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Contents , / ,
34 Demographic hope
A sobering election has political conservatives searching for ways to regain lost ground. Evangelical minorities might be a place to start
42 New blood
Of the new U.S. senators, six are new to Congress and six are moving over from the House, as Republicans who eyed a takeover instead face diminished status
46 Redistricting rout Allen West, others go down in seven-seat loss in the House
48 True grit
Churches, businesses, and homeowners face loss from Sandy and dig in
52 ‘We were exhausted’
Desperate parents of autistic children are finding compassionate help through Christian respite care centers
42
5 14 16 18
56 Trading places
Once a war zone itself, Iraq now hosts tens of thousands of Syrian refugees : // ;
25
News Human Race Quotables Quick Takes
23 Movies & TV 26 Books 28 Q&A 30 Music
52
61 Lifestyle 64 Technology 66 Science 67 Houses of God 68 Sports 70 Money 72 Religion
48
56
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REX FEATURES VIA AP
.. /// worldmag.com
Joel Belz
Tipping point?
Voters’ core beliefs have shifted massively—and political efforts won’t shift them back
>>
REX FEATURES VIA AP
S of the future tell us about the influence of Hurricane Sandy on the Romney-Obama presidential election of ? Could it really have been that a million voters changed their minds in the final days of the campaign because—well, because Obama just looked so presidentially helpful while talking to storm victims in New Jersey? Such is the stuff of political analysis. Exit poll data were all over the landscape as voters told how the hurricane had affected their behavior. So to the extent that I get to be an analyst, I suggest that historians— and current pundits too—be very careful in explaining the storm’s ultimate effect on the electoral tally board. The most prevalent query was whether Hurricane Sandy had interrupted some significant Romney momentum in the week just before the election. But folks who were upset with that development had to ask themselves: “What was God up to in sending such a storm right then? Didn’t he know how badly a hurricane might hurt the Romney campaign?” The debate was partly political, partly historical, partly meteorological, partly theological. In fact, right now is a good time to set aside almost all purely political explanations of what happened in our country on Election Day. Yah, I know it was a presidential election—and collectively, we just spent several billion dollars trying to fine-tune an incredibly complex political process. But in the end, the election wasn’t all that much about such technical processes. It wasn’t about hurricanes, and it wasn’t mostly about President Obama’s meanspirited campaign style, or about Romney’s failure to respond adequately. It wasn’t about anonymous donors, and it wasn’t about how the Republicans blew what should have been an easy challenge. All
Email: jbelz@worldmag.com
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those are side issues, and we shouldn’t waste too much time and energy wondering “if we’d only done this” or “if we’d only done that.” Elections tell us what voters believe about important matters. And the evidence of the election is pretty overwhelming that most Americans have now become practical secularists. Their second nature is to believe that government is there to be their helper and provider. Anything that messes with that secularist assumption these days is messing with a root belief of at least percent of American voters. These are folks who got John Kennedy exactly backward: “Always ask,” they say, “what it is that your country can do for you.” These folks are now dominant—and these are the voters who elect presidents. The American public has been going through a massive change—and the evidence grows that that “belief” change has now passed a tipping point, beyond which it may be very difficult to go back. That is a sobering thought. It means that technical adjustments to the political process—like better political consultants who can tell you how to reach Hispanic young women, or more positive TV commercials, or more effective use of “social media”—will affect elections only on the margins. The determinant factor will be where voters, in their most needy times, look for ultimate help. That, by definition, has to do with whether the culture is still God-oriented or has become more and more thoroughly secular in nature. So what’s called for are armies of folks—like you, perhaps—who when they think about the next electoral cycle, respond with great discipline and refuse to get sidetracked by what is merely political activity. Such folks will ask instead: “What can I do over the next several years to change the worldview of a few people around me? How can I influence a few ‘takers’ I know to become ‘makers’ and ‘enablers’? How can I persuade them to be ‘wagon pullers’ instead of ‘wagon riders’?” “Can I work through my church, through the schools where I have input and influence? Can I work through and support appropriate media like WORLD? Can efforts like these perhaps nudge a significant number of folks back from the costly tipping point?” If we learned anything this time around, it was this: If you don’t change what the voters believe, your chances of changing their votes are pretty slim indeed. A
DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
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Dispatches News > Human man Race > Quotables > Quick Takes
IMAGINECHINA/AP
Future tense >> The world’s most populous country looks for new policies in a once-adecade power shift BY ANGELA LU
C’ N C kicked off Nov. in Beijing with President Hu Jintao speaking out on corruption: It “could prove fatal to the party.” But he revealed little else about what to expect from the next generation of leaders. The weeklong congress, attended by more than , delegates, is largely ceremonial, as top officials behind closed doors choose
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China’s next leaders. Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are widely expected to be named party leader and premier respectively, but the actual leadership won’t be formally announced until after the congress. PARTY TIME: Despite the uncertainty Delegates and members of what the next decade of the media under Xi may look like, one attend the thing is sure: Chinese are opening ready for change, including session of the th National changes to the country’s Congress at one-child policy. In the past the Great Hall year, high-profile cases of of the People forced abortions and forced in Beijing.
DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
11/13/12 9:57 PM
Dispatches > News
When German Formula racing star Michael Schumacher finishes the season finale race in Sao Paulo on Nov. , he’ll say goodbye and retire from the sport he’s often dominated for more than years. The -year-old retired in after his th F victory, but came back shortly thereafter. In the twilight of his career, the seven-time F champion has racked up only a single victory since .
LOOKING AHEAD Hanukkah begins
The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah begins at sundown on Dec. . The holiday, also known as the Festival of Lights, celebrates the Maccabean Revolt in the second century B.C. and the resulting rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The eight-day holiday this year runs through Dec. .
The Big E
After more than years of active service, the USS Enterprise will be slated for deactivation Dec. , marking the end of an era for the U.S. Navy. Entering active service in , the Big E, as the carrier is known, was the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world. Scrapping the Enterprise, and her nuclear reactors, is slated to cost the Navy more than million dollars in alone.
Chile vs. Peru Both Peruvian
President Ollanta Humala (left) and Chilean President Sebastián Piñera say their nations will abide by the decision of the International Court of Justice regarding a disputed maritime border between the two countries. Peru filed the complaint with the ICJ in , claiming a faulty boundary gives Chile about , square miles of lucrative fishing waters that should belong to Peru. Hearings begin Dec. .
Kennedy Center Honors On Dec. , actor Dustin Hoffman, super group Led Zeppelin, and latenight TV host David Letterman will headline the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C. The yearly awards highlight artists and entertainers for a lifetime of achievement. And though Led Zeppelin may generate most of the buzz, this year’s awards will also honor ballerina Natalia Makarova and bluesman Buddy Guy.
SCHUMACHER: MARK THOMPSON/GETTY IMAGES • USS ENTERPRISE: STEVE HELBER/AP • HANUKKAH: VALENTINA PETROVA/AP • PINERA, HUMALA: KAREL NAVARRO/AP • GUY: KENNEDY CENTER/AP
sterilizations have sparked firestorms among Chinese on social media. Chinese scholars have openly criticized the policy. Just days before the leadership change, an online poll on Sina Weibo, China’s microblogging platform, found that . percent of the , people who answered supported a two-child policy. Policymakers have also had a change of heart. A week before the congress met, a report from a top government think tank leaked to Chinese media called for a switch to a two-child policy by and all birth limits dropped by . China Development Research Foundation, a group with close ties to the highest levels of the Communist Party, is expected to release the complete report after the leadership transition. The report cites fears of the policy’s long-term effect on demographics. If the policy continues, elderly people will make up a third of the population by . Co-author of the report Cui Fang, an economist who heads the Population and Development department of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: “In the past, family planning was important for our national development, but now the country has changed and the decision about how many children to have should be given back to families.” Social media, specifically Weibo, is helping to change minds about the onechild policy, with photos, links, and posts often spreading faster than internet censors can track. Last June a graphic photo of Feng Jianmei next to her baby, forcibly aborted at months gestation, went viral, angering citizens and leading to Chinese officials banning late-term abortions. New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman said: “More and more, the Chinese people, from microbloggers to peasants to students, are demanding that their voices be heard—and officials clearly feel the need to respond. China is now a strange hybrid—an autocracy with million bloggers, who are censored, feared and listened to all at the same time.” Those demanding that their voices be heard will be watching to see if China’s new leadership is listening. A
Auf Wiedersehen, Schumacher
WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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11/6/12 12:25 PM
Dispatches > News
Tensions rose between the United States and Iran after two Iranian warplanes fired
The president vs. the CIA
on an unarmed U.S. Predator drone. Although the shots missed, the incident was the first known Iranian plane attack on a U.S. aircraft.
Timing in the Petraeus resignation is odd by any measure
Pentagon officials said the drone was flying in interna-
BY MINDY BELZ
tional airspace over the Persian Gulf, nautical miles off the coast of Iran, when the fighters released at least two bursts of machine gun fire toward the
>>
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WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
drone. Iranian military officials said the drone was flying in Iran’s airspace. The attack took place Nov. , five days before U.S. elections, but the Pentagon didn’t publicly acknowledge it until Nov. , after CNN disclosed the incident. According to The Wall Street Journal, an Obama administration official said the matter was kept quiet to prevent further strains with Iran. The United States is enforcing sanctions on Iran PETRAEUS: PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP • DRONE:/KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH/AP
S. B O to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Sept. , , where Gen. David Petraeus, then commander of forces in Iraq, would give his long-awaited report on progress of the U.S. surge strategy there. Already Petraeus had testified for five hours in the House the day before, and the results made headlines: Civilian deaths across Iraq had dropped by percent, down percent in Baghdad. But Obama swallowed his allotted seven minutes not in questioning Petraeus but lecturing him: He called Iraq a “disastrous foreign policy mistake” and the surge’s impact “relatively modest given the investment.” Obama’s antipathy toward the decorated four-star general, who mostly enjoyed a hero’s welcome to the Capitol that week, only deepened with Obama’s presidential victory and his naming Joe Biden as vice president. Biden as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had been a vocal critic of the counterinsurgency strategy (also known as COIN) authored by Petraeus. That continued in a memo from Biden to Obama arguing against the military’s recommendations for a troop increase in Afghanistan. When Petraeus returned home, his appointment to head the CIA rather than the Department of Defense was meaningful: Obama planned to end COIN as a strategy and the CIA’s leading role in fighting terrorism. That determination, expected to accelerate in a second Obama term, was turned on its head with the Sept. , , attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and subsequent revelations about CIA activity there. Many military experts don’t believe the timing of Petraeus’ sudden resignation Nov. was accidental—three days after the president’s reelection and five days before Petraeus was to testify before Congress on Benghazi. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist and not a rightwing ideologue,” said Earl Tilford, a retired military intelligence officer and former director of research at the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute, “but I believe the administration was trying to get Petraeus to say something he did not want to say, they threatened him, and he resigned.” Media attention has focused on the tawdry extramarital affair Petraeus had with biographer Paula Broadwell, and its attendant tangents—ultimately also implicating Gen. John Allen, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But given the administration’s tolerance for non-traditional sexual lifestyles—and that Petraeus’ infidelity apparently broke no code of conduct for the CIA, and did not break precedent with past U.S. generals (think Eisenhower)—the sudden resignation is odd. Short of proving that Petraeus compromised national security with the affair (which could be the case), Obama may appear more bent on vendetta—or cover-up. Said Tilford: “If the president really wants to get to the essence of the truth as to what happened in Benghazi, why did he not insist that Petraeus remain at his post until after his testimony clears the air?”
over its secretive nuclear program.
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11/8/12 11:15 4:49 PM 10/25/12 AM
Dispatches > News
Man knows not his time outbreak The UN Refugee Agency warned of a potential crisis looming in South Sudan, where Hepatitis E is circulating in camps hosting 175,000 refugees and low on resources. A UN spokesman said 26 refugees had died and 1,050 had become sick from Hepatitis E, a viral illness that spreads through contaminated food and water and can cause liver failure. Agency workers are low on funding and are struggling to provide clean drinking water and latrines for the camps. They also expect up to 40,000 more refugees to flee fighting in Sudan in the coming weeks—a situation that could accelerate the disease’s spread. Hepatitis E is mainly found in Africa and Asia. There is no treatment for the disease, although China began manufacturing the world’s first Hepatitis E vaccine in October.
BJU to be investigated Officials at Bob Jones University (BJU) in Greenville, S.C., announced the appointment of an independent organization to investigate past claims of sexual abuse at the Christian school. The Virginia-based group GRACE (an acronym for Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) will begin its investigation in January. The Nov. 8 announcement came six months after a BJU committee recommended the school hire an independent ombudsman to “review past instances in which it is alleged that the University underserved a victim or did not comply with the law in handling reports of abuse,” according to a BJU statement. After GRACE has finalized its plans for collecting data, school officials will post information on BJU’s website regarding how those concerned may contact GRACE. The organization, founded in 2003, will investigate independent from the school and work with claimants directly to ensure confidentiality.
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wolfe: MediaPunch/Rex Features/ap • church: MICHAL CIZEK/AFP/Getty Images
to having one myself.” She wished to “receive that kind of love. … Is it not a miracle that someone who missed an earthly father’s love can be healed to receive the love of the Heavenly Father?”
curtis: Patty Schuchman • Hepatitis E: cdc/newscom • bju: john foxe
Worldmag.com columnist Barbara Curtis, 64, died on Oct. 30 after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke. The previous week she was one of 14 students at the World Journalism Institute’s weeklong mid-career training class in Asheville, N.C. We joked about WORLD’s long-running title for obituaries, “Man knows not his time,” taken from a 1687 Puritan sermon. Barbara’s blog, Mommy Life, and books she wrote, including The Mommy Manual and Mommy, Teach Me, showed what she and her husband, Tripp, learned from raising nine children born to them, including one with Down syndrome, and three more adopted children, also with Down syndrome (see “Blessed by the dozen,” Jan. 28, 2012). Barbara sometimes described the effect of her dad walking out when she was 5, and her time in foster homes. She achingly wrote, “Crippled by the lack of a real father in my life, seeing God only as some remote and impersonal force … I wouldn’t have thought to seek God’s love. And yet how amazingly unconditional and enduring that love remained for me. As I misunderstood God and wandered, He still protected me from harm, continuing to draw me nearer, gradually softening my heart.” Barbara also told how “seeing my children experience a happy childhood was the next best thing
-
Wolfe at the door Novelist TOM WOLFE still gets shocked by the world, much like Christians BY MARVIN OLASKY
CURTIS: PATTY SCHUCHMAN • HEPATITIS E: CDC/NEWSCOM • BJU: JOHN FOXE
WOLFE: MEDIAPUNCH/REX FEATURES/AP • CHURCH: MICHAL CIZEK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
>>
S beyond the literary world, and Tom Wolfe, who some consider America’s greatest living writer, has again stirred the pot with a new book, Back to Blood (Little, Brown), that Christians should and should not read. Should, because it shows the depravity of a culture whose leaders, more often than not, have forgotten virtue and lust after sex, power, and status. Wolfe preaches a vivid jeremiad against those whose goal is to get into exclusive clubs, and against the liberal politicians who enable them. Wolfe, , has “an old-fogeyish sensibility,” complained the San Francisco Chronicle’s reviewer, who scorned Back to Blood as did reviewers in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and just about every other major newspaper. Should not, because the book is replete with sex and bad language, and has little that’s positive except the desire of Miami policeman Nestor Camacho to do his job and the comeuppance of his former girlfriend Magdalena, who confuses upward mobility with horizontal availability to the rich and famous. Michiko Kakutani, top reviewer of The New York Times,, worried that Wolfe “depicts a dog-eat-dog world in which people behave like animals.” Partly true, except that we’re more like sheep. Wolfe began his magazinewriting career with Esquire, and Esquire reviewer Benjamin Alsup complained that Wolfe, astounded by much of what he saw, wrote that astonishment into his characters: “Their eyes bulge out. Perhaps this is how it goes in Wolfe’s neck of the woods, but in Miami, a place where a naked man recently ate
another man’s face, nothing’s shocking. In this town, one is shocked by the strange ways of other people only if one hasn’t been here very long.” Maybe that’s why so many critics are panning this book: Wolfe still gets shocked, much like most Christians. Reviewers typically wrote that Wolfe was exaggerating, but Miami Herald book editor Connie Ogle, who has a front-row seat at the circus, observed that “Back to Blood is as excessive as the city it celebrates and eviscerates. … It will offend sensibilities all around, but the novel’s pointed observations are dangerously close to reality.” And that’s what Wolfe has tried to achieve. For decades he has argued that American novelists have sat on the rung of postmodern self-referentiality, and fallen into irrelevance and sterility: He wants novelists to again be journalistic observers like Émile Zola. Wolfe’s street-level observations showed him years ago that marriage vows would become less important, and he now sees nearly total depravity. Wolfe voted for George W. Bush in and has said that his literary colleagues reacted as if he were a child molester. Since then Wolfe has sometimes worn an American flag pin with his white suits: He says that’s like “holding up a cross to werewolves.” Wolfe’s books would be better if he did hold up a cross, but his depiction of social elites as molesters is important to remember whenever we envy the fashionable.
The Czech parliament approved on Nov. a plan to return billions of dollars in church property confiscated under communist rule and to provide compensation worth about billion over years. Under the plan, approved by votes in the -seat lower house of parliament, the churches would become independent of the state and gradually stop getting government financing. The agreement also should free up percent of the country’s land that once belonged to mostly Christian churches. The Czech Senate earlier vetoed the plan— also opposed by Czech’s mostly atheist population and the center-left opposition—but the House votes are enough to overturn a potential presidential veto.
CZECH MATE: The ruins of a church in the Czech Republic.
DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
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Dispatches > News
Indy ‘war zone’ Dozens of Indianapolis residents found themselves homeless on the evening of Nov. 10 after an enormous explosion ripped through their neighborhood. Authorities suspected a gas leak caused a blast that leveled two homes, burned or severely damaged 29 others, and sent out a force wave that registered on an earthquake detector 30 miles away. The explosion injured seven neighborhood residents and killed two—a 36-year-old second-grade schoolteacher and her husband. Whitney Pflanzer and her husband Alex were in bed when the explosion shattered their windows and collapsed their ceiling. Outside, insulation rained from the sky. She told The Indianapolis Star: “It was like a war zone.”
The cross returns A long legal battle over the Mojave Desert monument comes to a happy end by Angela Lu
>>
Upheld
The Supreme Court, by denying an appeal Nov. 13, upheld a circuit court ruling that allows public school students in a South Carolina district to receive credit for off-campus courses at religious schools. The
Freedom From Religion Foundation sued the school district in 2009, saying the school’s policy constituted establishment of religion. The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the suit, ruling in June that the school’s policy “accommodates religion without establishing it.” The circuit court also said public schools couldn’t prevent students transferring from a religious school to a public school to transfer credit.
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Sandoz: Liberty Institute/ap • Indianapolis: Matt Kryger/Indianapolis Star/ap
Hardy supporters reinstated a World War I memorial cross in the Mojave Desert on Veterans Day—after a 13-year battle over the constitutionality of a religious symbol on federal ground. More than 100 people showed up for the ceremony—including cross caretakers Henry and Wanda Sandoz, members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), attorneys from the Liberty Institute, and an honor guard. The Sandozes have taken care of the cross since 1984 when they promised a World War I veteran they would watch over it. In 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union sued VFW, calling the cross unconstitutional because it violated the separation of church and state. Throughout the court process, the cross was bagged and covered in a plywood box. A 2010 Supreme Court ruling allowed for the VFW to transfer the federal land beneath the cross, allowing for the cross to stand on private property. But the cross was stolen days after the ruling. The land transfer finally was completed early in still standing: November, and the stolen cross was found in Henry Sandoz and Northern California. But Henry Sandoz decided to the new, 7-foot steel cross. put up a newly made cross for the ceremony. The site is now fenced off and includes a plaque stating that the cross is a memorial for World War I veterans. “We are so, so happy that it’s going up and staying up without opposition since the Veterans of Foreign Wars owns it now,” Wanda Sandoz said. “We are so happy that it all came together and the veterans can have their memorial now.”
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11/14/12 11:51 AM
SANDOZ: LIBERTY INSTITUTE/AP • INDIANAPOLIS: MATT KRYGER/INDIANAPOLIS STAR/AP
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Dispatches > Human Race
APPOINTED Queen Elizabeth on Nov. tapped Justin Welby to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury—widely seen as the figurehead of the million-
WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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member worldwide Anglican Communion. A former oil executive, the -year-old bishop of Durham was a unique choice: His background in business and relatively short time as a leading clergyman includes advocating on behalf of the church in Nigeria, where Christians have come under attack by Islamic groups. Welby has been regarded as a conservative evangelical who has opposed samesex “marriage” in a denomination splintered over the issue. He succeeds the uninspiring Rowan Williams, who sought to straddle divides within the communion over ordaining gay clergy and other departures from scriptural orthodoxy.
SENTENCED A federal judge sentenced Jared Lee Loughner on Nov. to life in prison without parole in the January Arizona shooting
Giffords
Loughner
rampage at a Tucson grocery store. It left six people dead and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others. Giffords and other victims attended his hearing. She and her husband faced Loughner, with husband Mark Kelly telling the killer, “You tried to create a world as dark and evil as your own. Remember this: You failed.”
HELD A court in Kazakhstan’s capital says it will hold Uzbek pastor Makset Djabbarbergenov
(see “Trumped up charges,” Oct. ) for an additional month, awaiting documentation from Uzbekistan to certify deportation. Uzbekistan has sought extradition on terrorism charges, which could carry a prison sentence up to years.
DIED Bonnie Libby, professor of literature at Patrick Henry College since , died Nov. of an apparent pulmonary embolism. She was . DIED University of Florida professor and Southern historian Bertram WyattBrown, , died Nov. . He served as president of historical societies and authored hundreds of articles and books. His Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Novelist Walker Percy called the book, “A remarkable achievement—a re-creation of the living reality of the antebellum South from thousands of bits and pieces of the dead past.”
LIBBY: COURTESY PATRICK HENRY COLLEGE • TAWADROS: STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • WELBY: MATTHEW LLOYD/GETTY IMAGES • GIFFORDS: ROSS D. FRANKLIN/AP • LOUGHNER: U.S. MARSHAL’S OFFICE/AP • DJABBARBERGENOV:HANDOUT • BROWN: HANDOUT
NAMED Tawadros II, selected on Nov. at age to lead the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, rejected any religious quotas in the country’s new draft constitution on the number of Copts allowed in parliament: “The constitution should be written for all Egyptians, despite their religious affiliations. The church will oppose any constitutional article that only takes into account the interests of the Muslim majority.” But he said he sees “no need to fear” Egypt’s new Islamist leadership, as long as it “rules with justice.”
SENTENCED A district judge sentenced Mark Basseley Youssef, , the California man behind an antiMuslim film that many blamed for sparking riots in the Middle East, to a year in prison for violating his probation. The charges stem from a bank fraud conviction, not from Innocence of Muslims, the film he admits to scriptwriting. But prosecutors claimed his lies about his identity and criminal past caused harm to others, including the film’s cast and crew. In September enraged Muslims put out death warrants against Youssef.
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11/6/12 12:35 PM
MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews on Superstorm Sandy boosting President Barack Obama’s reelection chances. Matthews later apologized for the comment.
‘On what planet is it safe to perform surgery under those conditions?’ Question on Live Action blog, after a Falls Church, Va., abortion clinic bragged that it remained open through Superstorm Sandy: So we got in around 5:30 a.m., there is two inches of water in the surgery room, water on the carpets, two offices totally soaked, water leaking in from our large windows … we put out hundreds of towels and started mopping up … we started seeing patients at ten a.m.
‘Sorry. We had a disaster. Take the ferry.’ New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, addressing complaints about continuing problems with the New Jersey rail system that brings hundreds of thousands of commuters to Manhattan daily.
‘You never think it will come down to one vote, but I’m here to tell you that it does.’ Robert McDonald on his Walton, Ky., city council race that ended in a tie. McDonald had told his wife, who works nights, not to worry about going to vote, and the outcome will now be determined by a coin flip.
‘Federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don’t break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly.’ Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, after his state’s Nov. 6 vote to legalize marijuana.
‘You go through every hard question a thousand times.’ Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, on her group’s plans to vet political candidates on their ability to handle sticky abortion questions, such as abortion in cases of rape. The mishandling of such questions led to the defeat of pro-life Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana.
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worldmag.com: Your online source for today’s news, Christian views
11/14/12 11:17 AM
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‘I’m so glad we had that storm last week.’
Christie: Tim Larsen/Governor’s Office/ABACAPRESS.COM/newscom • Atlantic City: Mario Tama/Getty Images • vote: Darrin Phegley/The Gleaner/ap • Matthews: Matt Rourke/ap • Hickenlooper: Doug Pensinger/Getty Image • Dannenfelser: handout
Dispatches > Quotables
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11/13/12 3:21 PM
Some smugglers bringing illegal drugs into the United States from Mexico got caught on Oct. —or at least their car did. U.S. agents say smugglers tried to use ramps to get their Jeep Cherokee SUV over the -foot fence that separates the United States and Mexico, but the SUV became stuck atop the fence. The smugglers reportedly were trying to get the vehicle unstuck when agents on patrol spotted them. The smugglers fled on foot, leaving the SUV at the scene of the crime. The agents say the vehicle was empty but likely had carried illegal drugs.
There are at least two ways to get a new cell phone in Alexandra, South Africa. You could save up enough money to buy one. Or you could capture rats. In an effort to curb the swelling rodent population, the Johannesburg suburb has created an incentive program it hopes will work better than hiring a mass of professional exterminators. Rats have made Alexandra home because of the township’s crumbling infrastructure, leaking sewage, and piled up garbage. So city officials partnered with mobile phone company ta to create the incentive program: Catch rats and the city will give you a cell phone. Catch more, and you’ll get another. Local council member Julie Moloi said the city had to take drastic action, despite predictable outrage from animal rights activists: “We are afraid these rats will take over Alexandra and it will become a city of rats.”
A lobster caught off the coast of Massachusetts in late October looked like she was dressed for a Halloween party. In fact, the female lobster is what marine researchers call a “split”—one half of her body is black and the other half orange, the colors split perfectly down the middle. Researchers told the Associated Press that splits make up about one in every million lobsters, and that fishermen have caught splits off the coasts of New England and Nova Scotia.
BREAD: ARB/GETTY IMAGES • BORDER: U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROTECTION • SOUTH AFRICAN RAT: NIC BOTHMA/EPA/LANDOV • LOBSTER: EMILY BAUERNSEIND/NEW ENGLAND AQUARIUM
Looking for the secret to domestic peace and tranquility? According to researchers writing in the Journal of Social Psychology, the answer could come from freshly baked bread. Scientists at the University of Southern Brittany in France conducted experiments designed to test the theory that the smell of freshly baked bread can alter behavior in humans. Their findings, published in an October issue of the scientific journal, reveal that the aroma of baking bread triggers a rising sense of altruism, increased happiness and other beneficial effects.
WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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11/12/12 9:39 AM
BACH: NOAH K. MURRAY/THE STAR LEDGER • BUCKYBALLS: UNCOMMON GOODS • TELEVISION: ERIK DREYER/STONE/GETTY IMAGES • THOMPSON: J.B. FORBES/ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • CHILD IN LONDON: TARA MOORE/PHOTONICA/GETTY IMAGES
Dispatches > Quick Takes
BREAD: ARB/GETTY IMAGES • BORDER: U.S. CUSTOMS & BORDER PROTECTION • SOUTH AFRICAN RAT: NIC BOTHMA/EPA/LANDOV • LOBSTER: EMILY BAUERNSEIND/NEW ENGLAND AQUARIUM
BACH: NOAH K. MURRAY/THE STAR LEDGER • BUCKYBALLS: UNCOMMON GOODS • TELEVISION: ERIK DREYER/STONE/GETTY IMAGES • THOMPSON: J.B. FORBES/ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • CHILD IN LONDON: TARA MOORE/PHOTONICA/GETTY IMAGES
Some brought canned food. Some made donations. After seeing the widespread devastation of Hurricane Sandy on the New York and New Jersey area, Dean Bach and Andrew Wurm decided what the survivors needed was several tons of salsa, hummus, and chips. The pair drove hours from their homes in Ferndale, Mich., to New Jersey with a load of , pounds of salsa, hummus, and chips, along with cases of dog food and , bottles of water. Bach, a restaurant owner, said that he and Wurm, a police officer, reacted quickly after watching television coverage of the storm’s aftermath. The pair left half of the supplies with officials in Hillside, N.J., near New York and the other half with authorities in Howell Township near the Jersey Shore.
Perhaps DVDs designed to display images of a cozy hearth and fire on television screens should come with a warning against nosy neighbors. A person, unidentified in police reports, in Jönköping, Sweden, phoned the fire department on Nov. after spotting what the person believed to be a raging fire inside a neighbor’s house. But when firefighters reached the home, they discovered no fire, but instead a television projecting images of a fire. Amped from being dispatched to a suspected fire, the emergency workers stayed at the home and watched the fire DVD for some time, calling it relaxing.
Soon enough, consumers hoping to get their hands on the magnetic toy named Buckyballs will be disappointed. Faced with a government lawsuit in July (see Quick Takes, Aug. , ), New York–based Buckyballs and Buckycubes manufacturer Maxfield & Oberton announced on its website Nov. that it would cease production of the popular magnetic toys. The Consumer Product Safety Commission filed suit against the manufacturer of the BB-sized, super-magnetic balls and cubes citing safety concerns, particularly among children. “It’s time to bid a fond farewell to the world’s most popular adult desk toys,” a message on the manufacturer’s website said. “That’s right: We’re sad to say that Balls and Cubes have a one-way ticket to the Land-of-Awesome-Stuff-YouShould-Have-Bought-WhenYou-Had-the-Chance.”
Donald Ray Lee should have read the warning signs outside the Peoples Bank & Trust in Troy, Mo. The signs, posted by bank personnel, warn would-be bank robbers that employees of the bank have concealed handgun licenses. Nevertheless, police say Lee, a -year-old Lincoln County man, entered the bank on Oct. intent on robbing it. Bank president David Thompson noticed something was wrong when from his desk he spotted nervous employees and a masked man exiting the bank with a bag of money. Thompson pursued the man and caught up to him as the robber climbed into his vehicle. The bank president then pulled out his .-caliber Colt pistol and, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, calmly said, “Sir, get out of the truck, you’re not going anywhere.” Police said that Lee then went to put his hand in his pocket to feign a weapon. “You don’t want to go there,” Thompson said to Lee. “This will end badly.” Thompson and another pistol-packing bank employee held Lee at gunpoint until authorities arrived and arrested him.
Getting a breath of fresh air is proving harder and harder for the average British child. According to a survey conducted for the United Kingdom’s ITV, percent of British parents say they object to letting their children under play outside. The survey reflected Britons fear of crime—only a quarter of those surveyed said they felt secure in their homes.
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DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
11/12/12 9:39 AM
Janie B. Cheaney
Bound by blood
The perils of forgiveness
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WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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perpetrator is, and Psalm : makes it clear that in every case the ultimate offended party is God. But what’s the harm in “forgiving” unknown perpetrators or notorious criminals? First, I doubt it’s even possible to forgive someone who has not asked for it (a theme of several inconclusive after-church conversations). Forgiveness is not an initiative, but a response. Forgiveness on one side must be balanced by confession and repentance on the other, even if it’s seventy times seven. We can agree that to remain bitter and angry over unconfessed wrong isn’t healthy. But forgiveness that wasn’t requested isn’t true. Setting aside revenge and looking to God for vindication are proper Christian responses ( Peter :), but they aren’t the same as forgiveness, and it doesn’t help to confuse one for the other. Even worse, confusing the concept among believers is apt to scramble it still further among unbelievers—thus the secular sermons about “forgiving” people we’ve never met for crimes that did not affect us personally. This is actually a blanket pardon extended to everyone for anything, on the notion that forgiveness is God’s stock in trade. It’s just what He does, right? Issue blank checks for people to do whatever they feel like doing. That’s not what God says. In His infinite compassion He forgives iniquity, but in His infinite holiness He can “by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus :). Sin must be paid for, and God forgives on one basis only: the blood of His Son. Only then can He grant forgiveness, and only for those who ask. Charles Woods has a struggle ahead, and I pray for him. But if he is ever able to truly forgive, it will be at the end of the process, not the beginning. A
WAITING FOR THE TRUTH: The remains of Woods, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
SENIOR AIRMAN STEELE C. G. BRITTON/U.S. AIR FORCE
T . L, in which a U.S. diplomat and three other men lost their lives, is too extensive to detail here. I’m struck by one aspect of the story: a father’s loss. When Tyrone Woods, a -year-old former Navy SEAL then serving as embassy security personnel, rushed to the aid of the embassy compound in Benghazi, he found no backup and allegedly died in a hail of bullets while trying to signal targets for a counterattack that never came. On Sean Hannity’s TV show a few weeks later, Tyrone’s father Charles clearly implicated official negligence in his son’s death, possibly extending to the White House. Citing his Christian faith, Charles Woods added, “I don’t know who [the responsible parties] are, but one of these days the truth will come out. I still forgive you, but you need to stand up.” His two young daughters seconded that, the older one adding, “As a Christian, we should act as Jesus wanted us to act. … Jesus was pretty good at forgiving.” This is generous—and troubling. The family of Tyrone Woods has a right to forgive those who have hurt them, and even more to do it in Jesus’ name. But is it really forgiveness at this point? At least the Woods family was offering pardon for a personal loss. Too often, Christians are lectured on the need to forgive some heinous murderer facing execution because “that’s what Jesus would do.” Or a pastor ends a funeral sermon over the casket of a murder victim with exhortations to forgive the murderer. Or a counselor tells a man abused as a child to let it all go and forgive his abuser. But the vendors of blanket forgiveness overlook two vital elements: the involvement of the offender, and the Person who is ultimately offended. In a survey of Scripture passages including the words forgive or forgiveness, I found several contexts: forgiveness urged for someone else (e.g., Genesis :); requested by the sinner, whether sincerely ( John :), or not (Exodus :); granted on the request of a mediator (Numbers :); granted with no explicit request (Matthew :); and, in the majority of cases, granted on one condition—the shedding of blood (Hebrews :). In no case is forgiveness offered without knowing who the
Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com
11/9/12 12:45 PM
Senior Airman Steele C. G. Britton/U.S. Air Force
11/8/12 4:51 PM
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20th century fox film corporation
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11/9/12 10:03 AM
Reviews Movies & TV > Books > Q&A > Music
Fluff Pi 20th century fox film corporation
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Creating dramatic tension can be as simple, and unorthodox, as setting together a hungry adult Bengal tiger and an Indian teenager on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Not so simple is using that vehicle as a means to shape and examine said teenager’s spiritual development in the entertaining, well-crafted, yet theologically dissonant cinematic adaptation of the Booker prize-winning novel Life of Pi. Piscine Patel’s early life would be the envy of many children. Raised in a stable, comfortable household, his father (Adil Hussain) runs a zoo in India, affording Piscine the opportunity to interact with many of the animals.
MOVIE: Life of Pi is artistically solid, but it reduces religion to storytelling at the expense of truth by Michael Leaser The main drawback to this seemingly idyllic childhood is the willful mispronunciation of his name by several mean-spirited classmates to sound like the description of a bodily function. Determined to combat this teasing, the young Piscine (Ayush Tandon) adopts the nickname of Pi and embraces its mathematical association to the point where he literally memorizes the first hundred or so digits of the number, to the amazement of students and teachers alike. As a young boy, Pi turns his attention to another complex, age-old issue of competing religions. Raised in a Hindu environment, Pi’s curiosity leads him to learn about God’s love through
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Christianity, followed by a growing respect for the traditions of Islam. A teenage Pi (Suraj Sharma) soon begins to adopt aspects of multiple religious traditions, leading to a syncretistic faith that exasperates his father, who would rather Pi believe in a religion he disagreed with than the mishmash Pi has created for himself. Pi lives in this innocent, irenic spiritual state when he meets his moment of crisis. His father decides to ship his animals and family to Canada in pursuit of better opportunities, but their freighter sinks in a storm, leaving Pi alone with the zoo’s tiger in his lifeboat.
in deep: Suraj Sharma as Pi.
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Reviews > Movies & TV
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WORLD • December 1, 2012
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Witness
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witness: hbo • life of pi: 20th century fox film corporation
technology as any film produced in the recent 3D craze, with the possible exception of Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. And the CGI tiger Lee’s effects team has created is so life-like it makes the recent depiction of Aslan in the Narnia films look fake by comparison. In this environment, Lee deftly explores the dual yet interlocking challenges Pi faces of surviving with a tiger on a lifeboat and surrendering himself completely to God so he can gain the strength he needs to endure. In Lee’s terms, the endless ocean where this drama plays out “is like a desert, a test of his faith, his strength.” Yet, as screenwriter David Magee puts it, the strength Pi finds to survive lies not in one particular
religion or blend of religions. “The point of the book, I think, is not to say that any of these belief systems is the right one. It’s TELEVISION to say that we all have stories that get us through our lives. … Some people believe in Christianity, some [are] by Megan Basham Buddhist, but when you are faced with the ordeal like Over the last decade, television audiences have grown Pi’s, you are sent on a jourused to cable channels using their original programming ney. You then have to call to showcase ever-more explicit levels of sex, nudity, upon those stories to help profanity, and slaughter. But for once HBO is putting its you get through. So liberty from FCC broadcast rules and network ratings Pi has been exposed demands to better use with a series of documentaries that to all of them, and in take viewers into the world’s most notorious hot spots. some ways, all of A creation of filmmaker Michael Mann (Heat, Last of those stories conthe Mohicans), Witness follows a select group of tribute to his jourphotojournalists as they try to document and clarify the ney and help him on conflicts going on in Mexico, South Sudan, Libya, and that journey. So it’s Brazil. The series’ first entry profiles veteran combat not just a story photographer Eros Hoagland as he tracks the drug cartel about religion. It’s a wars in Ciudad Juárez. “You want to get there before the story about storypolice,” Hoagland explains en route to an execution site, telling and the value “but not too soon or the gunmen will still be there.” of stories to get us This kind of pragmatism can seem jarring at times, through our lives.” making the photographers appear almost inhumanely As valuable as stories can distant. This is particularly true when we see a young be, Life of Pi elevates them at shooting victim—presumably a cartel operative—slowly the expense of theological bleed to death while a group of onlookers, including truth. According to Magee, Hoagland and several police officers, do nothing to offer “Our goal in writing the film assistance. As the series progresses, however, we learn how the way we did was to make much Hoagland and journalists like him are risking their sure that you could read the lives to go out on assignment. story or stories in any way Occasionally the show suffers from a lack of context. The you wanted to and it would photojournalists are often so reticent to voice judgments be more of a about the people they’re snapping, reflection we are left with the feeling that they on your see no rights or wrongs, and likewise own belief no solutions. In a later episode, For the weekend of Nov. 9-11 system at however, Hoagland reflects on the according to Box Office Mojo the end.” As effect of his work and how, chaotic cautions: Quantity of sexual (S), violent such, the and tangled as the moments he (V), and foul-language (L) content on a 0-10 film reprecaptures are, he hopes they help scale, with 10 high, from kids-in-mind.com sents a draw truth out of corruption and lies. S V L Rorschach Witness features bloodshed and 1̀ Skyfall* PG-13.............................5 6 5 test of truth, bad language, but here they are 2̀ Wreck-It Ralph* PG................2 4 2 which simply part of the violence and 3̀ Flight R.......................................... 7 6 10 makes for disorder of a fallen world rather than 4̀ Argo* R..........................................3 6 7 thoughtadditions meant to titillate. Given 5̀ Taken 2 PG-13.............................3 7 4 provoking how sparse in-depth and on-the6̀ Cloud Atlas* R...........................8 8 7 storytelling, ground war reporting has become 7̀ The Man with the Iron Fists R............................. not rated but quixotic in the last few years, HBO is offering 8̀ Pitch Perfect PG-13.................5 3 4 theology. viewers a journalistic service. 9̀ Here Comes the Boom* PG...2 5 4 10 Hotel Transylvania PG..........2 4 2 `
*Reviewed by world
11/13/12 4:14 PM
DreamWorks Studios
The ship-sinking sequence is particularly harrowing and awe-inspiring, and director Ang Lee does an exceptional job of showing the smallness and helplessness Pi feels in the midst of such a catastrophe, one of several scenes that earns the film its PG rating. Lee’s use of 3D in this section and other moments in the film is as seamless and organic a use of the
MOVIE
Lincoln ..
WITNESS: HBO • LIFE OF PI: 20th CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION
DREAMWORKS STUDIOS
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M who think Lincoln is about the life of Abraham Lincoln, his four-year presidency, or the Civil War, are in for a surprise when they go to the theater. Steven Spielberg’s latest offering could just as easily be called “The th Amendment” due to its almost singular focus, but in the process viewers are treated to a nuanced look at arguably the most romanticized president in American history. Most of the movie takes place in January of , when the th Amendment to abolish slavery was debated and approved by Congress. For a story about which most people already know the outcome, the plot develops with plenty of drama and suspense. Daniel Day-Lewis is brilliant in his portrayal of Lincoln, depicting the quickly aging leader as a man torn by fights at home, on Capitol Hill, and on the battlefront of the soon-ending Civil War. The condensed timeline allows for character-driven exposure to Lincoln, who is presented as an offbeat genius, often aloof and taking frequent breaks from emotionally charged, sometimes urgent situations to tell stories. While Spielberg has said he didn’t want to show Lincoln as perfect, the movie doesn’t do much to harm the president’s public image—unless you’re turned off by hard-nosed politics and backroom deals that border on bribery. History reveals Lincoln as a moderate conservative, fully landing on neither the side of slavery nor the Radical Republicans who pressured him to make abolition a war aim, even if it meant prolonging the violence. Lincoln was personally opposed to slavery but believed abolishing it was incidental to the larger issue of keeping the union together. (In he wrote: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I
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could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it.”) The movie portrays almost everyone in the president’s inner circle as trying to persuade Lincoln against the th Amendment in the face of his principled leadership. David Strathairn plays a reluctant ally in Secretary of State William Seward (who was actually an abolitionist), a close adviser and political enforcer of the president. Sally Field plays Mary Todd Lincoln admirably, although the -year-old actress looks much older than Mary at when her husband died. Viewers are only given glimpses of the woman many believe was bipolar, and who was committed to a mental institution in . Despite these depictions, the production based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals, adheres to a generally accurate account
of historical events. Lincoln is a dialogueheavy film in the mold of The King’s Speech (dramatic oratory pauses, cheering after speeches), but it moves at a faster pace, so the -minute run time passes quickly. The movie includes some strong language for a PG- film, but violence is less than one might expect for a story set in the Civil War. Since the war is not the focus (there’s only one, brief battle scene), the gore is significantly less than in Spielberg’s Schindler’s List or Saving Private Ryan. While it’s inaccurate to say Lincoln is “like a documentary” (as I overheard one moviegoer describe it), the film is very believable. Viewers will identify with the inflammatory rhetoric, partisan fights, and political gridlock that continued even when the blood of more than a half-million Americans had already been shed. Early in the movie Lincoln identifies the lame duck session of Congress as the leverage needed to pass the th Amendment: “There are Democrats who don’t have to worry about keeping their jobs,” Lincoln said with beguiled optimism. With a lame duck session upon us and our nation’s leaders facing their own set of crises today, perhaps Spielberg’s film will inspire lawmakers—including the president—into a deal-cutting mood that will save the union from a different kind of peril.
DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
11/13/12 4:15 PM
Reviews > Books
Loving God’s love
Author MICHAEL REEVES says the Trinity is the greatest thing about Christianity BY MARVIN OLASKY
Briefly noted
word beside him in heaven, the Quran. At a glance, that seems to make Allah look less eternally lonely. But what is so significant is the fact that Allah’s word is a book, not a true companion for him.” Writers have an adage saying, show, don’t tell: The Quran is all about telling, but God the Father showed by sending His Son. Reeves also notes that the Holy Spirit is hard to understand: He is sometimes seen as a force rather than a person, but that “gives the impression of God up in heaven lobbing down tokens of his blessing (‘the force’) while himself
WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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restorer and Israeli spy, as the central character. This one is again wonderfully written and deeply sympathetic to how Israelis who love life must kill or be killed by terrorists who embrace death. If you want to understand the mindset that may lead Israel, against high odds, to try to take out Iran’s genocidal nuclear capability, this series will help, but be prepared to read about violence. George Yancey and David Williamson’s What Motivates Cultural Progressives? Understanding Opposition to the Political Right (Baylor) is academically written but unconventional in its recognition that progressives are often irrational in their critique of what they see as irrational. Donald T. Critchlow and W.J. Rorabaugh’s Takeoever (ISI) unconventionally criticizes “social justice” by explaining that it has corrupted liberalism. Karen Handel’s Planned Bullyhood (Howard) shows what really happened earlier this year when Planned Parenthood ambushed the anti-breast-cancer group, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and made her the scapegoat; see WORLD’s March , interview with Handel. —M.O.
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J. Budziszewski’s On the Meaning of Sex (ISI, ) brilliantly examines sexual powers, differences, and love, along with beauty and purity. He hits home by describing (for example) “a few of all the things men report experiencing in the presence of a lovely woman. … The feeling that the air has become fresher, delight in what meets eye and ear, enjoyment of her differentness … a feeling of clumsiness, a feeling of the clumsiness of the male sex as a whole, amusement over the two previous thoughts, embarrassment over the two previous thoughts.” Sorrow & Blood (William Carey Library, ) collects chapters by a variety of writers on persecution and martyrdom. Some of the articles are abstract, but others give good specific detail on Christian suffering in the Middle East, Russia, Africa, China, India, and other lands and regions. One chapter—“How Saintly Should Biographies Be?”—notes that “good biographies include sin and failure,” and a chapter by Mindy Belz, “Prayer Without Ceasing,” shows how those in the persecuted church turn to God for help. Daniel Silva’s The Fallen Angel (HarperCollins, ) is his th novel with Gabriel Allon, masterful art
remaining all distant.” But the Holy Spirit gives us hope to do what’s right: Original sin makes both Jesus and the Spirit essential, because without them our natural urges will dominate us. We need the personal touch and the experience of tasting and seeing that the Lord is good—and the Holy Spirit gives us both. This summary doesn’t do justice to the tight and witty writing that Reeves provides: He’s theological adviser for Britain’s Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, and his style reminds me of C.S. Lewis.
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
11/9/12 12:30 PM
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T M, it’s a horror. To many Christians, it’s confusing. To Michael Reeves, author of Delighting in the Trinity (IVP, ), it—the Trinity—is the greatest thing about Christianity. Reeves writes, “If God was a single person, salvation would look entirely different. He might allow us to live under his rule and protection, but at an infinite distance, approached, perhaps, through intermediaries. He might even offer forgiveness, but he would not offer closeness.” Reeves draws the contrast with Islam: “The Quran is a perfect example of a solitary God’s word. Allah is a single-person God who has an eternal
NOTABLE BOOKS
Four recent non-academic theology books > reviewed by
What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him Byron Yawn In short chapters on work, integrity, friendship, and other man-topics, Nashville pastor Yawn shows that men can stop pretending to be good—because the cross frees us from selfrighteousness. He shows that real manliness is not being a Jason Bourne, but paying your bills on time and knowing the location of the toilet plunger. By itself, the chapter on pornography (“Hugh Hefner Will Die Alone”) is worth the price of the book. Downside: Yawn includes some silly Man Laws and other jokes that some will find insulting to their intelligence. Upside: Good counsel on how to get beyond the “permanent adolescence” that popular entertainment and advertising sell.
How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels N.T. Wright Where is the gospel in the Gospels? Prolific Anglican theologian N.T. Wright begins his answer by observing that the church is stuck on Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection, to the near exclusion of the largest chunk of gospel material—His life in between. What is the point of Chapters - of Matthew? Wright answers that question by focusing on the way the four Gospels interweave four themes: Christ is the climax of the story of Israel, is Jehovah in the flesh, founds a new community, and attacks the kingdom of Caesar with the kingdom of God. Through Jesus’ work, God reigns right now on earth as in heaven—and for Wright, that truth is the best news of all.
The Creedal Imperative Carl R. Trueman Seminary professor Carl Trueman, arguing that the church needs to have public creeds and confessions of faith, perceptively analyzes the cultural factors that generate suspicion of detailed statements of belief. His book includes a history of creeds and confessions in the early church and Reformation Imperative surveys are so compelling that eras: The Creedal Imperative’s the book could serve as a textbook for a crash course in Western culture. Essentially, he wants the church to be unashamed of its identity as an institution, and therefore willing to fight for a genuine statement of doctrine that will inevitably exclude some people.
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The Life of God in the Soul of the Church: The Root and Fruit of Spiritual Fellowship Thabiti Anyabwile Anyabwile’s book, a lightly edited collection of sermons he preached at First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman, emphasizes the practical side of ecclesiology. By teaching his congregants about their corporate identity in Christ, Anyabwile encourages them to show love to each other and a watching world in ways both obvious (a chapter on giving) and surprising (a chapter on singing). He explains how doctrine helps develop true fellowship among members of the body, and shows how that works out practically. His message, in essence: Have a meaningful spiritual conversation with each person in your church at least once per year. You, he says, are members of one another. Now act like it.
See all our reviews at worldmag.com/books
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SPOTLIGHT Secular anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann spent four years in the field, doing anthropological work among exotic … Americans. Attending a Vineyard congregation in Chicago and another in Palo Alto, she concluded that the Vineyard, and evangelicalism in general, trains its members to interpret some of their own internal feelings as the voice of God. In When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (Knopf, ), Luhrmann says the church focuses on teaching its congregants how to do something, rather than on how to think something. In other words, the movement lacks an explicit theology. Vineyard pastors do not worry that their congregants will believe falsehoods about God; their major concern is that their sheep will fail to experience dialogue with Him. Sometimes, the results of this doctrine are slightly bizarre: Luhrmann recounts stories of believers who would sincerely ask God what to wear each morning—and then forget to wait for the answer. —C.N.
DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
11/9/12 12:42 PM
Reviews > Q&A
The
Lamb’s agenda Influential Hispanic leader Samuel Rodriguez says his goal is to reconcile Rev. Graham’s salvation message with Dr. King’s march By Marvin Olasky
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Luther King Jr.? Prior to one September evening, at 10 p.m., I was a math nerd. Then I saw Billy Graham on television. Something in my heart resonated and said, “That’s the message you want to share.” One hour later, PBS had a special on Martin Luther King Jr. and I saw the “I Have a Dream” speech. My life goal became to reconcile Billy Graham’s salvation message with Dr. King’s march. Reconciled through the cross? The cross is both vertical and horizontal. Vertically we stand connected to God’s glory, divine principles, eternal truth. Horizontally to our left and right is culture, society. The cross is both righteousness and justice, sanctification and service, covenant and community, Graham and King. White evangelicals have focused primarily on vertical issues, and communities of color that are Bible-believing have focused on horizontal issues. How do these thoughts affect your political u nderstanding? We’re either dependent on government or dependent on God. We can’t
and it is a Christian electorate— pro-life, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-freedom, pro-entrepreneurship. All we have to do is engage it in a sustainable manner, not through token outreach but through participation. With that as backdrop, how do you come at the immigration debate? As Christians we should oppose illegal immigration because we are a sovereign nation and want to reconcile Leviticus 19—treat the stranger among you as one of your own—with Romans 13, adhere to the rule of law. We want people to respect our laws, especially in the reality of the narco-trafficking war in Mexico. We have to protect our communities and also repudiate all vestiges of xenophobia and nativism. Congress has gotten nowhere on immigration during the past four years. Should we return to George W. Bush’s second term proposal? And please summarize it for the Patrick Henry College students here who were in middle school then. The proposal was simple: Look at the undocumented, those who came here illegally, and deport those involved in nefarious activity and gangbanging. Deport the bad guys. Then look at those who are working, even if it’s under the radar. Provide a pathway of integration. It wouldn’t be immediate. Immigrants would have to demonstrate proficiency in the English vernacular. They would have to pay a fine. They would have to recognize they came in here illegally and would have to go to the back of the line. But there would be a guaranteed process where they would stay here as residents, eventually, possibly, as citizens.
Brian Baer/Sacramento Bee/MCT/landov
The strong support President Barack Obama received from Hispanic voters contributed mightily to his reelection. Samuel Rodriguez, 43, is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and, according to The Wall Street Journal, one of America’s seven most influential Hispanic leaders. He is also an ordained Assemblies of God pastor at New Season Christian Worship Center in Sacramento. When you were growing up, how did your parents— both immigrants from Puerto Rico—teach you about U.S. history and values? My dad, a hard-working Mack truck worker, instilled in me a Calvinistic work ethic. He looked at me and said, “Any dream that you can have in this nation can come to pass if you have faith in Christ and if you have the spirit of entrepreneurship.” We as Americans are Plymouth Rock and Jamestown. That’s our DNA. Uniting Plymouth Rock and Jamestown—and at age 14 you decided to meld Billy Graham and Martin
have it both ways. When government grows, in both the private and the public sphere, it pushes other elements out of the way. My parents instilled in me that it’s God first and be careful with entitlements: Don’t depend on anything else but God and the strength that He gives you to work for your family and your beliefs. You’ve talked about promoting not the donkey agenda or the elephant agenda but “the Lamb’s agenda.” Where does that begin? With life. I’m convinced we’re going to see an even greater pro-life movement than America has seen before. Without life, you can’t embrace liberty, and without liberty you cannot facilitate a platform by which all Americans can pursue happiness. What’s the role of Hispanic immigrants in promoting the Lamb’s agenda? I don’t believe Hispanics are here to teach America how to dance salsa, merengue, or cha-cha-cha. We’re not here to make anyone press 1 for English or press 2 for Spanish. We are here to bring panic to the kingdom of darkness in the name of Jesus Christ. Close to 70 percent of converts to Christ in the past 10 years have been of Hispanic descent. This community may very well save American evangelicalism in the 21st century. Are Western values better off in the hands of 100 immigrants from Mexico or 100 professors at Harvard or Yale? The 100 immigrants from Mexico believe in God, in the centrality of Christ, in family, and hard work. Forget about the “silent majority” in Richard Nixon’s strategy: Today’s silent majority is the Hispanic-American electorate,
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I don’t believe Hispanics are here to teach America how to dance salsa, merengue, or cha-cha-cha. ... We are here to bring panic to the kingdom of darkness in the name of Jesus Christ.
BRIAN BAER/SACRAMENTO BEE/MCT/LANDOV
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
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Can we combine that with border security? We have to secure our borders—and we can do it with infrared satellite technology. If we can read the license plate on the back of a car in Afghanistan, we can stop immigrants crossing over the Rio Grande with backpacks. It’s not a matter of whether we have technology and resources: We do. It’s a matter of will. What happened to the Bush plan? President Bush had very little political capital to advance this agenda when he presented it toward the end of his second term. It failed. If that would have succeeded, right now you would see a very energized Hispanic conservative electorate pushing back against HHS mandates, pushing back on the growth of government, defending life, defending the family. You would see a wonderful multi-ethnic firewall of righteousness and justice. Can Republicans revive that understanding? The Republican Party has an opportunity to engage the vast majority of Americans, of all colors and stripes. We can be against amnesty and pro-legalimmigration. We can celebrate the contributions of the Hispanic-American community. On your Facebook page you say some people are storm-driven and some are destiny-driven. What does that mean, and which are you? Destiny-driven, by faith. We have to be driven by God’s Word, because we each have a God-ordained purpose, so we should never be driven by critics or circumstances. We should be driven by the impetus of the cross. When I wake up in the morning, I don’t say, “I’m a Hispanic first.” I’m an American, and a born-again child of the living God. A
DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
11/8/12 12:57 PM
Christmas mix
Enough performers produced enough good songs to make a decent holiday music season BY ARSENIO ORTEZA
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enunciation of excelsis alone would make such an experiment worthwhile. Or whose “What Child Is This?” came closest to capturing the trinitarian wonder of gold, frankincense, and myrrh—Francesca Battistelli’s on Christmas (Fervent), Celtic Woman’s on Home for Christmas (Manhattan), Steven Curtis Chapman’s on Joy (Provident), or Rod Stewart’s on the “deluxe” edition of Merry Christmas, Baby (Verve)? Answer: Rod Stewart’s. It would be easy to dismiss Stewart’s Christmas project as his having discovered that it would allow him, at , to mine the Great American Songbook—a source that has enabled him to sell nearly eight million albums—one more time. A cynical ploy it may be. But, although Merry Christmas, Baby’s secular chestnuts outnumber their sacred counterparts, Stewart sings each one as if deep down he senses the significance of the Incarnation. He certainly puts as much loving care into “This, this is Christ the King” as he once did “People get ready for the train to Jordan.” Christina Perri’s six-song A Very Merry Perri Christmas (Atlantic) is even better. It boasts not only the touchingly introspective original “Something About December” but also a glowing version of the Carpenters’ “Merry
JEWEL: J. MERIC/GETTY IMAGES • STEWART: LARRY MARANO/GETTY IMAGES • PERRI: REX FEATURES/AP • THORN: HANDOUT
T it was beginning to look a lot like a dull year for Christmas music. The predictable slew of releases mainly amounted to singers carrying well-known tunes in buckets while session men provided pro forma backup. Missing was the spark, a sense of mystery, a reason to be going through the motions again besides ticking a box on a professional to-do list. Most of the albums, however, had at least one song that stood out, and in the age of purchasing single tracks from the internet, the potential to assemble a Christmas compilation that would sound OK in the background at office gift-exchange parties wasn’t all that bleak. There were even enough competing renditions of perennial favorites to make comparing them somewhat fun. Whose “Angels We Have Heard on High,” for instance, was the most pleasant to imagine echoing in reply from the mountains—Jewel’s from A Very Special Christmas: Years (Big Machine), Mandisa’s from It’s Christmas (Sparrow), or Hillsong’s from We Have a Savior (Hillsong)? Answer: Jewel’s. Hushed, reverent, and sung atop quiet strings, it wouldn’t actually echo unless blasted from a stadium-sized PA. But her masterly
Christmas Darling.” And if her pop chops aren’t quite up to Charles Brown’s “Please Come Home for Christmas,” her non-operatic “Ave Maria” honors Jesus’ mother with a refreshingly humble simplicity. But best of all are Tracey Thorn’s Tinsel and Lights (Merge) and the Polyphonic Spree’s Holidaydream: Sounds of the Holidays Vol. One (Kirtland). In one sense, the two albums couldn’t be more dissimilar. Thorn’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is her album’s only standard, “Holidaydream” and “A Working Elf’s Theme” the Polyphonic Spree’s only originals. But both albums strip Christmas music of its over-familiarity. Thorn, a veteran British pop songstress, does so from an entirely secular perspective, as if HERE WE GO she can’t remember A CAROLING: what’s holy about the Jewel, Stewart, Perri, and Thorn holiday but knows (from left). that something is and won’t rest until it has saturated her to the core. The Polyphonic Spree, on the other hand—while, like Stewart, favoring the secular—is at its most awe-inspiring when embracing the sacred. By lovingly subjecting “Silent Night,” “Do You Hear What I Hear,” and “Little Drummer Boy” to odd key signatures and melodies, Tim DeLaughter and his vast ensemble actually make it possible to hear them as if for the first time. And their “Silver Bells” and “Let It Snow” are haunting enough for Scrooge. A
Email: aorteza@worldmag.com
11/9/12 1:19 PM
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Reviews > Music
NOTABLE CDs
New or recent classical releases > reviewed by
Masterworks California Guitar Trio The “classical music’s greatest hits” included here (Rossini’s “William Tell Overture,” the “Adagio Sostenuto” movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata, the “Allegro con brio” movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the excerpt from Barber’s Adagio) render it susceptible to charges of lowest-common-denominator pandering. But from the first notes of the opening piece, Bach’s “Passacaglia,” (BWV ), the crystal-clear purity of the trio’s attack renders such accusations moot. Bert Lams, Hideyo Moriya, and Paul Richards love this music. Pejorative categorization is the furthest thing from their minds. A Soul Alone Before God Gustav Hoyer The subtitle, “Six Original Compositions by Gustav Hoyer,” is misleading: The sixth composition, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” is a -piece suite for solo piano. But, like the five preceding orchestral works, they showcase Hoyer’s gift for mimesis. Whether evoking “Vanity Fair” or the “Delectable Mountain,” Hoyer captures his subjects’ essences so precisely that lyrics would have been superfluous. The reason they aren’t in his -minute arrangement of “Abide with Me” is that the operatic soprano Lori Ann Fuller is every bit the equal of Hoyer’s magnificent Orchestra Unleashed. Based on these exquisitely executed cantatas and sonatas by Couperin, Bernier, Marais, Duphly, and Pignolet de Montéclair, what bliss it must have been to be alive and well and living in France during the pre-Revolution th century, when the French baroque period was in full bloom. The intermittent contributions of the soprano Jennifer Paulino alone would have no doubt turned Parisian heads. But it’s Jonathan Rhodes Lee’s harpsichord that would have crystallized the fragile beauty of an age that, to everyone’s detriment, was soon to vanish.
Two of the year’s best Christmas albums are not Christmas albums per se. Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen’s Hirundo Maris: Chants du Sud et du Nord (ECM) is an ethereally sung collection of traditional Norwegian, Catalonian, and “Judeo-Spanish/Sephardic/ Ladino” songs, sparsely accompanied by percussion, double bass, dobro, mandolin, guitar, and two kinds of harp. The Kiev Chamber Choir’s Valentin Silvestrov: Sacred Works (ECM) pays a cappella homage to the ancient melodies of the Russian Orthodox liturgy—“traces,” according to the liner notes, “dissolving in the waters of eternity.” But amid the eclecticism of their sources, both also include yuletide selections. Savall and Johansen’s are “El Noi de la Mare” (“Child of the Virgin”) and “Josep i Maria.” The Kiev Chamber Choir’s are “Silent Night” and “O Virgin Mother of God.” Each is characterized by such mystically intense beauty that surely anyone hearing them would, at the very least, consider the possibility of the Word becoming flesh.
… and Your Heart Shall Rejoice! Songs of Lament and Hope Oasis Chorale Under the sensitive direction of Wendell Nisly, this a cappella Mennonite ensemble takes selections such as “Jesus Loves Me,” “When Peace Like a River” (“It Is Well with My Soul”), and “What a Wonderful World” at face value then proceeds to brighten their highlights and deepen their depths. That they do the same with obscure pieces (the spirituals “Sometimes I Feel like a Moanin’ Dove” and “Ride On, King Jesus,” William Byrd’s “I Will Not Leave You Comfortless”) makes the overall effect as educational as it is edifying.
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JEWEL: J. MERIC/GETTY IMAGES • STEWART: LARRY MARANO/GETTY IMAGES • PERRI: REX FEATURES/AP • THORN: HANDOUT
Les Grâces Francoises Les grâces
SPOTLIGHT
See all our reviews at worldmag.com/music
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DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
11/9/12 1:28 PM
Mindy Belz
Building blocs Playing to special interest voters won Obama an election but no governing mandate
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presidents, he knew, were unlikely to deliver votes his way on Nov. . It helps to explain why he pushed against congressional resistance to student loan “relief”— even as student loan debt climbed to trillion, the highest level of any type of consumer debt in the country. Parents concerned about the debt they and their students were taking on were unlikely to deliver the youth vote on Nov. ; it would be students eager to get through college. And it helps to explain the president’s summer executive decision to grant amnesty to certain illegal immigrants, another decision made without Congress passing a law. Though the president campaigned in to overhaul immigration law, he did not in his first term introduce legislation or pitch it as a priority to Congress. What he did do was by executive order in time to bolster the minority voting bloc. It’s not new for a president of the United States to make decisions that benefit a core constituency. What’s striking about Obama’s first term is how little he led on issues that did not directly benefit one of his discrete voting blocs. His first executive order, to close the military detention center at Guantanamo, died for lack of such support. And similarly went other issues of national security and foreign policy. Obama’s delayed surge in Afghanistan was over almost as soon as it began. Obama stood by for a massive uprising in Iran aided by organized democratic opposition, but gave a passive nod to NATO action in Libya, where Islamists seemed as likely to take over as fledgling democrats. And when it came to the budget crisis, the president also deferred—never introducing a plan himself but setting up a deficit commission in then ignoring its proposals. That led to the budget crisis of , and now the looming Jan. “fiscal cliff.” We should know soon—thanks to the budget crisis—how President Obama plans to execute a second, post-candidacy, term. Short of changing the nd Amendment, he will have to reach beyond the narrow blocs of voters who got him there. A
KRIEG BARRIE
B , data crunchers, and enterprising reporters have filled in a picture of the Obama campaign strategy, the winning formula that helped a weak president in an era of high unemployment and low economic output win the election. As veteran political reporters at The Wall Street Journal discovered: President Barack Obama secured a second term in November by assembling a set of discrete voting blocs into an electoral majority— nurturing support among Hispanics and African Americans, women and young people, while holding his own among working-class voters in the pivotal state of Ohio. The goal, they said, was to expand his base particularly among minority groups, while fighting to preserve his margins among women. So despite more than half of Americans saying the country is “seriously off on the wrong track,” Obama succeeded in expanding his base of young voters from , and growing support among Hispanics and other minorities. He captured the female vote with a -point margin over Mitt Romney using a steady drumbeat about the GOP’s “war on women” that got a boost from Sen. Todd Akin’s sloppy remarks about rape. But this march didn’t begin with campaign season. It began on Jan. , . That’s when the president, in his fourth executive order issued in under three days in office, overruled the ban on funding abortion—and abortion activism— overseas (the so-called Mexico City policy). The reversal meant non-governmental organizations could use U.S. foreign aid to promote abortion, even as a method of family planning, even in countries where abortion was illegal. This was not the work of a president who two days earlier had declared a new era of peace and national unity rising from “the bitter swill of civil war and segregation.” This was the work of a candidate shoring up a pro-abortion voting bloc among women in . That helps to explain why—faced with persistent pleas from the country’s leading clergymen and nonprofit heads—Obama pushed ahead with the healthcare law’s contraceptive mandate and its public funding for abortion. White clergymen and college
Email: mbelz@worldmag.com
11/14/12 9:38 AM
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11/9/12 10:11 AM
WINNING NUMBERS: African-Americans in line to vote in Miami on Oct. as part of the “Souls to the Polls” effort to mobilize Christian voters.
Demograp
r ELECTION 2012 r
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A sobering election has political co lost ground. Evangelical minorities mi 11/14/12 10:15 AM
aphic hope
cal conservatives searching for ways to regain es might be a place to start by JAMIE DEAN
DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
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Hispanics now comprise 10 percent of the electorate nationwide, and in swing states with large Hispanic populations, the opposition of Latinos may have been one of many factors that cost Romney the election. It’s a conundrum growing worse for conservative politicians. And it’s perplexing for some Hispanic evangelical and Catholic leaders who say Republicans are losing a large swath of a pro-life, pro-marriage community they could be winning. A Pew study from October 2012 reported Latino evangelical voters make up 16 percent of the Latino electorate, but a study that same month by the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference says Latino evangelicals make up about 28 percent of likely Latino voters. And though more Hispanics overall have embraced legalized abortion and “gay marriage” in recent years, Hispanic evangelicals remain staunch: A Pew Study in 2011 found 70 percent believed abortion should be illegal. (The same study reported 60 percent of white evangelicals held the same view.) Meanwhile, a recent poll trumpeted 52 percent of Latino voters now support “gay marriage.” But the same study found 66 percent of Hispanic evangelicals oppose it. One thing most Latinos agree on: They support immigration reform. Though it wasn’t their highest priority in the recent election, it’s a dynamic
that continues to influence the vote. That means Romney made at least two mistakes with Hispanics, according to some leaders: He didn’t promote reasonable immigration reform, and he didn’t emphasize the socially conservative issues many Hispanic voters embrace—even when the Obama campaign touted extreme positions on abortion and “gay marriage.” In the post-election, soul-searching days ahead, examining both of those dynamics may be crucial for Republicans looking to win over a growing voting bloc. When it comes to black voters, the hill is far steeper for Republicans, even among socially conservative blacks. And while evangelicals like Harry Jackson don’t expect soon to convince substantial numbers of black voters to support Republicans, he’d like to see the GOP
Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call • previous spread: J Pat Carter/ap
“The loudmouth carpetbagging preacher tried to pressure Congress to act and review the DC City Council’s vote to recognize marriage equality there,” Spaulding wrote. “And whenever the National Organization for Marriage or the Family Research Council wants a rent-a-homophobicNegro to put before the cameras, Harry is Johnny-On-The-Spot.” On the morning after President Barack Obama defeated Republican Mitt Romney—and Maryland voters approved “gay marriage”—Jackson admitted his efforts had been blunted. “It’s not an easy road, and I do get ostracized to some degree,” he said in a phone interview. “But there is a price to be paid when you’re at the tip of the arrow.” For some evangelical leaders in minority communities, being at the tip of the arrow means opposing candidates minorities often support. And it means supporting causes—like immigration reform—that other conservatives resist. This presidential election offered a dramatic example: A slate of conservative and evangelical leaders in the Hispanic community failed to persuade often-conservative Latinos to oppose Obama in significant numbers. While former Republican President George W. Bush won 44 percent of Latino voters in 2004, Romney won 27 percent on Election Day. (That’s five points less than Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential race.)
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JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images
or Harry Jackson, opposing the reelection of President Barack Obama meant crossing a group that delivered a higher percentage of its votes to the president than any other bloc in the 2012 election: black voters. Exit polls reported 93 percent of black voters supported Obama. Jackson—the African-American pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md.—was blunt in his pre-election assessment of Obama: He told his congregation the president embraces an “anti-gospel” agenda, and he warned black Christians not to “celebrate your race over grace.” Among many, it’s not a popular message. When Jackson joined conservative groups in Maryland this fall to oppose a ballot initiative to approve “gay marriage,” Pam Spaulding—a black blogger at the popular PamsHouseBlend.com—took aim.
Voter trends Hispanic voters: ’04 44% Bush ’08 32% McCain ’12 27% Romney
53% Kerry 66% Obama 71% Obama
Republican support from this growing population is in free fall. This year 1 in 10 voters identified as Hispanic or Latino, an increase of 2 percentage points from 2004. African-American voters: ’04 ’08 ’12
d 11% Bush
88% Kerry
d 4% McCain
95% Obama
d 6% Romney
93% Obama
African-Americans overwhelmingly vote for the Democratic candidate. They represented 13 percent of the electorate this year, up from 11 percent in 2004. Young voters: barack to work: The Obamas on election night in Chicago; Jackson (left).
JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images
Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call • previous spread: J Pat Carter/ap
make a more serious effort to win some of the bloc—an effort Jackson and others say didn’t happen this year. Republican leaders aren’t the only part of the equation: Some Christian leaders emphasize white evangelicals should engage these issues as well. Finding a way to embrace minorities—and their concerns—could be key not only to strengthening political conservatism, but could strengthen the broader Christian community as well—something that might be especially important during a second Obama term that bodes more challenges for Christian concerns.
I
mmigration reform wasn’t the predominant issue on most voters’ minds on Nov. 6. Exit polls showed the economy ranked first. Indeed, Obama’s reelection came as a surprise to many, considering the country’s nearly 8 percent unemployment rate and $16 trillion debt that grew worse under his administration. The president also presided over an
unpopular healthcare law that threatens deepening fiscal woes. Pundits debated whether Romney didn’t articulate a counter-vision well enough, or whether voters simply didn’t embrace the principles he did offer. Whatever the case, Romney centered his campaign on the economic malaise. For evangelicals, social issues also remained important, though Romney didn’t emphasize opposition to abortion or “gay marriage.” That didn’t deter evangelical support: Exit polls showed 78 percent of white evangelicals voted for Romney—two points higher than support for McCain in 2008, and nearly the same level as supported Bush in 2004. For Hispanic evangelicals, the numbers dropped drastically: An October poll by the Pew Research Center found 50 percent of the group said they’d vote for Obama. Thirty-nine percent said they s upported Romney. Hispanic evangelical leaders like Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference say immigration is a leading reason Latino voters don’t support Republicans. While President George W. Bush attempted c omprehensive immigration reform, the plan languished,
Source: National Election Pool exit polling • Percentages don't add up to 100% due to third party voters
* Source: National Election Pool/Pew Research Center • ** Source: National Election Pool/The Solomon Project
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’04 43% Bush ’08 32% McCain ’12 36% Romney
56% Kerry 66% Obama 60% Obama
Obama saw an explosion of support from voters between the ages of 18 and 24 in 2008, but their enthusiasm has waned. Support for Obama this year among white voters under 30 dropped 10 percentage points from four years ago. White evangelical or born again: ’04 79% Bush ’08 74% McCain ’12 78% Romney
21% Kerry e 24% Obama e 21% Obama e
Evangelicals turned out for Romney after McCain failed to excite many. White voters identifying themselves as "evangelical or born again Christian" represent 26 percent of the electorate, a slight increase from eight years ago.* Whites, as percentage of voters: ’04 ’08 ’12
77% 74% 72%
Minorities are steadily increasing their representation at the polls. A preliminary analysis of election data by RealClearPolitics suggests over 6 million white voters from 2008 stayed home this year. Jewish voters: ’04 22% Bush ’08 21% McCain ’12 30% Romney
77% Kerry 78% Obama 69% Obama
Jews make up only 2 percent of voters, but have remained reliably Democratic for decades. Romney's extensive outreach to Jews and Obama's troubled relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently contributed to this year's s hift— the lowest support Jews have offered a Democratic presidential candidate since Decem b e r 1988.** 1 , 2 0 1 2 • W O R L D 37
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broken promises: Latino immigrants call on Obama to fulfill his promise to pass comprehensive immigration reform in front of the White House on Nov. 8.
in September that halted deportations for some illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States before they were 16 years old. The eleventh hour order may have secured wavering Hispanic voters. Meanwhile, a smaller group of Hispanics was waging an uphill battle: trying to convince Latinos to support conservative politicians. In October, Rodriguez joined a group of Latino clergy in Boca Raton, Fla., on the day of the last presidential debate. The group of evangelical and Catholic leaders
tives. But Rodriguez and his allies say they don’t support a no-stringsattached amnesty. Instead, they favor a plan that would allow illegal immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship, pay fines, and meet requirements to learn English. (See p. 28.) Richard Land of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the
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denounced Obama’s support for abortion, “gay marriage,” and the federal mandate requiring religious organizations to cover contraceptives and abortifacients in their healthcare coverage. Romney didn’t provide much backup: Despite the millions of dollars the campaign spent on a robust Hispanic outreach (mostly emphasizing economic issues), Rodriguez said he didn’t see or hear one advertisement that specifically engaged Hispanic voters on abortion, “gay marriage,” or the healthcare mandate. That’s striking considering Obama’s relentless attacks on Romney for his opposition to federal funding for Planned Parenthood—the nation’s largest abortion provider. And though the president endorsed “gay marriage” in May—and pushed it heavily during the Democratic National Convention— the Romney campaign offered little public response. Even the healthcare mandate that led some evangelical and Catholic institutions to sue the federal government got little play from a Romney campaign determined to focus on the economy. (Obama won the Catholic vote 50-48.) That left conservatives like Alfonso Aguilar on their own. The executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles led a campaign in the swing state of Nevada to reach out to Hispanic evangelicals and Catholics on social issues. The effort—called Nevada Hispanics—produced literature, conducted rallies, met with Hispanic church leaders, and produced a Spanish-language ad for television and radio to emphasize Obama’s position on abortion, “gay marriage,” and the healthcare mandate. Aguilar—a Catholic—saw nothing like it from the Romney campaign in Nevada or elsewhere. But he said Obama volunteers were busy engaging the same groups “church-by-church, block-by-block. … We really couldn’t compete with them.” Obama won Nevada 52-45 percent.
Aguilar: Julie Jacobson/ap • Olvera: Matthew Staver/The New York Times/redux • denver: Kathryn Scott Osler/Denver Post/ap
Southern Baptist Convention endorsed Romney, but says the GOP must improve on immigration: “How many times do you have to bang your head against the wall before you realize it hurts?” Land says it’s possible to reconcile legitimate concerns for the rule of law with compassion for illegal immigrants. Al Mohler—president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—agreed in a post-election column: “The party’s position on immigration is disastrous, and is at odds with the party’s own values.” The immigration irony: Obama didn’t do much better. The president promised during his first campaign to push quickly for comprehensive immigration reform, but never acted. Still, Latinos hailed Obama’s executive order
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
partly because of conservative worries over amnesty. By the GOP primaries this election season, some conservatives were still adamant. During a Republican primary debate last September, Texas Gov. Rick Perry spoke of allowing in-state tuition for the children of illegal aliens. The crowd booed. In a January debate, when moderator Juan Williams mentioned Romney’s father was born in Mexico, a few audience members booed again. During the same debate, Romney said he favored “self-deportation” for illegal immigrants. Rodriguez says the overall tone was damaging: “Romney may have selfdeported himself from the White House by alienating the Latino electorate.” The subject of immigration reform remains tense among many conserva-
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Aguilar: Julie Jacobson/ap • Olvera: Matthew Staver/The New York Times/redux • denver: Kathryn Scott Osler/Denver Post/ap
no competition: Cristina Aguilar canvasses a North Las Vegas neighborhood for the Obama campaign (left); Pauline Olvera, a Romney volunteer, at Romney’s campaign offices in Lakewood, Colo.
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lack conservatives had an even harder time, but it wasn’t because they didn’t try. Harry Jackson spent months traveling with Christian groups in several states to promote conservative causes, including traditional marriage. Derek McCoy, a member of Jackson’s church, spearheaded the Maryland Marriage Alliance to combat a “gay marriage” initiative. A slate of black pastors and church leaders joined McCoy in the effort. William Owens led the Coalition of African-American Pastors, and said Obama had betrayed the black
community by endorsing same-sex “marriage.” E.W. Jackson—head of Exodus Faith Ministries and chairman of Ministers Taking a Stand—recorded a video for
black Christians, and told them: “It is time to end the slavish devotion to the Democratic Party.” He also decried the Democratic Party’s “unholy alliance” with Planned Parenthood, “which has killed unborn black babies by the tens of millions.” Ministers weren’t the only ones trying. Crystal Wright—author of the blog Conservative Black Chick—said the Republican National Committee hired her a year ago to create a black outreach website to attract more blacks to the Republican Party. “After near completion of the site in the late spring of 2012, Romney and the RNC killed the project, explaining they didn’t want to launch the site without putting outreach activities behind it,” she wrote the morning after the election. “I agreed and recommended a slate of outreach activities such as town hall meetings at historically black colleges and universities in swing states such as Virginia and North Carolina. The RNC refused to fund any black outreach activities.”
Ballot boxed
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Spiritual problems showed up at the ballot box in several states: Three states—Maryland, Maine, and Washington—upheld “gay marriage” in ballot initiatives. Minnesota voters voted down an amendment to the state constitution that would have permamently banned gay marriage. Other cultural trends: Two states—Colorado and Washington— approved the state-regulated growth and sale of marijuana. The results show that conservatives face significant challenges, regardless of political candidates. Michael Cromartie, director of the Evangelicals in Civic Life program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, says those challenges call for “real cultural persuasion” by religious conservatives. “There needs to be modesty and humility in our presentation, without letting go of our core convictions,” he said. Evangelicals should adopt a style “that doesn’t just argue that this is important for us and our community—but rocky mountain high: Supporters of that this is good for the larger community too.” —J.D. state-regulated marijuana celebrate in Denver.
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Carolina red
MINORITY INTEREST: Betty James attends a worship service in Miami prior to voting; Eric Harris (right), a member of the College Republicans at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, poses with a Romney T-shirt.
WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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by nearly percent. The president enjoyed support from the NAACP, a host of black ministers, and local churches that supported his reelection. PICO—a group that calls itself a non-partisan network of faithbased organizations—published a litany for black churches to use during Sunday worship. The liturgy included: LEADER: “We honor the legacy of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X … We celebrated the successes and sacrifices of presidential candidates Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton.” PEOPLE: “In , we said, ‘Yes we can, and yes we will.’” LEADER: “In we will not go back!” Jackson said African-American pastors will have to be willing to face backlash to support more conservative candidates in coming years. And he encourages black churches to focus on “righteousness and morality,” no matter what politicians are in office. That’s a message churches across the spectrum should heed, he says: “Our problems are at their roots spiritual. That’s an issue for the church.” A
McCrory and his wife Ann
MIAMI: J PAT CARTER/AP • HARRIS: CHRIS FITZGERALD/CANDIDATEPHOTOS/NEWSCOM • McCRORY: JEFF SINER/THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER/AP
Romney did address the NAACP, and the campaign talked with some black pastors. Jackson said he had discussions with Romney staffers, and offered to gather black church leaders to meet the candidate. The campaign didn’t accept the offer. And he said he never saw campaign advertising or significant outreach in the black community during his travels. (Samuel Rodriguez said the Romney campaign consistently reached out to him, and he appreciated the interaction. But like Jackson, he said it didn’t translate into grassroots activity in the Hispanic community.) Jackson acknowledges the issues surrounding black voters are complex. But Republicans have gained a bigger slice of their support before: President Richard Nixon won percent of the black vote in , and George W. Bush won percent in . And while it’s a significant challenge, if Republicans and other conservatives never reach out, they’ll never gain ground, he says: “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.” The conservative black pastors seeking to gain ground faced an overwhelming challenge in a community that supported Obama
When Pat McCrory stepped on stage at the Westin Hotel in downtown Charlotte to declare victory in his race for North Carolina governor, it was the first time a Republican had done so in years. With Mitt Romney’s defeat at the top of the ticket, and the loss of seats in the House and Senate, it was also one of the few bright spots for Republicans on Election Day. The Republican Governors Association (RGA) poured more than million into McCrory’s race, and spent tens of millions more in other states. A total of governors’ mansions were up for grabs. Democrats fought back GOP challenges in Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Delaware, Vermont, and Washington. Republicans retained their hold in North Dakota, Utah, and Indiana. So McCrory’s win was not part of a wave, but it could end up showing the GOP how to win in tough circumstances. McCrory billed himself as a new breed of Republican: conservative on social issues, but not afraid to use government money for economic development. As mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city, he frustrated GOP budget hawks by advocating government expenditures on mass transit and new sports venues. But McCrory also talks frequently about his Christian faith, earned the endorsement of NC Right To Life PAC, and supported North Carolina’s Amendment One, affirming traditional marriage. Republicans now hold governors’ mansions, and many of the rising stars of the party—including Indiana’s Mike Pence, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, and New Mexico’s Susanna Martinez—are developing chief executive experience. On a night Republicans didn’t have much to celebrate, Virginia Governor and RGA President Bob McDonnell made the most of the GOP’s single pick-up: “The Republican Party’s … ability to expand our majority provides optimism for the future.” —Warren Cole Smith
Email: jdean@worldmag.com
11/14/12 10:28 AM
SERVE THE CHURCH, NOT YOUR DEBTGa. Hentiuntur Ximodignis adi omnimi, quam
Photo Credit: Nathan Troester, Redeemer Presbyterian Church
“ IN MY YEARS AT GORDON-CONWELL, PROFESSORS, FRIENDS
AND COLLEAGUES HELPED ME FORGE A THEOLOGICAL VISION THAT HAS INFUSED MY PREACHING AND MINISTRY EVER SINCE. I OWE THE SCHOOL, ITS TEACHERS AND ITS ALUMNI A DEBT I CAN NEVER REPAY.” Rev. Tim Keller, M.Div. ’75
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New blood Of the 12 new U.S. senators, six are new to Congress and six are moving over from the House, as Republicans who eyed a takeover instead face diminished status
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by edward lee pitts in Washing ton, D.C .
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HIRONO: Marco Garcia/AP • BALDWIN: Jeffrey Phelps/AP • FLAKE: Matt York/AP • CRUZ: David J. Phillip/AP
Cuba in the 1950s as a teenager with ith just three Republicans among the 12 new $100 sewn into his underwear. Once in lawmakers joining the U.S. Senate, Democrats America, his father put himself have expanded their control of what used to be called through the University of Texas the world’s greatest deliberative body. while earning 50 cents an The 53 to 47 seat majority Democrats hour washing dishes. It’s enjoyed the last two years will now be a an American Dream tale 55 to 45 advantage—counting two leftenhanced by Cruz’s leaning independents likely to caucus with own experience as a Democrats. champion debater at That is not enough for Democrats to comPrinceton. mand a 60-vote, filibuster-proof hold over the This will not be Cruz’s Senate. And the five-vote gap means that Republi first Washington job. The cans cannot be ignored. But not being ignored falls short of the GOP’s onceHirono Harvard Law graduate clerked feasible goal of retaking the Senate chamber in 2012. The party’s inability to pick for former Supreme Court up seats was one more disappointment in a mostly losing election. Justice William Rehnquist and logged time in forAmong the six senaAmong the new faces joining the 88 mer President George W. tors who are new to returning senators will be the nation’s Bush’s administration Congress, and another first Buddhist senator (Hawaii Democrat at both the Justice fiscal conservative, will Mazie Hirono) and the nation’s first Department and the be Texas Republican Ted openly gay senator (Wisconsin Federal Trade Commission. Cruz. The first Hispanic Democrat Tammy Baldwin). Both come Baldwin His 2003 return to Texas as senator from the Lone Star from the House of Representatives side the state’s solicitor general did State, Cruz, 41, is the Tea of the Capitol along with six other not keep him away from the Party’s biggest 2012 election freshman senators. capital: He argued nine success. Others who will just have to walk Cruz has never held across the Capitol Rotunda to find their elective office but camnew offices include Arizona Republican paigned using the story Jeff Flake, a House budget hawk and LEADING THE FIGHT: of his father, who fled opponent of earmarks. Cruz with wife Heidi. Flake
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HIRONO: Marco Garcia/AP • BALDWIN: Jeffrey Phelps/AP • FLAKE: Matt York/AP • CRUZ: David J. Phillip/AP
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Republicans barred her from becoming early 1960s shatthe bureau’s first director. She will soon tered the family’s be a colleague to many of those who middle class voted against her appointment. comforts. The Warren is one of a record 20 memory of those economic strugwomen serving in the Senate gles led Warren to develop a next year. Joining her will specialty in bankruptcy be newcomers Deb cases after earning her Fischer, a Nebraska law degree from Rutgers. Republican, and Heidi Once a registered Heitkamp, a North Republican, Warren has Dakota Democrat. become one of Wall Fischer, 61, rode a Street’s fiercest critics. Sarah Palin endorsement Her outspokenness Fischer to upset both an establishattracted the attention of ment candidate and a Tea Democrats who tapped her in Party–backed candidate in 2008 to chair the congresthe state’s GOP primary. sional oversight panel for She left the University the $700 billion Troubled of Nebraska before Asset Relief Program. graduating to marry a She later helped estabrancher in 1972. She lish the Consumer raised three sons and Financial Protection worked on the northern Bureau for the Obama Heitkamp Nebraska ranch before administration. But Senate
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king: Robert F. Bukaty/AP • kaine: Steve Helber/AP
RECLAIMING KENNEDY’S SEAT: Warren.
warren: Michael Dwyer/ap • fischer: Dave Weaver/AP • heitkamp: Will Kincaid/AP
cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including defending the display of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol. Cruz already has assumed the role of spokesman for Capitol Hill’s freshmen Republicans, pledging on Election Day, “I will spend every waking moment to lead the fight to stop” President Obama’s big-government policies. As a new lawmaker belonging to the party that doesn’t control the Senate or the White House, Cruz will face roadblocks. Some will come from new Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The Harvard Law professor ousted Republican Sen. Scott Brown, taking back the seat of the late Ted Kennedy. Warren, 63, also honed her debating chops (and earned a college scholarship) as a high-school debater in Oklahoma City. And like Cruz, her campaign narrative includes a father story. Warren says her father’s heart attack and demotion at work in the
king: Robert F. Bukaty/AP • kaine: Steve Helber/AP
warren: Michael Dwyer/ap • fischer: Dave Weaver/AP • heitkamp: Will Kincaid/AP
arning a degree in education in 1988. e Two years later she won a seat on the local high-school board of education, and in 2004 she began an eight-year stint as a state senator. The pro-life Presbyterian’s first run at statewide office gives Republicans a seat that belonged to retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson. Heitkamp’s victory in North Dakota prevented Republicans from picking up another Senate seat being vacated by a retiring Democrat. North Dakota has supported Republicans for president in every election since 1968. But Heitkamp, 57, kept the Senate seat in Democrats’ hands thanks to high likeability ratings and a willingness to criticize President Obama on the campaign trail. She stayed away from the Democratic National Convention, said the party’s platform didn’t represent her, and filmed commercials where she said “they don’t know how to get along anymore” in Washington. The former state tax commissioner and state attorney general lost a bid for governor in 2000, and was diagnosed with breast cancer during that campaign. Despite cultivating an independent image, Heitkamp, who grew up in a town near the Minnesota border that had a population of 64 in 2010, told voters she supports most of Obamacare. Another cancer survivor is former Maine Gov. Angus King, 68, who was elected governor as an independent in 1994. He won his second term by a 40-point margin in a three-way race. King, a graduate of Dartmouth and the University of Virginia School of Law, hasn’t said which party he will caucus with in Washington. But the former Democrat supported Obama for president—and Democrats in Congress did not campaign for King’s Democratic opponent. King overcame melanoma at age 29, hosted a popular Maine public television program for nearly two decades, and sold an alternative energy company for $20 million in 1994. A wind energy company King formed in 2007 received a $102 million Energy Department loan from the same federal program that financed the bankrupt solar company Solyndra. King, who as governor once celebrated the signing of an environmental law by
OBAMA SUPPORT: King (top) and Kaine.
jumping into a river fully clothed, sold off his share of the wind company in March. One new senator who did not shy away from his support of Obama during the campaign was former Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine. Growing up in Kansas, Kaine helped his father at his metalworking shop. But Kaine settled in Virginia after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1983. A civil rights lawyer who has never lost an election, Kaine, 54, has
climbed the political ladder: Richmond city council, Richmond mayor, and lieutenant governor before being elected Virginia’s governor in 2005. Kaine, who took a break from law school to serve at a Jesuit mission in Honduras, attends a predominantly black inner-city Catholic church in Richmond. He sang in the choir there for 14 years. But Kaine criticized a new Virginia law imposing hospital building standards on abortion clinics and has said he would not limit the Roe v. Wade decision that forced states to legalize abortion. A
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Virginia-2: Virginia’s coastal residents responded well to Republican Scott Rigell’s reform-minded policies and chose him for a second term over fellow businessman Paul Hirschbiel. Illinois-8: Freshman Republican Joe Walsh made a series of embarrassing statements (most notably an illadvised, mid-October abortion by J.C. Derrick in Washing ton, D.C . comment), turning a close race into a 10-point victory for Iraq War veteran a cattle farmer, Harvard Law School Tammy Duckworth. ASHINGTON— graduate, and former Army Ranger Utah-4: Mia Love fell less than Rep. Allen West who served in both Iraq and 3,000 votes short of knocking had barely taken Afghanistan. Cotton has a off six-term incumbent office last year penchant for articulating Democrat Jim Matheson, when his own strong conservative failing to become the party laid the policies—a skill earning first Republican foundation for his defeat. The him Tea Party support African-American Republican-controlled Florida state and a seat in Congress woman in Congress. legislature marked off brutal district without prior political California-7: Only 184 lines for the outspoken, Tea Party– experience. He may be votes separated fourfavored West, despite gaining two seats Stewart poised for stardom. term Republican Dan after the 2010 census. On Nov. 6, one of Another Republican to Lungren and challenger Ami only two African-American Republicans watch is Utah’s Chris Stewart, Bera of more than 176,000 votes cast in in Congress became one of many 53, a New York Times besttheir district on Election Day. With redistricting casualties. selling co-author (The absentee and provisional ballots yet to Democrats will emerge Miracle of Freedom and 7 be counted—and all votes likely from the 2012 election Miracles That Saved recounted—it may be weeks before a with a net gain of about America), a 14-year Air winner is declared. seven seats in the House Force veteran, and CEO Arizona-1: Fresh district lines and a (following their negaof a Utah-based consultnew opponent helped former tive-63 performance in ing firm. Stewart camDemocratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick 2010), but Republicans paigned as a staunch regain the seat she lost in 2010. maintained a strong majorWest conservative, but he refused to New York-24: Trailing by 14,000 in ity (233-194 at press time) in sign an anti-tax pledge inked by most the initial vote count, conservative an election that again creates signifiWashington conservatives because he Republican Ann Marie Buerkle cant turnover in Washington. says he believes lawmakers conceded on Nov. 9 her race The 113th Congress will feature need every available tool to against former Rep. Dan 80-plus new House members when all lower the deficit. Maffei, whom she beat in the votes are counted, thanks to a One of the notable 2010. flurry of retirements, members seeking Democrats headed to Massachusetts-6: A other offices, and redistricting. Washington is Joe third-party candidate Eight House incumbents were Kennedy III, the 32-yearhelped Democrat John defeated in head-to-head primary batold grandson of Robert Tierney win a ninth term tles, nine went down in head-to-head Kennedy. Massachusetts’ despite his wife’s legal pairings on Election Day, and many 4th Congressional District Kennedy problems. more—like West—found themselves elected him, giving the famed Colorado-6: Republican forced to run in partially or completely family an elected politician again Mike Coffman survived Democratredrawn districts. West, who is conafter its 64-year streak on the friendly redistricting to narrowly win a testing the result of his narrow national political scene was third term in office. loss, is one of at least 18 broken in 2011. Indiana-2: Pro-life Republican Jackie House freshmen (14 Walorski scored a 1-point win (49 Republicans) headed for a percent to 48 percent) over Brendan quick exit from Congress. n our election Mullen. Among the possible preview issue (Nov. 3) North Carolina-8: Richard Hudson future stars ready to take WORLD highlighted was one of three Republican pick-ups his place, Arkansas 12 races to watch. Aside in North Carolina, soundly defeating Republican Tom Cotton is a from West and Cotton, Cotton incumbent Larry Kissell. A strong candidate: At 35, he’s here’s how they fared:
r election 2012 r
Redistricting rout
Allen West, others go down in seven-seat GOP loss in the U.S. House
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west: Harry Hamburg/ap • cotton: Richard Rasmussen/The Sentinel-Record/AP• stewart: Spenser Heaps/The Daily Herald/AP• kennedy: Bizuayehu Tesfaye/ap
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Encouraging families on the topics of Christian Homeschooling, Discipleship & Parenting
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TRUE GRIT Churches, businesses, and homeowners face loss from Sandy and dig in
T
BY EMILY BELZ in New York and New Jersey /
on a top- radio station on the Jersey Shore couldn’t stop talking about Superstorm Sandy between songs. They had to tell themselves, again, that the famous boardwalk was gone. They had to tell themselves, again, that friends’ homes were gone. “You literally wonder where the next meal is coming from,” one said to her co-host on . FM, lamenting that she had recently fed her children crackers. The co-host sympathized and pointed listeners to places for relief, for hot meals. Then they turned the hits back on. Two weeks after the storm hit, Sandy is all people can think about or talk about here, even on pop radio. Houses were filled with soaked insulation and mildew had started to grow on wet sheetrock. The Silverton Diner in Toms River, N.J., was one of the few places open in the few miles near the ocean, and everyone eating there was talking about adjusters, insurance claims, lack of insurance, and stories they’d heard from neighbors. “You can only think about it so much,” said Natalie Zozzaro, whose house sits on one of New Jersey’s barrier islands, where the hurricane gave its hardest punch. She’s only been able to visit her home once since the storm for a few hours because the National Guard has sealed the islands off. “Every time you turn around, it’s like, ‘What did you lose?’” The storm’s vast span is what you feel driving around the Northeast. It swamped New York’s financial district, decimated the Jersey Shore, and scoured Long Island. At miles wide, Sandy was bigger than DIGGING OUT: Hurricane Katrina (though not as strong), and one of the biggest Clearing debris in storms to hit the Northeast, ever, even though it by that time a New York technically had been downgraded from hurricane status. The neighborhood.
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Red Hook, Brooklyn
Chris DeCamps, 30, works for his family’s tugboat and barge business in Brooklyn and lives near the water. He’s at home on the sea, but on Oct. 29 the sea came into his home. About four feet of water swamped his apartment in Red Hook, destroying most of his possessions. He had evacuated before the storm, and when he came home afterward, he said it looked like someone had ransacked his house. The water had lifted everything and then upturned furniture as the storm surge went back out. “It was like the tide coming in and wiping out a sand castle then going out,” DeCamps said.
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Midland Beach, Staten Island
Midland Beach, a blue-collar neighborhood on Staten Island, was one of the hardest hit areas in one of the hardest hit boroughs of New York City. Twenty people died on Staten Island in the storm. A week after the storm, people were still pumping water out of their homes, rescuers discovered another drowned body, and a snowy nor’easter was bearing down. Block after block was lined with piles of ripped out home interiors, like an apocalyptic yard sale. One woman stood on the sidewalk with her hand over her mouth watching as sanitation department workers loaded all of the insides of her house into a trash truck. Those trucks, rumbling up and down the streets, went to a newly created landfill on the island that rose several stories tall—all debris from destroyed homes. In the middle of the Midland Beach neighborhood, Oasis Christian Center, a church roughly the size of a bungalow, buzzed. The storm wiped out the church’s Sunday school classrooms and youth pastor’s office, but once the members cleaned those rooms out, the church opened for business. Several Staten Island pastors, though not officially connected, formed a coalition and divided the neighborhood by blocks, giving each church a set of blocks, with Oasis as the nerve center. “We may not agree perfectly doctrinally, but those relationships are there,” said Dave Watson, a pastor from the northern part of the island who is friends with Oasis pastor Tim McIntyre. The power-less neighborhood would grow dark around 4 p.m., with the end of daylight saving time, but the church served hot meals and had generators running. The Mennonite Disaster Service set up a camper in the yard by the church and began funneling its supplies through the church. CALM AFTER THE STORM: People National Guardsmen hauled debris with affected by Sandy their hands. Teenagers from the public get supplies at the high school across the street came to Visitation of the help. A pastor from Pennsylvania had Blessed Virgin Mary church in Red Hook. hauled in $750 of gas for generators, a rare commodity. Eventually church
John Moore/Getty Images
The surge also filled the family business warehouse, ruining its inventory of spare engine parts, shackles, and other boat supplies. DeCamps said no hurricane has ever flooded the warehouse in any of the employees’ memories. “Our shoreside operation in New York, it was a setback,” he said. DeCamps’ apartment won’t be inhabitable for at least a month, so for now he is “staying at work,” which turns out to
be a bunk on a tugboat. Friends have offered him places to stay, but, “The boats are right here,” he said. “I’m familiar with living on them.” The mariners on the tugboats not only gave him a bunk but also have been helping him do laundry and clean out his apartment. “What I lost was just my possessions,” said DeCamps. “I didn’t have a lifetime worth of things. In some ways it’s a blessing to be forced to live a simpler life.”
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emily belz
storm knocked out nine gasoline terminals—the suppliers to gas stations—out of 57 in the New York metropolitan area. The outages forced gas rationing in New York and New Jersey that continued two weeks after the storm. A nor’easter that dumped snow on the flooded region about a week later compounded widespread power outages. And Sandy’s death toll in the United States now stands at 113, with 43 killed in New York City. The storm was big, but small people, businesses, and churches met its destruction with teeth gritted. For one extended family in Toms River, N.J., the storm flooded five of their homes. One flooded church in Staten Island became its neighborhood’s own emergency management agency. One tugboat worker who lost everything in his Brooklyn apartment is now living on a tugboat. One Hoboken woman lost everything in her food pantry, but experienced a miracle.
members had to spray-paint a sign on the front of their building saying, “NO MORE DONATIONS.”
Hoboken, N.J.
April Harris for the last 30 years has run a food pantry, In Jesus’ Name, in Hoboken, N.J. But when people needed a food pantry the most, Sandy destroyed Harris’ entire inventory. People who had food stamps couldn’t use their EBT cards because power was out, so this was the moment for In Jesus’ Name to step in. But Sandy filled the pantry with 5 feet of water, even though the pantry is eight blocks from the water and has never flooded more than a few inches. Five days after the storm, Harris splashed through the wreckage of the pantry, the sludgy water mostly pumped out. She handed me a cardboard box, wet from the flood. This box, she said, is a miracle. Everything was destroyed but this, the most critical item to her post-storm operations: a box full of cards with the names and addresses of the 500 families that regularly come to the pantry. The bottom of the box was soaked, but the cards were stacked in order in the box, and dry. She assumed it floated on the surging waters, but it didn’t make sense that it survived when her other files in the same spot were ruined. The water tossed her refrigerator onto its side—but not the box full of cards. With the box, she knows all the families to check on, and to prepare food for. The people who didn’t have food before the storm would be even more vulnerable afterward, she knew. But where to find food? More miracles showed up: World Vision had canvassed the neighborhood and learned of her need, and began dropping off boxes of food. Families from some of the 12 churches Harris partners with, as well as middle-schoolers from a local Christian school in the same building, Mustard Seed, were helping her set up a temporary pantry. She had a day of hungry people to get through, but she could see her work stretching for many more days. “The city’s been doing a great job, but what about the poor after?” she said. “After the big relief effort, the impact is going to go on.”
John Moore/Getty Images
emily belz
Toms River, N.J.
Dozens of relief volunteers with Samaritan’s Purse were sleeping at the Church of Grace and Peace, in Toms River, N.J., and woke up to no power and 8 inches of snow from the nor’easter on Nov. 8. They made a hot breakfast on their gas stove, dug their trucks and equipment out of the snow in the parking lot, then schlepped out to chainsaw fallen trees and tear wet sheetrock and insulation out of houses under snow. Brent Graybeal, the program director on site for Samaritan’s Purse, called his wife back in North Carolina and asked what she thought about having Thanksgiving in New Jersey. A few miles from the church, police checkpoints guarded the Silverton neighborhood closer to the water, so only residents and relief workers could enter the ruined area. For days after the storm, the neighborhood was so flooded that even military trucks got stuck, so no one was allowed in. Now the residents
TREASURE were returning to see how bad the destruction TO TRASH: was. Household Jane Geoghehan, 73, is a nurse and a belongings paramedic who lives in the neighborhood. piled in Staten Island Immediately after the storm, she stepped up refuse dump. to do emergency response, even though her knee replacement was bothering her. She and other paramedics took care of the people the military was rescuing from flooded homes. Meanwhile, everything in her house that she has lived in since 1960 was washing away. Geoghehan’s home never flooded more than a few splashes in the 50 years she had lived there. Geoghehan’s five children almost all live within a few miles, and their homes flooded too, but not as badly as hers. The Geoghehans are a family of first responders: Her children work for the police and fire departments and were also working through the storm in 12-hour shifts. “We’re used to being the ones helping, not the ones asking for help,” said Kevin Geoghehan, Jane’s son who works for the local police department and is a paramedic. He joined first responders down south in 2005 to help during Hurricane Katrina. The smells of Sandy brought Katrina rushing back to him: seawater mixed with sheetrock and everything else. Jane Geoghehan was a tough paramedic as she stood in her wrecked kitchen and watched Samaritan’s Purse volunteers rip carpet, floorboards, sheetrock, and cabinets out of her house of 50 years. She offered to drive the workers back and forth to bathrooms whenever necessary. “I told my kids, ‘Now you don’t have to clean out my house when I die,’” she said. But she paused for a second after mentioning that she lost her wedding pictures. Her husband died in 2006. “It’s horrible, but you can’t do anything about it. … I can’t afford to move. I’ll replace what I can. I’m lucky I have very close family.” Another one of her sons came in to check on his mom and then asked a Samaritan’s Purse supervisor about bringing a team to rip out flooded insulation at his house. “I don’t know why it happened,” said Graybeal, the Samaritan’s Purse site director. “But every community I go to, I see God’s people rise up. … It’s not about rejection. It’s about restoration. That’s what we see.” A
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‘We were exhausted’
Desperate parents of autistic children are finding compassionate help through Christian respite care centers by RACHEL ALDRICH
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the mother’s day out program, he screamed and cried so much she had to pry him from the car. He trampled the other children on the playground as if he did not see them. His entire stay was one long meltdown. The next time, Eaves stuck around to keep him calm—but eventually the center told her she’d have to take Jeremy elsewhere. Relatives could not handle him. Eaves and her husband Cecile tried other facilities in Mustang, where they lived miles west of Oklahoma City. Finally, Eaves had to stop working at the daycare she ran for other kids. Eaves is only one of hundreds of thousands of parents in the United States struggling to raise an autistic child with little rest or assistance. One in children has been identified with an autism spectrum disorder according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but few facilities are trained to handle them. Eaves needed the support provided by respite care—and her story shows the need for more.
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neurological disorders characterized by social impairments, communication disabilities, and repetitive patterns of behavior. The meltdowns and behavioral problems alerted Jeremy’s parents something was wrong before they received the dreaded diagnosis: autism, the most severe form of ASD. When Jeremy received his diagnosis at age , some doctors and therapists suggested he be institutionalized. Jeremy’s behavioral issues made it nearly impossible for his parents to take him out in public. Many autistic children obsess over a certain object or concept, like trains or lines. For Jeremy, it was spoons, which he would fling across restaurants if he got his hands on them. He pulled hair, dropped to the floor, and threw fits on a regular basis. Eaves found even simple things like taking Jeremy to the grocery store to be exhausting. The fluorescent lights in Walmart, for example, irritated him, and Eaves had to place a blanket over his head to keep him calm. Jeremy is hyporesponsive, which means he craves physical stimulus, and Eaves often needed to place a bag of dog food over the shopping cart he’s riding in to give him that pressure and keep him calm. The struggles were equally intense at home. Jeremy tried to injure himself and his mother. He punched holes in the wall, poked holes in the furniture, and ate the carpet. The family could not even eat together at the dinner table. Jeremy could not eat regular food due to stomach issues, and would tear at others’ food and grab at their plates. Jeremy’s sister Jodesi, who is nine years older, would lock herself in her bedroom just to be able to eat.
Autism, Eaves said, makes you feel like you live in a different world: “You feel so isolated, from your family, from your friends, from the community, from just going to Walmart.” Some friends and family members accused them of poor parenting: “You just get a lot of doubt and go through all the grief, and blame, and [asking] why.”
similar experience when she and her husband Gary adopted their autistic son Daniel and another boy around the same time. They already had one biological son and an adopted, special-needs son. Majors started looking for respite care when Daniel became out of control, violent, and aggressive on a regular basis. Majors said she and her husband had a strong marriage, so the struggle brought them closer together, but they were always on edge from the stress: “We were exhausted … our parenting was starting to suffer because we never got a break from Daniel’s aggression”—and another son became more aggressive to get his parents’ attention. Because Daniel does not look autistic, Majors said, people outside the family often place unfair expectations on him to behave normally. Then, when he fails to meet those expectations, they back off, leaving the family isolated and without support. The isolation works both ways: “We really don’t have very many close friends because people just tend not to understand.”
’ ,
after Jeremy’s diagnosis. The program that diagnosed Jeremy, Sooner Start, recommended Hannah’s Promise, a respite care center run by United Methodist Church of the Servant in Oklahoma City. When Eaves took Jeremy to Hannah’s Promise for the first time, he threw a fit. Eaves was hesitant to leave him, afraid it would not work out—again. She had not scheduled anything for that night, sure she would have to retrieve Jeremy before the evening was over. But : came, and the phone call did not. “I remember my daughter saying with tears in her eyes that he did really well, she couldn’t even believe it,” Eaves said. Jeremy is now and is still attending Hannah’s Promise. In nine years, Eaves has had to retrieve Jeremy early only three times. Hannah’s Promise, like most respite care centers, pairs each child with a volunteer. Eaves worried about leaving Jeremy with the first volunteer, an older woman, but she kept saying it would be okay. Jeremy, in Eaves’ words, fell in love with her: “Where most people are scared of this -year-old kid, she embraced him, and he felt that.” Since Jeremy first started attending Hannah’s Promise, his family has seen sigA WORLD nificant improvement. Jeremy has been able APART: Trina Eaves with her to live a high-functioning life, even though autistic son he does not have high-functioning autism. Jeremy and He still has limited verbal skills, but is now daugher Jodesi able to interact with other kids. The Eaves (left to right).
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Carissa Rainey is the current director of pumpkin
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Patch Kidz, a respite care center in Enid, Okla., that imitated the structure of Hannah’s Promise. Her son, Brett, has Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning form of ASD where the child may not look like anything is wrong but struggles with many of the same social difficulties. Brett does not understand subtle social cues, sarcasm, or jokes, so he often annoys other children. Rainey put Brett in Cub Scouts for a year, but it was a poor fit. Rainey said structured activities are especially hard for him. She said he often told her, “Mom, I just want to go home.” When it was time to sit down for announcements, or do a group activity, he would often stand up and leave. Other times, he would throw a fit. One Asperger’s difficulty is that the typical signs of disability are not apparent: Another parent sitting at a Cub Scouts meeting would probably not realize Brett had ASD. The first night Rainey took Brett to Pumpkin Patch Kidz, she told him he would have tons of fun. Brett immediately exploded, saying no way, he wasn’t going to have fun and
PUMPKIN nobody was going to like him. Three hours PATCH later, when Rainey told Brett it was time to KIDZ: leave, he responded, “Mom, I’m not leaving. Kids and There’s no way I’m going back home.” voluteers pummel Rainey said the response is typical among each the children who come to the program: other with “Nobody wants to go home.” Rainey said Brett bubbles. has made friends at Pumpkin Patch Kidz, not only with other disabled children but also with their siblings who come along. At Cub Scouts Brett did not get along with a boy who now comes to Pumpkin Patch Kidz, and the two have become close friends. Rainey said going to the program does not fix Brett’s Asperger’s, but it gives Brett an opportunity to interact with his peers in a low-pressure social setting and shows typical children they can still play and be friends. She enjoys watching him look forward to playing with someone else, sharing, and wanting to do things that typical 9-year-olds do. Respite care ministries like Hannah’s Promise and Pumpkin Patch Kidz offer either once a week or once a month nights out for parents of special-needs children. They also welcome typical kids so their parents can have a completely free evening. Many of these ministries require numerous volunteers to sustain a buddy system, where every child, whether special-needs or not, has a personally assigned volunteer. This way other siblings can get the attention they often do not receive at home.
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jill’s house: Lee Love Photography • bottom: handout
occasionally leave him with other babysitters. He has become able to operate and learn in a regular classroom setting. Jeremy’s sister, Jodesi, volunteered at Hannah’s Promise from age 12 to 17. She is in the Navy now, and when she comes home, they are able to go do things together because they can leave Jeremy with other people.
like Eaves and Rainey rest and support, but Barbara Majors has searched for Christian care in her area near Portland and has not found it. Daniel qualified for free, state respite care due to the severity of his autism, but Majors had to fight to receive it. With state money in short supply, Majors said officials usually reject parents the first time they apply: She had to reapply multiple times and go straight to supervisors to get the help Daniel needed. After two years Majors finally secured free respite care through the state: “It’s been so nice to drop him off and know that he is somewhere safe.” State respite care, though, did not allow Majors and her husband to be selective about where their son stayed. Sometimes they were not comfortable with the placements, but if they raised objections they would be put at the back of the waiting list—unlikely to receive respite the next time. Daniel is now . He has been out of the Majors’ home and in a group care home for about a year due to increasing aggression. Majors said she would have been willing to pay for Christian respite care if it had been available. A —Rachel Aldrich is a WORLD intern at Patrick Henry College
REST & SUPPORT: Jeremy with his slow moving companion.
Overnight relief What can one church start? Jill’s House, in Vienna, Va., affiliated with McLean Bible Church, has its own specially designed building next to the church’s Tysons campus. Jill’s House has weeknight and weekend care programs, and most children come once a month or so. Its different atmosphere, decorated with a wilderness lodge theme, gives the kids a break from sterile hospital environments. Jill’s House is the brainchild of Brenda and Lon Solomon, who have a disabled daughter, Jill, now but at the developmental level of a -year-old. While their daughter was growing up, a friend of the Solomons organized respite care for them, and they saw what a difference it made in their lives. On one of Lon’s trips to Israel he
Lon, Jill, and Brenda
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JILL’S HOUSE: LEE LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY • BOTTOM: HANDOUT
visited SHALVA, which provides overnight respite care for kids with special needs. The Solomons decided to start a similar ministry near their church. Jill’s House has over , volunteers and maintains a -to- ratio of kids to volunteers. That allows the program to offer a “rhythm of respite” where children can go to birthday parties, have sleepovers, and hang out with friends. The program has given parents the opportunity for the first time in years to go out on a date, take their typical children to the movies, or even sleep through the night. —R.A.
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Trading places Once a war zone itself, Iraq now hosts tens of thousands of Syrian refugees by Mindy Belz photos and reporting by J o n at h a n H e n d e r s o n /G e n e s i s
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our years ago Dohuk was a different city of refuge in Iraq’s far north—located far enough from insurgent bombings in Baghdad and Mosul to provide a place of protection for targeted Iraqi officials and once-successful street merchants. In the hills beyond Dohuk near the Turkish border, the north’s Kurdish government helped the displaced Iraqis build villages of new concrete block homes. Some made their way to Syria, seeking permanent refugee status far removed from war. Today the escape route has reversed. Syria, once a haven for the region’s war torn, has itself become a place to flee: More than 350,000 people have left Syria since fighting between rebels and government
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forces erupted in March . The civil war has forced an additional . million to leave their homes, but they remain in Syria, many living out of abandoned buildings and in public parks. Most of those who’ve crossed borders are camped in Turkey, Lebanon, or Jordan—but over , so far have escaped to Iraq. The Domiz camp outside Dohuk opened in March and averages new arrivals every day. From about , residents over the summer it’s grown to over ,, according to an October assessment by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. “I can’t sleep at night; I still have images of soldiers shooting from the roofs of the buildings,” whispered a traumatized young girl named Magi inside her family’s tent. “There was rocket fire everywhere and we were really scared,” her mother Rojin told UNHCR. “There were power cuts all the time in our building and prices went up significantly,” she continued. “It was impossible to buy bread and oil, shops were always closed and Magi was crying because she was hungry, so we decided to flee the country.” Refugees at the camp are mostly Syrian Kurds who crossed the border on foot or arrived by taxi, sensing the Kurds of Iraq would welcome them. Throughout warmer months they lived in tents, with food and water—and the occasional rechargeable fan—provided by UNHCR and some non-governmental aid groups. With winter’s approach—bringing cold temperatures and not infrequent snowfalls—workers are taking advantage of warm afternoons to construct more permanent concrete block shelters and latrines. Teachers run a temporary school in the camp, but medical care and many supplies always run short. And like young Magi, many who arrive are suffering trauma.
More than , civilians have left Syria during the -month conflict, and the UN says up to , may leave by year’s end. Where the refugees are:
Turkey ,
Aleppo
, have fled to Europe At least , to North Africa, mainly Egypt
Lebanon ,
Damascus
Dohuk
Iraq , At least . million are internally displaced
Jordan ,
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Given the security situation for Syria and its neighbors, non-governmental organizations are finding work difficult inside the camps, and to serve the displaced inside Syria. Switzerland-based Medair and World Vision are providing assistance to Syrian refugees living in informal settlements in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Samaritan’s Purse and British-based Barnabas Fund are working through local churches to assist the displaced. “I’ve worked in a lot of conflict areas around the world, but the stories we are hearing from the Syrian families arriving in Lebanon are absolutely heartbreaking,” said one Medair aid worker (who could not be named for security reasons). “Many are escaping unspeakable violence where neighborhoods have turned on neighborhoods, and aerial bombardment, shelling, and gunfire have become the norm.” The biggest challenge now, according to Medair president Tabitha Kapic, is how to stay warm during the coming winter:
CAMP LIFE: Domiz receives “Their simple shelters are about new refugees every simply not adequate to day, fleeing war in Syria; a Syrian protect them from the woman fans the flies off of her coming snow and freezing -year-old daughter in Domiz; a teacher with children outside of cold temperatures.” the school in Domiz; churches In November Syrian throughout the region are opposition leaders met in helping to assist newly arrived Qatar to revive and refugees and provide food parcels, blankets, and other restructure their supplies (from left to right). controversial organization. Though the rebel Free Syrian Army has been accused of atrocities in Syria and ties to militant groups, the Syrian National Initiative hopes to provide a blueprint for civil government that could win Western support and provide a way to ease from power President Bashar al-Assad. But with about civilians dying every day as the two sides fight it out, Syrians are likely to continue to flee to places like Domiz. A
SEARCHING FOR ROUTINE: A Syrian man lays blocks for a wall in the newest phase of development in Domiz, northern Iraq; a Syrian woman carries lunch to relatives in Domiz; a girl sweeps the area in front of her family’s tent as laundry dries (from left to right).
UPPER RIGHT PHOTO: JEDEDIAH SMITH/GENESIS
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DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
11/13/12 2:06 PM
Christmas
This Include Indigenous Ministries in Your Missionary Giving You, your family, or your church group can send missionary offerings through Christian Aid for over 800 ministries with 80,000 workers that have no other source of support. Either alone or with your loved ones, you can enable native missionaries to evangelize unreached people in closed lands. Your gifts
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ASSIST A NATIVE MISSIONARY $600 for the year ($50 per month) average support. Receive the name and photo of the one you sponsor.
BIBLES AND CHRISTIAN LITERATURE Native missionaries continually need Bibles, books and Christian literature for personal study, teaching their disciples, and distribution to seekers and new believers. $10 each (average).
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FOOD SUPPLIES Christian Aid’s first priority is advancing the gospel. Contributions for food are sent to Bible-believing missionaries to provide for needy believers and other suffering people in their immediate area of outreach. A sack of rice or beans costs $40 and feeds one family of four for a month.
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WELLS Millions of people suffer them with the tools, provisions from sickness and disease in areas where fresh water and the resources they need is unavailable. When native to plant churches where missionaries drill wells and proChristian witness has never vide entire villages with clean water, they are welcomed into been before. the villagers’ homes and hearts. $600-$2000 or share in providing a well with a gift of $100 or Give now using your credit card at 800-977-5650 more to be combined with other contributors.
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or go to www.indigenous-missions.org
More giving opportunities Are AvAilAble online. All gifts and offerings are used 100% as designated and are tax-deductible. Checks should be made payable to Christian Aid Mission and sent to box 9037, Charlottesville, vA 22906, or use the scan code, left, with your smart phone. WR-MG12
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through Christian Aid equip
Notebook
Lifestyle > Technology > Science > Houses of God > Sports > Money > Religion
handout
For better, for worse Profile in marriage: LAWRENCE and MARY LEHR persevered through trials to find deeper love by Mary Jackson
More unmarried Christians in their 20s are skittish about making a lifetime commitment, and some who are married wish they were not. It’s vital for both groups to see how older Christians learned to work and pray through uncertainties and difficulties, and in the process gained decades of joy. WORLD asked students in mid-career journalism and seminary courses to profile couples married for at least 35 years. We asked them to ask hard questions and make sure their subjects are willing to talk about bad times as well as good. These profiles are going up weekly at worldmag.com/topic/marriage_longevity. Here’s one. —Susan Olasky
Download WORLD’s new iPad app today; details at worldmag.com/iPad
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Notebook > Lifestyle
>>
L M L married in . Six months later he was asking, “What have I done?” At one point, Mary remembers pain and loneliness so intense she thought, “This is why people get divorced.” They met in in Guerneville, Calif. Lawrence lived with a handful of ex-hippies who walked the streets passing out tracts, telling of their newfound faith in Jesus. Mary arrived in town with her toddler Isaac on her hip, ready to listen. A fed-up flower child, she embraced the gospel message after years of trying to find God through drug highs and empty wandering—from San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district to meditation ranches across South America. Lawrence proposed to Mary after three dates. She said no. For two years, Lawrence pursued her. She fell for him after a vivid dream where she saw them kneeling before Jesus, who held their hands together as her son Isaac peered down from a tree. After she sketched this picture for their October wedding invitations, Lawrence panicked and called it off. But God’s beckoning soon overshadowed their fears and insecurity: On March , , they said their vows before a fledgling community of believers in Santa Rosa and celebrated with rousing volleyball games and a potluck dinner. Mary conceived on their honeymoon. By their third year of marriage, they had three sons, including Isaac. “We had no plan. As
hippies, we had lived like spoiled brats. We were immature,” she said. As Mary kept having babies—attempts at natural family planning resulted in eight kids—Lawrence devoted himself to finishing college and starting an insurance company. Often, he worked long days and came home emotionally checked out. Both were admittedly stubborn: They saw little eye to eye. Mary told Lawrence she no longer loved him, but felt God prodding her to persevere in the marriage. For Lawrence, Mary’s depression and his deteriorating relationships with their teenage sons came as wake-up calls. They went through counseling, a turning point in their marriage. “I finally stopped blaming Mary for our problems,” Lawrence said. Newfound grace for each other enabled them to face other challenges—among them Isaac’s death from cancer at age . He left behind a wife and four children. Today, photo collages splash the walls of the Lehrs’ home, celebrating the blessing of nine children and seven grandchildren. Lawrence still runs a successful insurance company with his son Ben. After years together, the Lehrs point to the results of persevering through trials: They have a deeper love for each other and the opportunity to help struggling couples. Lawrence says, “We see each other with all of our shortcomings and brokenness, but we see God’s grace, rather than our failures. It is God’s blessing on us.”
Students have always figured out ways to quiz themselves. But now the internet makes it a snap to create custom flashcards—or use cards that someone else has created. Quizlet, Studystack, Flashcardmachine, and Flashcardexchange are websites that allow students to create and share study helps. Quizlet is the most sophisticated, where students can read or listen to word lists, test themselves, and play games. Quizlet also has an iPhone app so students can study while out and about. —S.O.
WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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HANDOUTS
In the movie Runaway Bride, Julia Roberts bolts from more than one altar without saying “I do.” According to Bridal Brokerage (bridalbrokerage.com), real-life couples cancel at least , weddings each year, sacrificing thousands of dollars in deposits. Now Bridal Brokerage thinks it can make money off that matrimonial disappointment. It offers to “purchase cancelled weddings and resell them to new couples.” This “new market for weddings” benefits sellers, who get back some of their upfront costs; vendors, who maintain business; and buyers, who get discounted weddings without all the planning. Newly engaged or about-to-be engaged couples will find helpful All Things Are Ready, a Christian wedding planning notebook by Amy Hayes (Doorposts, ). It includes checklists and sections on budgeting, setting a date, and wedding style—things common to any wedding planning guide—but also questions and advice to encourage Christian couples to think about the greater meaning of the celebration. It’s full of wisdom: In a chapter on registering for gifts, Hayes includes this reminder: “Remember that your temptation will be towards self-absorption during this time of life. The antidote is to be thankful in all things.” —Susan Olasky
Email: solasky@worldmag.com
11/7/12 1:28 PM
HANDOUTS
Bridal business
Do it yourself history The University of Iowa library is counting on ordinary people to help digitize historical artifacts: Volunteers can transcribe items ranging from handwritten cookbooks to the diaries of a woman named Iowa (-). The project (diyhistory.lib.uiowa.edu) began in with Civil War diaries and letters, then expanded into photographs and other handwritten documents that can’t be scanned. By transcribing and tagging items, volunteers make searchable more of the library’s extensive collection, and learn history while they are at it. —S.O.
What we’ve discovered about real grace for teens.
R
eal grace in this world comes through real adults. Not Christians who imagine life in Christ with only smiles. Not Christians who are scared of teens who talk back. We are doing this one student at a time “in the shoes of the child” in a safe, yet challenging, place for teens to overcome hopelessness, disruptive behavior, and attachment difficulties. We parent children who need help through steady and joyful hands. At Cono, we teach them, too. Whether you need help for a child, or want to join us in this work....
HANDOUTS
HANDOUTS
Contact:
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www.cono.org/involved.html Dave Toerper, Admissions: 888-646-0038 x250 Thomas Jahl, Headmaster: thomas.jahl@cono.org Cono Christian School, Walker IA
11/7/12 1:28 PM
Notebook > Technology
Hospital hack As healthcare goes digital, infiltrators arrive over the internet
BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
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T you become a hacker’s victim, you just might be lying on a hospital bed. Computers and medical devices in hospitals and doctors’ offices are some of the latest targets for viruses, computer malware, and criminals intent on stealing sensitive patient information. At an October meeting of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce), an expert advisory panel discussed the increasing problem of hospital medical equipment being overrun by malevolent software. The malware, unwittingly picked up through internet connections, attempts to relay spam messages or perform repetitive tasks, slowing a computer’s processing abilities. In one case malware infected fetal monitor systems used for high-risk pregnancies. The malware was capable of bogging the monitors to the point they quit recording data from the baby. Radiology workstations, nuclear
medical systems, and MRI image storage systems are also at risk from malware, according to an MIT Technology Review report of the panel discussion. Although such attacks have not caused any reported injuries, they pose the risk of erasing or altering data in a way that could endanger a patient. An obstacle to fixing the problem is that many medical workstations run on older versions of Windows that can’t be upgraded or patched due to manufacturer worries about regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration. So instead of installing anti-virus software, administrators at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, for example, have to take computers offline periodically to clean off malware or viruses. Frustrating, to say the least. Another vulnerability: As hospitals and doctors’ offices switch to electronic
medical records, hackers increasingly try to steal patient information. Although putting records online makes it easier for doctors to access a patient’s medical history, it makes the process easier for criminals, too. Since in the United States, hackers have accessed more than three dozen medical records systems that each contained data for or more patients. In June, one or more hackers broke into a server for The Surgeons of Lake County in Libertyville, Ill., accessing medical information, Social Security numbers, home addresses, and credit card numbers from , patients. The hackers then encrypted the data and demanded the doctors pay a ransom to unlock it. (They refused.) As recompense, the group offered its patients a bonus: free credit monitoring.
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WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • IPAD: ISTOCK
Next Issue, a magazine reading app released this year for iPads and Android tablets, is making an all-you-can-read offer that magazine lovers may find hard to resist. For . or . a month, readers get free access to over subscriptions, such as Better Homes and Gardens, Time, Sports Illustrated, Health, Wired, Fortune, and The New Yorker. Alternatively, readers can buy individual subscriptions for a few dollars a month. A buffet usually offers both healthy food and selections that can clog arteries. Some of Next Issue’s monthly buffet options feature humanistic thinking and blush-worthy photos, so diners need to discern what they put on their plates. As a business model, though, the app seems promising: Readers get unlimited access, and publishers divvy up royalties based on how much time readers spend in each magazine. —D.J.D.
Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
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A.D.
Paul the Apostle
The Fourth Wise Man
The earliest experiences of the Christian church after Jesus’ ascension are powerfully dramatized in this remarkably authentic TV miniseries epic covering the years A.D. 30-69. The perfect resource for any church or home study group wishing to explore the New Testament period, the Early Church, or the Book of Acts. Featuring Anthony Andrews, Colleen Dewhurst, Ava Gardner, David Hedison, John Houseman, Richard Kiley, James Mason, and many others. Includes study guide in PDF. Drama, 6 hours on 2 discs. DVD - #109269D, $24.99 SALE! $19.99
From the Emmy award-winning director Roger Young (Joseph and Jesus) comes the spectacular story of Paul the Apostle. This augmented adaptation, largely based on the biblical account, profiles Christ’s most prolific messenger. He joyfully faced persecution, imprisonment, and peril in order to share the love and redemption offered by Christ. Beautifully shot in the Moroccan desert, Paul the Apostle is a sweeping saga of the man who brought the Gospel to the Western world. Drama, 145 minutes. DVD - #501420D, $14.99 SALE! $11.99
Based on Henry van Dyke’s classic, The Story of the Other Wise Man, this fictional story, set in biblical times, is told in a gently comic tone. A Magi named Artaban (Martin Sheen) sees a sign in the heavens that he hopes will lead him and his faithful servant to the Messiah. For 33 years Artaban pursues Jesus, only to miss him at every turn. The story culminates on Easter Sunday as Artaban, old and dying, encounters the new king and finally finds peace. Drama, 72 minutes.
Peter and Paul
The Cross and the Switchblade and Run, Baby, Run
Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace
illustration: krieg Barrie • iPad: istock
Anthony Hopkins and Robert Foxworth star in this epic network television mini-series that brings to life the precarious existence of early Christianity. The dramatic presentation follows the two key leaders, together and separately, through three epochal decades. It concludes in Rome in approximately A.D. 64 with the beheading of Paul and the crucifixion of Peter under Emperor Nero. Drama, 194 minutes. DVD - #4628D, $19.99 SALE! $15.99
This special 40th Anniversary release of the popular film tells the true story of the beginning of David Wilkerson’s work among the gangs of New York City and the dramatic conversion of the notorious street fighter, Nicky Cruz (Drama, 105 minutes). Also included is the true story of Nicky Cruz’s life. Witness how God gave him the call to take the message of Jesus Christ to teen gangs throughout the world (Testimonial, 52 minutes). DVD - #501466D, $19.99 SALE! $15.99
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What is a moral person to do in a time of savage immorality? That question tormented Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German clergyman of great distinction who actively opposed Hitler and the Nazis. His convictions cost him his life. The Nazis hanged him on April 9, 1945, less than a month before the end of the war. Bonhoeffer’s last years, his participation in the German resistance, and his moral struggle are dramatized in this film. Drama, 90 minutes. DVD - #4638D, $19.99 SALE! $14.99
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11/12/12 4:17 PM
Notebook > Science
Report says biofuel manufactured by algae may not be sustainable By daniel james devine
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WORLD • December 1, 2012
24 SCIENCE & HOG.indd 66
Radioactive fish are still swimming along the east coast of Japan a year and a half after an underwater earthquake and deadly tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Ken Buesseler, a researcher from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, found that 40 percent of bottom-dwelling fish near Fukushima contain radioactive cesium exceeding the Japanese government’s conservative safety limit for human consumption. In August two fish called greenlings caught near the plant were found with amounts of cesium 250 times the limit. However, the “vast majority” of tested fish in the area don’t pose any safety risk to humans, Buesseler said. Japanese fishers are currently prohibited from selling bottomdwelling species caught along the Fukushima coast. The long-term contamination implies the fish are ingesting radioactive sediment from the seafloor, or that the damaged Fukushima reactors are leaking cooling water into the ocean. A spokesman for the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, admitted unknown leaks might remain at the site. The company is building a concrete barrier 2,400 feet long between the ocean and the reactors that will contain leaks as deep as 100 feet below ground. —D.J.D.
Sapphire Energy: David Maung/Bloomberg via Getty Images • fish: Kyodo News/ap
On the imagination scale, algaemade biofuel probably deserves a nine. Grown in vast quantities in ponds or in vats inside greenhouses, scientists can use algae to convert sunlight and nutrients into fuel that runs engines— a seemingly limitless energy supply. After years of research, though, algal biofuel production remains inefficient and expensive, and a new analysis suggests the industry could do more harm than good. An October report from the U.S. National Research Council, a body tasked with advising the government on scientific matters, summed up the problem: “With current technologies, scaling up production of algal biofuels to meet even 5 percent of U.S. transportation fuel needs could create unsustainable demands for energy, water, and nutrient resources.” Depending on the manufacturing echnique, producing a single liter of biofuel from algae, the report noted, could require anywhere from three to 3,650 liters of freshwater. By comparison, it only takes two to seven liters of water to produce a liter of gasoline from crude oil.
Hot fish
worldmag.com: Your online source for today’s news, Christian views
11/8/12 2:10 PM
Keith Myers/Kansas City Star/MCT/newscom
Algae alert
Growing algae requires heavy fertilization with nitrogen and phosphorus. The National Research Council estimated that producing enough algal biofuel to meet 5 percent of U.S. fuel demand could require up to 15 million metric tons of nitrogen—about the same amount already used for all agriculture in the United States. It could require a 50 percent bump in the amount of phosphorus currently used, too. The report didn’t dismiss the potential of algal biofuel entirely. Bioengineered algae or improved cultivation techniques might make the production process more efficient. But those improvements need to be made before the biofuel can rightly be called “sustainable.” The Algae Biomass Organization says over 150 companies are working with algal biofuel, and argues some are already making the efficiency improvements the report recommends. Four companies are approaching commercial-scale production, including Sapphire Energy in California, which plans to produce 100 barrels of NOT EASY algal biofuel a day at its BEING facility in New Mexico by GREEN: 2014. Taxpayers should Scientists wish the company succultivate algae for cess: Sapphire has biofuel received $104 million in research at federal grants and loan Sapphire guarantees. Energy.
Notebook > Houses of God Once an auto dealership and most recently a bar, the building at 1522 McGee St. is now home to
Resurrection Downtown in Kansas
Sapphire Energy: David Maung/Bloomberg via Getty Images • fish: Kyodo News/ap
Keith Myers/Kansas City Star/MCT/newscom
City, Mo. Resurrection Downtown is part of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, a megachurch with three other locations in the Kansas City area.
D e c e m b e r 1 , 2 0 1 2 • W O R L D
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11/9/12 1:33 PM
Notebook > Sports
Mind games
Athletes find solace in the words of sports psychologists BY MARK BERGIN
>>
M S has had a rough year. High preseason expectations have fallen victim to a series of bad bounces and tough defeats that leave the Spartans scrambling just to make a bowl game. They have lost four games in the closing seconds, none more gut-wrenching than a - loss to Nebraska on Nov. in which the Cornhuskers scored the go-ahead touchdown with five seconds left after a questionable pass interference call moved them into position. In the wake of that defeat, Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio had
WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
24 SPORTS.indd 68
With seconds remaining in a Sunday Night Football game on Nov. , Falcons kicker Matt Bryant booted what appeared to many a near meaningless field goal. The kick merely extended the Falcons’ lead over the Cowboys to -, which would remain the final score. But those extra three points proved eminently consequential, eliciting a collective groan from sports books throughout Las Vegas. The kick pushed Atlanta over the . point spread, the eighth time that day that a favored team covered the spread. That meant payouts on parlay bets with as much as -to- odds. Combined with shaky results from Saturday’s college games, the weekend produced losses of million to million, the worst regular season outcome of the past three decades for American football bookmakers. Of course, such losses aren’t likely to slow a sports gambling market worth billion to billion annually. In fact, the day now being dubbed black Sunday may prove a big winner in the long run. When books lose, bettors win. And big winners typically keep coming back long after their house money has run out. —M.B.
RED SOX: ELISE AMENDOLA/AP • BRYANT: CHUCK BURTON/AP
the team on the couch: “We talked to our sports psychologist a lot.” The Spartans are far from alone. Over the past several decades, the practice of sports psychology has morphed from a luxury for superstars into a staple of most every major sport. Even youth sports now turn to psychologists to help players process the thoughts and emotions of winning and losing. According to the American Psychological Association, which recognizes sports psychology as a distinct discipline, graduate level
SHRINK RAP: Boston Red Sox shortstop Alex Cora (right) chats with sports psychology coach Don Kalkstein in the players’ clubhouse at Fenway Park.
programs currently offer degrees in the field. And sports psychologist Jennifer E. Carter, past president of the APA’s exercise and sport division, expects that number to continue climbing: “You can’t call yourself a sport psychologist just because you’re a licensed psychologist who reads Sports Illustrated,” she said. “We want to provide a path to becoming competent as a sport psychologist.” By all accounts, Coleman Griffith was America’s first sports psychologist, developing the field at the University of Illinois before taking a job in with a team predictably in need of a little counseling— the Chicago Cubs. Griffith suggested Cubs owner Phillip Wrigley develop a full-service psychology clinic for his players and coaches. Most professional and college teams today have effectively taken that advice. Athletes are trained in techniques such as imagery, performance routines, and self talk to prepare themselves for high-pressure moments. More than professional golfers work with a sports psychologist, and Phil Jackson, among the most successful coaches in NBA history, famously leveraged mental game coaching en route to winning championships. Jackson developed a close friendship with mental-health consultant George Mumford, often calling on him to help ready players for big games. But preparing for success and dealing with failure are two different things. And in the pain of tough losses, sometimes psychology isn’t enough. For Michigan State quarterback Andrew Maxwell, making sense of bad beats requires a higher plane: “Being a Christian, I believe that God truly does have a plan—this is part of it.”
Email: mbergin@worldmag.com
11/14/12 11:57 AM
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In 2006, few Americans were expecting the economy to collapse. Today the American church is in a similar position, on the precipice of a great spiritual recession. Pastor John Dickerson identifies six factors that are radically eroding the American church and offers biblical solutions to prepare evangelicals for spiritual success, even in the face of alarming trends.
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11/12/12 4:19 PM
Notebook > Money
Storm before the calm
Sandy was destructive, but the financial markets have not panicked BY WARREN COLE SMITH
>>
W S on Oct. and for Superstorm Sandy. It was the first time since that the markets have been closed for two consecutive days because of weather. After the storm come the financial consequences, now estimated to exceed billion, with only about half insured. Despite all that, the markets didn’t panic. Why not? Part of the reason is a growing sense that after the
WALL STREET ENDURES: View of New York Stock Exchange after the storm.
financial storms of the past couple of years, and despite plenty of challenges still ahead, the economy really is getting better. Even jittery European markets operated as usual during New York’s shutdown, with light volume and upbeat performance. When the U.S. markets reopened on the Wednesday after the storm, positive economic reports came in quick succession, including the report that everyone awaited: On Nov. , the first Friday after Sandy and the last Friday before the election, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the economy created a better than expected ,
new jobs in October. The unemployment rate ticked up slightly, to . percent, but it was the second month in a row that it stayed under percent. Adding to the mood: the Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence was also up, to . and the highest level in four years. But the economy is not turning a corner so much as coming around a long, gradual curve. The consumer confidence rating, for example, is still well below the mark, which some analysts say indicates a truly healthy economy. And now comes the lame-duck session of Congress and
attempts to deal with the fiscal cliff. Expect even more caution in the markets as all those politicians, having set their campaigns aside, go about the much harder work of actually governing. And when it comes to the economy, the rest of the world gets a vote, too. Nov. elections in Greece and the Nov. beginning of China’s National Party Congress promised to turn attention overseas again. So while the election brought an end to political uncertainty and a measure of temporary calm, other uncertainties remain, and—as the old saying goes— the markets hate uncertainty.
Political advertising this election cycle broke all previous records. Both of the major presidential candidates (and their allies) spent more than billion each. More than , state and local races brought the grand total to at least billion. The big winners in this election cycle were media companies, especially those specializing in digital advertising or those that owned local television stations in battleground states. Here’s a small sample of third-quarter earnings from some major media companies: I Microsoft’s online advertising revenue grew percent to million. Microsoft’s advertising revenue now exceeds ad sales of percent of the nation’s daily newspapers. I Yahoo’s net revenue rose percent to . billion, beating analyst predictions. I Facebook’s third-quarter revenue was up percent, to . billion. Earnings beat expectations. On the other hand, print continued to contract: I The New York Times Company says advertising revenue fell percent in the third quarter to . million. The company says it expects fourth-quarter advertising trends also to be down. I The McClatchy Company, which owns The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee, and other newspapers, says advertising revenue fell . percent to million. I Gannett owns USA Today and more than other papers, plus television stations, many in battleground states. It experienced both trends: Television ad sales grew percent, to million. Print advertising shrank about percent. —W.C.S.
WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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WALL STREET: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • IPHONE: ISTOCK
Email: wsmith@worldmag.com
11/9/12 1:39 PM
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Notebook > Religion
Campus politics
Northfield officials balk at Christian school’s plans for donated site BY THOMAS KIDD
>>
G C U decided not to accept a million Northfield, Mass., campus granted to them by the Green family of the Hobby Lobby company. As WORLD reported in May, the Greens purchased the former site of the Northfield Mount Hermon School (originally founded by evangelist D.L. Moody) in with plans to donate its acres to the C.S. Lewis Foundation, which would establish a new college there. The foundation struggled to raise necessary funds, however, and the Greens opened a search for a new recipient. In September, the Greens awarded the facility to Grand Canyon, a forprofit Christian school in Arizona that
Forbes recently ranked as the No. small company in America. Grand Canyon officials said they eventually hoped to house as many as , students at its new eastern campus. A little more than a month later, Grand Canyon backed out of the arrangement, citing unexpected expenses and difficulties in working with Northfield town officials. According to Religion News Service, Grand Canyon president and CEO Brian Mueller lamented that “we were willing to make a million investment, but we really had trouble with the city of Northfield.” The town “was concerned that growing the campus to , students would alter
the basic culture and the basic feel of the area,” he said. Jerry Pattengale, a representative of the Green family, stated that while many towns “roll out the red carpets for new businesses … many in Northfield basically shut doors or tried to.” Earlier this year, some Northfield residents protested when it appeared the Greens might give the property to Liberty University, a Christian school that disgruntled Mount Hermon alumni called a “homophobic and intellectually narrow institution.” While several Christian schools and organizations remain interested in the campus, the Greens estimate that selecting another recipient may take a year.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), or the Mormon church, recently announced it would lower the minimum age of missionaries to for men (down from ), and for women (down from ). Observers expect the move will significantly increase the total number of LDS missionaries, especially female ones. Early signs indicate great enthusiasm for the new rules, as applications from prospective missionaries shot up percent in the two weeks following the announcement. More than half of the new applicants are female. Women have ordinarily made up less than a fifth of the worldwide Mormon missionary contingent, which currently numbers about ,. Rodney Stark, co-director of Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, and author of The Rise of Mormonism, told me that he thinks the change is significant, but not for reasons one might expect. His research suggests that LDS missionaries actually convert very few people to their faith. Most converts become Mormons through the influence of LDS friends or relatives (Ann Romney, for example, converted after she began dating Mitt Romney). Missionaries mainly “provide religious education for new converts,” Stark says. “But the missionary experience has hugely beneficial effects on the missionaries. It is a cliché in the Mormon community that ‘kids go out on missions and adults come back.’” Serving as a missionary often galvanizes young Mormons’ faith, regardless of whether they convince many people to become part of their church. The reduced age for females likely means that it will become more typical for LDS women to delay marriage so they can go on missions. For men, it will mean that -year-olds can take their two-year assignment prior to starting college. —T.K.
WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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CAMPUS: ELISE AMENDOLA/AP • MORMON: LAURA SEITZ/THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE/AP
Email: tkidd@worldmag.com
11/9/12 1:46 PM
Is there someone on your Christmas list who does not read the Bible but would read a good story?
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Mailbag ‘Not having what it takes’
Oct. Romney’s change of position on gay marriage suggests an unsettling degree of political adroitness, while President Obama’s track record speaks for itself, and it’s not good. I remain unconvinced that either candidate is God’s preferred choice for our nation, except maybe in a judgmental sense. —S R, Shalimar, Fla.
‘The “Matheny Manifesto”’ Oct. In response to calls for the silencing of “parental involvement” and the surrendering of “authority” to the coach, I ask: Did we learn anything from Penn State, youth sports, and Jerry Sandusky? —N F, Dubuque, Iowa
‘Healthcare hubris’ Romney may not be the smoothest politician, but he and Ryan will resist the current slide into statism and tyranny. The real solution isn’t to elect the right people but, as Milton Friedman put it, to make it politically profitable to do the right thing. Our country will begin to heal, please God, when Americans recover the fear of the Lord, a love of individual freedom and personal responsibility, and a devotion to our constitutional order. —D P, Portland, Ore.
Isn’t Romney doing a pretty decent job considering the liberal bias of our major media? —M T, San Diego, Calif.
people. By every measure, Ryan has distinguished himself as highly competent. —K L, Rock Hill, S.C.
Given the poor Republican and Democratic candidates, my only option is to vote for a third-party candidate. A Republican loss due to principled thirdparty votes will discourage Republicans from making such a poor nomination in the future. —J F, Cleveland-Parma, Ohio
Whether or not Romney is unexciting or politically adept, Christians need to consider that he is pro-life and unabashedly pro-Israel. —K R, Eaton Rapids, Mich.
It may be true that many people are more influenced by style than substance, but it is also a sad indictment on the condition of our country. —J J, Lewis Center, Ohio
Romney was not my first choice, but he had to withstand a nasty Obama advertising blitz. As for the selection of Paul Ryan being his top campaign achievement, highly effective leaders surround themselves with competent
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‘Prayer patrol’ Oct. I can attest to the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s bullying tactics, as it sent a letter to our city council saying that invocations in Jesus’ name were unconstitutional. FFRF presumes that Christian prayers force people to conform to Christianity. How absurd. It’s a veiled attempt to oust religion from any public venue. —F N, Woodbridge, Calif.
Oct. John Goodman estimated that half of the children entering the CHIP program dropped private healthcare plans to qualify. Our children are among that number, but not everyone doing that is abusing the system. My husband is self-employed and, as the recession deepened, our private insurance became too expensive for us to afford, in part because of our Down syndrome daughter. We have been living off our savings for four years. We are anxious to get off of CHIP and resume paying our own way, but are profoundly grateful to have the safety net. —B P, League City, Texas
‘Liberty hill’ Oct. As I read the Constitution, everyone, including soldiers, preachers, politicians, doctors, teachers, and editors, has a right to advocate for candidates. —T P III, Katy, Texas
‘Citizenship test’ Oct. French Revolution atheist extremists produced years of terror, but Christian leadership is no guarantee of restraint and morality. The highly religious South kept slavery and then
DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
11/7/12 11:33 AM
Mailbag Jim Crow laws in place years after other Western societies had done away with slavery. Our own national Christian leaders have proved repeatedly that power corrupts. —C B, Chicago, Ill.
‘Pop religion’ Oct. After reading the article about teen K-Pop groups in South Korea, I went to YouTube to see what they were about. I am shocked that Christian parents allow their children to be part of these depraved groups and saddened to see that they are chaining their children to the most toxic parts of the American culture.
OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO submitted by Hannah Szabo
—C R,, South Charleston, Ohio
‘Blocking the shots’ Oct. Thank you for a timely article on immunizations. As a missionary physician, I have visited countries where vaccines are not readily available and
seen patients suffering with childhood diseases that could have been prevented through immunization. I was dumbfounded that people in America choose not to immunize, and I know many third-
world parents who would be just as bewildered. —K E. C, Fort Wayne, Ind.
How sad that the subtitle suggests that parents who choose not to vaccinate
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“withhold” something good from their children. Where were the voices of parents whose children have been injured by vaccinations?
proudly served as an Air Force chaplain, but in heaven there will be even less use for a military than for clergy. —Robert Stroud, Seabeck, Wash.
—Julie Kamphuis, Plainwell, Mich.
‘The tales of trees’ Oct. 6 I enjoyed Andrée Seu Peterson’s column, but her comment that “the Bible begins and ends with a tree” misses something important. The Bible begins and ends with a wedding: the marriage of Adam and Eve in Genesis and then the wedding feast of the Lamb in Revelation, the sharing of resurrection life with God for eternity. —Craig Anderson, San Jose, Calif.
‘Wastebaskets in heaven?’ Sept. 22 I agree with Joel Belz’s point about the continued exercising of our God-instilled interests. In heaven our vocation will be worship, and pursuing our avocations will be one of our Father’s delights. Jobs that will be obsolete include pastor, for there will be no need for under-shepherds in the presence of the Good Shepherd. I
I suspect there will not be wastebaskets in heaven because God is the ultimate recycler. Despite the fallen nature of this world, the waste of human lungs gives breath to plants, and vice versa. My apple peelings go into the composter to later feed the vegetable garden, which in turn feeds my family.
my teacher friends have bought into the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy hook, line, and sinker. It saddens my soul when I hear them talk about the books and their marriages. —Beth Yoder, Indianapolis, Ind.
Corrections In the Nov. 6 Missouri governor’s race, incumbent Gov. Jay Nixon is a Democrat; challenger Dave Spence, a Republican (“Revenge of the overregulated,” Nov. 3, p. 56).
—Crystal Katrek, Mableton, Ga.
‘The ultimate hybrid’ Sept. 22 As a homeschooled highschool sophomore, I agree that co-ops are changing the face of home education, but you didn’t mention the effects of online education. Online learning levels the playing field by giving anyone with a computer access to excellent teachers. —Brady Jernigan, Kaneohe, Hawaii
‘Literary bondage’ Sept. 8 I am in my late 30s and many of
The valuable painting a Virginia woman bought for $7 at a flea market was by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Quick Takes, Oct. 6, p. 17).
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Andrée Seu Peterson
Thanksgiving secret What may at first seem a duty is in fact our deliverance
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KRIEG BARRIE
W God’s word is perfect, he means perfect: “This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true” (Psalm :). Nobody knows that, though. We think the man is being eloquent. When the psalmist says “the words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times” (Psalm :), he really does mean a seven-times purification from any conceivable aspect of his words that would keep them from being totally awesome, as opposed to a merely five or six-times excellence. Nobody knows that, though; we think the man is being poetic. We say, “What a spiritual man the psalmist is.” The exception to that ignorance is people who press into the words of God like the forceful men Jesus talked about who have always taken hold of the kingdom (Matthew :). They strive to see the glories that can only be seen from the other side of the threshold. Thanksgiving should be glorious. The Lord says repeatedly that we should give thanks. We know it is the right thing to do—but little do we know that it is a “perfect” thing. We read, “Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods” (Psalm :-). We read that and think to ourselves we should really get around to saying thank you to God more often because the Lord is worthy of our thanks. Then we look for a seminar, or a mnemonic device that will help. The best way to learn thanksgiving is to taste it. Regular practice heals what ails us, rights our relationships, straightens out stinkin’ thinkin’, and releases us from dungeons. People who practice thanksgiving don’t put it on a to-do list underneath cleaning the gutters. Maybe they started the habit of thanksgiving for theological correctness, but they’ve ended up being John Piper Christian “hedonists.”
Email: aseupeterson@worldmag.com
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Thanksgiving is perfect in the same way that Abraham’s offering of first picks of real estate to Lot was perfect. It’s perfect in the way Ruth’s giving up security in her native Moab to help her mother-inlaw was perfect, and Levi pushing away his money table to follow Jesus was perfect. These people did it in utter abandonment of self-interest, but they all came out ahead. They didn’t do virtue for the sake of reward, but reward was the handmaiden of virtue. Now, many of us spend our days depressed and hagridden by carnal desires, and we run to the psychiatrist for something fancy or pharmacological. Meanwhile, the “perfect” is sitting in our Bibles, like a sleeper. It says simply: Thank God for everything that happens to you, and you will be happy. It says: Give God His due, and you will escape the torment of self-centeredness. What we thought was a duty turns out to be our deliverance. “No fair!” we think. “If God had just told us up front that thanksgiving was the secret door to all these goodies, instead of letting us think it was a command, we would have done it!” Well, maybe God, in His wisdom, thought it was enough for us to think it a command, and He reserved His blessing for those who would obey it with no motive but love. There is good, better, and best in this world—and then there is perfect (Psalm :). “Good” would be the case that rendering God thanksgiving fulfills our rightful obligation. “Better” would be that thanksgiving fulfills our obligation and gives testimony. “Best” would be that thanksgiving fulfills our obligation and gives testimony and pleases God. But “perfect” is that when we give God a little thing, He gives us everything. I was walking down the road, trying to pray to God for stuff and getting nowhere. Then I chucked it all and started thanking Him, and never ran out of topics. I’m guessing if everyone knew this secret we wouldn’t even need a special Thanksgiving Day in November. It would seem strangely unnecessary. A
DECEMBER 1, 2012 • WORLD
11/9/12 1:48 PM
Marvin Olasky
The power of high places Academia and media are hives of the left that sway the culture
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WORLD • DECEMBER 1, 2012
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showed President Obama confused at best and, more probably, lying concerning the Libya attack that killed four Americans. Had CBS released that footage after the second presidential debate, the course of the campaign could have changed. More basically, though, the media problem is not what’s omitted but what’s been presented for decades as the new normal: marriage as dull and readily breakable, singleness as sexy and independent. This propaganda-fueled drive toward singleness hurts millions of individuals who learn the downside of no one to depend on. It also has a political kick, as the increasing number of never-married and divorced women depend more on government and vote overwhelmingly for more of it. What’s next? Democrats’ pro-abortion rhetoric this year was not forward but backward to the time of Judah’s King Ahaz, who “did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. ... He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations.” The good news is that after Ahaz came Hezekiah, who “removed the high places and broke the pillars” ( Kings :-, :-). Ronald Reagan and the Bushes did not remove the high places. We need a Hezekiah, but we need more: America is not ancient Israel, and the president does not have the power to remove high places. We fall for the blandishments of big media and academia because we are ready to fall: If we concentrate solely on their sin we won’t come to grip with ours. This all means that breaking bamah pillars is the work of every generation, but providential technology— online courses and publications—is opening wide a door in our day for Christian education and Christian publications. I’ll discuss in my next column how we can run through that door. A
KRIEG BARRIE
T K in the Old Testament is a usefully depressing history on national decline. It starts with fire coming down from heaven to convince a king, and Elijah ascending to heaven via chariots of fire. It ends with the former king of Judah taken into captivity and dependent on the ruler of Babylon, who condescends to give him an allowance. Not all kings were part of the descent. Jehoash, Amaziah, and Azariah, for example, all “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord,” except for one thing: “The high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places” ( Kings :-, :-, :-). Many who gave lip service to Yahweh hedged their bets by visiting a “high place” (in Hebrew, bamah) that was usually but not always on a hill or mountain. A bamah, in short, was a cultural security blanket: High places could make people feel like far-seeing gods possessing gnostic wisdom. Question: What are the high places in our culture? Answer: Academia and media. See how people donate to their alma maters even when professors teach doctrines that label the contributors as little more than criminals. See how millions reverently give to PBS and NPR, and how ABC, CBS, and NBC still have the power to insinuate liberal messages. See how hundreds of thousands read the Sunday New York Times and email its sermons. I saw the power of the high places not only teaching at The University of Texas for two decades, but through my failure to convince one king to attack them. During the s, when I very occasionally advised Texas Gov. George W. Bush, we talked about how academically totalitarian UT was becoming. He sympathized but said he was not strong enough to take it on. Unions, sure. Later, al Qaeda, sure. Bamah, no. Our academic high places are hives of the left. The Daily Princetonian says members of Princeton University’s faculty or staff donated to Barack Obama, and only two (one visiting lecturer in engineering, one janitor) to Mitt Romney. I’ve seen similar stats from other schools. When taxpayers and parents pay tens of thousands of dollars to require students to listen to leftist propaganda from generally persuasive individuals, should we be surprised that young people vote left? Our media high places cover up misdeeds. For six weeks this fall CBS concealed information it had that
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
11/13/12 9:39 PM
True Enlightenment: from Natural Chance to Personal Creator Many people today blindly trust in nature and worship creation/Mammon/Baal, not the Creator. The result: darkness, anxiety, debt, and individual sexual competition corrupting the family. True Enlightenment, a history of modern science (1500 A.D. to present) reveals that the basic scientific paradigms in all areas of science were founded by the early reforming scientists who had faith in Christ as Creator. But there was a biased philosophical shift in the seventeenth and eighteenths centuries to a deistic and pantheistic belief that all things were evolved by a natural determined process that man could understand by sense perceptions, and he could also control for material progress. The theory of this process of evolution first called the nebula hypothesis was formed by men who heard voices and saw visions, and not by scientific findings. Millions of years were added by conjecture for this myth of nature to unfold. Science histories omit these questionable beginnings. One hundred years later after this view gained widespread acceptance, Charles Darwin’s ideas removed intelligent design from nature, and promised greater and higher progress by inheriting improvements. Science has shown this does not happen. The continued expansion to other theories to support evolution is reviewed, showing these and all basic evolutionary theories were unsupported by facts. This materialistic hope in evolution is now causing darkness from the blind eyes of mammon worship destroying western economies, freedom, and the break down of the culture. Proper science reveals biblical creation, not evolution. Commendations by significant Christian leaders
A Good Christmas Gift for Thinkers
“Carl Wilson’s book tells the story of science history in a way that exposes some of the frailties and intentional errors of well known scientific movements. Christians who want to be responsible in their response to modern theories about evolution will be greatly aided by this massive, documented work.” –– Dr. Richard L. Pratt Jr., President of Third Millennium Ministries and professor at Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminaries. “This book really represents the core of our faith– –a super job! Carl Wilson has made a major contribution to Christian literature and I pray that God will disseminate it around the world.” –– Dr. Howard G. Hendricks, chairman of the Center of Christian Leadership of Dallas Theological Seminary
CREDIT
“I hope True Enlightenment from Natural Chance to Personal Creator will become a standard textbook in colleges, universities, and especially Christian institutions charged with teaching the truth and from a Kingdom world and life view perspective. It is not light reading, but each page will reward your efforts and expand your appreciation for the triune God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. This could be one of the most important books for this time in history when so much biblical truth is being challenged and Christians have a responsibility to give a reason for the hope that they hold dear.” –– Charles H. Dunahoo, coordinator of the committee of Christian Education and Publications of the Presbyterian Church in America
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Hard cover.....$45.00….ISBN 978-0-9668181-3-0 Soft cover..…$40.00…..ISBN 978-0-9668181-1-6 Order through Andragathia Books at, www.bravegoodmen.org, under books, or at your local bookstore
11/7/12 2:17 PM
Follow
CHRIST At the end of the day, living for Christ is what really matters, regardless of what you do or where you live. That’s why at BJU we’ll help you thoroughly prepare to follow Christ in whatever ministry or vocation He calls you to. To learn how you can follow Christ at BJU, visit us at on.bju.edu/follow.
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