WORLD_Feb_25_2012

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Contents

         ,     /        ,       

FE AT UR E S

34 Primary concerns

COVER STORY Checking the pulse of America and the condition of primary care physicians who check millions of pulses

40 Caught in the middle

Increasing crimes against Christians in Syria reveal the difficult road to “democracy” that lies ahead in the Middle East

44 The battle for accurate Bible translation in Asia

Local pastors and churches object to translations that call God the Father “the great protector” and Jesus the “representative of God”

50 Coming to America

Why are a rapidly growing number of Chinese parents sending their children to Christian high schools in the United States?

DISPATCHES 5 News 14 Human Race 16 Quotables 18 Quick Takes

54 Oscar’s filter

It’s worldview, not artistic merit, that helps unpopular films dominate the Academy Awards Success in the arts: An artist should focus on service, not merely self-expression ON THE COVER: Illustration by Krieg Barrie

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REVIEWS 23 Movies & TV 26 Books 28 Q&A 30 Music NOTEBOOK 59 Lifestyle 62 Health 64 Technology 66 Science 67 Houses of God 68 Sports 69 Money VOICES 3 Joel Belz 20 Janie B. Cheaney 32 Mindy Belz 48 John Montgomery 71 Mailbag 75 Andrée Seu 76 Marvin Olasky

WORLD (ISSN -X) (USPS -) is published biweekly ( issues) for . per year by God’s World Publications, (no mail)  All Souls Crescent, Asheville, NC ; () -. Periodical postage paid at Asheville, , and additional mailing offi ces. Printed in the . Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. ©  God’s World Publications. All rights reserved. : Send address changes to WORLD, P.O. Box , Asheville,  -.

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The inspiring story of a little girl and her journey to freedom.

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.” —psa l m 24:1

EDITORIAL Editor in Chief Marvin Olasky Editor Mindy Belz Managing Editor TiMOThy laMer News Editor JaMie dean Senior Writers Janie B. Cheaney / susan Olasky JOhn PiPer / edward e. PlOwMan / andrée seu Cal ThOMas / Gene edward veiTh / lynn vinCenT Reporters eMily Belz / edward lee PiTTs Correspondents MeGan BashaM / Mark BerGin anThOny Bradley / JOhn dawsOn / daniel JaMes devine Paul Glader / alisa harris / aMy henry MeGhan keane / MiChael leaser / anGela lu Jill nelsOn / arseniO OrTeza / Tiffany Owens Mailbag Editor les sillars Executive Assistant June McGraw Editorial Assistants krisTin ChaPMan / kaTrina GeTTMan

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cRediT

Life trumps theory. Every time.

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Joel Belz

Advantage America

U.S. fertility rate is the best in the West, but to whom much is given, much is expected

JOSEPH LUOMAN/iSTOCK

>>

S     ? Tired of the daily menu of grim statistics, ugly disappointments, and serial disillusionments?

Then try this: Overpopulation—and by that I mean a relatively high birth rate—continues, on balance, to be a blessing. And especially so in the United States.

We’ve sounded this theme here before. But the trend continues, and you should be heartened with its implications. Just a few days ago, political consultant, analyst, and commentator Dick Morris (a former aide to President Bill Clinton who later repented and changed his ways) spoke energetically to the issue.

The United States, says Morris, is now the only major industrialized country in the whole world that is not shrinking away to nothingness because of the aging of its population. Most of Europe, he claims, is just plain disappearing. Italy’s  million people  years ago are now just  million, and will dwindle to  million by the year . Spain is dropping from  million to  million.

Japan has shrunk over the last  years from  million to  million, and is heading to  million  years from now. “It’s an absolute catastrophe,” says Morris. “The Japanese race is dying out.”

The main point, though, is that this devastating shrinkage is happening almost everywhere—in virtually every industrialized country of the world. Except for the United States.

Tracking the United States requires keeping your eye on two important variables. The first is the fertility rate—and the important figure to keep in mind on that subject is .. If the average woman in a nation has at least . babies in her lifetime, those babies will fulfill what is sometimes called the “replacement rate,” and that nation is likely to keep growing. The U.S. rate has for some years hovered right around that . mark. Especially when augmented by both legal and illegal immigration, such a figure suggests a healthy and growing population for the United States for some time into the future.

Elsewhere in the “developed” world, though, that rate lags far behind replacement. France is at

Email: jbelz@worldmag.com

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., the United Kingdom at ., Canada at ., Switzerland, Germany, and Italy at ., Hungary at ., South Korea at ., and Hong Kong at a suicidal .. For all their other forms of wealth, these are in fact dying civilizations.

But there’s more. Besides the birth rate, you’ve got to keep an eye as well on the so-called “aging” rate. What proportion of the total population is over  and likely sooner rather than later to need significant care from the younger set? The so-called “population bomb” that so worried the experts a generation ago has morphed from babies into the older set. And the disparities are startling: The over- set in the United States is an almost uniquely low . percent—compared to a budgetbusting  percent or so in places like Japan, China, and most European countries. The cost of caring for such a swollen (and needy) portion of the population is more and more staggering—especially when there are fewer and fewer young people to share that burden.

“There’s no more fundamental problem for a society,” says Dick Morris, “than that your people don’t want to have children. ... When we fight Obama’s socialism, and his redistribution, and his class warfare, we’re also fighting the pessimism, the disillusionment, the apathy, and the cynicism that set in as a result of that same mindset. But let’s count our blessings. Let’s understand that the optimism that has stimulated us in the past can still unite us and be the strength of this great country.”

Americans who are also Christians can take this a step further. Could God be signaling His people in the United States that He still has major tasks for us in strengthening the work of His kingdom around the world? The evangelism and education of His people, both here and in other nations, are not yet complete. More people abroad means more people to respond to God’s call. And a bigger and more prosperous population here in the United States is not just a statistical development that occurs by happenstance. It’s the design of a providential God who says to us, with optimism: “Go for it!” A FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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2/2/12 3:29 PM

Dispatches NEWS HUMAN RACE QUOTABLES QUICK TAKES

Orchestrated uproar >> NEWS: A Planned Parenthood “win” carries the seeds of its own destruction

REX C. CURRY/AP

BY MARVIN OLASKY

P P this month fooled some reporters all the time and others part of the time—but when it goes out of business some years or decades from now, February  will be seen as the beginning of its end.

To understand the significance of two weeks of sound and fury, keep in mind three major players: One, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the -year-old leader in the fight against breast cancer; two, Planned Parenthood (PP), the -year-old organization that doesn’t do many mammograms but performs more than , abortions (bringing in more than  million) each

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year; three, PP’s media allies, particularly the -year-old New York Times.

Komen over the past year realized that its PP donations were a mistake, for at least two reasons. Why not give directly to community health groups that do mammograms, and cut out the PP middle man? And when raising funds for baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and the fight against cancer, why dirty your ENDGAME: A small hands with abortion? group of Planned Parenthood supporters Komen, like many protest outside the other foundations, Susan G. Komen for celebrates marriages the Cure headquarters but prefers quiet in Dallas on Feb. .

FEBRUARY 25, 2012

WORLD

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2/9/12 4:06 PM

Dispatches > News



LOOKING AHEAD Ash Wednesday

Oscars

Many Christians worldwide will observe Ash Wednesday on Feb. —a day of fasting and prayer that marks the transition into Lent in the traditional church calendar.

Fans of the Oscars will see a familiar face when they tune in to watch the th Academy Awards on Feb. . Actor Billy Crystal will make his ninth appearance hosting the film industry’s awards show.

Cuban Cigar Festival

The Castro regime may be on its last legs, but the th annual Habano cigar festival is scheduled to begin on Feb. .

Luxury cigar aficionados relish the five-day event, called the largest celebration of cigars in the world.

Iranian elections

The NBA All-Star Game Festivities for the NBA’s showcase weekend will wrap up on Feb.  with the NBA All-Star Game in Orlando. The weekend could be crucial for a league attempting to rebound from a labor impasse that shortened the - season by  games.

Iranians will head to the polls on March  to elect representatives for its legislative body, the Islamic Consultative Assembly. But the election won’t bring meaningful change: The government largely bars reformist politicians from participating.

YEMEN: MOHAMED AL-SAYAGHI/REUTERS/LANDOV • CRYSTAL: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • ASH WEDNESDAY: RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • ALL-STAR GAME BALL: HANDOUT • IRAN: VAHID SALEMI/AP

divorces. It quietly told PP that it would make five grants already in the pipeline but did not expect to process any new ones. In the nonprofit world, this happens all the time: A foundation giveth, a foundation taketh away. Disappointed dollarseekers typically smile, bow, and try again next year. But hell hath no fury like Planned Parenthood scorned.

In what became the lead story of The New York Times on Feb. , PP bayed about Komen betraying women. Other media hounds picked up the scent. Soon, replacements for Komen’s annual half-million or so were on the way—about , from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and millions from other donors.

By Feb. , the pressure from online petitions and on-call politicians— proabortion senators attacked Komen—was sufficient to push the foundation to make an ambiguous announcement: PP would be allowed to apply for future grants. That was enough to produce another Times headline: “Cancer Group Backs Down on Cutting Off Planned Parenthood.”

Maybe yes, maybe no: Komen cleverly hushed the media storm by not ruling out further funding, but it did not make any promises. We’ll have to wait and see what the Komen board does when new grant requests come in. Those who only read the Times could have a Belshazzar feast of celebration over dollars flowing like wine and a whipped defector begging for forgiveness. But in the long run this is a PP defeat for at least two reasons: More foundations will be reluctant to donate and more Americans have learned that PP does little for women’s health.

As the American Life League said in a statement, “Getting into bed with Planned Parenthood is like joining the Mafia: They will tell you when you are done. You don’t tell them.”

PP gets lots of taxpayer dollars, is facing congressional investigation, and opposes giving women information that might reduce its  percent kill rate for unborn children on its premises. Six states are cutting off PP funding. The organization may be one election away from losing the roughly  million it grabs from Washington each year. It doesn’t take a Daniel to see that PP is being weighed in the balances and found wanting. A

Yemeni elections

Voters in Yemen will elect a new president on Feb. , less than three months after a protest movement in Yemen forced former President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign in November. Since resigning, Saleh—whom Yemeni reformers wanted to prosecute for corruption—has left the count ry and is seeking medical treatment in the United States.

WORLD FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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2/9/12 11:19 AM

Dispatches > News OBAMA ¿ SUPER PACS

Bible college bombing

Overturned A three-judge panel of the th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned California’s Proposition , the  referendum that defined marriage as between one man “NO PURPOSE”: and one woman.

Opponents of “Proposition  serves Proposition  no purpose, and has no demonstrate effect, other than to outside of the th U.S. Circuit lessen the status and Court Feb. . human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” wrote Judge Stephen Reinhardt, one of the most liberal federal judges, in the - decision Feb. .

The U.S. Supreme Court regularly overturns rulings from the liberal circuit, but the circuit court attempted to craft the opinion to avoid that outcome, insisting that its ruling was narrow.

Reinhardt wrote that it only applied to California because the voters had targeted a “minority group,” which the state had already given the rights of married couples. Supporters of Prop  could ask the circuit court for a hearing before the full court, or they could appeal directly to the Supreme Court.

Gay couples will not be able to marry in the state until the appeals process is exhausted.

   

Heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures eased only slightly in Eastern Europe, where record chill since January has killed hundreds in the region. Government shelters in Ukraine took in more than , victims of cold and power outages, while snow caused traffic jams more than two miles long in Crimea, along the Black Sea coast. Romania’s weather-related death toll this year reached  on Feb. , when one person died in Belgrade after being hit by an icicle that fell from the roof of a -story building. Remnants of the storm blanketed Italy with its largest snowfall since  and forced closure of airports across the continent.

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WORLD FEBRUARY 25, 2012

SOUTH SUDAN: RYAN BOYETTE/AP • MESSINA: CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP • PROP 8: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES • ROMANIA: VADIM GHIRDA/AP CREDIT

The first day of class for students at Heiban Bible College in South Sudan turned terrifying on Feb. , as Sudanese Air Force planes dropped eight bombs on the school constructed

by Samaritan’s Purse AIR RAID: School pastor (SP). The North CarolinaZachariah based Christian relief Boulus stands group reported that the next to a building in the attack destroyed two compound of buildings. SP head the Heiban Franklin Graham called Bible College it “a miracle” that the following the bombing. packed school reported no injuries or deaths.

The college sits in the South Kordofan province near the hotly disputed, oilrich border between Sudan and South Sudan. The UN reports that more than , residents have fled the area since the Sudanese government in the north began sustained air raids in the region last August, and Graham said: “My prayer is that the world will not just sit by ... but make it clear to the government of Sudan that attacks like these will not be tolerated.”

President Obama had to eat his condemnations of super PACs as a “threat to democracy” and “shadowy campaign committees” when his campaign announced in February that he would support Priorities USA, a super PAC, to help fund his reelection campaign. The  Supreme Court decision Citizens United allowed for the creation of super PACs, political groups that can accept unlimited donations from corporations, and conservative super PACs like American Crossroads proved powerful in the  elections. “The stakes are too important to play by two different sets of rules,” Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina explained to supporters.

White House spokesman Jay Carney echoed Messina: “He’s not saying that the system is healthy or good ... his campaign is making the decision that the rules are what they are.”

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2/2/12 3:36 PM

Dispatches > News

In-house opposition

BABYING BABY DOC Former Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier won’t face trial for humanrights abuses, despite a litany of allegations by Haitian victims and international human-rights groups.

A Haitian judge ruled in January that the notorious former leader— known as “Baby Doc”—would stand trial only for corruption charges related to his -year rule.

Duvalier stunned Haitians by returning to the beleaguered nation in  after  years of exile in France. He would face a maximum of five years in jail if convicted on the corruption charges.

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WORLD FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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should not be compelled by our federal government to purchase insurance policies that violate their religious and moral convictions.”

Former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who headed the Democratic National Committee until last year, also criticized the decision, saying the exemption for religious groups should be broader.

Republican wheels of Congress also are turning over the controversial decision: Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, introduced parallel bills to overturn the mandate.

Other Republicans in both the House and Senate introduced a bill to block the contraceptive mandate almost a year ago, but that legislation has sat in committee.

White House press secretary Jay Carney has said the administration is still open to “discussion” over the mandate, but when a reporter asked if the administration would reconsider the decision, he said no: “The president is committed to making sure that all women have access to these important preventive services.”

POLITICS OVER FREEDOM: Obama; Kmiec; Casey; Kaine (from top to bottom).

Course change The th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan.  ruled in favor of Julea Ward, a counseling student at Eastern Michigan University, who claimed school administrators expelled her because of her beliefs. The three-judge panel said the evidence suggested she was right and reversed a lower court ruling in the school’s favor.

Administrators kicked Ward out of the counseling program after she asked her faculty advisor to refer a gay client to another student counselor. Ward said her beliefs made it impossible for her to affirm the client’s homosexual relationship. The court chastised administrators for punishing Ward for requesting a referral, something they allowed other students to do for non-religious reasons. The court’s action clears the case for a jury trial.

OBAMA: LEON NEAL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • KMIEC: ALEX WONG/MEET THE PRESS/AP • CASEY: LEIGH VOGEL/GETTY IMAGES • KAINE: ROB CARR/AP • DUVALIER: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • WARD: ALLIANCE DEFENSE CREDIT FUND

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F O  official Doug Kmiec announced this month that he is potentially “without a candidate” in —joining other leading Democrats who oppose President Obama’s decision that religious organizations aside from churches under the new healthcare law must cover contraceptives purchases by employees, including the abortifacients Plan B and Ella.

Kmiec, who served as Obama’s ambassador to Malta, is now a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University. He was one of the most prominent Catholic supporters of Obama in , and was refused communion for it. “Today, sir, I ask you no longer as an ambassador, but simply as a friend, why put the cold calculus of politics above faith and freedom?” he wrote the president in a letter in early February.

Democratic Sen. Bob Casey also wrote to the president in early February urging him to reverse course. “I have strongly supported efforts to provide greater access to contraception,” he wrote, “And I also believe, just as strongly, that religiouslyaffiliated organizations like hospitals and universities

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SANTORUM: ANDREW BUCKLEY/FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM/MCT/GETTY IMAGES • PARK SLOPE PRESBYTERIAN: JAMES ESTRIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

Leading Democrats come out against Obama mandate BY EMILY BELZ

SCHOOL TIES

Big Santorum wins shake up GOP campaign

BY EDWARD LEE PITTS

SANTORUM: ANDREW BUCKLEY/FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM/MCT/GETTY IMAGES • PARK SLOPE PRESBYTERIAN: JAMES ESTRIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

OBAMA: LEON NEAL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • KMIEC: ALEX WONG/MEET THE PRESS/AP • CASEY: LEIGH VOGEL/GETTY IMAGES • KAINE: ROB CARR/AP • DUVALIER: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • WARD: ALLIANCE DEFENSE CREDIT FUND

THE NEW SURGE

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R S, treated as political road kill last year and again in late January, won big on Feb. , sweeping Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri and putting a huge roadblock in front of Mitt Romney’s caravan to the GOP presidential nomination.

“Conservatism is alive and well,” Santorum said during his victory speech. “I don’t stand here to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney.

I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

The former Pennsylvania senator made numerous visits to evangelical gathering places like Colorado Christian University in the days leading up to Feb. . He worshipped at a nondenominational megachurch in Eden Prairie, Minn., the Sunday before the caucuses.

Santorum has made social conservatism his campaign centerpiece since the start, and this month many social issues have come to the fore: Komen Foundation vs. Planned Parenthood, California’s gay marriage ban, the Obama administration pushing religious institutions to provide abortion pill coverage.

Romney, seeing this social issue surge, began embracing conservative faith rhetoric, but Santorum, a Catholic, has been there all along. He chose a gathering of pastors near Dallas as the place for his first public appearance the day after his victories. “I’m willing to be

very public about the role of faith in our society,” he told the pastors, who later huddled around Santorum for a layingon of hands and prayer.

Santorum also benefited from a desire to puncture the sense of inevitability building behind Romney since his Florida and Nevada wins. While Romney took more than  percent of the Colorado vote in , he won little more than half of that support this time.

No delegates were officially awarded in the Feb.  contests, but Santorum has now won more states—four—than any other candidate. Two wins came in states Romney took in .

Santorum will try to use his victories to fundraise and enlarge a staff currently dominated by volunteers. His campaign raised , online during the three-state election night.

Last year, Santorum raised . million compared to Romney’s . million.

Romney will now turn his sizeable cash advantage and formidable organizational infrastructure against Santorum, as he did against the now-slumping Newt Gingrich.

“We haven’t seen Santorum in the eye of the storm yet,” said University of Colorado political scientist Ken Bickers.

“But that storm is brewing and will be coming his way.” Santorum says he’s ready for the next big battleground, Michigan, the state where Romney’s father once served as governor.

The New York State Senate on Feb.  voted - for a bill that would allow religious organizations to use public schools in the state.

The bill would block New York City’s move to ban religious organizations from using public schools as houses of worship, a ban that affects more than  churches and that was scheduled to take effect after Feb.  services. Last week, advocates of the bill were waiting to see whether Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will permit the bill before the Assembly, despite his own misgivings. “I think the way the Senate is taking it up, it’s seriously flawed,” Silver told The New York Times. “It would open up the schools to anybody.

It might include the Ku Klux Klan.”

But Bill Devlin, a Manhattan pastor who has worked locally to overturn the ban, says that argument is a red herring. He pointed to the past  years during which no such organization has

GOOD NEIGHBORS: Park Slope Presbyterian meeting at John Jay High School in New York on Feb. .

ever tried to use the schools. “They’re dealing in hypotheticals,” he said.

Many of the affected churches have served poor communities for decades and, unable to afford commercial rent, may have to leave the city if the ban survives. Influential pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church urged the state to intervene. “It is my conviction that those churches housed in schools are invaluable assets to the neighborhoods that they serve,” he said in a statement. “... [L]et them be those good neighbors.”

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Dispatches > News

Terminology fight

Environmental network confuses pro-life causes    

Egypt-U.S. row

EGYPT: AMR NABIL/AP • PERKINS: PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP • CASIAS: HANS MAXIMO MUSIELIK/AP CREDIT

U.S. relations with Egypt grew more strained as Egyptian officials announced criminal charges against  Americans working for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Cairo. Thirteen of the  Americans charged live outside Egypt. Those living CRIMINAL? Egyptian in Egypt include Sam LaHood, investigative director of the International judges Republican Institute and the examining son of Transportation Secretary the foreign funding of Ray LaHood.

NGOs. The charges came as part of an Egyptian investigation into pro-democracy groups that monitor elections and offer training to candidates. Officials accuse  employees of a handful of NGOs of operating the groups without government licenses and spending foreign funds without Egyptian permission. Four of the NGOs receive partial funding from the U.S. government, but the groups say their work is nonpartisan and transparent, challenging Egyptian suspicion that the organizations are fomenting rebellion against the ruling party. U.S. officials say the charges jeopardize U.S. aid to the Egyptian military: The United States gives Egypt . billion annually.

While Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) president Mitch Hescox prepared to speak to Congress in support of the EPA’s newly established “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards”—intended to reduce mercury and other pollution from power plants—pro-life leaders voiced concern that his environmental organization was watering down the pro-life message. In written remarks prepared for a Feb.  hearing, Hescox urged Congress to support the EPA rules as a matter of pro-life principle: “Anything that threatens and impedes life, especially impacts on the unborn and young children, is contrary to our common beliefs and values and exacts a moral toll on the nation’s character.”

But in a statement of protest, more than  pro-life leaders warned the organization’s tactics threatened to “confuse voters, divide the pro-life vote, and postpone the end of abortion on demand in America.”

Last year the EEN spent , on radio spots and billboards in seven states that thanked several members of Congress for “defending life.” Yet many of the targeted lawmakers have pro-abortion voting records: Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., voted for pro-life issues only  percent of the time during the first  months of the th Congress, according to an FRC Action scorecard. One billboard rebuked Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, alleging his opposition to the mercury rules “harms … millions” of unborn children, although Latta had voted for pro-life issues  percent of the time.

In the protest statement, released by the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, leaders including Marjorie Dannenfelser (president of the Susan B. Anthony List) and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins pointed out that mercury emissions don’t kill infants, abortions do: “The term pro-life originated historically in the struggle to end abortion on demand and continues to be used in public discourse overwhelmingly in that sense. To ignore that is at best sloppy communication and at worst intentional deception.”

Mexico missionaries When Shawn Casias on Jan.  entered his parents’ remote home just outside Monterrey, Mexico, he discovered the dead body of his -year-old mother, Wanda Casias, with an electrical cord wrapped around her neck. Searchers five hours later found the body of his father, John Casias, , in a building on their property.

John and Wanda Casias were Monterrey-area missionaries for three decades—fiercely dedicated to the First Fundamentalist Independent Baptist Church they established. Their children remember Wanda saying, “We were called to Mexico. They are our people.”

Monterrey is a magnet for two of the most active drug cartels, Zetas and Gulf—but John and Wanda Casias were so secure in their faith they were willing to risk living there. Son John Casias said: “If my parents were here right now … they would say, ‘Pray for those who murdered us.’”

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“WE WERE CALLED TO MEXICO”: Mourners pay respects to Wanda Casias during the funeral service for her and her husband John.

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2/3/12 12:42 PM

Dispatches > Human Race

Queen Elizabeth II in 



A Canadian court convicted and sentenced three Afghan family members to life in prison for their roles in the “honor killing” deaths of three teenage sisters and another woman.

Authorities say Mohammad Shafia, , his wife Tooba Yahya, , and their son Hamed, , staged an accident submerging the car of Zainab, , Sahar, , Geeti, , and Rona Amir Mohammad, —Shafia’s childless first wife—in an Ontario canal. Wiretaps during the investigation uncovered that Shafia was infuriated over his daughters’ rebellious Western ways.

 U.S. special forces rescued U.S. aid worker Jessica Buchanan, , and her Danish colleague Poul Hagen Thisted, , from Somali bandits who



had held them captive for three months. The duo was working with the Danish Refugee Council’s demining unit—one of the few Western organizations still operating in the African nation—at the time of their kidnapping. Family members and friends said Buchanan is also a missionary who sold nearly all of her belongings to go serve in the troubled region.

 The board of directors of Sovereign Grace Ministries reinstated C.J. Mahaney as president of the Marylandbased churchplanting ministry. Last June, Mahaney began a voluntary leave of absence after former Sovereign Grace leader Brent Detwiler accused him of pride, deceit, and hypocrisy. Mahaney said he only plans to resume the role of president temporarily, noting that he would like to return to pastoral ministry and the pulpit.

 King Abdullah replaced last month the head of Saudi Arabia’s feared religious police—the mutawa— amid growing complaints that the entity was growing more aggressive. The royal decree announced that Sheikh Abdullatif Al alSheikh would take over for Sheikh Abdulaziz alHumain.. Mutawa officers patrol the country’s streets ensuring that people are complying with Islamic law, including enforcement of proper garb, gender segregation, and observance of prayer times.

 Soul Train creator Don Cornelius died from an apparent

 Pakistani-born taxi driver Raja Lahrasib Khan, , became the latest Chicagoan to plead guilty to attempting to provide material support for terrorism.

Accused of sending cash to Pakistan-based, al-Qaedalinked terrorist leader Ilyas Kashmiri, he also was accused of making plans to plant bombs in a stadium. His likely sentence as part of the deal: five to eight years.

SHAFIA FAMILY: LARS HAGBERG/REUTERS/LANDOV • ELIZABETH: REX FEATURES/AP • AL-HUMAIN: HAMAD OLAYAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • CORNELIUS: PAUL NATKIN/WIREIMAGE • MAHANEY: HANDOUT • THISTED & BUCHANAN: DANISH REFUGEE COUNCIL/AP CREDIT

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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, , marked this month the th anniversary of her ascent to the throne following the death of her father King George VI on Feb. , .

The country will continue to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee through June, the anniversary of her coronation.

suicide Feb.  at age . Cornelius hosted the music and dance TV show, which is credited with introducing Americans to black pop culture, for more than  years after launching it in the early ’s.

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Saddleback Church Pastor RICK WARREN on the Obama administration’s new policy of forcing religious organizations to cover FDA-approved contraceptives and abortifacients in their health insurance plans.

“She’s a great gift, if only the world could see it, and maybe they will.”

RICK SANTORUM at a forum with pastors in Texas describing his daughter Isabella, now , who was born with a fatal birth defect.

“Hamas and peace do not go hand in hand.”

“I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year .”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice RUTH BADER GINSBURG during an interview with Al Hayat TV in Egypt. She said South Africa, Canada, and Europe had better models. 

Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU on the Palestinian Authority making plans to form a unity government.

“My body should only be for my husband.”

KYLIE BISUTTI, winner of the  Victoria’s Secret Model Search, on why she gave up lingerie modeling. Bisutti continues to model clothing. “I’m Christian,” she told Fox News, “and reading the Bible more, I was becoming more convicted about it.”

“If I could give you an idea of what it looked like, I would say it looked like the end of the world.”

Motorist STEVEN R. CAMPS on a multi-car traffic accident near Gainesville, Fla., that killed  and injured  on Jan. .

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CREDIT

“I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates what God commands us to do.”

GINSBURG: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES • WARREN: PAUL BERSEBACH/ZUMA/NEWSCOM • SANTORUM: JEFF SWENSEN/GETTY IMAGES • NETANYAHU: JESCO DENZEL/BUNDESREGIERUNG/GETTY IMAGES • BISUTTI: TIFFANY ROSE/WIREIMAGE • CRASH: ALACHUA COUNTY SHERIFF’SCREDIT OFFICE

Dispatches > Quotables

CREDIT

GinsburG: Chip somodevilla/Getty imaGes • warren: paul bersebaCh/Zuma/newsCom • santorum: Jeff swensen/Getty imaGes • netanyahu: JesCo denZel/bundesreGierunG/Getty imaGes • bisutti: tiffany rose/wireimaGe • Crash: alaChua County sheriff’sCREDIT offiCe

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Dispatches > Quick Takes    Cognac lovers and hot dog enthusiasts finally have something in common: a cognac dog. The pricey wiener is the invention of Canadian hot dog restaurateur Dougie Luv, who owns and operates a hot dog eatery in Vancouver’s entertainment district. Those who want Luv’s “Dragon Dog” will have to fork over  and give Luv  hours’ notice. But Luv says the price tag is appropriate, considering he plans to season each Dragon Dog with drops of -year-old Louis XIII cognac—a variety of brandy valued at over , per bottle. Other toppings on the hot dog include olive oil, truffle oil, and fresh lobster. Luv told the Vancouver Sun that the Dragon Dog will prove popular: “I have a lot of reservations [for the new dog] already.”

  

  Coconino, Ariz., Sheriff’s deputies had no choice but to place Martin Batieni Kombate under arrest—for refusing to leave his jail cell. The -year-old Kombate had been booked into the county jail in January on a trespassing charge and was scheduled to be released on Jan. . But when detention officers asked him to exit his cell, Kombate allegedly refused and became disorderly.

That left deputies little choice but to arrest Kombate again and charge him with a fresh count of trespassing.

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LUV: NICK PROCAYLO/PNG/VANCOUVER CREDIT SUN • MOOSE ATTACK: BILL ROTH/ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS/AP • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE

If it hadn’t been for his wife, -year-old George Murphy may not have survived his brutal encounter with a moose on Jan. . Murphy and his -year-old wife Dorothea Taylor had just finished exercising their dogs near the Willow, Alaska, airport when a large bull moose began to charge Murphy. With no trees to hide behind, Murphy dove into a snow bank to hide. But the angered moose quickly found him and began stomping on the retired man’s body. Hearing the commotion, Taylor—who stands  feet tall and weighs  pounds—jumped out of the truck and grabbed a shovel from the bed of the pickup. With nothing but the shovel and some courage, Taylor managed to bludgeon the beast into stopping its attack. “I hit it with everything I had,” she told the Anchorage Daily News.. Murphy was then rushed by medical helicopter to a local hospital where he’s expected to make a full recovery.

If Norway, S.C., mayor Jim Preacher finds himself in hot water, it’s not because he got pulled over for speeding. It’s what came next that has authorities at South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division scratching their heads. Preacher admits he was speeding in his Dodge Charger on Jan. . But after a state trooper issued him a citation for driving  mph in a  mph zone, Preacher did something unusual. Flipping on lights and sirens in his own Dodge Charger, Preacher then pulled the trooper over. According to incident reports, Preacher said the office of mayor gives him the law enforcement powers of a constable. The Norway mayor demanded the trooper provide license and registration, but issued no citation or summons.

After the incident, the South Carolina Department of Public Safety asked that the State Law Enforcement Division investigate Preacher’s law enforcement jurisdiction.

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ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • CHRYSLER 300: HANDOUT • NICKISCH: MICHELLE STREHL • LEGO MAN: MATTHEW HO AND ASAD MUHAMMAD • BOAT: U.S. COAST GUARD/AP CREDIT

 

  Looking for ways to stop hoodlums from vandalizing historic buildings in a North Wales heritage park, local officials may soon turn to an unlikely ally: bees. Officials charged with preserving several historic mills at the Greenfield Valley Heritage Park near Holywell, Flintshire, have been considering a proposal to introduce bee hives near the buildings to scare off potential vandals. “They could be a deterrent,” Barbara Chick, publicity officer for the Welsh Beekeepers’ Association, told the BBC. “I haven’t heard of them being used as security bees.” But, she allowed, if nothing else, they could help pollinate wildflowers.

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ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • CHRYSLER 300: HANDOUT • NICKISCH: MICHELLE STREHL • LEGO MAN: MATTHEW HO AND ASAD MUHAMMAD • BOAT: U.S. COAST GUARD/AP CREDIT

  Asking for a starting bid of  million might be steep for any Chrysler product, even one that used to be driven by President Barack Obama. In January, eBay seller Lisa Czibor placed a listing on the site’s automotive section purporting to be the late model Chrysler  that was once leased by then-Sen. Barack Obama. Czibor, on behalf of owner Tim O’Boyle, provided a copy of the vehicle’s title showing Obama as a lessee, but few expect Czibor and O’Boyle to get their asking bid of  million. The presidential limousine used by President Franklin Roosevelt sold at auction for only ,, while the hearse that carried a dead President John F. Kennedy garnered only , at a recent auction. In , Obama traded the gas-guzzling Chrysler for an environmentally friendly Ford Escape Hybrid prior to his presidential election campaign.

    With  and some hard work, a pair of Canadian teens have managed to send their toy Lego man very nearly into space, and create a stunning video in the process. Toronto -yearolds Matthew Ho and Asar Muhammed used an  weather balloon to launch a Lego man carrying a Canadian flag up , feet to the upper boundaries of Earth’s atmosphere in January. Inspired by a similar project completed

by MIT students over a year ago, the two Canadian teens needed just a few months to build the contraption. They rigged their balloon with a video camera to capture the incredible footage of the planet’s curvature as well as the darkness of space. Once uploaded to YouTube, the video of the soaring Lego man carrying a Canadian flag became an instant hit, bringing in hundreds of thousands of views. The pair also attached a GPS-enabled mobile phone to the floating project so they could track its descent back to Earth.

For the five runners who crossed the finish line of the Running Club North’s Chilly Buns Mid-winter Fun Run, the impressive part about it wasn’t the distance. It was the temperature. When the six runners started the .-mile race, thermometers showed temperatures at  below. The yearly event staged on Jan.  at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks campus tests not only the physical fitness of competitors but their ability to generate heat and endure the cold. This year, Alaskan Dirk Nickisch finished the .-mile course first with a time of  minutes and  seconds.

  Two years after being tossed overboard by rough waves from his -foot pleasure boat off the coast of Nantucket, Mass., Scott Douglas finally has an end to his fishing story. The incident forced the New Jersey native and his brother-in-law to swim two hours to reach the shore after the August  incident. More than three years later, Spanish officials reported spotting Douglas’ vessel  miles off their coast on Jan. . Despite the trans-Atlantic drift, the Queen Bee was said to be intact—though covered in barnacles. Douglas said he doesn’t expect to be reunited with his boat though. He collected the insurance money on the vessel years ago.

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FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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2/8/12 11:21 PM

Janie B. Cheaney

Impractical magic

Lawmakers and bureaucrats are vainly waging war against reality

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is that cellulosic ethanol doesn’t exist, or not in the quantities required. No kidding: There’s no way yet to mass-produce the stuff. Technology didn’t get the memo from EPA. A much larger and more troubling example is the cinder-block-size piece of legislation known as Obamacare. Since Congress passed the bill and we started finding out what was in it, various appendages have revealed themselves to be impossible. The CLASS provision (Community Living Assistance Services and Support) was supposed to help keep aging citizens out of nursing homes, but before it could take effect at the end of , someone ran the numbers.

It would require as little as  per month from low-income workers, and unless forced to participate, most working citizens who don’t expect long-term health issues after retirement would simply opt out. That would mean few people paying in for extensive services the federal government (i.e., taxpayers) would have to pay out, resulting in “an insurance death spiral” like Medicaid and Medicare. Under Republican threats to repeal CLASS, the Obama administration quietly spiked the program.

But that’s only one little part of Obamacare. We don’t hear much about the , (and counting) businesses and organizations that have received waivers from the Department of Health and Human Services, representing about  million Americans who won’t have to meet Obamacare requirements. The number of doctors who are rejecting Medicare patients because of insufficient compensation—which will only get worse with Obamacare patients—hasn’t received much press: Our healthcare story beginning on p.  offers a dose of reality. As the behemoth law lumbers toward implementation, more and more of its provisions are shown to be, to put it mildly, out of touch with the real world.

At the beginning of the universe, God said, “Let it be.” And it was: light, water, land, life. Let it be doesn’t work too well for us, whether we’re brilliant physicists or humdrum bureaucrats. Technological progress has encouraged magical thinking at all levels, but we know what goes before a fall. A

KRIEG BARRIE

S H    over a year ago when the publication of his latest book, The Grand Design, supposedly unmasked his atheism. He’s probably been an atheist for most if not all his life, but he knows how to launch a book.

The Grand Design broke no new scientific ground, but became famous if not notorious for its many sweeping statements, summarized as the sufficiency of physical laws to create the universe. “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” he wrote, losing most of us at Hello.

“Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.”

Unintentionally, The Grand Design puts a scientific gloss on a kind of magical thinking that’s becoming more apparent among the political elite: They seem to believe that laws create reality. Of course, no scientist actually says that; what Hawking means is that certain physical processes are reliable enough to label as “laws,” and those processes are sufficient to create. That’s questionable enough, but law- and policy-makers seem to have convinced themselves that laws and policy alone are enough to create a desired reality, regardless of the process.

For example: the Environmental Protection Agency is determined to increase fuel efficiency in cars and trucks, and lower greenhouse gases.

To that end, it pumps out standards and regulations and penalties designed to put pressure on automakers and oil producers. Last month, blogger Fred Schwartz pointed out the juxtaposition of two articles on the front page of The New York Times, Jan. . The first reported how auto manufacturers are building and promoting electric and hybrid cars in response to EPA guidelines, but consumers aren’t buying them. Since lower gasoline usage requires that people actually drive the approved vehicles, this opens a rather large gap between rule and reality.

A second article told how the EPA is fining oil producers for their failure to use cellulosic ethanol, a biofuel that supposedly reduces greenhouse gas emissions by  percent over gasoline. Big oil’s excuse

Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com

2/6/12 9:33 AM

KRIEG BARRIE

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Arm them to build their future and our culture.

Teach them to write.

Accomplished writers have a leg up in school and at work. And Christians who communicate well are more likely to influence our culture with the Truth.

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The number of students entering college with strong writing ability is woefully low, even among Christian students.

Be the spark.

Tell the homeschoolers and Christian educators you know about Write with WORLD! This new writing curriculum inspires and trains middle-school students to become self-motivated writers and discerning media users.

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God’s WorldNeWs

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2/2/12 3:54 PM

Reviews

DARREN MICHAELS/UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

MOVIES & TV BOOKS Q&A MUSIC

Reaching out >> MOVIE: Big Miracle offers more than typical environmentalist fare

BY MEGAN BASHAM

A     of Big Miracle (rated PG for frequent, mild profanity), a feel-good family film about a trio of whales trapped under the ice in Alaska, the eyes of viewers of a conservative persuasion will likely begin to roll. “Here we go again,” they’ll think, “evil oil companies and the Republican politicians who love them want to kill all the whales and have to be stopped by pure-hearted environmentalists.”

And they won’t be wrong. That is, in fairly exaggerated fashion, how the movie opens.

See all our movie reviews at WORLDmag.com/movies

4 MOVIES & TV.indd 23

But if they stay in their seats till the minute mark, they may notice a somewhat miraculous shift begins to occur. It isn’t that Greenpeace activist Rachel (Drew Barrymore) ever behaves as anything less than a holy crusader for Mother Nature. But she does start to question whether her perspective on the issues might be a bit limited. She wonders if perhaps, just perhaps, those right-wing villains she’s been railing about all her adult life aren’t quite so villainous as she imagined.

The biggest villain in the semi-true story that occurred in  is J.W. McGraw (Ted Danson), CEO of a major oil company bidding for rights to drill in Alaska. From the early scenes we see that Rachel and J.W. have a long, adversarial history, with both living up FEBRUARY 25, 2012

WORLD

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2/9/12 1:12 PM

Reviews > Movies & TV

J.W. see a chance to use the publicity to their advantage.

Rachel leans on the Reagan administration to get first the National Guard and then the Soviets to lend a hand; J.W. employs his company’s equipment to break down both ice and his negative corporate image. As the

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TV

Pretty Little Liars

by Emily WhittEn

>>

Pretty Little Liars, a teen drama on ABC Family about four teenage girls who discover clues about their friend’s death, recently landed a People’s Choice Award to great media fanfare. Not too surprising, really, since among female teens it’s the most-watched TV show in its time slot (Monday, 8/7 Central). One distinction that might surprise some, considering the show’s family-friendly billing, is that it just received its second GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Award nomination, meant to “honor media for outstanding images of the gay and lesbian community.”

Outstanding, of course, isn’t the adjective many parents would use. But for its teenage fans at least, the vanilla murder-mystery plot, the hunky love interests, and the pretty liars themselves are a siren that can’t be resisted. Which is why the show’s promotion of aberrant sexuality is so troubling.

In season one, a main character is revealed as a lesbian, and little time is wasted bringing young viewers into the bedroom with her and her partner. But unlike most immature relationships on the show, this isn’t just a dramatic plot device: It’s supposedly a public service. The show’s website includes a message aimed at teenagers wrestling with homosexuality themselves. As part of the It Gets Better Project, cast members look the camera in the eye and promise kids that no matter how difficult it is now, their lives as homosexuals “will get better.”

GLAAD and ABC Family would like us to believe this is compassion. But real compassion doesn’t encourage destructive behavior. Reports from the American Pediatric Association clearly demonstrate that sexually explicit shows such as Pretty Little Liars increase risky sexual behavior among teens, with pregnancy, rape, and STDs as a few of the negative consequences. But the spiritual cost is far greater, as displayed on the It Gets Better website—face after face of young teens, isolated from their parents and peers, who have traded any hope of healing for that first great lie: that we don’t need God’s rules or His love to be happy.

big miracle: Darren michaels/uniVersal sTuDiOs • preTTy liars: abc Family

DYED IN THE WOOL: Danson.

action rolls on, so does the mostly friendly ideological banter.

Going by dialogue alone, it may still seem as if director Ken Kwapis wants the audience to side more with the environmentalists than the corporate and political opportunists. But several subplots undercut the stray ham-fisted liberal line (one cringe-inducing scene where Reagan picks up the phone and greets the leader of the Soviet Union with, “Gorby? It’s Ronnie,” notwithstanding).

When she makes no attempt to understand or make allowances for the Inuit hunting culture, Rachel betrays an off-putting sense of superiority. Nor is she shown in a particularly positive light when a cynical big city reporter (Kristen Bell) points out how ridiculous it is for people to get more upset about whales dying than other humans. Later, a couple of small-time capitalists from Minnesota donate their de-icing technology, thus demonstrating the power of the free market to work for the collective good.

On the other hand, it could simply be that while Barrymore’s performance leans toward the histrionic, Danson lights up every scene he’s in. Though a well-known Hollywood liberal, Danson (like Alec Baldwin on NBC’s 30 Rock) plays a dyed-inthe-wool conservative with such zest and verve, you get the feeling some part of him must believe the guys on the other side of the aisle are having more fun. At least in Big Miracle people stop haranguing others across the aisle and start working together. A

2/9/12 1:14 PM

VOw: Kerry hayes/sOny picTures • wOman in blacK: nicK wall/cbs Films

to every stereotype the audience would expect of them. But when Rachel’s exboyfriend, TV news reporter Adam (John Krasinski), stumbles onto the story of an imperiled grey whale family he nicknames Fred, Wilma, and Bamm-Bamm, the two combatants suddenly find themselves on the same side.

As shown in delightful archival news footage, the whales capture the hearts of America, leading to hordes of reporters descending on Point Barrow, a tiny Arctic town populated mostly by native Inuits. Soon, national news anchors like Connie Chung, Dan Rather, and Peter Jennings are making nightly reports on their plight, and both Rachel and

MOVIE

The Vow

BY EMILY WHITTEN

>>

BOX OFFICE TOP 10     . - according to Box Office Mojo

CAUTIONS: Quantity of sexual (S), violent (V), and foul-language (L) content on a - scale, with  high, from kids-in-mind.com

1̀ 2̀ 3̀ 4̀ 5̀ 6̀ 7̀ 8̀ 9̀ 10 `

S V L  

Chronicle PG-13........................ The Woman in Black* PG-13 ..............................  The Grey R .................................. Big Miracle* PG........................  Underworld: Awakening R ........................... One for the Money PG-13 .... Red Tails PG-13 ......................... The Descendants R ............... Man on a Ledge PG-13 ........... Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close* PG-13....... 

          

    

 

*Reviewed by WORLD

MOVIE

W     loved was in a car accident?

And what if, suddenly, she couldn’t remember you or your marriage at all? How hard would you fight to keep your wedding vows?

In The Vow—rated PG- for language, partial nudity, and sexual content— Leo (Channing Tatum) is faced with just those questions. When his wife, played by Rachel McAdams of The Notebook, regains consciousness, she doesn’t remember anything from the last six years. And despite trying to fit into her old life with Leo, Paige quickly reverts back to what she does remember—a safe existence with her upper-middle-class parents, pursuing the law degree and fiancé she left behind years before.

But Leo won’t let her go that easily.

Putting the rest of his life on hold, he buys her flowers, invites her on a “first date,” and endures the scorn of Paige’s friends and family who view him as an outsider. The real charm of the movie is in these scenes, as Leo entices his wife with glimpses of the love they shared—their first box of choco-

VOW: KERRY HAYES/SONY PICTURES • WOMAN IN BLACK: NICK WALL/CBS FILMS

BIG MIRACLE: DARREN MICHAELS/UNIVERSAL STUDIOS • PRETTY LIARS: ABC FAMILY

The Woman in Black

BY TODDY BURTON

>>

M    The Woman in Black (rated PG- for thematic material and disturbing images), but the most visible is the ghost of Harry Potter. The film’s star, Daniel Radcliffe (who portrayed Potter in eight films), attempts to shake the memory of a franchise that dominated half his life. Not an easy task. In the classic tradition of Gothic horror, the film provides some genuine frights without resorting to extreme violence or gore. Though it’s refreshing to see a horror movie owing more to Edgar Allen Poe than Saw D,, the story ultimately leaves the viewer feeling as cold as the foggy marsh where its frights occur.

lates, their favorite café, one of the monthly polar bear club outings they started last June. But for all his optimism, Leo soon learns that Paige isn’t the same girl he married; not yet, anyway. “I hope one day I can love like you love me,” Paige tells him.

To which he replies, “You figured it out once.

You’ll do it again.” But will it be too late?

Christian viewers will find The Vow refreshing in its value of the covenant of marriage. Themes of forgiveness and reconciliation are prominent, and like Christ, Leo displays a love that is fervent, gracious, and sacrificial. All the more reason for disappointment in the slightly one-dimensional plot and character development. But for many romantically inclined viewers, this film will still be a fairly innocuous treat.

Better than that box of Valentine’s Day chocolates? I couldn’t promise it.

Set in early th-century England, the story follows Arthur (Radcliffe), an attorney whose suffering runs deep. Grief-stricken after the loss of his wife, Arthur is tasked with sorting out the estate of a widow who’s recently died. After meeting with resistance from locals in her remote village, Arthur travels out to the late widow’s gloomy mansion situated on a vast marsh. Bad leads to worse and in no time at all, children start dying and Arthur sees visions of (you guessed it) a ghostly woman in black. With the help of a local skeptic (Ciarán Hinds), Arthur attempts to solve the mystery of the dying children before his own young son arrives for a visit.

Steeped in shimmering grays, the film effectively creates a world of isolation and fear where every mirror and porcelain doll takes on an evil menace. The supporting cast is strong, and Radcliffe is solid as the mournful Arthur, his pale face and wide eyes well suited to the horror genre. Indeed, the film is a reminder that it can be fun to watch scary movies, but the story relies on predictably unfulfilling turns and in the end, offers nothing new beyond the opportunity to see Radcliffe without his wand.

FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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WORLD

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2/9/12 1:16 PM

Reviews > Books

Sinners one and all

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I F ’  Black History Month, but it would be much more of a celebration if fewer AfricanAmericans had collaborated with Planned Parenthood and other abortionwielders in the killing of more than  million black unborn babies.

Abortion, much higher among blacks than among whites, and abetted by Planned Parenthood’s targeting of minority communities, is the ultimate racism in America today. But it has many other expressions, as John Piper’s Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian (Crossway, ) shows.

During past Black History Months I’ve written about Booker T. Washington and many other African-Americans who worked for improved racial relations from black-to-white: Piper’s white-toblack account is also passionate.

Chapter  starts with Piper growing up in Greenville, S.C.: “I was, in those years, manifestly racist.” Young Piper assumed white superiority “without knowing or wanting to know anybody who was black, except Lucy,” who came on Saturdays for house-cleaning. “Of course, we loved Lucy. … As long as she and her family ‘knew their place.’ Being nice to, and having strong affections for, and including in our lives is what we do for our dogs too.”

Piper in  accepted a pastoral call to Bethlehem Baptist Church on the edge of downtown Minneapolis, where he remains to this day. He and his wife Noel raised four

sons in a neighborhood that is now almost precisely quartered: one-fourth Caucasian, onefourth AfricanAmerican, one-fourth Hispanic, one-fourth everything else (mostly Native American and Asian). In , soon after Piper turned , they adopted a black girl.

When Piper thinks about race, he writes, seven feelings arise in his heart.

The first is “regret for my own sinful contributions to the seemingly intractable problems of race relations.” Others are sorrow, anger, frustration, empathy, longing to see the gospel proclaimed, and hope that the power of that gospel will lead to breakthroughs that human attempts have not achieved.

Those last two feelings bring Piper to the point that distinguishes Bloodlines from well-meaning quasi-Christian books on race relations. Hope does not come from striving for moral uplift and then appealing to God for approval. The basis of racism is the belief that one person’s ancestors are better than another’s, but the gospel way to fight it is to realize that God chose many from all races for salvation not because the chosen are good but in spite of the chosen’s ugly and deadening sinfulness.

An emphasis on sovereign grace, not sovereign race, makes the difference: The doctrine of man’s depravity—our

complete inability to move toward God on our own—“has a huge role to play in humbling all ethnic groups and giving us a desperate camaraderie of condemnation leading to the one and only Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Piper realized early on (and I came to later) that an “I’m OK, You’re OK” attitude doesn’t cut it. We need to realize that no one is naturally OK: “God’s choice to set His favor on us is unconditional. It is not based on anything in us … every race, every ethnic group, is on the absolutely level field of unconditional mercy. … Divine election, understood and embraced and cherished as utterly undeserved—as it is in the Bible— destroys racism and ethnocentrism.”

That’s the key, and dozens of recent Christian books on racial reconciliation miss it. As Piper writes, “Far more important in the long run than any particular strategy of racial reconciliation and harmony is that more and more Christians glory in the grace of the gospel of justification by faith alone.”

Zeal to magnify grace dissolves ethnic hostilities.

B RIEFLY NOTED

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WORLD FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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DESIRING GOD MINISTRIES

Richard Rosenfield’s African American Core Values (iUniverse, ) includes quotations from black leaders of the past two centuries that affirm the importance of marriage, education, work, and self-reliance. Carol Swain’s Be the People (Thomas Nelson, ) shows how a socially conservative black professor views past and present politics. A just-published book provides some excellent theological insights: Keep Your Head Up, edited by Anthony Bradley (Crossway) examines (as the subtitle notes) America’s New Black Christian Leaders, Social Consciousness, & the Cosby Conversation. It includes provocative and biblically orthodox essays on family, sexuality, masculinity, and other crucial questions.

Email: molasky@worldmag.com

2/7/12 9:37 AM

KELLERMAN: JONATHAN EXLEY • GEORGE: MICHAEL STADLER

JOHN PIPER says an emphasis on sovereign grace is the key to racial reconciliation BY MARVIN OLASKY

NOTABLE BOOKS Four new mysteries > reviewed by  

The Queen Steven James A fast-paced thriller featuring Patrick Bowers, an FBI investigator whose specialty is spatial analysis. He gets sidetracked from his hunt for a serial killer when the FBI director sends him off to work on another case involving a missing snowmobiler whose wife and daughter have been murdered. Steven James fills the book with interesting characters and subplots—a stepdaughter who can’t sleep after shooting a man, a brother whose drinking and anger create a combustible mix, an assassin who has a soft spot for women and children, and eco-terrorists who want to send a nuclear message. James weaves themes of guilt, anger, regret, and forgiveness into a high stakes plot with strands that extend from wintery northern Wisconsin to Jerusalem.

SPOTLIGHT Faye Kellerman and Elizabeth George are both talented writers who pen crime potboilers that make the bestseller lists. After giving them up years ago, I decided to take a look at their most recent books to see if they had changed.

They haven’t.

Kellerman’s new book, Gun Games, features LAPD detective Peter Decker, an orthodox Jew, who investigates murder. Its main plot involves

The Hunter John Lescroart John Lescroart’s San Francisco–based novels feature a recurring cast of characters who age from book to book. The series overlap, with characters from one crossing over into the other. Here Wyatt Hunt, a private investigator with a background in child protective services, investigates his own past. After learning his birth mom was murdered and two juries were unable to convict his birth dad, he needs to find the real killer. As he pursues the -year-old case, he discovers his mother had a connection to cult leader Jim Jones. Continual revelations take a toll on his mental health. Lescroart’s page-turner touches on issues of adoption and abandonment while not losing track of the mystery at the novel’s heart. Warning: some language.

All Cry Chaos Leonard Rosen Leonard Rosen makes his protagonist a descendant of, and names him after, famous mathematician Henri Poincaré: That signifies this mystery is about more than figuring out who blew up a brilliant mathematician in an Amsterdam hotel room. As Poincaré investigates the bombing and becomes involved in a subplot involving a Serbian war criminal, he grapples with understanding the dead mathematician’s work on fractals and what that means about the underlying design of the universe. A less credible subplot has some end-of-the-world Christian cultists plotting mayhem in the belief that God awaits our violence to usher in the Kingdom. (Note to author: Check out some Iranian Muslims.)

Still, this philosophical mystery raises questions about love, meaning, good and evil, and the nature of the universe. Warning: some language.

a gang of mean kids at a posh high school and apparent teen suicides.

A subplot revolves around the budding romance (that quickly turns sexual) between a -yearold piano prodigy who lives with the Deckers and a -year-old sheltered Iranian Jewish girl.

George’s latest, Believing the Lie, has a page-turning plot: When a man dies in the Lake District of northern England, his wealthy uncle wants Scotland Yard to investigate quietly to make sure it was an accident. The investigation uncovers lots

DESIRING GOD MINISTRIES

KELLERMAN: JONATHAN EXLEY • GEORGE: MICHAEL STADLER

The Blind Spy Alex Dryden As the CIA and MI monitor events leading up to Ukrainian elections, looking for evidence of Russian meddling, the wellfunded, private intelligence service Cougar believes something bigger is afoot. Alex Dryden again features Russian defector Anna Resnikov, an employee of the private intelligence agency, and her wily boss Burt Miller. They develop an audacious plan to spirit her back into the Ukraine, in the hopes that she can discover what the Russians are up to. When Russian intelligence operatives attack her, she realizes that someone in the United States has leaked her plans. Bombings, double-agents, ambushes, and all kinds of blindness fill the pages of Dryden’s well-crafted page-turner. Warning: some language.

Email: solasky@worldmag.com; see all our reviews at WORLDmag.com/books

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of dirt, which George describes in graphic detail. A subplot involving child pornography is also graphic.

FEBRUARY 25, 2012

WORLD

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2/7/12 9:39 AM

Reviews > Q&A

Ahead of the Times

As a conservative writer for a largely liberal audience, ROSS DOUTHAT challenges the left on the effects of the government that liberalism built

BY MARVIN OLASKY photograph by Lee Love/Genesis

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Ross Douthat, born in 1979, became in 2009 the youngest regular op-ed columnist in the history of The New York Times—and he’s a conservative! Here are edited excerpts of an interview in front of Patrick Henry College students.

Growing up in New Haven, did you want to go to Yale University? Absolutely not.

So, wanting to be away from home, you went to Harvard, 130 miles away. The perfect distance? There’s the laundry factor: You want to be able to have it done at your original home.

There’s the second laundry factor: You don’t want your mother knocking on the door to your dorm room unexpectedly when it’s completely carpeted in laundry.

Your dad is a lawyer and a poet, your mother a writer.

Lots of books around? Yes, and a very old black-and-white TV that I didn’t watch very much. But over the course of my childhood, we became involved in different forms of both Pentecostal and evangelical ministry. During the week I went to a private school, where every day was Diversity Day, and then on the weekends my parents spoke in tongues. I’ve tried to continue that tradition by being the token reactionary Catholic at The New York Times.

Were there difficulties in connecting those dots? There were huge advantages to having different kinds of cultural exposure as a child: having all of your high-school teachers be liberal Democrats, but then reading C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton on the side.

Did you have some adolescent rebellion? My parents became quite religious but never that politically conservative.

Reading National Review was my act of rebellion.

Some kids from Christian backgrounds go to a liberal college and try to hide their experience and beliefs, trying to fit in, but I ran across a column you wrote in college about your Pentecostal background, with mentions of faith healing and “slaying in the Spirit.” You were flaunting this in front of the Harvard audience. Yeah. I’m an argumentative person, and all my friends are argumentative people. Having late-night arguments is part of the college experience: “But wait, what if the world is all just a dream that a butterfly is having?”

You wrote for The Atlantic, National Review, and other publications—and then comes your courtship by The New York Times ... A courtship implies that both parties are equal.

I always knew that if the Times offered me a job, I would take it.

During the interviews I was so nervous that I can’t really remember what was said.

You got the job, and now you’re speaking to an audience that shares few of your own convictions. Where do you find traction? Sometimes I don’t. If I’m about to disagree with liberals about something, a lot of times I will concede something to them.

Example? I wrote a column saying Occupy Wall Street protestors have a point. The last three years of American economic history have been better years for people who work in finance than they’ve been for the middle class. But then I asked, what are we most concerned about? Are we most concerned about absolute measures of equality? If that’s all you’re concerned about, you can tax the rich, take their income down a notch, and you have created more equality. But if what you’re concerned about is social and economic mobility, which I think is more fundamental to the American dream, then you need to recognize that raising taxes right now does not necessarily serve the cause of socioeconomic mobility.

So if you raise taxes to avoid reforming Medicare ...

Medicare redistributes income from working age people to

retirees. The system pays out much more money to retirees than they ever paid into it. That’s going to go up and up and up. If you’re looking for a system where you want to turn your working class 25-year-old into an upper- middle-class 45-year-old, Medicare is cutting in the opposite direction.

As are some other major expenses? The same is true to a lesser extent with how much money states spend on long-term commitments to public sector unions. Our educational system: We have doubled the amount that we spend over the past 20 years without getting better test scores. essentially, you can see what I tried to do. I said, I agree with you, but you have to recognize that the government liberalism built isn’t necessarily doing a good job of achieving the ends that we both agree would be positive for America, so you should consider reforming that government before you throw more money at it.

What do you want to communicate to conservatives?

Conservatives remain in a certain amount of denial about the nature of the challenges facing the middle and working classes in the united States. upward mobility has slowed down. Wage stagnation has been a real and significant problem for middleincome Americans. Republicans, in reacting against the Democrats’ “It’s all the fault of the rich” have swung too far in the opposite direction, where they’re unwilling to talk about the struggles of lower-middle America.

Don’t these economic problems have cultural roots? A lot of those challenges are cultural. They’re rooted in the decline of marriage and the decline of church-going among the working class.

Examining culture is necessary but not sufficient?

Conservatives have sold themselves on the idea that lowermiddle America keeps voting for bigger government because they aren’t paying income taxes anymore: We need to make them pay more income taxes so they’ll have more of a stake in government. That’s basically crazy. It’s out of touch with the economic realities for blue-collar families of four. Because of various exemptions and deductions they may not pay income taxes, but they’re still paying state taxes, other federal taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, you name it.

From that vantage point ... They’re making $41,000 a year and healthcare costs have eaten up their wages. Republicans have boxed themselves into a corner where capital gains tax cuts and a flatter tax code is their only policy proposal for the middle class.

Turning to journalism: Do a lot of your Times colleagues mourn the time when liberalism was unopposed in American media? For various economic reasons, there was a period of heavy consolidation in journalism, where cities that used to have three or four papers suddenly had two or one, which made it possible for a newspaper to take an authoritative view of the world. You had only three or four television options.

Walter Cronkite was a weird historical anomaly. Right now we’re returning to the journalistic and political norm: more nonprofessional, partisan, ideological, freewheeling, less-rigorously sourced. We need to recognize what’s lost—the sense of certainty and authority—but also recognize what’s gained.

The professional road for journalists has more potholes ... That doesn’t mean the news-consuming public has it worse. … It’s hard for journalists to separate the loss of that uppermiddle-class paycheck from the overall landscape of journalism, but it’s important to say that even though we have to hustle a lot more, like people did in the 1920s, it’s not so bad. A

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2/7/12 9:49 AM

Song & dance

From a high-profile makeover to awkward obscenities, LANA DEL REY’s Born to Die is an exercise in inauthenticity

BY ARSENIO ORTEZA

>>

an integral part of her marketing.

And what a makeover it’s been.

Besides her name, she has also changed her hair color (from blonde to brunette), her lips (thanks, apparently, to collagen), and her vocal register of choice (from higher to lower). Even her dropping of the “f-bomb” in interviews reads awkwardly, as if someone at her PR company had market tested its effects and concluded it might help sales of her just-released debut album, Born to Die (Interscope).

Is the album any good? The question is, in a sense, moot since what it really

AUTHENTIC ETTA Other than the fact that she also underwent a name change and enjoyed what will probably turn out to be the best sales of her career in , the late Etta James—a bastion of authenticity if ever there was one—had little in common with Lana Del Rey. Sales of James’ music surged following her death in January, five days before her th birthday, from leukemia. As might be expected, the biggest sellers were best-of compilations. What deserved to benefit more than it did from her much-publicized demise was her last album of new recordings, The Dreamer (Verve Forecast).

Released last November, the -song collection bore no traces of her decline. Besides solid, no-frills renditions of songs originally popularized by Otis Redding, King Floyd, and Dorothy Moore, it also included a cover of Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.”

It gave James fans reason to hope, for an all-too-brief moment, she’d someday excavate the latent R&B potential of an entire album’s worth of heavy-metal hits.

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DEL REY: DOMINIC CHAN/WENN/NEWSCOM • JAMES: ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ/GETTY IMAGES

T’  B B  in which Greg Brady is hired to sing and play the guitar on a TV show. The catch? He has to wear a matador suit and assume the stage name “Johnny Bravo”—and, as he later discovers, perform only songs associated with the previous Johnny Bravo.

When he asks why he was hired if the show’s producers had no interest in his songs, he’s told, “You fit the suit!”

Meet Lana Del Rey, the newest Johnny Bravo.

Born Elizabeth Grant, Del Rey may be the first pop star whose media makeover, rather than something to be hidden or downplayed, has been used as

is—what it has practically proclaimed itself to be—is an indication of what major labels think a majority of music buyers will be most willing to pay for.

As such it’s certainly instructive. That clichés abound is no surprise, although including “Feet, don’t fail me now,” “take a walk on the wild side,” and “lost but now I am found” in the title track alone feels like overkill even by pop’s lowest-common-denominator standards. Similarly predictable is the album’s emphasis on pouty, lovelorn sentiments set to overcast, electronicsheavy instrumentation, a combination that splits the aesthetic difference between Madonna and Lady Gaga with surgical precision.

Then there’s the f-word again (in its two-syllable, participial form), popping up for no good reason in the refrain of one of the album’s otherwise catchiest songs, “Radio.” When Scout Finch says “Pass the damn ham” Mockingbird, she’s in To Kill a Mockingbird cute—because, not yet , she’s swearing out of ignorance. At , Del Rey should both know better and have a bigger vocabulary.

If there’s a silver lining to what’s essentially a dreary and hollow CD, it’s that there’s apparently no use of Autotune on any of Del Rey’s vocals.

Given Born to Die’s many other layers of artifice, however, one stratum of authenticity hardly seems reason to celebrate.

Email: aorteza@worldmag.com

2/7/12 10:03 AM

SAMSON: JASON HALSTEAD

Reviews > Music

NOTABLE CDs

Five new or recent pop releases > reviewed by  

Future This The Big Pink Don’t let the group’s name fool you. This spacey, studio-belabored, mid-tempo pop has nothing to do with the Band or The Basement Tapes.. Don’t let the album title fool you either. British combos have been working variations on these aural templates since the Thatcher era. Consider being fooled by the production of Paul Epworth, the man responsible in no small part for the success of Adele and Foster the People. Then remember that even the best producers need something— memorable hooks, lyrics—to work with.

Give Us Rest or (A Requiem Mass in C [The Happiest of all Keys])

David Crowder*Band Knowing this album to be its last, these worship rockers have apparently tried squeezing in all of their remaining ideas, eventually needing two CDs to accommodate the sprawl. Not that the music always sprawls; occasionally (“Our Communion” leading into “Sometimes,” for example), the stylistic eclecticism actually flows.

Still, there’s a lot of hubbub—that is, until the acoustic, old-time hymns at the end, hymns so simple and direct you wonder why, if rest was really what he wanted, Crowder didn’t just do an entire album of them.

When the Weakerthans’ John K. Samson announced several years ago that he was writing and recording songs inspired by roads in his native Manitoba, the underwhelming nature of the news had cynics in the Lower  wondering whether Samson was merely mocking his homeland’s “Canadian content” laws. Then the songs began trickling out. First there was ’s three-cut City Route . Then came ‘s three-cut Provincial Road .  Witty, sad, and surprisingly universal given their localized particulars, the songs were clearly no joke.

Now with Provincial (ANTI-), Samson has re-recorded both EPs and added six new compositions. And although several of those (“Highway  East,” “Longitudinal Centre,” “Highway  West”) continue his original Manitoban theme, the catchiest song universalizes particulars that even non-Canadians will recognize: namely, procrastinating while wrapping up the requirements for an advanced degree. “When I Write My Master’s Thesis” is the title. A “hard drive smashed to pieces” is the climax.

Bangarang Skrillex Bangarang is not only this big-selling EP’s title but also an accurate description of its music.

Listeners needing more explanation, however, might imagine a cocktail of minimalism, hip-hop, Keith Emerson synthesizer solos, machine guns, and jackhammers force fed into a garbage disposal then trash compacted until even such lyrics as poke out function more as crude, aural shards than sentient expression. The onslaught can be fun in short bursts. It can also be as dull as watching a wind-up toy bump repeatedly into a wall.

SAMSON: JASON HALSTEAD

DEL REY: DOMINIC CHAN/WENN/NEWSCOM • JAMES: ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ/GETTY IMAGES

Grand Hotel The Explorers Club On their  debut, Freedom Wind, these six South Carolinians sounded more like the Beach Boys than the Beach Boys themselves had since . Now, perhaps wanting to prove they’re more than ace mimics, they’ve added other sounds from the days when AM radio was king— some Turtles here (”Any Little Way”), some Climax or the Association there (“It’s No Use”). They haven’t yet achieved their own sound, but by mixing the Ventures and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on the instrumental title cut, they come close.

SPOTLIGHT

See all our reviews at WORLDmag.com/music

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WORLD

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Mindy Belz

Not a popularity contest Courage and compassion count more in the conduct of foreign policy

>>

I  the first two Africans who told me they preferred former President George W. Bush to President Barack Obama as anomalies. The  news reports of cheering Africans had been indelible, particularly from Kenya, where Obama’s father was born. Traveling in Kenya in  only reinforced for me his seeming popularity: Some parts of Nairobi seemed to have a café named after Obama on every corner.

Likewise, traveling in Uganda last month I saw children wearing soccer jerseys bearing the president’s name. A delivery van for a Kampala fast-food chain called “Obama Mobile Take Away” sports as part of its logo a photo of the president chowing down.

It was the next two Africans who raised the subject that prompted me to question the popular wisdom. Their views sprang from opposite spectrums of African society and say important things about how the rest of the world views the American presidency.

One is a university student in Uganda, an East African in his twenties. He’s worked for a high-tech design studio and is computer savvy. He follows Western media avidly via Facebook and other sites.

The other is a retired pastor in Nigeria, an aging West African. He lives in a home that’s often without hot water and electricity. He does not use the internet at all but follows the news via the BBC and what he hears on the street corner.

After the university student made negative comments about Obama, I asked directly what he thought of the president, and he said simply: “Bush was better.” Why? I asked. Bush understood the needs of Africa, he explained, and showed compassion by not only visiting Africa but also committing U.S. funds to the fight against malaria and HIV/AIDS. Don’t you think that as an African-American, President Obama has a better understanding of what Africans face? I said. “That’s what everyone liked to say,” he replied, “but we here could see the difference. … Obama doesn’t really understand the poor, and he doesn’t respect Christians here and what they think.” That touches on a subject little

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covered in the U.S. press. While American media have reported at length on a controversial law (just reintroduced) in Uganda’s parliament to further criminalize homosexual behavior (already against the law), little has been reported about coercion from U.S. diplomats under the Obama administration to pressure Uganda and other African nations to liberalize laws on homosexuality, marriage, abortion, and the like. In Kenya U.S. ambassador Michael Rannenberger openly lobbied for constitutional provisions to liberalize that country’s abortion law— something African Christians haven’t forgotten.

“The word freedom has deceived [the Obama administration],” the Nigerian pastor told me, “and under this freedom they are fighting with God, and asking us to fight God.” I didn’t ask the Nigerian pastor to compare and contrast Obama and Bush, but he did anyway: “I like George Bush. He has courage. He was the only one ready to deal with the Muslim world.”

Four years ago the widespread perception was that a multicultural president eager to make peace and not war would boost America’s standing in the world. “There’s no question that Sen. Obama winning would have an impact on America’s image for the better. It would boost America’s image, it would give people a sense of the promise of America,” said CNN/Newsweek analyst Fareed Zakaria in .

But a growing number of analysts who cheered Obama and criticized Bush are voicing alarm over what analyst Daniel Pletka calls a “rudderless” national foreign policy. Robert Kagan, writing in Foreign Policy, said Obama’s failure to work out an agreement with Iraq to maintain U.S. troops there “may prove to be one of the gravest errors of Obama’s first term, for which either he or his successor will pay a high price.”

Boosting America’s image in the world turns out to be no substitute for compassion and courage.

Obama has shown those on rare occasions, but not often enough to characterize his term. Interestingly, they are what folks may remember after the signboards and fast-food tie-ins are gone. A Email: mbelz@worldmag.com

2/8/12 8:32 PM

“It’s like NPR from a Christian worldview.”

What you can expect

Trevin Wax, blogger, Kingdom People (The Gospel Coalition)

News review: Top stories of the week, in the United States and around the world

The World and Everything in It

Special features like “The Olasky Interview,” “Let the Candidates Speak,” and “The History Book” Commentary: Original reflections by Joel Belz, Andrée Seu, and Janie Cheaney, and other biblical worldview thinkers In-depth audio treatments of feature stories from the print magazine Culture: Film and television reviews by Megan Basham, books by Susan Olasky, and music by Arsenio Orteza Political roundup: Analysis of the candidates and the issues — plus key state and local initiatives Thorough coverage of life issues, education, the economy, and the law News of the church and God’s people working in the world

A weekly radio program from World News Group

“The World and Everything in It” debuted August 6 on two dozen radio affiliates. Since then, TW&E has grown to 180 stations, and airs network-wide Sunday nights at 6 (central) on Bott Radio Network. This thoughtful and enjoyable week-in-review program features news and analysis from the WORLD editorial team and interviews with top newsmakers—with the journalistic depth you’ve come to expect from WORLD.

Check radio listings, listen online, and share favorite segments via Facebook and Twitter at worldandeverything.com.

Listen anytime, anywhere with free podcast subscriptions on iTunes.

CREDIT

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2/2/12 3:56 PM

PRIMARY C

When Arizona and New Mexico became states in , Kansas bec When Alaska and Hawaii became states in  to check the pulse of America, and the condition of prim

BY LYNDE LANGDON IN WICHITA, KAN.

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2/7/12 10:11 AM

PHOT

Y CONCERNS

sas became the geographic center of the United States. s in  Kansas lost that title, but its largest city is still a place n of primary care physicians who check millions of pulses

KAN.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SKIPPY SANCHEZ/GENESIS

FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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oliticians and policy experts continue to debate Obamacare, but we don’t hear enough from frontline family doctors: How difficult is it for them to practice medicine in the current healthcare climate? Six Wichita physicians told me that they struggle to take care of their patients without drowning financially—and they don’t have much hope in the government making things better anytime soon. Here’s a look at three of them:

Dr. Timothy Wolff opened Rock Ridge Family Medicine four years ago with dreams of running an old-fashioned doctor’s office. Inspired by his own boyhood physician in Nebraska’s Elkhorn River Valley, Wolff wanted his practice to be a home away from home for his patients. His wife, Christine, manages the practice while their 5-year-old daughter is at school. A poster-sized picture of their daughter in a dance recital outfit hangs behind the reception desk.

Wolff found that owning and managing a medical practice was much more difficult than simply taking care of patients. The meager reimbursement from patients’ insurance—especially the government-based programs Medicare and Medicaid—barely covered the business’ bills, and he stopped seeing Medicaid patients two years ago. Medicare is the government’s health insurance program for senior citizens and some people with disabilities.

Medicaid provides coverage for people with low incomes. Wolff says, “I didn’t realize there was going to be so much governmental involvement—that people were going to tell me how much money I could make. … I’ve been forced into a point where we have to see at least 20 patients a day just to break even to cover my expenses.”

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In the center of Wichita, Dr. Ronald Ferris has developed a business model that allows him to take care of the Medicaid patients that many doctors refuse to treat. He founded Holy Family Medicine with another doctor right after Ferris completed his medical training. Many physicians seek more stable income in the first few years of their careers, but Ferris believed owning his own practice would give him the freedom to incorporate his Catholic faith into his work. As a fresh graduate of residency, he had to have his parents co-sign his business loan using their home as collateral.

Now, after 11 years of practice, Ferris says God’s grace and the sheer volume of patients he sees at the clinic have allowed him to stay in business. About 55 percent of the practice’s patients are on Medicaid, and many more are uninsured and pay out of pocket on a sliding scale. He accepts all patients regardless of ability to pay and employs a staff of three nurse practitioners and one physician assistant who, with his supervision, can perform many of the duties of a doctor. Those mid-level providers do not require as high a salary as physicians.

Together the staff can treat up to 100 patients a day. They

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2/9/12 11:02 AM

On the fROntLine: Dr. Wolff, Dr. Ferris, and Dr. bledsoe (from left to right). Previous spread: bledsoe, Ferris, Dr. Dee ann Stults, and Wolff (clockwise from top left).

increasingly better insurance over the years. “We tend to focus more on having good people—people who take care of their families,” Scott Bledsoe explains. Patricia Bledsoe works three days a week at the practice, he works four plus one day a week at a local emergency room, and they have two children, ages 11 and 7.

Scott Bledsoe is quick to emphasize that their medical practice provides plenty for their family’s needs, including private school for their children.

Their lifestyle is comfortable, but not as lucrative as it could have been if he and his wife had stayed in their previous careers. For Bledsoe, medicine is intellectually challenging and personally rewarding: “We could probably make a lot more money in medicine than we do. That’s just who we are.”

receive between $30 and $60 per patient visit, depending on the patient’s insurance.

Ferris’ office is decorated with prints of antique icons depicting Mary, Joseph, and a small but not infantile Jesus.

Ferris had an opportunity to change locations over a year ago when he decided to purchase a building rather than rent his office space. He moved just a mile and a half north and opened a combination doctor’s office and urgent care center. Where some physicians see low-income patients as a burden, Ferris sees them as a gift from God: “I was privileged by these families coming to us and seeing us, and that’s what helped as far as my continuing because otherwise I’d be burned out. … If it was about money, you won’t last very long. You’ll be disgruntled and bitter.”

It’s not about the money either for Dr. Scott Bledsoe, another Wichita doctor who left a job managing mergers and acquisitions for the Case Corporation to become a family physician. Bledsoe says he is amused when people he meets assume he is rich because he is a doctor: “In previous careers, I’ve made more money than I make now.” His wife Patricia, who was a high-ranking executive at a medical technology company, is now also a doctor and his only partner in their medical practice. They conceived their dream of a joint practice shortly after their marriage, taking turns going to medical school, and finally started practicing together in 2009.

The Bledsoes treat both Medicare and Medicaid patients, but they are selective about which Medicaid patients they take. The ideal Medicaid patient for them is a child or a young parent who is just starting out and has the potential to get a better job with

Other doctors I spoke wIth gave me more information on how they make money. Family physicians are paid less than most other doctors.

Medicare uses a relative value scale to determine how much to pay for medical services, and primary care visits are near the bottom of the scale. A 25-minute office visit with a primary care doctor has one-tenth the relative value of services such as cosmetic surgery on the forehead or repairing a broken upper arm.

Medicare’s reimbursement scheme is important because most private insurance companies apply the same principle of paying less for primary care than other services. Reimbursement rates for Medicaid, the government insurance program for people with low incomes, are set by state governments. On average, Medicaid reimbursement is 66 percent of what Medicare pays, though Medicaid rates are nearly equal to Medicare in the state of Kansas, according to the Kansas Health Institute.

While primary care doctors don’t get much respect from Medicare, they can save the healthcare system money by applying the right preventive care at the right time. A 2004 study published in the journal Health Affairs found that the more primary care physicians a state had, the lower its healthcare spending. Adding one primary care physician to a population of 10,000 people reduced that population’s Medicare spending by $684 per patient.

With inflation and practice costs rising faster than reimbursement, physicians have had to get creative to keep their businesses profitable. At Galichia Medical Group in Wichita, a practice with more than 20 primary care doctors and specialists, Dr. Chris Meyer, CEO of the group, treats most of the practice’s Medicaid patients himself. “The docs are on a production salary; I am not,” Meyer says. “I choose to do that so they don’t have to.”

One of Wichita’s largest family practices, the Wichita Clinic, recently sold to local hospital system Via Christi Health. Dr. Kevin Hoppock said the more than 160 physicians of the clinic decided after the advent of Obamacare to hand over management to a larger corporation in hopes Via Christi could help bear the burdens of government regulation. Via Christi’s Chief Finance Officer David Hadley said the hospital system hopes February 25, 2012

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owning the practice will help it experiment with newer, more cost-effective models of care.

As family physicians look to the future, they have gloomy predictions about how much the current healthcare legislation can improve their situations. Obamacare would make more people eligible for Medicaid, as well as require states to close the gap between Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement. The most controversial portion of the act, requiring Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty, would also likely lead to more people on Medicaid or Medicaid-like programs. The act does nothing to change the system for calculating payments, which puts primary care physicians at the bottom of the payment barrel.

In the meantime, Congress is considering cutting Medicare reimbursement by  percent. The cut is part of a formula called the Sustainable Growth Rate, which is supposed to make up for Medicare overspending. So far Congress has delayed the SGR cuts, but hasn’t announced a plan to cover the costs of that delay, which runs out March .

D. D A S   at a Wichita clinic primarily for uninsured and underinsured patients. She said she has access to more charitable resources for patients with no insurance than patients who have state-based insurance: Obamacare, she worries, “might create a large population of

people who are underinsured or people who have some semblance of coverage but it doesn’t really get them very far.”

Just how large will the population of underinsured patients be, and how will that affect access to healthcare for all patients? One healthcare administrator I spoke with said a “tsunami of demand” is headed toward primary care clinics.

Physicians would have to hire more mid-level providers to handle the demand, and longer wait times are likely.

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the constitutionality of the law in March. If the law stands, officials who oversee Medicare have called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unsustainable financially. One way the act proposes to fund the increase in Medicaid is by “substantially reducing the growth of Medicare payment rates for most services,” according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Healthcare providers will supposedly respond to lower increases in payment over time by becoming more efficient and cost effective.

In the annual report for Medicare’s trust fund, trustees predict that if physicians stop getting adequate raises from Medicare, they are likely to just stop accepting those patients altogether.

The report states, “Many experts doubt the feasibility of such sustained improvements and anticipate that over time the Medicare price constraints would become unworkable and that Congress would likely override them.” A

A     of family physicians has declined, family medicine as a discipline has transformed into a mission field.

“When I was in medical school and I decided to go into family medicine, I think a lot of people were like, ‘Why?’” said Dee Ann Stults,, a -year-old family physician who works at a clinic for low-income patients in Wichita, Kan. “I think primary care is sort of considered lesser than in some ways.”

Stults says her decision to enter family medicine was God-led: “When I first went into medicine I considered it something that was going to lead me into a mission field for Christ. I never really thought of it as, ‘This will get me fame and fortune or whatever.’”

Benjamin Anderson is counting on doctors with Stults’ same attitude to staff his hospital in rural Kansas. Anderson started as CEO of Ashland Health Center three years ago, and the hospital’s only physician resigned soon after. The hospital relied on a physician assistant and a nurse practitioner to care for patients. Ashland has  people and is a two-hour drive from the nearest Starbucks.

“A lot of people want to work in a suburban area with great schools and affluent people,” Anderson says. Stymied by traditional recruiting efforts, Anderson decided to look for physicians who shared his sense of calling to serve the underprivileged. He offered eight weeks of paid time off to physicians who would come to Ashland to serve. Though the physicians can use the time off however they choose, the package was designed to allow for overseas mission trips. Every employee gets four to eight weeks.

Anderson has spread the word about his open positions through the Christian Medical and Dental Association. He said that the candidates he interviews are “not interested in huge lavish homes. ... They want to know, ‘Where’s my opportunity to serve?’” He has received six inquiries about the jobs in the past year and hired one physician.

Anderson has also worked with leaders from the family medicine residency program at Via Christi Health in Wichita, the same program where Stults trained. He said the Via Christi residency program tends to draw mission-minded physicians. Dave Sanford is the CEO of Grace Med in Wichita, a nonprofit organization that owns the clinic where Stults works. He said he can easily recruit residents from the local program to serve in the low-income clinics: “Young people aren’t so much money-driven, that’s what I’m finding out. … There’s so many of them that have a desire to serve, which is refreshing.” —L.L.

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A

Caught in the middle

by Jamie Dean

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CHurCH: youSSeF baDawi/ePa/lanDov • rebelS: Stringer/aP

Increasing crimes against Christians in Syria reveal the difficult road to ‘‘democracy’’ that lies ahead in the Middle East

s Syria descends into full-scale civil war, the emerging picture for its Christian population—next to Egypt one of the largest in the Middle East—is grim.

More than 11 months since street demonstrations against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began, Syria is roiling in increasingly violent conflict: By early February, the Syrian military openly battled armed opposition forces and brutally attacked civilian targets in the rebel-held city of Homs, where shelling had killed a reported 200 people. Three days after a resolution condemning Assad’s government failed to win passage SYMPATHETIC? by the UN Security Pro-regime Council, intensified Syrians wave national flags fighting forced the outside the Holy United States to close Cross Church in its embassy and Damascus (left); recall all diplomatic rebels battle with government personnel. forces in Homs Less reported, province. another form of violence is unfolding, according to Christian groups with reliable sources in Syria: Government protesters are targeting unarmed Christians deemed sympathetic to the regime.

A Dec. 7 news release from Open Doors USA declared: “Inside embattled Syria, hostility increases towards Christians.” A Jan. 23 alert from the Virginia-based Jubilee Campaign reported: “Christians targeted by ‘peaceful’ Syria protesters.” And during the same week, another report came from the U.K.-based Barnabas Fund: “Christians in Syria targeted in series of kidnappings and killings; 100 dead.”

It’s a significant blow for a Christian population that has known security under Assad’s regime. Assad—part of the small Muslim Shiite population in Syria—allowed notable freedoms for other minorities in the country, in part to secure their support, as his Alawite sect is a notable minority as well. (Most Syrians are Sunni Muslims.)

Syria among its neighboring Arab countries has been distinguished by public acceptance of Christianity: In northern Syria ancient Christian communities have worshipped openly in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke.

In Damascus and other cities, festive parades have marked Easter. Church spires and domes dominate the skyline in Aleppo, where church services and

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church: youssef badawi/epa/landov • rebels: stringer/ap

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It’s a story that isn’t widely reported because it’s a dangerous story to tell, according to Patrick Sookhdeo of Barnabas Fund. “The real problem for [Syrian] Christians is that no one is going to believe them,” he says. “They’re not able to say much because they’ll be

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targeted. And they now find themselves in a very vulnerable position.”

It’s a painful reality in a fierce struggle for Syria’s future, but it’s also one part of a growing reality for minority groups across the Middle East and North Africa: Last year’s Arab Spring is this year’s Arab anxiety.

Indeed, Egyptians wait to see if a newly elected parliament will help deliver stability to the tenuous nation, while Egyptian Christians wait to see whether the same parliament—dominated by Islamist politicians—will protect religious minorities or sharpen restrictions.

Libyans hope for economic improvements and Western investments, while Libyan Christians wonder if the already hostile environment for Christianity will grow even worse under officials committed to Islamic rule.

map: reuters/landov • soldiers: Handout/reuters/landov

charity work have operated without restriction, and church bells have rung freely on special occasions—unlike in most other countries in the region.

Now those freedoms are backfiring as Sunni anger toward the Alawite government is devolving into targeted aggression toward minorities, including Christians.

If opposition forces take control of Syria, that aggression could grow worse and threaten one of the last sizable populations of Christians in the Middle East.

That makes U.S. policy more complicated than simply supporting opposition forces against an oppressive regime, with an opposition that threatens to become oppressive itself. And while ousting Assad could be good for U.S. interests in the region since Assad is allied with Iran, what comes next could prove destructive for Christians.

“The tone of the [Muslim] discussion isn’t whether we have the right to opp

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map: reuters/landov • soldiers: Handout/reuters/landov

In Syria, citizens wait to see who will prevail, while the West calls for the regime to dismantle. President Barack Obama has called for Assad to “step aside,” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded a “democratic future for Syria.”

But it isn’t clear what a “democratic future” will mean. Syrian opposition forces are fractured, threatening another power struggle if Assad resigns. And increased freedoms for the majority may mean increased oppression for minorities out of sync with Islamic ideology.

Joshua Landis, director for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, moderates a respected blog called “Syria Comment” that underscores the anxiety of minority groups about their future in Syria.

A post on the blog by a SyrianAmerican banker visiting Syria in early January chronicled his conversation

deem sympathetic to his rule, including Christians.

The Christian advocacy group Open Doors USA reported in December that Syrian Christians are increasingly afraid to leave their homes. Like other groups caught in sectarian crossfire, Christians are worried about increasing violence and a growing criminality during the country’s chaos. An Open Doors field worker in Syria told the group that radical Sunni Muslims had raided and robbed several churches.

The worker also reported that several Muslim taxi drivers vowed to harm all women customers who are unveiled: “These women, mostly less orthodox Muslims and Christians, are being kidnapped, raped, or even killed.”

Virginia-based Jubilee Campaign also reports that Syrian protesters are targeting Christians: “The culmination of these protests end in raids on

rebels—the legitimacy being given to them just appalled him.”

Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund agrees that the United States should examine reports of opposition abuses against minority groups. He says the United States should also examine the consistency of its Middle Eastern policy. For example, while U.S. officials call for Assad’s ouster in Syria based on humanitarian crimes, they have said far less about human-rights abuses and oppression in places like Saudi Arabia.

That’s because Saudi Arabia is a key ally in the region, including an ally against the Iranian regime. Still, when watchdog group Freedom House rated the political and civil freedoms in countries around the world earlier this year, two nations earned the group’s worst possible ratings: Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Sookhdeo fears the United States is being drawn into a regional conflict that pits Sunni Muslims in countries like

ht to oppress these people, but whether we should allow them to live or not.” with a Christian soldier in the Syrian army: The 20-year-old soldier, asked what he would do when his military service ends, said: “Get out of here as fast as I can. I don’t care where I go.” His cousin sitting nearby agreed: “I will swim across to Cyprus soon.”

But fleeing the country isn’t an option for most. Indeed, Christians from other Middle Eastern countries have fled to Syria in recent years to escape persecution. An estimated 100,000 Iraqi DEMOCRATIC FUTURE? syrian Christians have taken soldiers who refuge in Syria since defected to join the U.S. invasion of the Free syrian Iraq in 2003. army display their rifles.

The Syrian Christian community has ancient roots and comprises between 6 percent and 10 percent of the country’s population—a significant number in a country of about 20 million. Despite their minority status, Christians have enjoyed some measures of security under Assad’s reign, with some working in government or police positions.

That security now makes them an open target. Opposition forces that protest Assad—a ruler who has undoubtedly exercised oppression and brutality during his reign—are targeting Syrians they Email: jdean@worldmag.com

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Christian communities to take women from their homes and families and rape them.”

Greg Treat of the Jubilee Campaign elaborated, saying that sources say extremists appear on Syrian television encouraging Muslims to kill Christian women: “The tone of the [Muslim] discussion isn’t whether we have the right to oppress these people, but whether we should allow them to live or not .”

During the same week, the UK-based Barnabas Fund reported that a reliable source in Syria estimated that at least 100 Christians had been killed since protests began in the country last year.

The source told Barnabas Fund about two incidents since Christmas. Rebels kidnapped two Christian men, ages 28 and 37, in separate attacks, according to the report: “The first was found hanged with numerous injuries, the second was cut into pieces and thrown in a river. Four more have been abducted, and their captors are threatening to kill them too.”

The violence against minority groups leads some Christians to question America’s unalloyed support for rebels during the chaos. Treat of the Jubilee Campaign said one Christian source was “very, very frustrated by the way that the West is unquestioningly backing the

Saudi Arabia against Shia regimes like Iran and Syria. Even if Sunnis win that conflict, Sookhdeo says the outcome would be grim: “They will be utterly iniquitous because they are not based on principles we accept. And this is something the U.S. is not addressing.”

Elizabeth Kendal agrees. The religious freedom expert and author of the Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin says that Western governments fail to understand that liberty alone won’t reform governments. She says the belief that if populations simply achieve freedom they will choose good over evil isn’t true: “The Bible explains this by telling us that mankind is fallen and drawn towards sin and selfishness. Liberty without God can be pure anarchy.”

In Syria, Christians and other groups wait to see if anarchy will prevail in the worsening conditions in their country, and if they’ll still have a place in a society that may reject them. Kurt Werthmuller of the Hudson Institute says that the prospect of Christians fleeing Syria and the Middle East is a “looming crisis” and a tragedy for the region: “They’ve been a part of Middle Eastern society for as long as they’ve been around, and to lose that is not just a sad thing, but part of a real breakdown of social order.” A —with reporting by Mindy Belz February 25, 2012

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I B E T A R U C C A R O F E L T T A B E TH > FATHER E TH D GO LL CA AT TH NS IO AT SL AN TR CT TO LOCAL PASTORS AND CHURCHES OBJE E OF GOD” IV AT NT SE RE EP “R E TH S SU JE D AN R” “THE GREAT PROTECTO

by E m il y B e lz 

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: DISPUTED TRANSLATION , ew tth Ma of pel Gos e Th showing old and new e. translations side by sid

ly open his he could not physical crippling fear, he found ervention. int ine he attributes to div mouth to say it, which en a wh   in ce, was key Patience, a fierce patien of his nd frie se clo a red tally murde group of Muslims bru eting for a ns while they were me and two other Christia who had Turkey. The Muslims, Bible study in Malatya, nity, tia re interested in Chris pretended that they we men in a ee thr n dismembered the disemboweled and the finally ey Th ed. lm fi s sion the killer two-hour torture ses . ear to ear oats from slit the Christians’ thr r in the tor and church plante pas a now ,  , Bocek mission Turkey, tells Western coastal town of Izmir, in Muslims en ient for faith to rip agencies to be more pat rases in ph l lica t to alter key bib in his country, and no e “Son of ras ph e Th . e of outreach translations for the sak to imply slims because it seems God” is offensive to Mu a sexual father to Jesus through that God was a physical t to gh sou e translators have union with Mary, so som “They p. shi on ati describe that rel find alternate terms to that see y the e aus translations bec get involved in these you t Bu s. ult res e hav e said. “W there is no fruit,” Bocek He and w.” slo lly rea lly, rea take it have to be patient and tations s the offensive conno res add s tor pas low his fel ans. me lly laining what it rea of “Son of God” by exp ” nt. d, “that’s the way it we “For centuries,” he sai a wave of backlash g lin fee are now es Western mission agenci t just from a few alized” translations—no against these “contextu , but from an tes Sta ited tions in the Un conservative denomina these translations in the countries where array of local churches ing several cone Turkish pastors, includ are going out. While som n agencies ssio mi preferred to let Western tacted for this article, ing action. tak are sy on their own, others sort out the controver churches ole wh e som as h pastors, as well At least a dozen Turkis Bodrum, have of Adana, Samsun, and from the Turkish cities nslation of ning a new Turkish tra signed a petition condem yat TV, a Christian m, the director of Al Ha Matthew. Harun Ibrahi

A I S A N I N O I T A L TE BIBLETRANS it t Turkish quince, a fru F B  tha en, rip and w g time to gro like a pear, takes a lon e, ce is key for good quinc ien Pat us. icio but it’s del low fel his of ion vat sal he says, and also for the e he once was. lik slim Mu are om Turks, most of wh ested and the Turkish police arr Patience was key when was beaten, days in , when he imprisoned him for  l shocks. The police tortured with electrica verbally abused, and t to Christianity, nager and a new conver tee a n the , cek Bo d ordere Allah.” Despite a “There is no God but to recite the shahada,

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llions in the n that broadcasts to mi satellite television statio istan Bible Pak the d the petition. An Middle East, also signed h SIL, a wit ip rsh tne par o decades of Society is ending its tw rs, over the issue.

Wycliffe Bible Translato translation partner of produce the with Frontiers helped A team of translators SIL said and Matthew in Turkish, disputed translation of the proin s int po n ts helped at certai some of its consultan blished pu , SIL of n tio partner organiza cess. Sabeel Media, a book form and st , printing it in the translation in Augu “alternative Turkish Matthew, the posting it online. In the lines of is something along the form” for “Son of God” FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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“representative of God,” according to Turkish speakers, and “God the Father” has become “great protector.” A footnote explains the alternate terms: “According to the Jews, ‘God’s Son’ means ‘God’s beloved ruler’ and is equivalent with the title ‘Messiah.’”

The alternative translation runs on pages on the right, while the pages on the left have an “interlinear” translation with the original Greek words and Turkish underneath, containing the literal translation of the divine familial terms. Bocek, however, said Turks are unlikely to read the literal version on the lefthand side, where the Turkish words run underneath the Greek, but rather the right-hand page that is just Turkish.

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T   their desire to promote evangelism. Bob Blincoe, the U.S. director of Frontiers, cited in an email lack of growth as one reason for the translation: “The big problem is that church planting among the tens of millions of religious Muslims in Turkey has not been successful; it has not even begun.” Turkey is . percent Muslim, according to the CIA World Factbook. Turks estimate that their country has about , Christians now, but when Bocek became a Christian in , he was one of a total of  Protestants in the country.

“One significant barrier may be the existing translation of the Bible,” Blincoe wrote in an email: “These are paraphrases that help a conservative Sunni Muslim audience know what the Bible really says.”

“THESE ARE PARAPHRASES THAT HELP A CONSERVATIVE SUNNI MUSLIM AUDIENCE KNOW WHAT THE BIBLE REALLY SAYS.”

—Bob Blincoe

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BLINCOE: IRYNA PETERSEN • BOCEK: HANDOUT

As a Sunni Muslim himself, Bocek also found the phrase “Son of God” offensive: “I could not accept Jesus being the Son of God or God being the Father or the deity of Christ. …

Basically God just worked in my heart.” Bocek grew up in Istanbul and the Turkish national television had one channel and showed one movie a week, he said. One day it showed Ben Hur, which depicts Jesus’ crucifixion. That began his search for answers about Jesus. He eventually found an international church and spent months studying the Bible from beginning to end, until he had “nothing else left” but to accept faith.

Bocek, trained in linguistics at a Turkish university, then studied at Westminster Seminary California, graduating in  and returning to Turkey to plant a church in  with his wife. During the process of translating Matthew, a Frontiers missionary consulted with Bocek about the book. Bocek said he objected to the alterations to the familial terms, but that wasn’t the only problem with the translation: He said the Turkish was unnatural and contained grammatical errors. A Turkish translation of the Bible exists already, but the Frontiers

translators explained to supporters that they needed another translation to reach conservative Muslims.

“There is no cause for anyone to be alarmed by the accuracy of this translation,” said Blincoe, the Frontiers director. He said the petition against the Turkish Matthew amounts to “slander” and is “like yelling, ‘Fire!’ in a theater.” The petition “has been a great disservice to the peace and unity of the church,” he said.

He emphasized that the Turkish-Greek translation on the left-hand page preserves the literal terms for Son of God and God the Father. When I said that Turkish speakers say the translation on the right-hand page alters those familial terms, he responded, “You and I don’t know what the paraphrase says.”

But then Blincoe said the translation team doesn’t have plans to translate the other books of the New Testament, so I asked why not if he thought this was an important tactic to reach unreached people. He said that was simply what workers in the field had told him: “Let’s give it a chance to do its work.” In an email he added, “The team believes that if Turks do not take ownership, the project will just fade away, as the teacher Gamaliel commented about human efforts in Acts .”

Blincoe said Frontiers has contacted a number of local pastors in the last few weeks and urged them to read the translation for the first time (implying that critics hadn’t read it). He said many approve. Bocek countered that many Turkish pastors have read the translation, and still disapprove. He and the other Protestant pastors he knows oppose it—not just Reformed pastors like himself, but also those at “extreme charismatic” churches.

“They’re not listening,” he said about the missions agencies: “They come with theories and they leave with theories. … We are going to be the ones who are going to be sweeping up all their mistakes.”

Thomas Cosmades, a Turkish Christian who translated the New Testament into Turkish from the original Greek, mailed a letter to Frontiers at the end of  after he saw a copy of the Turkish Matthew. (Several hundred were printed before the official publication in ). Cosmades died in , at age , just after he published a new edition of his New Testament. In his letter he wrote that he was “highly disquieted” by the paraphrased Matthew and proceeded to analyze the debatable phrases in detail.

“This translation is not seeking to emphasize the value of the incarnation,” he wrote. “Should the trend continue, who knows where it will lead the coming generation? If Athanasius of old would have encountered such departure from biblical Christology he would have placed these redactors far below the Arians.” He continued: “Undoubtedly the people who are working hard on this paraphrase have given much of their valuable time, probably meaning well. I wish I had a positive word concerning their efforts, but I regret that this is not the case. In this paraphrase the stakes are high; the pitfalls dismal.”

Blincoe couldn’t answer whether the translation had been changed in response to Cosmades’ critiques before its official publication in , but Bocek said, “The kinds of words [Cosmades] said they’re using, it’s still there.” Cosmades’ wife Lila also signed the petition condemning the translation of Matthew.

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>>> BLINCOE: IRYNA PETERSEN • BOCEK: HANDOUT

E  who was critical of the translation said they believe a small minority of individuals in these mission agencies is pushing these translations in Turkey and other countries, and most missionaries are faithful to the Bible. “Missionaries give their lives for us,” said Samuel Naaman, a Pakistani believer who now teaches at Moody Bible Institute: “You’re hearing from a person who came to Christ through the power of missionaries’ prayers for  years. I was discipled and trained by the missionaries.”

Naaman said “contextualizing” the gospel for the local culture is fine: “Christ himself came to us, and was born as a human. … He is the founder and the basis of contextualization.”

He is nevertheless worried about the consequences of contextualized translations for the church in Pakistan: “Many of the pastors don’t even know that this curse is being imposed on us. … Then they will have to face the repercussions.”

The Pakistan church at large may not know about the debate, but the Pakistan Bible Society (PBS) does. After  Email: ebelz@worldmag.com

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years of work together, the Bible society and SIL are parting ways over the issue, which is a blow to SIL because now it must operate without the imprimatur of the premier local publisher. SIL said in a statement that the decision not to work together on one project was mutual, the result of “translation style differences,” not just the debate on divine familial terms.

But the general secretary of the Pakistan Bible Society, Anthony Lamuel, wrote in a letter on Jan.  that the issue of altering BOCEK: “We are terms for target audigoing to be the ences was central in ones who are going to be the decision, and sweeping up all added that such their mistakes.” translations have resulted in the “water downing” of Christian concepts: “We the Pakistan Bible Society will not promote experiments with the translation at the cost of hurting the church.”

A woman working on another translation project in Central Asia, who asked for anonymity for the sake of her work, said the debate on the “Son of God” issue in her translation team has deadlocked their project and stirred confusion among local believers who don’t have a Bible in their own language as a reference: “It has eroded their faith in the authority of the Word of God and in us as foreigners who are supposed to be the ‘teachers’ but can’t seem to agree on some basic truths of who Christ said he was. … Sadly it raises doubts and endless discussion, wasting a lot of time.”

Anwar Hussain, the head of the Bangladesh Bible Society, has been at the forefront of efforts in his country the last few years to repel Bible translations from various groups that change divine familial terms. Hussain grew up Muslim, and when he professed Christ as a young man, his family cut ties with him. Edward Ayub, another Christian of Muslim background, is the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Bangladesh and—alongside Hussain— has vigorously opposed the translations. “I want to die for the Bible,” not a misleading translation, Ayub said. “The harm they are doing now for the church will be long-lasting.”

Back in Turkey, Bocek recalled meeting a young Muslim who was in school in Izmir, and who planned to train for jihad. He offered the young man a Bible, and the man took it, saying he would prove “the Bible is a corrupt book.” The young man read through the whole Bible and met with Bocek regularly to talk about it over the course of almost a year. “He started saying he saw the real corruption,” Bocek said. “He realized his heart was corrupt.” When the man became a Christian, his parents sought to kill him, and the church had to hide him for two years. “These are the kinds of things that happen,” Bocek said, “when they say there’s no fruit.” A FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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John Warwick Montgomery

Sarkozy’s struggle

The French have a good leader for the current crisis, but they may soon send him home

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voter. Although not a practicing Catholic, Sarkozy has publicly encouraged Christian believers to be more active and not let the French separation of church and state intimidate them.

Though pre-election polls no longer show Sarkozy with majority support, the Socialists have been unable to find a candidate of mesmerizing quality. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a libertine, mercifully disappeared from the political scene after being arrested (though never prosecuted) for the alleged attempted rape of a female employee in a New York hotel. The choice finally devolved upon François Hollande—a middle-of-the road French socialist. (French socialists are more or less the equivalent of American liberal Democrats.)

Hollande has promised that he will massively increase spending in the public education sector— but where, precisely, will the money come from? His party (which now has a majority in the French legislative upper house, the Senate) is pushing a bill to give the right to vote in local elections to non–European Union foreigners. That proposal, patently a device to increase Socialist votes and pander to the suspect immigrant population, could well create an election backlash, as it did in the campaign of a previous Socialist presidential candidate, Lionel Jospin.

The election will also be important in defining church-state relations. Socialists oppose in principle parochial schools, and Hollande has declared that if elected he will seek to incorporate the  separation-of-church-and-state law into the French Constitution. That will in theory if not in practice override the th-century concordat that still allows for religious education in the public schools and state support for churches in provinces of eastern France such as the Alsace.

So who will win? Prediction is highly dangerous in light of the mercurial French political spirit.

Consistent in haute cuisine, the French are hardly stable in their political alignments: Note the pendulum swing from Old Régime to radical Revolution to autocratic Napoleonic imperialism, and a succession of no less than  French Constitutions. The general public now fears both the national debt and a reduction of social benefits (thus the brouhaha a year ago over the increase in pension age from  to !). But France badly needs Sarkozy’s intelligent leadership. A —John Warwick Montgomery, a member of the Paris bar and an English barrister, serves as Distinguished Research Professor at Patrick Henry College

CARLOS ALVAREZ/GETTY IMAGES

W R in the United States are busy with primaries, the French Republic is preparing to elect or reelect a president for a five-year term. Voting will commence on April . If no candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes cast, the two candidates with the most votes will engage in a run-off two Sundays later.

Like the United States, France operates essentially with a two-party system: the UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) at the right and the PS (Partie Socialiste) at the left. France does have a weak centrist party (the MoDems) plus two extremist parties—Communists on the left and the right-wing National Front (FN)—but these have no realistic chance of winning a presidential election. (Since many in France are concerned about Muslim immigrants from former French colonies, the FN has gained ground, but its major accomplishment has been to push the major parties on immigration.)

The incumbent president, seeking a second term, is Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP). The husband of popular singer Carla Bruni, he decimated the Socialist candidate on national television five years ago. But in spite of Sarkozy’s becoming a new father while in office (the French love babies), the current economic crisis has hurt him badly and he is now trailing in the polls. This is sad, since he has worked to clean up the French economy during the current downturn, and he has not been willing to spend public monies wildly.

Sarkozy’s popularity has also suffered by his reducing the overblown French public service sector through a refusal to replace retiring civil servants. Of all the European leaders in recent years, he was the one who saw clearly that the euro has been artificially maintained at an inflated value, thereby creating root problems for the European Union nations. Sarkozy’s successful and immensely important creation of a Constitutional Council provides a new and higher level of protection of civil liberties, but that appears too esoteric to capture the imagination of the French

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Carlos alvarez/Getty ImaGes

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coMing to

AMericA

Why are a rapidly growing number of Chinese parents sending their children to Christian high schools in the United States?

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by Angela Lu and Mary Jackson illustration by evan hughes

stress of China’s test-driven education system is n China, when 7th-grader too high, and parents with only one child are able Lei became depressed and to pay for an alternative. Meanwhile, Christian unresponsive, his parents parents don’t want their kids attending schools wondered what had happened. that teach God doesn’t exist.

He hardly spoke when they But there are few alternatives—private schools picked him up from his public are held under the same rules and regulations as boarding school on Saturdays public schools, and Christian schools are illegal. and dropped him off again on Some parents choose to homeschool their children Sundays. It took months before or send them to other alternative schools, but Lei told his parents what was they lack legitimacy and authorities could raid wrong: His grades were slipping, them at any time. Some are choosing to send even though he studied almost their children to the United States. And with every waking hour and often schools in the United States desperate for more barely slept. money, an increasing number of Chinese students Like any student falling are applying for American high schools: In 2005 behind in China—where grades are based solely only 65 Chinese students attended U.S. private on test scores—Lei knew that poor grades would high schools, but last year the number was 6,725. affect his prospects for high school, college, and When Lei’s parents heard about a program a future career. Disturbed, his parents began that sends Chinese students to attend a Christian inquiring about U.S. high schools. high school in California, they jumped at the With only one main education track in offer. They were China—a secular public school impressed by the system—a growing number of Editor’s notE: Given the ups and downs of school’s 100 parents are looking for alterChinese church-state relations, we have percent college natives for their children. Like changed names and dropped cities that would acceptance rate, Lei’s parents, some believe the give potential persecutors geographic hints.

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there needs to be a christian education movement that comes from chinese christians building their own curriculum [in china]. with 50 percent of students going to University of California schools. The high school also includes daily Bible classes, weekly chapels, and an application of biblical worldview to all subjects, and the students live with Christian host families. Lei’s parents, who are not Christians, didn’t mind the Christian influence because they “figured Christian teachers and students would be kind,” he said.

Now Lei enjoys working in the high school’s science lab, tinkering in the robotics club, playing basketball—things he wouldn’t have had the time to do in China—and pursuing a dream: “I am not afraid of China education. … I have a lot of friends who come to America, Canada, or England, and some of them I know are avoiding it, some of them don’t have a dream, but I do. I want to be a businessman.”

Sarah, a school consultant in China, said she meets many students like Lei’s friends who come to the United States to take the easy way out and will “bring problems from China to the United States. I see the movement growing in an alarming rate, and my biggest concern is quality control on both sides.” For the high school in California, this means a three- to six-month screening process that includes meetings with the families, interviews with the students, and English assessment tests.

Sarah tells prospective students what to expect at the school, and if students are still interested, they are asked to fill out the application, file for a U.S. visa, and take an English prep program.

Parents often pay education agents thousands of dollars to send their kids to schools overseas, and some agents help students lie on their transcripts to get into American schools. In one instance, an agent referred to Sarah a Chinese student who had spent some time in a juvenile reform school. When she asked the agent about the stint, he responded that the student was there for a weight-loss program, but she learned the student had actually been sent there because of his gang involvement.

Some students like Hua, 14, came to the California school with top grades in her Chinese

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school. Her parents sent Hua to America because she could continue to excel academically and also have time for hobbies like painting and calligraphy.

What Hua didn’t expect was her budding friendship with her teachers and her newfound interest in reading Scripture. “The Bible is really new for me,” she said. “I am not from a Christian home, but I am starting to know God.” Other students came to the California school because their parents were already Christian. Sarah said that about half the students coming to the school are from Christian families. Four children of house church pastors recently arrived.

Jia’s parents had already pulled her out of a Chinese public school and were homeschooling her when they met Sarah. As Christians, Jia’s parents wanted their child to go to a school that shared their beliefs: Jia, 16, says she’s understanding the Bible for the first time and noticing changes in her outlook “a little at a time.” The school also gives Jia a shot at college: A mediocre student in China, she felt discouraged about her future, but now she envisions returning to her hometown after college to teach English and one day homeschool her children.

Still, Sarah believes sending students over to Christian schools in the United States is not the solution. She believes more options inside China should exist for parents and students unhappy with the public school system. Homeschooling co-ops are popping up in Chinese cities. One group has grown from nine to 23 kids in the past few years.

Parents in that city have formed about 10 other homeschooling groups, which are not connected for security issues.

Groups exist in 30 other Chinese cities as well, sources say. Homeschooling is a broad term in China that describes anything not government-sanctioned, including one-room schoolhouse models where students meet in a classroom and work on curriculum provided by outside programs.

The problem with these underground schools is that as students finish high school, they have nowhere to go next. Once students leave the Chinese education system, it is very difficult to come back, and they can’t take the college entrance exam to get into a Chinese university. Their best option is America, although many cannot afford to go.

This is where Sarah believes Christians interested in China’s education system need to push for reform: “There needs to be a Christian education movement that comes from Chinese Christians building their own curriculum [in China], and that needs to be done in the right way, where value can be taught as character education.” A

WORLD February 25, 2012

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Change your yard, Change your street, Change your neighborhood, Change your town!

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Join The 2012 Easter Cross Witness

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Pray in the shadows of the Roman Colosseum, study on the steps of the Parthenon and explore ancient Thessalonica on the inaugural journey of Southern Seminary Expeditions. Make plans to spend your summer following the footsteps of the Apostle Paul and the church fathers while earning course credit under the leadership of Dr. Russell D. Moore and Dr. Gregory A. Wills.

Field lectures at the following locations: • Corinth • The Colosseum

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• Catacombs of Rome • Roman Forum • Mars Hill • Mount Olympus • The Parthenon

• Vatican City • The Sistine Chapel • Philippi • Thessalonica

Early registration: Jan 1-Feb 20 Late registration: Feb 21-March 29 Register online at www.sbts.edu/events Contact: expeditions@sbts.edu

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2/9/12 10:11 AM INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS: THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY • THE DARK KNIGHT: WARNER BROS. • JUNO: FOX SEARCHLIGHT • THE HELP: TOUCHSTONE • WALL•E: PIXAR • THE BLIND SIDE: WARNER BROS.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS: THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY • THE DARK KNIGHT: WARNER BROS. • JUNO: FOX SEARCHLIGHT • THE HELP: TOUCHSTONE • WALL•E: PIXAR • THE BLIND SIDE: WARNER BROS.

Oscar’s filter It’s worldview, not artistic merit, that helps unpopular films dominate the Academy Awards

by MEGAN BASHAM

TOO POPULAR TO WIN BIG? Inglourious Basterds; Basterds The Dark Knight; Juno; The Help; Wall•E; The Blind Side (clockwise from top left).

N      Best Picture award to be handed out at the  Academy Awards extravaganza on Feb. —and the average box office gross of the nominees is one of the lowest in the last  years. Only one of the nine, The Help, could be considered a genuine hit. And, as with popular nominees of the previous two years, few industry insiders give it much chance of winning. (One Oscar betting site currently pegs its odds at  to .)

Since underrepresentation of crowdpleasers prompted the Academy’s decision in  to have up to  Best Picture nominees each year rather than five, the natural question when sizing up this year’s race is, what gives? The answer lies in a story that shows how worldviews make a difference both in making movies and choosing winners.

Let’s start with that expansion decision, which followed years of sliding Oscar night ratings. The president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Sid Ganis, said in a press conference that the Academy’s goal was to expand the playing field for worthy films: “Having  Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize.”

Yet while the move wasn’t without precedent (prior to , the Best Picture category often included as many as  nominees), many skeptical industry watchers surmised that while a desire to cater to the movie-going public played a part in the Academy’s decision, the Academy had been shamed into it.

The st Academy Awards four months earlier saw the snubbing of The Dark Knight, one of the most financially successful, critically acclaimed films of the last decade: It was the highest-grossing movie of  and also received a  percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a website that averages the scores of film critics across the country. It received neither Best Picture nor Best Director nominations. Instead, less-regarded films like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Reader, which received only  percent and  percent positive averages, respectively, and

r

grossed only small fractions of The Dark Knight’s haul, made the cut.

Speculation that its popularity and superhero subject matter caused Oscar voters to diss The Dark Knight sparked widespread outrage across the blogosphere. Awards Daily, in a piece titled Oscar Shoots Self in Foot, wondered what criteria could have possibly accounted for the Academy’s choice. “They don’t think about ratings, they don’t think about critics, they don’t think about the public anymore (they certainly used to). So what do they think about?” wrote Sasha Stone. The Chicago Tribune’s Marc Caro warned that Oscar might be flirting with irrelevance: “When the Academy denies top recognition to such critically and popularly beloved movies as The Dark Knight and Wall•E … it risks confirming the suspicions of those who think it has grown out of touch with mainstream tastes.”

During the question-and-answer session following his  announcement of the Best Picture expansion, Ganis admitted, “I would not be telling you the truth if I said the words ‘Dark Knight’ did not come up.”

The new, enlarged  ceremony featured indie productions like The Hurt Locker and An Education going head-to-head with crowdpleasers like Avatar, The Blind Side, District , and Up. The widely publicized insider wisdom was that Avatar, based on the seismic impact it had on the entertainment landscape, stood a good chance of winning, and the other three nominations were pure audience bait with little to no hope of taking home the big award.

In the end, all the big box-office players lost out to the low-budget war drama, The Hurt Locker (which made less money at the box office than any Best Picture winner in modern Oscar history), and  million more viewers tuned in.

Why did that happen? Britain’s Daily Telegraph argued that the Academy refuses to “bow cravenly to box-office success; instead it rewards serious, accomplished filmmaking.”

But here’s another suggestion: Filmmakers with the talent and resources to make excellent movies (which usually means movies that treat ideas seriously) are choosing themes that the broad swath of Americans find uninspiring if not outright offensive.

FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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WORLD

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i Since  it’s been my blessing and privilege to write movie reviews for WORLD. The following  films, representing all rating levels and genres, are some of my favorites: October Baby PG-13 (DEC. 3, 2011) Rise of the Planet of the Apes PG-13 (AUG. 27, 2011)

If you want to read the reviews, go to worldmag.com/nowshowing. —M.B.

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WORLD FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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THE IRON LADY: THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY • THE DESCENDANTS: FOX SEARCHLIGHT

True Grit PG-13 (JAN. 15, 2011) Of Gods and Men PG-13 (MARCH 26, 2011) Inception PG-13 (JULY 31, 2010) Sherlock Holmes PG-13 (JAN. 16, 2010) Babies G (MAY 22, 2010) The Damned United R (DEC. 5, 2009) The Blind Side PG-13 (NOV. 21, 2009) Up G (JUNE 3, 2009) Star Trek PG-13 (MAY 23, 2009) The Visitor PG-13 (MARCH 14, 2009) Gran Torino R (JAN. 17, 2009) Frost/Nixon R (DEC. 13, 2008) Wall•E G (JUNE 28, 2008) Prince Caspian PG (MAY 17, 2008) Henry Poole Is Here PG (SEP. 6, 2008) : to Yuma R (SEP. 22, 2007) Spider Man  PG-13 (MAY 5, 2007) Astronaut Farmer PG (MARCH 10, 2007)

Think about Best Picture nominees that also have big box-office numbers.

They tend to be films in which the main characters struggle to overcome either their own inner weaknesses or outer obstacles to achieve a specific moral ideal. Gladiator, Erin Brockovich, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Juno, Up, Inglourious Basterds, Seabiscuit, Slumdog Millionaire, The Departed, Avatar—all of these highgrossing Best Picture contenders of the last  years, whether you ascribe to their worldview or not, present a fixed concept of virtue. Character development and the subtext of the story serve to reinforce, not deconstruct, that concept.

Take last year’s big winner, the natty, quintessentially aristocratic The King’s Speech. For the good of his country King George perseveres to overcome his stutter and thus deliver a speech that uplifts and steels the hearts of his people during a war. Though it bore none of the usual markings of a movie likely to top  million, word of its excellence spread, and it eventually became a bona fide blockbuster. This year’s sleeper hit, The Help, in which a young white journalist helps black maids in the segregated South speak out against oppression, followed a similar (indeed, even more

Email: mbasham@worldmag.com

2/9/12 10:13 AM

NATHAN DAHLSTROM

Choice reviews

FAVORED: Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady (above); George Clooney in The Descendants (right).

dramatic) trajectory, as did ’s The Blind Side, in which a wealthy family adopts an impoverished teenager. (It goes without saying that, though a conflicted character, The Dark Knight stands with those who battle on behalf of unconditional morality.)

The films Oscar voters have tended to award in recent years, on the other hand, frequently have themes of inner uncertainty and lack of a fixed moral compass. The characters may start out clutching onto an ideological ideal, but events of the story conspire to show how misguided or naïve they have been in trying to consistently apply that ideal to the vagaries of life.

For example, The Hurt Locker, Locker while an excellent film, features soldiers unsure of their role in the Iraq War, questioning whether they fight because their cause is just or because they love the rush that comes from combat.

The Descendants, one of the favorites to win Best Picture at the th Academy Awards on Feb. , follows a man whose concept of marriage and family is decimated after he discovers his comatose wife had been cheating on him. He must learn, through blow after blow to his ego and his notion of what it means to be a parent, to accept new ideals, drawing wisdom from his teenage daughter and her pot-smoking boyfriend. When one minor character tries to apply an overarching virtue—forgiveness—to the distressing situation, she is portrayed as something of an embarrassment.

The  indie nominee, The Kids Are All Right, which superficially made the case for same-sex parenting, featured partners who, along with cheating and lying to each ot her, are unsure of their sexual feelings and unsure whether those feelings are good or bad. Besides the inessentiality of fathers, the only moral ideal the film leaves its characters with is that acknowledging their uncertainty and slogging on despite it is better than fixing on a single definition of marriage and family.

Though not a Best Picture nominee, The Iron Lady (for which Meryl Streep is considered the frontrunner for Best

Success in the arts

THE IRON LADY: THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY • THE DESCENDANTS: FOX SEARCHLIGHT

NATHAN DAHLSTROM

An artist should focus on service, not merely self-expression by JOHN R. ERICKSON When I speak to young people about writing, I wonder if they will have the discipline and fortitude to endure the years of hardship that most apprentice writers have to experience. I also wonder if they will have the wisdom to cope with success, should it ever come their way.

As an aspiring author in the s and ’s, I had a powerful drive to succeed. If I had been pressed to define Erickson the term, I would have said that a successful author is one who is able to support himself and his family through his writing. He should be able to make a living with his craft.

But there was more to it. I began to notice that many of the “successful” people in creative fields suffered fractured lives that led them into depression, burn-out, alcoholism, drug abuse, hedonism, and divorce—estrangement from faith, family, and community, everything that really mattered.

It seemed a cruel hoax. After an author, actor, musician, or artist had mastered his craft, after struggling and clawing his way to center stage, there he encountered a mockery of his ambitions, a dark mirror image that was, in fact, the direct opposite of success.

“Success” is a powerful concept in American culture. We are often described as “success-driven.” We want our children to succeed, and we use success as a standard to measure a life and a career. We might suppose that anything so important would have a clear definition, but that’s not the case in artistic professions.

I think it’s important that people in creative fields define themselves and their ambitions outside the context of popular culture. Popular culture offers fame and fortune, but has no moral center. It’s a fire that warms itself and uses artistic people as fuel. The fire burns hot for a while, then the ashes go to the dump.

It’s a familiar story, and should remind us of the question Jesus asked in Mark :.

To paraphrase: “What’s left of you after you’ve become a star?”

Until fairly recent times, art was viewed as more than the self-expression of an individual. It served a community and had a moral, ultimately religious, function: to present a coherent vision of who we are as human beings, and to provide guidance on how we should conduct ourselves in the short span of time we have on this earth.

The sense of community that nurtured and inspired artists in the past is hard to find in the present day, but not impossible. I have found remnants of it among people who try to view experience through the lens of a Christian worldview.

In such environments, artistic people can find a purpose, an audience, and a professional identity (some call it a “vocation”) within the same stream of thought and belief that has nurtured great writers, composers, artists, and thinkers for the past , years—,, if we include our rich heritage from the Old Testament.

In that context, the artist serves something higher than himself. His art should be more than a summary of his lust, nightmares, and petty desires. And even though success in America is inextricably linked with money, success in the arts should deliver more than a fat bank account.

Christian artists must balance the needs of the flesh with the needs of the soul, bearing in mind that some things should not be put up for sale. If you’re writing or performing for someone else’s children, while your own children live as orphans, you’re not selling your talent; you’re selling your children—your soul.

Further, there are some songs that maybe you shouldn’t sing, some books you shouldn’t write, some movie roles you shouldn’t take, and some words you shouldn’t say.

Popular culture might not understand that kind of thinking, but our grandparents’ generation would have had no problem understanding it. There are some things you shouldn’t do for money.

From a Christian perspective, something is amiss when the artist entertains his audience but corrupts himself and the people he loves. As Francis Schaeffer once observed, the artist’s ultimate work should be his own life.

Actress) serves as perhaps the best illustration this year of how a filmmaker’s thematic choices may keep the public away from a movie they would otherwise have great interest in.

The basic facts of Margaret Thatcher’s life are these—a lowermiddle-class grocer’s daughter struggles to win acceptance in the male-dominated Tory party of the s before going on to become first leader of her party and then prime minister of Great Britain. During her time in office she triumphs over her political rivals, governs her country to renewed economic prosperity, and collaborates with other world leaders to help end the Cold War. It would not have taken a hagiography to make a movie about Thatcher that resonated with American moviegoers. But it would have taken the perspective that Thatcher deeply believed in her stated political and moral ideologies, and that her dedication to them was what drove her to overcome all obstacles. Instead, in between showing a young Thatcher as blindly enthralled by politicians as other young girls were by the Beatles, director Phyllida Lloyd shows Thatcher’s motivations and her own feelings about her goals to be suspect.

Told through the conceit of Thatcher looking back on her life while enduring the hectoring of her now-deceased husband, she considers that it may have been ambition rather than righteous passion that drove her: She quietly grieves what her triumphs may have cost her. In the end, the ideologies the Iron Lady stands on are shifting sand—perhaps not worth her lifetime of dedication. No wonder, despite its brilliant acting and riveting subject, the film failed to win much attention from moviegoers.

As in the case of The Iron Lady, filmmakers don’t necessarily have to believe in absolute moral values to draw audiences, but if they want to make movies that make money for something other than mammoth spectacle and genre pandering, they should probably create characters who do. If Academy members want to draw more viewers to their TV screens next year, they might give more attention to well-made movies that feature crusaders, caped or otherwise. A

—John Erickson is the author of the Hank the Cowdog book series FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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Black families needed >> LIFESTYLE: Suspicious of the “system,” many African-American couples are missing an opportunity to help children in need

BY DEENA C. BOUKNIGHT

D  R K had one son. They wanted more children.

Darlene was unable to conceive. They considered adoption, but knew no one in their African-American community who had adopted. Costs seemed daunting.

Then they realized through Bethany Christian Services and the Georgia foster care system that many black children needed homes. Their initial reluctance melted away.

Recalling his own fatherless childhood in downtown Atlanta, Reginald says his “heart began to be right. I got on board when I saw the need.”

The hard truth is: More black children need a home, yet they are less likely than other racial and ethnic groups to be adopted by families of any race—especially by black families. In , Bethany Christian Services made , placements, but not more than one out of  adopting families was AfricanAmerican. Bethany’s Columbia, S.C., office currently has  active prospective adoptive families in the Domestic Infant Adoption Program, but only one is black.

THE KNIGHT FAMILY: Darlene and Reginald at home with their three children.

FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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Notebook > Lifestyle

Before Valentine’s Day an article on the website Poemas del Río Wang (riowang. blogspot.com///language-ofstamps.html) explained that letters used to show love not only through words but stamps. A facsimile of an article from an  Hungarian newspaper explains stamp right corner of language: “If the stamp stands upright in the upper Top right, ship. friend your wish I s: the card or envelope, it mean write me any Don’t : down e upsid right, Top across: Do you love me? else. Top one some to gs belon heart My s: acros more. ... Top left, spread, code the left, upright: I love you.” The article describes how Olasky n —Susa ages. with facsimiles of postcards in different langu

Me, myself, and I The way a person writes can reveal his psychological state. That’s according to research by University of Texas professor James Pennebaker. He writes in the Harvard Business Review about a computer program that counts and categorizes words into function words (pronouns, articles, conjunctions, etc.) and content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that convey meaning).

Using the program he analyzed , texts including college essays, text messages, transcripts from press conferences, and chat room conversations.

Some findings were surprising: “When we analyzed poems by writers who committed suicide versus poems by those who didn’t, we thought we’d find more dark and negative content words in the suicides’ poetry. We didn’t—but we did discover significant differences in the frequency of words like ‘I.’” Pennebaker explained, “Pronouns tell us where people focus their attention. If someone uses the pronoun ‘I,’ it’s a sign of self-focus.

Say someone asks ‘What’s the weather outside?’ You could answer ‘It’s hot’ or ‘I think it’s hot.’ The ‘I think’ may seem insignificant, but it’s quite meaningful. It shows you’re more focused on yourself.

Depressed people use the word ‘I’ much more often than emotionally stable people. People who are lower in status use ‘I’ much more frequently.” —S.O.

STAMP: ANGELA ROWLINGS/AP • MIRROR: PIOTR STRYJEWSKI/GETTY IMAGES

Many black families are suspicious of a “system” they perceive as responsible for putting black kids in foster care in the first place. Some resent the scrutiny they must undergo to be approved for adoption. Even the fees involved in the adoption process can be interpreted as “buying babies.”

Change is possible. In Charlotte  years ago, Ruth Amerson started a nonprofit adoption group, Another Choice for Black Families. She says, “I don’t have to convince African-Americans of the rightness of adoption—just make them aware.”

In Michigan, Kim Offutt makes African-Americans aware through Project Open Arms. She says agencies and advocates need to ramp up recruitment efforts to reduce numbers of waiting black children. She believes more education will help black families understand the detailed adoption process and the financial options.

In Aurora, Colo., Robert Gelinas pastors Colorado Community Church, a mixed-race, interdenominational church. In  he founded Project :, an adoption initiative to equip, train, and support Christians to adopt from foster care. That project has led to almost  adoptions. Gelinas and his wife had one child and then adopted three through the Colorado foster care system and two more from Ethiopia.

To encourage more African-Americans to adopt, Bethany Christian Services enlisted the help of two prominent black men—and their wives—to promote adoption to African-American communities: Joseph Simmons (aka Reverend Run) and former NFL Coach Tony Dungy.

Simmons, a founding member of hip-hop group Run-D.M.C.—his family was the subject of the MTV reality show “Run’s House”—tells black families interested in adoption: “People are selfish. We don’t think about adoption. But adopting is giving of yourself.” He and his wife have three children born to them and adopted in  an African-American baby girl.

Dungy and his wife learned of adoption through their church, which many say is one of the most effective avenues for African-American adoption education.

“Adoption for us became an act of obedience. It’s a vivid reminder of what God has done for us—adopting us into His kingdom,” Dungy says. The Dungys added four adopted children to their family of three.

Since the door opened for Reginald and Darlene Knight to adopt a sibling group, the couple is motivated to educate their African-American community. They were interviewed on a black praise radio station and speak openly to friends and families about their adoption experience. They plan to adopt at least one more.

“There are so many black children in our own country that need adopting,” Reginald says. “It’s time to help out.” A

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—Deena Bouknight is a South Carolina journalist

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Notebook > Health

Unhealthy decision?

a task force recommendation against screening for prostate cancer may make sense—or it may be an ominous sign of medicine’s future under obamacare By daniel james devine

>>

62

WORLD February 25, 2012

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have reacted strongly to the task force decision, claiming it ignores the individual lives that PSA screening has undoubtedly saved. The criticism is reminiscent of breast cancer screening guidelines from two years ago, when the task force recommended against routine mammograms for women in their 40s. (In defiance, the American Cancer Society continues to recommend the annual mammograms.) With a quasigovernmental body challenging status quo screening practices, some doctors worry the task force has become an agent of a national cost-cutting effort, pushed along by President Obama’s healthcare overhaul.

Scherz is one of those doctors. “They have come out with recommendations that are, in my opinion, politically driven,” he says, noting there are no urologists or oncologists on the panel.

In 2009 Scherz founded Docs 4 Patient Care, a nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta with 4,500 member doctors in several states, committed to educating the public about the implications of Obamacare.

“This is the tip of the iceberg in what I think people can expect to see in the future with a top-down, one-size-fitsall, government-run healthcare bureaucracy,” he says. “We are looking at the system, we are looking at the global view of things, instead of the individual.”

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has existed since 1984, offering screening recommendations for cancer and other diseases based on reviews of

the most current research. It consists of 16 unpaid members, experts from various medical fields, who are appointed to four-year terms. Although the task force’s recommendations are adopted by doctors and medical groups on a voluntary basis, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act gave new clout to the panel’s decisions. The law requires that new health insurance plans cover any preventive services the task force recommends, without cost-sharing.

Medicare and Medicaid services will also be tailored to task force guidelines.

Many doctors view the panel’s role positively. Physician and author Walt Larimore, who practices at Mission Medical Clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., a church-supported ministry that provides free care for the working poor, said his clinic decided to stop offering PSA testing as a result of the task force decision: “The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation is—to me— the plumb line upon which you compare the public health messages that are coming out.”

Larimore still discusses the facts with his patients. After skin cancer,

bruce Powell/university oF chicago Medical center/aP

In his early 50s, urologist Hal Scherz received a diagnosis for a disease his profession frequently treats: prostate cancer. The discovery came after several blood tests showed Scherz had rising levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a cancer indicator. In a subsequent biopsy, a single tissue sample—out of 12—came back positive for the disease.

“At that point, there was a decision that needed to be made. Would I watch it and knowingly just continue to have [cancer] in my prostate and not deal with it? Or would I go ahead and get treated for it?” says Scherz, now 57.

After weighing the pros and cons of treatment—it would probably eliminate the chance of cancer spreading, but might result in incontinence and impotence—Scherz opted to have his prostate removed.

“Am I happy that I made that decision?” he reflects. “Absolutely.”

Scherz was just one of hundreds of thousands of men who face difficult decisions following screening for prostate cancer. Although PSA testing has been a pillar of preventive medicine since the late 1980s, some new research suggests widespread prostate cancer screening does not reduce overall mortality and results in unnecessary biopsies and surgical procedures. Last October that research led the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government-appointed healthcare panel, to recommend against PSA testing for healthy men.

Many doctors, including urologists and prostate cancer advocacy groups,

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A COMMON CANCER: a doctor watches an internal video of the patient’s body during prostate cancer surgery at the university of chicago Medical center.

Bruce Powell/university of chicago Medical center/aP

prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the United States, and the second most deadly.

Older men, African-Americans, and those with a relative who had prostate cancer are at a higher risk of developing the disease.

Autopsies have shown, though, that a third of middle-aged men—and up to three-quarters of men above 85—had prostate cancer when they died, even if they showed no symptoms. In many cases the cancer is so slow-growing that pursuing treatment options such as radiation therapy or prostate removal offers more risks of side effects, complications, or death than the cancer itself would have posed. Problem is, there’s no way of knowing for sure how slow the cancer will grow. For many men, it’s a psychological battle wondering whether a simple PSA blood test could result in unnecessary procedures—or save their life.

Email: ddevine@worldmag.com

4 HEALTH.indd 63

Even after explaining the pros and cons to patients, Larimore said, “I haven’t had a man over 50 choose not to do the testing.” He now refers these men to local urologists, who continue to offer PSA testing, following current American Urological Association guidelines.

Larimore’s tactful way of letting the patient decide whether to pursue screening is exactly the kind of doctorpatient decision-making some believe is threatened by the governmental task force. Whereas a doctor can assess a patient’s entire being and help him or her make the best medical decision based on age, risk factors, and health status, a national screening policy treats everyone as a statistic.

“Governments think of populations, not individual patients,” Alieta Eck, president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, told me by email. “Governments deal with global budgets and look at the cost of screening as opposed to the cost of one missed diagnosis. If the one missed diagnosis is my patient, I am the one who is potentially held liable.”

Eck said she continues to recommend the PSA test, even though only one out of 1,000 test results may point to advanced prostate cancer—“an arguable waste of money for the 999 but priceless for the one. … The bottom line is that a PSA costs $88. Let the patient decide.”

As the government assumes a larger role in healthcare, Scherz’s fear is that those decisions will no longer be in patients’ hands. And perhaps not doctors’ hands, either.

Although the task force guidelines aren’t binding on doctors at this point, Scherz said that Obamacare gives the secretary of Health and Human Services new power to set clinical protocols that doctors must follow. Those who don’t cooperate will face financial disincentives, perhaps by being barred from participating in insurance plans in the healthcare exchange—a way of influencing physician behavior with a “big stick.”

“We are heading toward a healthcare environment where doctors will no longer be working for the patients,” said Scherz. “And patients will have to wonder whether or not the doctor who is taking care of them is really looking out for their best interest, or is making recommendations because they are beholden to some other entity.”

Regardless of whether the task force is beholden to cost-cutting, a motive is certainly available: Studies have concluded it costs $5.2 million in screening efforts to prevent just one prostate cancer death, and as many as two-fifths of prostate cancers are treated unnecessarily, since they would never have caused problems over the remaining lifetimes of the men involved.

Larimore, for his part, said he’s never seen any evidence the task force was taking costs into consideration, but Scherz isn’t convinced: According to some calculations, government health services, including tax rebates, already account for more than 50 percent of U.S. healthcare spending.

“If you’re paying for something, you have every right to determine the rules of the roa d,” Scherz said. “That’s why you get government making regulations and people all up in arms.” A feBruary 25, 2012

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Notebook > Technology for self-preservation.

Arkin points to a  Army Surgeon General survey of U.S. troops in Iraq that found  percent of soldiers and Marines admitted to mistreating noncombatants or their property, a behavior more likely among troops dealing with anger or who had seen large amounts of combat.

Researcher hopes Robots could behave robots can make combat better in certain situadecisions that protect tions, Arkin believes, soldiers and civilians because they aren’t influenced by the emotions

BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE that can cloud soldiers’ judgment. “We are not saying that we are intending to embed the full moral faculties of the WAR•E: human brain into a robotic system,” he But Arkin’s team is developThe said, but for a mission with a narrow ing a software architecture Modular objective, an ethically constrained robot that would “embed ethical Advanced could protect both soldiers and civilians constraints into the decisionArmed Robotic in a war zone. making process,” allowing System.

No such “ethical” robots have been the robot to make such a built yet. Critics of Arkin’s approach say decision within the bounds only humans can make complex moral of international laws of war, such as the decisions, and some concerned activists Geneva Conventions. Arkin told me have called for restricting the developrobots could use image recognition ment of all military robots. Arkin thinks technology to distinguish between the advent of lethal, autonomous weapcombatants and noncombatants, and ons is inevitable, and as a -year vetchoose “the right weapon” for a eran of the robot ics field, he feels some particular situation. personal responsibility to ensure people Choosing the right weapon might “proactively manage this technology, mean using a sniper rifle instead of a rather than reactively. … If you’re grenade to avoid damaging a building or involved in creating something, you injuring more people than necessary. A want to make sure that it doesn’t end soldier under heavy fire might opt for up poorly.” the grenade—but a robot has no motive

Automaton army

>>

MEGATAKEDOWN The FBI shut down one of the world’s most popular file-sharing websites, Megaupload, with  million registered users, on Jan. , while federal prosecutors charged the site’s operators with criminal copyright infringement totaling half a billion dollars in damages. Police in New Zealand arrested Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom (aka Kim Schmitz) only after breaking into a safe room in Dotcom’s mansion, where the -year-old was known to carry on a playboy lifestyle. While legal experts don’t agree whether the government’s case against Megaupload will prevail based solely on the site’s business model, some said that emails from Megaupload employees show they encouraged the sharing of copyrighted songs and videos. —D.J.D.



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ROBOT: FOSTER-MILLER INC./MCT/NEWSCOM • DOTCOM: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

R A doesn’t like war— but the Georgia Tech professor and Department of Defense researcher thinks it could be more humane with the help of armed robots programmed to make ethical decisions. Sound farfetched?

The U.S. military already uses robots to fire on enemy targets: Two examples are the missile-bearing Reaper and Predator drones. Ground-based robots at the military’s disposal can disarm roadside bombs or, in the case of the Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System, launch grenades and fire on enemies with a machine gun that swivels  degrees.

In all these cases, the robot is remotely controlled by humans, who make the final decision whether to fire.

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2/7/12 12:32 PM

Cultivate a fresh understanding of what the church believes.

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Author Mark Hitchcock helps make sense of the firestorms raging in the Arabic-Israeli world, bringing together historical context, today’s headlines, and Bible prophecies to provide clarity.

ROBOT: FOSTER-MILLER INC./MCT/NEWSCOM • DOTCOM: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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Is It the End of the World as We Know It?

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4 LIFESTYLE & TECH.indd 65

1/10/12 4:09 PM

2/7/12 12:32 PM

Notebook > Science

Viral denial

ReseaRch Roundup Stem ceLLS: California doctors who implanted cells derived from embryos under the retinas of two legally blind women last July report the patients’ eyesight has improved.

However, a placebo effect might be involved. If the apparent improvement is confirmed by additional results, it would be the first known benefit from a treatment involving embryonic stem cells (The Lancet).

By daniel james deVine

>>

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FIScheR: “Funding hiV research to stop aiDs is foolish and misguided.”

the standard HIV treatment—for over 300,000 AIDS deaths there.

Although AIDS first emerged within homosexual populations in the 1980s, doctors have studied its relationship to HIV extensively in the years since. Their research produced the drugs lengthening the lives of millions of HIV patients today.

A few days following Fischer’s comments, Saddleback Church founders Rick and Kay Warren issued a statement condemning Duesberg’s “rejection of thousands of scientific trials and papers” as quack science: “It is frustrating—and frightening—for those of us in AIDS ministry to see someone like Dr. Duesberg play to people’s bias and prejudices.”

The Warrens didn’t name Fischer, but as an AFA spokesman, his view carries weight. AFA didn’t respond to my requests for comment, but this disclaimer follows each of Fischer’s blog entries on the organization’s website: “Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.”

PSychOLOgy: “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,” Ephesians admonishes. In a new study, volunteers who viewed upsetting images twice within 12 hours had a stronger emotional reaction to the second viewing if they slept, rather than stayed awake, beforehand. It suggests sleep preserves emotional memories (The Journal of Neuroscience). —D.J.D.

Fischer: Troy Maben/ap • couple: ugurhan beTin/isTock

Bryan Fischer, Director of Issue Analysis at the American Family Association, rekindled last month an old dispute by denying that AIDS is caused by human immunodeficiency virus. “Funding HIV research to stop AIDS is foolish and misguided,” he wrote on an AFA blog. “We could find a way to kill HIV and it would do absolutely nothing, zilch, zip, to stop the advance of AIDS.” Virologists chose HIV as a culprit for the debilitating symptoms of AIDS years ago, Fischer claimed, in order to keep “billions of dollars in research grants flowing into their labs and wallets.” He laid true blame for AIDS on recreational drug use and homosexual behavior.

Fischer was advocating the views of Peter Duesberg, a University of California, Berkeley professor heralded in the 1970s for cancer research. Duesberg later questioned the HIV-AIDS link and garnered strong opposition from almost all scientists, but retains a small following through the organization Rethinking AIDS. When Duesberg and several Rethinking AIDS colleagues published a paper in the Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology last December, one of the journal’s board members resigned in protest. The paper, calling for a “reevaluation of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis,” was a reworked version of another paper Duesberg and company had written in 2009: Medical Hypotheses published it without conducting a peer review, and then withdrew it in response to scientific criticism and an external review that unanimously rejected the authors’ conclusions.

A dozen years ago Duesberg served on a panel advising South Africa’s HIV policy. Some researchers blame the South African government’s subsequent “hostility” toward antiretroviral drugs—

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2/7/12 10:03 PM

Jo Zahorian/genesis phoTos For worlD

rejection of hiV-aiDs link spurs controversy

Notebook > Houses of God

Flooding in September from Tropical Storm Lee caused extensive damage to

New Hope Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Vestal, N.Y. Flood

Jo Zahorian/genesis phoTos for world

fischer: Troy Maben/ap • couple: ugurhan beTin/isTock

waters ravaged the building’s Christian Education floor (right), destroying heating, electrical, and plumbing systems and rooms. With help from the PCA, but with much work still to be done, the congregation last month was able to worship again in the sanctuary.

february 25, 2012

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2/7/12 10:40 AM

Super bowled over

The big game did not disappoint, but it was only the third most riveting sports story of that weekend

BY MARK BERGIN

>>



WORLD FEBRUARY 25, 2012

4 SPORTS and MONEY.indd 68

Distraught and speechless, the talented up-and-comer could hardly face reporters.

Commentators wondered if such an experience might haunt Stanley’s nerves for years to come.

But one week later, Stanley shot  on Super Bowl Sunday to Stanley come from eight shots back and win the Phoenix Open. The magnitude of his collapse, the size of his comeback, and the remarkably short span between the two render the turnaround among the most amazing ever in sports.

“It makes this one a lot sweeter, just being able to bounce back,” he said. “It’s unbelievable—unbelievable turnaround.”

Even a super Super Bowl couldn’t compete with that. A

LIN: NATHANIEL S. BUTLER/NBAE VIA GETTY IMAGES • MANNING: AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGES • STANLEY: ROSS D. FRANKLIN/AP

S B weekend provided sporting moments worthy of its hype. But as good as Lin Eli Manning’s game-winning drive was, the weekend’s most sparkling moments played out well beyond the reach of the umpteen thousand television cameras that blanketed Indianapolis. Two young men on opposite sides of the country delivered the kind of improbable athletic performances that move past mere thrill to inspiration.

In New York, unheralded guard Jeremy Lin roused a Madison Square Garden crowd to heights not seen since the days of Patrick Ewing. And out west at the Phoenix Open, Kyle Stanley surged to a victory that stands among the gutsiest comebacks in golf history.

Lin, the first American-born NBA player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent, came off the bench on Feb.  to score  points and dish out seven assists in a - Knicks win over the Nets. The totals represented career highs for the -yearold Harvard grad, who had seen little game action to that point.

The Nets defenders appeared stunned at times as the deceptively quick Lin repeatedly drove through the lane for easy baskets. By the fourth quarter, a crowd longing for some spark in what had been a lifeless Knicks season began chanting “Jeremy!” with each successive score. When Lin wove his way to the hoop for a dazzling reverse layup with less than five minutes to play, even he could not help but smile.

Occasions for levity have proved rare over the past year and a half of Lin’s life. Undrafted out of college, he proved his skills in the NBA summer league and landed a two-year contract with the Golden State Warriors. But over the season, he received little playing time and was often demoted to the team’s D-League squad. Heading into this season, the Warriors waived Lin on the first day of training camp. The Houston Rockets claimed him but waived him  days later. The Knicks picked him up but soon relegated him to their D-League team.

Then events began to turn. On Jan. , Lin piled up 

points,  assists, and  rebounds in D-League play and was promptly recalled to the Knicks. Two weeks later, he would deliver the breakout game of his career.

At every level, Lin has outperformed expectations. His methodical style of play tends to leave scouts unimpressed.

He is without the speed, vertical leap, or overall athleticism typical among professional point guards. Yet, his basketball savvy produced record-setting stat totals at Harvard and is proving worthy of the NBA game. Two days after his breakout performance—with the Super Bowl champion Giants in attendance—Lin outdid himself with a -point, -assist effort that led the Knicks to a second consecutive victory.

“The last year and a half, up until three days ago, was pretty rough for me, just struggling to find a spot in this league,” Lin said after the game. “I’m just very thankful to Jesus Christ, my lord and savior, for just giving me this opportunity. I can’t tell you how many different things had to happen for me to be here. I’m just overwhelmed.”

Kyle Stanley can relate. The second-year PGA Tour pro turned in an unthinkable collapse in late January at the Farmers Insurance Open. Leading the tournament by three shots heading into the final hole, he appeared to have his first tour victory in hand until an -yard sand wedge spun backwards off the green into the water. Stanley took a drop and then three-putted for a triple bogey that erased his lead and forced a tournament playoff. He Manning lost on the second playoff hole.

Email: mbergin@worldmag.com

2/9/12 2:55 PM

JOB FAIR: DANIEL ACKER/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES • NEW CONSTRUCTION: BOB WELLINSKI/THE NEWS DISPATCH/AP

Notebook > Sports

Notebook > Money

Mixing signals Dozens of economic reports each week give both parties fodder for November

BY WaRRen COLe SMith

CREDIT

job FaIR: DaNIEL aCkER/bLooMbERg/gETTy IMagES • NEw CoNSTRuCTIoN: bob wELLINSkI/ThE NEwS DISPaTCh/aP

>>

More than 25 government and industry reports on economic activity release in a typical week, and they often conflict.

For example, the Commerce Department said housing starts in December fell 4.1 percent. In the same week, the National Retail Federation said holiday sales rose 4.1 percent. And before these reports released, surveys of economists predicted what they would say. In fact, we often end up with a forecast telling us what the report will say, the report itself, and a survey on how we feel about the report.

So which ones really matter? The answer to that question could predict the outcome of the 2012 presidential race.

President Obama focused on jobs reports in his State of the Union address in January. He cited reports suggesting he inherited a mess, and on his watch things got better. The next week House Speaker John Boehner cited his own statistics

Taking sTock

The U.S. stock markets had one of the most volatile periods on record during August and September last year. Then, beginning in October, the Dow rose nearly 2,000 points.

But January was almost eerily calm as the Fed met and made news by being, well, clear.

Fed pronouncements are notoriously obscure, but Chairman Ben Bernanke said plainly he expected interest rates to remain near zero until late 2014.

Will all this clarity and calm last? Likely not. Despite the run-up, many analysts

believe U.S. stocks are undervalued based on current earnings. Birinyi Associates says U.S. companies are buying back their own shares at the fastest pace in four years. They certainly believe their own stocks are headed up.

But investors still see systemic risk.

Individual stocks may look good, but investors don’t trust the markets as a whole.

The price of gold is a gauge of this fear.

Between March 2009 and July 2011, gold doubled. It then drifted downward. But in late January it rebounded to July levels.

Europe remains the key threat to the global economy, with Spain joining Italy and

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4 SPORTS and MONEY.indd 69

DOWN AND UP: and said the election is “going to be a Michael Collins referendum on the president’s policies (center), out of work regarding our economy.” since 2008, waits to So can economic data handicap enter a career fair in Chicago; bert the presidential race? IHS Global Stringham (left) and Insight says yes. Nigel Gault and Erik his son brad (right) Johnson looked at past elections, ran hang drywall on the the numbers through a complicated ceiling of a home under construction in model, and concluded that Obama LaPorte, Ind. will “likely” lose. The IHS equations say unemployment will have to fall to 7.5 percent and GDP growth will have to reach 3.9 percent to give Obama a victory. Neither result seems likely.

Gault and Johnson acknowledge that every election cycle is different. “Having seen the unemployment rate climb as high as 10.1 percent, voters may be more tolerant” of a higher rate than usual. “Voters may assign more weight to income growth and less weight to the unemployment rate than in past elections, opening the door for the president to win a second term.”

The “real income” report comes out monthly from the Commerce Department, and the Jan. 30 report was good news for the president: Personal income rose 0.5 percent for December, the best month in nearly a year.

Greece in the spotlight. Spain has 21.5 percent unemployment. Its central bank has called for sweeping labor market reforms. It said the country’s economy will contract 1.5 percent this year, worse than earlier estimates but consistent with the rest of Europe. And Europe’s contraction will cap U.S. expansion.

Spain, though, has a new center-right government that is implementing the sorts of reforms the central bank says the country needs. If Spain recovers, it could provide an alternative model for many of the left-leaning— and troubled—economies of Europe. —W.C.S.

FEbRuaRy 25, 2012

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Mailbag

“Risky regulations” (Jan. ) I review environmental regulations for a living and have read all , pages of the EPA Mercury and Air Toxics Rules. Daniel Devine’s is the only balanced article I have seen on it to date. WORLD readers and very few others will know that almost all of EPA’s claimed benefits for the rule have nothing to do with mercury, and that there is significant uncertainty about the benefits. For a rule that the EPA estimates will cost U.S electric ratepayers  billion a year, that is extremely unfortunate.  , Trenton, Ga.

“College bubble”

“The other elitists”

(Jan. ) My wife and I read this column with great delight. Our choice to educate our two young children in a Christian academy has affected our ability to “save up” for a future college education that is, frankly, of ever-diminishing value. We want for our children a strong, Christ-centered K- education from a biblical perspective, and after that, only God knows.

(Jan. ) I agree! It is so sad that the American vocabulary is shrinking but the number of vulgar words is increasing. The coarseness and shallowness of conversation today is disgusting. I am thankful for those who challenge us to be better, and to WORLD for occasionally sending me to my dictionary.

 .  

 

West Homestead, Pa.

A college degree is not magic and is not always even desirable. Marvin Olasky did not mention the option of joining one of our Armed Forces. The attractive life of a blue-collar career, such as heavy equipment operator, could be jumpstarted by a tour of active duty, and there are other advantages to being a veteran.

Oakdale, Calif.

Whether I am sitting in a high-school classroom or on the side of a river watching fishermen troll by, I am increasingly appalled by people unconcerned about what they say, how they say it, or who hears it. We are indeed “a trivialized and vulgarized people.” I believe that the degradation of language is one of the first signs of a civilization’s ultimate demise.   Lebanon, Ohio

“Bittersweet farewell” (Jan. ) While Hernandez and Colin seem like a lovely couple and I’m thrilled that they found salvation while living in the United States, I find it difficult to sympathize with their plight.

As a small business owner, I agree that we need laborers willing to work in low-skilled jobs. However, many of our own college graduates are having a difficult time finding jobs without competition from the flood of educated immigrants that would result from a more open immigration policy.  

Rural Retreat, Va.

CALIFORNIA SLUM, NAIROBI, KENYA / submitted by Sondra Spotts around the world

  Hyattville, Wyo.

Although I would agree that many students should explore non-college options, I found this column disappointing and offensive.

As a professor and administrator at a large secular university for more than  years, the description of institutional and faculty slothfulness and inefficiency is not what I have seen or experienced.  .  Auburn, Ala.

Send photos and letters to: mailbag@worldmag.com

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FEBRUARY 25, 2012

WORLD



2/6/12 9:54 AM

Mailbag

New

Youth Bible Studies

In some ways I sympathize, but why should anyone be able to become a U.S. citizen without learning and following the rules? I think no country in the world is as open and generous as the United States, but that seems never to satisfy the left.  

Spring City, Tenn.

Relating Faith to Life & Life to Faith

“Setting their own limits” (Jan. ) As a “schooled” homeschooler, I believe that “unschooling” fails to teach the necessities of life.

When children are allowed to choose their own subjects, they will not be prepared for college and will not learn that often in the real world we are not able to do what we want.  

Mountville, Pa.

Teens embark on a study about the church to discover our identity in Christ, diversity in the church, spiritual gifts and more.

See available studies and download free lessons at www.sowhatstudies.org

Another issue is that students who are not encouraged to memorize basic math facts or learn grammar and phonics principles at a young age, when their brains can most easily remember them, have a handicap that could hinder them in their teen years and possibly into adulthood. A wellconceived homeschool approach offers structure, but also plenty of time to pursue passions and talents.  

Cedar Park, Texas

“Breakthrough” (Jan. ) I was excited to see WORLD’s review of Once Upon a Time, since my younger sister (age ) and I (age ) have been greatly enjoying it. You were right about its family-friendly nature, but I disagree that most adults and teens will find the magical land “cheesy.” True, there are some cheesy moments, but they are outweighed by the riveting storylines and excellent acting.  

Lorton, Va.

“Living consciously” (Jan. ) In a time of material prosperity it is difficult to remember that our Christian faith is our real asset. We can easily be overcome by unforeseen events. In True Grit, when about to go

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after the villain, Mattie Ross says to Rooster, “I am in the hands of the Maker of all things and I have a fine horse.” I think that sums up a shelf full of theological writings.  

Eugene, Ore.

The awareness of God, whose Spirit lives in us, is a key to relinquishing control. I can easily give up control of the big issues because I can’t control them anyway; it’s the countless smaller moments in my day where I fail.  

Bucklin, Kan.

“Race for the White House” (Jan. ) Thank you for taking the time to break down the issues in the presidential race by candidates. My husband and I stumbled upon Ron Paul earlier this year and have found our guy.   

Sioux Center, Iowa

“Payroll games” (Jan. ) In contemplating the results of the gamesmanship over the payroll tax holiday extension, we can only be disgusted with the House and the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats. Why did the Republican leadership allow the Keystone pipeline to be tied to the payroll tax legislation? And how are we going to pay for this payroll tax rate reduction, given that the payroll tax funds Social Security? If politicians on both sides of the aisle wanted to come clean with the American people they would explain that Social Security is not an investment program but an entitlement program.  

Dubuque, Iowa

“Border reformer” (Jan. ) Thank you for this wonderful interview with Trent Franks. With all the garbage being exposed about our politicians, this man should get more press. The most important thing he has done is to outsmart the ACLU. I just wish Rep. Franks were running for president.  

Sutherlin, Ore.

2/6/12 2:57 PM

“Eating our broccoli” (Jan. ) Many politicians and economists have forgotten that Keynes also advised that governments, after “stimulating” the economy with spending, pay down their debt when the economy returns to health. That would seem to be selective reading by our political classes.

But I’m glad that David Skeel posed the question as, “How much should the government intervene in the markets?” and not just “should it?” I believe that the stimulus prevented the economy from going deeper into the tank than it did.

Health care

for people of faith

  Hedgesville, W.Va.

“Non-selective” (Dec. ) Tim Tebow is one of the leading sports stories of the decade in terms of on-field performance and media attention. Thank you for your news coverage of this remarkable young man.     Ocala, Fla.

Clarification The war in Afghanistan is “the longest war in American history” only if we ignore the conflict between the United States and the Sioux, which lasted from  to , and if we date the start of the Vietnam war with the Tonkin Bay incident in  and conclude it with the Paris peace accords in . Both the Pentagon and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., list combat deaths well before and after those dates (“News of the year,” Dec. , p. ).

LETTERS AND PHOTOS Email: mailbag@worldmag.com Write: WORLD Mailbag, P.O. Box , Asheville,  - Please include full name and address.

Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.

If you are a committed Christian, you do not have to violate your faith by purchasing health insurance from a company that pays for abortions and treatments of conditions resulting from other immoral practices.

You can live consistently with your beliefs by sharing medical needs directly with fellow believers through Samaritan Ministries’ non-insurance approach. This approach even satisfies the individual mandate in the recent Federal health care law (Sec. 1501 (b) of HR 3590 at pg. 327, 328).

Every month the more than 19,500* households of Samaritan Ministries share more than $4.5 million* in medical needs directly—one household to another. They also pray for one another and send notes of encouragement. The monthly share for a family of any size has never exceeded $320*, and is even less for singles, couples, and single-parent families. Also, there are reduced share amounts for members aged 25 and under, and 65 and over.

For more information call us toll-free at 1-888-268-4377, or visit us online at: www.samaritanministries.org.

Follow us on Twitter (@samaritanmin) and Facebook (SamaritanMinistries). * As of January 2012

Biblical faith applied to health care www.samaritanministries.org

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2/6/12 9:58 AM

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2/8/12 8:30 PM

Andrée Seu

Just so happens

We can’t control the future, but we can yield to the Spirit

>>

KRIEG BARRIE

I    that the unraveling of Haman’s plot began when the king could not sleep one night. This is the point at which things began to run in reverse—when the gallows erected for Mordecai were turned on his own neck, and the annihilation of the Jews became the annihilation of their enemies. Everything hinged on the reading of the records of the chronicles of the king on the occasion of a touch of insomnia.

I had not seen my mother for a few days, and love or conscience prompted me to go, though other tasks clamored for attention. In the course of our little visit, she mentioned the nice man who had spent the afternoon with her yesterday. What nice man? I inquired.

Oh, just some man who wanted to talk about finances.

He came last week, too, with a blond woman with beautiful teeth, and was coming again on Thursday.

When the state of the female caller’s smile was the only information forthcoming from further probing—no name, no business card, no recall of what the duo were selling—and when I learned that my parents had never invited them over, and had splayed personal papers for their perusal, I went home and asked my kids what they thought. A suspicious lot, they thought the worst.

That was Tuesday. We devised a plan in which I would take my mother and dad out for coffee on

Email: aseu@worldmag.com

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Thursday afternoon, and my sons would be waiting in their apartment to greet the mystery man. As I observed three young men (the two plus a friend) get out of a car and cross the lawn with purposeful gait, I was glad I was not the visiting salesman. At : I got the call at Dunkin’ Donuts that it was OK to come back, and that the fast-talking stranger would not bother us anymore.

Do not imagine cement shoes at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay or a dubious drive to the Pine Barrens. My sons politely asked for the man’s card, and while one phoned the company to check him out, another went online to bone up on the organization, and found that the outfit was a hair’s breadth on this side of legal, but had not one good review.

This story could go in many directions—the importance of family, the importance of obeying conscience, the importance of the internet, the necessity of caution with strangers, the prevalent problem of predators on the elderly. But the one I pick today is none of these. What sat up and practically bit me was this epiphany: I can do nothing to direct my path or to ensure my own well-being or prosperity or happiness, because I cannot see around corners; therefore I will obey the Holy Spirit all my life.

If that seems like an overreach from a mundane scam exposed on a Thursday afternoon, consider the import of these words: “A man’s steps are from the Lord; how then can man understand his way?”

(Proverbs :). And these: “I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps” (Jeremiah :). My parents might have lost their nest egg by house call No. , and meanwhile I would have been neglecting them and ignoring the whispers of conscience, as I ran frantically to get control of my own life.

To reckon how utterly out of control we are regarding our personal futures is to surrender more contentedly to walking according to the unseen rather than the seen. To see how God blesses even a lackluster obedience is to be emboldened to trust Him more wholeheartedly next time. It is to take up the adventure of a life staked solely on the word of God. Abraham did that when he gave his nephew Lot first dibs on the land, and we see what ensued.

Line up your ducks in a row, if you please. But God sees beyond your row, and it will be better in the end, every time, for the person who yields to the still, small voice of the Spirit. For God is the Lord of the “just so happens.” A FEBRUARY 25, 2012

WORLD



2/7/12 10:44 AM

Marvin Olasky

Living on SNAP Can a person eat well on a food stamp budget?

>>



WORLD FEBRUARY 25, 2012

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Holmes Norton, D-D.C., talking about how they had tortured themselves for a week by spending only that . per meal. Several years before that, two other liberal members of Congress complained that they were unsuccessful at eating for only  per meal.

Of course: That’s why the figure is  per meal for those without any other income. But others shot back anyway. A natural foods storeowner stayed healthy on  per meal by eating grains, beans, and cheaper vegetables. A Washington chef also said  per meal worked: He went for quesadillas, spinach-and-meat cakes with brown rice, and orange banana frosties that are “good for you, and they tasted great.” And yet, most of us aren’t chefs.

My experiment doesn’t prove anything either— except it suggests that  per person per meal is not unrealistic. I hope liberal and conservative politicians can unite in retaining that per-person benefit level for those with no income—and they should work within budget deficit constraints by pushing steps to reduce fraud and SNAP use by those who don’t need it.

As I noted in WORLD’s Nov.  cover story, SNAP is important for people in dire need, but the left is pushing for more and more people—now  million and climbing—to register for benefits. Such program expansion diminishes the resources available for the truly needy and creates cynicism about the program as a whole.

Governments should not be pushing unnecessary dependency. Some schools are rolling out free breakfast programs for every child, regardless of income.

Some are proposing to feed anyone  or younger on Saturdays as well. That accustoms millions to a life of unnecessary dependency.

Those who really want to help would be better off supporting food banks and expanding plans— Wholesome Wave, Fresh Check, and others—that help truly poor families buy more fresh fruits and vegetables.

Oh, and the urban affluent should not try to ban Walmarts. A

KRIEG BARRIE

F      in current political debates. The federal program now called SNAP—Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—gives recipients up to about  per person per meal. Members of Congress, like Goldilocks, have to decide whether that is too little, too much, or just right.

I tried my own experiment during the two months leading up to Christmas. With our four sons grown and out in the world, and if we had no income, the twoperson Susan-and-Marvin household could receive a maximum of  over a two-month period. I kept track of what we spent on groceries, with food shopping mostly at Walmart.

We spent  during the test period, a little under  per meal per person per day. For breakfast we tended to alternate oatmeal and muesli plus unsugary cereal.

For other meals we didn’t have much meat but enjoyed black beans and corn—together they make a complete protein—plus roasted squash and sweet potatoes, which are nutritionally good and not all that expensive. I also liked Susan’s homemade pizza and the popcorn we’d make in a pan.

We had advantages over some SNAP recipients, such as nutritional knowledge and a car to transport groceries. Peanut butter and carrots are, in my opinion, a great combination, but that prejudice is not universally shared. We didn’t have children lobbying for costly brand name cereals.

On the other hand, we weren’t cooking in bulk, we didn’t take the time to use grocery coupons, and we didn’t scrimp on apples and oranges. The canned black beans we used cost more than dried beans. Poor children typically get free lunches in school and sometimes free breakfasts and dinners as well, saving SNAP parents lots of money.

I don’t want to oversell our experiment. Household composition tremendously influences costs, since teenage boys can eat a horse and the bridle as well. The average food stamps household receives . rather than  per person per meal, because the “S” in SNAP stands for “Supplemental.”

And yet, a government study showed that most households starting to receive food stamps did not use most of the new income to buy food: They increased their consumption of non-food items, which suggests that many SNAP households weren’t hugely needy.

Just as children play with food, so many people relish food politics. Odyssey Networks recently released a video with Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and Eleanor

Email: molasky@worldmag.com

2/7/12 10:46 AM

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