WORLD Magazine, Aug. 20, 2016 Vol. 31 No. 17

LGBT HUSTLE /// EVANGELICAL BRAZIL

AU GUST 20, 2016

The price of

prıvacy What would it cost to build individual restrooms instead of group ones?

Brett & Christina’s story: Pre-existing condition

Members for one year

Maternity Need

Go to: mysamaritanstory.org

Brett & Christina “We are connecting with people who we don’t know, but the only bond that we share is Christ—living out New Testament Christianity that we see in the Book of Acts.”

For more than twenty years, Samaritan Ministries’ members have • More than 62,000 families been sharing one another’s medical needs, without using health (over 204,000 individuals)* insurance, through a Biblical model of community among believers. • Sharing over $18 million* in Samaritan members share directly with each other and do not share medical needs each month in abortions and other unbiblical practices.

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CONTENTS |

August 20, 2016 • Volume 31 • Number 17

30

17

40

46

50

F E AT U R E S

30 Rethinking the restroom

Big changes to public bathrooms may be on the way. How much will they cost, and will they provide more safety?

DISPATCH E S 5 News / Human Race / Quotables / Quick Takes

36 ‘Love,’ not rights

CU LT U R E 17 Movies & TV / Books / Children’s Books / Q&A / Music

40 Long division

NO T EBOOK 55 Lifestyle / Science / Sports

Winning recognition for gay marriage in America was all about spinning the right message

Activists at both political conventions display the challenges Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton face

46 Witness to persecution

A new book by Chinese Christian Gao Zhisheng details his treatment at the hands of authorities and his hopes for a new China

50 Pastors and políticos

Despite their diverse theological leanings, evangelicals are wielding an Olympic-size impact on Brazilian politics

ON THE COVER: Illustration by Krieg Barrie, The Image Bank, and Carlson Architecture (with assistance from Harding Architecture and Design) Give the gift of clarity: wng.org/clarity

VOICE S 3 Joel Belz 14 Janie B. Cheaney 28 Mindy Belz 61 Mailbag 63 Andrée Seu Peterson 64 Marvin Olasky

NOTES FROM THE CEO WORLD’s fiscal year ended on June 30, so here’s a brief annual report.

I’d summarize WORLD’s results this way: more members, more content.

For the second straight year, we ended the year with a slightly higher membership number than we ended the prior year. Growth in memberships means serving more people and helping to fulfill a key mission measurement.

Even as I commend our team’s work to nurture that growth, I’ll point out that much of it is due to you. Most new members, and nearly all long-term members, come through gift memberships from friends or family. That’s important for another reason: Every dollar we save on marketing is a dollar we spend on WORLD content.

Which leads to part two of my results summary: growth in both the quality and quantity of content.

These are other measurements of mission fulfillment.

WORLD Radio is producing more of “The World and Everything in It,” adding a fourth segment to what last year was a three-segment program.

WORLD Digital hired two new full-time reporters, redesigned the website, and posted more daily news. WORLD Magazine responded to a member survey by tweaking the layout to make room in most issues for five feature stories, where four has been the norm.

None of this happens without your help, and without you we’d have no reason to do it. So that makes this not so much a report about WORLD but about what WORLD’s members made possible, with God’s help. Thank you!

Kevin Martin kevin@wng.org

CONTACT US: 800.951.6397 / WNG.ORG  Follow us on Twitter: @WORLD_mag  Follow us on Facebook TO BECOME A WORLD MEMBER, GIVE A GIFT MEMBERSHIP, CHANGE ADDRESS, OR ACCESS OTHER MEMBER ACCOUNT INFORMATION: Email memberservices@wng.org Online wng.org/account (current members) or members.wng.org (to become a member) Phone 800.951.6397 (within the United States) or 828.232.5260 (outside the U.S.) Monday-Friday (except holidays), 9 a.m.-7 p.m. ET Write WORLD, PO Box 20002, ­Asheville, NC 28802-9998 FOR BACK ISSUES, REPRINTS, OR PERMISSIONS: Back issues 800.951.6397 Reprints and permissions 828.232.5415 or mailbag@wng.org WORLD occasionally rents subscriber names to c ­ arefully screened, like-minded organizations. If you would prefer not to receive these promotions, please call customer service and ask to be placed on our DO NOT RENT list.

WORLD (ISSN 0888-157X) (USPS 763-010) is published biweekly (26 issues) for $59.95 per year by God’s World Publications, (no mail) 12 All Souls Crescent, Asheville, NC 28803; 828.232.5260. Periodical postage paid at Asheville, NC, and additional mailing ­offices. P ­ rinted in the USA. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. © 2016 WORLD News Group. All rights reserved. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WORLD, PO Box 20002, Asheville, NC 28802-9998.

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.”

—Psalm 24:1 Chief Content Officer Nick Eicher Editor in Chief Marvin Olasky Senior Editor Mindy Belz

Editor Timothy Lamer National Editor Jamie Dean Managing Editor Daniel James Devine Art Director David K. Freeland Associate Art Director Robert L. Patete Washington Bureau Chief J.C. Derrick Reporters Emily Belz • June Cheng Sophia Lee • Angela Lu Senior Writers Janie B. Cheaney • Susan Olasky Andrée Seu Peterson • John Piper Edward E. P ­ lowman • Cal Thomas • Lynn Vincent Correspondents Sandy Barwick • Megan Basham Julie Borg • Anthony Bradley • Andrew Branch Bob Brown • James Bruce • Tim Challies Michael Cochrane • Kiley Crossland • John Dawson Mary Jackson • James Marroquin • Jill Nelson Arsenio Orteza • Emily Whitten Mailbag Editor Les Sillars Executive Assistant June McGraw Editorial Assistants Kristin Chapman Amy Derrick • Mary Ruth Murdoch Graphic Designer Rachel Beatty Illustrator Krieg Barrie Digital Production Assistant Arla J. Eicher

Website wng.org Executive Editor Mickey McLean Managing Editor Leigh Jones Assistant Editors Lynde Langdon • Dan Perkins Reporters Onize Ohikere • Evan Wilt Editorial Assistant Whitney Williams

Website wng.org/radio Executive Producer/Cohost Nick Eicher Senior Producer/Cohost Joseph Slife Correspondents Paul Butler • Kent Covington Jim Henry • Mary Reichard Producers Johnny Franklin • Carl Peetz (technical) Christina Darnell • Kristen Eicher (field) Listening In Warren Cole Smith • Rich Roszel

Chief Executive Officer Kevin Martin Founder Joel Belz Development Pierson Gerritsen • Debra Meissner Marketing Jonathan Woods Technology Greg Groppe Advertising Sales Michael Schuerman • Alan Wood Member Services Alison Foley • Summer Langford Matthew Miller • Nicole Miller • Brandi Sagar

K IDS ’ AND TEENS ’ PUB LICAT I O NS Website wng.org/children Publisher Howard Brinkman Editor Rich Bishop

wo rld jo urnalis m inst i t u t e Website worldji.com Dean Marvin Olasky Associate Dean Edward Lee Pitts

B OARD o f directo rs

John Weiss (chairman) William Newton (vice chairman) Mariam Bell • Kevin Cusack • Peter Lillback Howard Miller • Russell B. Pulliam • David Skeel David Strassner • Ladeine Thompson Raymon Thompson

MIS S IO N STATEMEN T

To report, interpret, and illustrate the news in a timely, a ­ ccurate, enjoyable, and arresting fashion from a ­perspective committed to the Bible as the inerrant Word of God.

VOICE S

Joel Belz

Talk isn’t cheap

SEXUAL BANTER AT THE OFFICE IS FAR FROM HARMLESS It’s pretty ironic, don’t you think, that an outfit as sleazy as Fox News should either seek—or get—any credit at all for firing a fellow like Roger Ailes? Ailes had become the target of some specific accusations of sexual harassment from a bevy of women on the Fox team. The powers that be apparently decided that enough is enough and that, even with a vigorous Ailes denial, the Fox image didn’t need to be dragged through the muck.

Indeed, Ailes’ dismissal as Fox’s CEO may have received less attention than it should have, overshadowed by the two big political parties’ national conventions. In most other circumstances, the event might well have stirred up a good bit more discussion.

I’ve never been a Fox News fan, but I don’t say that to devalue the efforts of the Fox team over the years. Indeed, in one sense, the overall television news scene got a welcome change a couple of decades ago when Ailes stepped up to help shape a news network ready to tell “the other side” of the story. For years, CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS had all irked conservatives with their obviously liberal bent—and then along came the all-news CNN, and it wasn’t a whit better.

Ailes had been a media aide to Richard Nixon, to Ronald Reagan, and especially to George H.W. Bush—and his conservative political leanings were hardly a secret. But ideology was not typically Ailes’ main interest. He was as much a showman as he was a purveyor of the day’s news. He was a sensationalist who claimed straightforwardly, “If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, ‘I have a solution to the Middle East problem,’ and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?”

But Ailes knew that filling his roster with gymnasts falling into orchestra pits would not hold an audience for long. Far better suited to that task was an unending lineup of attractive young women, typically both smart and

NANCY KASZERMAN/ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM

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 jbelz@wng.org

There’s good reason why the Bible warns us about the dangers of off-color chatter.

­ insome. And if “smart” actually meant a little w “sassy,” and “winsome” meant moving close to “raunchy” and “off-color,” the record shows that’s not just what Ailes tolerated but what he promoted by design. The same has held true along the way with other regulars on Fox’s news programs—especially with the bleeped crudities of anchor Bill O’Reilly’s “analysts” Dennis Miller and Greg Gutfeld.

With all these apples, as they say, regularly falling such a short distance from the tree, no one should have been surprised that the top man himself operated with a similar mindset. Yes, sexual harassment that is legally actionable is worse than a joke about adultery. But it was Jesus Himself who taught that both spring from the same roots.

There’s good reason why the Bible warns us about the dangers of off-color chatter. The Proverbs in the Old Testament and the writers of the Epistles in the New all remind us of the destructive nature of such verbal frivolity. Such banter always heads downhill. One sexually daring joke or insult sets the standard, after which it becomes obligatory for others to join in with something just that much more audacious and enterprising.

And it works very much the same way in the life of an organization like Fox News—whether it’s a family, a local church, an educational institution, or even a big corporation. We don’t have to be privy to the details to know pretty much how all this happened. Some not-quitecautious fellow tests the water with a supposedly harmless comment. Then the next person in line picks up the thread and pushes it just a bit ­further. And the next party, not wanting to be thought a prude, adds still more zest to the ­banter. And everybody assumes such behavior will be tolerated because, after all, the top man does it, doesn’t he?

The poison in that “harmless” exchange is the manner in which the boundaries have been moved. And that which last week was tolerated next week takes on a more and more toxic character. No one at Fox should be surprised to see the departure of an able and successful man like Roger Ailes. Big and competent as he was, there were some little fires he should have controlled, but never did. Top dogs everywhere should take notice. A August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 3

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DISPATCHES News / Human Race / Quotables / Quick Takes

War on Zika

LYNNE SLADKY/AP

A police officer hands out cans of insect repellent to the homeless in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, Fla., where mosquitoes are apparently transmitting the Zika virus directly to humans.

Manage your membership: wng.org/membership

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 5

D I S PA T C H E S

News A television screen shows Donald Trump speaking during a press conference (left); members of the media watch Hillary Clinton speak during a town hall (below).

Reckless or ruthless?

MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD CHOICE BETWEEN DONALD TRUMP AND HILLARY CLINTON

by Marvin Olasky

6 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

attack and other Clinton nightmares.

MSNBC ran prime-time interviews with Democrats five times during the GOP convention, with Brian Williams explaining, “We like to bring in the other side, as in fairness we’ll be doing when it’s the Democrats’ turn.”

Fairness, rest in peace: During the Democratic convention, no such interviews.

Brokaw told viewers what they should think about Trump: “someone they will only think of as a demagogue.”

Clinton demagoguery brought no such reaction: Instead, CBS co-anchor Norah O’Donnell touted “her steadiness, her readiness, her experience, and her empathy.” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, as always, provided comic relief with his over-the-top assault on the GOP convention as a “witchlike ritual … bloodthirsty … bloodcurdling.”

Mediacrats are sending us two ­messages. First, to quote CBS’ Bob Schieffer: This campaign is “going to be about Donald Trump: Do you want him or don’t you?” Second, what’s often implied but not said on the major ­networks: If you want Trump, you’re stupid.

JUSTIN LANE/EPA/NEWSCOM

After two conventions in late July, it’s clear that the United States has three major political parties (Republicans, Democrats, and Mediacrats) and three minor ones (Libertarians, Greens, and the Fox News Network).

Mediacrats include five networks— ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC— that together pulled in 70 percent of those viewing the Republican convention and 89 percent of those viewing the Democratic effort one week later.

Fox, with its Republican tilt, has clout, but five pro-Democrat competitors immensely outweigh it.

Those five will have the biggest impact on the presidential election, and during their convention coverage they scolded Republicans 63 times for trying to “work up a big hate for Hillary” (the words of NBC’s Tom Brokaw). When Democrats worked up a big hate for Trump, the journalists offered only five mildly negative comments.

The Media Research Center also noted that during the two conventions CNN aired 18 Democratic public relations videos but only three Republican ones, skipping videos on the Benghazi

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Both messages are wrong—and I say this not as a Trump fan. This campaign is equally about Clinton: Do we want her? Secondly, as one very smart person with a security clearance told me, if he had done what Clinton did with her emails, he would lose his job and face potentially 10 years in prison.

Some smart people will vote for Clinton, but many others will vote for Trump, unless headlines like these intimidate them: “We must shame dumb Trump fans” (Salon), “Donald Trump’s malicious stupidity” (The Week), and “Note to Donald Trump: You’re on Fire, Stupid” (New Republic).

Googling “Donald Trump stupid” the day after the Democratic convention yielded 38.5 million results. (Of course, googling “Hillary Clinton stupid” brought up 28.7 million results, but should a secretary of state who used a private, poorly defended server be nearly 10 million behind?)

So, given the miserable choice the two macro-­ parties have given us, how do we defend ourselves against Mediacrat attempts to call this a race between a Clinton within the normal range of presidential ego and a Trump who’s outside it?

First, don’t believe the media lords: Clinton’s astounding falsifying makes her every bit as much an outlier as Donald Trump. Trump often ­proceeds woefully on misinformation. Clinton makes fewer ­obvious factual errors but, as Mary McCarthy once said of fellow author Lillian Hellman, “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”

Second, recognize that Trump is generally reckless and Clinton generally ruthless. (Sometimes it’s vice versa.) Trump is a proud adulterer.

Clinton is a proud pro-abortionist.

BY THE NUMBERS

Since character counts, both will almost certainly be presidential failures.

Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan both spoke of how much good can occur when a leader doesn’t care who gets the credit. We’ve seen for eight years how much bad can happen when a leader drives in traffic with high beams and runs over anyone blinded by the lights. We’re facing four more years of that.

Third, remember that we are voting not for one person but for tens of thousands of executive and judicial branch appointees. We at WORLD will try to give you more information about the candidates’ entourages and what their ascendancy is likely to mean. Let’s not rush the process. We have three more months (and three presidential debates) in which to see how these two candidates operate under extreme pressure. We should consider third party candidates as well. This is not a year for early voting.

Finally, as the election comes closer, partisans on both sides will become more critical of those not on their bandwagon. In the Civil War the Confederate

$12 billion The estimated cost of hosting this month’s Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, according to the Public Olympic Authority of Brazil.

810

The number of attacks and acts of vandalism that took place at Christian cemeteries and worship sites in France last year, according to Lela Gilbert, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute.

119,756

The number of bitcoins a computer hacker stole from the Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex. The purloined bitcoins, a type of digital currency, had been worth around $72 million.

81.4%

MATT ROURKE/AP

The percentage of Ichiro Suzuki’s approximately 3,000 hits that have been singles, leading some to call the Miami Marlins right fielder the best slap hitter in baseball.

motto was Deo Vindice, “God will vindicate us.” Meanwhile, Unionists claimed God was on their side as they sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” But as Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural address, “It is quite possible that God’s purpose is somewhat ­different from the purpose of either party.” Don’t let others intimidate you.

Happily, God’s still in charge. A  molasky@wng.org  @MarvinOlasky

467

The number of job applications that flooded the Dallas Police Department in the two weeks after a sniper killed five Dallas officers on July 7.

It was triple the amount from a two-week period in June.

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 7

D I S PA T C H E S

Human Race accelerate a long-growing schism.

Released

Died

Elected

The United Methodist Church’s Western Jurisdiction unanimously elected the denomination’s first openly homosexual bishop on July 15, flouting 8 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

church teaching on sexuality. The Rev. Karen Oliveto is married to another

woman and pastors Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. In her public speaking, Oliveto has reportedly questioned what she views as the Bible’s “flaws,” including its exclusionary “theology of election and chosenness.”

After her election, the UMC’s South Central Jurisdiction in Kansas asked the denomination’s Judicial Council to step in.

Some in the 12.7 millionmember UMC fear Oliveto’s election will

A judge on July 27 granted a measure of freedom to John Hinckley Jr., the man who wounded President Ronald Reagan and three others in a 1981 assassination attempt. Declared not Bitten guilty by reason of insanity, Florida Gov. Rick Scott Hinckley, 61, has lived at a announced on Aug. 1 a total Washington mental of 14 people had hospital for 35 been infected by years. Though the Zika virus in restrictions on a 1-square-mile his movements Miami neighwill continue, borhood called ­doctors say he is Wynwood—the Hinckley, 2003 healthy enough to first instance of move in permanently mosquitoes spreadwith his mother. Hinckley ing the virus within the has volunteered at a church continental United States. and mental hospital and Although health officials says he wants a job. had counted more than 1,600 cases of Zika in the Dropped 50 states, previous infecDavid Daleiden and Sandra tions had all been linked to Merritt exited a Texas international travelers. The courthouse to cheers from Zika virus that is sweeping supporters after a Texas South and Central America judge on July 26 dismissed can cause microcephaly in all remaining charges unborn babies. The virus against the two pro-life spreads by sex and by the activists. Daleiden and bite of mosquitoes. In Merritt of The Center for Medical Progress had spent three years investigating Planned Parenthood’s fetal body parts trade, using hidden ­cameras and false identities, as is common for undercover reporters.

Harris County prosecutors response to the Wynwood began probing Planned outbreak, the Centers for Parenthood Gulf Coast Disease Control and after media published the Prevention took the undercover videos last unprecedented step of year. But in January, a advising pregnant women grand jury instead indicted not to travel to the the pro-life activists on neighborhood.

Visit WORLD Digital: wng.org

LAHAYE: HANDOUT • OLIVETO: PNWUMC OFFICE OF CONNECTIONAL MINISTRIES • HINCKLEY: EVAN VUCCI/AP • SCOTT: TAMARA LUSH/AP

Christian minister, activist, and author Tim LaHaye died July 25 at the age of 90. A World War II veteran, LaHaye wrote more than 50 books and pastored churches for over 25 years.

But he was best-known for the Left Behind series, a set of thriller novels based on the premillennial, dispensationalist view of endtimes prophecy. Co-written with Jerry B. Jenkins, the series has sold more than 65 million copies since 1995. LaHaye was also politically active and helped fellow pastor Jerry Falwell Sr. establish the conservative Moral Majority in 1979. LaHaye remained a sometimes ­controversial evangelical figure in presidential campaigns.

charges of falsifying California driver’s licenses and attempting to purchase fetal tissue. Procedural flaws ultimately derailed the indictments.

Prosecutors could file another case, but Daleiden’s lawyers say that’s unlikely.

D I S PA T C H E S

Quotables

‘Go away, Satan.’

‘We are all Catholics of France.’

ANOUAR KBIBECH, head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, on the group’s call for Muslims in France to attend Catholic Mass on July 31 to show “solidarity and compassion” after the murder of French priest Jacques Hamel by Islamic terrorists. Muslims across France answered the call and attended Mass.

‘There are people in tears.

I shed mine a couple of days ago.’

U.S. Sen. BEN SASSE, R-Neb., on news that Humana is joining UnitedHealth in leaving most Obamacare markets.

Humana lost almost $1 billion last year.

‘You cannot be ‘personally’ opposed to the destruction of innocent human life and take no action to stop it.’

MARJORIE DANNENFELSER, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, on U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine’s assertion that he ­“personally” opposes taxpayerfunded abortions but will ­support running mate Hillary Clinton’s attempt to overturn the 40-year-old ban.

CHRIS WALLACE, host of Fox News Sunday, on the July 21 departure of Roger Ailes as chairman and chief executive of Fox News.

The news came in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against Ailes, who helped found the network nearly 20 years ago.

10 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

Give the gift of clarity: wng.org/clarity

HAMEL: DIOCESE OF ROUEN VIA AP • KBIBECH: GONZALO FUENTES/REUTERS/NEWSCOM • WALLACE: CARLOS OSORIO/AP • SASSE: NATI HARNIK/AP • KAINE: STEVE HELBER/AP

French priest JACQUES HAMEL, 85, to the Islamist attackers who murdered him during a July 26 mass, according to Archbishop Dominique Lebrun.

‘This doesn’t look like a market; it looks like a death spiral.’

D I S PA T C H E S

Quick Takes

Criminal negligence

John R. McPhail’s master plan missed one detail: a seatbelt. Police near Portland, Ore., say the 57-year-old man staged his own ­kidnapping on the morning of July 24 in order to extort money from his mother.

Witnesses say a bound and hooded McPhail tumbled out of a Dodge Neon on I-205 near his Camas, Ore., home. The drivers of the Neon briefly stopped, but then fled in the car.

Originally, McPhail told detectives he had been kidnapped, but later admitted he botched an attempt to extort money from relatives by ­kidnapping himself. Oregon State Police booked the man on initiating a false police report and conspiring to commit first-degree theft.

Bad karma

Above reproach?

A 44-year-old Dutchman had the temerity to insult Willem-Alexander, the King of the Netherlands. And he earned jail time for it.

A court in the Netherlands found the man, unidentified by police, guilty of cursing the Dutch king in an April Facebook rant, describing him as a murderer, rapist, and thief. He was subsequently sentenced to 30 days in jail with 16 days suspended. Earlier this year, the nation’s justice minister said the Netherlands would soon repeal its ban on insulting the nation’s royal family.

Games reporters play

Out of the corner of his eye, something caught John Kirby’s attention.

In the middle of his U.S. Department of State July 21 briefing, the government spokesman spotted a reporter playing a game on his phone. “You’re playing the Pokémon thing right there, aren’t you?” Kirby asked a journalist who was supposed to be covering the terrorism briefing. The scribe responded, “I’m just keeping an eye on it.” Finally when the briefing ended, Kirby asked the journalist if he made much progress on Pokémon Go. The reporter said no, then complained about the lack of signal.

12 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

MCPHAIL: KATU2 • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • WILLEM-ALEXANDER: ANDREAS RENTZ/GETTY IMAGES • POKÉMON: HANDOUT • KIRBY: CNN

A Buddhist monk in Louisiana will serve 30 months in prison after a court on July 25 sentenced him for wire fraud. Khang Nguyen Le, a Vietnamese national, admitted he swindled $263,463 from his own Buddhist temple in Lafayette, La., in 2013 and 2014 and lost the money gambling at a Lake Charles, La., casino.

According to prosecutors, Le may face deportation following his sentence.

Silent school spirit

An elementary school in Australia has banned clapping and cheering out loud at school assemblies, caving to the wishes of students who don’t like loud noises. The Elanora Heights Public School announced the policy in the school’s July 18 newsletter, saying, “Instead of clapping, the students are free to punch the air, pull excited faces and wriggle about on the spot.” The notice cheerfully claims silent cheering is a great way for children to expend energy. In April, an Australian school banned hugging, suggesting high-fives were more appropriate forms of affection.

No grandfather clause?

When Melbourne, Australia, resident Mark Anderson parked his car in his neighborhood on June 5, he was doing everything right. But on June 9 when he went to pick up his vehicle, he discovered that in the interim, the city had changed his permit-­ parking-only zone into a ­no-parking zone. To make matters worse, he discovered a $120 parking fine attached to his windshield.

Anderson said he intends to fight the ticket in court, alleging the GPS system in his vehicle can prove that he parked the car before the sign change.

ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • CAR: G. RAY AULT/AP • RAT: FRANK600/ISTOCK • SEINFELD: CASTLE ROCK ENTERTAINMENT

Animal assault

Comparing the initiative to the first moon landing in terms of ambition, the government of New Zealand announced a plan to rid the Pacific nation of all rats, possums, weasels, and feral cats by 2050. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key blamed the nonnative animals for devastating the islands’ population of native birds like the kiwi. The invasive animals originally came to New Zealand as stowaways on ships transporting European settlers.

Ministers with the government say they’ll use poison, traps, and baits.

Things are looking up

A driver in Vermont took the instructions of her GPS device a little too literally—and ended up with her car suspended in the air and pointed at the sky. Police in Mendon, Vt., say driver Nabila Altahan of Dorchester, Mass., on July 27 immediately obeyed when her GPS device told her to “turn around.” The result: Her car proceeded up the wires attached to a utility pole and became stuck there. Altahan, 30, and her passenger were uninjured.

Manage your membership: wng.org/membership

As seen on TV

A Kentucky man has been caught and charged for attempting the Michigan bottle deposit scam first made famous in a 1996 episode of Seinfeld. A state trooper pulled over Brian Everidge about 40 miles northwest of Detroit in April for speeding and later found his box truck stuffed with empty cans. During the stop, Everidge admitted he was bringing the cans to Michigan to collect the 10-cent deposit rather than the 5-cent deposit given in other states. Unfortunately for Everidge, returning non-Michigan bottles and cans in the Wolverine State is illegal.

Prosecutors in Livingston County have charged Everidge with a felony count of beverage return of nonrefundable bottles, which can carry a five-year prison sentence. Everidge was standing trial in late July.

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 13

VOICE S

Janie B. Cheaney

A lesson from the rocks

WHAT A SHORT-LIVED GAME CAN TEACH US ABOUT LONG-TERM LIVING

14 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

A rock suggests that some things are basic and will not change.

 jcheaney@wng.org  @jbcheaney

BOLIVAR ROCKS MISSOURI OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE

It was popping up all over the internet the first weekend in July: Pokémon Go. Pros and cons, yeses and noes, yellow cartoon figures decorating the screen, everything but the obvious question: What is it?

Confessions of a non–cyber nerd: I had to resort to Wikipedia. Pokémon is a collective noun for video game characters based on Japanese mythology. Years ago they were accused of causing seizures in young, overeager Japanese gamers. Now they cause trespassing and accidents by popping up in real space and time on players’ smartphones. The game has its critics—homeowners who chase phonepunching enthusiasts out of their flowerbeds are not usually fans. But other observers find virtue in the game: It turns couch potatoes into outdoor trekkers and encourages community spirit as strangers join together to track the elusive Ivysaur or Butterfree. Players may even visit local attractions they’ve never seen, gaining a whole new appreciation for their own community.

It’s interesting how phenomena sometimes converge. Exactly a month before the release of Pokémon Go, my hometown (pop. 10,000) launched a similar game on a local level. Anyone could play, and the rules were simple: gather some rocks, paint them, and hide them throughout town at public places that pose no risk and break no laws. A small group of friends got together to seed the project with a few hundred painted rocks. After that, it took off.

For the past two months people of all ages have been finding rocks in the park, outside church, beside dumpsters and recycle bins.

Families paint and hunt them together, and when found, they can be kept, rehidden, or replaced.

Some carry Bible verses or clever artwork suggested by their form. Some are amateur; others

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are stunning. Many show up on the Facebook page, and more are probably lost to obscurity.

The object is not to score points but to make memories. On the Facebook page, one of the founders recalled: “As a young adult I picked many a rock out of a field before planting and cussed at every one of them. Now I see them in a different light. I see them as an opportunity, once painted, to change this place we call home for the better.”

We could see a lot of everyday objects in a different light, beginning with each other. We seem to be primed for this: So long as they aren’t sociopaths, most people enjoy impromptu gatherings, “flash mob” concerts, and casual acts of kindness (as long as it doesn’t put us out too much or throw us off schedule). If we’re not rock painters, we like being rock finders, even if there’s no practical benefit to either.

There doesn’t have to be; the very act of turning aside when a splash of unexpected color meets the eye expands the heart in a spontaneous nudge toward joy.

Though I haven’t painted any rocks, I love the idea. Rocks are durable and elemental, not to mention metaphorical. I count over 50 rock metaphors in the Bible: three in comparison to the Word of God, four to the Son of God, the rest simply to God. A rock suggests that some things are basic and will not change. A rock reminds us what common humanity is built on; and while the culture slides and buckles, we have this assurance: “He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken” (Psalm 62:2).

Pokémon Go is yesterday’s news, and the local rock project winds down. Steamy summer rolls into fall and what promises to be an exceptionally ugly political contest. We will elect a president, and whoever wins will disappoint us (as always). We will feel helpless and futile, but the rocks remind us that’s not true.

We have the power to smile at strangers, to lend a hand, even to launch a project that betters the place we call home. We are as local and consequential as the rocks under our feet. If we stand on the solid rock, no kind or generous act will be in vain. A

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Confusion. , andthese Catastrophe Corruption, 1. are Creation, ion. What other terms are used as names for God’s Word, the Bible, in Psalm and Consummat four C’s of History 19?

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CULTURE Movies & TV / Books / Children’s Books / Q&A / Music

Jones (left) and Damon

M OV I E

MELINDA SUE GORDON/UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Still fighting

BOURNE BLOCKBUSTER LACKS THE CREATIVITY OF ITS PREDECESSORS

by Emily Belz

It’s been nine years since we left Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) swimming in the East River—a perfect ending to a series that began with fishermen pulling an unconscious Bourne out of the

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water. The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum (we won’t count the Jeremy Renner–helmed spinoff The Bourne Legacy) are the kind of classic action movies you can watch over and over.

 ebelz@wng.org  @emlybelz

And even if you are a repeat watcher, you might watch them if they came on TV— with commercials.

The series began with Bourne waking up with bullet wounds, a chip in his hip, and a case of amnesia.

He spent several movies discovering who he was (a CIA assassin in a black ops program), thwarting the CIA’s attempts to eliminate him, and uncovering the agency’s corruption.

After all that, would the CIA really leave poor Jason alone? Damon was in his

early 30s when the series began, and in this new film his hair is beginning to gray. He can still throw a mean punch, and he’s still what holds the audience.

Jason Bourne begins with Bourne living under the radar in Greece, participating in street fights for cash. (The film is rated PG-13 for violence and some language.) His former colleague Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) reappears with information about a new CIA black ops program and—of course—new details August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 17

C U LT U R E

Movies & TV

18 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

M OV I E

Pete’s Dragon Other than the basic storyline about an orphan named Pete who befriends a dragon, Disney’s new Pete’s Dragon bears little resemblance to its 1977 original.

Rather than a live-action/ animated musical, it’s a live-action movie with fanciful CGI effects. And instead of a fishing community in Maine, the modernized version is set in a lumberjack town called Millhaven somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

Ten-year-old Pete (Oakes Fegley) is a Tarzan-like boy who for six years lives in the woods with an emeraldfurred dragon after a car accident kills Pete’s ­parents. He names the dragon Elliot, after a dog in his favorite book.

Other than the fact that it can breathe fire and turn itself invisible, Elliot is an oversized, domestic pet with all the subtle human expressions that capture young hearts: big-mouthed yawns, cute sighs and snores, playful peekaboos. Elliot is the huggable buddy every kid desires.

Children run the show in Pete’s Dragon, whereas adults are sometimes-

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annoying people who react and worry and whisper. When park ranger Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) meets Pete, she and the other grown-ups assume Elliot is Pete’s imaginary friend and insist on finding the boy a proper home. No doubt young audiences will bristle: Big people— why can’t they stop ­complicating things with their disbelief and fears?

For slightly cynical millennials like this reviewer, this PG-rated movie may feel predictable and wiped clean of anything dark, complex, and realistic. The story targets kids who haven’t yet shaken off their no-junk-added faith and curiosity in the world, and parents who envy those vanished days.

They’ll enjoy the film’s straightforward narrative, winsome fun, and wholesome morals about family, loyalty, and courage.

Maybe that’s the whole point of Pete’s Dragon.

“Stop thinking too much,” the creators seem to tell us. “We’re simple beings with simple desires for love, belonging, and safety—and not too different from when we were 10 years old.” —by SOPHIA LEE

See all our movie reviews at wng.org/movies

DISNEY ENTERPRISES

about Bourne’s history. Our The Jason Bourne latest CIA bureaucrats, screenwriters could have played by Tommy Lee Jones been more imaginative. and Alicia Vikander, are Perhaps notably, the screengood additions to the cast. writer from all the other The CIA tracks Parsons Bourne films, Tony Gilroy, and Bourne to Athens, just did not work on this movie. as a current-events-approThe screenwriters added a priate riot is unfolding. The modern twist to this film: a ensuing chase through flyshowdown between the CIA ing Molotov cocktails and and a social media company spewing fire hoses is the over data privacy. That is a best Bourne sequence yet. legitimate and interesting Paul Greengrass, who modern problem, but it feels directed Supremacy and low-stakes at a time when Ultimatum, returns to direct Europe is facing regular this movie, bringing along ­terror attacks at its beaches his and cinematographer and airports.

Christopher Rouse’s Maybe the lack of rele­panicky, hand-held camera vance is for the best. This is style. The early Bourne a summer blockbuster after movies, with their shaky all, and Greengrass’ frenetic footage and hand-to-hand action scenes leave no time fight scenes, were part of a to ponder the troubles of shift away from the sleek the real world. If you’re a style of big-budget action demanding film aficionado, movies. Now movies in the you’ll find the movie lacking Marvel and James Bond in plot and creativity. But it’s universes are a little grittier a great ride for those who and the heroes are a little want to escape the sweaty more tortured, like Bourne. outdoors, sit down with a For Bourne fans, this cold soda, and watch Matt movie delivers all the clasDamon open another locker sic hits. Bourne travels the with a secret package in a world, meeting contacts in European train station. A busy European squares, chasing BOX OFFICE TOP 10 bad guys across FOR THE WEEKEND OF JULY 29-31 rooftops, and according to Box Office Mojo ­visiting internet cafés to do covert CAUTIONS: Quantity of sexual (S), ­violent (V), and foul-language (L) ­content on a 0-10 scale, Google searches. with 10 high, from kids-in-mind.com But this plot is

S V L a little vacuous, 1̀ Jason Bourne* PG-13...................... 1 7 4 retreading the 2̀ Star Trek Beyond* PG-13..........2 6 2 path of the mov3̀ Bad Moms R............................................... 7 3 10 ies before. In 4̀ Secret Life of Pets* PG............. 1 3 2 some ways Jason 5̀ Ice Age: Collision Course* PG...................................................2 3 2 Bourne’s refor6̀ Lights Out PG-13...................................2 5 3 mulated plot 7̀ Ghostbusters* PG-13......................2 4 3 resembles the 8̀ Nerve PG-13..................................................4 5 5 Star Wars reboot 9̀ Finding Dory* PG................................ 1 3 1 in Force Awakens: 10 ` Legend of Tarzan* PG-13..........3 6 2 They’re trying to destroy a Death *Reviewed by WORLD Star—again!

T H E AT ER

C.S. Lewis Onstage C.S. Lewis welcomes you into his Oxford study in Fellow­ ship for Performing Arts’ newest one-man show C.S. Lewis Onstage: The Most Reluctant Convert starring Max McLean.

Wandering around a worn leather armchair anchored center-stage, McLean engages the audience as Lewis in a warm grandfatherly way.

He muses, rants, and sighs his way across the stage while recounting the story of his conversion to Christianity in 70 minutes of spellbinding performance.

For avid readers of Lewis and relative strangers alike, McLean successfully introduces the audience to a personable and intriguing portrait of the scholar.

He goes on brainy rants, re-enacts debates with his friends, and then pauses for reflection before looking directly at the audience and dropping some ironic retort that leaves everyone chuckling.

Since the ending of the play is no surprise for anyone who reads the program note (C.S. Lewis does, in fact, become a Christian), the suspense lies not in the outcome but in the process. In the hearing of Lewis’ journey to Christianity, the audience is left with the curious notion that maybe the God of the universe really is interested in personal relationships— even with people as averse to the idea as C.S. Lewis.

LEWIS/MCLEAN: JEREMY DANIEL • BORN THIS WAY: ADAM TAYLOR/A&E

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McLean created the show primarily from Lewis’ autobiography Surprised by Joy and his Collected Letters as well as The Problem of Pain, The Weight of Glory, Mere Christianity, God in the Dock, Present Concerns, and Christian Reflections.

“Lewis is hard to read,” McLean says. “And [at first] I didn’t want to put in the work to read him.” But after he read and dramatized Screwtape Letters, McLean became fascinated with the work of Lewis. He went on to produce The Great Divorce last year and then condensed some of the complex philosophy of the scholar into this performance about Lewis’ intellectual conversion.

The play premiered last month at Mercury Theater in Chicago. It will be in Chicago until Aug. 14 and then tour in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Tulsa this year. The show will go to New York and tour more widely in 2017.

—by MARGARET TAZIOLI

T EL E V I S I O N

Born This Way Last December, cable network A&E broke new ground with Born This Way, a reality television series starring seven young adults with Down syndrome. The show, which kicked off its second season on July 26, should be required viewing on Capitol Hill, in medical schools, and throughout family living rooms—wherever the fact that an estimated two-thirds of U.S. prenatal Down syndrome diagnoses result in abortion is considered a privilege of “choice” or remains a dirty little secret. If federal judges continue to block laws (like a recent one in Indiana) prohibiting the abortion of children with genetic abnormalities, Born This Way might end up on the History channel as a documentary about a people group hunted to extinction.

But the show, produced by the company behind MTV’s The Real World, has great potential to soften hearts and change minds. The ­cameras follow the seven highly functional, articulate, and thoughtful ­individuals who—as they are fond of saying about themselves—are chasing their dreams. Like every-

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one else, though, they regularly bump against obstacles. For his acting class, Steven writes a scene that expresses his frustration at rejection from girls without ­intellectual disabilities whom he wants to date.

Megan hopes to produce films and live on her own, but she doesn’t appreciate the high cost of living in Los Angeles. (Who could?)

Born This Way captures the group-home housemates sometimes counseling each other and at other times griping at life’s petty annoyances. In one episode, John swears and bemoans the cost of a corsage he’s buying for a dance date. He exclaims, “Do you know how much chicken I can get for $20?!”

The parents, continuing to play major roles in their children’s lives, also get screen time. Their perspectives defy ­conventional attitudes.

At the end of the first season, John’s mother, Joyce, explains that she rejected her doctor’s advice to abort her son.

“I’m thankful,” Joyce says, “that God gave me a chance to be part of his life.” —by BOB BROWN

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 19

C U LT U R E

Books

Granular analysis

MEMOIR BRINGS TO LIFE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS AMONG POOR WHITES by Marvin Olasky Charles Murray’s 2013 book Coming Apart: The State of White America lays out the statistics showing affluent whites typically have a strong work ethic, marriages that last, and religious observance (sometimes without belief ), while poorer whites typically trash all three. If you want to know what that looks like at street level, read J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (Harper, 2016).

Vance grew up amid family chaos but joined the Marines and graduated from Ohio State and Yale Law School.

He loves his extended family but can vividly describe its pattern of personal and financial irresponsibility. Mix clan loyalty, a willingness to fight, and a sense of being left behind and sprinkle with alcohol and drugs: voilà, a recipe for disaster.

Happily, a couple of family members and a couple of teachers inspired Vance to love learning. Working in a grocery store and seeing taxes from his small salary going to people who gamed the welfare system so as to buy liquor and steak turned him into a social critic

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BOOKMARKS

who scolds both left and right for letting individuals off the hook.

Vance’s bottom line: “Stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.”

Vance turns 32 this summer, and I generally don’t have much patience with 32-year-olds w ­ riting memoirs, but his descriptions are so vivid that I’m glad he got the memories down before age sanded off the rough edges. WORLD readers should be aware that Vance when growing up heard lots of obscenity and profanity, sometimes from people who saved his life, like his grandma: He reports what he heard, so do not start on this book if raw words disturb you more than the cultural ­collapse about which Hillbilly Elegy will educate you.

An example of how bad the collapse is: Vance writes, “You can walk through a town where 30 percent of the young men work fewer than 20 hours a week and find not a single person aware of his own laziness.” He adds: “Sometimes we’ll get a job, but it won’t last. We’ll get fired for tardiness, or for stealing merchandise and selling it on eBay. … We talk about the value of hard work but tell ourselves that the reason we’re not working is some perceived unfairness.”

20 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

scholar can make, but second-half chapter titles acknowledge what went wrong: “The Imp of the Perverse,” “Reform Under Siege,” “Urban Rioting,” “Abdication,” “American Dystopia.” No wonder some AfricanAmericans see welfare as the new plantation.

—M.O.

HANDOUT

Anthony Carter’s Black & Reformed (P&R, second edition 2016) successfully takes on hard questions of God’s sovereignty over the slave trade and other tragedies. Manisha Sinha’s 768-page The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (Yale, 2016) is an excellent work of scholarship about blacks and whites, including many Christians, who risked their lives in a search for freedom.

In Prisoners of Hope: Lyndon B. Johnson, the Great Society, and the Limits of Liberalism (Basic, 2016), Randall Woods makes the best case for the War on Poverty that a

Poor public schools have certainly contributed to the mess, yet one beleaguered teacher says: “They want us to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the fact that many of them are raised by wolves.” Vance writes that churches help, but selfreporting and behavior are different: His neighbors growing up would say they went to church a lot, “yet actual church attendance is much lower in the South” than in the Midwest.

And this great white hope also needs reformation: At a church young Vance attended, he “heard more about the gay lobby and the war on Christmas than about any particular character trait a Christian should aspire to have.”

Accentuation of the negative pushed him to discard Christian faith, but he writes that he is now re-exploring it.

AFTERWORD

BOOKS OF POPULAR THEOLOGY reviewed by Tim Challies RESCUING THE GOSPEL: THE STORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REFORMATION Erwin W. Lutzer

Lutzer’s passion for the Reformation and skill with the pen make this potentially dry subject riveting. He focuses on Martin Luther but also covers important figures who preceded and followed him, showing both their strengths and weaknesses. He evaluates Luther’s infamous statements about Jews and peasants, tells of Calvin’s role in the death of Servetus, and describes the excesses of some Anabaptists. This lively account also shows that the issues that divided Protestantism from Catholicism at the time of the Reformation remain pressing issues today.

THE FAITH OF CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS Larry Alex Taunton

This book tells the surprising story of the author’s relationship with atheist-provocateur Christopher Hitchens, which began shortly before Hitchens received a terminal cancer diagnosis. As their relationship blossomed into friendship, the two debating partners embarked on a speaking trip in which they explored Scripture together. Through this study, Hitchens caught glimmers of a unifying philosophy that could make sense of everything and give hope. Cancer claimed Hitchens in 2011 with no evidence that he had revoked atheism. However, Taunton’s book describes and models the kind of friendship that Christians can have even with the most formidable opponents of their faith.

CORE CHRISTIANITY: FINDING YOURSELF IN GOD’S STORY Michael Horton This book is a short, simple, user-friendly systematic theology. Every chapter looks at doctrine and places it within the grand story of the Bible and the drama unfolding around us. Horton points to doctrine’s implication for both doxology (praise) and discipleship. Framing ­doctrine in this way ensures that it never lives on its own, but always points to God’s purposes and to its necessary implications in our lives—a powerful, stirring progression. Core Christianity immediately takes its place as one of my favorite introductions to the Christian faith. It is one I will recommend often.

MIKE WINDLE/GETTY IMAGES

DISCIPLING: HOW TO HELP OTHERS FOLLOW JESUS Mark Dever Discipling is Pastor Mark Dever’s latest entry in the Building Healthy Churches series. He wrote it to “help you understand ­biblical discipling and to encourage you in your obedience to Christ.” Written for a general audience, the book begins with a ­definition: “Discipling is initiating a relationship in which you teach, correct, model, and love. It takes great humility.” The book discusses the central role of the local church and offers practical guidance on how, when, and where discipling happens. Be prepared: Discipling can be costly in time, preparation, prayer, and love. I commend this book to church leaders in the hope that they will first read it and then widely distribute it.

To see more book news and reviews, go to wng.org/books

Siddhartha Mukherjee’s

massive The Gene: An Intimate History (Scribner, 2016) begins with stories of his two uncles on his father’s side. Both had ­mental illness, leaving Mukherjee wondering about the role heredity played and whether he would one day develop manic depression or schizophrenia as they had. The reader knows from the beginning that this book is about more than abstract science: It shows how scientific advances affect real people and change the way human beings think about themselves.

Mukherjee also shows the wrong turns scientists and politicians have often taken and skillfully brings to life terrible chapters in the history of eugenics.

Although Mukherjee accepts evolutionary explanations, readers don’t have to agree with them to appreciate the importance of growing scientific knowledge concerning genes. The Gene drags in spots as the science becomes more technical, but many chapters read like chapters in a detective story.

—Susan Olasky

C U LT U R E

Children’s Books

Faith foundations

FOUR THEOLOGY PICTURE BOOKS by Emily Whitten GIVE THANKS (SIT FOR A BIT) Kathryn O’Brien “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!” That’s the focus verse of this sweet picture book that is part of a new series designed to help children memorize Scripture. With bold text and cheerful illustrations, the book both teaches and entertains. O’Brien uses poetic repetition to help children meditate on each word of the verse and make simple applications. At first reading, several mostly empty pages may seem out of place, but their purpose becomes clear as the book progresses.

Diverse skin tones give the book wider appeal. (Ages 3-6)

THE KNIGHT’S MAP R.C. Sproul In this allegorical tale by pastor-theologian Sproul, a knight embarks on a journey to find the Pearl of Great Price. Sir Charles meets characters like Mr. Skeptic and Sir Liberal who would turn him off the good path. But just as Christians must follow the Bible, Sir Charles must follow instructions from the Great King to find true wealth. Richard Lawnes’ illustrations lack some warmth, and the text rambles at times. Yet the book’s deep truths and Sproul’s mastery of allegory make this a useful resource for Christian parents seeking to guide their children in the way of the true King. (Ages 6-12)

THE STORM THAT STOPPED Alison Mitchell When the “biggest, loudest, scariest, most GINORMOUS storm you could imagine” comes upon the boat carrying Jesus and His disciples, everyone panics—except the sleeping Jesus. In one or two playful sentences per page, this picture book relates how Christ calmed the storm, focusing on what the miracle tells us about Jesus—i.e., that He is God. Catalina Echeverri’s modern illustrations display plenty of action and movement, and the colorful palette will pull in reluctant readers. Overall an excellent offering, though ­references to a “sink-o-meter” and “wind-o-meter” may need to be explained to young children. (Ages 4-8)

I BELIEVE IN JESUS: LEADING YOUR CHILD TO CHRIST John MacArthur

22 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

To see more book news and reviews, go to wng.org/books

HANDOUT

Originally published in the 1990s, this new edition with updated illustrations summarizes basic truths from the Bible—from creation to Christ’s resurrection—using simple language that a preschooler can understand. Its main purpose is evangelistic, offering children an opportunity to trust in Christ and find personal salvation. Bible verses and further reading suggestions accompany each page. This new version has watercolor illustrations by Dominique Merten. Some may prefer the illustrations in previous editions, which are still available from used-book sites. (Ages 1-5)

AFTERWORD

Parents with kids in the potty-training years may appreciate Sally LloydJones’ new book, Skip to the Loo, My Darling! A Potty Book (Candlewick, 2016). At first, bunny seems alone in his need to use the “loo” (the British word for toilet), but soon he’s joined by a menagerie of friends— from a dodo bird to an elephant in a tutu. Rhyming text cleverly builds expectation until the characters all finally arrive at a joyful (but respectful) poo party.

Christian author Jones’ polite sensibilities shine through here, making a ­difficult subject appealing for parents and children.

Illustrator Anita Jeram (Guess How Much I Love You) adds further value by drawing characters modestly and infusing them with subtle humor.

Parents won’t find specifics or ­how-tos about toilet training, but the book might make potty time more ­enticing for little ones. You might not like the idea of bunnies and elephants in your bathroom, but it’s likely your toddler will. —E.W.

C U LT U R E

Q&A BENJAMIN WATSON

Heart and grace FOOTBALL, FERGUSON, AND THE GOSPEL by J.C. Derrick

24 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

Baltimore Ravens training facility: Here are edited excerpts.

What was it like to grow up as a pastor’s son? A gift and a curse at the

same time. My father was a very strong figure. A lot of people outside of our family looked up to him and came to him for advice. My parents molded me into the person I am today, and I have many fond memories of childhood; but while I was there, I hated the rules.

Now, at 35, I’m like, man, my parents were really smart, and I’m very thankful for the parents God gave me.

How did you become one of the most respected players in football? When you get past 10

years—this is 13 for me—a certain amount of respect comes.

Whether they know you or not, the young guys call you old man, gramps, all of that. I

remember being a younger player in this league and seeing how guys like Willie McGinest, Rodney Harrison, and Mike Vrabel led, practiced, performed on Sundays. They even taught me things about life in general, how you need to be a husband and dad. Over time I’ve tried to be that for other players.

Why for a while didn’t you want to wear your 2004 Super Bowl ring? In

2004 I was a rookie wanting to earn the respect of veterans, but I tore my ACL. I didn’t want to wear the ring because I felt it was for the guys who played in the game. It wasn’t until years later, when I had a struggle with perfectionism and grasping God’s grace, that I realized accepting that ring is like how we have to accept His grace. We walk around as champions in Christ, as conquerors, not because of anything we did, but because of everything He did. So I can wear the ring with pride, even though I  jderrick@wng.org  @jcderrick1

BALTIMORE RAVENS

During the 2005 NFL playoffs Benjamin Watson, a 255-pound tight end, ran more than 100 yards to prevent one of the league’s fastest players from scoring. A decade later football fans still cite that play as one of the best examples of hustle in sports history.

Watson, a father of five homeschooled children, enjoyed his best ­season in 2015, but some know him for his thoughtful essays on cultural topics ranging from Ferguson, Mo., unrest to North Carolina’s bathroom bill, and for his book Under Our Skin: Getting Real About Race—and Getting Free from the Fears and Frustrations that Divide Us. With the 2016 NFL season fast approaching, I questioned Watson at the

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didn’t play, because it was done on my behalf by the guys on the team. It’s like the imputed righteousness of Christ.

You’re well-known for chasing down Champ Bailey in the 2005 playoffs. How often are you asked about that play?

A lot of Pop Warner coaches and even people who run corporations use it as an example of perseverance and never giving up. My father still gets asked about that. He has a whole sermon series of illustrations he’s pulled out of that play.

A metaphor for the Christian life?

Definitely—perseverance, obstacles,

If people take away one thing from your book, what should it be? Before

you look outside, look inside. On both sides we need to deal with our sin. We need to call racism what it is: sin. We need to call unforgiveness what it is: sin.

We need to call pride and hatred what it is: sin. There’s only one solution.

You do some blogging, and you’re also an NFL spokesman for the All Pro Dad campaign. The name of my blog is

Truth in the Game. It’s the idea of extracting truth and using football as an illustration of certain truths of life.

The goal of All Pro Dad is to serve children by serving dads and helping them deal with issues.

TOP: RJ SANGOSTI/THE DENVER POST/AP • BOTTOM: ERIKA GOLDRING/GETTY IMAGES FOR FELD ENTERTAINMENT

What’s the goal of your One More foundation? To

setbacks, determination, faith. It’s funny how sports can always point to spiritual things.

Why did you start writing essays on cultural topics? The writing really took

off after I wrote that Facebook post about Ferguson. Living in a house where my father was a pastor, I picked up from him this: Whatever your emotion is, you need to filter that through truth.

The only truth we really have is the truth of the Bible. That’s never changing.

How do you feel when people disagree with you? I ended my piece about

Ferguson by saying the gospel is what gives us hope. An atheist said, “I agreed with you all the way until the God part.

We could do without the God part. But the way you said it is making me think.”

That’s what you want. You may not convince someone to change religion over Facebook, but when we speak the truth in love and we challenge people, the Holy Spirit does His work. That guy may still be an atheist, but he sounded like he was rethinking this whole God thing—that’s enough for me.

spread the hope and love of Christ to one more soul. We do that by meeting people’s real needs, promoting education, partnering with other charities, and doing our own initiatives. And we want our kids to have a legacy of giving.

we have to understand a couple of things. No. 1, the book of Romans says God is in control of the government.

Ultimately, God can use any government, good or bad, for His purposes.

We’re called to be involved and aware, and we should vote; but we have to be careful not to be so worried about it being the end of the world if this person wins. God knows Donald Trump is running and Hillary Clinton is running, and His will is going to be done. No. 2, a lot of Christians, myself included, have a hard time with Trump’s rhetoric and brashness. But some of what Hillary stands for—I could never vote for her.

There are some issues over which I can’t vote for someone. Life is one.

Terrorism, welfare, so many topics. We have to hold everything to the lens of Scripture and realize that God’s in control, and we’re not. That’s hard.

What will life after football look like for you? I want to do some broad-

casting: That’s an interest. Another is writing. There’s a lot of unknown. My hope, my prayer, is that whatever is next will be obvious and God will make it abundantly apparent. A

How do you think through this year’s confusing election? As believers Watson with his wife and kids; tackling Champ Bailey in 2005 (above).

More than 1 million people read Benjamin Watson’s 600 Facebook words about Ferguson. Here’s most of the concluding paragraph: “Ultimately the problem is not a SKIN problem, it is a SIN problem.

SIN is the reason we rebel against authority. SIN is the reason we abuse our authority. SIN is the reason we are racist, prejudiced and lie to cover for our own. SIN is the reason we riot, loot and burn.

BUT I’M ENCOURAGED because God has provided a solution for sin through his son Jesus. … The cure for the Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner tragedies is not education or exposure. It’s the gospel.”

For Watson’s complete comment on Ferguson and other writings, please go to wng.org/watson_writings

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 25

C U LT U R E

Music

Throwing some paınt

A VIRTUOSO’S LIFE

THE ELECTRONICA TONES ON ITS LATEST ALBUM ARE NEW TERRITORY FOR NEEDTOBREATHE

by Arsenio Orteza

26 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

Tozer, Ido Zmishlany, Jon Levine, and Ed Cash really took our sound to the next level.”

It’s a level that NEEDTOBREATHE’s fans seem eager to explore: Hard Love debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

And even those nonplussed by the band’s latest stylistic choices will recognize such familiar NEEDTOBREATHE elements as big singalong refrains and eloquent, faith-rooted lyrics.

“Clear,” “Let’s Stay Home Tonight,” and “When I Sing” address the glories of romance, “Be Here Long” the brevity of life and the poignancy of loss. And in “Testify,” the Rineharts put words into God’s mouth without putting their feet into their own. “Give me your heart, give me your song, sing it with all your might,” sings Bear. “Come to the fountain, and you can be satisfied.”

“I think for those fans who have been with us since early on, there is a kind of built-in trust already for what we are trying to do,” said Lovelace. “We have never been a band that stays the same or doesn’t try new things. This frees us up to do what we feel is good and hope that the fans feel the same way. Our fans have always let us throw paint on the walls to see what sticks.”

Bear Rinehart performs in Enterprise, Ala.

from 1929 (when he was 13 and recording technology was primitive) to 1983 (when he was 67 and the CD revolution was just beginning). Although listeners’ favorites will differ, Disc 21 (1980) deserves special attention.

On it, Menuhin and the harpist Nicanor Zabaleta play a program of 18th- and 19th-century music

by Italian, German, and French composers. The sound of Zabaleta’s crystalline touch overlaid with Menuhin’s glowing legato is so beautiful that Warner or whoever owns these recordings in 2116 will probably reissue them on Menuhin’s 200th birthday as well.

To see more music news and reviews, go to wng.org/music

RINEHART: RICK DIAMOND/GETTY IMAGES • MENUHIN: ASSOCIATED PRESS

With last year’s Live from the Woods at Fontanel, NEEDTOBREATHE brought the first phase of its impressive career to a ­rousing conclusion.

The album captured the band’s Christian-crossover, Southern-rock strengths so thoroughly that it was hard to imagine where Bear Rinehart (lead vocals, guitar), his brother Bo (lead guitar), Seth Bolt (bass), and Josh Lovelace (keyboards) would go from there.

Their new album, Hard Love (Atlantic), ends the suspense. Gone are the rootsy, jam-band textures. Replacing them is big-bam-boom production with an electronica sheen. Even Auto-Tune plays a role.

“Hard Love is us challenging ourselves to take some chances as a band,” Lovelace told me.

“After our last record [the 2014 studio album Rivers in the Wasteland], which was more stripped back and organic, we wanted to do something completely new.”

The desire for a fresh start eventually led to the involvement of outside producers with star-studded resumés.

“We produced a lot of the record ­ourselves,” Lovelace said. “[But] Dave

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To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the late violinist Yehudi Menuhin’s birth, Warner Classics/Parlophone has released 80 CDs in five box sets under the umbrella title The Menuhin Century. Their subtitles—The Historic Recordings, Live Performances and Festival Recordings, The Virtuoso & His Landmark Recordings, Complete Recordings with Hephzibah Menuhin—identify both the boxes’ contents and the many contexts in which Menuhin ­distinguished himself.

Most telling of all in this regard is the 22-disc box, Unpublished Recordings and Rarities. Only a musician capable of producing incomparably high-quality music gets to produce such a quantity of the previously unreleased and the previously unavailable on CD in the first place.

The chronologically sequenced discs follow Menuhin

RECENT CLASSICAL ALBUMS reviewed by Arsenio Orteza DAVID DEBOOR CANFIELD: CHAMBER MUSIC, VOL. 4 Calvin Quartet, Marcia Cattaruzzi, et al.

Newcomers to Canfield should know that he composes in ­multiple styles. On this disc alone he could pass for four or five different composers, some frolicsome (Five Mangled Expressions), some experimentally anachronistic (Quintette nach Schumann). He also composes for a wide variety of ­purposes, instruments, and instrumental combinations (e.g., piano and saxophone quartet). Finally, he’s a Christian, so neither his Sonata for Cello & Piano’s subtitle (“Ordo salutis”) nor his motivic use of “Fairest Lord Jesus” in the moving requiem “A Life Remembered” is coincidental or ironic.

ELI TAMAR: LAUDATO SI: IN THE SPIRIT OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI Charlene Canty, Andrey Nemzer, Nicholas Will

This recording’s first half comprises settings of the 13th-­century Latin poem “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” by eight ­different composers (Vivaldi, Haydn, Rossini, Dvořák, and Poulenc among them).

The second half comprises three contemporary compositions by the Israeli-American Eli Tamar based on texts traditionally ascribed to St. Francis of Assisi (e.g., “Seigneur, faites de moi un instrument de votre paix”). Charlene Canty (soprano) and Andrey Nemzer (countertenor) elevate rather than overwhelm the sentiments (their “unabashedly operatic approach” notwithstanding). And Nicholas Will’s organ elevates the singers.

ANTON BRUCKNER: SYMPHONY NO. 5 London Symphony Orchestra, Lance Friedel

One reason that this recording of one of Bruckner’s most popular symphonies sounds wonderful is the multichannel, “super audio” properties of the CD itself. Another is that, as his liner notes make clear, the conductor Lance Friedel understands not only the symphony’s demanding intricacies but also their aesthetic purposes. “It is living, passionate music,” he writes, “that encompasses a huge range of emotions.”

This understanding he has obviously communicated to the orchestra, which responds with such lapidary precision that even the dynamics take on a monumental dimensionality.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: A LONDON SYMPHONY; SYMPHONY NO. 8 Royal

PETER SCHAAF

Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze If this album’s recording of A London Symphony accurately evokes either the London or the Londoners of just over a century ago (Vaughan Williams completed it shortly before World War I), what a magnificent, lively, and confident city or people they must have been. And while it may be fanciful to claim to hear Cold War echoes in Symphony No. 8 simply because Williams completed it in 1955, paranoia is arguably one of the states of mind evoked by the symphony’s minor key and fitfully sublimated turbulence.

 aorteza@wng.org  @ArsenioOrteza

ENCORE

The most expeditious way to appreciate Vincent Persichetti: Legacy of Songs (MSR Classics) is, first, to read the poems on which the 41 songs are based, a task made easy by the ­inclusion of the texts in the album’s liner notes. Second, read along to the poems as the operatic baritone Lee Velta or the lyric soprano Sherry Overholt sing them.

If you’ve paid attention while carrying out these two steps, you’ll be able to understand the words later despite Velta’s and Overholt’s art-song diction.

You’ll also be able to concentrate on Joshua Pierce’s pianism without losing the musically thematic ties that bind his playing to the words.

Having reached this stage, appreciation will yield to enjoyment, and enjoyment will yield to a fuller ­appreciation of the puckish wisdom of Persichetti’s sources (Dickinson, Cummings, Teasdale, Frost, Joyce, Sandburg, and various Chinese and Japanese poets). Then there’s Hilaire Belloc’s Christocentic “Thou Child So Wise,” which transcends appreciation and enjoyment ­altogether. —A.O. August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 27

VOICE S

Mindy Belz

Stay awake

LIKE NIGHT WATCHMEN OR DOORKEEPERS, GUARDING THE FUTURE IS A TASK FOR THE REST OF US

28 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

Every night seven days a week … the buglers stand beneath Menin Gate at 8 p.m. to honor the war dead of Ypres.

The Last Post Ceremony

 mbelz@wng.org  @mcbelz

NAT BELZ

YPRES, Belgium—Every night seven days a week—by Northern summer evening sun or chill dark December moon, to a crowd of tourists or a handful of locals—the buglers stand beneath Menin Gate at 8 p.m. to honor the war dead of Ypres.

If you know your history, and fewer and fewer of us do, you know that spreading out from this Belgian town are the world’s bloodiest battlefields, where nearly 1 million Allied and German soldiers lost their lives in World War I. On the outskirts of town small plaques point the way along the Salient, the front lines where both sides launched poison gas attacks for the first time in history, attacks that changed the course of life in this Flemish heartland and all the world beyond. Hundreds of cemeteries here hold war dead from France, Belgium, Germany, England, Canada, America, India, Nepal, and even Africa.

Ypres remembers.

Menin Gate in the city’s center bears the names of 54,000 soldiers, fighters whose remains never were recovered. Local firefighters play the bugles, and on occasion the war’s descendants parade as well. The evening I attended the Last Post, Scotland’s Greengairs Thistle Flute Band donned authentic World War I uniforms to parade, then the Churcher family laid wreaths of poppies beneath the rows upon rows of names. It was a solemn moment recalling a global cataclysm.

From the North Atlantic to the Aegean the tension is building. You feel it. Europe is changing, and I believe in a generation it will be a ­different place. Absorbing more than a million refugees from some of the 21st century’s worst wars in the space of a few months—plus decades of mass immigration from the Muslim world heaped on rampant secularism—thrusts the continent into transformation that may bring cataclysm.

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The military presence in the streets and train stations of Brussels, Paris, and other cities is something new. The idyll of the French ­countryside has been broken by the July attack and beheading of a Catholic priest.

“In every country of the world the people are angry,” a tour guide of the Ypres battlefields told me. “It feels a lot like the eve of World War I.” Then as now the rulers of the world direct the way, leading us further into or out of calamity. How do those lacking their power respond?

How did those of previous generations fight global wars but also heal nations and bind up wounds? In every time it’s done on the power of ideas and values, transcendent ideas that push through the threats bleeding out of a broken world. At their best they emanate from a loving God who laid down His life for His friends.

Tribulation will take place, Jesus says in Mark 13, but He is direct and plain, even urgent about what to do: Be on guard.

Stay awake.

Like a night watchman, or a doorkeeper, these are common tasks for common men and women.

Despite the rumors of wars, I’ve seen many night watchmen and doorkeepers in Europe.

Arab pastors guarding the good testimony of new converts to Christianity. Dutch women opening doors with plates of baklava and melon taken to refugee camps. They wait, and soon the women come, including the newly arrived Afghan widow whose husband was beheaded by the Taliban, and they are ready with wordless embraces and tissues. Or the Greek mother ­preparing a sunny gathering place for new ­refugees overwhelmed by red tape, a place where they have coffee but also receive legal aid, learn a new language, or study the Bible.

In the past these were our better instincts in the West. We assumed we would do them.

Now, laden with venting and processing, exploring our inner grievances, the ways society, parents, or the ozone harmed us, we need Mark 13 to prompt us to relearn the old habits, stop spreading our anger and our issues, stop urging on leaders who play to them. (You, too, President Obama.)

Take courage. The world in 2016, as in almost every other year of recorded history, has been populated with bad leaders, calamity, and rumors of war. You stay awake. A

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F E AT U R E S

BIG CHANGES TO PUBLIC BATHROOMS MAY BE ON THE WAY. HOW MUCH WILL THEY COST, AND WILL THEY PROVIDE MORE SAFETY?

Rethinking th b y L AU R A F I NC H

photo by SA R A D. DAV IS/GETT Y IM AGES

30 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

The bathroom at Oval Park Grill in Durham, N.C.

he restroom August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 31

N 1998, LSD USER BRANDON WILSON, SAYING HE HAD RECEIVED an “order from God,” stabbed 9-year-old Matthew Cecchi to death at a park in Oceanside, Calif., inside the men’s restroom. The boy’s aunt was only a few feet away, waiting for him ­outside the door. A judge later called Cecchi’s murder “the most haunting case I’ve ever had.” In 2011 Wilson apparently hanged himself in his San Quentin prison cell.

The murderer was not a transgender ­person. Cecchi’s death, which led to calls for family restrooms, underscores the fact that transgender ­people aren’t the only ones asking for changes in bathroom policy and design.

Brandon Wilson, killer of 9-year-old Matthew Cecchi, sits in court during the closing arguments portion of his sanity hearing in 1999 in Vista, Calif.

Apart from that issue, the trend is already toward bathroom privacy. One layout in particular may represent the way of the future: the ­private restroom with a single toilet and a door that locks.

So far the debate over transgender people and their restroom choices surrounds traditional separate-sex group restrooms, like the ones found in schools or stadiums. Architects call these “gang restrooms”: Each typically has two or more toilet fixtures separated by metal partitions that stop a foot or two from the floor. Some gang rooms are co-ed, and in those, building owners sometimes have floor-to-ceiling stall partitions in an effort to provide more privacy.

With private restrooms, though, it doesn’t matter whether the user is male, female, a pottytraining child, a person living with paruresis (the social anxiety disorder that upsets 7 percent of Americans using public restrooms), or the rare transgender person (perhaps 3 of every 1,000 Americans). The restrooms might be labeled “all gender” or “gender neutral” with a variety of

S

O WHAT DOES IT COST TO MOVE from gang restrooms to privacy? The big cost to builders and architects is space: Each additional square foot increases ­original construction costs and future utility bills. Bruce Pitts, who has worked on heating and air conditioning systems for 17 years, says gang ­restrooms waste space. They have much more “circulation square footage”—the “milling around” space required in each restroom for ­people to get around each other.

Pitts says unisex private restrooms can save square footage, but their infrastructure construction costs per square foot—plumbing, water supply, drains, exhaust fans, and even sprinklers—are higher. On the other hand, unisex bathrooms cut down on wait times, because the next available bathroom goes to the next person of either sex waiting in line.

Several architects I talked with liked a middleof-the-road approach: unisex, private rooms with toilets only, and a communal sink area for both men and women. One variant of that: a heavily

HOWARD LIPIN/AP

32 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

skirt- or half-skirt-wearing stick figures, but they’re known in construction as “unisex.”

Dave Wilde, a senior architect for the Aspen Group in Frankfort, Ill., said his c­ lients, mainly churches, are adding more “family restrooms” in both old and new f­ acilities. This accommodates dads taking young daughters to the bathroom: “It’s just not a given that both mom and dad are at church,” he said.

Joshua Every, a Detroit-area building consultant, advises charter school, office building, and hospital owners: His clients consistently chose unisex restrooms for their new constructions.

When designing a multimillion-dollar project, Every said, the cost difference between the two styles is minimal compared to the total cost of the project. That makes it relatively easy to factor into the budget: “In a new construction, you’re doing it all anyway.”

SAFE HAVEN

used shoreline park “comfort station” in San Diego, just 45 minutes up the coast from where Matthew died in 1998, has unisex private bathrooms and outdoor shower spigots allowing swimmers and scuba divers to rinse off.

Mary Coakley Munk, president of the American Restroom Association, researched and designed the comfort station. She said in the offseason half the stalls are closed. The rest of the time, janitors clean stalls one by one—leaving at least one available for use at all times. “These are cost savings that are not usually calculated into construction costs,” she said. Lt. Brian Ahearn of the San Diego City Police Department likes the comfort station: Individual stalls and exterior sinks discourage criminal activity.

I asked Carlson Architecture, an Illinois firm that has designed several Chicago-area churches, to create and price for WORLD three sample designs for church bathrooms that could serve 20 people and would conform to Americans with Disability Act standards. Concept A: a standard “gang” restroom for men, a “gang” restroom for women, and a restroom for a parent and a small child. Concept B: Twenty individual restrooms, each with a toilet and sink, that either sex could use. Concept C: Three separate restrooms (rooms, not stalls), each with its own bathroom and sink, and seven more rooms just with toilets, across an aisle with communal sinks.

Costs for each design would vary according to finishes and region of the country. Based on estimates from two Chicago-area design firms, the Concept A cost—traditional gang restrooms— would be around $180,900. The Concept B cost, with individual bathrooms, would be 125 percent more: $407,000. The Concept C cost, though, would be only 26 percent more: $227,700.

President Todd Carlson also pointed out that

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A gender neutral bathroom at a restaurant in Washington, D.C.

Some big numbers: About 324 million people live in the United States, and 300 million of us have no problem with the standard bathrooms found in public buildings. About 7 percent of Americans, though, are paruretics who feel anxious when sitting in a bathroom stall next to a stall also occupied: They would prefer to have separate, individual bathrooms.

Some relatively small numbers: Several hundred thousand males and females identify with the opposite sex. Some have had sex-change operations, but others who retain the male organs with which they were born insist on using bathrooms designated for women, even though that leaves some women fearful and many women annoyed. Meanwhile, some men who say they want to be women fear using men’s rooms.

About half of Americans are pro-physical-fact, thinking everyone should use the bathroom that corresponds with his or her sex organs. Maybe 40 percent are pro-psychological-choice. It’s one sign of our mixed-up politics that a tiny trans tail is wagging a big dog. Nevertheless, that’s where we are, and Christians have to figure out what to do in the strange situation in which God has placed us.

One starting point: Distinguish between where we must stand and where we may negotiate.

Freedom not only to worship God but to teach our children and help the poor as the Bible instructs us: essential. Giving unborn children the opportunity to survive and be born: essential. Defending marriage: essential. Maintaining group (rather than individual) bathrooms for men and for women: negotiable, if alternative arrangements can preserve privacy and safety for women.

After all, the Bible does not mandate group restrooms, and in the present cultural climate they may open up businesses and organizations to needless lawsuits. May we discuss bathroom accommodation while upholding the unchangeable nature of maleness and femaleness—and without abandoning laws that allow sex-specific restrooms?

To think through the bathroom issue, we need facts. If we were to start constructing the individual bathrooms that paruretics, transgender people, and transgender supporters would prefer, what’s the price tag? Then we can discuss whether that would be a good or stupid use of money. This article attempts to provide a starting point. —Marvin Olasky

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 33

THREE DESIGNS FOR CHURCH BATHROOMS

CONCEPT A: “Gang” restrooms for men and for women, and a restroom for a parent and a child.

774 sq. ft. Serves 20 people.

Estimated cost = $180,900

CONCEPT B: Individual restrooms, each with a ­toilet and sink, that either sex could use. 1,560 sq. ft.

Serves 20 people.

Estimated cost = $407,000

CONCEPT C: Three separate restrooms (not stalls), each with its own toilet and sink, and seven more rooms just with toilets, across an aisle with communal sinks.

885 sq. ft. Serves 20 people. Estimated cost = $227,700

Square foot area* # Doors # Water closets # Urinals # Lavs Toilet partitions Counter top (linear ft.)

Paper towel dispenser Accessibility (grab bars) Toilet paper dispenser Sanitary napkin disposal Fire alarm signals Emergency lighting Sprinkler heads Exhaust fans Individual room lights Wall sq. ft.

Wet wall tile Estimated construction cost

34 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

UNIT COST

CONCEPT A

CONCEPT B

CONCEPT C

$125.00 $1,200.00 $2,500.00 $2,500.00 $2,500.00 $1,500.00 $400.00 $125.00 $125.00 $125.00 $125.00 $250.00 $250.00 $100.00 $150.00 $200.00 $12.00 $10.00

$96,750.00 $3,600.00 $22,500.00 $5,000.00 $25,000.00 $12,000.00 $10,400.00 $625.00 $1,000.00 $1,125.00 $750.00 $750.00 $750.00 $500.00 $150.00

$195,000.00 $24,000.00 $50,000.00 $0.00 $50,000.00 $0.00 $0.00 $2,500.00 $5,000.00 $2,500.00 $2,500.00 $5,250.00 $5,250.00 $2,100.00 $3,000.00 $4,000.00 $50,400.00 $5,500.00

$110,625.00 $12,000.00 $25,000.00 $0.00 $30,000.00 $0.00 $11,600.00 $875.00 $750.00 $1,250.00 $1,250.00 $1,000.00 $1,000.00 $1,000.00 $1,500.00 $2,000.00 $24,000.00 $3,850.00

$180,900.00

$407,000.00

$227,700.00

* Square foot area refers to the basic infrastructure required to construct any space, no matter what kind of room. It includes costs such as laying a foundation and installing a roof.

either Concept B or C would come in handy for men’s or women’s conferences, when one sex or the other might temporarily crowd the church.

ELAINE THOMPSON/AP • FACING PAGE: CARLSON ARCHITECTURE

W

OULD CHURCH CONgregants—or users of any building that chose Concept C—be ready to mix communally for hand washing? Carlson said, “Although this occurs commonly in an outdoor festival environment, it may take some time for congregants to embrace this layout in a church facility.” WORLD asked 50 people across the country in person and online about the three bathroom designs.

Participants ranged in age from 15 to over 70, but most were between 20 and 40 years old.

Seven out of 10 thought Concept B was fine—two participants immediately brought up the cost—and 55 ­percent said they would be comfortable using Concept C, the “festival” style with communal sinks.

Safety issues topped the list of concerns for both designs, since the circulation space in both concepts would not be visible from, say, the rest of a church lobby. “I wouldn’t want to go into a bathroom when it’s just me and one man—particularly at night,” said Laura Sawyer of Virginia.

Christopher David in Illinois suggested lining up the rooms along a hallway instead, pointing out that less seclusion would reduce the potential for harm.

Overall, men had few comments about the designs aside from safety concerns; one discreetly asked if the walls would be soundproof. Women, on the other hand, had conflicting views about the opportunities for “primping” and congregating with other women—or occasionally getting help with a stubborn zipper.

Kelley Griffin in Washington, D.C., said of Concept C’s “festival” sinks, “I wouldn’t feel that I could ‘get myself together’ with enough privacy.”

In neighboring Maryland, Nancy Wunderlich said: “Where the sinks are has no impact on my comfort. I am more concerned about the comfort and safety of the minority group—specifically, the transgender community.”

Irena Dragas Jansen grew up in Croatia and still can’t get used to the relative lack of privacy in traditional American restrooms—she described European women’s restrooms with metal partitions stretching from floor to ceiling. Still, she said, she could get used to a variety of designs, since already “I share bathrooms with men in my home, and other homes.”

S

OME CITIES ARE ALREADY PUSHING toward unisex private restrooms.

Washington, D.C., has a website where the public can report single-stall bathrooms that are not labeled unisex.

The overarching authority on bathroom regulations is the International Building Code (IBC), which provides a complicated labyrinth of requirements for buildings based on occupancy, square footage, and building age. States use the IBC as model code for bathroom regulations almost universally, according to Robert Brubaker of the American Restroom Association.

Until recently, regulations required small establishments (like gas stations) to provide one men’s room and one women’s room. These extended even to private, single-fixture restrooms with doors that locked. University of Chicago law professor Mary Anne Case has written that such policies hearken back to a time when legislators sought “potty parity” for women. Women’s restrooms at one time were rare in downtown areas largely populated by men.

One recently announced IBC rule for 2018, though, states that all single-fixture restrooms should be labeled unisex, so either a male or a female can use the next available restroom.

Another rule states that in any establishment big enough to require six fixtures (for three men and three women), one of them must be a family/­ unisex bathroom. States will phase in these rules over a period of about five years, Brubaker said, and the cost may be as little as a couple of cheap plastic signs. A

Ninth-graders Tehya Vining, left, and Christian Jarboe talk after walking for the first time into a gender neutral bathroom at Nathan Hale High School in Seattle.

—Laura Finch is a World Journalism Institute mid-career course graduate

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 35

‘Love,’

Dominique Hernandez displays her rainbow-colored fist at a rally outside the Los Angeles City Hall.

36 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

not rights

WINNING RECOGNITION FOR GAY MARRIAGE IN AMERICA WAS ALL ABOUT SPINNING THE RIGHT MESSAGE

by SUSA N OL A SK Y

I

photo by FREDERIC J. BROW N/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

N 2012, PRESIDENT BARACK Obama said in an ABC interview, “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” A White House statement added detail: “It’s no secret the President has gone through some soul-searching on this issue. … He’s sat around his kitchen table with Sasha and Malia, who have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. … ‘And frankly,’ [Obama said,] ‘that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change of perspective.’”

Evan Wolfson, founder of national gay rights organization Freedom to Marry, lauded the statement. He had helped the White House craft it using research-tested elements: “We were thrilled that President Obama came out in support of marriage for same-sex couples using the love and commitment and journey framework that was proving so effective elsewhere.” Not talk about rights. Focusgroup-tested talk about love. Love sells.

It’s hard to remember now, a year after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision declared a right to marry in all 50 states, how unlikely that result seemed just a decade ago. Gay marriage proponents had suffered one defeat after another at the ballot box. But activist groups and foundations turned things around with a strategic plan, a state-by-state strategy, and money—$153 million, they claim. Here’s the story of how that happened and what’s likely to happen next.

T

HE SUCCESS STORY BEGINS 16 years ago when the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, established with the Levi

Strauss fortune and eager to push for LGBT acceptance, approached Lambda Legal attorney Evan Wolfson for advice on where the foundation should concentrate its giving.

For Wolfson the answer was simple: marriage.

The gay, Yale-educated, Harvard-trained attorney had been on the forefront of gay rights legal battles ever since he wrote his 1983 Harvard Law thesis— for which he earned a B—on the right to marriage.

In that year the idea of gay marriage was radical, even among allies on the left. Feminists were tearing down marriage. Gay activists channeled their energy to fighting AIDS and employment discrimination.

The 5-foot-6-inch Wolfson, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, Africa, thought differently. He believed “fighting for, let alone winning, the freedom to marry would propel equality and inclusion for gay people in ways nothing else could.” He had grown up with Democratic Jewish parents in Pittsburgh. He had so much self-confidence that he had invited President Richard Nixon to his bar mitzvah, despite his parents’ ­disapproval. (Nixon didn’t come, but he did send a note.) Wolfson was a practicing homosexual in Togo. If there’s a movie made of the marriage fight, an actor like Danny DeVito should play him.

After law school Wolfson moonlighted on gay rights cases and eventually worked full time with Lambda Legal. He acted as co-counsel in a challenge to Hawaii’s marriage law, defended a dismissed gay Boy Scouts leader, and challenged Vermont’s marriage law. By the time the Haas, Jr. Fund came calling, Wolfson had experienced both victories and defeats—and he convinced the

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 37

NUCLEAR MESSAGING Perhaps the LGBT campaign sounds familiar. Earlier this year President Obama’s deputy national security ­adviser Ben Rhodes bragged about how the Obama administration sold the Iran deal to a wary American public. The Ploughshares Fund gave grants to journalists, experts, and influencers to amplify the administration’s message in favor of

Wolfson at the Freedom to Marry office in New York

I

N A 2003 RULING, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court gave gay people the right to marry, and proponents of traditional marriage responded. By November 2004, 11 states had enacted gay marriage bans. The next year, nine more did. Public opinion was roundly against gay marriage, but that did not deter Wolfson and other gay rights activists.

Money made determination easier.

Funders with deep pockets stepped up to form the Civil Marriage Collaborative (CMC). Eight foundations and an anonymous donor agreed to coordinate efforts to win marriage in all 50 states. They promised the resources to get it done— and they came through.

CMC funder philanthropist Tim Gill, founder of desktop publishing software Quark, had established the Gill Foundation to fight for gay rights causes. A 2004 Denver Post profile portrayed the wealthy Gill as obsessed with politics and extreme sports. He spent more than $67 million on gay rights causes during the foundation’s first 10 years, and chased snowboarding, paragliding, and mountain climbing thrills.

The Haas, Jr. Fund support of Evan Wolfson was crucial: “We knew if they, as a non-gay foundation stepped up, they would get other non-gay support.” But foundation support failed to translate into electoral victory.

Freedom to Marry acknowledged that “by 2009 the marriage movement had lost every one of 30 statewide ballot campaigns.” Those losses included setbacks in Maine and California, both states LGBT activists expected to win.

If activists had lacked a commitment to marriage as the end goal, perhaps the movement would have changed course. But activists and funders knew that winning on marriage would convey “intangible and irreplaceable security and respect,” as a CMC brochure put it. Winning would break down every other

38 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

­ arrier to full LGBT acceptance: “No single instib tution reaches so deeply into our national psyche, or so broadly across so many different areas of our lives as does marriage.”

As the movement went back to the drawing board, the CMC and other funders made sure resources were available for in-depth research, focus groups, and ad testing. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the movement had an “aha” moment. The research showed the key message had to change from rights and benefits to love and commitment. Love wins.

Focus groups, long interviews, and trial messaging proved that “journey” stories—showing how someone’s opinion changed—resonated with conflicted voters. The best messengers: straight parents and grandparents of gay people who had long, happy marriages and wanted something like the same for their LGBT kids and grandkids.

Wolfson’s Freedom to Marry group became a laboratory and clearinghouse for messages, ­materials, and media training. Its “Why Marriage Matters” campaign offered “state-of-the-art research findings, personal stories, and readymade tools like videos, graphics, speakers bureaus and house party kits to reshape the national conversation on marriage.”

Then in 2012 Freedom to Marry, “working closely with” the White House, gained “a Messenger-in-Chief”: President Obama. Its ­field-tested message became Obama’s: “In a single day, the President modeled the journey for all Americans, and gave permission to those who were most conflicted to join in support.” The change in messaging to “love” worked. In 2012, LGBT activists won at the ballot box for the first time as three states voted for marriage and Minnesota rejected a gay marriage ban.

WOLFSON: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • RHODES: PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP

the Iran deal. Example: Ploughshares gave $100,000 to NPR for “national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran’s nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security.”

In its 2015 annual report, Ploughshares explained how “proactive media work by Ploughshares Fund grantees, partners and allies helped amplify support” by generating 811 opeds, 352 letters to the editor, and 227 editorials designed to reach crucial subgroups, including evangelicals. —S.O.

foundation to give him $2.5 million to start a new organization, Freedom to Marry. By most accounts, Wolfson and Freedom to Marry led the fight that resulted in the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision.

BERNAYS: PAM BERRY/THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES • WHITE HOUSE: PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP

Last year, touting the campaign’s success, Freedom to Marry called itself “a story-telling machine,” successful in pitching emotional stories to receptive reporters. Using well-placed advocates, willing members of the press, and “earned media”—news and feature stories by allied reporters, rather than ads—Freedom to Marry created a “national drumbeat for decision-makers throughout the country, including the Supreme Court.”

Here’s one example: Freedom to Marry ­created a pro-same-sex-marriage ad featuring former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson. It made only a small media buy in D.C., Wyoming, and other 10th Circuit states (where LGBT legal groups planned to file a case). It watched as cable stations and media outlets amplified the message at no cost to Freedom to Marry. Influential and sympathetic reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, NPR, and CNN attended Freedom to Marry briefings and ­transmitted the message.

After the Supreme Court victory, both the Civil Marriage Collaborative and Freedom to Marry published self-laudatory case studies. The Foundation Center’s “Glasspockets” column summed up the lessons this way: “Through the work of the Civil Marriage Collaborative, philanthropy learned that when it works collectively and engages in storytelling about its beneficiaries, it can accelerate the pace of change. … Key to this was a willingness to invest in media campaigns … and then to humanize the case by showcasing ­stories featuring the voices of parents and grandparents of gay children as part of the effort.”

W

HO WILL TELL THE COMPELLING stories that win hearts and minds going forward? Some on the same-sex marriage side have shifted their attention and money to fight against religious ­liberty. In March 2015, reporters and activists gathered at a Haas, Jr. Fund–supported media gathering in Philadelphia to hear speakers lay out an agenda for attacking ­religious freedom bills.

The Gill, Overbrook, Ford, and Arcus foundations are now funding groups like the ACLU and the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) to develop the most potent anti-religious-liberty messages.

MAP has already published a guide for talking about what it calls ­“religious exemption laws.”

Matthew Vines’ Reformation Project received $100,000 from the Gill Foundation in 2014 to weaken Christian resolve at its theological

 solasky@wng.org  @susanolasky

PULLING THE WIRES The LGBT campaign to damage the nuclear family and the pro-Iran ­campaign that will end up spreading nuclear weapons have a common ancestor: Edward Bernays (1891-1995), nephew of Sigmund Freud and founder as a young man of modern public relations.

Bernays was 93 when I interviewed him in 1984 at his house near Harvard, with walls decorated by photos of famous clients ranging from Eleanor Roosevelt to tobacco industry executives. (Bernays convinced women to embrace smoking as an expression of their liberation.)

Bernays maintained in the 1990s what he had declared in the 1920s: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.

Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

An atheist, Bernays proudly considered himself one of “the ­relatively small number of persons … who understand the mental ­processes and social patterns of the masses.” He was proud to “pull the wires which control the public mind” so that “vast numbers of human beings … live together as a smoothly functioning society.”

—Marvin Olasky

roots. The Arcus Foundation gave $120,000 to the Religion Newswriters Foundation “to recruit and equip LGBT supportive leaders and advocates to counter rejection and antagonism within traditionally conservative Christian churches.”

Gay activist Marc Solomon describes the LGBT movement’s newfound confidence: “Our community is one that people don’t want to mess with because we know how to organize politically and we don’t take no for an answer.” A

Same-sex marriage supporters hold up balloons that spell “love wins” in front of the White House on June 26, 2015, the day of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision.

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 39

F E AT U R E S

ACTIVISTS AT BOTH POLITICAL CONVENTIONS DISPLAY THE

CHALLENGES DONALD TRUMP AND HILLARY CLINTON FACE

BY JAMIE DEAN IN CLEVELAND & PHILADELPHIA

Virginia delegates call for a roll call vote on first day of the Republican National Convention (left); a Bernie Sanders supporter stands in silent protest on the first day of the Democratic National Convention.

LEFT: TOM WILLIAMS/CQ ROLL CALL/AP • RIGHT: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 41

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BUSTLING

Public Square in downtown Cleveland, James Lefeber wore a camouflage hat with the slogan “Make America Great Again” and a visible leg holster with a 9 mm handgun. A friend stood nearby with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

The pair drew attention.

Both men have permits to carry guns in Ohio, and their actions weren’t illegal, even if they carried openly in a crowd of hundreds a half-mile away from the site of the Republican National Convention.

But talk to Lefeber, and he’s more interested in discussing the dangers of raising the minimum wage than the importance of protecting gun ownership. “My parents told me that if I worked hard and got a job I would have what I need,” he says.

“But I’m paycheck to paycheck.” Lefeber, 33, has never voted. This fall, the maintenance worker plans to vote for GOP nominee Donald Trump.

Most of the crowd flooded the opposite end of the park, booing five men spewing offensive insults. (One man’s sign read: “Allah is Satan.”)

Another man passed by riding a bicycle in a ­hotdog suit, while a cheerful woman in a redwhite-and-blue-sequenced dance costume hoisted an anti-Trump sign: “Make America Hate Again.”

If it sounds like a three-ring circus, it’s one of two that come to select towns every four years.

The presidential nominating conventions for both parties unfolded over two weeks in Cleveland and Philadelphia in late July, and the off-camera moments offered glimpses into the months ahead before the general election.

A major takeaway: Each side believes it has a vital cause, and each side knows it has a vexing candidate. Navigating those waters poses huge challenges for parties with plenty of members still unwilling to get on either boat.

THE AIR-CONDITIONED DINING ROOM

42 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

videos showing Planned Parenthood’s trade of aborted baby parts—perhaps one of the most ­galvanizing pro-life developments in years.

So why the dampened mood?

Dannenfelser’s opening remarks offered a hint at the tension: “We have a pro-life candidate who has selected a great man in Mike Pence.”

It was the first of many references to Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, and the first of many moments when speakers at the podium avoided using Trump’s name.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council acknowledged the Trump tension: “We may not be exactly sure what kind of president he will be, but you can be darn sure he’ll be a better president than the alternative.”

It seemed like the heart of the dilemma for many pro-life activists devoting real hours to a real effort that could affect real unborn children: How do they balance their vital cause with a ­vexing candidate?

FRANCISCO TRUJILLO/NOTIMEX/NEWSCOM

of the Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse offered a ­welcome respite from the hot streets of downtown Cleveland midway through the Republican National Convention.

Glasses clinked and plates brimmed with catered food, but this pro-life celebration was a subdued affair: The crowd clapped politely, and the enthusiasm often seemed tepid.

It wasn’t the cause itself: Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List rehearsed a string of legislative victories in states across the country, and she hailed what she called the most pro-life GOP platform ever.

Another speaker, David Daleiden of The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) talked about his extraordinary year releasing a series of devastating

Lefeber openly carries his rifle in Public Square two blocks from the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.

DANNENFELSER: DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES • UNRUH: MICHAEL REAVES/THE DENVER POST VIA GETTY IMAGES • DALEIDEN: BOB LEVEY/AP

Near the back of the room, Daleiden lingered in his trademark trim suit and skinny tie. He won’t endorse a candidate, but he does warn about the Democratic choice: “We know very clearly that Hillary Clinton is the most pro-Planned Parenthood, proabortion candidate that we’ve ever seen.”

He underscores how the pendulum could swing if the White House changes hands: “There’s only one thing standing between Planned Parenthood and total defunding right now. And that’s the veto of President Obama.”

For Daleiden, this isn’t armchair politics.

The activist spent nearly three years investigating Planned Parenthood and assembling the CMP videos that created a firestorm.

He’s spent the last year facing a federal lawsuit from the abortion behemoth and fighting criminal charges in a Texas court related to the videos. (A Texas judge dismissed all charges against Daleiden in late July.)

It’s hard for him to contemplate the movement losing ground: “I think the future of how we treat unborn children and the future of Planned Parenthood as the biggest killer of unborn children—all of that is on the line in this election.”

Dannenfelser agrees. During the primary season, she signed a letter with other pro-life women, urging voters to “support anyone but Donald Trump,” and calling his treatment of women disgusting.

Now that Trump’s the nominee, Dannenfelser says pro-life voters should back him. She says his pledges on Supreme Court nominations helped, and his pick of the pro-life Mike Pence solidified her support. Still, she knows it’s a hard choice for others.

“But I think it presumes upon the future to think that we can disengage now,” she said after the event. “I think it assumes that future generations will somehow bring the [Supreme] Court back in ways that we can’t possibly know. … We have to do the best we can do. … I think that’s where we are.”

That’s not where everyone is at the moment.

From an aging office building in downtown Cleveland, Kendal Unruh mounted an effort to unbind delegates at the convention and offer the opportunity to choose a nominee other than Trump.

The Colorado delegate teaches highschool civics at Jim Elliot Christian School in Englewood, and said she knew months ago she couldn’t support Trump if he became the party’s nominee.

Unruh says Trump’s positions aren’t conservative, but her tipping point came when

Dannenfelser, Unruh, and Daleiden (from top)

the nominee publicly mocked a reporter with a physical disability.

Unruh’s 6-year-old autistic son died of a heart defect in 1998, and she saw Trump’s insult as an assault on the dignity of life: “It wasn’t just a juvenile tactic to me.”

She worked with another group seeking to unbind delegates, but the effort suffered defeat in a rules committee meeting where Trump staffers and Republican Party officials squashed the momentum.

Unruh noted the irony: The Republican establishment Trump once derided helped him silence outside dissent.

Another opportunity at a series of rules changes came to the convention floor on Monday afternoon, but the moderator ruled a voice vote went against those seeking changes. The voice vote wasn’t clear, but when the moderator returned to the floor, he announced that a handful of states that had joined the petition for changes suddenly had withdrawn.

Gary Emineth, a Trump finance committee member, resigned his position over the episode.

Though he’s a Trump supporter, Emineth said he stepped down “in protest of the bullying tactics employed by the RNC to silence the voice of delegates.”

Drama continued later in the week, as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, refused to endorse Trump during a prime-time speech. Instead, he asked Americans to “vote your conscience.” The remark brought a hailstorm of boos from the New York delegation, though others in the arena cheered.

The mini-melee revealed divisions already apparent in the party, and it wasn’t clear Trump’s acceptance speech on Thursday night eased concerns: The system is broken, he said, “and I alone can fix it.”

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 43

NEARLY 500 MILES EAST, ANOTHER

group of activists discussed strategy of their own.

Members of the gay activist group Equality Forum met in Philadelphia to overlap with the Democratic National Convention. The mood inside the National Museum of American Jewish History was celebratory.

Attendees lined up to meet James Obergefell, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court decision that forced states to recognize gay marriage. Inside the museum across the street from Independence Hall, panels of activists, attorneys, and politicians made their own declaration: Gay rights trump religious freedom.

There’s no room for even a narrow conscience clause if a Christian merchant asks not to participate in a gay wedding. Gautam Raghavan of the advocacy group Gill Foundation put it plainly: “I want to be careful that we don’t say there is a kind of balance between equality and religious freedom.”

Indeed, the panelists spoke about many other fronts: transgender bathroom laws, taking Title IX funding from religious schools that cite exemptions, bringing gay sex education into ­public schools, and banning so-called “conversion therapy”—a broad prohibition that could ensnare state-licensed Christian counselors helping young persons with unwanted same-sex attractions.

ALBIN LOHR-JONES/SIPA VIA AP

44 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

Demonstrators carry a coffin decorated with a “dead” Democratic mascot in Philadelphia on the second day of the Democratic National Convention.

Many of the activists seemed confident Clinton would advance their goals as president, noting she did such work as secretary of state. But Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump didn’t provide much comfort for the other side.

While he promised to appoint conservative Supreme Court justices, Trump hasn’t acknowledged the serious concerns of evangelical merchants and some religious groups who say a legal requirement to participate in gay weddings or provide abortifacient or birth control drugs ­violates their consciences.

Instead, Trump spoke of easing federal laws so that churches with tax-exempt status could formally endorse candidates—a proposal that doesn’t address the true threats to religious liberty.

Meanwhile, Democrats grappled with divisions of their own: As news broke that hacked emails showed the Democratic Party had apparently worked against Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his primary bid against Clinton, supporters of the socialist senator filled the streets and demanded some form of justice.

Their angst was deep, and many told me they wouldn’t vote for either Clinton or Trump. Scott Bennett, a casino dealer from Las Vegas, flew to Philadelphia to march and support Sanders. He brought a backpack, a hat, and a tent for a week in scorching temperatures.

Bennett fought back tears as he talked about Sanders’ loss. “He’s an actual honest politician,” he said. “It seems like we’re always choosing between the lesser of two evils.”

Even some supporters of Clinton acknowledged that her own email scandal and her reckless mishandling of classified information present a challenge in convincing voters she’s trustworthy.

While Democrats met in the massive Wells Fargo Center, activists of all stripes found a temporary home at Arch Street United Methodist Church across the street from City Hall.

The Gothic cathedral has become a hub for gay rights and left-wing demonstrators over the years. This week, it became headquarters for demonstrators angry at the Democratic Party, angry at police, angry at the political system, or angry about having any kind of formal ­system at all.

Shannon Gittens, a Long Island resident, identified herself as an ­anarchist, and described her ideal system: “I think some combination of anarchy and socialism would work

Though they want to define those terms for themselves, and they often come to deeply unbiblical conclusions, it was striking to see many grasping for meaning in a church that presumably once preached a gospel ­message of identity in Christ and community in the church.

These days a church bulletin board quotes the verse from Genesis that says God made man “in his own image.” And then it asks, “What do you like most about yourself?”

ARCH STREET UNITED METHODIST: CHRISTOPHER OCCHICONE/ ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM • ROCK MINISTRIES: HANDOUT

LESS THAN 5 MILES NORTH,

best.” She admitted she wasn’t sure how those opposite ideas would work together.

In the church basement, scattered air mattresses and crumpled sleeping bags littered the floor where protesters bedded down with small piles of belongings. In a nearby kitchen, women made meals. A handmade sign in one section advertised the “anarchy corner.”

Upstairs in the church’s 150-year-old sanctuary, members of a group called Democracy Spring practiced techniques for binding themselves together during sit-ins and other protests designed to invite arrest.

On the platform near the front of the sanctuary, the pulpit was hidden behind a blown-up poster of a Time magazine cover with the person of the year: The Protester.

Many of the sometimes-disparate activists seemed to have at least one thing in common: a longing for identity and community.

 jdean@wng.org  @deanworldmag

Inside Arch Street United Methodist Church, Democracy Spring activists practice how to bind themselves together during sit-ins (top); Osborn shows boys how to box at a Rock Ministries neighborhood event (bottom).

the reality of lawless lives is on display.

On Kensington Avenue, Philly’s toughest neighborhood, men and women line the streets zombielike, visibly high on drugs. A young man rides a bicycle down the road, calling out drugs for sale: “Xanax, Xanax,” he says. Trash litters the streets, heroin deals abound, and prostitutes stand on corners. A storefront on the main drag advertises “XXX.” Convention attendees wouldn’t see these spots, but Buddy Osborn sees them every day.

Osborn grew up in the neighborhood, became a middleweight boxing champion, but eventually spent eight years in jail. He became a Christian and now serves on these streets through Rock Ministries, where he teaches kids how to box and how to follow Christ. (The ministry is also home to a church for dozens from the neighborhood.)

Two doors down, the ministry has rehabbed a former crack house into a home for women who are drug addicts. A similar home will soon open for homeless young men. On a walk through the neighborhood, Osborn sees potential everywhere: “This could be beautiful!” he says about dilapidated buildings.

On the first floor of the women’s home, the ministry has opened a coffee shop with hardwood floors and comfortable chairs. On Tuesday nights, only women are allowed. The space sometimes fills up with prostitutes, who can find Christian kindness and refuge from terrible realities, even if it’s just for a little while.

Osborn doesn’t talk much about political solutions, even during the convention week—a good reminder that while politics are important, they aren’t ultimate. He says until hearts change, lives stay the same. And he says that kind of work lasts more than a week: “I think when people march—you don’t march for a day. You march for 365 days. Without the cameras. You march because you’re convicted and you believe in something and you love people.

You want to be like Christ.” A

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 45

F E AT U R E S

Witness to

persecutıon A new book by Chinese Christian GAO ZHISHENG details his treatment at the hands of authorities and his hopes for a new China

by JUNE CHENG in Taiwan

46 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

Gao Zhisheng walks past photos of his relatives in a home in northwestern China’s Shaanxi province where he is being held under house arrest.

PAUL TRAYNOR/AP

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 47

OR MORE THAN A DECADE, human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng paid the price for shining light on the Chinese Communist Party’s injustices. Government agents kidnapped him multiple times, tortured him with electric shock batons, and beat him until they lost their breath. They placed him in solitary confinement for three years and taunted him: The world has forgotten you and your family thinks you’re dead.

Gao became China’s No. 2 target (after Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo) for his work as a lawyer defending house churches, the banned religious sect Falun Gong, and property owners harassed by government officials. His public opposition to the “inhumane, unjust, and evil” CCP led to his detentions, first in black prisons at undisclosed locations, and then at Shaya Prison in Xinjiang. Gao says prison guards took great pains to ensure he could not hear or see anything at the official prison, afraid he would expose more abuses.

Details of the Nobel Peace Prize nominee’s ordeal emerged in his newly published book, Unwavering Convictions: Gao Zhisheng’s Ten-Year Torture and Faith in China’s Future, which Gao wrote in secret while under house arrest in an isolated village in Shaanxi province in northwestern China. The Chinese ­manuscript, smuggled out of the country and published in Taiwan this June, has three parts: a memoir, an explanation of his vision that the CCP will fall in 2017, and suggestions on how to rebuild a democratic China based on rule of law. An English translation of the memoir portion of the book will be released in the next couple of months.

In 2012, WORLD named Gao and other persecuted Christians in China as 48 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

Daniels of the Year for their courage fighting for freedom in China. Today Gao no longer lives inside a dank cell, but he’s still confined to his elder ­brother’s house and yard in Shaanxi.

Authorities won’t let him visit a dentist to treat his teeth, which are loose and falling out due to years of beatings and malnutrition. He hasn’t seen his wife and two children in seven years. Yet when given the option to move to America, where his family now lives, Gao refused and said he needed to stay in China to expose the truth about the Chinese government.

In the memoir, Gao details what he endured during his detentions. An ­electric cow prod touched his chin and a sound like “the howling of a dog when its master steps on its tail” emerged from his lips. Prison guards forced him to sit perfectly still on a stool for 15 hours a day and repeatedly blared ­propaganda through a loudspeaker in his cell. Yet, his Christian faith kept him going through it all, giving him the strength to stand up to government ­officials, regardless of how long and hard they tried to break him.

“If your only source of space and light is your eyes,” Gao writes, “your experience of these are greatly reduced [in prison]. And worst of all, others can place you in darkness. But if you have

that space and light in your heart? Those are infinite and cannot be taken.”

Chinese authorities deployed hundreds of security personnel to keep watch over Gao, and Gao’s book describes his interactions with them. During one train trip, two guards squeezed into a tiny train bathroom with him as he urinated, directing him as his legs were shackled, arms cuffed, and head hooded: “Certainly it was unimaginable that this modest biological function required the mobilization of so much state power.”

But he also describes the humanity of some of the guards, who took great risks to pass him hot water or treats on holidays. He notes that every young member of the People’s Armed Police he conversed with asked him what really ­happened during the Tiananmen Square student protests on June 4, 1989. They knew what their teachers had told them was incomplete.

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HAT TORMENTED GAO MOST, he wrote, was the persecution of his family. Often relatives didn’t know whether he was dead or alive, and authorities harassed and followed his family members. His 23-year-old daughter, Grace Geng, told me that in middle school, seven security officers escorted her to school each day, watching her as she went to class and even when she used the restroom. Classmates shied away from her as the officers beat her in their presence and threatened to arrest the parents of any student who spoke to her. She became depressed and attempted suicide.

After Geng graduated middle school, authorities refused to let her enroll in high school. So in 2009, Geng, her mother, and her little brother decided to flee: Gao created a diversion, and his family snuck out of sight of their handlers, boarded a train to Thailand, then flew to safety in the United States with the help of the Texas-based group China Aid. Geng now attends college in California and—because of her past experience—doesn’t tell her friends who

c­ oncerned—his teeth are missing, and he’s still eating liquid food even two years [after leaving prison]. We want him to have a physical checkup.”

When Geng first read her father’s book, she said it was “really painful; I didn’t want to accept that my father has been through those things.” But after that, she felt proud of her father: “I think he’s a really brave man. He has a big heart for China and for Chinese people.” Geng said that while she and her mother are not believers, her younger brother has professed faith in Christ and credits their father’s impact in his life.

In June, Geng flew to Hong Kong to promote her father’s book. Tears slid down her face as her plane touched down, she said, as this was the closest she had come to her father in seven years, yet he was still unreachable. Hong Kong publishers and bookstore owners refused to touch Gao’s book, fearful of mainland authorities who in recent months have detained booksellers. Next Geng visited Taiwan, where the book was published, and reunited with at least one thing she had missed since leaving China: numbingly spicy Sichuan mala hot pot.

Although Geng accepts that her father wants to stay in China, she longs for the day he is able to live and move freely like any ordinary Chinese citizen.

She urges President Barack Obama and other international leaders to speak up on his behalf: “Every country wants to do business with China right now, [but] I think this is the wrong thing to do. If very powerful countries like the United States are doing this, then other countries will think that this is right and they will ignore the importance of basic human rights.”

Gao also noted in his book the tangible results of international pressure: “The unstinting attention of the foreign media is a crucial reason why China’s dark powers have not dared to persecute me to death.” A

SAM YEH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Grace Geng presents her father’s book at a press conference in Taipei in June.

her father is or what she went through.

“I always have trust issues with people that I just met,” she said. “I don’t know what their purpose is to get to know me.”

It’s now been seven years since Geng and her family have seen Gao. Talking to her father on the phone requires deft coordination: Geng first calls her uncle, and if her father happens to be around, she can speak with him when the guards aren’t watching. When she last spoke with him a month and a half ago, his spirits seemed high: “Mentally he is very happy because he is fulfilled in God,” Geng said. “Physically, my family is

‘He is very happy because he is fulfilled in God.’ —Gao’s daughter, Grace Geng

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 49

F E AT U R E S

Pastors

Despite their diverse theological leanings, evangelicals are wielding an Olympic-size impact on Brazilian politics

and políticos

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If Edir Macedo wants to beat Brazilian traffic on the way to a preaching gig, the celebrity bishop can swoop over the sprawling slums of São Paulo in a private helicopter and touch down on a waiting helipad atop a $300 million replica of Solomon’s Temple built by his own denomination.

Welcome to a Sunday in Brazil.

While economic peril and political upheaval bear down on Brazil during the 2016 Summer Olympics, things look financially prosperous for leaders in the “Universal Church of the Kingdom of God”—a Pentecostal movement founded by Macedo in 1977.

Macedo—once dubbed “the billionaire bishop”— started the church in a former funeral parlor in Rio de Janeiro, the colossal seaside city hosting this year’s Olympics. Four decades later, Macedo has franchised his prosperity-gospel message into hundreds of affiliated groups around the world and owns the second-largest television station in Brazil.

In 2014, Macedo christened the oversized replica of Solomon’s Temple—a massive structure that includes a 10,000-seat auditorium and stands at least twice as tall as the biblical version. Brazilian media reported the temple’s final plans included a conveyor belt to whisk donations from the altar to a secure room.

Contrast that with a small Presbyterian church in the capital city of Brasília, where Breno Macedo (no relation to the bishop) serves as associate pas-

by JAMIE DEAN

tor. Here, you won’t find flashing lights, and you won’t hear about exorcisms or promises of financial prosperity in exchange for donations.

Most Sundays at the small church include a simple service of hymns, prayers, preaching, and sacraments. It’s a stark contrast to the far more charismatic model in many other congregations, but Breno Macedo says steady church growth has come from Brazilians eager to hear sound teaching rooted in biblical doctrine.

The growth of both churches is part of a Protestant wave sweeping across the most populous—and still predominantly Catholic—nation in South America.

Beyond numerical increases, Brazil’s Protestants—including evangelicals—are experiencing success on another front as well: They’re wielding considerable influence on Brazil’s unwieldy political process.

When the country’s legislators voted to impeach President Dilma Rousseff in May, members of a group of some 94 evangelical lawmakers known as “the Bible bloc” helped lead the effort. Rousseff, a leader in the socialist-infused Workers’ Party, faces an impeachment trial in August on charges she covered up budget shortfalls The replica of in her last reelection bid.

Solomon’s Temple Scores of other corrupin São Paulo, Brazil tion scandals have plagued MIGUEL SCHINCARIOL/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES other prominent Brazilian

August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 51

lawmakers, and nearly a million Brazilians marched in the streets this spring to call for Rousseff’s impeachment. The ­carnival-like atmosphere included a huge parade-style balloon of Rousseff wearing a mask and a sash emblazoned with the word “Impeachment.”

Indeed, as Republicans and Democrats in the United States hold their political contests during one of the most turbulent election seasons in recent history, a remarkable moment is unfolding in the America to the south.

Brazilians suffering under the strain of rampant government corruption and deepening economic woes are pushing back against nearly 14 years of socialist-leaning ideology to demand a more accountable system. And evangelicals— from Pentecostals to Presbyterians—are a significant part of the push.

How these Brazilian Christians of varied theological stripes view each other and their role in politics offers the drama of an Olympic sprint. But for those at the starting line, the realities of long-term political and spiritual reform may require the endurance of a far more grueling marathon.

as Pentecostalism grew under the influence of U.S. televangelists like Pat Robertson and Oral Roberts in the 1980s, some church leaders called for Christians to engage in political p ­ ursuits as well.

Today, some 94 legislators, including multiple pastors, constitute an evangelical voting bloc that consistently opposes ­measures to expand abortion (it’s still illegal in most cases) and gay marriage (it’s legal, but under appeal at Brazil’s Supreme Court). Pastors routinely speak about politics from the pulpit.

Some have compared the burgeoning movement to the “Moral Majority” launched by the late Jerry Falwell Sr. in the United States when evangelical involvement in politics boomed

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52 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

The March for in the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed, at least a Jesus in Rio de handful of current Brazilian pastors Janeiro, Brazil attended Liberty University, the school Falwell founded in Lynchburg, Va. While some comparisons are valid, they come with notable differences: Brazilian evangelicals aren’t tied to a single party (they belong to several), and while they often back particular candidates, they tend to focus on what they can accomplish in opposing presidential or judicial decrees.

Still, some of the potential pitfalls remain, including the dangers of power in a government rife with corruption. Eduardo Cunha, the leading evangelical lawmaker pushing for the ­president’s impeachment this spring, faces charges he pocketed millions of dollars from Brazil’s state-run oil company. Cunha denies the charges, but the Supreme Court ordered him to leave his post as speaker of the lower house of Congress while the case proceeds.

At least one evangelical who’s not a politician has vowed to continue pursuing the battle against corruption. Deltan Dallagnol is an evangelical who launched the criminal investigation that has sunk a slew of politicians over the last two years.

The saga began when the prosecutor launched an investigation of a money-laundering scheme at the state-owned oil ­company and later expanded it to include more than 70 political leaders and corporate giants accused of bribery, misuse of ­public funds, and tax evasion. “We have an environment that is ­corrupt,” he told The Guardian. “It’s endemic. It has spread like a metastasis of cancer, so this case could take us anywhere.”

As politicians wait to see where such investigations take them, Christians across the spectrum are pondering their place

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or an idea of the cultural and political stew brewing in Brazil, visit the teeming city of São Paulo in May. If Rio de Janeiro is the famed destination for a decadent carnival celebrating Mardi Gras each spring, São Paulo is the epicenter for one of the world’s largest gay pride festivals celebrating homosexuality each May. This year, the city streets overflowed with as many as 2 ­million revelers. Some carried signs calling for the country’s Congress to pass a gender identity law favoring transgender ­citizens. Others hoisted Bibles to protest evangelical congressmen opposed to gay marriage.

Days earlier, the same streets brimmed with an estimated 350,000 evangelical Christians walking in a massive “March for Jesus.” The annual event draws celebrity pastors, singers, and merchants galore, but its size also signals the growing influence of evangelicals in a country with both Catholic predominance and left-wing pressures.

In 2013, Pew Research Center reported that since 1970 the percentage of Catholics in Brazil had fallen from 92 percent of the population to 65 percent. The portion identifying as Protestant had grown from 5 percent to 22 percent.

What accounts for the huge shift? Part of the answer is explosive expansion in the Assemblies of God in the 1980s. Operation World says the Pentecostal denomination is the largest evangelical group in Brazil, with more than 15 million members reported by church leaders. “Billionaire bishop” Macedo’s denomination comes next, with more than 3.5 million members in Brazil alone.

The Pentecostal movement in Brazil is as varied as it is large: Some churches are conservative in theology. Some are liberal.

Many embrace a form of health-and-wealth gospel that teaches God will give financial prosperity to members who give enough money and have enough faith.

The teaching has had remarkable success in a nation with a 20 percent poverty rate and with thousands of citizens packed into dense slums with narrow roads and houses stacked onto craggy hillsides.

For years, many churches in Brazil taught that Christians should focus on spiritual tasks and remain quiet on politics. But

in politics: What do Brazil’s minority of non-Pentecostal Protestants think about the church and politics, and how do Christians with major theological differences work together?

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reno Macedo, the Presbyterian pastor in Brasília, is ­helping his flock engage politics by educating them. A graduate of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in South Carolina, Macedo says he’s led studies of works such as Wayne Grudem’s writings on a biblical view of politics.

While some church members still think Christians should stay quiet about political matters, Macedo says it’s critical to teach biblical principles in a culture still saturated with Marxist ideas.

“We teach our young people that you can’t wear your Christian hat on the Lord’s Day and your secular hat at the university,” he says. “We’re trying to teach them how to think biblically.”

What about some of the evangelical legislators pressing ­conservative ideas in government but promoting problematic theology in church? Macedo says he can separate the two. He doesn’t agree with pastors using religious leverage to obtain a political position, he says: “But it’s exactly those guys that are a stone in the shoe of the Marxists.”

These days, Marxists in Brazil have more of a boulder than a stone in their shoe.

The Workers’ Party with its Marxist-influenced ideas is limping badly following the impeachment proceedings against Rousseff and a raft of corruption investigations against party officials. The economy is limping too. After 14 years of the ­party’s rule, the country is experiencing a deep recession and a jobless rate above 10 percent.

Much of the economic woes come from government-owned industries and massive entitlements. Edwin Gutierrez, a fund manager, told The Wall Street Journal that 90 percent of Brazil’s budget is entitlement spending. Those entitlements have been popular among many of Brazil’s poor, but the system is cracking under its own weight, and corruption charges against officials threaten to bust the breach wide open.

The public’s dissatisfaction spilled out into a repudiation of Rousseff’s government this spring. What will replace it isn’t clear (her vice president is acting as president until her trial is

over), but similar dissatisfactions have appeared among some churchgoers, as faulty theology failed to deliver easy prosperity.

Franklin Ferreira is a founder and professor at Martin Bucer Seminary in Brazil and pastor of a Reformed Baptist church. In a Skype interview from his office in São José dos Campos, Ferreira said the liberation theology movement of the 1970s and 1980s first promised freedom from poverty through political change.

When it didn’t deliver, many poor people turned to the prosperity gospel, which offered financial wealth through giving.

“The prosperity gospel, with all its serious problems, offered a God bigger than the god of liberation theology,” he says. “A God that is powerful enough to intervene in their situation and give them what they want.”

But when that kind of automatic formula inevitably fails, Ferreira says, some Brazilians turn to deeper biblical teaching.

Ferreira’s teaching in the church focuses on a different kind of prosperity: the spiritual prosperity that comes from years of biblical discipleship in all areas of life—church, family, work, and government.

At the seminary, Ferreira’s teaching includes a Christian view of politics. He quotes from authors like Samuel Rutherford, Francis Schaeffer, and Abraham Kuyper. He recently wrote a book called Against the Idolatry of the State and warns against the idea of government as a savior.

He says the work has been a success, though not with everyone: “People from the left wing—they hate my book.”

Tiago Santos, his colleague at the seminary and editor at the evangelical publishing house Fiel, says he’s encouraged by evangelicals in Congress resisting a leftist agenda, but he’s also careful to repudiate their sometimes problematic theology in the church: “The fact is, we’re fighting a battle on two fronts.”

The ongoing exposé of Brazilian government corruption suggests at least a temporary victory on the political front. But like some of the Olympic contests in Rio, these battles in politics and church call for long-term endurance. It’s the kind of work, says Breno Macedo, that could last a lifetime: “Either we need to see a revival, or it will take a hundred years.” A

STATE OF CHAOS

Just north of Brazil, another remarkable moment is unfolding in another South American nation, but this one is fraught with suffering and sorrow: Venezuela teeters on the brink of collapse three years after its infamous Socialist president, Hugo Chávez, died while in power.

Sliding oil prices and years of massive government mismanagement have plunged the nation into economic calamity, with inflation soaring to 180 percent—the world’s highest rate. That means long lines for food and basic supplies that stores can barely keep stocked. Shortages have fostered a black market with inflated prices for needy families running out of daily bread.

In mid-July, President Nicolás Maduro put armed forces in charge of the nation’s food supply, further militarizing the beleaguered nation. Many citizens are ­calling for Maduro’s ouster, but he clings to power, even as looting and violence swell. If that violence spills over into the streets, some fear dangerous clashes between hungry citizens and armed troops.

Brazilians have taken notice. Brazilian pastor Tiago Santos believes it’s one of the reasons citizens spilled into the street of his country to demand their own president’s impeachment: “They don’t want to be another Venezuela.” –J.D.

The National Guard controls crowds at a supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela.

NOTEBOOK Lifestyle / Science / Sports

Lifestyle

Running on chips

A TUMULTUOUS ECONOMY ISN’T STOPPING SMALL-BUSINESS ENTREPRENEURS IN NIGERIA

by Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria

Gertrude Basorun parked her gray Honda station wagon outside the iron gate of a singlestory factory in Abuja’s industrial region. During work hours inside the building, an employee fries plantain chips, a common snack in Nigeria. Near the entrance, three large trays hold plantain peels that dry under the hot Friday sun: They will later be made into animal feed.

Basorun, the owner of the business, has spent most

ONIZE OHIKERE

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of her day attending two separate meetings, making a trip to the market to pick up supplies, and delivering 100 packs of plantain chips to a customer traveling abroad.

The 48-year-old mother of four began her career on a very different path. With an undergraduate degree in mass communications topped with an MBA, Basorun made her way through the corporate field and eventually landed a job at a bank in Lagos state. But the bank’s financial crisis

Basorun peels and fries plantain chips in her factory.

led her to consider her own business plans.

“Even though we were still going to work, we weren’t getting paid for almost six months,” she said.

Entrepreneurship is now thriving in Nigeria, where an ongoing economic crisis is battering businesses. Unemployment remains high, and the pay at many jobs is undependable. Business cooperatives

are springing up across the country to encourage and equip people who start new businesses, like Basorun.

In her Lagos compound, Basorun built a fishpond out of wood and began to rear catfish. But in 2008 her husband got a new job that moved the family to Abuja.

Basorun couldn’t raise fish in a rented apartment, so she instead learned to make plantain chips.

In Nigeria, hawkers often sell the chips on the street, packaged in transparent August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 55

NOTEBOOK

Lifestyle

56 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

of the chips now sells for about 53 cents.

As Nigeria’s economy remains in crisis, Basorun’s business also has struggled to stay afloat. The rise in gasoline prices has affected her shipment of plantains from suppliers. She collected a loan from NNEW earlier this year, but problems persist.

“Plantain is seasonal,” she said. “Over the years we’ve still managed to do production during the

Abiola Olumodeji, another Abuja entrepreneur, always had a flair for business. She ran a makeup studio and spa eight years ago before launching her organic products brand, House of Merola, in 2012.

“I had the inspiration people will start looking for more natural … ways of skin care and treatment,” she said, sitting on a plastic chair in her store, where a single electric lantern ­illuminated a shelf of

came with challenges. She struggled to find the raw materials needed in making her products. As a NNEW member, Olumodeji attended an event publicized by the cooperative, where she met women who dealt in shea butter.

Through them, she met other suppliers.

Her business now includes 36 different body and hair care products made with coconut oil, shea butter, argan oil, and

s­ carcity period, but this year, it didn’t make sense to continue.”

She now prepares plantain chips based on orders from customers. Basorun is still working on cutting plantain shipping costs and moving into a more steady production system. But she remains optimistic and recently rolled out a new package design: “For me, that’s a major step.”

Olumodeji inside her shop, House of Merola

other natural ingredients.

Demand for her products spans the country.

Nigeria’s economy, despite its struggles, has created an opportunity for people to pursue their ­passions, Olumodeji said.

“We all can’t try to fit ourselves into a field that was not designed for us,” she said. “I don’t need to work in the oil sector to be successful.” A

hair and skin products.

Over the past few years, many Nigerians have drifted back to natural hair and skin care products. The movement began as more research emerged on the hazards of using chemical straighteners on the hair.

But for Olumodeji, breaking into a new field

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ONIZE OHIKERE

baggies. Manufacturers cut the plantains—a variety of banana—into long or round thin slices and fry them crispy. Basorun began with an electric fryer in her kitchen, using the familiar transparent baggies and stapling a label over each one. She sold a bag for about 14 cents.

In 2010, she applied for and won more than $35,000 from YouWiN!, a government-sponsored competition in which winners receive grants to execute their business ideas.

“Through that program, we built a factory and registered the company as a limited liability,” Basorun said.

Shortly after moving to Abuja, Basorun joined a business cooperative called NECA’s Network of Entrepreneurial Women (NNEW). Her membership gave her access to different entrepreneurial training sessions across the country.

Founded in 2005, NNEW assists women with the training and networking they need to grow their businesses. The organization now has more than 3,000 members across three states. It operates its own microfinance bank that offers loans to women.

“One of the problems women have is only 2 percent of women have title to land and only people with [a certificate of occupancy] are given loans,” said Ekaette Umoh, the chairperson of the organization’s Abuja chapter.

Basorun’s business has grown since then. Her ­factory operates with a fulltime employee, and demand for its plantain chips has increased. A bag

NOTEBOOK

Science

Outsourcing safety

NEW FEDERAL RULES MAY ENCOURAGE FOR-PROFIT OVERSIGHT OF HUMAN CLINICAL RESEARCH by Julie Borg Patients involved in clinical research trials generally assume someone somewhere is watching out for their safety. But who and where has become a matter of controversy.

Since the 1970s, all ­clinical research involving human subjects has needed the approval of an institutional review board (IRB), a committee responsible for ensuring that appropriate patient protections are in place. IRBs were traditionally made up of scientists and doctors working in the hospitals or universities conducting the research.

Nowadays, most IRB duties are outsourced to for-profit organizations, a trend some fear compromises the ­quality of the reviews.

A recent announcement by the National Institutes of Health is likely to boost the outsourcing trend even further: Beginning in May

CLINICAL TRIAL: DAVID MCNEW/REUTERS/NEWSCOM • MOTHER: UESLEI MARCELINO/REUTERS/NEWSCOM

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A cancer patient receives an intravenous dose of lambrolizumab during a clinical trial at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.

2017, federally funded ­clinical trials conducted at multiple research centers must begin using a single IRB. Because few research institutions have the resources to review

­ rotocols across multiple p research centers, the new ruling—meant to “streamline” the review process—is likely to force even more universities and hospitals to hire private IRBs. Outsourcing became popular over the years as the number of clinical trials exploded and institutions found their review boards stretched thin. Commercial IRBs now oversee 70 percent of U.S. clinical trials for drugs and medical devices.

Since for-profit IRBs oversee the same institutions that write their paychecks, critics say there’s an inherent conflict of interest.

But neither are nonprofit IRBs free from conflicts of interest, according to Ezekiel Emanuel, head of the medical ethics and health policy department at the University of Pennsylvania. Scientists who sit on academic boards

may have a bias toward approving the research protocols of their colleagues. And academic medical centers “get money—as well as access to new drugs and prestige— for conducting the research,” Emanuel wrote in an op-ed for the journal PLOS Medicine. Also, many academics view IRB service as an uncompensated burden, which is not conducive to careful review work, he said.

On the other hand, David Borasky, a vice president at WIRB-Copernicus Group, a popular commercial IRB, believes companies like his can provide faster evaluation of clinical trials and can better oversee multiple-site trials because of their more advanced technology. “In this day and age you don’t have to be ­sitting in the same building as somebody to have good monitoring,” he told the news website STAT. But whether profit or nonprofit, Emanuel wrote, “the crucial question is whether an IRB, regardless of its tax status, is performing at a high level of quality.”

IMMUNITY PROFICIENCY

In an age when some wish to reduce maleness and femaleness to a matter of selfidentity, science continues to reveal distinctions between the sexes. One study, ­presented recently at a microbiology meeting in Boston, supports research that ­indicates women tend to have a faster and more robust immune response than men.

In the study, an Australian researcher found that a tuberculosis vaccine given to infants suppressed an anti-inflammatory protein in girls, without the same effect in boys. According to a report in Nature, this boosted the girls’ immune response and possibly made the vaccine more effective for them than for boys.

Marcus Altfeld, a German immunologist, believes women’s stronger immune response may serve to protect developing fetuses and newborn babies.

But the phenomenon may be a doubled-edged sword: The immune system can overreact and attack the body. That may explain why more women than men develop autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and lupus, Altfeld told Nature. —J.B.

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August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 57

NOTEBOOK

Sports PITCHf/x is used to call balls and strikes in the minor league baseball game between the San Rafael Pacifics and Vallejo Admirals.

Pitch perfect

TECHNOLOGY COULD RID BASEBALL OF UMPIRES’ BAD CALLS AT HOME PLATE by Marvin Olasky

58 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

and the real question is what happens to the minority of pitches that are an inch inside or outside the strike zone. Umpires get those right only about half the time.

The use of PITCHf/x in an actual game to replace an umpire calling balls and strike is no longer an abstract, theoretical notion.

Last year a PITCHf/x ­system umpired balls and strikes in two games between California minor league teams. No glitches.

No delays. The plate umpire did not join the ranks of the unemployed, for he still had to decide on check swings, foul tips, and plays at home plate—but batters and pitchers could do their best without having to alter their play to accommodate iffy umpiring.

One argument against computerized calling of balls and strikes: Most of

those calls aren’t as crucial as safe-or-out calls at the bases and fair-or-foul calls down the line. But averages go way down when batters have to swing an inch out-

Last year a PITCHf/x system umpired balls and strikes in two games between California minor league teams. No glitches. No delays. side the strike zone to protect themselves against expansive umpiring—and home runs go way up when pitchers have to throw an inch closer to the center of the strike to protect against constrictors.

(What difference does it make? The Atlantic in 2014 analyzed the record of Marlins outfielder Giancarlo Stanton, an excellent hitter. With a count of two balls, one strike, he was batting .385.

technology now shows everyone where the ball lands, and tennis rather than temper is now the highlight of the day.

No one these days ­pretends that pen-andpaper produces more ­accurate answers to big multiplication problems than calculators do. Let’s kill not the umpires but the bad calls they sometimes make, given the limitations of the human eye and the passions of the game. A Visit WORLD Digital: wng.org

ERIC RISBERG/AP

If you have a calculator and only a few seconds to complete a problem, will you multiply 10-digit numbers by hand?

If you need to go a mile in a minute, will you hop in a car or run?

PITCHf/x, the tracking system used on TV to show whether pitches are balls or strikes, has three tracking cameras and a $10 million zone evaluation system in every major league ballpark. PITCHf/x has been around for a decade now and has proven its accuracy: Major League Baseball (MLB) now uses it to rate umpires.

Mike Port, MLB’s vice president of umpiring, acknowledges that his men in black and blue are only 95 percent accurate when calling balls and strikes.

That’s putting the best spin on it, because pitching really is a game of inches,

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With a count of one ball, two strikes, he batted .176.)

A second argument: The human element is part of the game—but baseball has already reduced that in the interest of accuracy for most umpiring decisions: Close calls almost always go under the replay microscope, unless they involve balls and strikes. And yet, those calls are often the hardest: A runner can go 20 mph, but a pitch can travel 100 mph, and the umpire has to peer over a catcher.

Unless we love “the human element” so much that arguing is a highlight of our day, we can learn from the experience of ­tennis: Who misses the era of infuriated brats in white shorts screaming at that sport’s umpires? Hawk-eye

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Mailbag

‘Oaks in the city’

JULY 9 If only schools such as The Oaks Academy were all over America. The school is exposing these students to diversity and educating them about the importance of being governed by ­biblical truth to maintain liberty, especially in a country like America. This is something that the statists, who can only bring bondage, dissent, and contention, will never understand.

—PAUL B. TAYLOR on wng.org

Your Hope Award series is one of the best things you do. By it we see God is working all over the place, and we see how God is working!

—HEINRICH ERBES / McLean, Va.

‘Disappearing evangelicals’

the only candidate with enough courage to address things as they truly are.

Where are our Martin Luthers who will go for the jugular and not relent or apologize?

—ERIC EAGLE on wng.org

Joel Belz is correct. We have a dearth of real Christian leadership because Christians on the right and left hold up rights to money, to our bodies, and to our own national power above responsibility to God. Our nation is now reaping what it has been sowing for years.

The issue isn’t a lack of qualified evangelical candidates. Christians need to accept a hard, cold fact: We’re a very thin slice of the minority. The majority does not want a candidate that resembles Jesus in any way, shape, or form.

I’ve given up trying to persuade anyone.

—JENNYBETH GARDNER on wng.org

—TODD FINCH on wng.org

JULY 9

I don’t buy the premise that there aren’t qualified men to lead our country; there are loads of them, both in politics and in business. And if Ted Cruz falls into the category of having a “meager” resumé, that’s a pretty high bar. Isn’t the real question, “Where are the evangelical voters?”

—WILLIAM PECK on wng.org

I don’t believe it’s possible in this current cultural climate to elect an outwardly evangelical president. It’s not a failing in the evangelical community; I believe God is giving our country what we want. Christians need to take cover.

—MARY ANN LAMB on wng.org

I see this election as less of a rejection of evangelical candidates than a rejection of career politicians. Evangelicals turned out for Trump because he was Visit WORLD Digital: wng.org

You are wasting your time trying to figure out why evangelicals are MIA from affecting politics—or anything else—in our country. The American people are voting for their sin. No amount of preaching will change their minds.

—PHILLIP WOECKENER / Tallahassee, Fla.

‘Fatal connections’

How is it that, despite mounting evidence, the Clintons seem always to avoid the negative press that their dealings and associations demand?

Imagine a Bush having this history and getting away with it.

JULY 9

—CLARKE M c INTOSH on wng.org

It puts a knot in my stomach to think an American, especially such a prominent one, could be so wicked. Before reading this I could not understand

why the State Department would not give “terrorist” status to the most deserving candidate on earth before ISIS. Well done.

—VIC TRIPP / Tucker, Ga.

I pray that the Lord will bring swift justice to Boko Haram leader Imam Abubakar Shekau.

—JOHN CLOGSTON on wng.org

‘Admission of function’

JULY 9 Thanks for sharing how Francis Collins recently refuted his term “junk DNA.” God doesn’t make junk, and finally Collins had the integrity to admit it.

—MICHAEL D u MEZ / Oostburg, Wis.

Collins chose the right word, hubris, to describe his earlier assertion. I hope he sees the correlation between this incident and his refusals to take Scripture at its word: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth.”

—PHILIP BROWN on wng.org

‘Rocket man’

JULY 9 Excellent biographical article. It kept me captivated from the first ­paragraph, and what an ending!

—DEBORAH O’BRIEN on wng.org

‘Keeping our terms straight’

JULY 9 You mentioned that if we accept the phrase, “I feel I’m a man trapped in a woman’s body,” we’re signing on

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Mailbag

to an unbiblical physiology. I have to say that I was there, trapped in a ­woman’s body. Fortunately, after my mother gave birth I was free.

‘Finding others’

I just saw Finding Dory and I agree—it was great. Also, it’s far too uncommon that a movie both has a good, entertaining story and doesn’t leave me wincing at some content.

—BOB SHILLINGSTAD / Hayden, Idaho

‘Beastly analyses’

In a world gone mad, Chase Strangio’s tweet blaming the Christian right for the Orlando massacre is a sad sound bite. Ignorance is not bliss, and makes for bizarre thinking.

JULY 9

—LAURA WEIENETH on wng.org

‘Happy days?’

JULY 9 Most of what the Antifederalists warned against has happened. We have had a strong central government since the end of the Civil War, and our freedoms have been gradually eroded since then. I think we are now at the point of no return.

—KELLY MAYS WILSON on Facebook

‘An intertwining’

Andrée Seu Peterson’s column about Terri Roberts is one of her best.

My husband and I wept reading “it is all plan … it is all centre. Blessed be He!” We needed the reminder of the importance of forgiving and to cast our burden on Christ.

‘Bridal gown’

JULY 9

JULY 9

—TOBY COMEAUX on wng.org

‘Freedom of speech’

JULY 9 A universal translator in a wireless earpiece! It’s Star Trek ahead of its time!

—SUSAN DICKENS / Greenbrier, Ark.

—CLAIRE JOHNSON on Facebook

JUNE 25 Thank you for the beautiful portrayal of our future as the Bride of the Lamb and our present public ­battles and private struggles as the “stitch and fold and appliqué” of our wedding dress. Your description gave me hope for the future and helped me see the beauty of the present.

—TWILA BRASE / St. Paul, Minn.

Read more Mailbag letters at wng.org

LETTERS and COMMENTS Email: mailbag@wng.org Mail: WORLD Mailbag, PO Box 20002, Asheville, NC 28802-9998 Website: wng.org Facebook: facebook.com/WORLD.magazine Twitter: @WORLD_mag Please include full name and address. Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.

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Andrée Seu Peterson

Be sober-minded DOES AUGMENTED REALITY BRING CONCRETE DANGERS? While walking down my street, I came across a neighbor approaching from the opposite direction. Her lowered eyes fixed intently on a hand-held device, the woman in her late 30s, donned in wild, billowy pantaloons, looked up just long enough to apologize sheepishly for wearing her pajamas outdoors: “I’m looking for Pokémon.”

I remember Pet Rocks and Cabbage Patch dolls and my Aunt Simone queued up before dawn in the cold to buy them, so crazes are nothing alien to me—though Pokémon Go is global, whereas, to my knowledge, only Americans paid money for ordinary backyard stones nested in straw in cardboard boxes.

Armchair psychologists may say we are a species hurling from one obsession to another.

Other neighbors of mine once had a bad case of fleas in the house, so that they had to lock it up tight and “bomb” it with some chemical and live in a motel overnight. The wife later said that when she opened the closet door and turned on the light the fleas jumped en masse from the carpet to a coat. It strikes me as a vivid illustration of desperate craving.

I don’t yet know what to think about whether Pokémon Go is a bad thing or a good thing. If a few more people have car accidents and fall off bluffs and walk into traffic while looking for the virtual monsters, this may tilt my opinion. The Bible says we are allowed to enjoy things (1 Timothy 6:17) and that we should be a tad suspicious of people who devise too many rules about “Do not handle” and “Do not taste” (Colossians 2:21). So there is that.

On the other hand, permission and freedom do not come without warning. Paul says, “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12). So the

KRIEG BARRIE

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 aseupeterson@wng.org

Scripture is littered with characters who fell into trapdoors in the fabric of the universe.

rule of thumb must be to not be dominated by anything.

To that end, the wise man is cognizant of living in a universe full of invisible trapdoors.

As Francis Schaeffer said, “… there are two parts to reality: the natural world—that which we see, normally; and the supernatural part. …

The ‘supernatural’ is really no more unusual in the universe, from the biblical viewpoint, than what we normally call the natural. The only reason we call it the supernatural part is that usually we cannot see it” (True Spirituality).

Scripture is littered with characters who fell into trapdoors in the fabric of the universe. Eve was first, of course.

Cain, though warned by God against the Croucher by the door bent on devouring, succumbed (Genesis 4:7). The prophet who invited the man of God to dinner proved to be a trapdoor for that man of God (1 Kings 13). The second delegation from King Balak to Balaam was a trapdoor for Balaam (Numbers 22). And many a feckless man has been laid low by the tender trap described in Proverbs 7.

Jonathan Edwards knew those trapdoors when he wrote his 1741 sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”: “The devil stands ready to fall upon them and seize them as his own. … They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession and under his dominion. … [The demons] stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions. … [T]he old Serpent is gaping for them. Hell opens her mouth to receive them.”

We know for certain that a day is coming when all men will worship an image coughed up from hell (Revelation 13:14-15). What will that image be? Technology is now in place that makes the virtual reality of simulated environments like PlayStation headsets as passé as a 1950s stocking-stuffer View-Master. Pokémon Go is not virtual reality (VR) but augmented reality (AR), a real-world, real-time environment with manipulated elements supplied. You take a walk to real places to find things that exist in some remote creator’s head.

But for the moment let us heed at least the more agreed-on warning of the Bible to “be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

You may find yourself sucked in in your pajamas. A August 20, 2016 • WORLD Magazine 63

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Marvin Olasky

Yes to Dirty Daniels NO TO FENIMORE COOPER EVANGELICALS

64 WORLD Magazine • August 20, 2016

The ‘Republican Revolution’ in the 1990s was supposed to change politics.

It didn’t.

 molasky@wng.org  @MarvinOlasky

KRIEG BARRIE

From 1971 to 1988 Clint Eastwood played San Francisco cop Harry Callahan five times, starting with the movie that gave its name to the series: Dirty Harry. Eastwood’s character received the nickname because he takes on “every dirty job that comes along”— whether that’s talking down a suicidal jumper from a ledge, delivering a ransom, or going after a serial killer.

My favorite Old Testament hero is Dirty Daniel. We can call him that because three times in the first five chapters of his book he speaks truth to one of Babylonia’s dictatorial monarchs, when no one else wants to or can. In Chapter 2 King Nebuchadnezzar threatens to kill all his advisers, but Daniel boldly goes to him. In Chapter 4 Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar to expect seven years of insanity. In Chapter 5 Daniel, by then an old man, tells King Belshazzar, “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end.”

Daniel’s book tells us nothing about his political strategies and tactics. He apparently doesn’t expect much from pagan kings, but he’s honest with them. Daniel is also diligent: After being appalled by a vision in Chapter 8, he still “rose and went about the king’s business.” He displays a straightforward career plan: As an angel tells him, “from the first day you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God.” He doesn’t give up: The angel closes Daniel’s book by saying: “Go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.”

Let’s contrast Daniel’s discernment with James Fenimore Cooper’s unrealistic portrayal of Indians, which Mark Twain eviscerated in an essay still read in some English classes, “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses.” Twain described a typical Cooper scene in which a 16-foot-wide boat is scraping down a 20-footwide stream: It’s so close to the riverbanks that hostile Native Americans could step onto the vessel. Instead, they conceal themselves in the

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foliage of branches bent over the stream. One Indian watches the boat, traveling at about 1 mile per hour, as it passes under him. He waits, waits, waits, then drops … and misses his target.

Twain tells us the rest: “There still remained in the roost five Indians. The boat has passed under and is now out of their reach. Let me explain what the five did—you would not be able to reason it out for yourself. No. 1 jumped for the boat, but fell in the water astern of it.

Then No. 2 jumped for the boat, but fell in the water still farther astern of it. Then No. 3 jumped for the boat, and fell a good way astern of it. Then No. 4 jumped for the boat, and fell in the water away astern. Then even No. 5 made a jump for the boat— for he was a Cooper Indian.”

Both the book of Daniel and Twain’s essay should be required reading for some Christian conservatives. Let’s look back at the past 40 years of desert wandering (although some thought we were in the Promised Land). As Jimmy Carter made his way toward the White House, newsmagazines called 1976 “the year of the evangelical.” Carter quickly betrayed evangelical hopes on issues like abortion. Ronald Reagan in the 1980s was a great president, but two-thirds of his Supreme Court appointments were mistakes that led to the abortion horror continuing.

The “Republican Revolution” in the 1990s was supposed to change politics. It didn’t.

George W. Bush in the 2000s missed a great opportunity. Meanwhile, as our story on p. 36 shows, the foundation-financed cultural juggernaut of the left rolled on. If we believe that throwing money into elections will save us, we’re like Fenimore Cooper’s Indians. A better alternative: Dare to be a Dirty (and prayerful) Daniel.

The work of a Dirty Daniel will vary from institution to institution, but it will always involve taking on unpopular, self-sacrificing tasks others don’t want. Example: We need to keep standing up against abortion, regardless of what the Supreme Court says. Avoiding Fenimore Cooper evangelicalism means adjusting strategies when biblical truth gives us flexibility. Example: Nothing in the Bible says we must have big, multi-toilet bathrooms, so WORLD asked architects about the feasibility of different arrangements: See p. 30.

Courage. Discernment. Prayer. A

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