Substance Use

3. Depression/Anxiety

4. Hepatitis Immunization

5. STDs

6. Prostate, Testicular, and Colon Cancer

7. Alcohol

8. Tobacco

9. Fitness (Diet and Exercise)

10. Anal Papilloma

Author: Vincent M. B. Silenzio, MD, MPH, Former Member Board of Directors, GLMA and Former Co-Editor, Journal of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association.

459 Fulton St., Suite 107 | San Francisco, CA 94102 | 415.255.4547 Fax: 415.255.4784 | info@glma.org

Call or send email to us at lgbtwellness@gmail.com. We want to hear from you!

Join us! Listen on Blog Talk Radio at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/awake or in the Friends chat room http://theawakeningcenter.com/tan/m/chat/home/ on The Awake Net.

Call in 646-716-8988

With:
Dr. Lisa Bufton, D.D. is a Spiritual Counselor, Angel Therapy Practitioner®, and cofounder of LGBT Wellness Conference. www.purespirithealing.com and www.lgbt-wellness.org

Rev Rick Shaffer, MDiv

Sat, September 8, 2012 01:00PM ET

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/awake

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Cardinal Slams the Church in Posthumous Interview

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Cardinal Carlo Martini Maria, who passed on Friday, was once considered a likely successor to Pope John Paul II. From beyond the grave he has delivered a blistering critique of the Church, calling it "200 years out of date."

"Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous," the cardinal said.

"The church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the Pope and the bishops. The paedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation."

While unusually harsh, the Cardinal's words are not out of character. He was known for being socially liberal and had long advocated for a kinder, gentler Catholic Church. That was not, by all reports, why was not made pope. It was his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease which also led to his retirement in 2002. He was, however, a quietly divisive figure.

For progressives, he was the "eternal pope in waiting," as the Irish Times called him, the wise and understanding pastor who symbolised the fading dream of reviving the open reformist spirit of 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council.

. . .

"Many would like to see Martini as the 'enfant terrible' of the Catholic Church, a man who wandered on the outskirts of doctrine, and possibly even beyond doctrine, touching on heresy," wrote the Polish Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny.

"There were even those who searched for this in his words and thoughts," it said. But he "rather tried to formulate within the Church the questions that he was asked outside of it."

This led him to say condoms could help fight AIDS, women should be ordained deacons and civil unions for homosexual couples could be accepted. He also said the growing number of divorced and remarried Catholics should not longer be excluded from receiving the Eucharist.

The Cardinal's last interview appeared posthumously in Corriere della Sera. There is some speculation that pressure was applied by the Vatican to suppress it, as it did not initially appear on the paper's website. It was posted online only after inquiries were made. The Vatican denies that it interfered in any way, although the editor of the bishops daily paper has accused the media of distorting the late Cardinal's words. It remains unclear exactly how.

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Amish Trial: Sexual Coercion & Violent Haircuts

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Well, now we know what "sexual counseling" from Sam Mullet meant. As per testimony from his, ahem, daughter-in-law, it was to help women become "better wives" and stop failing their poor husbands.

The woman said her husband had a mental breakdown in the summer of 2008 and was in the hospital when Mullet suggested that her husband's trouble stemmed from dissatisfaction with his marriage. Mullet told her he wanted to help the couple with marriage counseling, and she agreed to his request to move in with him, she said.

At first, he wanted hugs, from her she said, adding that she learned he had asked the same of other women.

"Next we had to kiss him or maybe we had to sit on his lap," she said. "I'm not sure what was first."

. . .

She went along with Mullet's wishes because she thought it would help her husband, she said.

Yes, that's right. Sam Mullet's son had a nervous breakdown because his wife wasn't good enough in bed and needed instruction from Sam Mullet  -- a lot of instruction.

A sobbing daughter-in-law of Samuel Mullet Sr., the Amish leader on trial here with 15 followers for terrorizing the Amish of eastern Ohio with beard-cutting attacks, said on Thursday that Mr. Mullet had repeatedly called her into his bedroom for sex in 2008, at one point sending his wife to fetch her.

The testimony of the daughter-in-law, Nancy Mullet, provided some of the most dramatic moments yet in a trial filled with accounts of violent attacks and bitter feuds among the normally peaceful Amish. It also provided the strongest evidence yet of what prosecutors and his Amish critics describe as Mr. Mullet’s cultlike domination of the 18 families, nearly all his relatives, who lived around him in an isolated valley near Bergholz, Ohio.

. . .

Trying to avoid the steady glare of Mr. Mullet, 66, Mrs. Mullet testified that after her husband, Eli, had psychiatric breakdowns, her father-in-law first told her to sit in his lap and kiss him, then days later had her sleep with him nightly for what he called marriage counseling.

“He told me the other ladies had done the same thing,” Mrs. Mullet said, and that her husband “would not get better” if she did not accept his attentions.

Nancy Mullet was "counseled" throughout the two months that she stayed with her father-in-law as her husband received psychiatric care. Even after her husband returned and she moved back into her own home, she was expected to return for regular instruction. She was terrified not to. The pressure from Sam Mullet was explicit, as he told her things like, "I can't understand why you won't obey me, the other ladies can." When she finally put an end to it, he called her a whore. She and her husband gathered a few belongings and fled to Pennsylvania a short time later.

Defense attorneys, who previously argued that evidence of Mullet's sexual "counseling" be excluded in part because it was unproven, did not dispute the accuracy of Mrs. Mullet's testimony, acknowledging that, "it was wrong." As with the hair-cutting attacks, the defense appears to be conceding all the factual elements, disputing only their motivation and relevance.

The prosecution is building a strong argument for their theory that Sam Mullet was an authoritarian leader with absolute control over the Bergholz community. His daughter-in-law also testified that he reserved the right to read and approve both outgoing and incoming mail.

His own sister described him as a "dictator" and his followers as "zombies" when she testified on Wednesday. Barbara Miller and her husband Martin followed most of her children to her brother's community but left after only a few months.

Miller, who is in her late 50s, offered a portrait of her brother that contradicted the benevolent, peace-loving image of an Amish clergyman who preaches the love and forgiveness of Jesus in the New Testament. Sam Mullet had become a fire-and-brimstone preacher who favored the Old Testament, she said.

"He was more about violence, anger and hatred. More of the 'eye-for-an-eye' syndrome -- If he does it to me, I'll do it to him," Miller testified.

Frightened by Mullet and heartbroken by the growing estrangement from her five sons, a daughter and their spouses, Miller and her husband decided to abandon Bergholz and return to their homestead in Mesopotamia. This infuriated her children, she said.

"They said if we go back we're going straight to hell," Miller recalled. "I have been shunned by my children."

Joy at seeing her son Lester at their door one night turned to terror as she and her husband were encircled by a gang and violently assaulted with hair-cutting implements, Lester grabbing his father's beard "so hard that it distorted his face."

Miller said her mind went blank for a while and later she saw her husband in a chair with all the men around him.

Lester had a pair of shears and her son-in-law Freeman Burkholder had a pair of clippers.

The men were screaming at Marty, saying things like, "Nothing is being changed up here."

Marty was saying "please, no," but the yelling continued, she said.

Marty was crying and begging, she said, at that point their daughter Nancy Burkholder pulled her mother around and shook her head.

The women in the group, two of whom were holding babies, sheared off two feet of her hair.

Under cross examination, Miller denied that their assailants had claimed they were attacking their parents for their poor parenting. The defense's aim is to show that this was an internal dispute, not a hate crime based on religion. But testimony like this will be hard to shake.

Another son screamed at me, " 'God is not with you,' and he screamed it twice," she said,

Mullet has clearly differentiated his brand of Amish and positioned himself against sects he doesn't believe are conservative enough. Miller also reported that some of the women sneered at her clothes. I still just find it strange that his quest for conservatism had his followers using cameras and other modern implements. I noticed plastic furniture in a picture of him in front of his home. He's also made himself a millionaire by allowing fracking on his land. I'm no expert, but much of this doesn't strike me as terribly traditional.

The nature of the attacks sends a message about the victims Amishness, or lack there-of. While this was not aimed at degrading them for being Amish, which would be an obvious hate crime, it says they're not true Amish as the Bergholz sect defines it. That's what makes this a hate crime.

The defendants stripped their victims of symbols of their Amish identity because they didn't think they were entitled to them. They shamed one victim so severely that he no longer felt able to preach.

A hair-cutting attack on an Amish bishop left him so ashamed that he stopped preaching and refused to attend a family wedding because he didn't want anyone to see him without his beard, his son testified Wednesday at the trial of 16 Amish men and women accused of carrying out a series of hate crimes on church leaders in Ohio.

In the minutes after the surprise encounter last fall, Andy Hershberger said he looked toward his 77-year-old father. Gray clumps of hair from the beard his father had grown since marriage covered the floor where he sat.

"He was shaking all over," Hershberger said. "He was crying and crying."

What Sam Mullet has created with his Berholz clan is a cultural climate of dominance and degradation. This is how he has kept his own flock in line and his followers clearly took a page from that book. It's a deeply disturbing portrait and sharply contrasts with what has been repeatedly described in media reports as the "peaceful" Amish. I would remind readers, however, that all has never been as idyllic in the Amish world as is commonly believed. While Mullet's forced attentions on women followers are explicit and alarming, there is nothing new or novel about sexual violations among the Amish. Sex abuse is an epidemic in some communities and women are expected to submit to male authority. What is happening in Bergholz is less an anomaly than an extreme and violent eruption of the dark, hidden elements that are always burbling away under the surface of Amish culture. And in true Amish fashion, victims were reluctant to turn this over to the authorities of the English world, hoping instead to handle this through forgiveness and reconciliation. It's an indication of just how outrageous Mullet's behavior is that he and his followers are now facing the possibility of hard time.

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Friar: Priests Are Victims of Sexually Abusive Teens

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Um. Wow.

In a recent interview with the National Catholic Register, Father Benedict Groeschel, of the conservative Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, said that teens act as seducers in some sexual abuse cases involving priests.

. . .

"People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath," Groeschel said. "But that’s not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer."

Pressed for clarification, the New York State-based religious leader explained that kids looking for father figures might be drawn to priests to fill an emotional hole in their lives.

Father Groeschel has a doctorate in psychology from Columbia but I can only assume that he hasn't cracked a book since he obtained it in 1971. He scoffs at notions like age of consent pointing to the long history of adult-adolescent "relationships" and seems blissfully unaware of the power dynamic between an adult authority figure and a young teen.

Making this story even more alarming, Groeschel still teaches "pastoral psychology" at St. Joseph's Seminary, where one presumes he warns seminarians about the dangers of seductive teens.

The interview was with the National Catholic Register, which is associated with the Legionaries of Christ -- an organization most famous for having hidden founder Marcial Maciel's deviancy and criminality for decades. The publication has since withdrawn the article and posted apologies. But a quick scan of the sidebar shows articles like this plea for fairness to the reputation of the Catholic Church. It's not only priests who abuse kids, you know!

Priests and the Church: Those are the real victims, folks. Oh, the injustice!

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Once in a Very Blue Moon

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Tomorrow will be our last chance to see a blue moon until July of 2015. Of course, blue moons are no bluer than any other full moon -- only rarer. They're anomalous calendrical events that come about because our lunar cycle doesn't quite jibe with our 12 month, solar calendar. By our current definition, blue moons are really just like other full moons except that they happen to fall as a second full moon in a month. That makes them kind of neat, so people write songs about them.

What makes this blue moon particularly special is that it is also the day that Neil Armstrong will be laid to rest.

There's a rare `blue moon' on Friday, a fitting wink to Neil Armstrong by the cosmic calendar.

That's the day of a private service for Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, who died last Saturday in Ohio at age 82.

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