Terry Firma, though born and Journalism-school-educated in Europe, has lived in the U.S. for the past 20-odd years. Stateside, his feature articles have been published in the New York Times, Reason, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Wired. Terry was the founder and Main Mischief Maker of Moral Compass, a now-dormant site that pokes fun at the delusional claim by people of faith that a belief in God equips them with superior moral standards. He was the Editor-in-Chief of two Manhattan-based magazines until he decided to give up commercial publishing for professional photography... with a lot of blogging on the side. These days, he lives in an old seaside farmhouse in Maine with his wife, three kids, and two big dogs.
Five months ago, Papua New Guinean cult leader Steven Tari, who liked to refer to himself as “Black Jesus,” did it again. Every time he’d been caught for his shocking crimes — which included rape, murder, and (according to many) ritual cannibalism — he’d managed to escape. His most mindbending getaway had occurred some eight years ago, when he …escaped prior to his trial with the help of a Lutheran pastor, Logan Sapus, who had been assigned to counsel him but became converted to Tari’s cult instead. [Click headline for more…] Read more
According to NPR, Russell Moore (41) became “the public face of Evangelical Christians” recently when he was appointed to be the leader of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Southern Baptists, NPR explains, …represent nearly 40,000 churches and missions, claiming nearly 16 million members in the country. As the leader of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, where he succeeds the very influential and prominent Richard Land, Mr. Moore will be at the forefront of some of… Read more
I just came across this Cracked article about how to deal with 419 scammers. Though the whole thing is pretty mirth-inducing, nothing made me laugh harder than the fictional Bible verses that author “John Cheese” quotes at the end of his faux-Christian e-mails to the African shyster. For instance: “He who sees the light of the Lord shall bow to his lightful mercy. And he who sees the dark of the Devil shall dance the dance of the wicked music long.” —Xanadu 1:1:5 [Click headline for more…] Read more
Recently, researchers from the Clergy Health Initiative at Duke Divinity School decided to look into the mental health of members of the clergy. Using phone surveys and written questionnaires, they interviewed over 1,700 United Methodist pastors, and found that depression is about 1.6 times higher in that group compared to the general population (8.7% versus 5.5%). Other estimates of the prevalence of poor mental health among clergy are wildly higher, with some sources claiming that 70% of U.S. pastors are depressed. The results of the Duke Divinity team were published in the Journal of Primary Prevention and summarized in the Huffington Post, which quoted Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, the Clergy Health Initiative’s research director: [Click headline for more…] Read more
