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OCTOBER 8, 2011 / VOLUME 26 / NUMBER 20
CONTENTS F E AT UR E S
34 Deep waters
COVER STORY Six months after one of the world’s costliest disasters, Japanese residents strive to overcome flood damage, quake devastation, and sorrow upon sorrow
42 Loving their enemies
A Christian ministry working with Israeli doctors treats nearby Muslim children and adults one heart at a time
44 Holding translators accountable
Wycliffe Bible Translators agrees to new standards in debate over contextualizing Scripture for Muslim settings
48 Cheaper by the dozen?
A congressional “supercommittee” is about to try to accomplish what Washington has failed to do—rein in out-of-control deficits
DISPATCHES 5 News 14 Human Race 16 Quotables 18 Quick Takes
50 Firing lines
An employment dispute at a Christian school tops what could be an important Supreme Court session
54 A deferred
As border security becomes the focus of the immigration debate, illegal immigrants who have been in the United States since childhood hope for a way to become citizens
23
ON THE COVER: Toru Hanai/Reuters/Landov
ONE CLEAR VISION/ISTOCK
42 54
61
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REVIEWS 23 Movies & TV 26 Books 28 Q&A 30 Music NOTEBOOK 61 Lifestyle 63 Technology 64 Science 65 Houses of God 66 Sports 68 Money VOICES 3 Joel Belz 20 Janie B. Cheaney 32 Mindy Belz 52 Doug Tilley 71 Mailbag 75 Andrée Seu 76 Marvin Olasky
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eal grace in this world comes through real adults. Not Christians who imagine life in Christ with only smiles. Not Christians who are scared of teens who talk back.
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Joel Belz
ConfidenCe game
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Making speeches and spreading blame are tools of choice in an adolescent White House hen things get as seriously out of joint as they have recently for the Obama administration, it’s appropriate to ask, in all good faith: Did these folks deliberately make all these bad decisions—or did they just blunder into them? Even more bluntly: Is the Obama presidency dumb by design, or is it more a victim, as its top man insists repeatedly, of a run of bad luck? Another possibility, from which it’s clearly too late to learn this time around but which should be instructive for all future presidential elections, is this: That in 2008 we optimistically picked a child to do a man-sized job. The evidence for such a conclusion grows inexorably. Most recent and most compelling are the dozens of vignettes included in the new book by Ron Suskind, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President. Suskind draws a picture of a president regularly stunned by the enormity and complexity of the task he is charged with. The Suskind book is not made of long-distance scattershot from suspect sources. The administration trusted him enough to give the author a 50-minute, one-on-one interview with the president, similar time with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and access to a number of other Obama aides. Obviously, they expected kind treatment. Instead, they got a quote in the Suskind book from the president’s economics adviser Larry Summers, who charged, “There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes.” Recent mistakes of adolescence include the decision to pick a fight with congressional Republicans over the timing of a speech the president wanted to make. You’d think in such a case that he’d at least follow up with a memorable speech—but nobody two or three weeks later even remembers the topic, much less Obama’s take on things. Instead, he’s speeched us into utter detachment. Email: jbelz@worldmag.com
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All that because, for most of his life, Obama’s friends have flattered him into thinking he’s a man—when in fact he’s still been emerging from boyhood. “You’re the best speech maker the presidency has ever known,” colleagues and media sycophants told him repeatedly during and following the 2008 campaign. Now those same friends admit that the Obama inclination to talk his way out of his problems has become a trite and tedious dodge. It was Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign—not some Republican—who challenged Obama, with foresight: We’ve had enough speeches, she said. What about some action? Or try the scathing response of the liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who wrote: “Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words, and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.” The Obama speech-making has turned off the electorate partly because of another child-like habit. The speeches are filled with excuses, as the president constantly blames others for the problems he hasn’t been able to solve. For his first couple of years in office, it was standard Obama fare to make George Bush his whipping boy. More recently, it’s all the rich people—the people who fly jet airplanes and who waste their money on tax-deductible charitable gifts. And, true to form now, the Obama team has been quick to deny several of the most embarrassing tidbits reported in the Suskind book. Instead of dealing with the issues themselves, Obama loyalists are more like a group of kids belligerently saying: “Did not!” The result is embarrassing because the office of the presidency has been so demeaned. So inconsequential was the president’s September address to a joint session of Congress that one Democratic representative was televised—with merciful brevity—reading a newspaper while the president spoke. Little kids might think little of such rudeness. But something important in the fiber of a nation is lost when grown-ups—too often led by their president—act like little kids. A OctOBer 8, 2011
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WORLD MAGAZINE (OCTOBER 2011) - AB
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9/14/11 1:49 PM
Dispatches NEWS HUMAN RACE QUOTABLES QUICK TAKES
Up for grabs >>
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
NEWS: Social conservatives in all-important Iowa wait to mobilize behind one presidential candidate
BY JOEL HANNAHS in Des Moines, Iowa
S D likes to tell his listeners that the election was the goal-line stand for social conservatives, but this election is the opportunity to change the scoreboard. He says they need to answer one question: Who will be the quarterback? Iowa, with its caucuses early next year, is where voters look for clues. In , the Iowa Straw Poll vaulted former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to the top of the order for social conservatives, and quashed the hopes of Sen. Sam Brownback and others. The Iowa race then settled largely into a choice between Mitt Romney and Huckabee, with Huckabee winning major evangelical support like George W. Bush had accumulated eight years earlier. This year’s race has no such
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clarity yet. Iowa conservatives largely say it is wide open. Barring a late entry by Sarah Palin, the Iowa winner is likely to be either Texas Gov. Rick Perry or Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, but it’s not quite that simple, says blogger Shane Vanderhart. Support is still shallow, and many of Huckabee’s enthusiasts are not fully on board yet for any of this round’s hopefuls. “We just want to be sure we launch the right candidate,” said Bob Vander Plaats, head of The Family Leader. It’s not that social conservatives dislike the policy positions articulated by the field. Jenifer Bowen of Iowa Right to Life says Iowans are blessed to have a choice among multiple pro-life EYE ON IOWA: champions. Most of the Republican candidates range from presidential candidate acceptable to excellent on Herman Cain talks the issues these voters hold to voters at the dear. “A lot of them are Iowa State Fair in saying the same things,” Des Moines. OCTOBER 8, 2011
WORLD
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Dispatches > News
took the life of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat years ago on Oct. after the controversial Muslim leader signed a peace deal that led to Egypt recognizing Israel. Sadat was the first Muslim leader to do so. In March, two of Sadat’s assassins gained release from prison.
Decade at war
On Oct. , , the United States opened military operations in Afghanistan just weeks after the Sept. terrorist attacks. In the years since, nearly , American soldiers have died in the fighting along with nearly , soldiers from other countries and an estimated , civilians.
LOOKING AHEAD Nobel Prizes announced
The Nobel Prize committees will announce the prizes for a variety of categories on Oct. including peace, physics, medicine, and economics. The committee’s selection of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo for its Peace Prize in has left relations between Norway and China in tatters.
French primary
French Socialists will go to the polls Oct. in the nation’s first-ever U.S.-style open primary. Voters will select the Socialist Party nominee for France’s presidential election in . Once thought to be a front-runner prior to his sexual assault arrest in New York City earlier this year, former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was rarely mentioned during the candidates’ Sept. debate.
Liberia elections
UN peacekeepers plus Nigerian troops are coming to help secure and supervise Oct. national elections in Liberia. It’s only the second such vote since the country’s brutal decades of civil war and a first reelection effort for President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,, Africa’s first and only female head of state.
Pan American Games Athletes
training for the Summer Olympics will be on hand in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Oct. when the th Pan American Games begin. The quadrennial event is often seen as a tune-up for the Summer Olympics.
SADAT: AFP/GETTY IMAGES • AFGHANISTAN: AARON FAVILA/AP • XIAOBO: PATRICK LIN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • PAN-AMERICAN: JAVIER GALEANO/AP • PRIMARY: PATRICK KOVARIK/AP • JOHNSON: STEVEN SENNE/AP
notes national committeeman Steve Scheffler. “People are still trying to sort all that out.” But other dynamics are keeping the outcome unpredictable. For one thing, the campaigns aren’t demonstrably putting in the grueling -county foot work that famously elevated past upstarts. One exception is Rick Santorum, whose low-budget campaign is taking him beyond Des Moines and Cedar Rapids into rural counties. The former Pennsylvania senator’s name repeatedly comes up among Christian conservatives who like his long track record on social issues. For Bachmann and Perry, the next two or three months are about changing soft support to real loyalty, while candidates mired in single digits in the polls must convince voters a win is still possible. Newt Gingrich is retooling and seeking attention in debates. Herman Cain is hoping his economic plan will score with voters. “I think it’s possible for just about anybody to win,” said Scheffler. Both Scheffler and Vander Plaats have scheduled forums in Des Moines geared specifically to “values vot ers.” Scheffler’s Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition forum is on Oct. , and Vander Plaats will host The Family Leader’s Thanksgiving Family Forum on Nov. . “The largest and most influential voting bloc in Iowa is still very much up for grabs,” radio’s Deace said. It’s noteworthy that Iowa’s social conservative activists tend not even to mention Romney—second in most national polls—unless questioned about him. Yet, they admit there’s a scenario for the former Massachusetts governor to emerge from Iowa with momentum for his New Hampshire strategy. Despite his tuned-down activity in Iowa this time, Romney has a dependable pocket of support. Libertarian conservative Ron Paul attracts little support from social conservatives, but he could improve on his fifth-place outcome four years ago. A final in-or-out announcement from Sarah Palin will help settle the field. Most Iowa activists do not expect her to run but acknowledge that she has some enthusiastic support here. Invariably, they say it’s almost too late for her to mount a credible organization in Iowa. A
Sadat murder anniversary Assassins
WORLD OCTOBER 8, 2011
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There’s room on campus for religious freedom...
very little room.
Her application for a graduate nursing program included a requirement to participate in abortions. CREDIT
See her story.
Facebook.com/SpeakUpU
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Dispatches > News
Exaggerated claims poverty analyst Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation said the census numbers don’t capture what many Americans define as “poor.” According to the federal government’s own surveys, 83 percent of poor families reported having enough to eat, and 42 percent owned their own homes. Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning, 75 percent own a car or truck, and one-third own two or more cars and trucks. The lifestyle of the
average poor person departs from images of stark deprivation “purveyed equally by advocacy groups and the media,” Rector wrote. “His hardships are real and must be an important concern for policymakers. Nonetheless, anti-poverty policy needs to be based on accurate information. Gross exaggeration of the extent and severity of hardships in America will not benefit society, the taxpayers, or the poor.”
Getting paid to sue
Wet quake Monsoon season turned deadly in northeastern India when a 6.9-magnitude earthquake shook wet ground already weakened by torrential rain. At least 99 people died in the Sept. 18 quake that struck parts of India, Nepal, and Tibet. Indians suffered the most as the ground gave way in rural villages. Authorities said the quake damaged at least 100,000 homes in India’s Sikkim state. Rescue workers battled blocked roads and mudslides to reach villagers still trapped under homes, and helicopter crews dropped food and supplies to stranded villagers in a region where quakes aren’t uncommon. Indian officials were relieved the death toll wasn’t higher: An 8.2-magnitude quake in the same region in 1934 killed an estimated 30,000 people.
The boise Rescue Mission, a Christian ministry for homeless men and drug-addicted women, scored a substantial victory in a California court that could offer protection to other religious-based shelters around the country. The 9th u.s. Circuit Court rejected the claim by Intermountain Fair housing Council (IFHC) that the rescue mission violated the Fair housing act by encouraging homeless men to attend chapel services and requiring women in addiction recovery to participate in Christian programs (two former rescue mission clients joined the suit). The appeals court ruled on sept. 19 that the clients didn’t have a protected right to participate in the mission’s programs, and that the mission wasn’t subject to the Fair housing act. While the mission receives no government funds, the federal government paid $874,000 to IFHC from 2008 to 2010.
FREED
Iran freed on Sept. 21 two Americans convicted as spies after they spent more than two years in custody. Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, arrested along with American Sarah Shourd, say they mistakenly crossed the border from northern Iraq, yet received eight-year prison sentences. Shourd won freedom in 2010 after payent of $500,000 demanded by the Islamic regime in Tehran. Further high-level diplomatic wrangling won freedom for the remaining pair with payment of $1 million.
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bauer, shourd
Fattal
povERTy: ChaRlEs REx aRbogasT/sp • NEpal: NIRaNjaN shREsTha/ap • boIsE REsCuE MIssIoN: haNDouT • bauER aND shouRD: MohaMMED Mahjoub/gETTy IMagEs • FaTTal: sulTaN al-hasaNI/ap CREDIT
The Census Bureau reported that nearly 1 in 6 Americans fall below the poverty line of $22,314 annual income for a family of four, bringing the total number living in poverty to a record 46.2 million—2.6 million more than the previous year. The report defended government safety-net programs, saying that without extended unemployment benefits and Social Security, another 23.5 million would have fallen below the poverty line. But
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9/14/11 2:14 PM 9/7/11 2:59 PM
Dispatches > News
Gay activist wish list The 18-year-old law preventing gays and lesbians from openly serving in the military ended Sept. 20 when the head of Pentagon personnel released a memo advising that “all service members are to treat one another with dignity and respect regardless of sexual orientation.” Homosexual troops counted down the clock to midnight at a San Diego bar while a Navy lieutenant married his male partner at a midnight ceremony in Vermont. House Armed Services
Resigned Committee chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., unsuccessfully asked Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to delay the repeal. While the end of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is a victory for gay activists, an August letter to the Pentagon reveals there’s already pressure for more changes: The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s wish list includes giving “civil rights” protection to homosexual couples in the military, access to on-base family housing, testimonial immunity, joint duty assignments, and deployment exemptions for same-sex couples.
Ivar Giaever, a recipient of the 1973 Nobel Prize in physics, left the 48,000-member American Physical Society (APS) in protest of its position that global warming is “incontrovertible” and caused by human activity. The Norwegian-born physicist, an 82-year-old former professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, expressed frustration in a letter to the society: “In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?”
Euro crisis
Early September saw the sharpest two-day drop in stocks in Europe since 2009. The cause? A defeat for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party in regional elections, the party’s fifth election loss this year and this time in Merkel’s home state. Merkel played a key role in developing plans to bail out Greece and other troubled nations, and defeat is a sign that voters lack confidence in her ability to handle Europe’s debt crisis. Senior German officials now say that an orderly bankruptcy of Greece may be necessary. Once a taboo topic, bankruptcy talk has had a devastating effect on bank shares: On a single day in mid-September, the continent’s leading financial stocks, including Deutsche Bank, were down by as much as 11 percent.
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rabbani: Dusan vranic/ap/DapD • san DiegO: gregOry bull/ap • giaever: iMaginechina/ap • MerKel: Michele tantussi/blOOMberg via getty iMages CREDIT
Afghan President Hamid Karzai charged the Taliban with using “a trick” to carry out the Sept. 20 assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani. The 70-year-old former head of state—a one-time foe of Karzai— led the country’s High Peace Council tasked by Karzai with seeking reconciliation with Taliban insurgents. When Karzai received word of a Taliban audio recording containing a peace overture, he summoned Rabbani from a trip to Iran to listen. “It was not a peace message. It was a trick,” said Karzai, speaking Sept. 22 in a courtyard of the presidential palace. “The messenger was the killer.” The assassin breached Rabbani’s highly secured neighborhood—much as Taliban insurgents who attacked the U.S. embassy in Kabul on Sept. 13 did—with a bomb hidden in his turban. The explosion killed Rabbani and seriously wounded top Karzai aides. Said NATO commander U.S. Gen. John Allen: “Regardless of what the Taliban leadership outside the country say, they do not want peace, but rather war.”
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No truce with the Taliban
UN theater
Heads of state inside the General Assembly hall compete with street activists outside
STREET STAGE: Demonstrators protest on Wall Street Sept. (above); Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas listens to Obama speak at the General Assembly.
BY TIFFANY OWENS in New York
RABBANI: DUSAN VRANIC/AP/DAPD • SAN DIEGO: GREGORY BULL/AP • GIAEVER: IMAGINECHINA/AP • MERKEL: MICHELE TANTUSSI/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES CREDIT
NEW YORK: JOHN MINCHILLO/AP • ABBAS: SETH WENIG/AP • BOEHNER: EVAN VUCCI/AP
>>
N Y Police Department tightened security along several blocks of the city as private envoys beelined for East th Street and First Avenue. There, heads of state and representatives from the ’s members gathered to convene the General Assembly. President Barack Obama made his appearance at the on Sept. , urging a return to peace talks between Israel and Palestinians while retaining U.S. support for Israel. He promised to veto any Palestinian application to the Security Council: “I am convinced that there is no shortcut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the .” For others in the Middle East, the president pledged U.S. support for countries that “transition to democracy,” specifically Libya, Syria, and Yemen. The floor opened for general debate that day. But the livelier stage seemed to be New York’s streets, where activists hoped to direct international attention to their causes with organized events. One block from headquarters a dozen Sudanese men wearing horns and feathers danced around a circular collection of skulls to the sound of another dozen women singing in their native
tongue. The performance was part of a four-hour protest against the Khartoum regime—the Islamic government that many say is fueling the war and genocide devastating several regions of Sudan. On Sept. , police shut down the notorious Wall Street Bull due to “A Day of Rage,” a protest designed to condemn corporate control of the U.S. political system. Police set up barricades along
Wall Street to keep protesters retained in a small park off Broadway where they gathered in circles with posters and guitars, cheering on break dancers and public speeches. Most of them had the same complaint. Alex Holmes, , explained: “I feel that the influence that a corporation has on Congress and lawmaking … is far more influential than all of our voices combined.” He had an interesting solution: “Only allow everyone to donate one dollar to presidential campaigns,” he said. “That will put everyone on the same playing field.”
D OING THE MATH
With his debt plan, unveiled Sept. during a partisan speech in the White House’s Rose Garden, President Barack Obama bluntly threw down a policy gauntlet ahead of next year’s elections. Before an occasionally chuckling audience, Obama both outlined his . trillion in new taxes and lectured Republicans that raising taxes on the wealthy “is not class warfare. It’s math.” “We can’t just cut our way out of this hole,” said Obama, who left Social Security untouched and threatened to veto any deficit reduction plan that does not include new revenues: “It’s only right we ask everyone to pay their fair share.” House Speaker John Boehner laid down his own marker during a speech to the Economic Club in Washington on Sept. . Tax increases, Boehner said, “are off the table. It is a very simple equation. Tax increases destroy jobs.” Further complicating the fiscal landscape, the International Monetary Fund () in a Sept. report, reduced its global growth ( forecasts, warning that the unsolved debt crisis is pushing the United States and Europe back into a recession. “Policy indecision has exacerbated uncertainty and added to financial strains, feeding back into the real economy,” the report said.
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Dispatches > News
Dangerous exposure
New religious freedom report focuses on deteriorating situation for religious minorities in the Middle East The State Department, in its new report on international religious freedom, zeroed in on the problem with the Arab Spring: its threat to religious minorities in the region. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, presenting the report at the State Department, applauded the democracy movements in the Middle East, but the upheaval has “exposed religious and ethnic minorities to danger,” she said. “They cannot change one form of repression for another.” Michael Posner, who oversees the international religious freedom office as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor, said the agency is particularly concerned about the plight of Christians in Syria, many of whom have fled persecution elsewhere in the Middle East and now are facing persecution again. The report also said the Egyptian government had failed to prosecute “numerous perpetrators of violence against Coptic Christians.” The Jubilee Campaign, an advocacy group for persecuted Christians, welcomed the report but noted that the
NEW THREAT: report is little changed from the report. An Egyptian “The report continued to use the word demonstrator ‘alleged’ to describe well-documented holds a Hamas human rights abuses, such as the kidnapping flag in Cairo. and forced conversion to Islam of Coptic Christian women and girls in Egypt,” noted Ann Buwalda, the executive director of Jubilee. “The report also failed to clearly portray the widespread and violent terrorization of Assyrian Chaldean Christians in Iraq.” Posner described “a deteriorating human rights situation” in China, particularly in regards to house churches. The State Department re-designated China as a “country of particular concern,” a label reserved for the most serious violators of religious freedom, along with Burma, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent government arm that monitors abuses abroad, urged the State Department to add others to the list, like Pakistan and Vietnam. EGYPT: KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • HANDCUFFS: ALEXANDER RATHS/iSTOCK • KENYA: BEN CURTIS/AP CREDIT
C RIMINAL BEHAVIOR IN DECLINE
In a rebuke of the historical trend that higher crime rates accompany higher unemployment, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that violent crime was down percent in , a decline for the fourth year in a row. Property crime also dropped . percent for the eighth straight year. Overall, the rate of robberies fell by percent, and in the property crime category, car thefts fell by . percent, the largest drop. Criminologists said the drops are the result of an aging population, better policing, and high rates of imprisonment, according to the Associated Press.
Deadly explosion After a pipeline explosion killed at least people in a Kenyan slum on Sept. , a Nairobi professor warned that Kenyans in packed slums across the city face the danger of other deadly disasters. The September explosion in the densely populated Sinai slum erupted after fuel from a gasoline pipeline filled a sewer drain and ignited. Witnesses reported that body parts and burning shacks filled an area , feet around the blast. Professor Peter Ngau of the University of Nairobi said government officials rarely act to move slum dwellers to more suitable land. And he warned that Nairobi’s three largest slums— Kiberia, Mathare, and Mukuru—harbor deadly dangers for railway explosions, mudslides, and fires. “It’s just disasters waiting to happen,” he said. “It is just by the grace of God that they don’t happen more.”
WORLD OCTOBER 8, 2011
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9/21/11 11:56 PM
Robert E. Lee and His High Command university of virginia
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Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia The Making of a Confederate General Lee’s Year of Fabled Victories Lee From Gettysburg to Appomattox Was Lee an Old-Fashioned General? The Making of the Mighty “Stonewall” Jackson 7. Stonewall Jackson as Lee’s “Right Arm” 8. James Longstreet’s Road to Prominence 9. Longstreet’s Later Confederate Career 10. The Rise of Jubal Anderson Early 11. Early’s Path to Defeat 12. “Jeb” Stuart as Soldier and Showman 13. One Promotion Too Many—A. P. Hill 14. Forced from Center Stage— Richard S. Ewell 15. A Straight-Ahead Fighter— John Bell Hood 16. Could Robert E. Lee Make Hard Decisions? 17. The Problem of Attrition 18. Younger Officers I—Robert Emmett Rodes 19. Younger Officers II—Stephen Dodson Ramseur 20. Younger Officers III— John Brown Gordon 21. Younger Officers IV—Edward Porter Alexander 22. Gifted but Flawed—J. E. Johnston and Beauregard 23. Drama and Failure—Magruder and Pickett 24. Before the Bar of History—The Lost Cause
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How Did Robert E. Lee and His Men Shape the Civil War? Few Civil War personalities have held our attention as much as General Robert E. Lee. But was Lee just an “old-fashioned” general or was he a brilliant strategist? How did he choose the officers who served under him? And how did his leadership influence the outcome of both specific battles and the entire war?
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Robert E. Lee and His High Command answers these and other pointed questions about this captivating commander and his Army of Northern Virginia. Taught by award-winning Professor Gary W. Gallagher—one of the world’s foremost Civil War authorities—these 24 insightful lectures create vivid portraits of men whose names are an indelible part of American military history. More than anything else, this course gives you tremendous insight into how the critical decisions of the Civil War were a product of the individuals who made them.
Robert E. Lee and His High Command
Designed to meet the demand for lifelong learning, The Great Courses is a highly popular series of audio and video lectures led by top professors and experts. Each of our more than 300 courses is an intellectually engaging experience that will change how you think about the world. Since 1990, over 9 million courses have been sold.
9/14/11 2:23 PM
Dispatches > Human Race
HALTED
CHARGED Oregon couple Dale and Shannon Hickman are facing manslaughter charges in the death of their two-month premature son, David, who developed a bacterial infection and died nine hours after delivery in . The case
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UNFOLDING Mel Gibson, , is working with Warner Bros. studios to produce a film about the Maccabean Revolt, a Jewish uprising against Greek oppressors in the secondcentury .. Gibson, who in sparked outrage after making anti-Semitic remarks while in police custody for drunken driving, has not said whether he will direct or act in the upcoming film.
DELIVERED Despite a grim prognosis for her conjoined identical twin girls, Faith and Hope, single mom Amanda Schulten, , rejected early recommendations to abort and successfully delivered her premature babies Sept. . Doctors say it will be impossible to separate the girls, who are connected at the torso, sharing a heart, two lungs, and two kidneys. Schulten, though, remains upbeat about God’s plans for their future. “God is good and He knows what He is doing,” the Chicago mom wrote on her blog. “I’m so honored to call them my children.”
DIED Malcolm Wallop, the former Republican U.S. senator from Wyoming who emerged as a leading conservative voice for tax cuts and strong national defense during his three-term tenure, died Sept. at age . In the
REBUFFED Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson left Cuba Sept. after Cuban officials blocked him from seeing or negotiating the release of American contractor Alan Gross, , who is serving a -year prison sentence for crimes allegedly committed against Cuba. Richardson, who also attempted to secure Gross’ release last year, had originally vowed not to leave the country until he saw the jailed Gross American.
s, Wallop was the first elected official to propose a space-based antimissile defense system, a plan President Ronald Reagan later embraced in his Strategic Defense Initiative.
Richardson
WINGO: HANDOOUT • HICKMAN: RICK BOWMER/AP • SCHULTEN : HANDOUT • GIBSON: PHIL MCCARTEN/LANDOV • GROSS: AP • RICHARDSON: JAVIER GALEANO/AP CREDIT
Angel Food Ministries () announced last month it is shutting down operations due to financial troubles. The Georgia-based ministry, which distributes boxes of discounted food products nationwide, said it plans to resume operations in the future after “considering ways to reorganize or restructure our ministry.” has faced controversy in recent years, including allegations of financial improprieties by founders Joe and Linda Wingo, lawsuits, and an raid (“Food for thought,” April , ).
marks the fourth time members from Followers of Christ Church, which rejects doctors in favor of faith healing, have faced prosecution for not seeking proper medical attention for a child. Earlier this year, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber signed a law that no longer provides protection to parents who solely use faith healing for their children’s medical needs.
Available in Apple’s App Store: Download ’s iPad app today
9/21/11 8:46 PM
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9/14/11 2:28 PM
Dispatches > Quotables “The odds of me being reelected are much higher than me being elected in the first place.” President BaRack OBama, joking with donors at a dinner on Sept. 15.
“I’m warning my clients—Don’t run in 2012. I don’t want to see good candidates lose by 12 to 15 points because of the president.” A DemOcRatic stRategist, speaking anonymously to The Hill newspaper, on the party’s concerns about the 2012 election.
“It’s worked for Chad Ochocinco. Will it work 4 the #SBC?” Tweet from Alabama pastor BRian mayfieLD, on the Sept. 19 formation of a task force to study whether the 16-million member Southern Baptist Convention should change its name.
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“It made people sloppy.” LinDsey eastBuRn, former engineer at the now-bankrupt Solyndra (see p. 63), on the effects federal support had on the solar panel maker. “After we got the loan guarantee,” Eastburn said, “they were just spending money left and right.”
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U.S. Sen. RichaRD BLumenthaL, D-Conn., to Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt at a Sept. 21 Senate hearing on whether the company rigs internet search results to send consumers to sites most profitable to Google.
PauL ashWORth of Capital Economics in Toronto on Operation Twist, an attempt by the U.S. Federal Reserve to boost mortgage and business lending. “Businesses don’t have the confidence to invest,” said Ashworth, “and half of all mortgage borrowers don’t have the home equity needed to refinance at lower rates.” blumenthal: cliff Owen/ap • Obama: charles Dharapak/ap • sOlynDra: paul sakuma/ap CREDIT
“You run the racetrack. You own the racetrack ... and your horses seem to be winning.”
“The cost of borrowing simply isn’t the problem.”
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9/21/11 8:51 PM
Dispatches > Quick Takes A Bozeman, Mont., couple say they are thankful that whoever stole their statue of Francis of Assisi in early August returned it a few days later. What they aren’t thankful for: the makeover the bandit performed on their statue. Harold and Mary Jo Paul say the thief or thieves who stole their -pound statue of Francis painted rouge on his cheeks and gave him green eye shadow and gold colored sandals. Mary Jo Paul said the statue also came back with a glittering green robe and yellow fingernail and toenail polish. She told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that although she laughed upon first seeing her returned statue, she’s not happy with it: “I call it shock and awful.”
-- If she lost her boyfriend, it wasn’t because she wasn’t persistent. A court in the Netherlands banned a -year-old Dutch woman from ever calling her ex-boyfriend again after the -year-old showed authorities that the woman had called him more than , times in the past year. The woman, unidentified by the court, did not dispute the number of phone calls placed to her ex-mate but argued that the average of nearly calls per day was not excessive.
A Scottish man hoped that his Darth Vader mask would help him evade identification during a robbery last November, but he apparently underestimated the power of the police investigators. The -year-old Francis Anderson, whom a court convicted and sentenced in September to more than five years in prison for the robbery, held up a Kilmarnock gas station with a gun. And though the Star Wars mask concealed his identity, local police received a tip and caught him with the loot and the mask. While walking out of the courtroom after sentencing, Anderson told the judge, “Thank you my lord for nothing.”
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PAULS: ERIK PETERSEN/BOZEMAN DAILY CHRONICLE/AP • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • MOON: NASA/AP • DARTH VADER MASK: HANDOUT CREDIT
No longer consumed with the space shuttle program, has turned its attention elsewhere. The American space agency says it is working on a proposed no-fly zone on the moon to try to prevent visitors from sullying up historic landing sites there. says it would like for all future moon missions undertaken by nations or by private citizens to steer clear of the landing sites of Apollo and . Although lack of moon ownership means the no-fly zones are non-binding, hopes future moon visitors will respect the historical sites.
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9/22/11 8:50 AM
BUS: COBY BURNS/ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM • SMITH: HANDOUT • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • STATEN ISLAND: IMAGE MAKERS/GETTY IMAGES • DETROIT: RICARDO THOMAS/THE DETROIT NEWS/AP CREDIT
Crazy driver
pauls: erik petersen/bOZeman daily chrOnicle/ap • illustratiOn: krieg barrie • mOOn: nasa/ap • darth vader mask: handOut CREDIT
bus: cOby burns/Zuma press/newscOm • smith: handOut • illustratiOn: krieg barrie • staten island: image makers/getty images • detrOit: ricardO thOmas/the detrOit news/ap CREDIT
What do you do when you have a spare F-4 fighter jet engine lying around the workshop? If you’re Paul Stender of Big Bend, Wis., you rig it up to a school bus and go for a drive. “We had a F-4 engine laying around, which is a 21,000 pound thrust, 42,000 horse power engine, and just built a school bus around it,” Stender said. Once finished, he got a chance to test the upper limits of the vehicle’s speed. “This son of a gun was like veering off to the left of the runway. I thought for sure we were going over the edge and they said we went 320 miles per hour and it was crazy,” Stender said. “You could feel, like, hotness on your back from the jet engine. … Man, it was awesome.”
Bust to Bid If there’s any upside to the extraordinarily depressed housing market in Detroit, landlord Jeffrey Cusimano may have found it. Wayne County officials reportedly seized seven of his rental properties due to a failure to pay $131,000 in back taxes. According to the Detroit News, the county put one of those properties up for auction and sold it to a bidder for $1,051. The bidder? Cusimano, who had owed $26,000 in taxes and unpaid water bills on the property. Because of state laws, many Detroit property owners are allowing their properties to slip into tax foreclosure and then purchasing them back—sometimes for as little as the $500 opening bid—because the demand for city properties is so low. According to research by the Detroit News, original owners or their proxies bought 200 of the 3,800 properties sold at auction by Wayne County. Cusimano told the paper he blamed the county’s property tax policy, which often requires him to pay more in taxes yearly than the total value of the home.
HOME AGAIN: gloria and mah-lon grant stand in front of their detroit home that they bought back at a foreclosed properties auction.
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Partial justice Already on trial for murder, the last thing suspect Derrick Smith of New York needed was a jury summons—unless, of course, it was a jury summons for his own murder trial. As the trial began on Sept. 13, Schenectady County Judge Richard Giardino joked that Smith enthusiastically volunteered to be on the jury, but the judge assured the courtroom that a substitute juror could be found.
LoneLy isLanders According to a Match. com survey, 94 percent of New Yorkers on the matchmaking site said they had no problem with dating a single from any of New York’s boroughs—except if the potential date is from Staten Island. Manhattanites indicated they would be just fine with dating someone from the Bronx or Queens, but only 8 percent say they would be willing to date someone from Staten Island.
slide ride Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg probably thought she was done going down slides long ago. The 78-year-old justice is not only a grandmother but a two-time cancer survivor. But the justice had to use a Boeing 757’s emergency slide when passengers on United Airlines Flight 586 evacuated shortly after boarding at Dulles International Airport on Sept. 14. The plane’s pilots reported engine trouble before taxiing to the runway and all 185 passengers and crew had to use the plane’s emergency slides to evacuate. Ginsberg wasn’t the only federal employee to evacuate the plane: Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank also had to get out of the San Francisco-bound flight. OctOber 8, 2011
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9/22/11 8:53 AM
Janie B. Cheaney
ROUGH JUSTICE Amid calls for “forgiveness,” we must not lose sight of the reality of evil
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KRIEG BARRIE
,” advised the pastor at the funeral. Anger and hate are generally good things to let go of—unless we suspect that they might be justified. The funeral was for a victim of rape and murder. She was years old. She was attacked by not one but two grown men. One of them was her stepfather. Might God be angry? It was a tough gig for the pastor, no question. What does one say? Of course, fulsome praise for the deceased: Everybody at school loved her and she was always first to show up for youth activities at church. But the more praise heaped on the little girl, the more horrifying the crime against her. Something had to be said about that, and the man of God said it obliquely: “Many of you, if it was up to you, you’d organize a vigilante committee and go after [the perpetrators]. But we should remember that [she] is in a better place today that is full of love, joy, and peace. If we focus on the evil in the situation, guess what? Who gets the glory? Satan does.” The pastor did the best he knew, but he betrayed a moral shakiness that might undo us eventually. It’s a variation of a common theme: “Christians are called to forgive.” “Jesus taught love and brotherhood.” Or, with more scriptural backup: “Love your enemies.” “Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” I remember, from years ago, anxious callers to hastily organized talk shows on , urging a nation still paralyzed with shock not to lash out at supposed enemies. And, of course, they have a point. Vigilante justice can be as evil as the original crime, or worse—but a court system that’s too slow or too compromised by legal wheeling and dealing has its own perils. The murderers of that little girl are only now coming to trial, four years after the crime. Four years of incarceration have
been no picnic for them, but to be held so long under allegation, without a trial and a clear conviction, is almost a crime in itself. When the wheels of justice grind that slowly, they begin to chew up the very notion of justice. We’re told that it’s better guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer. We’re told to “forgive” the evildoer, as if bystanders were even in a position to forgive. Jesus took on the sins of the world, but we can’t. We can only deal with them, directly or indirectly. In a Better World is a movie about justice. We first see Anton, a Swedish doctor, working among refugees in Sudan. When an injured war lord—the “Big Man” himself, known for cutting open pregnant women—is brought to the compound, the refugees plead with the doctor not to treat him. Anton believes he must; it’s his calling, and perhaps an act of kindness will help bring an end to the unremitting violence. He has taught his own children to turn the other cheek and not give in to retributive passion. But when the Big Man, partially recovered, laughs at the suffering of a wounded girl, Anton furiously turns him out of the field hospital to be beaten to death by his victims. Has he betrayed his best principles, or obeyed the voice of innocent blood, crying out for justice? It’s not an easy question. In his first presidential candidate debate, Rick Perry won the most applause for the mere fact that he’d presided over the execution of murderers. The audience response troubled more commentators than Perry’s answer: Execution is never a thing to be celebrated. But neither is justice a thing to be papered over by calls for understanding and “forgiveness”— which is not really forgiveness at all. If we don’t “focus on evil” when it is appropriate, evil will nibble us to death with a million small bites. If Satan has the soul, he can do without the glory. A Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com
9/16/11 9:35 AM
Growing your Business Growing your Growing your Business Business
Wisely Wisely
The C12 Group provides a valuable forum for Christian CEOs and The C12 Group a valuable forum for Christian CEOsinand business ownersprovides who want to lead by applying proven “best The C12 Group provides a valuable forum for Christian CEOsinand business owners who want to lead by applying proven “best class” methods consistent with Biblical principles. One day each business owners who want to lead by applying proven “best in class” methods consistent Biblicalbenefits principles. each month, members enjoy thewith enormous of aOne peerday advisory class” methods consistent with Biblicalbenefits principles. day each month, enjoy the of aOne peer advisory group ofmembers 10-15 engaging in enormous the following structured segments. month, members enjoy the enormous benefits of a peer advisory group of 10-15 engaging in the following structured segments. group of 10-15 engaging in the following structured segments.
Business Working “On” Your Business Working “On” Your Business “On” Your Working
Business a Ministry Working as “On” Your Business a Ministry Working as “On” Your Business as a Ministry Core Presentation Core Presentation Core Presentation
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Start the day with a focus on spiritual values. Start the day with a focus on spiritual values. A “best focused on leadership, Start thepractice” day with topic a focus on spiritual values. management, team development, profitable A “best practice” topic focused onand leadership, growth. management, team development, profitable A “best practice” topic focused onand leadership, growth. management, team development, and profitable A segment focused on ministering through business growth. as God’s steward and A segment focused onambassador. ministering through business assegment God’s steward and A focused onambassador. ministering through business One member “goes in a structured as God’s steward anddeep” ambassador. presentation their deep” business life, receiving One memberof“goes in and a structured valuable peerof“goes feedback andin counsel. presentation their deep” business and life, receiving One member a structured valuable peeroffeedback and counsel. presentation their business and life, receiving Members share specific and timely issues, gaining valuable peer feedback counsel. feedback perspective fromissues, the group. Members and share specific timely gaining feedback perspective fromissues, the group. Members and share specific timely gaining Create “To-Do” items fromfrom the lessons learned; feedback and perspective the group. report last month’s in prayer. Createon “To-Do” items list. fromClose the lessons learned; report on last month’s in prayer. Create “To-Do” items list. fromClose the lessons learned; Monthly within your C12 Area report onone-on-one last month’ssession list. Close prayer. Chair focused on yoursession needs with and opportunities. Monthly one-on-one your C12 Area Chair focused on your needs and opportunities. Monthly one-on-one session with your C12 Area Chair focused on your needs and opportunities.
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9/22/11 10:49 AM
IsaIah 53
is one of the most important prophecies in the hebrew scriptures! The Gospel According to Isaiah 53 brings to life Messiah’s suffering, atoning death and resurrection as predicted in the Hebrew Scriptures. Every serious Bible student should read this book! Dr. Richard Averbeck: “This is one of those chapters in the Hebrew Bible where so many of the major issues that stand between Jews and Christians actually come together.” Dr. Darrell Bock: “This text tells us God’s plan for all people centuries before it came to pass, and describes the One through whom God brings this plan to fruition.” Dr. Michael Brown: “Isaiah 53 is the most important Messianic prophecy in the Scriptures, the passage through which thousands of Jewish people have come to faith in Jesus.”
“I was raised in a traditional Jewish home and reading Isaiah 53 convinced me that Jesus was our promised Messiah!” – Dr. Mitch Glaser President, Chosen People Ministries
Here are just a few of the exciting chapter titles in this great book:
• Christian Interpretations of Isaiah 53 - Richard E. Averbeck • Isaiah 53 in the Four Gospels - Michael J. Wilkins • Postmodern Themes from Isaiah 53 - John S. Feinberg
For a 20% discount* go to www.chosenpeople.com/gospel53 CT Ad 4 IS53Book-3.indd 1 20 MOVIES & TV.indd 22
*limit two copies
9/6/11 4:27:21 PM 9/21/11 10:13 AM
MELINDA SUE GORDON/COLUMBIA PICTURES-SONY
Dr. Walter Kaiser: “This is what the tanach is all about. It is God’s good news in a nutshell.”
Reviews MOVIES & TV BOOKS Q&A MUSIC
MELINDA SUE GORDON/COLUMBIA PICTURES-SONY
Game theory MOVIE: With excellent acting and a powerful script, Moneyball is about more than baseball BY REBECCA CUSEY
medium market team, he lacks the money and prestige to compete for good players against teams like the Yankees or Red Sox. Whenever the A’s groom a young player into excellence, a higher-paying team scoops him up and the team is left short-handed again. W A- Brad Pitt and Weak players mean a weak season and Billy Philip Seymour Hoffman, OscarBeane is tired of losing games. winning scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin, All that changes when Beane hires Peter and director Bennet Miller of Capote Brand (a character representing the real life team up to make a movie about America’s Paul DePodesta). Brand (Jonah game, it won’t be just another story about Hill), a Harvard life on the baseball field. It will mean graduate with a degree something. in economics, trusts Moneyball, based on the book his spreadsheet by Michael Lewis, pits tradition against analyses and baseball science and instinct against cold hard formulas more than facts, chronicling the Oakland scouts’ intuition. He Athletics season that changed the way theorizes that if the A’s Major League Baseball is played. hire players based on Pitt plays Billy Beane, the general GAME CHANGERS: Pitt (left) the math rather than manager of the A’s. Representing a and Hill; Hoffman (above).
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OCTOBER 8, 2011
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Reviews > Movies & TV on star power or traditional stats, they will start winning games. The rest is history. The A’s went on to a jaw-dropping winning streak, taking 20 straight games and nearly reaching the Chicago Cubs’ all-time record of 21 games. Baseball paid attention. General managers scrambled to incorporate Beane’s methods in the following years and the face of the game irrevocably changed. Pitt plays Beane perfectly, a mix of desperate ambition and failed dreams with a bit of confused father thrown in. A first-round pick whose on-field career fizzled, he lost faith in the pronouncements of the scouts. If they couldn’t predict his failure, why should he trust their wisdom? Beane parents a tween daughter with his ex-wife. The sweet fatherhood storyline happens apart from his career storyline, but his parenting responsibilities affect some of his MOVIE most important career decisions. Jonah Hill proves he can play more than a comedic chubby slacker, pulling off his role with excellence. In fact, all the acting is excellent, down to a realistically awkward converby Megan Basham sation between father, ex-wife, and new stepfather. Because of Sorkin’s powerful script, the film becomes Contagion, the latest slick production from director more than just a baseball story. Tobacco-spitting scouts Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven) is less a story than argue, and obstinate manager Art Howe (Hoffman) insists he a hypothetical. What would happen if a deadlier sars-like virus knows his job better than Beane does. They all have skills started killing off huge swaths of the world’s population? The result that lie deep within but they can’t articulate them. is something like the History Channel special, Life After People. Day “When you know, you know,” is the explanation, but two, the disease spreads to four major metropolitan regions; Day 10 Harvard math makes no room for emotive choices. While the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, Beane refuses to countenance the more mystical elements of and Homeland Security collaborate to contain the problem; Day 20, scouting, he is still a man so captured by little superstitions law and order begin to crumble under the weight of panic. that he won’t watch an A’s game at the stadium or listen on While the film follows the trajectory of the pandemic, what’s the radio for fear he will jinx the outcome. It’s romance important is the way people respond. Some, like Catholic charities, versus science, learned knowledge versus facts. While put themselves at risk for their fellow man. Others loot, riot, and Harvard math has the upper hand, the victory is anything look beadily about to make sure the next guy isn’t getting some but decisive. advantage they’re not. Boogeymen from all points of Moneyball is all-American for the political spectrum pop up as nurses unions go on more than baseball. It’s the classic strike precisely when they’re needed most, hedge tale of a man in thrall of a Great fund managers try to profit from the fallout, and both For the weekend oF sept. 16-18, Idea. Like Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, federal red tape and states’ rights hinder distribution according to Box oFFice Mojo or Mark Zuckerberg (whom Sorkin of a vaccine. cautIOns: Quantity of sexual (S), violent profiled in The Social Network), There’s no doubt that Soderbergh’s vision is arrest(V), and foul-language (L) content on a 0-10 Beane’s career becomes more than ing and sickeningly credible. Yet despite boasting a scale, with 10 high, from kids-in-mind.com making money and doing well. He veritable galaxy of stars (Matt Damon, Gwyneth S V L wants to change the world. Paltrow, Jude Law, and Kate Winslet, to name a few), 1̀ The Lion King (in 3D) G....... 0 3 0 Sorkin, to his credit, isn’t afraid to Contagion (rated pG-13 for language and medical gore) 2̀ Contagion* PG-13 .................... 1 5 5 portray ambition and projects is the only film I can recall that caused me to worry 3̀ Drive* R........................................5 8 8 both the greatness and dangers of more about myself than the characters on screen. 4̀ The Help* PG-13 .........................3 4 4 men and women chasing a Great Hands shake—the disease passes—a woman 5̀ Straw Dogs R ............................8 8 10 Idea. coughs on an elevator—the disease passes—a waiter 6̀ I Don’t Know How Rated PG-13 for some strong dries a glass—the disease passes—and hundreds of She Does It PG-13 .....................4 2 4 7̀ The Debt R ..................................6 7 6 language, the film has no sexual millions of people die. So many shots illustrate the 8̀ Warrior* PG-13 ..........................3 7 5 content or violence and is a worthmicrobial interactions we all have on a daily basis, it’s 9̀ Rise of the Planet while movie to share with a baseenough to make a germaphobe out of anyone. After a of the Apes* PG-13................... 1 7 5 ball-crazy teen. Even for those not woman sneezed a few rows away from me, I had to 10 Colombiana PG-13 ..................5 7 5 ` afflicted with baseball fever, remind myself first, it’s only a movie, and second, no Moneyball is engaging. A matter what kind of flu mutation strikes the earth, *Reviewed by world Christ’s children should have a spirit of love, not fear.
Contagion
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Melinda Sue GOrdOn/MOneyball: cOluMbia PictureS-SOny• cOntaGiOn: claudette bariuS/warner brOS.
Box office Top 10
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JOn FarMer/warner brOS.
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MOVIE
Dolphin Tale by Michael Leaser
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Cute, family-friendly animal films often devolve into mawkish sentimentality. Director Charles Martin Smith’s Dolphin Tale happily proves to be one of the exceptions—an endearing, emotionally intelligent film that touches the heartstrings without pulling on them. The film revolves around the true-life story of Winter, a dolphin who washed ashore a Florida beach with her tail caught in a crab trap. Though the Clearwater Marine Aquarium rescues her, Winter’s tail soon becomes infected, and the doctors are forced to amputate the tail. A prosthetics specialist soon learns of her plight and designs a prosthetic tail to help her swim naturally. Built around this true story is an invented coming-of-age story about an
BEH I N D TH E SCEN ES
Jon FarMer/warner broS.
Melinda Sue Gordon/Moneyball: ColuMbia PiCtureS-Sony• ContaGion: Claudette bariuS/warner broS.
introverted young boy (Nathan Gamble) who discovers Winter on the beach. His interest in the dolphin’s well-being and the aquarium staff’s discovery that the boy is the only person to whom Winter responds compel the boy to leave his shell and assist in rehabilitating the dolphin. Gamble is a fine young actor, movingly portraying the angst and aimlessness of a boy whose father has abandoned him and his mother (Ashley Judd) and who slowly gains confidence as he finds purpose in the dolphin’s plight. Judd does an exceptional job
All film producers hope to make a financial profit, but some also try to promote a cause through their films. In the case of Dolphin Tale, Warner Bros. and Alcon Entertainment are highlighting the work of veterinarians, biologists, and volunteers at the nonprofit Clearwater Marine Aquarium to rescue, rehabilitate, and release (if possible) sick and injured marine animals. In telling the story of Winter, the producers built two new marine pools that
are now in permanent use at the aquarium for other injured animals. Realizing the potential publicity (and financial) boon the film will bring to their work, aquarium staff have placed placards describing different aspects of making the film throughout the aquarium. The work done on Winter’s new prosthetic tail has also led to the development of a very soft and elastic material that is now being used to make prosthetic limbs for humans more comfortable.
See all our movie reviews at worldmag.com/movies
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conveying a mix of emotions at her son’s blossoming. The film boasts a strong supporting cast, starting with Morgan Freeman as the eccentric prosthetics specialist whom the boy convinces to develop a new tail for Winter. Harry Connick Jr. also plays well job the doctor at Clearwater Marine Aquarium, a laid-back personality forced to confront the aquarium’s dire financial circumstances while struggling to save Winter and the other animals under his care. Also a bright and energetic delight is Cozi Zuehlsdorff as the doctor’s homeschooled young daughter, whose outgoing personality helps draw the boy into the rewarding and life-affirming work of the rescue aquarium. The viewer who gives this heartwarming film (rated PG for thematic elements) a chance will likely find it a rewarding experience.
The inspiration Winter has given to amputees and other injured people is highlighted in the film through the main character’s older cousin, who serves in the Army but suffers an accident that leaves him needing a leg brace to walk. The injury drains his self-worth, which his cousin helps him find again through the effort to save Winter. Director Charles Martin Smith admits that he is drawn to stories of perseverance and those that promote man’s relationship with nature. Child star Nathan Gamble says he
appreciates this film for its clear illustration of “honor, integrity, trust, and hope,” virtues reflected in Gamble and his radiant child co-star Cozi Zuehlsdorff, both of whom are professing Christians. Zuehlsdorff, also homeschooled in real life, prayed before each day’s shoot and brings considerable enthusiasm to her work. Dolphin Tale, with its spotlight on injured marine animals, mixed with an inspiring tale of perseverance, hope, honor, and other virtues, may spread its influence beyond the cineplex. —M.L.
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Reviews > Books
Not so cut and dried Author looks into hard-to-fathom Bible passages BY MARVIN OLASKY
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M (see p. ) deals with God’s goodness, so it’s appropriate on this page to discuss what village atheists call God’s badness. How should we reply? David Lamb’s God Behaving Badly (, ) suffers from political correctness in spots and has too many cutesy section headings (“Epidurals and Combine Harvesters”). Nevertheless, when a wise-in-his-own-eyes sophomore wants to undermine another’s faith in the Bible by snide questions— “Why is God smiting?” or “What’s this don’t-mixwool-and-linens thing?”—some of Lamb’s explanations may be useful. (I’m not saying they’re definitive.) For example, when Lamb discusses Uzzah’s punishment for putting his hand on the ark when oxen stumbled ( Samuel ), he notes that the ark should never have been on an ox cart in the first place: Israelites were supposed to carry it as other peoples carried thrones on which kings sat, but “carts and wagons were for things. ... Placing the ark on a cart was an insult. ... They were in essence saying the ark was cargo,” and they were treating it as the Philistines did. (Others, of course, exegete this passage and those below differently.)
Why did Elisha call out the bears when some kids called him “baldie”? Lamb exegetes the Kings passage and concludes that “this was not harmless teasing by a group of preschoolers, but serious taunting by a pack of teens. It is reasonable to assume that Elisha’s life was in danger.” (Besides, Lamb says the bears’ attack on these teenagers was violent but not fatal.) Four chapters later, Elisha stands up against the desire of the king to slaughter captured Syrians; instead, he tells the king to prepare a feast for the captives, and the result is peace. Another oft-questioned passage is the one in Numbers where God commands that a man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath be put to death. Lamb asks, “What kind of a God would send someone to death for gathering sticks for a fire?” He then explains, “The supposedly innocent stick gatherer would have known that he was committing a crime with a punishment of death. ... Yahweh decided not to be lenient at this point, lest a precedent be set for rebellion. ... The man’s lack of trust in God’s provision is shocking, considering he had been supernaturally fed with manna each day since they left Egypt.” And what about that Deuteronomy prohibition on wearing clothes made
of interwoven wool and linen? Lamb notes the difficulty of understanding cultural context by writing, “Imagine how advice given in a sermon about lust would sound to a reader in the year : ‘Don’t buy Sports Illustrated in early February, and avoid the red-light district.’ Most males today understand that the SI swimsuit issue comes out right after the Super Bowl and that in a certain section of town they can expect to find prostitutes”—but will that make sense in , years? Lamb adds, “Commentators suggest that the wool and linen command might be connected to practices of magic, so an equivalent command might be, ‘Don’t play with a Ouija board,’ or it may have to do with prostitution.” Commentators make other suggestions as well: The purpose of the holiness code could be merely to induce holy separation from surrounding sinfulness. In any event, here’s what’s crucial: The precepts of the Lord are good.
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Ron Miller’s Sellout: Musings from Uncle Tom’s Porch (Xulon, ) shows how Miller looked beyond standard African-American politics and became a black Christian conservative. Liberals who don’t want others to follow Miller’s path contribute to the problems: Juan Williams decries that in Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate (Crown, ). I think he’s wrong, but those looking for a defense of theistic evolution might read Denis Alexander’s Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (Monarch, ). Readers who love reminiscences of growing up in the rural south might enjoy Homer Myers’ Homer’s Porch (WinePress, ).
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B RIEFLY NOTED
NOTABLE BOOKS Four children’s books > reviewed by
Song of the Stars: A Christmas Story
Sally Lloyd-Jones Sally Lloyd-Jones captures in this simple story the wonder of Christ’s birth in a way that children can understand. “It’s time! It’s time!” the rustling leaves, whispering winds, shouting sky, thundering seas, roaring waves, and drumming stallions proclaim. Finally a lion roars “it out to the empty wilderness … ‘The Mighty king! The prince of Peace!’” Then the scene shifts to the stable, where “a tiny cry rang out in the cold night air.” And then “the whole earth and all the stars and sky held its breath … ‘The One who made us has come to live with us!’” Brightly painted animal illustrations fill the pages of this lovely picture book.
Made by God: Curious Creatures Down Under This paperback I Can Read book, published by Zonderkidz, combines terrific animal photography, fun facts, and a theocentric worldview. It is part of a series meant for early readers who are ready to move on to slightly more difficult words and sentences. The book begins, “God made everything everywhere.” It describes four animals from Australia, including the koala, kangaroo, echidna, and platypus, and offers information kids love: “Echidnas are not like a hedgehog or porcupine for a big reason. Echidnas are mammals that lay eggs and make milk for their babies.” Or “God gave the male platypus a small spike on his back ankles. It is poisonous and helps him protect himself.”
A Little Bitty Man and Other Poems for the Very Young Halfdan Rasmussen Reading aloud poetry is one of the best ways to foster a love of reading. Danish poet Halfdan Rasmussen wrote humorous Mother Goose-type rhymes, and in this collection they are coupled with Kevin Hawkes’ charming watercolor illustrations, which serve as visual punchlines. Here’s one stanza from the title poem: “The little bitty man bought a little bitty house for a little bit of little bitty money. The little bitty lady grew very, very big with a little bitty baby in her tummy.” Fair warning: One of the poems has a little potty humor, with Rasmussen imagining a little cloud on a walk across the sky, and in the third stanza writing, “Couldn’t hold it anymore, didn’t have a potty. Let it drip down on the road, knew that it was naughty.”
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Naamah and the Ark at Night
Susan Campbell Bartoletti The rhythmic lines and lovely pictures make this a terrific bedtime book. In it, Noah’s wife, here called Naamah, roams through the ark at night, soothing Noah and her three sons, their wives, and all the animals with a lullaby. The book is a ghazal, an Arabic poetic form. It begins, “As rain falls over the ark at night, As water swirls in the dark of night, As thunder crashes the seams of night, As Noah tosses in dreams of night. …” Holly Meade’s illustrations, fashioned in watercolor collage, convey animals being calmed by Naamah’s song, until they sleep peacefully with their mates. Finally, at the end of the book, Naamah yawns and lies down beside the sleeping Noah, and the ark sails on. Email: solasky@worldmag.com; see all our reviews at mag.com/books
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SPOTLIGHT The Family Illustrated Bible (New Leaf Press, ) previously appeared as The Children’s Bible, published by Dorling Kindersley. The DK roots are apparent in the nice page layouts and illustrations, and the reference pages filled with photographs of artifacts, maps, and archaeological sites. This children’s Bible does a good job retelling individual stories from the Bible, but it fails to tie those stories together into a grand narrative of redemption. The beautifully packaged Children of God Storybook Bible by Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Zonderkidz, ) offers simpler stories that are accompanied by gorgeous illustrations from an international group of artists. Each story leads to a simple prayer. The story of Moses and the Burning Bush leads to a prayer for courage. The story of Esther leads to the prayer, “Help me to protect my community.” The stories are welltold and the prayers are fine, but together they lead to a sense that the Bible is a collection of unrelated stories meant primarily for moral uplift.
OCTOBER 8, 2011
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Reviews > Q&A
Obsessed with liberty ALAN SEARS sees his calling as fighting for the religious freedoms that undergird other freedoms BY WARREN COLE SMITH
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Alan Sears is the president, CeO, and general counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund (aDF), often called the conservative counterweight to the liberal American Civil Liberties Union. Since aDF’s found ing in 1994, he has been involved with thousands of cases dealing with free dom of religion, abortion, marriage, and family composition, and has led the training of more than 1,500 lawyers. Which of your early cases sticks in your memory? Our first big case involved the University of Virginia. The university collected money for student fees, and the money funded a hundred plus student groups plus a few news papers. A student, Ron Rosenberger, decided to print a Christian newspaper. He ran out of money and applied for student fee money. They said “no” on the basis of “separation of church and state.” Ron asked why the school sponsored a Muslim newspaper and other religiously oriented publications. The head of the funding pool said those other groups are cultural groups, but Christianity is not a part of the culture. We took that case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the lower courts’ decisions and said Christians have an equal opportunity to funding pools. That launched our University Project. We’ve sued various universities for acts of overt discrimina tion, winning virtually all of the 60plus cases we’ve brought. President Obama has instructed Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice not to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act. What is the legal problem with that decision? The president and attorney general are acting as all three branches of government. They have said that a law passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton is unconstitutional, without giving the courts the opportunity to review and decide its constitutionality. So, in other words, the president, though his attorney general, is taking the role of the courts and negating the work of the legislature. The good news is that Speaker [John] Boehner announced that Congress will defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMa). B. EllEfson/AlliAncE DEfEnsE funD
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But there’s a larger issue at work here. This law is not just about same sex marriage. It’s about protecting the biblical view of marriage, and about the ability of Christians to hold that view. Striking down DOMa will have the effect of punishing those who disagree with open homosexual activity. Many people, even many evangelicals, don’t see the connection. They say groups like yours are concerned to the point of obsession with homosexuality and neglect other facets of Scripture. Is that a fair criticism? We are obsessed in some sense with the Great Commission, which tells us to make disciples and to teach all things Christ has commanded. And we are “obsessed” with liberty. The Bible is about freedom, about liberty. Freedom from sin, yes, but more than that. The Bible says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Religious freedoms undergird all other freedoms. The homosexual agenda is the greatest threat to religious liberty today, in part because it would take away the free dom to preach “all things Christ has commanded.” We take that threat very seriously. Why has the Alliance Defense Fund started doing more international work? In 2003 the Supreme Court decided a case, Lawrence v. Texas, a sodomy case, that imposed international law on the United States. That decision said we should look to the United Nations Court of Human Rights to decide what the U.S. Constitution means. This is an amazing thing. This opened our eyes to international concerns, and the need to uphold the sovereignty of the United States. So we opened up a project to uphold the laws of the United States against the invasion of foreign statutes. In looking to protect the United States, we began working with friends in other nations to protect religious liberties over there. Are lives at stake? In Orissa, India, we are funding seven fulltime lawyers. In that state, entire villages of Christians are targeted for death. The Indian Constitution promises freedom of religion, but it is unenforced. A octoBEr 8, 2011
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Reviews > Music
Outside in
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responsibility, it was practically conservative. Not that she’d have seen it that way. Aesthetically nurtured by the same post-Beat atmosphere that nurtured fellow rebels Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, Smith came on like a counter-cultural rocket, freely and exuberantly violating taboos. She did for commonly accepted notions of womanhood what Bob Dylan’s singing did for commonly accepted notions of male singing. Surprisingly, she wasn’t kicked to the curb but gradually clutched to the mainstream’s bosom, even scoring a top- hit in with the Bruce Springsteen-penned “Because the Night.” By the time she released ’s Todd Rundgren-produced Wave (represented on Outside Society by “Frederick,” “Dancing Barefoot,” and the definitive version of the Byrds’ “So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star”), she was poised to join Blondie’s Debbie Harry in the pantheon of undergroundto-overground mainstream acceptability. Then she dropped out. For almost a decade. She married, gave birth to and reared two children, and—well, seemed almost conservative again. Perhaps that was why she returned to recording in with Dream of Life, the first single of which, “People Have the Power,” re-asserted her leftist, distinctively Big Apple street cred in no uncertain terms, albeit atop an ’s-friendly production scheme.
JEFFREYS: DANNY CLINCH • SMITH: PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/GETTY IMAGES
S ONGS OF THE CITY
Other than Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, and maybe David Johansen, no rocker of significance has labored to capture New York City in sound as relentlessly as Garland Jeffreys. And at he has seniority. He sounds as spry as ever on The King of In Between (Luna Park), his th album ( if you include those released only in Europe). A black man unencumbered with obligations to R&B (unless intermittent reggae riffs count), he calls ’em as he sees ’em. On “Streetwise,” he’s as comfortably conversational bequeathing common-sense advice to a schoolgirl walking home as he is honoring his Harlem-born father, from whom he got similar advice in the first place. But, like Smith, he still feels obligated to check his instinctive conservatism at the door. “Black president on the White House lawn,” he sings. “I remember when there were two black jockeys there when I was born.” He then reminds Secret Service men of their duty. And on that issue, at least, both conservatives and liberals can agree. —A.O.
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Email: aorteza@worldmag.com
9/19/11 9:45 AM
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So it’s safe to assume that Outside Society’s target audience is the Patti Smith novitiate—a fan of underground rock ’n’ roll who was born after the New York City punk boom of the mids. They’re young enough to be either the -year-old Smith’s child or grandchild. It’s also safe to assume that Outside Society’s Outside Society spans Patti Smith’s target audience underground to over-ground rock ’n’ roll is the only thing that’s safe to career BY ARSENIO ORTEZA assume about it. When Smith burst onto the rock ’n’ roll scene in songs on , she did so by proclaiming “Jesus Outside Society (Arista/ died for somebody’s sins but not mine,” Columbia/Legacy), Patti Smith’s and Outside Society begins the same new career-spanning compilaway. It was easy to hear the proclamation, are not on Smith’s two-disc tion as blasphemy, but what the compilation Land (-) (Arista), Jehovah’s Witness–raised Smith meant and every one of those five is available was that she didn’t think anyone else on one of Smith’s original albums. Her should have to pay for her transgresfans—being rather more zealous than, sions. As Christian orthodoxy, it fell say, those of Lady Gaga—probably short. But as a statement of selfalready own them.
NOTABLE CDs
Five new “neoclassical”/New Age CDs > reviewed by
88 Kashiwa Daisuke The solo-piano notes of this Japanese ivory tickler trickle like raindrops down a windowpane. And if that simile warms your cockles, you’ll love this album, especially when the weather turns cold and you’re pondering your solitude wrapped in a blanket and nursing a mug of hot cocoa. What elevates him a notch above George Winston? His touch, his ability to suggest that he really could do better if there were more money in it, and a “Favorite Things” that makes solitude seem desirable. Islands: Essential Einaudi
Ludovico Einaudi Many a bored mid-level piano student has composed melodies only somewhat less complex than these highlights from the -year oeuvre of this Italian film-and-television composer and pianist. But with Einaudi, complexity isn’t the point so much as providing tabulae rasae upon which all but the most unsophisticated can write their innermost thoughts. (The most unsophisticated get Kenny G.) The corollary: The more sophisticated you are, the less Einaudi you’ll want. But if you want no Einaudi at all, you’re probably too sophisticated.
Earthsong & Stardance Gandalf
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JEFFREYS: DANNY CLINCH • SMITH: PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/GETTY IMAGES
Charles Rendition This imminently rich style-and-sound pastiche is why the genre category “Misc.” was introduced: How else does one label a recording that sounds like the Kronos Quartet’s Black Angels without the Kronos Quartet? Suffice it to say that, given three or four listens, what may have originated as an experiment in randomness and found sound coheres into a reverie that’s part dream and part nightmare—and enjoyable on its own merits whether one buys ’s claim that it all somehow relates to Dickens’ Great Expectations or not. In choosing his pseudonym from Tolkien, Austria’s Heinz Strobl demonstrates better taste in literature than he demonstrates in music by opting for lush, castle-in-the-sky grandeur on this, his rd album. The annoying chanting of what sounds like Middle Earth monks notwithstanding, Strobl’s melodies are at least pretty enough for the credits of the forthcoming Hobbit film to roll over. And if he’d shortened them and played them on acoustic instruments, he might have made people believe that ‘tis a gift to be simple. See all our reviews at mag.com/music
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SPOTLIGHT Fairy Tale (Ricco Label), the latest album by the Tokyo-based composer, recording engineer, and web designer Takahiro Kido, is an electronica wonderland, temporalspatial light years away from the grimier uses to which his Western counterparts put their facility with computer-based musical technology. A slightly out of tune piano at the heart of his instrumentation tugs even his most densely layered songs away from the recording studio and toward the parlor rooms of yore. Other traditional elements help as well—the waltz tempo of “-Sized PF,” for instance, and the twinkly music-box ambience created by string trio, glockenspiel, flute, organ, accordion, cembalo, melodion, and harmonic pipe. Central to the overall effect is “Oranges & Lemons,” the very title of which evokes memories of ’s British ), art-pop (), dystopianism (Orwell’s ), and the ), churches of England in the days that England cherished churches. The music follows suit. And there aren’t any words or vocals to get in the way.
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Mindy belz The growing whiff of oppression from the region hardly bodes well for his cause of an independent Palestinian state, one otherwise agreed to when Israel and the pa signed the Oslo Accords in 1993. A concept, it’s important to point out, supported by Presidents Clinton and later Bush. But when it came time to sign on the dotted line in 2003 to create “an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders,” the pa balked, refusing what it now tries to impose via international fiat. So large is the Palestinian blunder that criticism erupted well beyond the pro-Israel lobby. The Washington Post headlined a Sept. 19 editorial, “A heedless rush for Palestinian statehood” and called it the Palestinian leaders’ “latest self-defeating scheme.” On Al-Jazeera, Hassan Jabareen, a lawyer who runs a legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel, called the quest “an embarrassing legal move.” In the same forum the popular Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat questioned the he pundits may be right when they say all politics is rationale of Palestinian leaders and warned that local. In September as a long-anticipated campaign for it suggests “we are now severing our diplomatic Palestinian statehood made its way to the un General relations with the U.S.” Assembly, few saw the writing on the wall in a New York Yet a defeat for Palestinians in New York special election across the East River from un headquarters. won’t mean victory for Israel or the United There in New York’s 9th congressional district States, and Republican strategists hoping to Republican Bob Turner decisively beat Democrat David capitalize on Obama’s missteps with Israel Weprin for a seat considered safe for Democrats since the should be sober about wider consequences. 1920s. Polls showed most voters said Israel was a “very Obama’s hesitancy to move decisively to bring important” factor in their vote. Even Ed Koch, the Israel and the pa back into negotiations, heading outspoken Democratic former mayor, endorsed the off a un showdown, leaves the United States and Republican Turner because, he said, he wanted to send a Israel more isolated in the region at a time when message to Obama about his anti-Israel policies. The the region is more combustible than ever. erosion of support, Dan Senor points out in The Wall Street “You can never ignore the Israeli-Palestinian Journal, “could affect the electoral map, given the battleproblem because if you want to ignore it, [it] will ground states—such as Florida and Pennsylvania—with significant Jewish later come back and bite you on the backside,” populations.” Obama got the message. The White House resolved then warned King Abdullah II of Jordan in a Sept. decisively and publicly to veto a move for Palestinian 19 interview with The Wall Street Journal. statehood in the Security Council. The blunder is yet another tragic setback What appeared a timely idea to Palestinian for average Palestinians, who, despite Authority (pa) President Mahmoud Abbas in the ongoing turmoil with Hamas, have made heady days of the Arab Spring turned into a significant economic and structural gains decidedly bad move as uprisings move into an Arab under Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The Winter. From Syria to Yemen to Egypt, the University of Texas-educated economist democratic impulses of Muslim nations in the Middle had begun to move out from under the East seem to be devolving into mean mobocracy or moribund leadership of Abbas, who is set more tightly wound dictatorships. to retire next year. Fayyad, rumored to Even for un member states that find the Palestinian oppose privately the un petition for statecause noble or romantic, supporting its leaders’ endhood, has built his leadership on calls for run to legitimacy came at an awkward time. Egypt was transparency and an end to corruption— downgraded by the U.S. Commission on International campaigning: A woman holds up a Palestinian flag making progress toward what many one Religious Freedom—a first—for “systematic, ongoing with a UN sticker as some day hope can be a legitimate Palestinian and egregious violations of religious freedom” just a 2,000 demonstrators gather government ready to live peaceably week before Abbas planned to submit the application outside the United Nations’ alongside a fully recognized Israel. A for Palestine to become a un member state. offices in beirut on sept. 20.
The PalesTinian Blunder A defeat at the UN is no lasting victory for Israel or the United States
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WORLD OCTOBER 8, 2011
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WATERS
Six months after one of the world’s costliest disasters, Japanese residents strive to overcome flood damage, quake devastation, and sorrow upon sorrow by JAMIE DEAN in Tohoku, Japan
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hen Shougi and Etsu Taki evacuated their home after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck northern Japan on March 11, they grabbed enough supplies to last through dinner: a biscuit, an orange, a knife, and a bottle of water. Since the massive quake hadn’t seriously damaged their coastal home in Kamaishi, the retired couple thought they’d return by nightfall. When they stepped outside, Mr. Taki says they thought differently: “People were screaming: ‘A tsunami is coming!’” The couple clambered up a steep hill on foot, resisting a fate like Lot’s wife by refusing to look back. Taki says they heard the horrifying torrent of seawater barreling through town before they finally saw the tsunami from their hilltop perch: “It was like a great, black wall.” Scores of residents in Kamaishi—and dozens of other coastal towns—didn’t survive the wall of water: The quake and tsunami left more than 19,000 dead or missing across northeastern Japan in the worst disaster to strike the country since World War II. The overwhelming calamity—that included a tsunamidamaged nuclear power plant spewing deadly levels of radiation—displaced nearly a half million residents. When Taki reached his home nearly three weeks after the disaster, he says: “Everything was gone. There were just piles of wood.” Now six months after the disaster, Taki and his wife—like thousands of others—are trying to chart their future. In August they sat in folding chairs on a gravel lot in a temporary housing community a few miles north of Kamaishi’s obliterated port. An electronic scoreboard flanks the tight rows of 120 prefabricated units situated on a plowed-over baseball field. It’s one of hundreds of sites the Japanese government has built to hold more than 50,000 temporary units for tsunami victims across the northeastern region, known as Tohoku. Survivors may live in them for two years. Taki, like many residents in temporary units, wonders if two years will be long enough. While the Japanese government has made Herculean progress in moving huge amounts of the 27 million tons of debris across the three hardest-hit prefectures, one effort remains largely untouched more than six months after the disaster: reconstruction. Indeed, handfuls of storefronts along the streets running closest to Kamaishi’s port sit gutted, vacant, with bare framing exposed. At the devastated port, it’s difficult to imagine what once stood along the water’s edge: Mountainous piles of carefully crushed debris sit next to plot after plot of empty slabs—with no signs of rebuilding. Though a steel factory has restarted production, the biggest attraction in town is a bizarre monument to the tsunami’s power: a 4,724-ton, blue and red freighter wrenched onto shore by the water’s force. Local residents drive around the colossal ship’s bow— wedged into the wharf’s wall—and onlookers tromp through the chaos, snapping shots of the ship named Asia Symphony.
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OVERWHELMING temporary housing in kesennuma, miyagi Prefecture; the lone pine tree in rikuzentakata; the freighter in kamaishi (clockwise from top). Previous spread: sea water still lingers in a deserted section of kesennuma on sept. 10.
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few miles away, tsunami victims like Taki feel far less noticed. With national—and international— attention more riveted on radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant, and the political turmoil following the ouster of Prime Minister Naoto Kan in August, the daily plight of these families often recedes to the background. Their dilemma is complex: Many residents in temporary housing don’t know if they’ll be able to rebuild on land swamped by the tsunami. Though the Japanese government has approved some $78 billion for reconstruction efforts across the region, government officials haven’t determined which swaths of land remain habitable. Since most homeowners
didn’t have tsunami insurance, they likely won’t recoup most of their losses, even if they have permission to rebuild. Taki and his wife have another dilemma: Like many in the Tohoku region, the couple is growing elderly. Re-entering the workforce isn’t realistic, and the couple isn’t sure how much their children will be able to help. Many wonder: How even in two years will they start over? From a quiet plot of land near his prefab home, Taki is quick to say he’s grateful for the government’s help, but he also echoes the sentiment of many tsunami survivors: “We feel forgotten.” But for those visiting tsunami zones, the sights are unforgettable. In the once bustling port of Ishinomaki, steaming piles of crushed rubble reach several stories high. In Miyagi Prefecture alone, government officials estimate the tsunami’s destruction created the equivalent of 23 years of waste in one day. That debris includes the remains of miles of homes swallowed by the giant wave. Farther inland, miles of homes remain on slabs, but ravaged by the tsunami’s waters. In Rikuzentakata, the only buildings remaining include an empty hotel and the gutted shell of City Hall. On a barrier island next to the port, a lone pine tree stands straight and tall, an eerie reminder of what was lost: It’s the only tree remaining on a stretch of seashore that held 70,000 red and black pines before the tsunami devoured the forest. But the town’s worst destruction was the human toll: The tsunami killed 2,300 residents— nearly one-tenth of its population. Still, even the hardest-hit towns show modest signs of life: A few miles from the lone pine tree in Rikuzentakata on a recent summer afternoon, a handful of Japanese residents in white polo shirts played swift games of badminton on lighted courts next to a pile of rubble. It’s a sign that residents want to recover a normal life, even if no one is sure what “normal” will mean.
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hile government officials grapple with the macrotasks of recovering from one of the world’s costliest disasters, churches and aid organizations are focusing on the micro-tasks of helping individuals and families cope with problems the government can’t fix. Dozens of aid organizations operate projects in the Tohoku region, including Christian groups and churches. But
hOusing & Freighter: Athit PerAwOngmethA/getty imAges • rikuzentAkAtA: kyOdO/LAndOv • PreviOus sPreAd: kOji uedA/AP
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the needs remain vast, and require a careful approach in a reserved and self-reliant culture. Effective efforts include working through local churches, asking locals what they need, and cultivating a willingness to pursue relief work in unexpected ways—from cleaning memorabilia to listening to stories. Going forward for Christian groups working in a nation where less than 2 percent of the population professes Christianity requires approaching opportunities for spiritual care in ways that are wise and winsome.
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continue. While volunteerism—a typically tepid practice in Japan—has increased since the disaster, there are too few hands for the labor, he says: “There’s much more work than volunteers.”
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al CuMMings, a Missionary with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (oPC), has worked in Japan for more than 30 years. From his home base in Sendai, Cummings has helped direct supplies and volunteers to the disaster areas since the quake struck. During a break from a work project with oPC volunteers in Yamamoto in August, the missionary talked about the complicated dynamics of relief work in Japan: It’s not just that the Japanese are famously self-reliant. Many also feel deeply obligated to repay any help they’re offered. That’s a perplexing cultural reality for tsunami victims who have lost everything, and Cummings says it leaves some reluctant to ask for help: “Already you’re burdened by the
gilbert & hemmi: jamie dean • rubble: KO SaSaKi/the new YOrK timeS/redux
n an abandoned gravel lot in a tsunami-stricken neighborhood in Ishinomaki, Saturday morning relief efforts take an unusual shape: bingo cards. American missionary Andy Gilbert paces between low benches under a green tent enthusiastically calling out numbers through a bullhorn. More than a dozen local residents from the mostly-deserted neighborhood hunch over cards until a woman in a white hat yells: “Bingo!” It’s a lighthearted moment for a group with heavy problems. Six elderly women sitting in a cluster near the front call themselves the “tsunami widows.” Each lost her husband in the disaster. Gilbert, a missionary with the Evangelical Free Church, says the weekly gatherings include lunch for the community and give isolated tsunami victims a sense of community: “They just need to feel given to.” Churches from across Japan help with the local effort called “Help Tohoku.” Rich Rainsford, who works with Mission to the World (MtW) just outside of Tokyo, says volunteers have been bringing supplies, gutting houses, and fixing meals since the tsunami struck. MtW (the mission agency of the Presbyterian Church in America) hopes eventually to start a church in the area, which has few congregations. For now, volunteers and missionaries are focused on befriending and serving local residents, says Gilbert: “So sometimes you clear street gutters because that’s what a family needs.” Other times, it simply means listening. Over a steaming plate of curry and rice, local resident Suzuki Sumiko says she comes here mostly to talk with the missionaries and neighbors. Her house wasn’t destroyed by the tsunami, but it slid 8 centimeters off the foundation. Suzuki, who lives with her younger brother, says they don’t have the money to fix the house, and that waiting lists for contractors to assess damages are long. But she says these gatherings have offered relief during stressful months: “I look forward to coming here—I look forward to just talking.” With few volunteer groups visible in the neighborhood on a recent summer weekend, Rainsford says the work will WORLD OctOber 8, 2011
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effective effORts missionary and part-time bingo caller andy gilbert (opposite page); tetsuo hemmi with volunteers at his house (left); mountains of debris in minamisanriku on Sept. 1.
gilbert & hemmi: jamie dean • rubble: KO SaSaKi/the new YOrK timeS/redux
s ituation.Andnowyou’reobligatedtosomeoneelse.Whatdo youdo?It’sjustaviciouscycle.”Cummingssaysbreakingthat cyclerequiresdemonstratingthegospelofChrist:“That’s wheregracecomesin.Yousay:‘Thisisfree.Wegiveitbecause wewanttosharewithyou.’” That’samovingdynamicforTetsuoHemmi.The77-year-old formerEnglishteacherlivesinTouna,atsunami-strickenarea nearSendai.Onarecentsummerafternoon,theretiredworker welcomedtohiswater-damagedhomeagroupofvolunteers thatincludedJapanesecitizens,Koreans,andAmericans. ThevolunteersworkedthroughanEastSendaichurch that’sbeenhelpingheresinceamemberofthecongregation sufferedseveretsunamidamagetoherhome.Aschurch
members(partofthe ReformedChurchofJapan) cleareddebrisandsludge fromherhouse,the church’spastor,Tateishi Akira,noticedmanyelderly residentstryingtodo similarworkontheirown. Thepastorbegan organizingvolunteer groupsinthearea,andthe effortgrew:OtherJapanese churchesandother Christiangroups—including theOPC,FoodfortheHungry,Campus CrusadeforChrist,andSamaritan’s Purse—begansendingsuppliesand volunteerstohelp.SinceApril,dozens ofvolunteershaveworkedonmore than70homes. Atoneofthosehomes,Tetsuo,the Englishteacher,eagerlytalkedwith volunteersastheyrippedoutdrywall andinsulationbelowan8-foot watermarkinhishouse.Standingon afootstool,Tetsuoshowedvolunteers asmallledgeonthewallwherehe clungbyhisfingerswhiletsunami watersfilledhishouse. Afterthewatersrecededhespenta coldnightalone,blockedinbydebris andworryingabouthiswifewhohad beenvisitingfriendswhenthequake struck.Hiswifesurvived,andthe couple(whohavenochildren)began thearduousworkofremovingeverythingfromtheirhome.Afterweeksof workingalone,volunteersthroughthelocalchurcharrivedto help.Whilesomevolunteerstoreoutdrywallandinsulation, otherssatinanearbylivingroom,tryingtosalvagehousehold itemsandcleansludgefromdecadesofpersonalbelongings. Onevolunteerwipedmudfromoldfamilyphotos,includinga fadingpictureofawomaninabrightly-coloredkimono. Duringabreak,Tetsuoscurriedaround,handingcansof greenteatovolunteersrestingoutside.Ifhehadanyhesitation aboutoutsidershelpinghim,hedidn’tshowit.Instead,he toldthesmallgroup:“Ican’tfindthewordstosaythankyou. Ineverthoughtanyonewouldhelpmelikethis.” Tateishi,thepastorheadingreliefeffortshere,sayshe hopestobuildrelationshipswithresidentslikeTetsuo.During OctOber 8, 2011
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a lunch break, the 32-year-old pastor sat cross-legged at a low table eating a rice ball in the group’s relief center—a heavily damaged barbershop converted to a small headquarters. Tateishi says he’d never worked on a house until he began helping his church member after the tsunami, but he’s learning fast. And though the work takes him from his study four days a week, he says it’s all part of being a pastor: “I want to have a relationship with the people here.” The pastor hopes residents will eventually become interested in Christ, but he’s taking conversations slowly. First, he wants to show the neighborhood that he cares about them. “Right now, I want to drink tea with them,” he says. “I want to work hard for the people.”
sobering: “You see things that belonged to people—a shoe, a necktie, a stuffed animal. You see the remnants of a broken life.” But Nasby said she was thankful her church could help in a small, but practical way: “We’re spreading the fragrance of Christ where there was once death.” Ashikaga Hidendri is glad for the help too. The Kesennuma resident worked as an environmental consultant with factories and other companies in the port area before the tsunami destroyed his business and home. CRAsH hired Ashikaga, an elder at a local Baptist church, to direct the volunteer project spreading environmentally safe chemicals throughout town.
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ACk At tHe KAmAisHi tempoRARy Housing Community, Oshio Lina tries to bring relief to residents coping with their losses. The 34-year-old elementary school teacher from southern Japan spent her summer volunteering with CRAsH, which operates mobile cafes in temporary housing communities, giving isolated residents a place to gather to talk.
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The long-time Christian remembers the horror of looking for his wife on the night of the tsunami: “The sea was burning, but I was walking through snow.” When he found his wife at a nearby shelter: “We just looked at each other and we couldn’t move. We just cried.” Though the tsunami destroyed his business and carried off his three-generation home, Ashikaga is grateful for work that helps his devastated city. “Now I have a chance to make this place livable again,” he says. “I want to be the salt of the earth.” cHurcH: KyOdO news/ap
inety miles north in the coastal town of Kesennuma, another group of volunteers was working hard to relieve residents of a persistent problem in the badly hit port town: foul smells and swarming bugs. More than a dozen volunteers from Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego were working with CRAsH—the acronym for Christian Relief, Assistance, Support, and Hope. The grassroots network of Japanese churches and Christian volunteers (both Japanese and foreigners) delivered some of the first aid supplies to churches in the Tohoku region after the earthquake (see “Upside down,” April 9). The group continues with efforts like distributing relief supplies and helping residents clean sludge and debris from their homes. But they also offer less common relief, like helping control the heavy odors of fish and spilled oil that pervades parts of Kesennuma. On one afternoon volunteers manned small, white pickup trucks stocked with plastic containers of chemicals known as effective microorganisms. Wearing thick gloves, mud boots, and masks, one worker walked behind the truck with a hose, spreading the chemical on roads and lots full of sludge and moldy debris. The chemicals kill bacteria, helping control odors and bugs. After returning from a stint behind the truck, volunteer Eve Nasby said the work in areas that look like war zones was
lina & Hidendri: jamie dean
cHurcH: KyOdO news/ap
I walked door-todoor with Oshio while she invited residents to come out for free coffee and hot drinks. When she brought a cup of hot chocolate to a 69-year-old resident with vision problems, the widow did something surprising: She invited us to come inside. (Japanese often don’t host others, especially strangers, in their homes.) A tiny kitchen with just enough room for a refrigerator and stove opened to another small room that comprised the rest of Fusako Iwama’s home: a living area with space for a low table, a small chair, a sleeping mat, a television, and a saLt Of the eaRth hutch for dishes. In the middle of the hutch, two small bowls holding rice Oshio lina (in blue jeans) listens to survivors comprised her daily Buddhist offering—a (top); ashikaga Hidendri (left); a memorial common practice in Buddhist homes. service on sept. 11 for tsunami victims at the site of the Kesennuma dai-ichi bible baptist church, Sitting on the floor, Fusako recounted which the tsunami swept away. the harrowing experience of floating through town on the second floor of her flooded home. She escaped with only the clothes she was On an August wearing. Her daughter who lives in Tokyo sends her new afternoon, Oshio clothes, but she feels bad wearing them when others here sat at a folding table have few supplies. Fusako isn’t sure what she’ll do in two listening to Taki years when temporary housing ends, but for today, she says and others tell their she’s thankful for company. stories. She attends When Oshio explains that we’re Christians and asks to a non-denominapray with her, Fusako eagerly agrees, asking for prayer that tional church and her vision would improve. After a warm prayer, Fusako holds says the needs are out her hand in our direction, unable to see us clearly, and overwhelming. She quietly says: “I want to shake your hand.” remembers a It’s hard to leave Fusako alone, and Oshio hopes that more 46-year-old man Japanese volunteers will continue to come to visit residents at who lost his wife, this site and others like it: “They want people to listen and parents, and they are looking for hope.” 1-year-old son: “He She points to the fifth-grade girl again: When the grieving talked like it just child asked Oshio for a lucky charm to protect her from future happened. I could feel the pain.” She points to a fifth-grade earthquakes, Oshio told her she didn’t have any charms. But girl in black glasses and a blue school uniform nibbling on an she grabbed an index card and scratched out Bible verses she after-school cookie. The girl, who lives here with her father, hoped would help, including one from Isaiah 43: “When you told Oshio that her grandparents died in the tsunami, and pass through the waters, I will be with you.” A added: “I can’t find my mother.” Email: jdean@worldmag.com
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Loving their enemies A Christian ministry working with Israeli doctors treats nearby Muslim children and adults one heart at a time
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gists. Christians from around the world staff the ministry and coordinate expenses, visas, travel into Israel, and the many treks from the home base just blocks from the Old City to Wolfson Medical Center near Tel Aviv. The ministry goes beyond logistics. The staff at Shevet Achim live together with mostly Muslim mothers and children as
a community. They eat together, cry together, and pray for healing. “I think the power of these encounters is the message, ‘You are valuable,’ delivered to people who’ve been treated as worthless their whole lives. Desperate parents are watching their precious child die an agonizing slow death before their eyes,” Shevet Achim coordinator Jonathan
david silverman/getty images
ezhan is a shy but determined young man from Kurdistan in northern Iraq. For as long as he can remember, his daily life has been limited by a heart condition that kept him from attending school and engaging in most physical activity. That changed last year when a Christian ministry based in Jerusalem sponsored a trip for Hezhan to visit Israeli cardiologists. Their hope: that they could perform life-altering surgery for him. Their prognosis: not good. Most patients with Tetralogy of Fallot have surgery during early childhood, and at age 22 Hezhan had complications that could hinder an effective procedure. The doctors could see that Hezhan had put extensive hope into the prospect of an operation, and they were afraid he might die of a broken spirit without it. They sent him home with medication and told him to come back in a year to see whether his condition had improved enough to be a good surgical candidate. Weak and oxygen-deprived, he returned with his parents in July. This time, doctors were surprisingly hopeful—Hezhan qualified to undergo a complicated operation on four cardiac malfunctions. This is the unique mission of Shevet Achim—bringing children with heart problems (and a few older patients like Hezhan) from war-torn Iraq and Gaza into Israel for lifesaving operations with some of Israel’s finest pediatric cardioloWORLD october 8, 2011
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courtesy of shevet achim
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cOurtesy Of shevet achim
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Miles said. “Then the grace of God bursts into the hopeless situation: life from the dead, unconditional love, mediated through those I’ve been told are my enemies. There’s a lot of good news in this.” Doctors weren’t sure that Hezhan would survive surgery. It was his second visit to Israel, and the Shevet Achim staff and physicians at Wolfson Medical Center had grown to love this young man and the gentle spirit of his parents. After a 10-hour operation he was wheeled into ICU past his parents, whose faces flooded with relief. The road to recovery would not be easy, but their son had survived. The doctors who perform these surgeries are part of Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), a nonprofit that reaches out to children who wouldn’t otherwise have access to qualified cardiologists. Out of 450 children treated at Wolfson each year, 40 percent are SACH patients. I asked Akiva Tamir, the head pediatric cardiologist at Wolfson and one of SACH’s founding members, if he ever witnessed a shift among doctors’ or patients’ perceptions of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict through this program. “It’s a tough question,” he replied. Half of Shevet Achim’s patients are Palestinians: “We continue to build the program through times of war and times of peace. … I have many Palestinian friends now, and this is progress.” Kristina Kayser, a nurse from San Diego who is the primary post-surgical caregiver for Shevet Achim, said she sees both Israeli doctors and Muslim parents looking beyond politics: “It’s almost as if what’s going on within the walls of the hospital is like a different world. If you didn’t know there was an IsraeliPalestinian conflict going on just miles away, you wouldn’t guess it from the interactions and experiences we see in the hospital.” The patients who come from Gaza have to stay in the hospital for the duration of their visit due to visa restrictions. The Kurdish families, such as Hezhan’s, may return to Jerusalem where they live together in Shevet Achim’s historic building on Prophets Street until they receive medical clearance to return home. This is where the deepest relationships often form. Those volunteering as short-term staff have language barriers but are able to minister by entertaining children or wrapping their arms around a sobbing mother. One volunteer described the Email: jnelson@worldmag.com
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BEYOND LOGISTICS: Shevet Achim surgeons operate on a 6-year-old boy from Gaza (left); from top: Hezhan arrives in Jerusalem with his parents, rests in ICU after his surgery, recuperates (with his mother), and celebrates with ice cream before heading home to Iraq.
ministry as “raw, unpolished living.” Grief and worry are constant companions. But so is celebration and thanksgiving. Hezhan’s journey ended on a triumphal note: After weeks of recovery and several complications, his fifth echocardiogram revealed a restored and fully functioning heart. He can live a normal life.
Kayser said even the doctors were amazed at Hezhan’s transformation: “It wasn’t just a physical healing. He had lived in fear his whole life and it was this amazing paradigm shift of having hope again. And to watch the gratitude pour from his parents’ hearts toward the doctors and toward our staff here—they really became like family.” On the day the hospital discharged Hezhan, his mother told Kayser that she had been waiting for that day since her son was born. Hezhan wanted to know when he could run. Doctors at Wolfson Medical Center aren’t paid for treating SACH patients. Coordinator Miles, who has worked with Shevet Achim since 1994, said of Israeli doctors like Tamir: “I’m amazed he’s kept up the pace all these years of being on constant call for hundreds and hundreds of non-Israeli children he has helped. Most of us instead would be off doing our own thing or making money.” Shevet Achim’s website (shevet.org) tells the inspiring stories of many more children helped through the joint effort of these programs. From 3-year-old Noor who traveled from war-torn Iraq to baby Jafar from Gaza, each child has a link full of pictures and heartfelt descriptions of staff interactions with the families and the medical progress of each child. “The only way a ministry like this is possible is through the only one who can supply peace, and that’s Jesus,” Kayser said. “He is the master cardiologist. He knows how to heal hearts in every way—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Miles sums the larger purpose behind Shevet Achim this way: “Maybe the ultimate good news behind our work is this: The New Testament is the only possible peace treaty between Jews and nonJews. I believe the conflict in the Middle East is spiritual at its core. Accepting Jewish sovereignty over a single grain of sand is unthinkable to religious Muslims, since it contradicts the claim—which some Christians also like to make—that God has rejected His chosen people in favor of another. So you have two or three peoples in a death struggle over who is really chosen. Only the New Testament has the spiritual solution— affirming God’s choice of Israel, but then gloriously revealing how the death and resurrection of the Messiah has torn down the wall which once divided Jews from non-Jews.” A OctOber 8, 2011
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Wycliffe Bible Translators agrees to new standards in debate over contextualizing Scripture for Muslim settings
Holding translators accountable
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In the basement of a hotel in Istanbul, people
from around the world met in August to talk about how to translate the phrase “Son of God” and “God the Father” in Muslim contexts. Wycliffe Bible Translators and a close partner, Dallas-based SIL International, called the private gathering, which included its own translation staff as well as outside scholars. The issue on the table— translation of the familial titles for God and Jesus Christ—was one that has divided Wycliffe members and alarmed supporting churches and missions agencies—leading a few Wycliffe members to leave the organization and some churches to consider withdrawing their support. The controversy is defining for Wycliffe, the largest Bible translation organization in the world, whose nearly years of work have made it the gold standard for all Bible translation projects. Wycliffe and its translation partner SIL work in more than countries, and Wycliffe’s goal is to have a Bible translation program for every world language by . Through several days of conversations between attendees in Istanbul who had been deeply divided on the matter, the parALTERNATE RENDERINGS? ticipants agreed on new translation standards. The problem A Pakistani man reads the Bible with translating “Son of God” and “God the Father” literally in a street in Karachi; left: four in Muslim contexts, translators say, is that it implies that Bibles in English, Chinese, God had sexual relations with Mary. Some translators have Burmese, and Arabic. turned to non-literal renderings, like “beloved one of God.” The new Wycliffe/SIL standards agreed to in the Istanbul e/ meeting read, “[I]n the majority of cases a literal translation of ‘Son of God’ will be the preferred translation,” but the standards allow for “an alternative form with equivalent meaning” if the literal translation “would communicate wrong meaning. ... The alternative form must maintain the concept of ‘sonship’” (see box on p. ). Wycliffe and SIL acknowledge backing translation work that didn’t render “Son of God” and “God the Father” literally. The new standards tighten what non-literal renderings are acceptable, they say. In the s, translators were “experimenting” with some alternative
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terms like “Messiah of God” or “Christ of God,” said Russ Hersman, a Wycliffe USA senior vice president. “What we would say explicitly today: They don’t carry the meaning of sonship, so they’re not adequate,” he told me. Such terms, Hersman said, are “outside the borders.” Hersman estimated that of 200 translation projects Wycliffe/SIL linguists have undertaken in Muslim contexts, about 30 or 40 “employ some alternate renderings” for the divine familial terms. One example Hersman gave of an alternate rendering would be translated in English as “beloved son of God” or “beloved one from God.” “To them it says, ‘Ah, that means a divine family relationship, a divine social relationship, but not a procreative relationship,’” Hersman said. The stricter standards aren’t satisfactory to some in Wycliffe, though. At least two families decided to leave the organization after the Istanbul statement, because they felt the organization wasn’t changing its position, leaving loopholes for different renderings of “Son of God.” Wycliffe insists that it plans to convey the proper divine familial relationships in all its translations. “We’ve never felt the need to state something so clearly,” said Hersman. “We’re committed to the eternal sonship of Christ.”
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personal relationship with Christ, and “contextualizes” Christian teaching and practice for Muslim cultures by finding common ground between the two (see “Inside —David & Deana Irvine out,” May 7). The Irvines also began hearing that Wycliffe translators were altering Scripture’s filial language in Muslim contexts. David kept working on visas, and Deana worked on packing. But, Deana told me, “there was starting to be this tension because we were both having questions and we didn’t want to talk about it because you don’t want to be the one that doesn’t want to do it.” The Irvines began reading discussions on an internal SIL message board on the topic. (Wycliffe recruits members then seconds them to SIL to do translation.) As the Irvines struggled, David began sending questions to people in Wycliffe about the issue. “I wasn’t getting specific answers. I was just being given more things to read that were supportive of this contextualization idea,” he said. In April, three weeks before the Irvines planned to move overseas, they told Wycliffe that they were pulling out. Deana had listened to a sermon on false biblical teaching: “I said, ‘I have enough to answer for without that.’”
The Irvines aren’t translation experts. Criticism of alternate renderings of “Son of God” is arising from people who aren’t in the field or don’t understand the cultural and linguistic issues, said one Bible translator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his ongoing work in the Middle East. “It’s not as simple as ‘Just put the word for son,’” he said. “A lot of the people who object to this are thinking about this only in English. … They hear a rumor that Wycliffe is changing the Bible and they say, ‘Oh no! Let’s stop them!’”
handout
Before the Istanbul meeting, David and Deana Irvine left Wycliffe over the translation issue. David grew up in Iran until he was 18, the son of missionaries there. He longed to return to the Middle East, but his life unfolded in America: He and his wife Deana, a midwife, had four children, he had a stable job in law enforcement, and before he knew it, he was retiring. The Irvines glimpsed an opportunity to do missions work in the Middle East, though Deana was reluctant to leave with seven grandchildren in the United States. She hadn’t traveled anywhere abroad until several years ago, when the couple went on a short-term missions trip to Iraq, but that trip changed her mind. David started learning Arabic, and after considering other organizations, the couple finally settled on working with Wycliffe Bible Translators because they admired Wycliffe’s structure and mission. David joined the organization to work in government relations in a Muslim-majority country (David won’t reveal where for the sake of Wycliffe workers there now). The couple raised their own support and went through training—and that’s where questions about the organization began to arise. Wycliffe required David to read Muslims, Christians, and Jesus, a book by Carl Medearis, an advocate of several ideas associated with the “insider movement,” something the Irvines didn’t know anything about at the time. The movement generally questions the need for outward “conversion” to Christianity as long as someone has a
“We were both having questions.”
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claims” of the overture to the . The paper, though not forBut translators are divided on the issue, too. Bob mally admitted into the assembly’s minutes, was printed and Ulfers, an SIL translator in Cameroon who has worked circulated. The document doesn’t endorse or oppose the overwith the organization for more than years, learned of ture, but calls into question many of its assertions, like that the debate by email last year while living in what he translations had replaced “Son” with “Messiah.” The document terms “the bush,” surrounded by baboons. “I thought also defends “God’s Uniquely Intimate Beloved Chosen One” as a SIL would be like, ‘No, no, no … we’re going to investigate plausible alternate rendering of “Son,” saying the title expresses these things,’ instead of, ‘Yeah, we do this,’” he told me. “the deep relationship between God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He found it “shocking.” Despite Wycliffe’s contentions with some of the overture’s As a translator, he understands contextualizing claims, the overture passed in the assembly. Hersman told me translations for the receiving culture. In the Karang later that Wycliffe agrees with “virtually everything” in the culture where he works, for example, he said that the overture, except the old sticking point: “We would say if the leper’s comment to Jesus in the gospels, “If you are literal translation conveys wrong meaning, then we’re not willing,” is an insulting phrase, like a taunt, so the team being faithful to what God intended for those people to hear translated instead, “If it is within your heart.” But transand understand when they read the Scriptures.” In a statement, lations altering the divine familial terms are “conforming Wycliffe said, “Based on our original reading of Overture , Christ to the culture,” he said. Cameroon is not a we were concerned that the did not understand the depth Muslim-majority country—about percent of the of our commitment to effectively translating the Father-Son population is Muslim—so “Son of God” is not such a big relationship. … Our response was not intended in any way to issue there. And the Cameroon branch has not altered lobby against Overture .” the familial terms, according to the branch director there. “It is very tricky,” said Dan MacDougall, professor of biblical studies at Covenant College. The original Greek in the Bible for Soon after the Istanbul meeting, Wycliffe/SIL “son” is huois, “the normal word for a child, but clearly Jesus’ officials began briefing staff members on the new standards, sonship is different,” MacDougall said. “The word son is not a and later met with leaders from Assemblies of God World word like propitiation. … It is a very transferrable concept Missions. Hersman has been meeting with leaders of the . because of our basic nature as humans.” MacDougall couldn’t In Birmingham, Ala., Briarwood Presbyterian Church, one of address Wycliffe’s translations in particular, but for contexts the largest churches in the , has identified a number of where “son” is misunderstood, he said, “I would do it by organizations that appear to be involved either in controversial explanation, but not by changing it. Beloved—that is closer, translations or in the broader “insider movement.” The church but it still isn’t the familial sense.” has informed the individuals it supports The familial terms express the through those organizations that the close, permanent relationship between groups are under scrutiny. Beginning From Wycliffe’s revised God and Jesus, he said, but they have in January, the church will put these Doctrinal Beliefs and more meaning that “beloved” doesn’t individuals’ support in escrow until Translation Standards: capture. In the Bible, for example, the church makes a final decision on Jesus the Son obeys God the Father— support in June, when a study I In particular regard to the translation of never the other way around: “A committee will present its report on the familial titles of God we affirm fidelity certain amount of the content of the issue to the denomination’s General in Scripture translation using terms that accurately express the familial relationChristology is lost.” Assembly. Tom Cheely, missions pastor ship by which God has chosen to describe at Briarwood, served for years on Himself as Father in relationship to the the board of , an arm of Wycliffe In June, the Presbyterian Church in Son in the original languages. that provides air transport. “This is America () met for its annual one of the most agonizing things I’ve General Assembly, and the body conI In particular regard to Bible translations done in years,” he said. sidered whether to pass an overture done for Muslim contexts we affirm that in Ulfers, the translator in the “bush” of declaring that translations using the the majority of cases a literal translation Cameroon, said, “There are many wonalternate renderings for divine familial of “Son of God” will be the preferred transderful SIL members doing very accurate terms were “unfaithful to God’s lation. In certain circumstances, specifically where it has been demonstrated that a translations. It would be a shame for revealed Word.” literal translation of “Son of God” would them to lose support over concerns that The overture, without mentioning communicate wrong meaning, an alterna[Wycliffe Bible Translators]/SIL is any organizations, encouraged congretive form with equivalent meaning may be becoming ‘heretical.’ Yet on the other gations to examine whether they were used. The alternative form must maintain hand the issue needs to be pushed into supporting such translations and potenthe concept of “sonship.” All translations the consciousness of the Christian tially withdraw support. Before the vote for Muslim audiences should include an public so that the church can hold on the overture, Wycliffe’s President Bob explanation of the meaning of the phrase Wycliffe/SIL accountable.” A Creson submitted an analysis of “key “ho huios tou theou” (the Son of God) when it refers to Jesus Christ. This may be in a preface, in one or more footnotes, or as a glossary entry, as seems appropriate to the situation. —see full statement at Email: ebelz@worldmag.com
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wycliffe.org/TranslationStandards.aspx
OCTOBER 8, 2011
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JOHN KYL
JOHN KERRY
DAVE CAMP
MAX BAUCUS
FRED UPTON
PATTY MURRAY
JEB H
Ch eaper by t A 12-member congressional “supercommittee” is about to try to accomplish what the rest of Washington has failed to do—rein in out-of-control deficits by Edward Lee Pitts in Washington
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his summer’s parade of comic book hero movies may have ended, but comic book–like Herculean feats may be moving to Washington. It is here that lawmakers have asked 12 of their own to resolve what has been a mostly fruitless year-long dispute about how to solve the nation’s fiscal crisis. The pressure is on for this committee, created by the summer legislation that approved an increase in the debt ceiling, to live up to its billing as super. “How difficult is this challenge?” asks Dan Crippen, the head of the National Governors Association and a former Congressional Budget Office director. “Well, on a scale of one to 10, probably a nine—assuming that Dante’s Inferno is a 10.” As the panel begins its work, WOrLd provides a cheat sheet of key questions and answers:
What is the super committee’s mandate?
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No. Despite all the attention this committee will get, those savings amount to “peanuts, as we used to say in the grandstand,” said Alan Simpson, a former Wyoming senator and the Republican co-chair of last year’s Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission. Cutting $1.5 trillion would slice projected federal spending over the next decade by no more than 4 percent. Debt as a percentage of gross domestic product would continue its increase—from 67 percent today to more than 75 percent in 10 years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Lawmakers from both parties argue that something bigger must be done. “If you just do what you’ve been legislated to do, it’s not going to cut the mustard,” said Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore. Others are concerned that panel members may be tempted to go after the low-hanging fruit as opposed to making fundamental changes. “If you just turn it into something that looks like acrossthe-board cuts and doesn’t change the architecture of a broken welfare state, the thing springs back to life the minute
UPI /LandOv
The committee has until Nov. 23 to find at least $1.5 trillion in deficit cuts over the next decade. That gives the 12-member committee, made up of six House members and six senators, about 10 weeks to draft legislation to accomplish savings that Congress has failed to achieve all year. “One could rename this committee … the Dirty Jobs Committee,” said Jim Gould, a former chief tax counsel with the Senate Finance Committee. “Somebody’s
got to do the dirty job of deficit reduction, and they’ve delegated this to this committee. The members shouldn’t be too thankful to be on this committee.” A simple majority of seven panel members is needed for final approval. With membership split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, only one panel member has to switch sides for the plan to be advanced to the full Congress. The House and the Senate then have until Dec. 23 to vote on the plan. Lawmakers would not be able to amend the proposal, and senators would not be able to subject it to a filibuster.
Is slicing off $1.5 trillion from the deficit through 2021 enough?
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RAY
JEB HENSARLING
JAMES CLYBURN
PAT TOOMEY
XAVIER BECERRA
ROB PORTMAN
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN
Y THE DOZEN? the money shows up,” says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.
What is each side’s position? Think second verse, same as the first. Both sides are fairly entrenched in the positions they’ve held all year. Conservatives argue for shrinking the size of government and tackling the main drivers of the nation’s debt, namely entitlements. Liberals continue to “believe revenues have to be on the table if we’re going to solve our deficit and debt problems,” according to White House spokesman Jay Carney. But House Speaker John Boehner said that tax increases “are off the table. It is a very simple equation. Tax increases destroy jobs.” Republicans have signaled a willingness to pursue an overhaul to the tax code. Such reform would include lower rates for both individuals and corporations combined with the closing of some tax loopholes.
What happens if the supercommittee fails?
UPI /LANDOV
If the panel cannot get at least seven votes or Congress votes down the recommendations, the defeat would trigger automatic across-the-board spending cuts equal to . trillion. The military would be especially hard hit, shouldering about half those cuts. Meanwhile, Email: lpitts@worldmag.com
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some of the biggest entitlement programs would be excluded or see limited cuts. This “trigger mechanism” is designed to be the stick that forces the panel to act. But there is reason to doubt that this threat of automatic cuts will work as an incentive. These cuts conveniently do not go into effect until , after next year’s election. And even then many believe that the cuts would never happen. Congress, instead, would simply abandon them. “All Congress has to do to override this bill’s spending restraints in the future is pass another law that overrides them,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. Panel member Jon Kyl, a Republican senator from Arizona, has already pledged to “do my best to prevent” the more than billion in potential defense spending cuts that he calls onerous and draconian. He has allies on the House side. “It is impossible to pay our entitlement tab with the Pentagon’s credit card,” said House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif.
Who is likely to be the deciding seventh vote on any panel compromise? Increasing the odds of a stalemate, party leaders not surprisingly appointed members to the panel whose careers have exhibited party loyalty. Half of the panelists hold official party positions. These party lieutenants likely will not go their own way. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the Republican co-chair, heads the House Republican Conference and is one of
four members of the supercommittee who served on but voted against the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction plan. The panel also contains top political operatives charged with party elections, including both the head of the current Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (Patty Murray of Washington) and the head of last year’s Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (Chris Van Hollen of Maryland). “If I were going to appoint a gang of to get a solution,” said former director Crippen, “this may not be the that I would have appointed.” Kyl is the second-ranking Senate Republican while Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina is the House’s thirdranking Democrat. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., did most of the heavy lifting during the Obamacare debate while Rep. Xavier Becerra, a California Democrat, is a member of the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus. “We’re concerned that they’re going to take their orders from their national party leaders and not really sit down and call a time out on the elections,” said Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark. The most likely swing voters are two Republicans from Michigan: Rep. Fred Upton has taken criticism from some in his party for wanting to decrease the amount of tax cuts in the past. Likewise, Rep. Dave Camp has not been a vocal supporter of Rep. Paul Ryan’s conservative budget plan. He declined to take up Ryan’s plan as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. A OCTOBER 8, 2011
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elevision is rolling out its fall lineups—and the Supreme Court kicks off its next season Oct. 3, even if it isn’t broadcast anywhere. Among all of the cases on the docket, Christian churches and schools are giving their full attention to a religious freedom case, Hosanna-Tabor v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission concerning whether a church-based school has freedom from federal oversight in hiring and firing decisions. “Critics sometimes complain that the court’s religion-related decisions bog down in trivia—How close are the reindeer and snowmen to the Baby Jesus in the holiday display?” wrote Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett in USA Today. “But this case ... is about a big idea, the ‘separation of church and state,’ that really matters.” The religious freedom principle behind the case is crucial, but the circumstances of the case complicate the matter, and religious freedom advocates acknowledge that the teacher suing the school in question may win in the court of public opinion. Cheryl Perich was a teacher at the Lutheran Church–run school Hosanna-Tabor, based in eastern Michigan, when doctors diagnosed her with narcolepsy and she missed work for several months. The school, its small staff stretched, hired a replacement teacher for the spring semester. Perich wanted to return to her job during the spring, but the school noted that it had hired a replacement for the semester; the school also wasn’t convinced she was physically ready to return to work. She threatened to sue if she wasn’t reinstated. The school fired her, saying she had violated church teachings by immediately turning to legal action instead of going through the church’s own process for dealing with such disputes. Perich filed a lawsuit with the eeoC, alleging that the firing was retaliatory for her narcolepsy. That question of retaliatory firing could muddy the broader issue of whether religious schools have autonomy in personnel decisions. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals sided with Perich, saying she should not fall under the “ministerial exception,” as a church employee, so she could sue. The court drew out two columns titled “secular” and “religious” and tallied how many minutes of the day Perich spent on each. The court added the totals and concluded that she spent more minutes on secular education than religious, and so she did not fall under the “ministerial exception” for church employees. The lawyers for the school blasted the circuit court’s “mechanistic” approach to Christian education. “In accordance with Lutheran teaching, she was expected to ‘integrate faith into all subjects,’” they wrote in their merit brief for the Supreme Court. “She did so, for example, by teaching a student about the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith in connection with an essay in English, answering questions about God in social studies, commenting on God as Creator in science, and discussing theological questions during a parent-teacher conference.” The ministerial exception, a decades-old rule the courts created, applies to employees who are “important to the spiritual and pastoral mission of the church,” and circuit courts disagree about what that means. “The courts of appeals ... agree that [the ministerial exception] extends beyond pastors, priests, and rabbis, but not as far as janitors or secretaries,” the lawyers for the school wrote in their merit brief. “The question is where to draw the line.” But if the court rules against the school, that doesn’t mean religious organizations will lose all protections on hiring matters. Stanley CarlsonThies, the head of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, explained in an analysis of the case that most religious organizations are protected by the “religious exemption” in Title vii of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “This exemption was created by Congress, not the courts, and it applies to every single job position in a religious organization, whether the position is ‘ministerial’ or not,” Carlson-Thies wrote. However, he adds, the “religious exemption” only protects organizations’ personnel decisions based on religion. In this case, the Lutheran school must prove that it fired the teacher for religious reasons—that she had violated church rules, which will be difficult before a court that is sensitive to claims of retaliatory firing.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/aP
An employment dispute at a Christian school tops what could be an important Supreme Court session
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n Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., Fox is arguing that the FCC’s standards about indecency on tele vision are unconstitutionally vague, placing a burden on free speech. The government’s standards prohibit indecent material on public broadcasting channels between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., to protect children who may be watching. The Parents Television Council filed an amicus brief on the side of the FCC. “Despite cries of a ‘chilling effect’ and ‘censorship’ from the industry and their agents, the FCC’s broadcast decency enforcement regime does not affect whether the TV networks can broadcast indecent material. It only affects when they can do so,” said PTC’s President Tim Winter. Miguel Estrada, a former circuit court nominee of President George W. Bush, is the chief counsel for nBC Universal, which joined Fox in the case. He described the arguments on the case before the 2nd Circuit: The circuit judges were “cursing a blue streak” in the course of debating the issue, he said. CSPAn Radio was broadcasting the proceedings, and the counsel for Fox asked the government’s counsel, “Are you going to go after CSPAn?” to make the point that the government’s
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decision to penalize broadcasters is subjective and contextbased. Over the next several months the court will agree to hear dozens more cases for this term. Waiting in the wings are the myriad challenges to last year’s healthcare overhaul, cases the Supreme Court could decide to hear this term. But doubts are growing that the court will agree to hear any of those cases this session. “It is very clear that the strategy of the administration is to do cartwheels to keep the case out of the Supreme Court before the 2012 election,” said Estrada at a Sept. 15 discussion of the next term hosted by the American Constitution Society. Estrada said the administration was filing for every possible extension to delay the case. Seated beside Estrada was Neal Katyal, who recently served in the Obama administration as acting solicitor general. “The notion that the administration is dragging its heels—I’m hard pressed to think of any cases where the adminis tration is moving more quickly in the circuit courts than in these healthcare cases,” Katyal said. The court is more likely to hear challenges to Arizona’s immigration law this term, focusing on the issue of whether the law preempts federal law. Since Arizona passed its controversial law, several states have passed similar measures, so the court’s decision could have broad implications. The court may also agree to hear a defense of California’s Proposition 8, a voterpassed law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman, which a judge struck down last year. The California Supreme Court appears ready to rule that California voters have the right to defend the law in court themselves, since the governor and attorney general had refused to defend the law. A
“THE QUESTION IS WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE”: The supreme court justices will hear several important cases this fall.
OctOber 8, 2011
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Doug tilley
The MasTer Weaver
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Through a dreaded disease, God is making something beautiful
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Those dark threads, when properly seen, are woven into the beauty of what God is making my life to be.
—Doug Tilley is a North Carolina pastor
HartlanD
have been diagnosed with a disease named after one of the greatest baseball players in history, Lou Gehrig. Gehrig played for the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1939, the year doctors told him he had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. By the time this motor neuron disease killed him in 1941, journalists were calling it Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I’m a lifelong baseball fan, and a while back bought two 4-inch plastic Yankee statues, one of Babe Ruth and the other of Gehrig. One day a couple of years ago, staring at a possible aLs diagnosis, I removed the statuette from my dresser top and stuffed it away in a drawer! I didn’t want to be reminded of a dreadful disease that I desperately hoped to avoid. Later, I read about how Gehrig approached his disease. He did not become angry. He always hoped for a cure—but as his condition worsened, he stated that “if the inevitable comes, I will accept it philosophically and hope for the best.” His sentiment was, whatever will be will be. By His grace and through His word, God has enabled me to approach this disease differently. I don’t think, whatever will be will be. The Bible has taught me that God always works through an eternal plan and purpose. Years ago I was looking at a large, beautiful tapestry of The Lord’s Supper. Out of curiosity, I wondered what the back side of the tapestry looked like. I lifted a portion away from the wall and noticed that the back was an ugly mess of threads seemingly strewn in a nonsensical pattern. Beauty on one side, a dark threaded mass on the ot her. So it is with our lives: Dark and messy threads on the back— sickness, relationship troubles, temptations, ethical issues, fear, and so on—can be what we need for the greatest beauty—maturity, spiritual growth, and godly character qualities—to appear on the front.
I believe with all my heart that God is working out a great plan in my life. Part of that plan includes the dark threads of my disease woven into the tapestry of my life. And yet, those dark threads, when properly seen, are woven into the beauty of what God is making my life to be. From one angle, the back side, it might appear that God is unfair to me, or that He is punishing me. Some may even believe that my life is not worth living. However, God, the Master Weaver, gives me a promise in the Bible assuring me that everything in my life, including the “back side,” is working together to make the other side beautiful in His eyes. Through my disease I am learning that I cannot simply like Romans 8:28, but I must live in it, and be swallowed up by its great promise. Understanding that God has a great plan for my life, I know that He has allowed my disease in order to turn my life more completely toward Him. Because of Jesus Christ, I do not say with Gehrig that I am the luckiest man in the world, but rather, that I am the most blessed man in the world! By the way, I gave Gehrig back his status on my dresser, and I did so with confidence that God is working in my life. Before my diagnosis, I had dreams and plans about how my life would work out in the future. I’m now living in that future, and it isn’t how I had planned. Yet, God has given me great joy with Him and my family, and I find myself excited about the different opportunities He places before me to share the joy of Christ with others. Thankfully, as difficult as it is, to date the disease has only attacked my arms and my energy level. Yet, every day I wonder if it will spread, especially on days when I feel exhausted or emotionally down. However, knowing that God is weaving His plan for me gives me an unusual peace that actually does pass understanding. A
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Prayer & Humility
Two Keys to Spiritual Life Prayers of the Bible
Equipping Women to Call on God in Truth
Susan Hunt
“There is nothing more freeing than bowing before the throne of grace to present prayers that have been carefully sifted through Scripture. Why? Prayers laced with Scripture and founded on God’s Word enjoy a warm reception from our Father in heaven—such prayers have power and importance. Would you like to be skilled in offering up praises and intercessions that have a welcomed audience with your Maker? Susan Hunt in this remarkable book gives a practical guide to the Christian who desires to bow lower and draw nearer to God in prayer. I happily endorse and heartily recommend Prayers of the Bible.” —Joni Eareckson Tada ISBN 978-1-59638-387-6 | 160 pages | paper | $12.99 There is also a Leader’s Guide available for this book: ISBN 978-1-59638-388-3 | 176 pages | paper | $14.99
My Grandmother Is Praying for Me
Gospel-Powered Humility
Daily Prayers and Proverbs for Character Development in Grandchildren
William P. Farley
Kathryn March, Pamela Ferriss, Susan Kelton
Pray for your grandchild’s spiritual development throughout the year with this guide that focuses on one character trait for each month. The daily lessons contain Scripture references, prayers, and activities to reinforce each lesson. “This book is truly a sweet blessing for anyone with grandchildren! . . . The daily devotions are short, yet rich in wisdom. . . . I have passed on several copies as gifts so that others can be equally blessed and I cannot recommend this book highly enough!” —Miriam Pitman ISBN 978-1-59638-400-2 | 400 pages | hardback | $17.99
“ In The Holiness of God, R.C. Sproul says that the reason he wrote a book on holiness was a deep awareness of his own lack of holiness. Similarly, William Farley wrote this book out of an awareness of his lack of humility. Though in recent years we have witnessed the release of several excellent titles on this subject, Gospel-Powered Humility carefully grounds humility in the good news of the gospel. This is a book that will teach and convict every believer.” —Tim Challies ISBN 978-1-59638-240-4 | 200 pages | paper | $12.99
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9/22/11 9:40 AM
As border security becomes the focus of the immigration debate, illegal immigrants who have been in the United States since childhood hope for a way to become citizens
BY ANGELA LU & BRITTANY A. SMITH IN CHARLOTTE, N.C.
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’ .. C ’ . As he lies in bed by the window, every passing light, every noise jerks him awake. Rumors of police raids have been swirling in his Hispanic neighborhood. Although he recently turned , Carlos sees that as a bitter milestone: He could be deported now from the country where he has spent the last eight years. Carlos’ parents left Honduras for a better life when he was six years old: “We had one room for four people, one bed for four people. Our house was tiny, we were poor.” Carlos and his siblings lived with his grandmother for the next four years, amid youth gangs and drugs, until his parents sent for him to cross Guatemala and Mexico into the United States at the age of . The first time, Carlos traveled with his brother and uncle in trucks. As they approached the Guatemala-Mexican border, they realized the cops were after them. The men fled, leaving behind the children and women. Sent back to Honduras, he and his little brother soon headed north in a truck once again, stopping at Mexican houses with a handler guiding them. After three weeks they were reunited with their mother in Texas, and then moved to North Carolina. Eight years after his journey, Carlos says most of his friends don’t even know he’s living here illegally—most think he was born in the states. He graduated high school, and although three colleges offered partial soccer scholarships, he couldn’t afford the out-of-state tuition. He now does manual labor at a greenhouse, working -hour days at minimum wage. For many students like Carlos— agreed not to use his real name—life as an illegal immigrant is filled with fear and apprehension about the future. Without legal documentation and a social security number, he can’t get a driver’s license or open a bank account. He fears deportation to a country he barely remembers. In the United States, . million undocumented immigrants under age face the same hurdles. Under current immigration law, children whose parents brought them illegally to the United States have no way to stay in the country and become citizens. For the past five years, Congress has been considering the Act, which would create an avenue for undocumented students who graduated high school to became citizens by joining the Army or going to college. But the law has faced opposition from those concerned about the larger impact of illegal LIVING IN FEAR: immigration. Carlos at his home.
OCTOBER 8, 2011
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Bridge buildıng
Churches find ways to close the gap with Latin American community BY BRITTANY A. SMITH W in Charlotte, N.C., Spanish and English voices fill the lobby of Iglesia Bautista de Hickory Grove as adults chat on one side with their middle school to college-aged children on the other. Then the two groups split, with adults heading to the sanctuary for a Spanish-language sermon on the Israelites’ false idols, and students to another room for Pictionary and charades.
The youth group gathers in a circle, snacking on popcorn and laughing with friends, speaking only in English. Youth leader Luis Tejera, son of a Hickory Grove pastor of the same name, asks the students for prayer requests, then prays in Spanish because he says it’s easier for him. After the prayer, conversation and games switch back to English. The students have mostly grown up in American public schools and can speak both English and Spanish. Probably nearly half are here illegally. The church reaches out to the Hispanic community by offering Spanish-language sermons and Bible studies, but also connects congregants to legal services and teaches them how to comply with laws and stay out of trouble. Pastor Tejera is aware that some in his -member congregation are not here legally, but he says his job is to minister to
all members: “The Bible says I have to reach everyone. There are political facts about the issue, but I’m not a politician. There are legal issues, but I’m not a lawyer. I’m a Christian, and I respond to the needs of everyone how God sees it.” Tejera says many immigrants are accustomed to authorities and even religious institutions taking advantage of them, and Tejera says it takes a lot of time to gain their trust. He also makes it a point to help congregants understand that American culture is different from the one they left: “They have to understand this is a different place, and they have to abide by the rules.” Sixty miles north of Charlotte in Hickory, Brandon Martin deals with similar issues. Every Thursday night, The Bridge Hispanic Mission he pastors brings together for English classes a group of
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MARC J. KAWANISHI/GENESIS PHOTOS FOR WORLD MAGAZINE
period, they would be eligible to apply for permanent residency, and after three more years, citizenship. Illegal immigrants under age who have graduated from high school and lived in the United States for at least five years at the time the bill passes would be eligible. Provisions of the Act attempt to guard against some standard concerns about allowing those who entered illegally to gain citizenship. Since the beneficiaries came here as children, proponents say it would not be helping
SHAWN ROCCO/RALEIGH NEWS & OBSERVER/MCT/GETTY IMAGES
DREAM TIME: The current law says that North Carolina minors cannot be deported students voice before turning . The rules their support are complex and meant to for the Act and ask force young adults to return Obama to stop to their home countries when deportations. they turn . If they delay, stiff penalties kick in. An illegal -year-old has six months to return to his native country. From there he can apply for a U.S. visa. If he waits beyond the six months to go back to his native land, he can still apply for a visa—but he has to wait three years. If he waits until he’s to return to his native land, he can still apply for a visa—but he must wait years. Additional complications arise when returnees arrive in their native countries. They may face gang violence or harassment from authorities. They may not have relatives there and may not know the language and customs. If they plan to return to the United States, they face either a decades-long wait list or must settle for a student visa and pay tens of thousands of dollars for out-ofstate tuition. This would change with the Act. It would give illegal immigrants who came to the United States before the age of temporary residence for six years, giving them time to complete either two years of college toward a fouryear degree or two years in the military. After the six-year
MARC J. KAWANISHI/GENESIS PHOTOS FOR WORLD MAGAZINE
SHAWN ROCCO/RALEIGH NEWS & OBSERVER/MCT/GETTY IMAGES
those who knowingly broke the law. Since the Act would not allow those who gain citizenship through it to bring in relatives, it would not lead to “chain immigration,” with a host of relatives coming. Despite such clauses, the Act has floundered in Congress. Many Republicans and some Democrats want the larger questions of border security answered before passing any other immigration legislation. The act has come up for a vote several times since lawmakers first introduced it in but failed to win passage. In it garnered a bipartisan vote of - in the Senate but failed to reach the votes needed to break a filibuster. Some former Republican supporters of the act switched positions after coming under fire for supporting any form of immigration “amnesty.” Sens. John McCain, John Cornyn, Jon Kyl, and Lindsey Graham ended up voting against the law when it came up again in December . The law passed in the House but fell five votes short in the Senate. McCain said he sympathized with students, but securing the borders is the number one priority and a constitutional duty: “Once we fulfill this commitment, we can then address all of the issues plaguing our broken immigration system. There simply isn’t sufficient political support to do anything before we secure our borders and there won’t be until we do.” Five Democratic senators also voted against the bill, including North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan. In a letter to her constituents she said, “I do not support this bill as a
stand-alone measure. I oppose amnesty, and I strongly believe the United States must take the necessary steps to fix the way we handle the entire issue of illegal immigration.”
H
e about , miles from the Mexican border that has had an influx of illegal immigrants during the past years. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, North Carolina’s mild climate and its jobs in construction, textiles, agriculture, tobacco, and meat processing have attracted , illegal immigrants— that’s . percent of the Tar Heel state’s labor force. On Central Avenue in Charlotte, N.C., brightly colored piñatas line a wall at a Latin music store. Around the store sit bins of Spanish pop music cassette tapes and shelves filled with sets of telenovellas—Spanish-language soap operas. Positioned on the corner of a strip mall, the small shop is next to El Banco de la Gente and a supermarket that sells horchata, a cinnamon milk drink popular in Latin America. Signs all along the street advertise “Cambiar cheque (cash check),” El Salvadorean bakeries, and immigration services. In July, La Noticia, a Spanish-language newspaper sold in front of the supermarket, had on its front page the face of -year-old Erick Velazquillo. Driving home from the gym one night in , Velazquillo saw red and blue flashing lights behind him. Police pulled him over for having his high beams on. They asked for his driver’s license—and saw that it had expired two years earlier. (Velazquillo had obtained his license before North Carolina tightened its laws in .)
ALIENS WITHIN THE GATES: Claudia Pena teaches a children’s class at the Hickory Grove Baptist Church Latin American campus in Charlotte.
Lutheran parishioners— volunteers from local churches—to meet with area Hispanic families at a local school. Martin greets everyone warmly, switching seamlessly between Spanish and English. Beginners meet in the school’s library
where tutors and their students sit around square tables, and a teacher directs their attention to the screen at the front for that night’s lesson. Elsie Johnston, a volunteer from Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church,
says, “We try to keep it light.” The teacher has the students play games during the two-hour session, and tonight’s game is simple: In English, ask those next to you, “When is your birthday?”—and they answer you in English. Some of the Hispanic women whisper nervously to each other and laugh when one of them accidentally says a month in Spanish. Johnston says the games are integral to helping students overcome their fear of speaking. Martin, who taught in Mexico and Guatemala, said part of the reason he wanted to start this ministry was because he “realized most North American churches were entirely disconnected from the Latin American community.”
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American one for one.” During bad economic times when many Americans are out of work, Woodard believes illegal immigrants take low-skilled jobs away from American workers and bring to public schools an influx of immigrant children, many of whom don’t speak English. He fears the Act would allow undocumented students to take slots at colleges and universities away from U.S. students. Dan Ramirez, a legal immigrant from Colombia and a former member of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, worries about “gangs from New York and California setting up here because it’s a prosperous city.” Ramirez sympathizes with illegal immigrants who want a better future for their children but says the United States needs to be “practical” by improving border security: “The U.S. cannot handle all the immigration that comes here.” The debate continues, but in the meantime students like Carlos have to put their future on hold. He had considered returning to Honduras and then coming back legally, but when he heard about the Act he decided to stay to see if it would pass. It hasn’t and Carlos is still waiting, with his options running out. “My life is here,” he said. “There’s so much keeping me here and it’s hard—even if I wanted to go back, I can’t just leave. Every morning I wake up and I don’t know if I’ll be here tomorrow.” A
KEVIN ZIECHMANN/CHARLOTTE OBSERVER/MCT/NEWSCOM
Police learned that although IN LIMBO: Velazquillo and his sister in Charlotte, N.C. Velazquillo had lived in the United States since he was two years old, he didn’t have a green card or social security number. The Central Piedmont Community College student spent three days in jail and faced deportation to Mexico—even though Velazquillo doesn’t know anyone in Mexico except his -year-old grandparents. Advocacy groups such as the NC Team took up his case: In July Velazquillo told us, “Right now I’m kind of like in limbo. I mean sometimes it doesn’t feel real. Its like wow I really went public with my case and pretty much everybody knows about it.” Later in the summer, amid massive media publicity, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials decided to let Velazquillo stay in Charlotte—for now. While his case brought attention to the , North Carolina students who would benefit from the Act, it also highlighted the concerns of Act critics like CharlotteMecklenburg County Commissioner Jim Pendergraph. Pendergraph says illegal immigrants cost his county millions of dollars for education, healthcare, and social programs. He also complains about illegal immigrants in Charlotte “driving around with no license or insurance.” Ron Woodard, of NC Listen, an immigration reform group, said “every illegal immigrant is disenfranchising an
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9/20/11 4:36 PM
BoB JoneS UniverSity Seminary PreSentS
Breaking
Chains
Building
Disciples
A conference designed to help pastors, counselors and churches minister to those battling addictive substances and behaviors • Addictions to chemical substances—illegal and prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco • Compulsive behaviors—sexual sins, pornography, gambling, workaholism • Self-destructive behaviors—cutting, burning, eating disorders
KEVIN ZIECHMANN/CHARLOTTE OBSERVER/MCT/NEWSCOM
Speakers: Pastors with inner-city and addiction ministries, experienced addiction counselors, a medical doctor, and a deputy sheriff experienced in drug law enforcement
November 8–10, 2011 Hosted at Bob Jones University, Greenville, S.C. For more information and to register go to www.bju.edu/seminaryconf (11147) 08/11
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9/21/11 10:17 AM
KRIEG BARRIE
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Notebook LIFESTYLE TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HOUSES OF GOD SPORTS MONEY
Online Mormons LIFESTYLE: LDS women turn to blogging as a means for religious outreach BY SUSAN OLASKY
KRIEG BARRIE
>>
B and a presidential candidate bring attention to Mormons, some internet writers are winning admirers by producing enticing “Mormon mommy blogs.” Earlier this year Emily Matchar, a writer who calls herself a feminist atheist, confessed in Salon that she was addicted to reading Mormon mommy blogs. They seemed to offer a roadmap to domestic tranquility: “It is possible to be happy, they seem to whisper. We love our homes. We love our husbands.” Matchar described the image created by the blogs: “Their houses look like Anthropologie catalogs. Their kids look like Baby Gap models. Their husbands look like young graphic designers, all cute lumberjack shirts and square-framed glasses. They spend their days doing fun craft projects (vintage-y owl throw pillow! Recycled button earrings! Handstamped linen napkins!). They spend their weekends throwing big, whimsical dinner parties for their friends, all of whom have equally adorable kids and husbands.” Another writer—on the culture site She Does the City—echoed Matchar: “They dress like French models, they craft like women’s studies grads, they Email: solasky@worldmag.com
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Notebook > Lifestyle
FAMILY VALUES: Emily Bohne (left) demonstrates a juicer that she has operated from a very young age, as her mother Sandra watches, in their home in Leavenworth, Kan. The Bohnes have stored a year’s worth of food in their cellar and barn.
DIAPER RASH RECESSION Need more evidence that the U.S. economy is still struggling? According to Advertising Age you can find it on the diaper aisle of the grocery store. Last year the number of babies aged and younger declined by percent, but the sale of disposable diapers declined by much more— percent. Meanwhile, unit sales of diaper rash cream increased . percent. The magazine’s conclusion: Parents are saving money by making their babies wait longer between diaper changes, leading to an increase in diaper rash. —S.O.
practicing those domestic arts. We can learn from them. But caution: We are fallen creatures who live in a fallen world. Christ is our hope, not our cute kids, happy husbands, good cooking, or clever craft projects.
Ill effects
Abortion increases the risk of mental health problems. That’s the conclusion of a review of studies that included , women from six countries, , of whom had undergone an abortion. Bowling Green State University researcher Priscilla K. Coleman published her findings in The British Journal of Psychiatry. She found that women who had aborted had an percent higher risk of mental health problems. She attributed percent of that higher risk to the abortion. Her bottom line: “The results revealed a moderate to highly increased risk of mental health problems after abortion.” —S.O.
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mag.com: Your online source for today’s news, Christian views
9/21/11 12:24 PM
SOLARCITY: B76/ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM • CAR: NARVIKK/ISTOCK
and the good about the /Mormon church, our beliefs, our lives, our families. You are all part of that same mission; to spread light and truth to all parts of the globe.” Emily Matchar in Salon said we are in a cultural moment when thrift shopping, do-it-yourselfing, and crafting are all in style—and Mormons have long been
SHANE KEYSER/KANSAS CITY STAR/MCT/NEWSCOM • BABY: JOHN LUND & ANNABELLE BREAKEY/BLEND/GETTY IMAGES • WOMAN: IMAGE SOURCE/GETTY IMAGES
quote Sufjan Stevens and Band of Horses. … They seem almost like a snapshot of a life modern society doesn’t want to believe is possible: family life free of sarcastic selfdeprecation and competition. Shameless celebration of all things blissfully domestic. I dare you to read and not swoon.” Some of the mommy bloggers overtly identify their Mormon affiliation by displaying Web buttons that show the Salt Lake tabernacle, or ads for Deseret Books. Others don’t use those obvious symbols, but frequently refer to Utah, sisters, and non-caffeinated beverages. The Mormon mommy bloggers are missional. One quoted a prophecy from former Mormon president Spencer Kimball, who wrote that the future growth of his religion depended on women: “This will happen to the degree that the women of the Church reflect righteousness and articulateness in their lives and to the degree that the women of the Church are seen as distinct and different—in happy ways—from the women of the world.” Heidi Garvin, a blogger at Mormon Moms Who Blog, praised her fellow bloggers for working to “fill the internet with the truths
N Notebo ok > Technology
Renewable risks Despite costly failure, the administration pours billions into alternative energy companies BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
SOLARCITY: B76/ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM • CAR: NARVIKK/ISTOCK
SHANE KEYSER/KANSAS CITY STAR/MCT/NEWSCOM • BABY: JOHN LUND & ANNABELLE BREAKEY/BLEND/GETTY IMAGES • WOMAN: IMAGE SOURCE/GETTY IMAGES
>>
P O administration’s commitment to green jobs and alternative energy, the U.S. Department of Energy () is backing nearly billion in loans for risky ventures involving renewables. The department announced new projects days after the bankruptcy of solar panel maker Solyndra, the administration’s one-time green energy poster child. The latest projects, backed by federal loan guarantees (assuring creditors they’ll be repaid if a project fails), also involve solar power. The government has hired SolarCity to work at U.S. military bases over the next five years, installing solar panels on , housing units, warehouses, and administrative buildings. is backing percent of an initial million loan for the massive, billiondollar project, which will double the number of U.S. rooftop solar power systems. SolarCity Lyndon Rive told a Bloomberg reporter that the government assurances were
necessary to make the venture affordable. Another million loan guarantee went to Technologies, a company aiming to reduce the manufacturing cost of solar panel cells. Instead of cutting silicon wafers from a block, as is the industry practice, the company casts them from molten silicon. And in June announced loan guarantees of billion for two “concentrating solar power” plants, which use curved panels to collect light. According to , one of its goals is to support novel technologies such as these that are “not yet supported in the commercial marketplace”—that is, private investors aren’t willing to shoulder the risk of financing them. Solyndra’s failure illustrates why: The company made solar arrays using cylinders (rather than conventional flat panels) designed to collect light from any angle, but its production costs were high. Market forces and cheap solar panels from China kept Solyndra from being a profitable power option, even while million in loan
GOVERNMENT-BACKED: SolarCity workers install panels on a home in Bakersfield, Calif.
guarantees kept the company afloat. The government agreed to restructure its guarantees to Solyndra earlier this year to keep private investors on board, but after refused a second restructuring in August, Solyndra abruptly fired , employees and filed for bankruptcy with million in debt. Seven weeks earlier, in a letter to House energy committee members, Solyndra Brian Harrison had said his company was expanding and revenues were increasing. Committee leaders and the are now investigating. White House emails suggest the administration rushed ’s approval of the Solyndra deal. “Venture capitalists—with their own money at stake—have a better record of sorting these things out than do venture bureaucrats and venture politicians,” wrote David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation.
C AR TALK
The University of Michigan partnered with automakers in August to launch a trial of vehicle-to-vehicle communication, a next-generation safety technology. Relying on Wi-Fi and , the system enables vehicles to send information to each other about their speed and position. The technology can potentially alert drivers to traffic jams and warn them if it is unsafe to pass or if a vehicle is approaching an intersection too quickly. Volunteers will try out the system for the next year, driving , cars fitted with wireless transmitters through the streets of Ann Arbor, Mich. —D.J.D.
Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
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Notebook > Science
Small, small world
>>
particular genus of bacteria living in domination of certain other species around it. In the human body, microbes found in one person may not appear in the next, and particular species specialize in different digestive functions. The researchers suspect the three enterotypes may each have a subtle, unique effect on personal health—perhaps influencing weight or affecting how the body reacts to drugs. A study published by University of Pennsylvania researchers in Science last month found evidence that the enterotypes are influenced by long-term diet. The my.microbes scientists, who work for the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, said individuals had contacted them asking whether enterotypes might explain their intestinal troubles. The scientists’ effort to identify the enterotypes of people from around the globe could help answer the mystery of whether gut flora is determined by region, food choice, genes, or something else, and whether certain diseases are linked with certain enterotypes.
The electric motor just got smaller than ever. A team at Tufts University in Massachusetts has made a motor out of a single molecule of butyl methyl sulfide, only a nanometer wide. With the molecule’s lone sulfur atom stuck to a copper base, its string of carbon and hydrogen atoms revolve 120 times per second when an electric current is applied. Other molecular motors of the same scale have run on light or chemical reactions, but the Tufts researchers, reporting in Nature Nanotechnology, say Helicobacter pylori: Dr. Gary D. GauGler/newscom • molecule: HanDout • suns: nasa/Jpl-caltecH/t. pyle
scientists in Europe are looking for 5,000 volunteers who’d like to have the microbes in their gut identified. If you join the project (my.microbes.eu), you’ll have to pay a hefty $2,100 to have your bacterial DnA analyzed. The benefits include exchanging diet advice and stories of indigestion with others from around the world who have the same intestinal flora as you (priceless, of course). The effort is actually quite serious and represents the frontier of the science of microbiomics, the study of how microbes interact with our bodies. The scientists behind my.microbes are building on a surprise discovery they announced in Nature earlier this year: The trillions of bacteria that help humans digest food and synthesize vitamins are organized into at least three types of microGUT REACTION: helicobacter bial ecosystems, pylori, a bacteria called “enterotypes.” implicated in Each enterotype is peptic ulcers and stomach cancer. characterized by a
Motor trend
this is the first to be powered by electrons. The challenge is to get a miniscule motor to do something useful—such as deliver medicine inside the body. —D.J.D.
RISING SUNS
In its persistent search for planets beyond our solar system, NASA’s Kepler space telescope has for the first time confirmed the existence of a planet orbiting not one but two stars. The stars, both smaller than our sun and about 200 light-years away, also revolve around one another, and the planet they harbor is cold (negative 125° F) and about the size of Saturn. From its surface, though, you’d see an awe-inspiring double sunrise. The Kepler spacecraft finds extrasolar planets as they orbit stars by measuring regular, subtle dips in starlight. It has discovered at least 21 planets and found evidence for hundreds more. —D.J.D.
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download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at worldmag.com/iPad
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GreG Schneider
researchers seek to learn more about the trillions of tiny microbes in the human gut By daniel jameS devine
Helicobacter pylori: Dr. Gary D. GauGler/newscom • molecule: HanDout • suns: nasa/Jpl-caltecH/t. pyle
GreG Schneider
Notebook > Houses of God
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church
in Milwaukee, Wis., celebrated the 50th anniversary of its church building on Sept. 22. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the building.
OctOber 8, 2011
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Notebook > Sports
‘A catastrophic loss’
The demise of an entire sports team in a plane crash is tragic and not unprecedented BY MARK BERGIN
>>
among the brightest spots in an emerging Russian national hockey league seeking to compete with the for the world’s top talent. Fans in the region were devastated by news of the crash, all the more when the team’s lone potential TEAM SPIRITS: Mourners lay survivor, -year-old flowers in front of Aleksandr Galimov, the home venue died from his injuries of the Lokomotiv five days later. Fans team in Yaroslavl.
had rallied around Galimov as a symbol of their team living on. His death sent crowds of mourners numbering up to , spilling into the Yaroslavl streets. Sports tragedies of this magnitude are not unprecedented. Due to the frequent air travel modern athletics requires, numerous teams have gone down in plane crashes. Here’s a look at the accident and aftermath of a few such disasters.
I In , a plane carrying the Russian national hockey team went down in a snowstorm. Terrified of how Russian dictator Joseph Stalin might react, his son Vasily Stalin, the team’s manager, covered up the incident by quickly recruiting a whole new team. I In , the U.S. figure skating team lost their lives Feb. via plane crash while en route to the world championships in Prague. The loss sent the once dominant U.S. figure skating program into a seven-year tailspin, but also prompted the creation of the Memorial Fund in honor of the victims. The fund, which remains active today, aids development of promising young skaters throughout the country and played a critical role in the support and training of Olympic gold medalists Peggy Fleming and Scott Hamilton. This past February, the film RISE, which depicts the events leading up to and following the crash, commemorated the th anniversary of the tragedy. I In , almost all players and coaches of the Marshall University football team died in a plane crash in West Virginia on Nov. . New head coach Jack Lengyel rebuilt the team with sophomores and freshmen who had not been on the plane. Marshall would win two games the following season, both significant upsets. The story of the school rallying together inspired numerous documentaries and the Warner Bros. feature We Are Marshall. To this day, the fountain in the school’s plaza shuts off from Nov. to the start of spring practice the following year. I In , a chartered flight carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and their friends and family members crashed in the Andes Mountains on Oct. . Many died from the impact and others soon after from the cold and an avalanche. But passengers managed to survive for more than two months by eating the flesh of those who had died. The survivors were rescued via helicopter on Dec. after two passengers made a nine-day trek to find help. The story inspired two books and the feature film Alive, starring John Malkovich and Ethan Hawke. I In , the players and coach of the Zambian national soccer team died when their plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Gabon on April . The team was headed to a World Cup qualifier. A new team quickly assembled in time for the African Nations Cup, where Zambia shocked the continent by advancing all the way to the final match. Despite losing to Nigeria, the Zambian players returned home to a hero’s welcome.
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RUSSIA: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • STALIN: HANDOUT • SKATING TEAM: AFP/GETTY IMAGES • MARSHALL: AP • RUGBY TEAM: AP
T Russian airliner near the city of Yaroslavl on Sept. claimed the lives of an entire Russian hockey team. The accident killed of the passengers on board, leaving a crew member as the sole survivor. commissioner Gary Bettman called the tragedy “a catastrophic loss to the hockey world.” Recovering from such a loss will be no small task. The Lokomotiv team was
Email: mbergin@worldmag.com
9/22/11 2:56 PM
From the publishers of WORLD Magazine
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RUSSIA: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • STALIN: HANDOUT • SKATING TEAM: AFP/GETTY IMAGES • MARSHALL: AP • RUGBY TEAM: AP
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Notebook > Money
Investigative whimper
Cashing in?
Newspaper challenges Jay Sekulow on payments BY WARREN COLE SMITH
>>
—W.C.S.
SEKULOW: OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/NEWSCOM • GRASSLEY: HARRY HAMBURG/AP
J S among evangelicals. He has argued—and won— religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court. His high-profile image as of the American Center for Law and Justice (()) and his obvious effectiveness have attracted tens of millions of dollars in donations. They have also apparently made him rich. An investigative report by the Nashville Tennessean said two charities led by Sekulow—including —have paid “more than million to members of Sekulow’s family and businesses they own or co-own” since . Sekulow maintains he has worked without a salary from since . However, and another ministry Sekulow controls have paid more than million to the Constitutional Litigation and Advocacy Group ()) since . Sekulow owns percent of . It’s likely none of these transactions are illegal. But these and other practices—such as not having enough outside, independent board members—have been enough to keep them from membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, despite the fact that most of ’s ’s donations come from the evangelical community. The irregular practices and huge sums of money have also invited regular media scrutiny. Legal Times and MinistryWatch.com have both investigated Sekulow since . Gene Kapp, a spokesperson for ,, said the accusations in the Tennessean are “flawed and biased” and motivated by a “journalist with an agenda.” He also said the article in the Tennessean “is now under legal review by attorneys representing the .”
A two-year investigation of six televangelists by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ended in January with a whimper. This despite the fact that only one of them (Joyce Meyer Ministries) complied with Grassley’s requests for information. Two—Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar—defiantly fought back. In the midst of the investigation, Benny Hinn and Paula White divorced their respective spouses and had to issue public statements denying romantic involvement with each other. Eddie Long of Atlanta’s New Birth Church became embroiled in a sex scandal. Long eventually paid undisclosed sums to young men who had filed lawsuits accusing Long of improper sexual conduct with them. But Grassley, distracted by the banking crisis, did little except call for the creation of a Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations. The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability () will oversee the commission, and on Sept. the announced the formation of a “trio of panels” to look into legal, accounting, and regulatory issues. A total of people were named to the panels, including a religious panel made up of evangelical, Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish leaders. Charity watchdogs and donor advocates are not impressed. “They have assembled a talented group,” said Rusty Leonard of MinistryWatch. com. But he said almost all of them were industry insiders, not truly independent voices: “It is a rather obvious omission that reflects the ’s bias toward putting ministry interests before donor interests.”
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The lecture will be held at the Protestant Reformed Church of Crete 1777 E. Richton Rd. • Crete, IL 60417 Ph: (708) 672-4600, Fax (708) 672-4601 • Email: Evangelism@prccrete.org For more information or to listen to the live stream of the lecture visit our website @ www.PRCCrete.org
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mag.com Your online source for today’s news, Christian views mag.com is one of the most popular online sources for news and views from a Christian worldview perspective. Our website offers the latest news, intriguing stories, commentaries, reviews, political cartoons, and much more. Visit mag.com today and bookmark it, or make it your home page and daily source for hard-hitting, truth-telling reporting.
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MAILBAG “Career crisis” (. ) Two articles in this issue should cause every family to pause and rethink present notions of “higher learning.” “Higher idols” (Aug. ) is a snapshot of how things have been done for decades. “Career crisis” is a wake-up call about how things have changed. Today it makes little sense to saddle ourselves and our kids with huge debts to obtain something that no longer guarantees the type of employment one desires. , Glen Ellyn, Ill.
Every June brings laments about grads who feel disappointed and betrayed when they cannot land a , job in their (sometimes unwisely) chosen field. The careers will come when grads add perseverance, experience, and maturity to their degrees. The real value of my college education was learning to analyze and reflect, and developing the skill of lifelong learning.
was a little surprising to read of the problems of schools in Texas—a state with no teachers unions. Perhaps unions are not the only source of problems. The link between parental indifference and school problems deserved more than a sidebar (“Problem parents,” Aug. ).
As a public school teacher, I agree that increased spending has not produced a better educational product. But I challenge the assertion that increasing student-teacher ratios does not harm the quality of education. Average classroom enrollments are increasing because most of the increases in teacher staffing are in special education and academic coaching, not regular classrooms. Homeschool and privateschool parents and students know small student-teacher ratios make a difference. . .
Shelbyville, Ky.
“Already closed” (. ) My concern, as a pastor and Christian high-school teacher, is the seeming blindness of Bible-believing denominations to the conflict between the public education system’s mission and the biblical parental mandate for raising children. Here in California, the government takes the approach that parents have only the responsibilities and rights over their children that the state grants them.
Worthington, Ohio
Bakersfield, Calif.
Bloomfield, Mich.
You state that “colleges have an obligation not to shower donated money on people who don’t need it.” Actually, colleges use arbitrary and often unfair rules to decide who needs it and then, in their own little neo-Marxist world, raise tuition to fund their redistribution of wealth.
Masii, Kenya / around the world
. South Haven, Mich.
To Krieg Barrie, the designer of your Back to School cover: Well done! It is simple, but very effective. Matthews, N.C.
“Money for nothing” (. ) It’s almost as popular to demonize teachers unions as it is to suggest charter schools will solve America’s education woes, so it Send photos and letters to: mailbag@worldmag.com
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Janie Cheaney writes that universities’ “walls surround nothing but noise.” Indeed, given online education, the university is no longer needed to transmit knowledge. If degrees were awarded for passing well-designed tests, universities would no longer define what counts as an education. Individuals rooted in a faith community and responding to the needs of curiosity, research, and employment would do a much better job of educating themselves. RichaRd BRiggs
Belpre, Ohio
“Math - tears = Khan academy” (Aug. 27)
As director of Hope Christian Academy, I have encouraged our teachers, students, and parents to utilize Sal Khan’s tutorials. After studying his format, I had no qualms about our students logging on for personal instruction and review, but the program should not take the place of teachers. It is a great support for students with learning differences or learning disabilities. Jill B. sinclaiR Columbia, S.C.
“‘Their lives have value’” (Aug. 27) It is wonderful to see how one committed Christian can have such a powerful impact on the lives of young students in an inner-city school setting. We need to pray that God will continue to raise up young men and women like Gian to enter the public school arena. david R. chRistenson Lynnwood, Wash.
“Soft sell” (Aug. 27) With their caring, open-door policy, Turkish Muslim school administrators are “grooming” parents. They intend to proselytize, and American taxpayers are funding their subtle tactics. MaRy alexandeR
Indianapolis, Ind.
“Not just kids’ stuff” (Aug. 27) God knew that I needed this encouragement and perspective from Joel Belz. After moving my elderly parents across the street from me last November, I have been blessed to be a daily part of their lives and challenged by the reality of
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their new dependence on me. I thought God had thoroughly sanctified me through my young adult son, but that was nothing compared to what He is squeezing out of me in this latest relational adventure. caRol Rose
Niceville, Fla.
It is sad to see our parents getting older, but there are blessings that come from it. In today’s society, we all need to stop, look, and listen to our parents, relatives, and their friends. We the church should be taking hold of this, not the government, but we have become so selfish I can see why the government would step in. BRian t. Keating
Windsor, England
“Money, meet mouth” (Aug. 27) This article detailed exactly why a Christian should never vote for Mitt Romney: He gives the vast majority of his charitable donations to the Mormon Church and Brigham Young University, both institutions well known for missionary zeal. I have no doubt that Romney would use his new stature as president to further the Mormon cause. John t. “tug” MilleR Saint George, Utah
As much as we appreciate your magazine, we were disappointed with “Money, meet mouth.” While it may have accurately reported candidates’ tax-deductible contributions, there is no way to know what they may have given off the record. God calls many of us to give anonymously or to causes that are not officially recognized as charities. toni Rhoads
Oscoda, Mich.
“Not dead yet” (Aug. 27) The interview with Bradley Wright persuaded me that perhaps many of our evangelical churches have become infected with a disease usually associated with the media, namely, the “bad news sells” virus. Throughout church history there have been those who were convinced they were part of the last generation. Those who preach only gloom and doom are in danger of alienating
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people, denying history, and perhaps even denying the power of God.
Weeki Wachee, Fla.
I take issue with indicting doomsday evangelicals for concocting myths to support our theology. And Wright is wrong to paint a rosy picture while the economy is tanking, morals are in the toilet, Islam is declaring jihad, and socialism threatens our freedoms. Yes, science and technology have made vast improvements for humanity, but that hasn’t slowed our sliding toward Armageddon.
Health care
for people of faith
Stickney, Ill.
“A visitor’s guide” ( ) For nine years, I was a prison inmate’s wife. I went through all those things Andrée Seu mentioned and it was, every trip, a lesson in “can you follow the rules?” I would bring our three young sons on the two-hour trip to the prison, where we made sure we never stepped out of turn, had coins in a see-through purse, never pulled on a safety gate, and always arrived at the proper times. It was only years ago, but it brought back the memories it should. We were all there for the same reason: to be families and receive “undivided attention.”
Auburn, Calif.
“Can a Mormon be president?” ( )
I come down on the side of “yes, he can.” Just because a person is a Christian is no guarantee that he’ll make a good president or a good plumber, for that matter. If Romney is the Republican nominee, I hope Christians will support him.
Dublin, Calif.
LETTERS AND PHOTOS Email: mailbag@worldmag.com Write: Mailbag, P.O. Box , Asheville, - Fax: .. Please include full name and address. Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.
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KRIEG BARRIE
Chances are, you’ve thought or said one of these exact phrases before because reading is important and in many ways unavoidable.
Andrée Seu
ROAD TEST
Extend grace to the one who may seem off course but is merely the victim of appearances
KRIEG BARRIE
I
around town that are tricky traffic situations. I will spare you three. One is at Rising Sun Avenue and Martins Mill Road, where if you turn right at the green light, in a very few yards you are confronted with another light, which is invariably red. Out-oftowners will be momentarily stumped. (The heart of Northeast Philly is not a good place for reflection on the vagaries of highway logic.) My friend Rich, who lives on the next block, says the correct answer is to proceed through the second light—which seems clear enough to me now that I know! The second sticky-wicket is at Shoppers Lane near Cheltenham and Ogontz. This one is definitely a civil engineering goof. They have two left turn lanes feeding into a large parking area that serves a Shop Rite, Target, and The Home Depot—and as a matter of fact the leftmost of the two lanes leads to nowhere. (It was intended to siphon overflow parking, but that was a bad idea and they have yellow school buses parked there now.) You have to merge into the right lane at some point in order to proceed to your happy paint brush purchase. I noticed today that the locals handle the latter situation in one of two ways. There is the group that sticks to the right, either from some upper-story rectitude (see Francis Schaeffer), or fear of the Lord, or fear of drivers in the right lane who, having made “the right choice,” are now in no mood to reward you for your selfishness in trying to muscle in. The other group, a minority (usually in cars vibrating visibly with deep bass sounds), speed past the idling do-gooders on their starboard side, and manage somehow to wedge into the narrowed artery. My concern is for the innocent alien, the Philadelphia first-timer, the unsuspecting motorist from Montana, who, heaven forbid, dutifully but ignorantly applies his brakes at the Rising Sun Avenue light after turning right at Martins Mill. He will be lucky to escape with a chorus of angry car horns—and very unlucky indeed if the incident happens after the Phillies lose (or win) a World Series. Email: aseu@worldmag.com
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It is well for us to remember the times when we have been out-of-towners, or had a goldfish bowl on the front seat. Or when a snake that earlier got loose from our son’s shoebox suddenly started slithering out of the heating vent (which happened to me). Your fellow motorist has life complications you cannot even guess at. Could be that pregnant lady’s water just broke; maybe that guy who forgot your “wave” got a bad diagnosis today; maybe that moron creating gridlock at the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge just discovered he has gephyrophobia; maybe that rude lane straddler needs to find a bathroom—quick. And if we may be permitted to extrapolate from macadam roads to other “roa ds,” we may perchance find in ourselves a tempered judgment toward our fellow man who seems off course but is merely the victim of appearances. My son drove up from the city on a Saturday night to go to church with me on Sunday but forgot his good shoes, and had only the cruddy, grout-encrusted boots he had worn to install ceramic tile. May the well-dressed brethren at such times remember the day when a tuna casserole destined for the post-worship service potluck spilled on their dresses and patent leathers. And if you happened to be in that pharmacy near Lansdale when I walked in with my granddaughter and purchased candy cigarettes, they were actually not for her but for my mother, to help her quit smoking. “Love believes all things” ( Corinthians :). These words were written because of twin left turn lanes off Ogontz Avenue, men wearing dirty shoes in church, and grandmothers caught red-handed with chalky ersatz Chesterfield Kings. They bid us consider that the person whose wind we ate eight miles back, and who now begs with plaintive eyes to let him merge, is a man from Montana, and just following the arrows in all innocence. We would want the same respect from him. A OCTOBER 8, 2011
WORLD
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Marvin Olasky
DON’T WASTE YOUR POISON IVY Faced with life’s worries, how shall we respond?
WORLD OCTOBER 8, 2011
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KRIEG BARRIE
J P a few years back he wrote a great piece, “Don’t waste your cancer.” He argued that it would be wasted “if you think that ‘beating’ cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.” When I needed a surprise operation in , I stood on Piper’s shoulders and wrote, “Don’t waste your bypass.” I resolved to spend my remaining years praising Christ and promoting what derives from Christ’s sacrifice for us. Now here’s another, less-significant message. Moving into a new home in Asheville and never having had poison ivy during my six decades, I didn’t keep in mind useful sayings like “Leaves of three, let it be.” My legs were soon blistering and oozing. I started taking days of prednisone pills, which have both common and rare side effects. The common side effect I had was insomnia—and realizing that all things come from God, the question was how not to waste my poison ivy. OK, here’s an opportunity not just to read for minutes on the treadmill each day but also to read late at night. I wanted challenging but optimistic books, not “sky is falling” diatribes that might leave me lying in bed and churning about dire tidings. Having read America Alone by witty columnist Mark Steyn (Regnery, ), which dealt with the fall of Europe to Islam, one night I picked up his new one, After America (Regnery, ). Big mistake. Europe is one thing, but the end of our beloved USA? Steyn’s humor seemed gone, and the subtitle, Get Ready for Armageddon, which I had thought of as raised-eyebrow irony was dead serious. Despite my confidence in Christ, the book pressed all my vestigial worry buttons, particularly because I didn’t expect Steyn to be so hopeless. It was after midnight and I was churning. What to do? Take a heavy-duty sleeping pill? Read a joke book? That would have been wasting my poison ivy. I looked through books sent from publishers and never read, searching for one about a person and nation in dire circumstances: Aha, a Reformed Expository Commentary on
the book of Daniel by Iain Duguid (P&R, ). Years ago I taught a Sunday school course on Daniel as a study on how to follow God within hostile organizations, but now Duguid dealt with my worries. First worry: As Daniel’s country was gone, so the United States will be someday (I hope not soon). Well, what if it is? Duguid posed the right question: “Are we pouring ourselves into the pursuit of the power and the glory of this world’s kingdoms … or are we instead pouring ourselves into the pursuit of God’s kingdom, the only kingdom that will truly last?” We should love America but love God more, and whatever He does is right. Second worry: What if life became very hard for Susan and me, or for our children, “after America”? Here’s Duguid’s biblical comfort: “God has not promised to give us the grace to face all the desperate situations that we might imagine finding ourselves in. He … does promise that if he leads us through the fire, he will give us sufficient grace at that time. Like manna, grace is not something that can be stored up for later use: Each day receives its own supply.” Let me add that I believe Steyn is wrong. We still have time to come out of a national death spiral. I will do whatever small things I can do to help prevent such a disaster. The United States has been in grim situations before: Consider Dec. , , or some Cold War nights when nuclear war could have come. God brought us through those fires and I hope He will bring us through this one—but if He doesn’t, it will still be good. That night I did not waste my poison ivy. I finally went from reading about Daniel to reading the book of Daniel and then reading Psalm about being “envious of the arrogant … until I went into the sanctuary of God.” Amen. When I thought about going into the sanctuary, I was finally able to go to bed and sleep—not long, but well. Thank you, God. A Email: molasky@worldmag.com
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