What
promises can you In this all-new book from renowned scholar R. C. Sproul, readers learn why God is the only Promise Maker worth trusting. With an exploration of the meaning of covenant and specific covenants from the Old Testament through Christ, Dr. Sproul shows how God fulfills His plan of redemption in and through His people. Here you will see how the God of history keeps
Dr. R. C. Sproul is the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries and the author of more than eighty books. A beloved speaker around the world and a well-respected academic scholar, Dr. Sproul teaches on the radio program Renewing Your Mind with Dr. R. C. Sproul, which is broadcast in forty countries. Available in print and digital editions everywhere books are sold.
16 CONTENTS.indd 2 Promises of God | WorldMag ad | 071513.indd 1
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His promises to them, just as He always will.
Contents , / ,
34 Double jeopardy
Arrested, tortured, and imprisoned in China, activist attorney Chen Guangcheng discovers escape to America can lead to more threats and intimidation
42 Remembering the Forgotten War
On its th anniversary, aging veterans make their final plea for Americans to remember the fruit of the Korean War, and their sacrifices
50 Free retainer
46 A place at the table In New York City elections this year, Christian leaders believe they can’t afford not to run
Hope Award for Effective Compassion: In Illinois, Administer Justice helps the poor get their day in court Help and hope: The Shepherd Community Center anchors a struggling Indianapolis neighborhood
5 News 16 Quotables 18 Quick Takes
23
: / /; : -/
23 Movies & TV 26 Books 28 Q&A 30 Music
30
59 Lifestyle 61 Technology 62 Science 63 Houses of God 64 Sports
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3 Joel Belz 20 Janie B. Cheaney 32 Mindy Belz 67 Mailbag 71 Andrée Seu Peterson 72 Marvin Olasky
V I S I T W O R L D M A G . C O M F O R B R E A K I N G N E W S , T O S I G N U P F O R W E E K LY E M A I L U P D AT E S , A N D M O R E WORLD (ISSN -X) (USPS -) is published biweekly ( issues) for . per year by God’s World Publications, (no mail) All Souls Crescent, Asheville, NC ; () -. Periodical postage paid at Asheville, NC, and additional mailing offi ces. Printed in the USA. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. © God’s World Publications. All rights reserved. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WORLD, PO Box , Asheville, NC -.
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Joel Belz
From politics to education Could we just change the subject?
>>
KRIEG BARRIE
“P,” WORLD begged me last week. “Can’t you guys ever get off the politics thing, quit criticizing President Obama, and devote at least a page or two to something more positive? Politics has gotten so gloomy.” It was hardly the first time I’d heard such a plea. I glanced back today to see what sort of issues were grabbing our attention during the summer of — years ago—and was startled to discover a column in which I quoted a reader who complained that WORLD’s content had gotten terribly dark, dismal, and discouraging. So would you find it cheerier to change the subject now, and talk instead about the state of education in our nation? Or is that a little too much like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire? For education, on every front, is a ship sailing ever closer to ruin and disaster. And yes, that applies in many ways even to private as well as to state-sponsored education. Problem is, it’s easier to talk about changing the subject than it is to do so. The American educational enterprise is so permeated by the state and by political structures that you simply can’t talk about the one without extensive reference to the other. Whatever the condition of the educational enterprise, governmental structures are largely responsible. If percent of all educational activity is statesponsored, then percent of the credit or blame for the results also belongs to the state. (Quick lesson—even if it’s probably too late to learn the lesson: Did we as a nation look hard enough at the condition of education before also deciding to turn over our whole healthcare enterprise to the state?) It was actually just over years ago that Dr. Roy Lowrie, longtime head of Delaware County Christian School in suburban Philadelphia, told several of us: “The collapse of the public school system has been predicted for a generation or more. I think the fulfillment of those predictions is still a generation away. The system is still being held together by a glue made up of thousands of teachers who were taught on the basis of Judeo-Christian values—and who also do their teaching and conduct their discipline on that same basis.”
Email: jbelz@worldmag.com
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But, Dr. Lowrie predicted, when that enormous cohort retires from the scene, or when they get so discouraged with their increasingly difficult assignment, that’s when we can expect to see the collapse of state-sponsored education. “Those people are the mortar that holds the bricks of the structure together. When that mortar is stripped away, watch out.” That’s the phenomenon we’re watching right now. The quiet threat to the educational enterprise is the disappearance of tens of thousands of veteran teachers from the scene. Match that huge personnel drain with the fact that fewer and fewer college grads are becoming teachers—and then that those who do become teachers stick around for shorter and shorter tenures—and you’ve got a pretty dismal picture. And we really believe that the state with all its political structures is capable of bailing us out of such a disaster? But some of the same pressures, it should be admitted, have begun taking their toll in a noticeable way within the Christian school movement, where actual closures (or mergers) can no longer be denied. Christian schools with carefully spelled out philosophies and intentionally trained teachers will weather the storm. But those that have satisfied themselves through the years as superficial carbon copies of their public school counterparts, with a smattering of saccharine spirituality thrown in, have already begun to fall by the wayside. At least some of them deserve to fail. Threats to college- and university-level structures are also not far behind in this shake-up. We’ve already seen some early rounds of tuition hikes in the big university systems—and that’s only a preliminary warning signal of the ruckus yet to come. It’s a sober prospect. But what if we really could change the subject? What if we really could quit talking about politics and then, without a lot of clutter taken off the table, really address some of the issues of education? A
AUGUST 10, 2013 • WORLD
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IT’S A BOY: Prince William and his wife Kate with their newborn son depart London’s St. Mary’s Hospital on July . JONATHAN BRADY/PA/AP
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Dispatches > News T h u r s d a y, J u l y
High unemployment June’s unemployment remained stubbornly high, at . percent, so Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reassured shaky markets the Fed’s easy-money program will continue. The Fed had said it would continue its low-interest-rate, bond-buying strategy at least until the jobless rate hits . percent. But he told a National Bureau of Economic Research conference that continued weakness in the labor market means “it may well be some time after we hit . percent.” The Labor Department said the number of full-time jobs declined by , in June. Part-time jobs increased, but only because full-time workers’ “hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.”
Train tragedy Canadian police raised the number of confirmed fatalities to from the July train derailment in the Quebec town of LacMégantic, and authorities for the first time acknowledged the remaining missing people were presumed dead. Rescuers went on to recover remains of of as authorities dug through wreckage and drained crude oil remaining from dozens of overturned tankers. “It’s a long, difficult process for the families,” said Geneviève Guilbault of the Quebec coroner’s office. “We plan to support the families throughout this time.”
Luxembourg The longest-serving head of government in the European Union, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker,, resigned over an explosive scandal involving the tiny country’s spy agency. Allegations include the misuse of public funds and disclosures that the agency kept surveillance files on individuals. Juncker, who may seek re-election, until this year chaired a eurozone group credited with saving the EU’s currency.
UNEMPLOYMENT: JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES • TRAIN: RYAN REMIORZ/AP • JUNCKER: GEORGES GOBET/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • YOUSAFZAI: MARY ALTAFFER/AP
We d n e s d a y, J u l y
House Republicans passed a scaledback farm bill that for the first time since the s divides food stamps from agriculture subsidies in a move to cut both. Even though the legislation kept farm price supports and U.S. grain purchase requirements for overseas food aid (“Food for Peace”), it showed the way to untwining special interests that promote agricultural spending: urban Democrats who favor food stamps and farm-state Republicans who want continued crop subsidies. Unlikely to win final passage in both houses of Congress, the bill set the stage for further debate over food stamp dependency—now involving . million Americans compared to . million in .
Delivered A Pakistani teen shot in the head for advocating for girls’ education delivered an articulate speech to the UN Youth Assembly on July —her th birthday. The Taliban shot Malala Yousafzai last October, but the bullet failed to kill—or silence— the young woman. She defiantly told the assembly, “Nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear, and hopelessness died. Strength, power, and courage was born.”
WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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TEXAS: TAMIR KALIFA/AP • NAPOLITANO: WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES • ZIMMERMAN: ASSOCIATED PRESS • THE CUCKOO’S CALLING: JORDAN MANSFIELD/GETTY IMAGES • AZAM: ZIA ISLAM/AP
Farm bill
Texas State Troopers guard the capitol rotunda after six abortionrights protesters were dragged out of the Senate chamber.
S a t u r d a y & S u n d a y, J u l y -
UNEMPLOYMENT: JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES • TRAIN: RYAN REMIORZ/AP • JUNCKER: GEORGES GOBET/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • YOUSAFZAI: MARY ALTAFFER/AP
TEXAS: TAMIR KALIFA/AP • NAPOLITANO: WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES • ZIMMERMAN: ASSOCIATED PRESS • THE CUCKOO’S CALLING: JORDAN MANSFIELD/GETTY IMAGES • AZAM: ZIA ISLAM/AP
Acquittal
F r i d a y, J u l y
Abortion in Texas
Just before midnight, the Texas Senate passed a bill restricting abortion, -, with all but one Democrat voting against it. In addition to banning abortion after weeks, the bill requires those who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and requires all abortions to take place in surgical centers. Only five of Texas’ existing abortion clinics meet that standard. The measure had already passed the House, and Republican governor Rick Perry pledged to sign it despite nationwide protests from pro-abortion groups. Texas state police issued a safety warning to search all bags of those entering the Senate gallery—and law enforcement reported confiscating three jars of paint and jars suspected to contain feces and urine, along with tampons and feminine pads activists planned to throw at pro-life lawmakers.
Snowden Fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden met with human rights activists and others in Moscow’s international airport to announce his plans to file for temporary asylum in Russia, which he did on July . Snowden took refuge in the airport’s transit zone in June after the United States announced it will file espionage charges against him.
Homeland security Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is resigning her cabinet position held through two Obama terms to become president of the University of California system. UC officials believe her experience and political ties will help universityadministered federal weapons and energy labs.
Homeschool plight The U.S. th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request for rehearing the case of the Romeike family, German homeschoolers who requested asylum in the United States (“Schools of thought,” May , ). The family fled Germany, where homeschooling is illegal, but appeals for asylum status were turned down by the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals and a three-judge panel of the appeals court. Home School Legal Defense Association says it will submit a petition for review of the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A Florida jury found George Zimmerman, , not guilty in the shooting death of -year-old Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman’s acquittal on seconddegree murder and manslaughter charges sparked some nationwide protests—and petitions for the Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation, which Attorney General Eric Holder agreed to do. But legal experts said that even apart from Florida’s “stand your ground” law, selfdefense claims are difficult to overcome in court, and the prosecution failed to provide sufficient evidence to convict Zimmerman. Top Florida defense lawyer Michael Band said the day after the July verdict, “Trials, for better or worse, are not morality plays.”
Anon. no more The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith began flying off store shelves after readers discovered the author is actually J.K. Rowling. An article in the Sunday Times of London revealed that the crime novel, published in April to good reviews, was written by the famed Harry Potter series author—and by Sunday afternoon it was the No. bestseller at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Convicted A Bangladeshi tribunal on July convicted a -year-old Pakistan man of war crimes committed in . Ghulam Azam,, now spiritual leader of Pakistan’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, was found guilty on counts of crimes committed during Bangladesh’s war for independence from Pakistan. The tribunal compared Azam to Adolph Hitler but suggested he be spared the death penalty due to his age, and sentenced to years in prison. The government prosecution team is considering a recommendation that he be hanged.
AUGUST 10, 2013 • WORLD
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Dispatches > News Tu e s d a y, J u l y
M o n d a y, J u l y
Captured In a major blow to drug cartels, Mexican authorities captured Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, the notoriously brutal leader of the Zetas drug cartel, in a pre-dawn intercept of a white pickup truck in Nuevo Laredo, just across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas. Mexican Marines, including a helicopter, surrounded the truck, which was carrying million and eight guns in addition to Trevino Morales, captured him, and flew him to Mexico City where he is expected eventually to stand trial. Authorities believe Trevino Morales, , is responsible for hundreds of deaths in the cartel’s brutal campaign to preserve drug and migrant trafficking into the United States.
All wet
St. Petersburg, Fla.
By mid-July Atlanta—like most parts of the Southeast—hit rainfall records: The city’s total for the year of . inches is . inches above normal. And the city recorded rainfall every day of the month except July . In south Florida parts of MiamiDade County received inches of rain in one day, forcing flight cancellations and headaches: “I’ve got kids here who have been pent up inside all week,” complained summer camp coordinator Alyssa Williams to the Miami Herald. “They’re pretty antsy.”
Washington Nationals’ outfielder Bryce Harper became the youngest starter in history for the Major League All-Star game. The -year-old opened play at New York’s Citi Field for the National League in center field but went - from the plate. Yankees’ reliever Mariano Rivera became the oldest player to win the All-Star MVP award, at , as the American League beat the National League, -.
Cross-border crisis Authorities in western Uganda went on alert for a cholera outbreak as more than , Congolese overran the border into Uganda’s Bundibugyo district. Their abrupt arrival came after ADF rebels, a long-dormant Ugandan militant group hiding in Democratic Republic of Congo jungles, attacked border villages. Aid workers say they were overwhelmed by the sudden refugee influx: In a place with minimal infrastructure, said World Harvest Mission doctor Jennifer Myhre, “water and sanitation, health and food, shelter and safety have to be constructed out of nothing but space and grass and air.”
Honored President Barack Obama honored former President George H.W. Bush,, , for his charity work in a July ceremony at the White House. The event recognized the success of the Points of Light volunteer program, which Bush, the nation’s oldest living president, established in . During the ceremony Obama and Bush awarded the ,th Daily Point of Light award to a retired Iowa couple whose nonprofit group delivers free meals to needy children in more than countries.
MORALES: MEXICO’S INTERIOR MINISTRY/AP • SOLDIERS: YURI CORTEZ/AFP/GETTY • WEATHER: SCOTT KEELER/ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM • CONGOLESE: ISAAC KASAMANI/AFP/GETTY • HARPER: AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGES • BUSH: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GETTY
All-Stars
WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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Dispatches > News T h u r s d a y, J u l y
Bankrupt The city of Detroit filed for federal bankruptcy protection—the country’s largest-ever municipal bankruptcy case—with liabilities of more than billion. The Chapter filing caps decades of decline in what once symbolized the industrial powerhouse of the United States. Since , the city has spent million more a year than it took in.
Changing marriage Great Britain legalized gay marriage, with Queen Elizabeth II giving her approval—a formality—one day after Parliament passed the bill, clearing the way for same-sex weddings, likely by next summer. The law, introduced in January, allows gay couples to get married in both civil and religious ceremonies in England and Wales, but only if the religious institution consents. The Church of England, the state church, says it will not perform such ceremonies, at least for now. Prime Minister David Cameron backed the legislation, which has divided his Conservative Party.
Student loans
Shuttered
Congress reached an agreement to lower federally subsidized student loan interest rates, at least temporarily. It sets new rates for federally subsidized Stafford loans for undergrads at . percent interest (about half a percentage higher than last year’s rates), and . percent for grad students.
The largest abortion clinic in Virginia quietly closed its doors following repeated disputes with its landlord— and in the face of new state regulations requiring abortion clinics to adhere to the same standards as outpatient surgical centers. NOVA Women’s Healthcare in Fairfax, Va., performed , abortions in —making it the largest abortion provider in the state. Nationwide, the number of abortion clinics, according to Operation Rescue’s Troy Newman, has dropped from , in to today.
Full of years South Africans celebrated the th birthday of Nelson Mandela, many by taking part in minutes of charity to commemorate years of service to his country for the former South African president and anti-apartheid leader. Mandela himself remained hospitalized, as he has been since June for a persistent lung infection.
Nigeria Gunmen killed six Christians from one church in an early morning attack in southern Plateau State, a month after Muslim Fulanis killed more than Christian men, women, and children in three nearby Plateau villages. Mark Lipdo, director of the Stefanos Foundation in Jos, the Plateau capital, said thousands of Christians have fled the area, and the overall death toll may be as high as .
Died Journalist Helen Thomas,, known as the “dean of the White House press corps,” died July at age . Thomas served as a White House correspondent for UPI and later Hearst Newspapers, covering every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama. She was the first female member of the corps and known for ending each news conference with: “Thank you, Mr. President.” Thomas, who wrote six books, retired suddenly in after saying Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine.”
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT: ANDREW COWIE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • SOUTH AFRICA: BEN CURTIS/AP • GRADUATES: JEFF JANOWSKI/THE STAR-NEWS/AP • THOMAS: SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
We d n e s d a y, J u l y
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HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT: ANDREW COWIE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • SOUTH AFRICA: BEN CURTIS/AP • GRADUATES: JEFF JANOWSKI/THE STAR-NEWS/AP • THOMAS: SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
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Dispatches > News
Text blasphemy
F r i d a y, J u l y
Soft terrorism A glamorized Rolling Stone cover featuring accused Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hit newsstands amid boycotts and outcries from Boston residents. The Aug. issue depicts a tousled-hair, soft-eyed Marathon bombing suspect above the subheadline: “How a popular, promising student was failed by his family, fell into radical Islam, and became a monster.” About retailers—including CVS, Walgreens, and several New England chains—refused to sell the magazine. And cover knockoffs surfaced on Twitter and elsewhere. One featured John Wilkes Booth and the line, “How a promising stage actor was failed by his president, fell into a Confederate crowd, and became a monster.”
French fire About protesters clashed with police firing tear gas in a Paris suburb after police checked the identity of a woman wearing a Muslim veil. Four police officers were injured and six were arrested before riot police arrived and the crowd dispersed before dawn. France outlawed hijab, wearing the veil to fully cover the face, in .
The American wins
Restrained Capping a legal turnaround in Hobby Lobby’s case against the federal health insurance contraceptive mandate, a federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction to the craft retailer so it will not face fines for excluding abortifacients Plan B and Ella from its coverage. The th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had remanded the case at the end of June, reviving it after multiple setbacks. Upon the th Circuit’s ruling, Judge Joe Heaton immediately issued a temporary restraining order to help Hobby Lobby—as it faced a July deadline for daily fines. After Heaton heard arguments on July he immediately read his order from the bench granting a preliminary injunction. “There is a substantial public interest in ensuring that no individual or corporation has their legs cut out from under them while these difficult issues are resolved,” he said.
In a dramatic comeback from a dramatic U.S. Open loss in June, Phil Mickelson shot a final round score of to take the British Open title on July . The popular “Lefty,” now with three of four golf championships in his name, shot past Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy in the golf rankings to become the No. golfer in the world.
CREDIT
Died Canadian actor Cory Monteith, , star of the Fox hit show Glee, died July in his Vancouver hotel
ROLLING STONE: MICHAEL THURSTON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • MICHELSON: ANDY LYONS/GETTY IMAGES • MONTEITH: JONATHAN LEIBSON/GETTY IMAGES FOR CHRYSALIS
Authorities in Pakistan arrested a Christian couple for allegedly sending to a Muslim cleric blasphemous text messages. It’s the third known case of Christians charged for sending messages that defame the Islamic prophet Muhammad via their cellphones—part of “a dangerous trend,” according to Morning Star News. Activating SIM cards on someone else’s national identity card isn’t difficult in Pakistan. Earlier in July a court sentenced a Christian man from the same town to life imprisonment and a fine of , for sending blasphemous text messages.
room from a toxic mixture of heroin and alcohol. Monteith was public about his struggle with addiction since age . He first entered rehab at , and his latest rehab stint came in April. Ryan Murphy, executive producer of Glee—which was set to resume production in late July—announced the season’s third episode will be a tribute to Monteith, after which the show will take a break to reassess its direction.
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OBAMA: MANUEL BALCE CENETA/AP • PLANES: DISNEYTOON STUDIOS • PERSEIDS: MAXIM MARMUR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • USPS: KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES • WOODS: PETER MUHLY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
S a t u r d a y & S u n d a y, J u l y -
Aug. 4
President Barack Obama’s nd birthday will come at a less stressful time than did his st birthday a year ago. During his re-election bid, the President squeezed in a round of golf on his birthday and took the evening off from the campaign trail.
ROLLING STONE: MICHAEL THURSTON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • MICHELSON: ANDY LYONS/GETTY IMAGES • MONTEITH: JONATHAN LEIBSON/GETTY IMAGES FOR CHRYSALIS
OBAMA: MANUEL BALCE CENETA/AP • PLANES: DISNEYTOON STUDIOS • PERSEIDS: MAXIM MARMUR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • USPS: KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES • WOODS: PETER MUHLY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
M o n d a y, J u l y
Royal baby Weighing in at pounds, ounces, the son of Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate entered the world at : p.m. GMT on Monday at Saint Mary’s Hospital in central London. It’s the same hospital where Princess Diana gave birth to William. Buckingham Palace did not immediately release a name for the infant, who will be third in line for the British throne.
Abu Ghraib, again Militants tied to al-Qaeda in Iraq attacked Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, allowing an estimated - prisoners to escape— including many linked to al-Qaeda and captured by U.S. forces prior to their exit from Iraq. “This is a significant milestone in the resurgence of al-Qaeda in Iraq,” said Middle East Forum fellow Aymenn al-Tamimi. “A good deal of the progress achieved from onwards has essentially been undone now.”
. Adoption hopes, heartbeat laws, college scholarships, Muslim veils, child brides, ex-gays, Obamacare woes … those are just seven of the dozens of stories you missed if you skipped wwwworldmag.com. Please make it your homepage or visit it often for breaking news and biblical views.
LOOKING AHEAD Aug. 9 Disney is hoping that those
who loved its animated Cars blockbuster will snatch up tickets for its spin-off, Planes.. Pixar, which produced Cars,, didn’t make the film. But Disney hopes that crossover personnel from its sister company give the new animated comedy the same Pixar magic.
Aug. 5 Had Congress not intervened in
Aug. 10
From late night until dawn in areas without much light pollution, sky watchers will be treated to some of the best meteor showers of the year. The phenomenon, called the Perseids meteor shower, will reach its zenith between August and August in the Northern Hemisphere as up to meteors are expected to streak across the night sky every hour.
April, the U.S. Postal Service would be saying goodbye to Saturday delivery of first-class mail today. Officials said ending Saturday service would help the post office cut more than billion in losses every year. But Congress had other plans, directing administrators of the independent agency to find other ways to cut costs.
Aug. 11
Top golfers from around the world will be playing the final round of the PGA Championship this year at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y. After an impressive finish at the British Open Championship in July, the golf world will be watching to see if Tiger Woods truly has returned to form.
CREDIT
Found Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and a team of explorers found and authenticated major parts of the engines for Apollo —the space flight that sent the first Americans to the moon. The announcement, which NASA confirmed, came on July , one day before the th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s famous landing and pronouncement: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Bezos, a long-time space enthusiast, led the March expedition that netted most of two engines. The billionaire entrepreneur acknowledged NASA still owns the engines, which are likely headed to museums in Seattle and Washington, D.C.
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AUGUST 10, 2013 • WORLD
7/24/13 11:21 AM
Dispatches > News
Muddied waters With high court rulings on marriage, a wide assault begins on state marriage laws By emily belz
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Following the Supreme Court’s rulings on gay marriage, the American Civil Liberties Union has begun filing lawsuits— many lawsuits. With a swell from the legal victory in the United States v. Windsor under its wings, the ACLU has filed suits against traditional marriage laws in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. It also recently celebrated legal victories in Michigan as two cases go forward there. And the group is pursuing cases in New Mexico and Illinois. The ACLU said it is working to “improve the map of the country,” and hopes by the end of 2016 to add seven states to the 13 that currently allow gay marriage. When Justice Anthony Kennedy issued his ruling in Windsor at the end of June, striking Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, he based his argument in part on state sovereignty. But he talked enough about DOMA as a discriminatory law to give lower judges reasons to strike state laws on that basis. The seemingly contradictory opinion caused Justice Antonin Scalia to
complain in his dissent, “If this is meant to be an equal protection opinion, it is a confusing one.” Scalia—perhaps correctly—predicted that courts would begin tossing out state laws using Kennedy’s line of reasoning. “The real rationale of today’s opinion, whatever disappearing trail of its legalistic argle-bargle one chooses to follow, is that DOMA is motivated by ‘bare … desire to harm’ couples in same-sex marriages,” he wrote. “How easy it is, indeed how inevitable, to reach the same conclusion with regard to state laws denying same-sex couples marital status.” Lower judges are likely to continue to disagree about the interpretation of Kennedy’s ruling: Did he mean his opinion to be more an affirmation of states’ rights or gay rights? The high court could hear other state-level cases if they are challenged on constitutional grounds. Otherwise challenges to state laws will end in state supreme courts. A Michigan judge in early July issued a preliminary injunction against the state’s policy that provides benefits to heterosexual married spouses, based
in part on the DOMA decision. Another judge allowed a lawsuit to proceed against the state’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman, also based in part on DOMA. In Illinois, the ACLU asked a court to expedite its ruling on a pending case, also citing DOMA. Peter Breen, a lawyer with the Thomas More Society, has been defending the Illinois law, but his firm is using the DOMA decision as an argument in favor of the state’s traditional marriage law. He said the ruling “reaffirms strongly that states have the right to define marriage as they see fit.” He points out that Kennedy was clear that his opinion only applied to states that had already legalized same-sex marriage. “If Justice Kennedy was ready to overturn the marriage laws in 40 states, this would have been the case to do it,”
State of laws on marriage
Marc Levy/AP
3 Legally define marriage as between a man and a woman 3 Recognize out-of-state marriages 3 Recognize domestic partnerships with limited marriage benefits to same-sex couples 3 Recognize civil unions/ domestic partnerships 3 Same-sex marriage legalized SOURCE: American Civil Liberties Union
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7/23/13 2:24 PM
Marc Levy/AP
PURSUING: ACLU lawyer Witold J. Walczak speaks alongside many of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to overturn a state law effectively banning same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania, July 9, in Harrisburg, Pa.
Breen said. “If the court wanted to force same-sex marriage on the states, it could have done so through the Windsor decision. If there were five votes for that, it would have happened. Period.” Breen acknowledges, “Look, it’s not a good decision,” but said it doesn’t mean state laws are invalid. He’s defending the Illinois law because the state attorney general has refused to defend it. Pennsylvania’s attorney general also recently decided she wouldn’t defend the state’s traditional marriage law. This has become a problem, especially after the Supreme Court’s ruling on California’s Proposition 8. The court dismissed the Prop 8 case on standing issues, saying once California state officials decided not to defend Prop 8 in court, the taxpayers who took up its legal defense had no standing. “As long as there’s a government official to defend the law, that makes it a lot
easier,” Breen said with a quick laugh. Breen, designated as a special assistant state’s attorney to defend Illinois’ law, doesn’t expect to face the standing issues that took down Prop 8—because for this case he is a commissioned state official, not a taxpayer. The legal minutiae are important in whether these laws survive. Meanwhile California courts are still trying to figure out whether the Supreme Court’s ruling means the state can issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. California state officials declared after the ruling that state clerks could begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. But the details are more complicated. Technically, after the Supreme Court said California taxpayers had no standing, the only valid ruling on Prop 8 was at the district court level. That would mean that only the gay couples in that district-level case would qualify for marriage licenses. But state officials argued that based on the district-level decision, they have the power to order clerks to issue same-sex marriage licenses across the state.
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The clerk of San Diego County has challenged that reasoning, asking the state supreme court to clarify where clerks stand. The clerk, Ernest J. Dronenburg Jr., argues that the districtlevel ruling doesn’t apply to him, and Prop 8 should still be the law until higher courts decide the issue. The backers of Prop 8 have made a similar argument in a separate challenge to the state’s decision to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Richard Garnett, law professor at Notre Dame University, has deep concerns about the implications of both of the Supreme Court’s marriage decisions, but he said these legal squabbles will continue for the time being. “Until the Supreme Court hands down a ruling that same-sex marriage is constitutionally required, many states will retain their traditional legal definitions of marriage,” he said. “In some states, legislatures will adopt, or state courts will require, revised definitions of marriage, but in many others, the revision will not come unless and until it is required by the [high] court.” A
A u g u s t 1 0 , 2 0 1 3 • W O R L D
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7/23/13 1:12 PM
Dispatches > Quotables ‘We are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken.’
On his first overseas trip as head of the Catholic church, the Argentinian POPE FRANCIS visited Brazil, where crowds mobbed him upon arrival in Rio de Janeiro when his driver took a wrong turn down a street not blocked for his security. The pope arrived amid mass protests in Brazil and elsewhere over chronic unemployment and plans to cut government spending on transportation and other services.
WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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Vice President JOE BIDEN, acknowledging in a wideranging interview with GQ on July that he may consider running for high office in . Biden, who is , said his first consideration will be, “Am I still as full of as much energy as I have now?”
‘One little piece at a time.’ DAN STEININGER (right (right), one of an elite group of worldwide Lego model builders, finishing up eight-foot tall Ninja turtles unveiled in July at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.: “I have a sweet job. I’m kinda like Tom Hanks in the movie Big. I get paid to play.”
‘Thank you, Lord.’ MARIANO RIVERA, known as the greatest relief pitcher in baseball history, upon receiving the Most Valuable Player award at his final All-Star game. Rivera, , is retiring at the end of this season.
POPE: BUDA MENDES/GETTY IMAGES • TRAYVON: DON EMMERT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • BIDEN: DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES • STEININGER: LEGO • RIVERA: KATHY WILLENS/AP
‘We risk having a generation that hasn’t held a job. Personal dignity comes from working, from earning your bread. Young people are in a crisis.’
‘I can die a happy man never having been president of the United States of America. But it doesn’t mean I won’t run.’
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7/24/13 9:59 AM
CREDIT
President BARACK OBAMA, in a July statement following the not-guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman. The president on July made a surprise visit to the White House press room to speak about the case, to call for an examination of state and local laws related to gun violence and race. “I’m not naïve about the prospects of some grand, new federal program,” he said, while also asserting, “Trayvon Martin could have been me years ago.”
CREDIT
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7/23/13 4:04 PM
Dispatches > Quick Takes
On their way to a Dave Matthews concert in Hershey, Pa., on July , Emily Kraus and her boyfriend almost passed by the stranded bicyclist. Thinking better of it, the two stopped to give the strange man a lift. It’s a good thing they did: The stranded cyclist turned out to be Dave Matthews himself. The rock star’s bicycle had broken during a preconcert ride, stranding him miles away from the venue without a cell phone or tools. A thankful Matthews invited the couple to dinner and upgraded their seats to the front row.
Most people just delete monthly statements from online money-sender PayPal. But Delaware County, Pa., resident Chris Reynolds opened his June statement—and got the shock of his life. The July email indicated that the -year-old PayPal customer had a positive balance of more than quadrillion (also known as all the money in the world). After the initial shock, Reynolds logged into his PayPal account only to find out the email was a mistake. Still, he did allow himself to dream, if only for a moment: “I’m a very responsible guy,” he told Philly.com. “I would pay the national debt down first. Then I would buy the Phillies, if I could get a great price.”
At long last, Boston’s Charles River has been reopened to the swimming public. For the first time since the s, state officials declared the city’s famously foul waterway safely swimmable on July . Early reports from the first day of swimming included some saying the water appeared orange while others said it had the look—though not consistency—of beef broth. According to state officials, swimmers in the Charles River are safe, so long as they don’t dive to the river’s toxic depths. Violators of that proviso will require not only a good shower, but also a tetanus shot.
MATTHEWS: RODRIGO SIMAS • KRAUS: HANDOUT • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • PAYPAL: HANDOUT • REYNOLDS: JENNIFER REYNOLDS • SWIMMERS: EF EDUCATION FIRST/AP
WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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7/23/13 4:22 PM
BASEBALL: CLEVELAND INDIANS • LEE: SALISBURY JOURNAL/SOLENT NEWS/AP • POTHOLES: DANNY LAWSON/PA • EGG: LORI GREIG • STORK: KERSTIN WERTH/DPA/AP IMAGES ST-ONGE: DAX MELMER/NATIONAL POST
Animal control experts in Fayetteville, Ark., are having a hard time taming the wandering ways of one of their strays. Called “Lucky Black Dog” by local authorities, the rambling Arkansas pooch has evaded capture times in the past five years. “It’s very frustrating, because we’re hired to do a job and that job is to pick up loose animals,” Tony Rankin, of Fayetteville Animal Services, told TV. The clever dog has evaded dogcatchers, nets, and even tranquilizer darts to maintain his freedom. Animal services employees pledge to keep pursuing Lucky Black Dog until he’s finally brought to justice for harassing local, kept dogs.
MATTHEWS: RODRIGO SIMAS • KRAUS: HANDOUT • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • PAYPAL: HANDOUT • REYNOLDS: JENNIFER REYNOLDS • SWIMMERS: EF EDUCATION FIRST/AP
BASEBALL: CLEVELAND INDIANS • LEE: SALISBURY JOURNAL/SOLENT NEWS/AP • POTHOLES: DANNY LAWSON/PA • EGG: LORI GREIG • STORK: KERSTIN WERTH/DPA/AP IMAGES ST-ONGE: DAX MELMER/NATIONAL POST
All it took for a Cleveland Indians season ticket holder to catch his first fly ball was changing seats. His second, third, and fourth foul ball? Well, that’s just providence. Indians fan Greg Van Niel forwent his normal seats at Progressive Field in Cleveland on July during a game against the Kansas City Royals. After a lifetime of missing foul balls as a fan, Van Niel snagged four foul balls during the nine-inning affair after making the seat change. Van Niel told local media he planned on giving all four baseballs to kids who went with him to the game.
Just this one time, someone is happy their city never got around to filling in its potholes. Ray Lee, a -year-old grandfather from outside of Salisbury in Great Britain, was exercising on an early July evening when his heart began racing. According to the sensors of his exercise machine, Lee’s heart had reached an astounding beats per minute. Lee’s wife called paramedics who rushed to the man’s home. On the way to the hospital, the ambulance hit a giant pothole, rattling everything inside—including Lee’s heart, which immediately dropped out of its ventricular arrhythmia and returned to normal function. Lee underwent observation for three days and was released.
- If you could give Death Valley National Park rangers an opportunity to give one lesson to all visitors, it might be this: Stop trying to fry eggs on pavement. It doesn’t work, and it’s a mess to clean up. The park rangers say an increasing number of tourists are attempting to validate the myth that eggs can be fried on a hot rock or pavement in the nation’s hottest park. “The Death Valley National Park maintenance crew has been busy cleaning up eggs cracked directly on the sidewalk, including egg cartons and shells strewn across the parking lot,” an official said July on the park’s Facebook page. “This is your national park, please put trash in the garbage or recycle bins provided and don’t crack eggs on the sidewalks.”
It’s not a snake or crocodile, but one angry stork has driven residents of a northern German town into hiding. On July , one local woman of Mecklenburg WesternPomeranian Bergholz awoke to find a large and perturbed stork banging wildly at her screen door. Officials say the same stork has been attacking cars in the town, causing thousands of dollars in damages. “We saw the bird hacking away at our family car,” resident Kerstin Werth told The Local. “After we scared it away there it was, going at our neighbor’s car.” Rather than trapping the bird—or destroying it—local officials say they are waiting for migration season for the angry bird to move on.
A Canadian man who traveled more than miles across Ontario discovered that while he may have a passion for Legos, that alone won’t earn him entrance into the Legoland Discovery Center in Vaughan, Ontario. John St-Onge, , tried to visit the toy store in July with his adult daughter only to be turned away at the door. Store officials told him he couldn’t enter the Lego store without accompanying a child. But St-Onge, who has collected Legos for decades, told local reporters that he felt discriminated against. The Lego store invited him back to an adults-only night scheduled for August. The store stands by its “no-adults-without-children” policy, saying young shoppers could be the targets of pedophiles.
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AUGUST 10, 2013 • WORLD
7/23/13 4:25 PM
Janie B. Cheaney
Not only in Vegas
The world’s oldest profession is alive and thriving, and legalization would make it worse
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WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES
H’ V: shortly after we checked into our hotel, the room phone rang. After I picked it up and said “hello,” a man started talking. Within a couple of sentences I realized I was being propositioned. The next moments are a little blurred, as I was too startled to make a snappy reply and just hung up on him. I’m sure if my husband had picked up the phone he would have found himself talking to a woman with the same offer. The next day, as we approached our hotel on foot, a sleazy guy in shades offered my husband a card. Doug glanced at the picture of the lingerie-clad female and shook his head. We’d already seen fliers with similar pictures in free newsstands up and down the strip. Strangely enough, prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas. It’s in the rural areas of Nevada that selling sex is permitted, regulated, and taxed. Elsewhere in the United States, prostitution is technically illegal but tolerated. The old movie cliché of the sanctimonious mayor or police chief getting caught in a brothel is true enough in reality, as we’re reminded by Eliot Spitzer’s attempt to re-enter the political scene, stage left. Spitzer, as you may recall, was driven from the New York governor’s mansion after admitting to regular patronage of Kristen Davis’ establishment. (Davis, in a quirky twist of fate, is now running against him for New York City controller.) If Spitzer were a likable fellow, or at least not such a blatant hypocrite, he might have weathered the sex-scandal storm, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t. Now he’s back, along with an unwelcome outrider: calls for legalizing prostitution from both left and right.
A reasonable libertarian case can be made. First, prostitution’s label as “the world’s oldest profession” isn’t far wrong, as we know from the Bible (Judah the patriarch being the first identified “john”). It can’t be eradicated and, so long as both parties are free agents, may be classified as a victimless crime. “Victimless” does not mean harmless—adultery is equally if not more harmful, but not a crime. Nor is the production and distribution of most pornography. So it’s hypocritical to single out the act of sex for money, especially since enforcement is haphazard or deceptive (as when female police officers dress up as hookers to entrap potential johns). Criminalization only intensifies the evil effects, such as violence against women and the spread of disease, while legalization would allow regulation and containment. Makes sense. And like a broken pencil, it misses the point. The same arguments pertain to the legalization of drugs and gambling, with similar objections. Mainly, whatever you legalize you get more of. Prohibition is often trotted out as a rejoinder to this argument: Didn’t criminalization of alcohol encourage more drinking? Actually, no. Though Prohibition spiked crime rates, it accomplished its aim in bringing down alcohol consumption, which climbed right back up after repeal. Abolishing laws against prostitution itself will result in more laws about age restrictions, procurement, and other unintended consequences, none of which is likely to be better enforced than the current laws on the books. Legalization will make the business more open—even in your face, like the call girls on Las Vegas fliers. Pimps are not likely to become less violent or manipulative; just more numerous. Nor will underage recruitment or trafficking be alleviated, but more likely increase. It’s the nature of the business: youth commands a higher price. Jacob Sullum of Reason magazine argues that the sex market can become a more honest and peaceful place with legalization, like the regulated brothels in Nevada. But prostitution is inherently dishonest and subversive; it divides body from soul and commodifies the body ( Corinthians :). Legalization, which confers a certain aura of respectability, will not make the lie true or confer peace where there is none. The law, in its blind, blundering way, gets this one right. A
Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com
7/16/13 2:26 PM
How to Listen to and Understand Opera lecture titles
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7/19/13 9:43 AM
Reviews
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Movies TV > Books > QA > Music
Hymns on Broadway >> THEATER: Trip to Bountiful is a poetic cultural counterweight BY EMILY BELZ in New York
I ’ Kinky Boots, the hottest show on Broadway, but I would guess that its Broadway neighbor Trip to Bountiful is its opposite in style and substance. Bountiful lacks sparkly dance numbers and Cyndi Lauper selections (“Sex Is in the Heel” is one Kinky Boots song), but it’s playing sold-out shows. Set in Houston in the late s, the play by Horton Foote (who wrote the Oscarwinning screenplay for ’s To Kill a
Email: mbasham@worldmag.com
Mockingbird) tells the story of one household confronting very normal crises: fights about where someone left something in the house, nervousness about asking for a raise, and a couple’s sorrow about not having children. The elderly Mrs. Watts (Cicely Tyson) longs to return to her hometown of TRIP SERVICE: Vanessa Bountiful, Texas, Williams, Tyson, and Cuba before she dies, Gooding Jr. (from left) at the against the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.
AUGUST 10, 2013 • WORLD
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7/16/13 2:30 PM
MOVIE
The Conjuring by megan basham
wishes of her son Ludie (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and his shrewish wife Jessie Mae (Vanessa Williams). They all live on top of each A few days before seeing The Conjuring, the R-rated other in a small apartment where Jessie Mae is constantly horror movie that became a bona fide blockbuster in its complaining about what her mother-in-law’s hymn singing opening weekend, I happened to read Acts 19. In that does to her nerves. chapter, a group of Jews attempt to cast a demon from a Watts, browbeaten in the Houston apartment, escapes. possessed man in the name of “the Jesus that Paul preaches.” Waiting at a station for a bus to Bountiful, she elicits a Speaking through the man’s voice, the demon answers, moment that makes this Broadway play unlike any other “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” The Broadway play: When Watts bursts into the old Fanny Crosby spirit then empowers the man to single-handedly beat all hymn “Blessed Assurance,” the audience joins her—softly at seven frauds until they are first and without any prompts. bloody, naked, and fleeing “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,” Watts sings. “O what a for their lives. foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Quite a harrowing (and born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.” cinematic) scene. And As the audience finishes, Tyson turns to another hymn, from it, as well as other “Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling.” The audience joins in on biblical references to evil that one too, clapping in delight at the end. The 79-year-old spirits, we can gather that Tyson deservedly won this year’s Best Actress Tony for the God must want us to role. She is poetic and captivating. consider the existence and This spontaneous audience choir has been happening operation of demons to at every night, in every performance. It’s not normal Manhattan least some degree. The question is, how much, how audience behavior: When The New York Times first noticed the intensely? The Conjuring, which was specially marketed to singing, it published a story about it on the front page. The Christians, considers it intensely indeed. audience—largely African-American the night I attended– Ostensibly based on a case file of real-life demonologists probably isn’t made up of typical New Yorkers. Two AfricanEd and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), American ladies next to me had traveled from Houston, and the story makes an unabashed argument that demons exist they said many of their friends had also come to New York to and that Christ alone offers protection from them. “We aren’t see it before them. a churchgoing family,” the father of a newly purchased I wondered during the performance how a show like this haunted house says to Ed after he calls on the Warrens for made it to Broadway: For one, its pace is slow and reflective. help. “You might want to rethink that,” Ed replies. The play asks questions about urban migration and the imporBut the film’s theology is all over the map. Early on, tance of a birthplace. Ludie and Jessie Mae are exhausted and Ed correctly asserts that demons are not the ghosts of tense in the city, even though Ludie has a good job. “Bountiful deceased people, but inhuman powers. Yet the plot was full of poor people but we got along,” Watts says. Later, revolves around the malice of a long-dead “witch.” she tells Ludie, “To stay with the land would’ve been better.” Likewise, after the Warrens explain that inanimate objects When she returns to a deserted Bountiful, she hears the sound can’t be possessed, only individuals, they reveal a room of birds she knows, smells the Gulf, and says she feels her where they lock up the world’s creepiest doll, as well “dignity” returning. other occult bric-a-brac. More surprising for a Broadway show: Though there is virtually no blood Watts’ Christian faith is a theme throughuntil the climactic scene and only a out. Once Watts makes it onto a bus to handful of profanities are uttered, thanks Bountiful, she finds herself next to a to one character’s realistic-seeming For the weekend of July 19-21 young woman, Thelma (Condola Rashad), possession, the film is blood-chilling and according to Box Office Mojo whose husband has just left to serve in easily as terrifying, if not more so, than cautions: Quantity of sexual (S), violent the Korean War. Thelma talks about how classic ’70s horrors like The Exorcist. (V), and foul-language (L) content on a 0-10 scale, with 10 high, from kids-in-mind.com she misses her husband. Watts begins Director Jason Wan is a master at the reciting Psalm 91 by heart to Thelma, “He unexpected jolt. Yet the movie’s depiction S V L who dwells in the shelter of the Most of Satanic influence seems closer to fas1̀ The Conjuring* R......................2 7 4 High will abide in the shadow of the cination than warning. Perhaps, as the 2̀ Despicable Me 2* PG.............3 3 2 Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My screenwriters have argued, illustrating 3̀ Turbo* PG..................................... 1 4 1 refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom evil (even inaccurately) will drive some 4̀ Grown Ups 2 PG-13..................6 5 5 5̀ Red 2 PG-13..................................3 6 4 I trust.’” Thelma breaks down in tears. viewers to reflect on the power that has 6̀ Pacific Rim* PG-13....................2 7 4 “You like hymns?” Watts asks Thelma. conquered the darkness. More likely, it 7̀ R.I.P.D. PG-13................................4 6 5 “Jessie Mae says they’ve gone out of will only encourage them to reflect on 8̀ The Heat R...................................6 6 10 style.” Maybe not yet. A the darkness. 9̀ World War Z* PG-13................. 1 7 4 10 Monsters University* G...... 1 3 1 `
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*Reviewed by world
7/23/13 4:12 PM
turbo: DreamWorks Animation/ap • Cedar Cove: Katie Yu/Hallmark Channel/ap
n New THE s
Reviews > Movies & TV
MOVIE
Turbo
by stephanie Perrault
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Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
turbo: DreamWorks Animation/ap • Cedar Cove: Katie Yu/Hallmark Channel/ap
Want to know if a kids’ movie is worth its salt? Take a few children to see it and watch their behavior. If they’re engaged for 90 minutes, laugh at the jokes, gasp at the moments of terror, and come out the door chattering away about this character and that event, the movie is a success. If they squirm and fuss and find themselves in search of other entertainment in the first 35 minutes, the movie is a dud. Turbo, starring the voice talents of Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Michael Peña, Samuel L. Jackson, and Snoop Dogg, leaves the kids squirming. Theo, a.k.a. Turbo, is a race car–obsessed garden snail who falls off an overpass in Van Nuys, Calif., into a nitropowered engine and gains “super-snail” speed. While rescuing his overprotective brother, Chet (Giamatti), from a gang of carnivorous crows, Turbo gets discovered by a quirky taco salesman named Tito (Peña). Tito believes he can use Turbo’s special powers to bring business to the failing Starlight Plaza. That idea evolves and Tito ends up entering Turbo in the Indianapolis 500. The bright colors and sharp animation are Turbo’s best features. What kids want is the same thing everyone ultimately wants in a movie: a good story. Despite a cute premise, Turbo (PG for mild action) is a tired rehashing of the loser with the impossible dream plot. The results are exactly what you’d anticipate, but the joy of victory is dampened by the movie’s reliance on stereotypes and hackneyed humor, much of which targets an adult audience, not the kids it’s supposed to be entertaining. Thanks to the movie’s slow, slithery pace, kids ages 2-7 will have a hard time finding it entertaining at all, though older children will probably enjoy the final sequence at the Indy 500, which is undoubtedly the best part of the film.
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This film Dream White Smoov Skidm voiced Samue Reyno movie
TV
Cedar Cove by emily whitten
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With over 170 million books in print, Debbie Macomber has proven that when it comes to romance stories, the word “romance” doesn’t have to equal “sleazy.” And she isn’t afraid to reveal to secular media why she writes cleaner stories than most: She’s an evangelical Christian. That’s not to say some Christians won’t object to her storytelling. As a producer and writer for the new Hallmark Channel original series, it’s likely Macomber will include the occasional curse words and sexual situations of her books. But the show based on her Cedar Cove book series does reflect Macomber’s Christian worldview. As she puts it, these are “stories that make sense of life and that reflect the realities of [readers’] lives—the importance of love, family, community. Of belonging.” At Cedar Cove’s center, Andie MacDowell plays Judge Olivia Lockhart, a sort of West Coast female Andy Griffith. Lockhart’s no-nonsense court demeanor is balanced by her motherly affection for those around her. And in the two-hour pilot that aired July 10 (now available on Amazon), she weighs the possibility of leaving for a federal judgeship in the big city. And why not? She could influence the world for good and fulfill her childhood dream. But as we meet the supporting characters who make up Cedar Cove, we realize with Lockhart the treasure she’d be leaving behind. There’s love interest Jack (Dylan Neal), who hides a destructive secret behind immense charm and talent as a newspaper editor. Lockhart’s daughter, Justine (Sarah Smyth), is very close to her mother, who provides a hook for younger viewers. And Lockhart’s irascible but loving mother provides comic relief, connects us with the town’s history, and pushes the plot along with her matchmaking skills. While this world admittedly feels as pastel as a Thomas Kinkade painting, it’s also well-balanced, generally wellacted, and occasionally touching. With more “serious” shows continually pushing the bounds of television sex and violence, Macomber’s fans may find this trip to Cedar Cove a breath of fresh, salty sea air.
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Reviews > Books
U.S. Marines in South Vietnam,
A reporter who loves
Veteran journalist Uwe Siemon-Netto tells a different saga of the Vietnam War
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WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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Siemon-Netto documents the refusal of American reporters, convinced the U.S. war effort should end, to document the truth. For example, he contrasts the coverage that Lt. William Calley rightfully received— Calley led a massacre of Vietnamese civilians at the village of My Lai—with the refusal of an American television cameraman to film a mass grave in Hue because he didn’t want to help anti-Communists. Siemon-Netto also notes the life sentence Calley received, and notes that “Calley’s crime violated stated U.S. government policy” while the Communist atrocities were “an integral part of a government policy
SHORT TAKES Asia Bibi’s Blasphemy: The True, Heart-breaking Story of the Woman Sentenced to Death Over a Cup of Water (Chicago Review Press, , ), tells the moving story of a Christian still imprisoned in Pakistan. James R. White’s What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur’an (Bethany House, ) is a good introduction to a book that propels anti-Christian action. Debbie Thurman’s Post-Gay? Post-Christian? (Cedar House, ) is a vigorous defense of Christian orthodoxy from a woman who battled same-sex attraction. —M.O.
that included a military strategy based on terror. To my mind it constituted massive malpractice by the media that they have not made this crucial point unmistakably clear to the general public.” Much remains unclear to the general public and to college graduates taught by propagandistic historians. SiemonNetto notes that more than half of the , Communist soldiers who participated in the attacks on Hue and other cities died in the process, and the Vietcong never recovered. As Peter Braestrup wrote in The Big Story (Presidio, ), the best book about Vietnam reporting, “Rarely has contemporary crisis-journalism turned out, in retrospect, to have veered so widely from reality.” Journalists painted “a portrait of defeat for the allies. Historians, on the contrary, have concluded that the Tet Offensive resulted in a severe military-political setback for Hanoi.” The reality didn’t matter. When Walter Cronkite, then America’s “most trusted” journalist, told his CBS viewers a month after Tet that South Vietnam and the United States could not defeat the Vietnamese Communists, President Lyndon Johnson told his aides, “I have lost Cronkite. I have lost Middle America.” He was right. North Vietnam finally conquered the South in . For more information on this, please go to www.siemon-netto.org. A personal note: During the early s I cheered for North Vietnam. My apologies to the Vietnamese people and to U.S. soldiers who fought there. Please forgive me.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
F , on Aug. , , U.S. military action in Vietnam officially ended. That was the last time Washington, paying little attention to conditions on the ground, was decreeing an end to a war: Forty years ago the instrument was not presidential declaration but the Case-Church Amendment, which Congress passed in June . The result was death for millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians killed by the Communist victors or dying at sea. Millions more survived to live in poverty under dictators. Some , Americans also died, and those who returned unwounded were not unscathed. Our “Greatest Generation” World War II soldiers at least came home as heroes, but returnees from Vietnam received mocking and namecalling: “Murderers.” Journalists regularly wrote that they had failed. Except they didn’t fail, and veteran German journalist Uwe Siemon-Netto tells the story at rice paddy-level in his new memoir DUC: A Reporter’s Love for a Wounded People. (Disclosure: Siemon-Netto up to wrote several articles for WORLD.) He’s strong on specific detail, such as this scene of civilians massacred at point-blank range by the Vietcong in the beautiful old city of Hue: “Even in death these women looked sublime as their bodies were draped protectively around those of their children. … They had just donned their freshly cleaned national dress, the ao dai, to welcome the Vietnamese New Year. … Their fingernails had just been carefully manicured.”
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
7/16/13 2:33 PM
HANDOUT
BY MARVIN OLASKY
NOTABLE BOOKS
Four recent books on American history > reviewed by
American Phoenix: John Quincy and Louisa Adams, the War of 1812, and the Exile that Saved American Independence Jane Hampton Cook While John Adams is a household name, most Americans aren’t as familiar with his son, John Quincy Adams. In fact, the story of the second Adams’ virtual exile to Russia as foreign minister and his subsequent rise from those political ashes is a rarely told story. Treating Adams and his wife Louisa with equal attention, author Jane Hampton Cook details the fascinating story of their rocky marriage, their sacrifices to preserve American independence, and the Adams’ role in bringing lasting peace with Britain after the War of . Cook’s writing is at times awkward, but she hits her stride midbook, bringing the characters to life through quotes and description that—unlike David McCullough’s comparable histories— highlight the Adams’ Christian faith.
Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution James P. Byrd “The Revolution may be the most important event in American history and the Bible was arguably its most important book,” writes Byrd. In contrast to secular historians who downplay Christianity’s contribution, he attempts a comprehensive analysis of Scripture’s influence on the birth of America. His scope is noteworthy: Consulting over war-time sermons and pamphlets, he waded through , biblical citations to identify their most prominent themes. Unlike Thomas S. Kidd’s Religion and the American Revolution (), however, the book is not especially readable nor does it give insightful context to the often fiery rhetoric. Still, Byrd’s research provides a useful window on the way Americans turned to the Bible in the country’s infancy.
American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms Chris Kyle When in February a fellow veteran gunned down Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, author of the autobiographical American Sniper, Kyle had been writing his second book. After his untimely death, his wife and editors finished this manuscript, and the result is a unique look at firearms that shaped our country. From long-rifles that gave Revolutionary patriots a fighting chance, to Winchester rifles that won the West, to the complex machines Kyle used as a sniper in Afghanistan, the author slaps each gun in the reader’s hands and demonstrates its importance in a defining battle. While details of gun technology may entertain firearm aficionados, the book’s first-hand renderings of conflicts like the gunfight at O.K. Corral will likely have more general appeal. Caution: frequent cursing.
SPOTLIGHT How will our history—both as individuals and the human race— end? Scores of recent best-selling books attempt to answer these questions by citing near-death experiences (NDEs). And while the scientific establishment scoffs (see the April Scientific American article, “Why a Near-Death Experience Isn’t Proof of Heaven”), what should be the Christian response? For those who want to test NDEs in light of Scripture, Hank Hanegraaff’s AfterLife: What You Really Want to Know About Heaven and the Hereafter is helpful. Negatives: Hanegraaff, known as the Bible Answer Man from his daily radio show, unfortunately muddies the water by including side issues like end time debates and sex in heaven. Positives: AfterLife analyzes the NDE publishing trend in a way that privileges Scripture over subjective experience. Hanegraaff’s question and answer style helps readers easily find the subjects that interest them most. —E.W.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HANDOUT
The Founding Fathers: Quotes, Quips, and Speeches Gordon Leidner History buffs and liberty lovers alike may appreciate this book’s pocket-sized format, which makes it easily portable, but with over quotes from America’s founders—often referencing God or Christian principles—it packs a wallop. It includes significant documents like the Declaration of Independence and President Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation. Through short introductions for each chapter (one of which gives the Enlightenment too much credit), Leidner offers a concise yet rich history of the Revolution. Most of the quotes remain relevant, including this one by Ben Franklin: “… the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men.”
To see more book news and reviews, go to worldmag.com/books
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AUGUST 10, 2013 • WORLD
7/16/13 2:34 PM
Reviews > Q&A
Show them the money Ramesh Ponnuru says creating a pro-family economic policy should begin with increasing the child tax credit By Marvin Olasky
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Lee Love/Genesis Photos
Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor of National Review, grew up in Kansas City, graduated summa cum laude in history from Princeton, and coauthored The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life. Tell us about growing up with a Hindu dad and Lutheran mom. My father is the sort of Hindu who grumbles and makes himself scarce when somebody comes around trying to raise money to build a temple in town. My mother was very much a devout churchgoing Lutheran. As is frequently the case, they compromised by raising us “nothing,” but my two brothers and I all became Christians in adulthood. How did that happen to you? The fullest answer to that has to do with workings of the Holy Spirit not fully known by me. How did you become a conservative? Through reading. I was one of the cool high school kids who had a subscription to The Economist. Chicks dig that … Yeah. I now regard The Economist as a hopelessly squishy publication, but it started me off in that direction. I had a bunch of conservative friends who were always pushing Atlas Shrugged on me. Eventually one of them got it for me for my birthday just to make me read it. Influential in your life? It probably delayed my rightward movement by a year. I also started
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Lee Love/Genesis Photos
reading National Review. That had a big influence on my political views by exposing me to arguments for social conservatism that I was not exposed to in public school or at Princeton. Then my religious journey: Not only did these conservative social principles work, but they were the way that God meant for us to live. So you are reading National Review and at some point did you decide, “I want to work there”? I had an internship there the summer between my junior and senior years of college. I applied to a bunch of law schools in my senior year and wasn’t excited about going. This was in 1995 and the Republicans had just taken control of the Congress for the first time in 40 years. National Review was expanding its Washington bureau, and I agreed to join. 1995 was an exciting time: Why did the Republican Revolution fail? The attempt to try to govern the country from Capitol Hill just wasn’t going to work. A lot of people will tell you in a poll they want government to spend less money and to do less even, but if you are trying to ax a particular program like the Small Business Administration, there are always more people who benefit from that program and will vote on it than there are people who dislike it and will vote on it. The benefits are concentrated, the costs defused. What lessons from that experience are applicable to 2013? The broader conservative coalition’s message sometimes becomes overly narrowly focused on federal spending. It’s one thing to restrain federal spending, but
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
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there has to be an explanation of how conservative ideas can reform these dysfunctional tax and healthcare systems we have, in ways that make it easier for people to start jobs and businesses and families. We have lost sight of that over the years. Are the problems now different than they were in Ronald Reagan’s time? In the late 1970s and early 1980s he faced low economic growth, high inflation, gas lines, and a decline in national self-confidence. For each of these challenges there was a conservative solution. Decontrol energy prices and we are not going to have gas lines anymore. Cut tax rates from 70 percent to 50, and then eventually to 28 percent. Tighten control of the money supply. Sounds pretty good … These things worked tremendously well, but rather than learning from that success, Republicans too often have tried to slavishly mimic it. At a completely different time they think the answer is, “Let’s keep bringing that top tax rate down. Let’s keep clamping down on inflation even though inflation has been about 2 percent average over the last five years, lower than it’s been at any decade since the mid-60s. Let’s keep building up defense as though we were still up against the Soviet Union. If you want to have Reagan success you’ve got to apply conservative insights to our challenges, different challenges than the ones he faced. How should the GOP’s economic message be improved? We can’t simply contract out economic policy
to The Wall Street Journal ditorial page and the Club for e Growth. We need to have a pro-family economic policy, in addition to a pro-family social policy. What should we say about the tax burden on middle class families? In 2008 the chief difference on taxes between the Republicans and the Democrats was that conservatives wanted to cut the corporate tax and to keep the top tax rate low: Nothing in that for middle class people directly. Reagan cut middle class tax rates and kept middle class taxpayers from being constantly kicked into higher tax brackets by inflation. There has to be, I think, a middle class component to the tax message: We should expand the child tax credit so middle class families get some relief. Our audience of Patrick Henry students here may not be familiar with the
Tell us about it … Before Social Security and Medicare, one of the reasons people had kids was to take care of them in their old age. That basic generational bargain is still in effect: It’s just been socialized and collectivized by Social Security and Medicare. As is often the case when you socialize something, you’ve changed the incentives. So right now if you don’t have kids you get the benefits of Social Security and Medicare made possible by other people making the financial sacrifices necessary to raise children. If you actually do the math on that, you need something like a $5,000 tax credit in order to make the government neutral on the question of whether you should have more kids. Do you think a $5,000 tax credit would lead parents to have more kids? It’s not bribing people to do something they don’t want to do: Extensive international
‘If you want to have Reagan success you’ve got to apply conservative insights to our challenges, different challenges than the ones he faced.’ impact of the child tax credit. How valuable are they now to their parents, and how valuable do you think they should be? That’s a trickier question than it sounds like. The current size of the tax credit for children is $1,000. I think it should be about $5,000. But what a lot of people—even sophisticated tax analysts—overlook is the way our entitlement system combines with our tax code to discourage people from having kids.
evidence says that doesn’t work. We are in a country where what demographers call ideal family size or desired family size is larger than actual family size, which suggests that people would have more kids if the economics of it was a little easier. One more question: Why are winners of the National Spelling Bee almost always either homeschoolers or kids of Indian ancestry? Are there ever homeschooled Indian kids? A
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Reviews > Music
Working man
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WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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double CDs never really sell that well. So [Sony] actually had a good idea. “The whole point of making a record,” he continues, “is to document your ideas and have people hear them. Sony and I have a great relationship because they know how to sell records. I don’t.” Connick does, however, know how to honor his father (a former Orleans Parish district attorney) and his mother (who passed away in ): the former by occasionally inviting him onstage to sing, the latter by dedicating all of his albums to her. “I love my parents,” he unabashedly admits. “My dad is worthy of a lot of respect and admiration. He’s my hero really. And my mom was a huge part of my life—and still is. I like to publicly acknowledge her because the fact that I’m a musician would’ve been a big deal for her. She always knew that that’s what I was going to do, and I feel she would’ve been really proud.” As Every Man Should Know demonstrates, Connick also knows how to write elegant melodies and lyrics that confirm his latter-day place in the Great American Songbook tradition. “Being Alone” could become an anthem for st-century introverts. And “You’re a sunrise, / you’re heaven, / you’re the reason that God rested on day seven” (from the love song “One Fine Thing”) is worthy of Cole Porter. References to God appear in several of Connick’s new compositions. A gospel choir, the gospel singer Kim Burrell, and the gospel guitarist Jonathan DuBose also make appear-
ances. Wikipedia calls Connick a “practicing Roman Catholic.” Just how much practicing does he actually get in? “Well, I didn’t go to church last Sunday,” he confesses, “but I try to go as much as I can. It’s given me a lot of peace of mind over the years. “I always feel better coming out than I did when I went in.”A
FRANK MICELOTTA/INVISION FOR FOX/AP
H albums and landed atop Billboard’s jazz chart more than any other performer. So if anyone could coast these days, it’s the -year-old, New Orleans-bred, popjazz singer-pianist Harry Connick Jr. But you’d hardly know it from what he’s done in . He released the rambunctious, Mardi Gras-friendly Smokey Mary in February. Then in June he released the introspective, singersongwriterly Every Know. Man Should Know And now he’s in the midst of a -city tour—and wondering whether the universality of his latest compositions might eventually have other performers wanting to record them. “I’m not a guy that gets his songs recorded a lot,” he says. “But it would be an honor. I don’t think people really think of me as a songwriter. I’m not sure what they think of me as.” His uncertainty makes sense. His musical accomplishments aside, he has also starred on Broadway (The Pajama Game), on television (Will & Grace), and in film (Independence Day). And his recorded output is similarly diverse, sometimes emphasizing his New Orleans piano, sometimes his baritone crooning, and sometimes other elements of his multidimensional showmanship. And, if Connick had had his way, his latest album would’ve been his least classifiable to date. Originally intended as an eclectic double CD, it was Sony’s idea to split the minutes of music that he delivered to them into two stylistically homogeneous discs. “The songs were supposed to be kind of mixed up,” Connick says. “But
Email: aorteza@worldmag.com
7/22/13 5:57 PM
DANNY CLINCH
HARRY CONNICK JR. isn’t resting on his many laurels— at least not this year BY ARSENIO ORTEZA
NOTABLE CDs
Four recent folk-pop releases > reviewed by
SPOTLIGHT
Live at the Fillmore 1968 The Incredible String Band Forget the Fugs: Robin Williamson and Mike Heron were the real utopian folk hippies of the mid-to-late s. Rooted—indeed, entangled—in a mélange of medieval minstrelsy, syncretic mysticism, and (by their own admission) drugs, the duo quavered and wavered their merry, meandering way down musical roads not so much less traveled by as undetected by any cartographer. Heron’s high point was “A Very Cellular Song,” Williams’ “Ducks on a Pond.” Both appear here. And both illuminate the gospel in ways that remain exhilaratingly unique.
Amber Waves Bill Mallonee That albums is too many for any singer-songwriter does not mean that a singer-songwriter’s th album is therefore superfluous. It could represent a new peak or a return to old ones. Mallonee’s th represents a little of both. The folksy, roots-rock hooks have been a staple of his music since he was a Vigilante of Love. The lyrics, however (try “Once your heart gets broken, kid, it just keeps on breaking”), keep getting pithier—always a good sign where the overproductive are concerned.
Modern Vampires of the City Vampire Weekend This catchy, multilayered pop that’s both more and less than it seems wouldn’t have been possible without the Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle, which wouldn’t have been possible without Sgt. Pepper, which wouldn’t have been possible without Pet Sounds Sounds.. And none of those classics express thoughts as aphoristic as “Keep that list of who to thank in mind, / and don’t forget the rich ones who were kind” or as frustratingly elliptical as the meditation on God’s name “Ya Hey” (which wouldn’t have been possible without Outkast’s “Hey Ya!”).
One could say much about The Ballad of Boogie Christ (Lonely Astronaut), the latest album by the visionary singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur, and all of it would be as Arthur true as it would be insufficient to describe the music’s richness—for example, that it simultaneously focuses and expands the musical and verbal details of Bruce Springsteen’s most panoramically exuberant rock beyond the bluecollar horizon and into realms where one wrestles against flesh and blood and against spiritual wickedness in low places. Arthur himself has said, “I wanted to let the listener fill in some of the blanks without telling the whole story in a straight-ahead way.” Those blanks include, but aren’t limited to, what redemption and sanctity might look and feel like to people desensitized to their need for either. Those blanks also have a Messianic shape. “Jesus, come calling,” sings Arthur in “All the Old Heroes.” “We’ll be here and falling, / praying for your hand to show.” —A.O.
DANNY CLINCH
FRANK MICELOTTA/INVISION FOR FOX/AP
Denison Witmer Denison Witmer Fascinating—an album that’ll have you wanting to sleep and stay awake. Its somnolent qualities are obvious. From Witmer’s soft, lulling voice to the pools of acoustic dreaminess atop which notes seem to float, music doesn’t get much less rock ’n’ roll. What will agitate your brain enough to keep you from nodding off are the subtly provocative words. Eventually, you won’t need to know that the project appears on Sufjan Stevens’ label or includes Don Peris’ guitar to suspect Witmer of having discovered the beginning of wisdom. To see more music news and reviews, go to worldmag.com/music
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AUGUST 10, 2013 • WORLD
7/22/13 6:08 PM
Mindy Belz
Dear reader You’re more valuable and full of your own stories than you may know
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WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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Lionel Roosemont is a trusted pen pal, a prolife advocate and tour guide in Belgium I’ve written about before (“European war zone,” May , ). He wrote me this week to share impressions of America from abroad. In Russia, Germany, and elsewhere, the United States is now called “the New Evil Empire” for its disregard for children, traditional marriage, and families. “I do not want to be negative about your magnificent country,” he writes, “but I remember how or years ago the U.S. government would regularly send out strong statements and take strong action against governments who were actively persecuting Christians,” something no longer evident to those living abroad. This, he said, is “not meant as finger pointing … to my deep sadness, my own country Belgium is doing worse.” A note came from a surgeon just returned from a working stint in Africa but troubled enough over the lack of general surgeons in one particular area that he’s thinking of turning around to go back. He’s looking for volunteers. Another reader wrote to tell me of the death of Emmanuel Reed Manirakiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who died in a Kigali swimming accident. “Emma,” as he was known far and wide, was to be her son’s freshman roommate at the University of Rochester. Last year in a speech to the African Leadership Academy, Emma said, “Stories allow us to imagine and live momentarily the lives of others. And thereafter set a different course and perspective for the life we seek to live.” I’m often asked how we find story ideas. The truth is our readers are some of our best sources. We at WORLD exist to tell the stories of what God is doing in the world. But it turns out you do, too. A
ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • MANIRAKIZA: COURTESY OF ZANGA BEN OUATTARA
T a photo of a woman poolside in her bathing suit reading WORLD magazine. It was heartening, especially because that reader is a busy mother of many children. But for a moment it made me want to be a reader (and preferably by a pool), not an editor at her desk. Sometimes I wonder, who are you readers, anyway? While we are assigning and compiling stories about war and injustice and oppression and poverty fighters and small people taking on big government, what are you doing? And where do our separated lives come together? As journalism teacher Simran Sethi says, our journalistic task isn’t to bombard you with facts, because these days “people choose facts that connect with things they already believe in.” The trick, for a journalist who takes seriously his Christian worldview, is to assemble facts in a way that’s true, that’s compelling from the standpoint of both heaven and earth, and that respects a reader made in God’s image. In other words, we don’t want to simply play on emotions or rest on stereotypes, or our own biases—like Michael Weisskopf’s infamous Washington Post epithet declaring evangelicals “poor, uneducated, and easy to command.” We don’t need to look down on others in order to hold a high view of what we do. And so I’m always glad to hear from readers and to learn how we are connected. Needless to say we miss, and mess up (never, never call a Marine a “soldier,” or expect a barrage of mail if you do). But you readers may not appreciate how the connection keeps us editors ticking. The connections, I’m happy to report, span the globe. Here’s a sampling of recent ones to come across my desk: Mona Hennein wrote to tell us about the documentary she’s producing on Christians living in Egypt. She thought it was “close to complete,” she said, until Egypt had another revolution. But the story for Mona is personal too—turns out her parents were the first Egyptian Presbyterian missionaries sent to Sudan years ago. Mona’s story is about the coming of age of two Muslim nations, and her family’s Christian legacy among them. And through her I’m learning more about missionary movements that didn’t start in America. Imagine.
Email: mbelz@worldmag.com
7/22/13 11:13 PM
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7/18/13 10:23 AM
Double jeopardy Arrested, tortured, and imprisoned in China, activist attorney Chen Guangcheng discovers escape to America can lead to more threats and intimidation
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night Chen escaped and limped into the safety of the U.S. Embassy. One year later, the activist is limping away from New York University (NYU)—the school where Chen, his wife, and their two young children, ages 7 and 11, found refuge in the United States after their remarkable flight to safety. The parting isn’t amicable. When Chen, 41, arrived in the United States last May, NYU officials offered him a fellowship to study law at the Manhattan-based school. The fellowship included housing, a stipend, and other services vital for a family with significant challenges: Chen is blind, doesn’t speak English, and had never been to the U.S. In June of this year, Chen dropped a bombshell: He said NYU officials were severing his relationship with the school because of “great, unrelenting pressure” from the Chinese government. His fellowship ended on June 30. NYU officials deny Chen’s claim. They say they told Chen in writing last October his fellowship would last only a year, and they insist Chinese authorities never mentioned the activist or pressured them. Chen hasn’t offered public evidence for his claims, or granted interviews on the subject, including to WORLD. But the summer saga has strange timing. As Chen leaves NYU, the school is about to launch a landmark endeavor: It’s set to open a degree-granting campus in Shanghai this month—funded largely by the Chinese government. NYU officials say Chen’s departure isn’t related to their interests in China. But the activist’s first year of freedom
by Jamie Dean
TODD HEISLER/The New York Times/REDUX
n a dark night in Shandong Province last April, Chen Guangcheng quietly scaled the wall behind his heavily guarded home, evaded his round-the-clock surveillance, and launched one of the most daring escapes in recent history. The self-educated Chinese human rights attorney—blind since childhood—walked alone for some 20 hours, climbed more walls, broke a foot, hid in the darkness, and finally hitched a ride to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. It wasn’t Chen’s first courageous act. For months in 2005, the attorney traveled village to village in his home province collecting testimony for an extraordinary effort: Chen amassed the first class-action lawsuit against Chinese officials for their brutal practice of forced abortions and sterilizations under the country’s one-child policy. Authorities jailed Chen for four years. After his release, the activist and his wife endured beatings, torture, and harassment during two years of arbitrary house arrest until the
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TODD HEISLER/The New York Times/REDUX
LIMPING AWAY: Chen at New York University in June 2012.
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7/23/13 12:43 PM
in America raises questions about China’s influence on U.S. academia, and whether dissidents like Chen, after taking refuge in the United States, must battle the intense pressures they came here to flee.
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TOP: ANDY WONG/AP • MIDDLE: U.S. Embassy Beijing Press via Getty Images • BOTTOM: Henny Ray Abrams/AP
TAKING REFUGE: Chen’s brother Guangfu (top) shows the rock wall where Chen clambered to escape at Dongshigu village in China; Chen greets his wife and children at a Beijing hospital after his escape (middle); Chen arrives at NYU May 19, 2012 (bottom).
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hen’s claims about NYU came three days after The New York Post first reported that NYU broke ties with Chen because of pressure from the Chinese government. The paper cited unnamed sources saying the school was worried about its new Shanghai campus. Chen responded with his own statement: He said the report was true. In a June 16 statement—released through a spokesman at Corallo Media Strategies— the activist claimed the Chinese government applied pressure to NYU as early as last August, and said NYU officials began discussing his departure with him just three months after his arrival. In an email interview, NYU spokesman John Beckman said the school had discussed a yearlong fellowship with Chen after his arrival, but said Chinese officials didn’t influence the length of Chen’s stay. The controversy might have ended as an unfortunate feud between Chen and NYU, but it grew deeper, as at least one NYU professor responded with his own accusations. Jerome Cohen—a respected NYU law professor, China scholar, and longtime advocate of Chen—cited Chen’s conservative contacts in the United States and said they were manipulating him to support a pro-life agenda. Chen has spoken against forced abortion in China, but not legalized abortion in the U.S. After some conservatives, including Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said they believed Chen’s statement about NYU, Cohen told The Daily Beast: “They are trying to make him the poster boy for their anti-abortion, anti-same sex [ marriage] agenda.” But some of the human rights activists closest to Chen aren’t pro-life advocates.
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TOP: ANDY WONG/AP • MIDDLE: U.S. Embassy Beijing Press via Getty Images • BOTTOM: Henny Ray Abrams/AP
‘They are trying to make him the poster boy for their antiabortion, anti-same sex [marriage] agenda.’ —Jerome Cohen One, Bob Fu, leads ChinaAid, an organization advocating for persecuted Christians in China. The group addresses forced abortion in China, but not abortion in the United States. Rep. Chris Smith is a strong advocate for pro-life causes in Congress, but his work on China has been focused on the onechild policy, forced abortions, and human rights issues. (Representatives from national pro-life groups told WORLD they admire Chen’s work, but they haven’t tried to contact him.) Steven Mosher, head of the Population Research Institute and a leading outspoken critic of China’s one-child policy, calls Cohen’s accusations “a red herring.” Mosher traveled to China in 1979 as “a liberal and an atheist” to study the country’s one-child policy, and he was horrified by what he saw: forced abortions of full-term infants. Mosher—now a pro-life Catholic and father of nine—says Chen’s work transcends discussions of political divides: “When someone forces a woman to have an abortion … that’s not a pro-life or a pro-choice issue. It’s both. Her choice has been violated and a life has been taken.” Still, some at NYU haven’t hesitated to pressure Chen not to make common cause with pro-life advocates: Cohen said if
Chen accepted a potential offer from the conservative Witherspoon Institute, it would “diminish his stature in the U.S.” (Cohen’s office referred questions for this story to NYU spokesman Beckman, but Beckman didn’t respond to inquiries about Cohen’s statements.) Jean-Philippe Beja, professor at the French Centre on Contemporary China, told the South China Morning Post: “If you appear to be siding with right extremists, it will hurt your image.”
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hen hasn’t indulged the rhetoric. He told the Sunday Morning Post in Taipei: “Left or right, as long as they’re concerned about human rights, I will collaborate with them.” But collaborating hasn’t been easy given NYU pressure. Dennis Halpin, a former staffer for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says he spent weeks trying to arrange for Chen to testify before the congressional committee after his arrival in the U.S. last May. Halpin said NYU staffers only let him speak to Chen once, and they eventually told him Chen didn’t want to testify. “It
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Chen also held up a packet of papers with a list of Chinese authorities he said were “corrupt officials” who had persecuted his family or facilitated thousands of forced abortions. A few weeks later, Chen met with Pelosi during a series of meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Bob Fu of ChinaAid translated for Chen during the meeting, and says Chen told her about tensions at NYU. Fu says Pelosi immediately called Cohen at NYU, and during the conversation asked Cohen if China was a threat to the school. Pelosi’s communication director didn’t return repeated requests asking the congresswoman to confirm or deny the account. NYU spokesman Beckman says NYU staff didn’t restrict Chen’s movements or meetings over the last year, and he points to the wide range of events Chen attended across the country and overseas. Beckman also says Chen’s appearances on Capitol Hill had nothing to do with his length of stay: “Frankly, we have been puzzled and saddened to see the assistance provided to Mr. Chen characterized so incorrectly.” In an interview with Foreign Policy, Cohen put it more bluntly: “You shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
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BIPARTISAN SUPPORT: Chen speaks at a press conference with Smith (left), Boehner (center), and Pelosi (right) Aug. 1, 2012.
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was sort of ironic,” said Halpin. “This man had been held under house arrest in China. … Then he comes here, and we were thinking, ‘He’s incommunicado again.’” Rep. Chris Smith said during a meeting in Washington, he insisted on talking with Chen alone, away from the NYU translator. The congressman said the translator eventually came back into the room and declared, “This meeting is over.” Smith also said Chen told him NYU staffers were upset over his appearances in Washington. Though Chen didn’t testify before Congress, he did travel to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers. Standing at a podium last August with Smith, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Chen told reporters: “Great cruelty has resulted from efforts to maintain social stability [in China], resulting in a situation in which there is no ethics, rule of law, or justice.” Smith said Chen told him after the August appearance, NYU officials told him things were “not going well.” By spring, Chen did testify before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in April, and told lawmakers about Chinese authorities’ escalating persecution of his family members still in China. (After Chen’s escape, authorities arrested his nephew on spurious charges, and sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment.)
‘When someone forces a woman to have an abortion … that’s not a pro-life or a pro-choice issue. It’s both. Her choice has been violated and a life has been taken.’ —Steven Mosher
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ne of the growing realities in American academia is that China is one of the hands feeding it. American universities have long had successful exchange programs with China and study centers in the country. But a handful of schools have opened satellites or joint campuses with other Chinese universities. Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University have operated a joint campus for more than 25 years. Duke University plans to open a joint campus with Wuhan University some 40 miles west of Shanghai in 2014. Bloomberg News reported the city of Kunshan would spend an estimated $260 million to build the campus. Duke’s share over six years: $43 million. NYU is set to open its campus in Shanghai next month. The Wall Street Journal reported the local Chinese government agreed to cover construction and educational costs, and estimated the Chinese investment in the 15-floor NYU Shanghai university campus at $104 million. The Shanghai campus is NYU’s second international site. The school opened a campus in Abu Dhabi in 2010, with heavy
subsidies from its government. The United Arab Emirate’s initial investment was $50 million for the luxury campus, but NYU President John Sexton said the subsidies would go far higher. The Abu Dhabi arrangement rankled some NYU faculty. They worried about entanglement with a repressive regime, and wondered about academic freedoms. They said the school was spreading itself too thin. They complained the process didn’t seem transparent. Such tumult hasn’t marked the Shanghai campus opening, and NYU officials say the school has agreements to ensure academic freedom. But concerns persist. For example, in May the Chinese Communist Party reportedly banned the discussion of seven subjects in university classrooms, including citizen rights, freedom of the press, and judicial independence. Cary Nelson, a past president of the American Association of University Professors, told the Chronicle of Higher Education college officials are “spinning fantasies if they think that’s not a problem.” Other problems can develop stateside as schools try to attract a burgeoning number of Chinese students to their U.S. campuses. More than 194,000 Chinese students enrolled in American universities in 2011. That’s up 23 percent from the previous year. NYU hosts the third highest number of international students in the country. Perry Link, a China scholar at the University of California, Riverside, says connections to China can foster a dynamic of “induced self-censorship” for those who fear backlash—especially students or scholars who need to travel to China for their studies or their careers. Link knows the risks firsthand. After writing extensively about China, including some of the country’s human rights abuses, Chinese officials barred him from entering the country. Link says authorities turned him around at the Beijing airport in 1996. He hasn’t returned since. He’s not alone: The Chinese government has blacklisted other American professors who have written controversial works about China’s government, including 13 professors who contributed to Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland, a 2004 book about the Muslim separatist movement in Xinjiang province. The professors—dubbing themselves the “Xinjiang SATELLITE CAMPUS: 13”—said officials at their Sexton (center left) universities were reluctant to poses with Yu Lizhong press Chinese authorities (center right), president of East China Normal about their travel bans. Dru University, and students Gladney, an anthropology at the groundbreaking professor at Pomona College ceremony for NYU in in Claremont, Calif., told Shanghai in March 2011.
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NO JUSTICE: Chen (left) meets with a victim of a forced abortion in China.
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teven Mosher’s writings weren’t acceptable to the Chinese government or to Stanford University. Mosher thought his colleagues would be horrified to read his accounts of forced abortions in China when he returned to California in 1981. They weren’t. Instead, Mosher says the Chinese government successfully pressured Stanford to withhold his doctoral degree because of his exposure of forced abortions as part of a one-child policy that has now yielded 336 million abortions since 1971. Mosher says his Christian conversion began in the forced abortion rooms of China: “I saw hell open up before me.” He still thinks pro-life supporters are carrying a mantle others don’t pursue: “The fact that pro-lifers have been outraged by the abuses Chen documented has not been matched by an equivalent amount of outrage on the left.”
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Chen by all accounts remains outraged by the abuses he discovered while traveling to rural villages in 2005. The cases he recorded included women enduring forced abortions, villagers hiding in fields from family planning officials, and authorities beating the extended family members of women who had violated the one-child policy. During his congressional testimony in April, when he held up a list of authorities who participated in forced abortions, Chen said: “These corrupt officials have blood on their hands.” Where or how Chen will continue his work remains unclear heading into the fall academic year. NYU spokesman Beckman said an anonymous donor had offered some financial assistance for Chen as he left the school. The Witherspoon Institute wouldn’t comment on its reported offer to Chen. Fordham University spokesman Robert Howe said an offer remained open for Chen to join the school as visiting scholar for one year, but he said the position would be unpaid: The donor who had pledged to fund Chen’s spot withdrew the offer in the wake of the NYU controversy. Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Chen, said he couldn’t comment on whether Chen would apply for political asylum. (Corallo, a former Republican strategist, says he works for Chen pro bono through his Alexandria-based Corallo Media Strategies.) Since he entered the country on a student visa, it wasn’t clear what path he would pursue to remain in the country legally. The State Department also granted visas to Chen’s wife and two children, but it’s unclear what will be their status following the NYU stint as well. But the blind attorney who taught himself the law and memorized rural Chinese footpaths so he could reach the victims of human rights abuses alone seems determined to continue. When a reporter asked Chen how persecution of his family back in China affects his work, Chen replied: “It strengthens my will to disclose the very evil and authoritarian nature of the Chinese regime. It makes me more determined to fight for human rights.” A
CHEN: SHANNON STAPLETON/Reuters/Landov • INSET: www.ChinaAid.org/AP
Bloomberg in 2011 colleges are “so eager to jump on the China bandwagon, they put financial interests ahead of academic freedom.” Link says self-censorship can be subtler. He had a colleague who wouldn’t appear on a news program to discuss China because she worried it would affect her visa. He described a graduate student during his time at Princeton who wanted to write about Chinese democracy for his thesis. His adviser squelched the idea, saying he could jeopardize his chances at traveling to the country. “That’s the kind of thing that happens,” says Link. “And I see an example of that once or twice a month.” (Earlier this year, Fordham law professor Wesley Smith noted that the deans of leading law schools in the U.S. met with Chinese law professors in Beijing in 2011, but didn’t express concern over a brutal crackdown on Chinese human rights attorneys.) Link says schools with joint campuses in China aren’t always “clear-headed” about what they’re getting into: “There’s no doubt that Beijing’s aim is to influence American scholarly opinion. … If you can get scholars to self-censor, they’re going to write about China in ways that are more acceptable to the Chinese government.”
Email: jdean@worldmag.com
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Remembering t
On its 60th anniversary, aging veterans make their final plea for Americans to remember the fruit of the Korean War, and their sacrifices by edward lee pitts
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W W from dying before his th birthday. It was degrees below zero on a February night when the airborne rifle company commanded by Weber attacked a series of enemy-occupied hills in Korea. Assaulting at dusk through snow and artillery barrages, the company took the first two hills. But the men in the Army unit ran into a Chinese battalion of more than on the last objective: Hill . Weber’s team took the hill sometime after midnight and dug in for the counterattack. At about a.m. a grenade blast severed Weber’s right arm. The cold congealed the blood as it poured out of his wound. His men bandaged the stump, gave Weber a morphine shot, then handed him a carbine to shoot with his left hand. Ninety minutes later a mortar round took most of Weber’s right leg just below the knee, knocking him unconscious. That ended Weber’s fight. But the battle remained too fierce for evacuating the wounded. Chinese soldiers broke through the lines, fighting until killed. Then, after a brief quiet, more of the enemy launched themselves at the Americans with lethal suddenness. The battle continued all night. Weber’s men wrapped him in ponchos, blankets, and overcoats. The sub-zero cold congealed the blood around what was left of his leg, its lower half hanging by the tendons, the bones exposed. Knowing that the wounded became targets in the daylight, Weber’s men risked the firestorm to carry him back to the battalion aid station yards behind the front lines. But the rear wasn’t safe. A Chinese shell struck, the shrapnel slamming into Weber’s STEMMING THE RED TIDE: right hip. Of men who Weber (right); Cpl. James went up on Hill , W. Rezek of South Dakota became casualties, includ(rear) keeps a lookout for ing dead. communist sharpshooters, while Sgt. First Class Ralph I. “That was the nature of Rubic of Alabama ducks down combat in Korea,” Weber, to change positions in their now , said recently from trench on Korea’s central his Maryland home. front in .
The war continued until July , , when the combatants signed an armistice agreement re-establishing the demilitarized zone that to this day divides North from South Korea. The fighting may have ended years ago this summer, but the battle for recognition by veterans of the Korean War had just begun. Sandwiched between the “greatest generation” of World War II and the more vocal veterans of the Vietnam War, the Korean War veterans served in a conflict nicknamed The Forgotten War. Those who dodged bullets and shells and saw friends die—or lose limbs like Weber—have spent decades bristling at the notion that this was only a “police action,” as President Harry Truman once called it. Today the war’s veterans are in their eighties. Many feel they are running out of time in their struggle to get the nation to fully grasp the defining moment of their lives—and the significance of the conflict. “It is a three paragraph war in the history books at the high school level,” said Weber.
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began on June , , with communist forces in the north invading the south, most Americans asked the same question: Where is Korea? “It is a country you have never heard of over a land that doesn’t have any paved roads,” said Melinda Pash, author of In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation: The Americans Who Fought the Korean War. “How do you sell that to the American public? ‘There is nothing there, but we are going to fight this war. It is a civil war, but we are going to get involved.’ It is hard to drum up any kind of support for that.” For the most part Americans wanted to enjoy the good life in the s. The middle class was growing. More and more Americans could buy homes and cars. Few wanted to be bothered with a war and few were: Americans didn’t endure rationing as in the s. While million served in World War II, only . million served in the Korean War theater. “Even in the war time itself it was really easy, kind of like the wars now, to pretend no war was going on,” Pash said.
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front carried weapons. The ones behind them would snatch rifles from their dead comrades while advancing. Dibble spent 16 months in combat as a 25-year-old surgeon with the First Marine Division. He’d work nonstop for days at makeshift aid stations with no tents or bunkers, treating men who stepped on landmines or had up to 40 pieces of shrapnel covering their bodies. Working on his knees in the dark and the snow, Dibble used a penlight to locate wounds—turning on a flashlight would invite an enemy attack. Once a single enemy got through the guards and invaded an aid station, the spray of bullets from his machine gun killing Dibble’s aide and the wounded soldier they were working on. After one Chinese offensive, Dibble counted medical tags and found that 1,004 cases had arrived at his company in three days.
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ixty years later the memories of such carnage are fresh, and many veterans are striving to make sure the sacrifices of the Korean War’s fallen are not forgotten. Weber wants the names of the dead added to the Korean War Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. In 1987 Ronald Reagan appointed Weber to the advisory board overseeing the b uilding of the memorial. The final product, featuring 19 steel statues in combat gear representing a squad on patrol, Weber believes remains unfinished: “The memorial reminds people that someone served, but it doesn’t remind them that someone sacrificed.” He’s testified before Congress and gotten lawmakers to write bills. But the current version of legislation to add the names has only 40 supporters in the House. On a local level, members of Antietam Chapter 312 of the Korean War Veterans Association have had more success. In June they dedicated a monument in Hagerstown, Md. It bears the names of the 32 Korean War dead from surrounding Washington County inscribed on a stone tablet. The chapter raised $40,000 for the project, with local governments supplying an additional $60,000. Dozens came to the unveiling ceremony, where a bell rang once for each of the dead. The memorial also honors living veterans like John Koontz, whose oldest son was nearly 19 months old before Koontz first saw him. At 82, his left foot still tingles from the frostbite he got six decades ago in Korea. The monument also honors Jesse Englehart, 81, who had his helmet shot off his head twice running up a hill On the Korean Peninsula, more at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, and survived a than 988 U.S. soldiers died and grenade landing 10 feet from him. And John nearly 2,800 were wounded each Jackson, 84, who earned a Bronze Star driving month over 37 months of fighting. an M4 tank in combat with only one week’s rest during 13 months of fighting. American “Lord knows how many people I ran over soldiers with that tank,” said Jackson, whose unit won killed six battle stars. “You are moving day and night and you don’t know where you are going. I do American think about it to this day. It takes something out soldiers of you.” wounded Jackson can’t resist driving by the Hagerstown memorial every time he goes to the American supermarket. “I like to go by there at night. soldiers listed as With the lights you can see everything. I rub my missing in action hands on it. It is just so smooth. It’s beautiful.”
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When the fighting stopped, Americans couldn’t see what had been accomplished: all of Korea was not saved and the peninsula’s buffer zone dividing the two Koreas remained along the same 38th parallel established in 1945. “The guys from Vietnam, somebody threw rocks at them, so at least they got some kind of recognition even if it was negative,” said Leo Ruffing, 81, a Pittsburg native who served in Korea with an army mortar company: “We got nothing.” Pash said some VA hospitals turned away men with service-related injuries because they were not classified as war veterans. Congress only later designated the police action a war. “I’ve never called it the forgotten war,” said Birney Dibble, a military doctor during the war now living in Wisconsin. “I’ve called it the unknown war. You can’t forget something you never knew about.” The brutal nature of the combat is not something the war’s survivors will forget. Korea’s terrain and its undeveloped road network made it an infantry war. Masses of men moved through forests, valleys, and hills in the dark, squaring off, sometimes eyeball to eyeball, and with shoulder-fired weapons, mortars, and artillery. Tanks mainly operated in support of troops, and the fighting devolved into the trench warfare more common in World War I. Americans lost more than 36,500 soldiers killed and more than 103,000 wounded in 37 months of fighting. That’s an average of more than 988 dead and nearly 2,800 wounded each month. Just over 8,000 American soldiers are still listed as missing in action. “Imagine picking up the newspaper today and seeing those kind of casualties,” Weber said. Wayne Winebrenner, 18 years old when deployed to Korea, still hears the bugle blows the enemy used as a signal for their hidden troops to rise and attack. “When we got hit I felt like Custer wondering where in the devil all the Indians came from,” said Winebrenner, who now lives in Hagerstown, Md. During one attack, the enemy came dressed in uniforms taken from dead or captured U.S. Marines, almost wiping out an entire company near Winebrenner’s unit. In the winter the enemy wore white, so what looked like snow suddenly came alive at the bugle calls. Sometimes just the enemy soldiers in
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have found their own ways to make sure their war is not forgotten. For the last years, Dibble, the surgeon, has lectured classes of medical students about his battle experiences. James Butcher taught for years at the University of Minnesota, enduring campus protests over Vietnam and other wars while many of his students and fellow faculty members never knew he was a veteran. Butcher’s unit lost men during the Battle of Pork Chop Hill in April . At , the newly promoted sergeant had to force his men to advance under a massive artillery barrage: “I was basically pushing people to their death.” Butcher wrote about his experiences not long after returning, but never intended to publish the work. With the th anniversary approaching, he decided he had been silent long enough: In April he published Korea: Traces of a Forgotten War, surprising many of his former university colleagues. “So many of my buddies had died I felt like it was my duty to say something about it.” It’s not just veterans on the front lines in the battle for remembrance. This summer the Midland Korean Baptist Church in Texas invited area Korean War veterans to come to a thank-you service. The -member church gave each of the veterans who attended a flower, served them Korean food, and performed traditional Korean music and dances. “I don’t know about other wars, but at least for the Korean War I wanted to assure them their sacrifice was worthy,” said pastor Hongnak Koo. “Without their sacrifices the blessings of South Korea would not have come.”
Email: lpitts@worldmag.com
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Koo’s own life was changed by the war. Before the communist invasion, Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea, was called “Jerusalem of the East” for its large population of Christians. But the communists killed or expelled many Christians. Koo grew up in the village of Kongju in South Korea, where he could pursue a pastoral calling that led him to a Texas seminary. Koo remembers one place where the war has never been forgotten. Since the South Korean government has subsidized trips for veterans to revisit the land where they fought. By the end of more than , veterans had made the journey. The program pays for half of the veteran’s airfare and all of accommodations and meals once in Korea. Drivers chauffeur them to battle sites where they can see firsthand how the nation has been transformed. A place they remember as a primitive country full of straw-thatched houses, ragged children, filth, disease, and poverty now boasts skyscrapers, and one of the world’s largest economies with multinationals like Samsung and Hyundai. “You go there and close your eyes and open them and you could be in London, New York, or Tokyo,” said Dibble, who has made two trips back to Korea. “And it wasn’t just the old codgers like us who remembered when the Marines were there. The younger people would come up to us and shake our hands.” Winebrenner returned to Korea in . His conclusion: “If we had not stopped communism in Korea it probably would have spread throughout Asia and the South Pacific.” A
IT’S BEAUTIFUL: Englehart, Koontz, Winebrenner, and Les Bishop, Commander of the Antietam Chapter of the Korean War Veterans Association, at the new monument.
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del rio: Friends of Richard Del Rio • cabrera: handout
A PLACE AT THE TABLE
In New York City elections this year, Christian leaders believe they can’t afford not to run by Emily Belz in New York
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del rio: Friends of Richard Del Rio • cabrera: handout
hen Hurricane Sandy hit last year, 13,700 public housing residents on the Lower East Side were stuck without power, water, or public transportation. Grocery stores closed and food went bad. Abounding Grace Ministries was one of the churches in the projects that set up a station with groceries, water, and hot meals. City officials said it was the largest distribution center after the storm. Abounding Grace pastor Rick Del Rio zoomed around in a forklift on the basketball court that served as the distribution center, unloading pallets of donated goods. Four days after the storm hit, city employees and National Guardsmen showed up—but consigned themselves to keeping order in the lines while thousands waited for food. For the first time local pastors saw a glimmer of hope: The city might form a functional relationship with CANDIDATE AND churches to meet PASTOR: Del Rio working at neighborhood distribution center needs. after Hurricane Del Rio thought Sandy. to himself that he might be able to build some of those relationships as a councilman. Today the pastor and forklift operator is a candidate for New York City Council. And he’s not the only one. As the city’s council and mayoral races heat up before the September primaries, religious leaders—mostly from smaller churches—are jumping into politics. They are alarmed at the city government’s increasing distance from the poor and from churches. Pastors point to the city’s growing wealth that’s pushing the poor out of some areas, and to last year’s battle when the city booted churches from holding services in public schools. The view of pastors on these issues isn’t fringe anymore: In May the city council overwhelmingly passed a resolution informing the state legislature that New York churches should be able to rent worship space from public schools.
“In the past few years the religious community has been disenfranchised,” said New York Councilman Fernando Cabrera, who represents one of the poorest areas of New York in the Bronx. “When change is not happening at the top, a revolution begins at the bottom.” Cabrera is a pastor in the Bronx who won his council seat in 2009. He said it makes sense for church leaders to run because they know their neighborhoods. Cabrera, like del Rio, had lived in his neighborhood for more than 20 years before running, and the people in his district already knew him. Plenty of New Yorkers balk at a Christian pastor running for office: The candidates regularly hear questions from people of other faiths or no faith asking whether the pastors could represent them without pushing a Christian agenda. Del Rio insists that his only agenda is to serve the neighborhood. He also doesn’t think running for office means abandoning his church: He said he has worked to develop young leaders in the church over the years, and they’re ready to fill his shoes. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, according to Rio, has “dismissed” clergy: “We need to look at the clergy as the strategic partners of the city. The clergymen know where the people are.” Ten Christian leaders are running for the 51 seats on city council, and another pastor, Erick Salgado, is running for mayor (he’s a long shot). Many of these candidates come from smaller churches in the city. Cabrera believes pastors have a legitimate shot at winning council seats because those races are often decided by a few thousand votes. As long as the candidates are working hard to meet voters, they’re viable, he said. s for the mayor’s race, the field is mostly set, and only a few candidates look viable. Christine Quinn, the speaker of the New York Council, has long held the frontrunner spot, despite a recent poll that showed disgraced former congressman Anthony
‘When change is not happening at the top, a revolution begins at the bottom.’ —Cabrera
Weiner in the lead (he’s within the margin of error of Quinn). Another poll showed Quinn well in front of the pack. The New Yorker titled an April 2012 profile of Quinn “Mayor Presumptive,” and so far nothing has knocked her from that pedestal. She has the money and the name recognition. Though the pastors offer no real threat to her political ambitions, Quinn has often found herself sparring with them. Quinn opposes churches worshipping in public schools, and was in the city council minority who voted against a resolution to change that city policy. Polls this early in the mayor’s race aren’t entirely reliable, especially because the primary is likely to result in a runoff. Polls can test the full field of candidates only, not just the two who survive for the runoff. Ester Fuchs, a political science professor at Columbia University who has also served as an adviser to Mayor Bloomberg, said the polls right now mostly reflect who has name recognition. Fuchs noticed something else in the polls that makes her skeptical of Weiner’s
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prospects: He has a high unfavorability rating, a number that is typically difficult to overcome. Fuchs explained that it’s easier to go from being unknown and win than to have high unfavorables and win. “People in New York City are very forgiving,” she said. “Does that mean
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luxury apartment developments on public housing land. The proposal would help the New York City Housing Authority find much-needed revenue, but would eliminate open spaces in the projects—parking lots but also playgrounds and basketball courts. Del Rio is furious over the plans. “When the city needs something, they can just push out the poor,” he said. Del Rio moved to the neighborhood in , when it was rough and people were moving out. “The ones who stayed were the poor. They lived through all the ups and downs. Now that all the folks want to come back, they’re pushing [the poor out]. There is a way to do this without eliminating the people who have stood there.”
MAYORAL HOPEFULS: Quinn (left) and Weiner.
Del Rio said the sewers are regularly backed up in the public housing complexes, and work orders are regularly behind too. He worries that the new infrastructure demands of the new complexes will make current problems for the public housing residents worse. “Bloomberg’s whole way of doing things is very top-down. He used his money and business savvy to get what he wants. He propped up the wealthy and ignored the poor,” he said. a coalition of pastors held a mayor’s forum in Cabrera’s district in the Bronx, New York’s poorest borough. Quinn didn’t show up, and Weiner hadn’t entered the race yet, but the rest of the major candidates were there, sitting in the half-full gym of Monroe College and enduring microphone feedback. The candidates talked about the two cities, about the city pushing out the poor and the middle class. A particularly raw point for poor communities like this one in the Bronx is the current administration’s policy allowing police officers to stop and frisk any suspicious-looking individuals. The candidates all criticized the stop-andfrisk policy to applause. The pastor moderators also asked each of the candidates about churches renting public schools for worship. De Blasio, the first to answer, readily took the churches’ side. “It was unfair to treat faith-based organizations differently, especially because faith-based organizations were so often doing the work that government wasn’t,” de Blasio said. “Too often the government has held the faith community at arms’ length. ... Just look at what happened after Hurricane Sandy.” Thompson echoed de Blasio, and went a step further, saying city hall should have an office of faith-based development. Yes, this is still New York City. “There are a lot of stereotypes about New York that are about to be changed. There are many religious people in this city,” said Cabrera. “You look at the gay community—it’s a very small percentage of the population. But they have so much influence. The religious community is a bigger community and now they’re starting to step up and say, hey, we want a seat at the table.” A
QUINN: SETH WENIG/AP • WEINER: KATHY WILLENS/AP
they’re going to vote for them? That’s a different issue. … Do these guys have the character and competence to run? That’s a very different question than, Do you forgive them?” Not terribly far behind Quinn and Weiner in the Democratic field are the former city comptroller Bill Thompson and the city’s public advocate Bill de Blasio. In the Republican field, former deputy mayor to Rudy Giuliani and Bloomberg’s head of the Metropolitan Transit Authority Joe Lhota is the frontrunner, but billionaire entrepreneur John Catsimatidis is mounting a Bloomberg-type run to challenge him. Registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in the city six to one, so the Republican candidates have small chances. But voter participation has been so volatile over the years that Republicans feel a glimmer of hope. Many in New York respect Bloomberg’s wealth, because he has been generous in spending it on the city. But in this year’s campaigns, Bloomberg’s wealth has also become a
symbol for what’s wrong with New York: a city increasingly defined as a place for the uber-wealthy. All Democratic mayoral candidates have made this theme central in their campaigns. Weiner opened his campaign by saying, “The very people who put everything they had into this city are being priced right out of it.” De Blasio uses the phrase “a tale of two cities” in most campaign stops. The two cities are visible in del Rio’s neighborhood on the Lower East Side. With the current councilwoman Rosie Mendez, the city is working to finalize plans for new
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Hope Award for Ef fective Com passion
Free retainer B
MIDWEST Regional winner
In Illinois, Administer Justice helps the poor get their day in court
by Daniel James Devine
in Elgin and Gene va, Ill. photos by tiffany owens
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ruce Strom swore he’d never be poor. Growing up as a pastor’s kid in a parsonage, he watched his dad draw a meager salary and make hospital visits after the phone rang in the middle of the night. Strom decided to pursue a law career, where he’d never struggle to make ends meet. Life went according to his dreams. He graduated from law school, married, and started a successful legal firm. If he took calls for help at night, Strom charged his clients 25 percent extra to call him at home—on top of his regular $300 per hour fee. He argued a case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. Back home, he was a respected church leader and gave generously from his income. Yet Strom became angry about one area he and his wife couldn’t control—they had seven years of infertility. Strom thought, “God owed me. I mean, I was doing everything right. And it just didn’t seem fair.” But the seeming injustice of infertility started him thinking about injustice in the lives of the poor: “Their pain was different than mine, but their pain was just as real.” With assistance from in vitro fertilization, Strom’s wife finally had twin boys in the summer of 1999. Eight months later, Strom founded Administer Justice (AJ), a nonprofit providing free legal services to the poor of Kane and DuPage counties, suburbs just west of Chicago. Since then over 40,000 people have come to the organization seeking legal help: The elderly, single parents, and orphaned and homeless children are frequently victims of fraud and abuse, but often don’t understand the law or can’t afford a lawyer. Administer Justice helps those who often have nowhere else to turn. Its services are free for anyone with an income under 125 percent of the federal poverty line. Administer Justice has a staff of 12 but a network of over 250 attorneys who volunteer to advise or represent clients as part of their pro bono work. (For clients with slightly higher incomes, AJ offers free consultations and will represent them in court at a reduced rate.) AJ is explicitly Christian but doesn’t require volun teer attorneys to profess Christ. Clients come to the organization’s headquarters in Elgin, Ill., for help with tax disputes, identity theft, foreclo sures, custody disputes, divorce mediation, immigration law, and more. AJ doesn’t “THEIR PAIN WAS JUST AS attempt to represent most clients in court, but REAL”: Bruce instead focuses on coaching them to represent Strom in the themselves. Often they simply need counsel Administer in overcoming fear of their situation, inter Justice library. preting a notice filled with legalese, and
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MONEY BOX 3 2011 income: $1.61 million 3 2011 expenses: $1.68 million 3 Salary of executive director Bruce Strom: $70,000 3 Employees: three full-time, nine part-time 3 Volunteers: A network of 250 volunteer attorneys and 450 volunteer non-attorneys who help with mailings and publicity, pray with clients, and bake fresh cookies to place in the organization’s waiting room
understanding what steps to take in response. On the day I visited, for example, 24year-old Jose Robledo of Carpentersville had a problem: An ex-girlfriend had custody of their 4-year-old son. He had fallen $660 behind on child support payments while temporarily unemployed and hadn’t seen his son for a month. He wanted to establish a new visitation agreement, or petition the court for full custody, and an attorney
outlined for him the first step he needed to take: Get his ex-girlfriend’s address so she could be sent a legal statement.
Court coaching
Inside the red brick Kane County Courthouse in Geneva, wooden benches line a tall, dimly lit hallway. Here, outside the brass-handled door of Room 150— mortgage foreclosure court—AJ staff attorney Pam Tan sits at a small table every Friday to cheer up troubled homeowners. Last year banks filed nearly 5,000 foreclosure cases in this court. Many homeowners arrive pro se—without a lawyer—and hope the judge will explain what to do. But the judge isn’t supposed to offer legal advice, so he often sends them to Tan for free coaching on what papers to file. A man in a bomber jacket, Indian immigrant Syed Husain, missed a deadline for filing a court paper and asked Tan what to do next. Husain, 54 and married with two teenagers at home, lost his travel agency job and was unemployed for two years. Tan told him, “Don’t pay for loan modification forms. They charge you $3,000 [or] $4,000 to fill out forms you could fill out yourself.” Husain is temporarily rehired: “Less pay, of course. More bills, less pay. It’s a sign of the time.” He has a mortgage for over $250,000 but said his four-bedroom house in Aurora isn’t worth that much. His bank twice rejected an application for loan modification. Asked what he’ll do if the judge allows foreclosure, Husain smiled and shrugged. —D.J.D.
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Much of the advice AJ offers is similarly unspectacular but real. When a client arrives at AJ for an initial consultation, he or she receives a folder with a handwritten note of encouragement, a list of area churches, and Bible verses such as “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” When clients are distressed about their circumstances, AJ staff use the opportunity to pray with them or encourage them to consider how God may be at work in their lives for greater good. They have plenty of challenging opportunities: One of AJ’s first clients was a Brazilian immigrant who had mothered a child with her fiancé, a U.S. citizen. When the fiancé died in a car accident, his family took the boy and placed the mother under a voodoo curse. She came to AJ in tremendous fear, but after Strom explained voodoo’s falsity and God’s love for her, she professed faith in Christ. A phone call to police got the child back. REAL ADVICE: AJ volunteer attorney Pam Brunkalla helps two clients with paperwork.
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When clients are distressed about their circumstances, AJ staff use the opportunity to pray with them or encourage them to consider how God may be at work in their lives for greater good. In another case, AJ attorneys discovered an employer pocketing medical insurance premiums of immigrant workers. In a third case, a man stopped
for a traffic violation inexplicably found himself under arrest and stuck with a $16,000 IRS bill: Someone had stolen his identity. AJ also runs a low-income
Coyote hunting
For most of her life, Maria has lived in fear. Born into an impoverished family of nine in Mexico, her father died when she was 5, and when she was 10 her mother abandoned the family for more than a year. When she returned, she was abusive and made Maria drop out of school. There was barely enough money for corn, much less shoes or underwear. Maria longed for escape. (WORLD is withholding her full name to protect the safety of her family in Mexico.) An older brother she loved had immigrated to the United States, but she was only about 15 years old and had no legal way of obtaining a visa. So she asked a coyote (a human smuggler) to take her across the border. The coyote arranged for her to hitch a car ride with another family through a checkpoint, where immigration officials overlooked the extra passenger. In Texas she found not freedom but a nightmare: The coyote took her to a hotel room, raped her, and handed her over to the owner of a Houston cantina. There she was expected to work off her smuggling debt. The cantina owner compelled Maria to serve beer to drunken men, drink with them, dance, and offer herself to their wishes. Marijuana and cocaine were rampant. Maria cried and looked up at the sky, praying for escape and strength to carry on.
Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
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tax clinic with the help of an IRS grant: People sometimes arrive with unopened IRS letters they’re too scared to read. Last year, AJ served people from 27 countries of origin. Kimberly Spagui, a staff attorney who also runs a private practice, handles the organization’s immigration clients, many of whom come to AJ for help with tax or custody disputes. AJ lawyers learn their status while gently probing their situation: AJ can help undocumented immigrants obtain a visa if they have a relative in the United States or are victims of abuse or trafficking. Spagui also works with trafficking victims who often “come in lawfully with a visa, under a promise that they’re going to be working in a certain place. And then they end up working in a sweatshop ... or in the sex trade.” A
She was able to call a cousin, and after three weeks in the cantina, he picked her up and brought her to his house for protection. But before long the coyote showed up with a group of friends or relatives and surrounded the house, brandishing guns and daggers. He demanded $1,500 and threatened to take Maria back by force if she didn’t pay. Her family members scraped together enough money to pay off the coyote. Maria moved to northeast Illinois to be near two siblings, and later married. For a decade she kept mostly silent about the abuses she endured, not realizing they were crimes, and afraid of revealing her illegal status. She has suffered from depression and anxiety as ugly memories resurface. It wasn’t until Maria came to Administer Justice in 2012 and spoke to immigration attorney Kimberly Spagui that she realized she had legal recourse. The organization helped her apply for a special visa available to trafficking victims and file a report against the coyote and cantina that enslaved her. The Houston Police Department is investigating. Maria, now 25, has obtained her visa and a driver’s license, and will be able to apply for permanent residency in two years. She’s taking classes to learn English and has received counseling from a local Roman Catholic church she attends. “Now I am much closer to God,” she said: “I bring my daughters to church. We participate in church activities with the women and the youth programs. I am thankful for all the blessings I have now and that I am able to stay in the United States.” —D.J.D.
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Hope Award for Ef fective Com passion
Help and hope D The Shepherd Community Center anchors a struggling Indianapolis neighborhood
by Daniel James Devine in Indianapolis
rive 10 minutes east of downtown Indianapolis and you’ll find a neighborhood of used car lots, vacant buildings, a check cashing business, and a dollar store with a front door fitted with plywood (instead of glass). Children hawk roses at a roadside stall, advertising with a sign that says, “Honk if you love Jesus.” Along side streets, some homes look well-kept. Others are boarded up, or have plastic covering windows or mismatched shingles covering the roofs. At an intersection, a man with a yellow sweater and a shaggy, gray goatee holds a cardboard sign that says, “Homeless vet. Will work for food. God bless.” Here, hidden behind an Advance Auto Parts store, sits the Shepherd Community Center, where programs including a food pantry, a medical clinic, and counseling/mentoring activities try to meet immediate needs and prompt long-term spiritual change among local residents, in the hope that fewer will end up on street corners. Shepherd’s multipurpose building includes seven classrooms where a pre-K through fourth grade school enrolls about 150 students. On a recent weekday, teacher Chelsey Wiley’s first-grade class excitedly stood at their desks—or wriggled, or hopped in place—and played a game that functioned as a group spelling bee for words like hopes or smiled. Many of the students spoke Spanish along with English. Shepherd is trying to bring children from low-income families into this Christian school by subsidizing tuition. Parents only pay between $70 and $210 a year to send a child to the school, with the rest covered by the organization and state vouchers: Shepherd also pairs many students with volunteer adult mentors
MEETING NEEDS: The community center (left), where volunteers help in afterschool classes (right).
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handout photos
MIDWEST Regional RUNNER-UP
handout photos
who might take them out for pizza or teach them to play the steel drum. Jay Height, Shepherd’s executive director, keeps two desert tortoises in his office that he occasionally lets crawl across the floor: “It’s a great way to diffuse a tense situation with a child.” Height is also senior pastor of the affiliated church on the opposite end of the parking lot, Shepherd Community Church of the Nazarene, which spiritually engages families who have benefited from the organization’s services. In 1998 the Indianapolis Police Department named him “Crime Fighter of the Year,” in part for chasing down and pinning to the ground a man on the street who had tried to grab a woman. At the entrance of Shepherd Community Center is a wall hung with
about 50 photos of young men and women formerly involved in Shepherd’s school or after-school programs who have gone on to college or military service. In this neighborhood, just one in four people has earned a college degree, so the pictures serve as inspiration for youth who pass by. So do stories from Curtis Adkins, 31, director of after-school and summer programs, who was living on the streets and with friends by the age of 12 (see sidebar). Shepherd helped him years ago, and because he emerged from poverty himself, he’s able to “look a kid in the eye and say, ‘You can do it.’” Antoinette Johnson did it. She first heard about Shepherd when she was 8 years old, when a church member came to her house to patch up holes
from a drive-by shooting. She says Shepherd taught her the gospel and later helped her transfer from public school to a Christian high school, where she studied the Bible and began to learn God could use childhood trials and her dyslexia for her ultimate good. Today she’s 24, works for a church in Denver that ministers to impoverished families, hopes to become a missionary, and says, “I give God the glory for bringing Shepherd into my life, because that was all Him.” Chris Berry, 36, did it. He’s a deputy sheriff who says he had a cynical mindset until, through Shepherd, he began to pray and read the Bible. His attitude toward arrestees changed: Instead of assuming everyone was guilty, he gave them the benefit of the doubt, and realized, “I could have been in the same situation that they were in.” On Saturdays at Shepherd, examination tables on wheels transform school classrooms into makeshift doctor’s offices. Volunteers—doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and interpreters— scurry to complete checkups, take blood samples, and fill prescriptions for the 15 or more patients who come each week. The clinic is free, and the only requirement is that patients must be involved in some other Shepherd program. The clinic is funded by private grants and donations. Bill Lynn, a doctor who has volunteered at Shepherd for four years, often uses an interpreter since most patients don’t speak English. “Let’s talk about that chest pain,” he told a 56-year-old Spanish-speaking woman during a recent exam. “Sharp pain, or like a weight on your chest? ... Any shortness of breath?” “Mm-hmm, poquito,” she said. “It doesn’t sound like heart to me,” concluded Lynn, after pressing his stethoscope against her chest and back. He ended up prescribing a muscle relaxer and an anti-inflammatory drug. Lynn later noted that Shepherd patients are uninsured and have similar problems as patients at his own practice—high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity. But he enjoys volunteering and not having to worry about processing payments and insurance codes. “I
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think as physicians we get as much out of them as they get out of us. It puts the fun back in medicine.” The patient, Elsa Dominguez, later said she’s been coming to the clinic for six months and has attended a women’s program at Shepherd. Meeting with a Shepherd counselor, she said, has
helped her fight a long-term depression resulting in part from childhood molestation by a male schoolteacher. She appreciates getting not just a doctor but “the Word of God” at Shepherd. Height says he always thought he was called to minister to the city but realizes the city has ministered to him: “So many of the stories are of people who teach me every day how to be Christlike.” A
Adkins with his newborn, Mikaiah
‘You can do it’ 56
3 2011 income: $3.9 million 3 2011 expenses: $4.1 million 3 Salary of executive director Jay Height: $58,249 3 Employees: 44 full-time, 13 part-time 3 Volunteers: About 430 individuals from churches, high schools, and colleges logged hours in the past year, not including work groups
him to pick up only bits and pieces of academic concepts from schools he briefly attended. Teachers labeled him learning disabled: Adkins recalls, “Everybody was telling me I wasn’t going to succeed, so I eventually turned into the kid that didn’t really care whether he succeeded or not.” At 12 years old, Adkins’ stepfather kicked him out of the house after longstanding friction ignited during a dispute between Adkins and his sister. He spent the next six months sleeping at friends’ houses, at his grandmother’s, or on park benches. He stayed in school to get the free meals. Finally, a friend’s parents agreed to house Adkins if he agreed to stay in school and attend Shepherd’s after-school youth programs. He agreed, but he butted heads with teachers and administrators, who twice kicked him out of public high schools. At Shepherd, though, people began tutoring him and giving him homework help, and eventually helped him enroll at a local Christian school, where classroom sizes were smaller than at his public school. The extra attention he received helped him catch up academically from the years he’d fallen behind. Shepherd and the Christian school gave Adkins janitorial jobs so he could pay his tuition, and the long hours motivated him to get his money’s worth from the classes. Looking back, he realizes that having to work to reach his goals was a valuable life lesson. Though he felt insecure about his academic abilities, Adkins finished high school and went on to play as a soccer goalkeeper at an Ohio university, where he graduated cum laude. Now Adkins is married, has two young children, wears a goatee and a loop earring, and works at Shepherd offering students the encouragement he once needed: “I came back to serve after being here because of the relationships that I built with people, and how people encouraged me and told me I could do it, even when I didn’t believe in myself.” —D.J.D.
handout
Curtis Adkins, Shepherd’s 31-year-old director of afterschool and summer programs, once resembled the city kids he helps today. As an elementary student, Adkins’ financially unstable family moved three or four times a year, allowing
MONEY BOX
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Notebook
Lifestyle > Technology > Science > Houses of God > Sports
Young adults join together to learn strategies for defending traditional marriage BY ANGELA LU
Roaring lambs
ANGELA LU
>>
T a counterculture: young men and women recently attended the fifth annual It Takes A Family (ITAF) conference to learn how to support traditional marriage. It’s not the usual cause -to--yearolds scramble to support: The numerous red equal signs on Facebook mirror the reality that percent of millennials support same-sex marriage. But these students and young professionals traveled to San Diego, Calif., to learn how to defend one-woman, one-man marriage from scholars Jennifer Morse, Mark Regnerus, Robert Gagnon, and others.
Email: alu@worldmag.com
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While the attendees eagerly discussed the necessity for marriage in society around dining tables and by the pool, they realized their views will be largely mocked and rejected once they step out of the safety of the ITAF conference. Who are these individuals still committed to the marriage movement intellectually and emotionally? I Autumn Leva, , has just gone through two defeats that were “devastating on a personal level.” She knew she was risking her budding law career when she agreed to become the Minnesota for Marriage spokeswoman last fall—but after much prayer, she
DARING TO GO COUNTERCULTURE: Alana Newman speaking at the ITAF conference.
made the commitment. She worked to pass a Minnesota constitutional amendment defining marriage between a man and woman—and lost. She worked to convince state legislators not to approve same-sex marriage—and she lost, facing off against opposing lobbyists by herself while taking up multiple roles in the short-staffed Minnesota for Marriage office. But she says, “It was all worth it.” I Mechi Richards, , of Buenos Aires, has also seen losses—Argentina
AUGUST 10, 2013 • WORLD
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Notebook > Lifestyle
WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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On July the NY Post reported that “a group of vegan extremists has launched a website meant to shame scores of ‘ex-vegans’—even posting the names and photos of the meatmunching traitors.” Two days later, Slate’s L.V. Anderson mocked the Post for not getting a joke: “Gotham’s most hysterical tabloid is responsible for taking at face value a website that is almost certainly a joke. [Kudos to the Vegan Sellout List for] deftly skewering vegan stereotypes and for pranking a general public whose eagerness to believe the worst about vegans overrides their natural skepticism.” But that wasn’t Anderson’s last word. In a July update, he confessed: “I’m eating crow (or soy-based crow substitute).” It turns out the Vegan Sellout List is connected to a radical animal rights activist—and thus not a joke. Or is it a radical activist with an ironic sensibility? On July , Atlantic Wire’s Elspeth Reeve jumped in to debunk embarrassing reports arising from abortion protests at the Texas capitol: “The Conservative Meme of SatanLoving Texas Pro-Choice Protesters Is a Bit Off.” Reeve minimized the significance of the “Hail Satan” chant reported by CNN: Only five protesters chanted it, it wasn’t clear they were connected to Planned Parenthood, and “College kids are so dumb.” But was that chant both mocking and serious? Reeve also tried to debunk a photograph circulating on conservative websites “showing a little girl holding a sign that says, ‘If I wanted the government in my womb, I would [expletive] a senator!’” Reeve called it a fake. Then came the correction: “Update: I read the date wrong. The photo is real! My apologies.” We live in a brave new world where what seems like over-the-top fiction is sad fact. —Susan Olasky
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legalized same-sex marriage in —but is carrying on the fight as part of a pro-family organization, Grupo Sólido, that is mostly run by volunteers under . Grupo Sólido teaches abstinence and family values to students at private schools. Richards said, “If you want to change things, you need to change the people’s minds, what they think about marriage. A law does not change the way of thinking, we need a deeper change.” Richards said classmates mock her and commenters leave nasty comments on her blog, but she also has friends her age who are starting to get jaded by the sexual revolution and searching for something else. She said many Argentinians didn’t think the new law would affect them, but passage has led to a completely redesigned sexual education that teaches gender equality and minimizes the traditional family. Teachers of religious backgrounds are having a difficult time keeping their jobs because pro-gay language is often required in every class, including math where word problems now contain homosexual examples. I Alana Newman, , became interested in family issues through her own experience as a donor-conceived individual. Her desire to find her biological father pushed her to create the Anonymous Us Project, which allows those involved in assisted reproductive technology—including , to , born through sperm donations every year, studies say— to share their stories and opinions. In high school she saw her friends with their biological fathers and felt as if she was missing out. So at , she started looking for her dad. Newman put her information on a donor sibling registry, and a man contacted her: He turned out not to be her father but a donor to the same sperm bank. Through him she was able to get her father’s medical history and heritage. Later, a private eye helped her search for him, and three days before the ITAF conference told her she had almost certainly found him: He had died several years ago. “Society doesn’t recognize the sadness we feel not knowing our parents,” Newman said. The stories on the Anonymous Us website reveal concerns about abandonment, betrayal, and identity, accidental incest, and lack of knowledge of medical history. I Thomas Peters, , communication director for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), arrived at the conference from Illinois to explain why the legislature of a liberal state did not approve same-sex marriage this spring. He said NOM in Illinois worked closely with African-American pastors to defeat the bill: Gay activists “try to silence free debate, [but] the Illinois vote on marriage reflects what’s really going on. I’m very eager to see a healthy debate continue.” Peters said he did not plan to get involved with such a divisive issue, knowing “it would brand me,” but he decided instead of staying silent he’d rather fight for a world where his values could exist. A
Notebook > Technology
Airborne scoops Will drones find a home in American journalism? By daniel james devine
ITAF & peters: angela lu
imago stock/newscom
>>
Rubber bullets and tear gas canisters weren’t the only things flying above Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, during early June protests against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. While riot police forced demonstrators out of the square, a small drone with four helicopter-style rotors hovered overhead, capturing video of truck-mounted water cannons spraying jets at the crowd. The drone’s mesmerizing, bird’s-eye footage later appeared on the video-sharing website Vimeo, uploaded by the drone’s pilot, a young man from Turkey who shared his name only as “Jenk K.” He uploaded several drone videos documenting the demonstrations, which had resulted in at least four deaths and left 4,000 protesters and 600 police injured over three weeks. The pilot even posted a video of his drone being shot out of the sky, allegedly by police. (Undeterred, he was back in the sky with a friend’s drone soon after.) As a player in the effort to document and publicize Erdogan’s heavy-handed response to anti-government demonstrations, Jenk K. could be called a citizen journalist. He’s part of a small but budding movement to use drones for journalistic purposes. In a June paper in Digital Journalism, University of Texas at Arlington professors Mark Tremayne and Andrew Clark documented a few rare examples of drones used for journalistic purposes, ranging from the investigative to the voyeuristic: In May 2011, The Daily, a now-defunct iPad newspaper, and CNN used drones to survey tornado damage in Alabama. sPy LIGHT: The same month, reporters in Australia A drone over used a drone to capture footage of a secretive, Cape Town, island-based government detention center. South Africa.
Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
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Later in 2011, private drones recorded demonstrations in Warsaw and Moscow. In 2010, paparazzi used a drone to spy on Paris Hilton as she vacationed in the French Riviera. More recently, South African police arrested a man who was using a drone to capture aerial footage of the Pretoria hospital where Nelson Mandela lay ill. He had hoped to sell the footage to media organizations. In their paper, Tremayne and Clark point out that guidelines on the ethical use of drones in journalism seem to be lacking. Yet drones have the potential to be quite useful to journalists who need to report everything from traffic jams to parades to storm damage. A cheap surveillance drone like the one Jenk K. flew retails for around $1,100—about the cost of two flight hours in a helicopter—and is safer to operate. “If I was a news director and I couldn’t get a helicopter out ... but I knew we had a drone, and had an HD camera on it, I would be more than willing to use it to provide some sort of aerial footage,” Clark told me. But Americans are mistrustful of “unmanned aerial vehicles,” and scoop-seeking reporters might be tempted to test the boundaries of privacy. Until some ethical guidelines are in place, Clark says, “I think there’s going to be a lot of hesitancy about using them.” Currently, U.S. regulators are keeping reporters’ drones grounded. The Federal Aviation Administration has banned commercial drone flights until it finalizes flight rules in 2015. The agency carved an exception for hobbyists flying remote-controlled craft no higher than 400 feet. That means, for now, American citizen journalists can use a drone, but paid ones can’t. A
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Notebook > Science
Liver delivery
A new experiment makes lab-grown organs more plausible BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
Stimulants that treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and teens, such as Ritalin and Adderall, may decrease fidgety behavior in the classroom, but don’t expect them to improve your child’s grades. According to a Wall Street Journal report, in recent studies ADHD drugs appeared to reduce math scores in boys and increase unhappiness in girls, and didn’t improve any level of academic achievement over the course of several years. Kids who take ADHD drugs may be easier for parents and teachers to handle, but the idea that calmer moods will translate into better study habits seems merely wishful. At last count (in ), the government estimated . million American children under were taking ADHD medications. Prescriptions have surged since then, with spending on the drugs more than doubling, to billion from billion. —D.J.D.
LIVER: SEBASTIAN KAULITZKI/SHUTTERSTOCK • MOUSE: HADNOUT • PILLS: MASTERFILE
Report card
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ARMANDO FRANCA/AP
>>
W of medicine involve replacement organs for livers, kidneys, or even hearts? New research from Japan increases the likelihood. For the first time, scientists say they’ve grown three-dimensional, functional pieces of human liver. The Japanese team believes its miniature livers are also the first functional organs grown using induced pluripotent stem cells. That’s good because “iPS” cells, taken from adult tissue, don’t require the destruction of an embryo, and don’t have the problem of immune system rejection that troubles most organ transplants. Reporting in Nature, the researchers said they grew their bits of human liver not in humans but mice: Through trial and error, they discovered that the right combination of human iPS cells, blood stem cells, and bone stem cells will grow into liver tissue, mimicking how a liver grows inside a developing embryo. They began the growth process in petri dishes, then implanted the “liver buds” into the brains of mice whose skulls had been cut open and fitted with glass slides, giving scientists a window to observe the growth. (Yes, it’s all quite bizarre.) The liver buds grafted into the brain tissue, growing new, working blood vessels. Although only a fraction of an inch in size, the buds behaved like actual livers— producing proteins and metabolizing drugs. When the researchers implanted the liver buds into the abdomens of mice with liver failure, their survival odds increased, proving the lab-grown livers really worked. Behind kidneys, livers are the second most in-demand organ in the United States. As of early July, nearly , people were on the U.S. liver transplant waiting list. An organ regrowth treatment, if it existed, could help them. However, a lead researcher on the Japanese team said using the “liver bud” approach in a human—to seed a dying organ with billions of iPS cells—would require an automated technique that might take five years or more to develop. Because of safety concerns, starting a human trial would probably take a decade. Don’t write it off as far-fetched, though: Doctors have already “grown” simpler organs—windpipes—in labs and implanted them in patients. With some technical advances, liver regeneration might be just a few labs experiments away.
Notebook > Houses of God
Hagia Sophia church in the
Armando Franca/ap
liver: Sebastian Kaulitzki/shutterstock • mouse: hadnout • pills: masterfile
Black Sea city of Trabzon is one of the most important examples of Byzantine architecture, but authorities in Turkey recently declared the building a mosque, covering its 13th-century frescoes and mosaics with screens and carpets during prayer times. The church became a mosque in the 15th century and then a museum in 1961. Its namesake in Istanbul, the larger Hagia Sophia (“holy wisdom” in Greek) is now a museum but could be turned into a mosque under a proposal by Turkey’s increasingly Islamist government.
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Notebook > Sports
Old men can win Two ‘aging’ professionals show how to win with style and character BY ZACHARY ABATE
>>
N Y Y legendary closer Mariano Rivera made his th and final All-Star Game appearance July , pitching a perfect inning and winning the Most Valuable Player trophy. As Rivera
Mickelson
win the championship. “It was the round of my life,” Mickelson said. The California native has now captured three of golf’s four major championships— the British Open (), the Masters (, , ), and the PGA Championship (). The U.S. Open is the only championship which still eludes Mickelson; he has finished in second place at the event six times. Only five golfers have ever achieved a career Grand Slam: Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and Gene Sarazen. Just five weeks ago, Mickelson lost the U.S. Open to England’s Justin Rose by one shot. “After a few days of sulking I was able to reassess and see that I was playing some of the best golf of my career and that I didn’t want to let a tournament that got away affect these future events. … I used it as a motivating factor to work a little harder.”
A list of the hottest-selling NFL and baseball jerseys includes those of several who profess Christ. Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson is second on the list, Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III is third, Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson is fourth, and Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill is sixth. On the MLB list, San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey and Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera are first and second. One notable absence from the NFL list is Tim Tebow, whose jersey topped the list for several months in when the Denver Broncos drafted him.
WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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RIVERA: KATHY WILLENS/AP • MICKELSON: MATT DUNHAM/AP • WILSON: AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGES
walked onto the field to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” the crowd of , at Citi Field in New York gave him a two-minute standing ovation. Rivera’s All-Star teammates stayed off the field as he warmed up, allowing the Panamanian star to soak in the moment. “Amazing,” Rivera said after the game. “I can’t describe it. I have no words for it. It’s been a wonderful night, the whole event.” Rivera during his time in Major League Baseball pitched nine career
All-Star innings without allowing an earned run. At baseball’s oldest active player, he announced in March he would retire at the end of the season. He says he plans to work in evangelical ministry in Panama. Rivera’s MLB-record Rivera saves and his five World Championships will undoubtedly send him to baseball’s Hall of Fame, but he has said, “God has put me in a special place to talk about Him. It really has nothing to do with baseball. I’m here to talk about Him. Him alone.” Phil Mickelson, , was down by five strokes entering the final round of the British Open on the morning of July . “Lefty” faced difficult weather elements at Muirfield Golf Links in Scotland and a playing field that included four-time British Open winner Tiger Woods and Masters champion Adam Scott. To win, Mickelson would have to play one of the best rounds of golf in his life. That’s exactly what he did. A finalround score of enabled Mickelson to pass the eight men in front of him and capture golf’s oldest trophy, the Claret Jug. He birdied four of his final six holes and shot a on the back nine to
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Mailbag ‘Making tracks’
June I was glad to see the review of Escape from North Korea about the underground railroad. When we lived in Seoul in we heard that about , North Koreans made the long trek that year. It is amazing what people will do to be free. —M J. R, Lakeland, Fla.
‘Rib ticklers’ June Proverbs says “a joyful heart is good medicine.” We need more laughter and your recommendations for humor books help. I’d also recommend the work of the late, unequaled Bennett Cerf, a great compiler and creator of good, clean jokes. —B B, Eden Prairie, Minn.
‘Literary wanderings’ June I’d like to nominate Uncle Tom’s Cabin as The Great American Novel. The story is gripping and it helped change the sentiment of a nation against slavery. Perhaps it’s not so popular today because it’s so Christian.
:-, where Paul wrote, “what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” It’s awesome how God has the answer for everything. —J K, San Pedro, Calif.
June What a nice philosophy for a young person today: “Being polite is better than being rich.” Thanks to Mallory Crandell, whose mother let Gloria MacKenzie cut in line and win the lottery, for her good attitude. —C C, Saline, Mich.
—K G, Chaska, Minn.
‘Aging badly’ June As a long-time subscriber, I think your anti-environmentalism bias does your readers a significant disservice. We rarely see environmental disasters in the U.S. now because of environmental laws that were passed after Rachel Carson wrote her seminal call to alarm. Protecting God’s good creation is a responsibility that every Christian bears. —D J, Casselberry, Fla.
‘Beware of “comfort care”’
‘The Fed is the market’
June As a retired hospice nurse, I am outraged about the woman in hospice who had her water taken away. That hospice could not have been a reputable organization. Our hospice was into “comfort care,” but we were guided by the desires of the patient and family. Reports like this make our job much harder.
June People need to understand what a corrupt monetary system we have today: It does not allow people to plan ahead wisely with their assets, it is completely debt-based although Scripture warns against debt, and it channels wealth away from the poor through inflation.
—P M, Lincoln, Neb.
—D H, Dallas, Texas
Quotables
even to read. But I have been reawakened. Thank you.
Peterson’s last two columns about society’s spiral away from godliness really spoke to me. I am beginning to realize that believers are not necessarily called to change society as much as we are called to be a light in a society that is headed toward destruction. —D D, Ellsworth, Maine
—N A, Clackamas, Ore.
‘Darius and the IRS’ June Excellent column, but it was a bit anticlimactic for Joel Belz to conclude that he doesn’t “expect anything quite like that” from the IRS, after writing about the power of Daniel’s God. Let us all pray in faith, as James admonished, and expect God to work so that our nation may forsake our sins and experience God’s blessing. —J B, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Novelist Stephen King’s quote about how the world “suggests intelligent design” is a perfect example of Romans
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It bothers me that I can be so detached, so desensitized about descriptions of abortion that ought to be too horrifying
As an IRS retiree, I have been unimpressed with WORLD’s coverage
AUGUST 10, 2013 • WORLD
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depicting the IRS as so powerful and abusive. The vast majority of the people I worked with for years are God-fearing Christians. Through the ministry of fellow believers and an organization called Christian Fundamental Internal Revenue Employees, in I was brought back into the fold of Christ’s own. —G R. F, Wesley Chapel, N.C.
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‘Man of Steel’ June I was disappointed in the review of Man of Steel. Your reviewer disliked the style and plot, but there was a lot of good in the movie. It addressed tough moral questions, the joys and sorrows of father-son relationships, and included discussions of fate, choice, and the consequences of our actions. —D M, Chetek, Wis.
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‘Yeast in the dough’ June It was refreshing to read a young musician’s thoughts on worship. I and other ministers of music frequently deal with the selfcenteredness of worshippers who prioritize style over substance.
May God raise up more like Alex McDonald. —A F, Bremen, Ga.
‘The morning after’ June This is my favorite Seu Peterson column ever. Sometimes I think that I, as a psychologist, am going crazy and need a shrink, but she reminded me that no, I’m just trying to stay sane in an insane culture. —J D, Bridgewater, N.J.
This column is so very sad. We have turned our back on God and are getting what we deserve. —P B, Winder, Ga.
‘A battle of wills and ideas’ June “Inhumane” is too mild a word for the treatment Deborah Wakai received from our government. I’m embarrassed yet again by our country’s cavalier attitude toward common decency. —B N, Page, Ariz.
‘Rotten to the core?’ June Joel Belz asked the frightening question: What if millions of voters “don’t care about truth telling”? I’m
7/23/13 1:43 PM
afraid that our cultural elite has come to celebrate those who can lie and get away with it. As Christians we believe that true freedom is found only in the truth, but for many folks, freedom is just not getting caught.
Health care for people of Biblical faith
—C K, Banner Elk, N.C.
What is going on in our country is scary. God help us all. —M S, Hesperia, Calif.
‘Lessons from a clothes dryer’ June I think gay marriage marks the end stage of the society that embraces it. It exchanges God’s creation of male and female for a lie, and it has never worked well to defy the living God. —B T, Isleton, Calif.
‘Real commencement’ June I was at the University of Texas in the late s and recall standing in the crowds that would gather around Cliffe Knechtle, listening to him and wishing I had his facility of speech and breadth of knowledge. I tried to start conversations with folks who seemed interested, but I wasn’t very good at it. I am so glad that he is still out there, still engaging students. —N S, Houston, Texas
Over the last several years, I have noticed a maturing of your magazine. Increasingly I find in it sound wisdom, often expressed with the mixture of truth and kindness expected of those who humbly follow Christ. Also, I am thrilled with your Saturday series on your website and hope these thoughtful essays will continue. —J M, Savannah, Ga.
LETTERS & PHOTOS Email: mailbag@worldmag.com Write: WORLD Mailbag, PO Box , Asheville, NC - Please include full name and address. Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.
If you are a committed Christian, you do not have to violate your faith by purchasing health insurance from a company that pays for abortions and treatments of conditions resulting from other immoral practices. You can live consistently with your beliefs by sharing medical needs directly with fellow believers through Samaritan Ministries’ non-insurance approach. This approach even satisfies the individual mandate in the recent Federal health care law (United States Code 26, Section 5000A, (d), (2), (B)). Every month the more than 24,000* households of Samaritan Ministries share over $6 million* in medical needs directly—one household to another. They also pray for one another and send notes of encouragement. The monthly share for a family membership of any size has never exceeded $370*.
For more information call us toll-free at 1-888-268-4377, or visit us online at: www.samaritanministries.org. Follow us on Twitter (@samaritanmin) and Facebook (SamaritanMinistries). * As of June 2013
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Andrée Seu Peterson
Cut it off?
Before scheduling the amputation comes grace to overcome
>>
KRIEG BARRIE
J about you getting the sin out of your life that he says to cut off the offending appendage if you cannot master it: “If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away” (Matthew :). Amputation of a body part is not His first preference: He would rather you “rule over” the devil (Genesis :). But if for whatever reason you are not up to it, then better to limp through the remains of the day sans eyes or hands or whatever than to keep them and go to hell. Life is short. Eternity is long. God loves us and wants us to enjoy heaven to the full, with undiminished reward ( Corinthians :), so He is ruthless against sin. I live hard by a railroad track and am ruthless about the prohibition against playing near the tracks. I do not good-naturedly allow my grandchildren to slip occasionally from obeying that particular regulation, nor do I commend them for a percent compliance. “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Hebrews :). The implication is that you may yet have to. God pardons His child who comes for forgiveness after stumbling, but insists that His child make every effort to obey! He can tell the difference: One man wakes up in the morning and says, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm :). The other mistakes the Holy One for an automatic forgiveness dispenser, and puts up little resistance to temptation. The seeds of his fall are stowaways on his attitude. Shall we give up teaching people how to hold their bodies in holiness and honor? Shall we say, “Been there, done that, didn’t work. Let’s all just sing ‘Kumbaya’ as we give ourselves permission to fail”? No: “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust” ( Thessalonians :-). Unless you have ever killed a strong carnal desire, you never know in an experiential way the meaning of “take up [your] cross” (Luke :) and “die every day” ( Corinthians :) and carry around “in the
Email: aseupeterson@worldmag.com
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body the death of Jesus” ( Corinthians :). Those words are religious gibberish to you. Unless you kill a strong desire, you never know the freedom and growth spurt waiting on the other side of obedience (Hebrews :). The reason it is considered cruel to deny people’s right to unbridled sexual expression is because the mind of worldly man cannot conceive of anything happier than satisfying carnality. If satisfaction of our mortal coil is man’s highest good, then to love is to allow it. But Scripture says we are to love people enough to warn them of the wrath of God to come ( Thessalonians :) and to cheer them with the reward of heaven ( Corinthians :). A number of older women in my local church have never married and would like to. They have “opposite-sex attractions,” you might say. They do not have occasional slips into a night of fornication because they cannot help it, and because God made them that way and they simply need to fornicate once in a while. They frequent no support groups that celebrate monthly or yearly markers since their last adulterous affair. If we are not able to die to forbidden sexual desire, how will we ever die when they come to plunder our goods because of the name of Christ? How will we be like that cloud of witnesses before us who joyfully did so because they were mindful of more enduring possessions in heaven and considered it a bargain (Hebrews :-)? Jesus says to sever our appendage if it causes us to sin. But this is a bit of a holy ruse on His part. He knows that it does not have to come to this. For “he gives more grace” (James :), so that whatever the temptation, we will find the way out—without the necessity of a bodily amputation. A
AUGUST 10, 2013 • WORLD
7/16/13 2:20 PM
Marvin Olasky
Don’t ignore the axioms Because nothing works when we brush aside the biblical ones
>>
WORLD • AUGUST 10, 2013
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counseling to help her see bearing a child as a gift C G describes two special from God, not a curse. She may pass that gift on to trees that stood in the Garden of Eden: The tree others. It’s never right to toss that gift into a trashcan. of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good So CPCs lay out welcome mats, not “go elsewhere” and evil. Before they sinned, Adam and Eve had placards. Several years ago city councils in Austin, permission to eat of the tree of life: God explicitly Baltimore, and other municipalities mandated such said, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, signs. They tried to force pro-lifers to post words but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you contrary to their beliefs. That obviously violates First shall not eat.” Amendment rights to freedom of religion and freedom You know the rest: Chapter shows how they ate of speech. Judges saw that and said “No.” the fruit from the one banned tree. God then expelled That’s what U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Garbis Adam, and Eve with him, “lest he reach out his hand saw and said two years ago when he awarded summary and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live judgment to a Baltimore CPC. Summary judgment forever.” God’s desire to keep them from living essentially means that one side obviously has the forever was so strong that at the garden’s entrance Constitution on its side, and last year a panel of three “He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that appeals court justices said Garbis was turned every way to guard the way right. Sadly, the entire U.S. th to the tree of life.” Circuit Court of Appeals in July saw So God is not pro-life in the sense it differently, and commanded the of letting us eat from the tree of life district court to have a full trial. and live forever in our current You can read the court’s -page bodies. He is pro-life in the sense of decision (http://www.ca.uscourts. wanting us to give life to babies. gov/Opinions/Published/.P.pdf), Immediately following that sentence but the dissents that follow it are about the flaming sword, Chapter better. Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, of Genesis introduces the first child: the lone remaining Reagan appointee “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and to the th Circuit, noted that “the she conceived.” majority fails to respect the Center’s The “Hail, Satan” cries offered up right not to utter a state-sponsored by five pro-abortion demonstrators message that offends its core moral in Austin early last month do not and religious principles … it should indicate that most abortion advobe axiomatic that the First cates are subjectively Satanists—but Amendment prohibits the governobjectively, they are fighting God. ment from dictating the terms of When Bible authors want to show private expression.” how sick a culture is, they write “Should be axiomatic.” Axioms, about Egyptians, Rome-imposed COMPELLED SPEECH: Lindsay Rupprecht, coordinator for the you may remember from math or monarchs like Herod, and sometimes Center for Pregnancy Concerns in logic class, are premises so evident Israelites themselves killing babies Baltimore, Md., with a required sign. as to be accepted as true without (Exodus , Matthew , Kings and duking it out: The second paragraph ). That’s why crisis pregnancy cenof the Declaration of Independence could have started ters (CPCs) will not refer abortion-seekers to abortionout, “We hold these truths to be axioms.” But our ists: They do not want to be complicit in sin so grievous. culture now holds nothing—not creation as described Abortionists would prefer that CPCs not exist—but in chapter of Genesis, not marriage as defined in they do, so the pro-abortion desire is to make them a chapter , not sin as shown in chapter —to be part of the abortion web. They want CPCs to put signs axiomatic. on their doors announcing: No physicians here. No That’s our problem. Yes, we need changes in courts, abortions here. In essence, go elsewhere. But CPCs colleges, and media. But nothing works when we know that a woman looking for an abortion does not ignore biblical axioms. A need, first and foremost, an abortionist. She needs
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
7/16/13 2:25 PM
RECLAIMING THE GREAT
Christian Intellectual Tradition IN PHARMACY RESEARCH
CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA/COPYRIGHT © 2013/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED/USED WITH PERMISSION
A few years ago, Union University made the decision that its new health sciences building
“
Union was the first place that offered me
would house the caliber of pharmacy labs that
the ability to follow
could support cutting edge research. Today, top
Christ as well as do
faculty and students work together in Providence
scientific research to
Hall designing anti-cancer agents and conducting
the best of my ability.
other research to benefit people’s lives. To learn more about Union’s commitment to Christ-centered academic excellence, visit uu.edu.
F O UNDED IN 1823 | J ACKSO N, T ENNESSEE |
”
DR. ASHOK PHILIP Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences
uu.edu
EXCELLENCE-DR IV EN | CHR IST-CENT ER ED | PEOPLE-FOCUSED | FUTURE-DIRECTED
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Build BJU is committed to the absolute truth of Scripture, which is central in everything we do. That’s why all of our students, regardless of major, take a strong core of Bible courses and attend daily chapel. You’ll study God’s redemptive plan—from the Fall to the consummation of the ages—and gain the tools you need to grow in your personal application of God’s Word. To learn more about how BJU can help you build your faith, visit us at go.bju.edu/build.
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For graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed the program and other important info visit go.bju.edu/rates. (15260) 6/13
FAITH
7/19/13 1:52 PM