Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Star Pulse]

Britney Spears’ mother Lynne has delayed the release of her forthcoming parenting book following the news daughter Jamie-Lynn is pregnant.

Jamie-Lynn, 16, confirmed she is 12 weeks pregnant with student Casey Aldridge’s baby during an interview with OK! Magazine on Tuesday. And the news has forced Lynne to postpone the release of her book about raising her famous daughters. A spokeswoman for publishers Thomas Nelson tells People.com,

“The book is delayed indefinitely. It’s delayed, not canceled.”

Read about here.

[From me]

Is Thomas Nelson part of the “True Love Waits” or “Silver Ring Thing” movement? I’m sorry but what parenting skills can Ms. Spears teach the world?

What do you think?

[NY TIMES]

Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries. The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups.

The agency was acting in response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. The report recommended steps that prisons should take, in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, to avoid becoming recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.”

Read about it here.

[From me]

I’d rather take the chance that someone becomes a Muslim than to have nothing.  Prison Fellowship and other organizations do a great job reaching people for Christ in jail.  This is a dumb.

What do you think?

Amid debates over whether Christians should tithe to their local church, a Christian author says churches that teach tithing as a mandate is a “growing scandal.”

In his new book Should the Church Teach Tithing?, Russell Early Kelly insists that biblical tithing was never commanded as an eternal moral principle of the New Covenant to the Church. Although he supports freewill-offering, he clearly stated that a mandatory 10 percent is unscriptural. Read about it here.

I guess I should have read this book before I start my series called “THE MONEY PIT” this Sunday. 
What do you think?

If you get to heaven, say hi to Jeffrey Dahmer. That’s where he is, according to a new book by the pastor who baptized the serial killer in a prison whirlpool tub. Ratcliff’s book, “Dark Journey Deep Grace: The Story Behind a Serial Killer’s Journey to Faith,” is set for release next month. Read about it here.

Non-belivers just don’t get it. Read what the author of this article said:

Now we hear he didn’t get any time in hell either. By now the devil has given Dahmer’s pitchfork to someone else.

Wasn’t Paul a murderer and King David was too! I think it is great to know we serve a God that can save anyone!

I just finished reading, Erwin McManus book, THE BARBARIAN WAY. To say I enjoyed it would be tough. It was a thought provoking book. The premise is we have “westernized” Christianity here in the US. I have to admit, it was convicting. As much as I have problems with today’s church, I never realized how my own wants are really just that, wants. I agree with McManus that we need to go back to the purity of Christianity. Instead of being flashy and slick, lets just let it all hang out.