WORLD Magazine, July 11, 2015 Vol. 30 No. 14

Charleston murder // Golden State drought

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Churches under pressure HOW A SAN FRANCISCO CONGREGATION IS FEELING THE LGBT SQUEEZE

The God-trusting life of Elisabeth Elliot PLUS

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COVER STORY

Blindsided

Hundreds of evangelicals were caught off guard in March when their church leaders, without any open discussion, announced that sexually active homosexuals could become members. How did that happen, and what steps can members of other churches take to forestall such surprises?

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F E AT UR E S

DEPARTMENTS

40 Trust and obey

3 Joel Belz 5 DISPATCHES

The bold, restful life of Elisabeth Elliot, 1926-2015

44 Water war

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A persistent drought in California has brought to the surface long-simmering disputes over one of the basic resources of life

Dry Brazil

Brazil is suffering what environmentalists say is the country’s worst drought in 80 years ON THE COVER Illustration by Krieg Barrie

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News Human Race Quotables Quick Takes

18 Janie B. Cheaney 21 CULTURE Movies & TV Books Q&A Music

30 Mindy Belz 51 NOTEBOOK Lifestyle Technology Science Money Sports Research

59 Mailbag 63 Andrée Seu Peterson 64 Marvin Olasky

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—Psalm 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 Andrée Seu Peterson • John Piper Edward E. Plowman • Cal Thomas • Lynn Vincent Reporters Emily Belz • J.C. Derrick Daniel James Devine • Sophia Lee • Angela Lu Correspondents Megan Basham Julie Borg • Anthony Bradley • Andrew Branch Tim Challies • Michael Cochrane • Kiley Crossland John Dawson • Amy Henry • Mary Jackson Michael Leaser • Jill Nelson • Arsenio Orteza Stephanie Perrault • Joy Pullmann • Emily Whitten Mailbag Editor Les Sillars Executive Assistant June McGraw Editorial Assistants Kristin Chapman • Mary Ruth Murdoch

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Joel Belz

Archimedes was right

How many states will follow Nevada’s bold education example?

I first made the assertion here almost a generation ago, when I was not yet 50 years old. And although I’ve remodeled my thinking during that time on a number of issues, on this one I’m more emphatic than I was back then.

The great battles waiting for biblical Christians are not over homosexual marriage or abortion or pornography on the internet. The crucial debates aren’t over racism or immigration or justice for the poor.

The most telling discussions in the years ahead, just like those in the years immediately behind us, will be over who has the right, and the freedom, to educate our children. All the other issues will more or less fall in line if we get that one right.

Archimedes was right on target when he observed: “Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth.” But the opposite is also true: Take away your footing, and you’ll not be able to move anything at all.

By that standard, the people of Nevada have just gained one of the best footholds any citizenry has ever known. Early in June, Gov. Brian Sandoval signed into law the nation’s first-ever universal school-choice program.

Let those words sink in. Set aside all thought of scholarships, vouchers, and charter schools.

Think of this instead: Starting in the fall of 2016, the state of Nevada will establish an education savings account (ESA) for every student currently enrolled in a local public school. Into that ESA, the state will annually deposit an amount equal to 90 percent of what the state would otherwise give to that student’s public school. This year, for example, the deposit—in the form of a debit card assigned to the student and his or her family—would be something in excess of $5,100 per student.

John Locher/ap

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What better footing could any family find than one providing such robust educational encouragement?

Gov. Sandoval meets with a student during a bill-signing ceremony on June 3 in Las Vegas.

Here’s where the fun begins. If the student is happy with his or her experience at the local public school, the whole amount on the debit card can go to that school. If the student, ­however, prefers a local Christian school, the $5,100 will make a pretty good dent on the tuition there. Or the student may mix and match, spending some at both schools—maybe taking a morning literature course at one and a chemistry course at the other. Heritage Foundation researcher Lindsey Burke claims in National Review that “online learning, special education services and therapies, books, tutors, and dual-enrollment college courses will all be covered. It’s an à la carte education.”

If all that weren’t enough, there are special touches. If you don’t use the total credit this year, the unused portion can be rolled over for later use. Students with special needs or from low-income families get 100 percent credits rather than the basic 90 percent.

Admittedly, and regrettably, the new program is not yet available to students already enrolled in non-public schools. Only ­students who have been in a ­public school for at least the ­previous 100 days are eligible.

Accountability tools are built into the ESA option, including regular testing in math and reading. But such safeguards are reported by observers to be unobtrusive, purposely staying out of the way of the program’s main goal, which is to promote student-driven education.

Nevada is already one of the nation’s fastest growing states. But such growth will only ­accelerate when families discover this new ­program. Quality private schools will flourish.

Homeschooling may well benefit. Public schools, sensing the competition, will improve.

What better footing could any family find than one providing such robust educational encouragement? I predict that they will swarm in by the thousands—all carrying pry bars of enormous length and proportions. And the pry bars just may be found to have been inscribed

by Archimedes himself.

And then, we maybe should begin asking, what other states will begin following Nevada’s example? And might we expect also that Nevada will widen its thinking to include all its students, and not just those now in public ­institutions? A J ULY 1 1 , 2 0 1 5 WORLD

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Australia Chile England France Greece Italy Zambia

Spanning the globe At Harding University we don’t just talk about global experiences, we provide them. At seven international campuses spanning five continents, Harding students spend a semester studying outside the realm of a traditional classroom encountering different cultures, historic sites, foreign languages and amazing architecture. Nearly 50 percent of students in each graduating class have attended one or more of the international programs, which provide a Christian worldview.

CREDIT

Faith, Learning and Living Harding.edu | 800-477-4407 Searcy, Arkansas

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DISPATCHES NEWS / HUMAN RACE / QUOTABLES / QUICK TAKES

‘No room for hate’ NEWS

AFTER A SHOCKING KILLING SPREE, CHARLESTON, S.C., BECOMES A HAVEN OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS by Dick Peterson

Alana Simmons, granddaughter of Emanuel AME Church shooting victim Daniel Simmons Sr., says her family begins every day with prayer. Her grandfather taught them that, so when they asked how could God

STEPHEN B. MORTON/AP

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let a gunman enter His house and kill her grandfather and eight others during an impromptu Bible study, they turned to prayer for answers.

They heard, “Sometimes God allows what He hates to accomplish what He

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loves,” she said, quoting words she remembers her mother saying.

On June 17 the Bible study that God loves preceded the murder that God A crowd of people pray outside the Emanuel AME Church.

hates. Dylann Roof, 21, sat for an hour during the Wednesday evening study in the basement of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Calhoun Street in downtown Charleston, S.C., then killed nine persons.

Over the course of the next four days the world learned more about Christian faith and what God can bring out of sadness. As news spread, people gathered at the church to lay flowers and messages of hope and sympathy on the steps.

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Mourners at the Bridge to Peace Unity event (top); a public prayer service at Marion Square (above); Annie Simmons, wife of 24 years of victim Daniel Simmons Sr., holds a photo of her husband (left).

and lead the trek to the top. “It’s about love and ­forgiveness, not hate and ­bigotry,” said one marcher.

Police officers shared highfives and hugs with marchers.

At the top of the bridge, event organizer Jay Johnson,

leader of the “Official Black Lives Matter” group, discarded his Black Lives Matter shirt and announced a new group had been born: “All Lives Matter.” A —Dick Peterson is a South Carolina journalist

Arthur Ravenel Bridge: KEVIN LILES/UPI/L andov • marion square: Curtis Compton/Atl anta Journal-Constitution via AP • simmons: David Goldman/ap

On Friday afternoon grieving family members addressed Roof, captured in North Carolina within 12 hours after the shooting. Nadine Collier, daughter of Ethel Lance, the church’s janitor, said, “You hurt me. You hurt a lot of ­people, but God forgives you, and I forgive you.” Bethane Middleton Brown, daughter of DePayne Middleton-Doctor, said, “We are the family that love built. We have no room for hate, so we have to forgive.”

The families’ message of forgiveness, and their determination not to let hate win, reverberated at a Friday evening Community Prayer and Healing Vigil at the College of Charleston’s TD Arena.

Sunday morning brought a prayer and worship gathering at Marion Square in downtown Charleston.

Nearby, “Mother Emanuel” AME Church, refusing to shut its doors, held services with an interim pastor presiding in place of the slain Rev. Clementa Pinckney.

On Sunday evening, an estimated 20,000 or more people gathered on either side of the Arthur Ravenel Bridge that spans the Cooper River between Charleston and Mount Pleasant. Organizers feared the hastily announced Bridge to Peace Unity event would attract maybe a few thousand, but as the numbers grew their excitement heightened. Thousands on each side bowed heads in prayer before climbing the long ascent to the middle, strangers greeting strangers with smiles and hugs, singing hymns as they marched.

Before people began the march, police opened a way in the crowd for families of the nine victims to pass through

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12:18 PM

bush: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/ap • Abedini & Hekmati: Jacquelyn Martin/ap

DISPATCHES

June 15

Another Bush

June 15

Let our people go The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a nonbinding resolution calling for Iran to release Americans wrongfully held in prison.

The measure sent a bipartisan message to both Iran and the Obama administration, which hasn’t wanted to make the prisoners’ status part of nuclear negotiations. Officials have brought up the cases “on the sidelines,” but family members said that’s not enough: “It’s not very comforting to know that the issue is just being raised,” Sarah Hekmati, brother of former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, told a congressional committee. The bill demanded immediate release of Hekmati, pastor Saeed Abedini, and journalist Jason Rezaian, and information on any missing Americans in the country.

bush: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/ap • Abedini & Hekmati: Jacquelyn Martin/ap

Arthur Ravenel Bridge: KEVIN LILES/UPI/L andov • marion square: Curtis Compton/Atl anta Journal-Constitution via AP • simmons: David Goldman/ap

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced he plans to continue the family business and run for president in 2016, following his father and brother. Bush, who made the announcement at Miami-Dade College in front of a diverse, enthusiastic crowd of supporters, vowed to run a campaign “with heart” and stressed his conservative accomplishments as Florida governor from 1999 to 2007. He’s spent the last six months amassing a campaign war chest that will likely dwarf his competitors in the large GOP field.

Republicans haven’t won the White House without a Bush in 43 years: A member of the Bush family has been on the GOP ticket in 1980, ’84, ’88, ’92, 2000, and ’04.

Abedini (left) and Hekmati

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DISPATCHES

NEWS June 18

Papal green

Vatican: VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Get t y Images • Rodriguez: Al Bello/Get t y Images • Archuleta: Cliff Owen/ap

In a much-anticipated encyclical entitled “Laudato Si,” Pope Francis appealed to biblical ideas of stewardship to denounce pollution, lament loss of biodiversity, and call for action to mitigate the effects of climate change: “The church must introduce in its teaching the sin against the environment. The ecological sin.” The pronouncement met with mixed reactions: Roman Catholic presidential candidate Marco Rubio said that while Americans have “an obligation to be good caretakers of the planet,” they should remember that fossil fuels have been central to economic growth: “There are people all over this planet and in this country who have emerged from poverty in large respect because of the availability of affordable energy.”

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June 16

Millions hacked

Vatican: VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Get t y Images • Rodriguez: Al Bello/Get t y Images • Archuleta: Cliff Owen/ap

Lawmakers began calling for the director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to resign after a massive data breach exposed the personal information of more than 4 million federal workers. Chinese hackers took Social Security numbers, birth dates, work history, and other private data for employees dating back to 1985. The breakdown came three years after the OPM’s inspector general warned Director Katherine Archuleta that the system’s weaknesses could lead to a breach, but Archuleta didn’t make any changes, citing the system’s age as an impediment. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told Archuleta during a June hearing that her inaction warranted her resignation: “You failed utterly and totally.”

June 19

Joining the 3,000 club New York Yankees designated hitter Alex Rodriguez connected on his 3,000th hit to become the 29th player in baseball history to reach the milestone. Rodriguez, 39, became the third player to join the exclusive club on a home run—a first-inning shot off former Cy Young–winning pitcher Justin Verlander—and he’s only the fifth player ever to reach 3,000 with at least 500 career home runs.

Rodriguez’s production has exceeded expectations in 2015 after Major League Baseball suspended him for the entire 2014 season for using performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez previously admitted to using steroids in the early 2000s, but Major League Baseball said it considers his current accomplishments clean.

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NEWS

Around the globe

MORE NEWS OF THE WORLD IS ON OUR WEBSITE: WNG.ORG

AUSTRIA A 26-year-old man killed three, including a 4-year-old boy, and injured dozens when he intentionally drove his car into a crowd in Graz.

TURKEY Thousands of Syrian refugees destroyed a border fence and rushed into Turkey to evade fighting between Kurds and ISIS militants near Tal Abyad.

CUBA Cuban off icials informed an Eastern Baptist church they would not seize the church’s building, citing widespread criticism (see “Taken by Raúl,” May 30).

AFGHANISTAN Security forces repelled a Taliban attack on the Afghan parliament building in Kabul, killing seven militants.

SOUTH SUDAN WikiLeaks released 60,000 top secret Saudi documents showing, among other things, Iran bombed South Sudan in 2012.

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YEMEN A CIA airstrike reportedly killed No. 2 al-Qaeda leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi, a former Osama bin Laden aide who pushed the group to hit Western targets.

$10 BILL : RICHARD B. LEVINE/NEWSCOM • AFGHANISTAN: RAHMAT GUL/AP

GREECE Negotiators signaled progress, but a debt deal remained elusive as Greece careened toward a June 30 deadline that could result in default and eventual removal from the European Union. Greek banks reported run-like conditions as citizens withdrew their cash balances— totaling $30 billion since December.

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12:23 PM

CHARLOT TE: PA WIRE/PRESS ASSOCIATION IMAGES/AP • PISTOLS: SOTHEBY’S • RESUPPLY CRAF T: NASA • WALKER: JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP • ALL-STAR GAME • JOHN MINCHILLO/AP

UNITED STATES Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced a woman will grace $10 bills in 2020, sparking criticism for demoting the man who created the world’s premier currency: Alexander Hamilton.

BELGIUM The 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo brought thousands dressed in 19th-century military uniforms to Belgium to re-enact Napoleon’s famous defeat.

Looking ahead JULY 5

Princess Charlotte, the daughter of Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, is set to be christened at the St. Mary Magdalene Church at Queen Elizabeth’s Sandringham Estate. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will conduct the baptism.

$10 BILL : RICHARD B. LEVINE/NEWSCOM • AFGHANISTAN: RAHMAT GUL/AP

CHARLOT TE: PA WIRE/PRESS ASSOCIATION IMAGES/AP • PISTOLS: SOTHEBY’S • RESUPPLY CRAF T: NASA • WALKER: JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP • ALL-STAR GAME • JOHN MINCHILLO/AP

JULY 8

Pistols dating back to 1814 and linked with Napoleon Bonaparte will go up for auction at Sotheby’s today in London and may fetch upward of $1.9 million.

Napoleon gave the pair of gold-encrusted pistols to his 3-year-old son just before abdicating. The gift was given to Francois days before his exile to Elba and just a year prior to Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

JULY 10

A Russian resupply craft will complete today the second of its orbital boosts on the International Space Station. The craft will fire its engines in hopes of lifting the station to a higher altitude allowing a Soyuz crew to rendezvous with the station in late July.

JULY 13

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has preliminarily decided upon today to announce officially his bid for the GOP presidential nomination. When Walker enters the race, he’ll join a crowded field of more than 10 contenders.

JULY 14

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game returns to Cincinnati for the first time in 28 years when top players from both leagues gather at the Great American Ball Park for the Midsummer Classic. The Home Run Derby will occur a day before on July 13.

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DISPATCHES

HUMAN RACE

TAKEN Three Muslim sisters passed into Syria with their nine children June 17-18, leaving the children’s fathers distraught in England. The Bradford family had been in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage when they reportedly flew to Istanbul instead of returning to the United Kingdom on June 11. The sisters’ brother allegedly fights with the Islamic State. The children, ages 3 to 15, told their fathers June 8 they “couldn’t wait” to come home. An ISIS smuggler told the BBC the missing family had indeed crossed into Syria. ISIS allows none to leave.

Resigned Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of the

high-profile Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., resigned on June 21, citing in a statement to The Washington Post an “inappropriate relationship” with “a friend” after he and his wife, Kim, had ­separated months earlier. Tchividjian said an affair by his wife had caused the separation. She later sent the Post a statement saying: “The statement reflected my husband’s ­opinions but not my own.”

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Four Texas brothers mowed 75-year-old Gerry Suttle’s lawn June 9 to keep her from going to jail. At over 18 inches high, the Riesel woman’s grass ­violated a city ordinance, but Suttle says she never received the notice to appear in court. Authorities had issued an arrest warrant when the brothers saw KWTX’s coverage. They started cutting, the community joined in, and the job was complete in two hours. “I am very seldom without words …,” Suttle said. “You might want to mark it down in history.”

FLED A North Korean soldier, believed to be a teenager, defected to South Korea

Williams: Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Get t y Images • Tchividjian: handout

News anchor Brian Williams won’t return to NBC’s Nightly News after a major demotion June 18.

NBC suspended Williams in February upon revelations he lied about being on a helicopter hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq in 2003. A six-month investigation found he embellished other stories, usually on late-night talk shows or in other public appearances. Williams will anchor breaking news and special reports on MSNBC. Going forward, he told NBC’s Matt Lauer, “I expect to be held to a different standard.”

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11:56 AM

Oher: G. Newman Lowrance/ap • Wagg: keele universit y • Broomfield: handout

MOWED

DEMOTED

By the numbers June 15 in a rare crossing of the heavily guarded ­neutral zone between the two nations. He reportedly walked across the border about 8 a.m. without shots being fired. The boy complained of beatings and grievances with the Communist regime. Most defectors reach the South by first entering China, but China killed one such defector June 11.

DISCOVERED

Oher: G. Newman Lowrance/ap • Wagg: keele universit y • Broomfield: handout

Williams: Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Get t y Images • Tchividjian: handout

British teen Tom Wagg ­discovered a planet two years ago, when he was 15.

Wagg was in his third day of a one-week internship at Keele University when he noticed a small dip in the light coming from a star 1,000 light years away. It took astronomers two years to confirm that the data blip was in fact a planet roughly the size of Jupiter passing in front of its star.

The boy is “hugely excited” and wants to study physics.

HURT Michael Oher said a 2009

movie that made him famous has hurt his career.

The Blind Side has grossed more than $300 million,

$1

The June exchange rate for 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars, according to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. The rate is a result of years of hyperinflation.

Wagg

winning Sandra Bullock an Oscar as the Memphis wife and mother who took Oher in and introduced him to football. Some call the 2009 first-round pick a bust with skills that don’t match the movie’s hype.

“That’s taken away from my football,” Oher told ESPN. “That’s why people criticize me.”

BURIED Keith Broomfield, believed

to be the first American killed fighting ISIS, was buried June 17 in Massachusetts. Broomfield, 36, traveled to Syria to volunteer with Kurdish forces in February. He had no training. The man had a troubled past, spending time in jail 10 years ago on drug and weapons charges. He more recently became a Christian, which he said led him to Syria to protect Christians, women, and children. Hundreds lined Syrian streets to bid farewell as his body reached a Turkish border crossing.

Kurdish militia called him a “martyr.”

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0

DIED Actor Christopher Lee, the face of evil on the silver screen, died June 7 at age 93. Lee played in more than 250 movies after serving as a British intelligence officer in World War II. He brought life to the classic villains of Dracula and Frankenstein, along with more modern faces of Star Wars Count Dooku and Lord of the Rings wizard Saruman.

DIED Alexander Elliott, an 18-year-old right-to-life patient in England, died June 17. Elliott battled a brain tumor since infancy, and doctors won the right to withhold cancer treatment in February, giving him two weeks to live.

The National Health Service defended its argument that further treatment “risked causing him great distress.” His parents decried efforts that he be “left to die” after chemo was removed. Doctors admitted the prognosis was wrong.

“He went in his own time,” his dad said, “with his dignity and autonomy intact.”

The number of books found in the mansion of Jiang Zunyu, a Chinese Communist official investigated on graft allegations last year, according to staterun Chinese media.

Instead, cigarettes, liquor, and art filled the mansion’s shelves. Chinese media have criticized party officials for not reading enough.

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The number of persons arrested in a June nationwide sweep for Medicare fraud. The Justice Department said the alleged fraudsters stole $712 million through fake billing.

DIED Anne Gaylor, the principal founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, died June 14. She was 88. Her activism began in ­campaigning and raising money for abortion.

She helped found the foundation in 1976, and it now boasts 20,000 atheists and agnostics.

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DISPATCHES

QUOTABLES

‘I wasn’t converted out of homosexuality.

I was converted out of unbelief.’

‘You’ve got this nice beach scene going on, and the next moment is just a nightmare.’

Beachgoer STEVE BOUSER on a June 14 shark attack at Oak Island, N.C., in which a 12-year-old girl lost part of her left arm. It was the second attack at Oak Island in a week, and in another shark attack two miles away an hour later a 16-year-old boy lost his left arm.

‘This is kinda the game.’

New York Times mid-Atlantic bureau chief SHERYL GAY STOLBERG on the newspaper’s decision to run front-page stories about Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio’s few speeding tickets and personal finances.

‘White Christians ought to think about what that flag says to our African-American brothers and sisters in Christ.’

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RUSSELL MOORE, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, on controversy over South Carolina’s flying of the Confederate battle flag on statehouse grounds. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on June 22 called for the removal of the flag.

‘How many years do you have to not have the world end to decide that it didn’t end because that reason was wrong?’

STEWART BRAND, former disciple of ecologist and environmental doomsayer Paul Ehrlich and former publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog, on Ehrlich’s highly publicized theories on overpopulation from the 1960s and 1970s.

SHARK: STEVE BOUSER/THE PILOT, SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. VIA AP • RUBIO: MOLLY RILEY/AP • BRAND: ANDRE HERMANN/ZUMAPRESS/NEWSCOM • MOORE: MOLLY RILEY/AP

Former lesbian ROSARIA BUTTERFIELD, author of The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert , during a panel discussion at the Southern Baptist Convention on June 17.

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12:44 PM

shark: Steve Bouser/ The Pilot, Southern Pines, N.C. via AP • Rubio: Molly Riley/ap • Brand: Andre Hermann/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom • Moore: Molly Riley/ap

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DISPATCHES

QUICK TAKES

Costly typo

Bird’s-eye view

Adopting a better-safe-than-sorry attitude, Indian police off icials in May trapped a pigeon seen flying over a village near the nation’s heavily militarized border with Pakistan because they thought the bird might be a spy. Upon inspection, X-rays revealed markings in Urdu, a script common to the border region between the two nations. But unlike a dead falcon fitted with a small camera discovered in Punjab in 2013, no espionage devices were found on the captured pigeon.

A pigeon and an Indian soldier near the Pakistan border

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Sleeping on the job

An Alabama thief probably wishes he had caught a nap before a recent robbery. Police in Red Bay, Ala., say Christopher Trail allegedly took hostages when he stormed into the Redmont Pharmacy in the small Alabama town at 8:30 a.m. on June 9.

According to witnesses, Trail, armed with a shotgun, took four employees and one customer hostage as he demanded drugs from pharmacist Donna Weatherford.

Eventually, Weatherford convinced Trail to let the four other hostages go, and she would gather the pills herself. But while Weatherford was working, a weary Trail decided to put two chairs together and take a quick nap. While the man was asleep, Weatherford grabbed the shotgun and fled outside. Police then took Trail into custody.

SIGN: THE INTELLIGENCER • DUCKS: CHECKER YELLOW CABS • INDIA: MUKHTAR KHAN/AP • TRAIL : RED BAY POLICE DEPARTMENT

A proofreading error will cost a suburban Philadelphia county more than $4,000. Months ago, Montgomery County, Pa., workers placed throughout the county 26 welcome signs listing the county website and the names of the three county commissioners. Unfortunately for the county, the word “commissioner” contained only one “m” on the signs. After a county employee noticed the error, off icials decided to pay about $4,000 for adhesive labels to cover the typo.

JULY 1 1 , 201 5

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Duck driver

Searching for a fare, Canadian cab driver Urga Adunga decided to give a mother duck and her nine ducklings a freebie. The Checker Cab driver found the animals stalling traff ic on June 11 on a busy Calgary, Alberta, street. “I didn’t want to pass them because there is no way for them to escape from the road,” he told the CBC. Instead, Adunga flipped on his hazard lights, rounded up the ducks, placed them in his backseat and drove them to the nearest river. Adunga says he waived the $17 fare.

Washed out

SIGN: THE INTELLIGENCER • DUCKS: CHECKER YELLOW CABS • INDIA: MUKHTAR KHAN/AP • TRAIL : RED BAY POLICE DEPARTMENT

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Lizard surprise

When the plumber screamed, Marian Lindquist knew there must be a problem. Lindquist hired a plumber on June 7 to fix a clogged toilet in her family home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. When the plumber finally cleared the blockage and retrieved her auger something surprising came up: an 18-inch iguana. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Alisa Scott, a 12-year veteran at Roto-Rooter. “This is the first time I pulled something like that out of a toilet.” According to Scott, the iguana probably got into the home’s plumbing system after crawling through a roof vent. In order to prevent a second occurrence, Lindquist’s 17-year-old daughter immediately took it upon herself to seal off all rooftop vents.

Nine graffiti artists have filed a lawsuit against a Brooklyn building owner after he whitewashed their tags from the face of his buildings.

The plaintiff s—from New York, London, and elsewhere—filed their lawsuit in federal court June 12 alleging building owner Jerry Wolkoff violated the U.S. Visual Artists Rights Act when he covered their graffiti without giving them the chance to retrieve their work. Graffiti artists have been tagging buildings in the neighborhood since 1993 when Wolkoff gave permission to artists to paint his buildings.

Swarmed sedan

No-go zone

Postal workers in Norbury, U.K., near London are officially refusing to deliver mail down one of the town’s streets. The problem: a major rat infestation. Businesses and residents whose mail is delivered along the infested side street received word June 5 that the Royal Mail would not deliver until the street had been cleared of garbage and decomposing food. An anonymous local resident told the Croydon Guardian, “It’s a plague there” with rats “the size of kittens.”

A driver near Missoula, Mont., on May 22 had some unruly passengers who were distracting him—thousands of them. The unidentified driver was transporting five hives of Russian honeybees inside the cabin of his red sedan. Montana Highway Patrol off icers pulled him over, and the driver explained his erratic driving by saying the hives had fallen over causing thousands of bees to swarm all around the cabin of the car. The off icers issued the driver a reckless driving citation but nothing more: A call to the state apiarist found that while the motorist’s unorthodox method of transporting bees was manifestly unsafe, he didn’t need a permit to do it.

No service

On June 15 the Beaver Dam, Wis., Common Council voted 14-0 to narrow the definition of service animals within city limits to dogs and mini horses. The reason: a February incident in which police responding to a call found Diana Moyer at a local McDonald’s toting a baby kangaroo wrapped in a blanket and placed in an infant seat. She claimed the kangaroo was a service animal that helped her cope with emotional distress. Now, if the woman goes out again with her kangaroo, police may issue a citation.

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JANIE B. CHEANEY

Our exile in Babylon

It’s time to Seek the welfare of the city where God placed us

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When we feel most like scurrying for cover is probably the very time we should be out and about, for ‘the love of Christ controls us,’ and the city’s welfare is in our hands.

krieg barrie

Every week, if not every day, articles show up about Christians in a post-Christian culture. I’ve written a few, myself. Even though we saw it coming, the speed and vehemence of the “new normal” takes our breath away. We’re scrambling to find a place to stand, reassembling our ranks. If the noise temporarily settles, tempers are still frayed and feelings are on edge, just waiting to be set off again.

Our predicament seems precariously modern: Christianity in retreat, the Bible trashed, believers on the edge of the next big social ­revolution nickeling and diming their possible response. What will it cost to speak out boldly?

Hesitantly answer a question put to us? Raise bushels to let out a sliver of light? It’s not Stalinist Russia; no secret police will knock down doors in the middle of the night to drag subversive Christians off to prison. (Not yet, anyway, I hear the cynics muttering.) In the time-honored American tradition, the local and online community will function as secret police through shaming, shunning, or boycotting.

All new? Jeremiah might have something to say to us from way back in sixth-century B.C. There was a roller coaster of a life: called against his inclination to prophesy, scorned in the marketplace, mocked by other prophets, thrown in a cistern, kidnapped and dragged off to Egypt, finally released to end his days in a demoralized Jerusalem, shadowed by the ruins of Solomon’s once-glorious temple. The best of the city’s sons and daughters had been carried off to Babylon, and rumors of their despair reached his ears: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137:1).

But Jeremiah had it on good authority that destruction and exile were God’s will until

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judgment ran its course. The prophet called for parchment and ink and wrote to the exiles with instructions from the Lord: Settle down, plant gardens, build houses, get married. “[M]ultiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:6-7).

Today, Babylon has come to us. “Our country,” as we fondly imagined it, has been hijacked by foreigners—or at least, their way of thinking is foreign and makes no sense to us. But it was always inevitable that “we the people” would evolve into something other than our 18th-­ century forefathers. The last 20 years—actually much longer—have been a tug-of-war between progressive and ­traditional worldviews, and the balance may well have tipped.

We (meaning the American ­evangelicals who form the bulk of this magazine’s readership) are facing exile from the public square.

Jeremiah warns us against despair. In time God will restore all things, in our weary world or the world to come. Today’s Babylon will go the way of ancient Babylon, but Jerusalem remains forever. Meanwhile, we have the days allotted to us in a city called America. Pollyanna-types say, Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

God says, This is my world, and I’m in control.

Seek the welfare of the city where I placed you.

This doesn’t have to look “religious.”

Volunteer at the library (or local historic site, or museum). Organize a neighborhood block party or start a community garden. Get to know your children’s teachers. Say hello to strangers and offer help where you can. The actions of a Christian and of a secular, publicspirited ­citizen may look the same, but in longterm effect, and the motivation to keep going in spite of insult and opposition, Christians hold the advantage. When we feel most like scurrying for cover is probably the very time we should be out and about, for “the love of Christ controls us,” and the city’s welfare is in our hands. A

 jcheaney@wng.org  @jbcheaney

6/23/15 10:30 AM

Joshua Duncan, Pastor Living Hope Bible Church

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titute

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u’ve includes the series yo ased Leader’s Edition ide, gu And now, the just-rele eld fi including the s additional resources plu t, ou ab ch mu so heard m the series—perfect sermon-ready clips fro discussion guides, and otheexiles.com.

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CULTURE MOVIES & TV / BOOKS / Q& A / MUSIC

TELEVISION

Reasonable doubt?

IN PROBING THE AFTERLIFE, PROOF SPENDS A LOT OF TIME ON HEARSAY by Megan Basham Given the popularity of books and films about people who claim to have visited heaven during near-death experiences, it’s surprising no television studios have thought to produce a scripted series exploiting the trend until now. On June 16, TNT premiered Proof, a new drama starring Jennifer Beals as a hard-nosed cardiothoracic

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surgeon hired by a dying tech billionaire to find evidence of an afterlife.

Actually, hired isn’t quite the right word. Ivan Turing (Matthew Modine doing his best Steve Jobs impersonation) offers to leave Dr. Carolyn Tyler (Beals) his entire estate if she will simply investigate the question as best she can. Obviously, this arrangement poses

 mbasham@wng.org  @megbasham

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some plotting challenges as any reasonable person not constrained by religious ethics would simply scrape together a few Heaven Is for Real–style case studies while waiting to collect her massive payday. Terminal billionaire wants to leave me all his money; I’m a normal, relatable human so I would like to have all his money.

Where’s the conflict?

The show’s writers immediately establish it by demonstrating in no uncertain terms that Carolyn is a skeptic with a capital “S”—a Dana Scully on steroids, if you will—so dismissive of near-death tales that even the prospect of dazzling material wealth doesn’t penetrate her lofty cynicism. She is also, as she announces repeatedly and grouchily, “a woman of science.” Indeed she’s so proud of her medical prowess that she’s almost unlikable, and it’s likely we wouldn’t root for her at all if we didn’t soon learn that much of her hardness stems from (1) her pain of JULY 1 1 , 201 5

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Francis Bacon or Blaise Pascal or Isaac Newton felt about the subject?

Carolyn’s stumbling interviews with patients who say they’ve seen their deceased loved ones wreathed in light and her encounters with a famed (and, naturally, handsome) psychic who claims to ­communicate with the dead hardly come off as diligent research. At the very least you’d think, given Carolyn’s supposed professional integrity, some serious theologians or apologists would come into play. But all early signs suggest that, ironically, to the extent Carolyn contends with Christianity at all, it will be with only the most pseudo, mystical, least scriptural elements.

It goes without saying then that there’s little hope that Proof will ever come close to even flirting with the answer to the question it poses. To quote Fox Mulder, the truth is out there. But you won’t find it in the ­colorful tales of people who’ve “gone into the light.”

You’ll find it, to begin with, in 1 John 5:13. A

BOX OFFICE TOP 10 For the weekEND of June 19-21 according to Box Office Mojo

CAUTIONS: Quantity of sexual (S), ­violent (V), and foul-language (L) ­content on a 0-10 scale, with 10 high, from kids-in-mind.com

S V L

1̀ Jurassic World* PG-13................... 2 7 4 2̀ Inside Out* PG.......................................... 1 3 1 3̀ Spy R...................................................................... 7 7 10 4̀ San Andreas* PG-13.......................... 1 6 5 5̀ Dope R................................................................. 6 6 10 6̀ Insidious Chapter 3 PG-13......... 1 6 5 7̀ Pitch Perfect 2 PG-13...................... 4 3 5 8̀ Mad Max: Fury Road* R.............. 5 8 5 9̀ Avengers: Age of Ultron* PG-13............................................... 3 6 3 10 Tomorrowland* PG........................... 2 4 3 ` *Reviewed by WORLD

MOVIE

Audacity R

In his latest production, apologist Ray Comfort has the audacity to challenge the church to reach out to the homosexual community. He does realize every Christian faces a dilemma. “If I say homosexuals won’t inherit the kingdom of God,” Comfort explains on camera to a thin young man with dark sunglasses and a darker goatee, “I’m called a hater. But if I say they will, I’m lying.” Melding a fictional story with real, unscripted interviews, Audacity lays out a blueprint for evangelizing gay friends and strangers.

In his 2011 documentary 180, Comfort synthesized 40 years of pro-life rhetoric into a half hour of ­powerful and inspiring street-level conversations.

Pro-lifers handed out ­hundreds of thousands of copies of the DVD to ­nonbelievers across the country.

But Audacity takes an approach that will initially disappoint viewers who were hoping Comfort would again blow them away. Comfort weaves three segments of interviews into a modern

Pilgrim’s Progress, in which Peter (Travis Owens) journeys from fearful witness to confident apologist.

Some of the plot’s elements run a bit over the top (Peter rescues two gay men during a convenience store stickup), but Owens and Molly Ritter (who plays Diana) deftly execute a genuine and clean dialogue. Still, with just 11 of the film’s 49 minutes dedicated to interviews, Comfort doesn’t fully play to his strength.

Audacity is, therefore, not necessarily a cinematic tract to give away to ­ideological opponents. But Comfort is sending an urgent message to the church, encouraging her to do her job. His interviews model godly conversation with gay strangers, and Peter portrays how a Christian might interact with a gay friend.

Interestingly, neither Comfort nor Peter ever appeals to arguments against same-sex marriage from social science. In his winsome manner, Comfort relies on the words of Scripture alone—which never return void.

—by BOB BROWN

Living Waters Publications

losing her teenage son in a car accident and (2) her sublimated confusion at having had a near-death experience herself. That may seem like a lot of convenient coincidences shoehorned together to serve a premise, but certainly plenty of other equally contrived dramas have worked thanks to strong character development and satisfying storylines.

Proof, however, doesn’t work, largely because the show doesn’t treat its central question with any degree of depth or thoughtfulness.

The best thing about the golden age of television is that it makes use of the everevolving, ever-expansive nature of the medium, going places viewers haven’t seen before and introducing themes that require much more than two hours to develop. A show that purports to explore life after death would seem tailormade to take advantage of these recent advances. Proof instead trades on the most shallow and overused ­banalities in the I’ve-Beento-Heaven-and-Lived-toTell-the-Tale genre.

I’m not suggesting it would need to be a biblically sound, Christianapproved show to be engaging, but it would at least need to seriously consider the claims of Christianity, the faith adhered to by many of the greatest minds of that ­“science” Carolyn prizes so highly. Wouldn’t a ­surgeon who took up this quest investigate why Joseph Lister was so confident of the destination of his eternal soul? Wouldn’t she wonder how, say,

See all our movie reviews at wng.org/movies

6/24/15 9:13 AM

Infinitely Polar Bear: Claire Folger/Sony Pictures Classics Me and Earl and the Dying Girl : Fox Searchlight Pictures

CULTURE

MOVIE

Infinitely Polar Bear R Infinitely Polar Bear, a film based on the childhood of writer/director Maya Forbes, presents a biracial family in 1970s Boston that appears to twist conventional family structure and morals: Cam Stuart (Mark Ruff alo) is a combustible househusband who chain-smokes and swears in front of his two prepubescent daughters Amelia (Imogene Wolodarsky, Forbes’ daughter) and Faith (Ashley Aufderheide), who cusses right back.

They live in a rent-controlled apartment cramped with unwashed dishes, upended bicycles, and cigarette smoke, and the girls attend a brain-wasting public school.

Meanwhile, their breadwinning mother Maggie (Zoe Saldana) lives 200 miles away in New York getting her MBA. One female neighbor praises them for being “evolved,” while another half-disgusted, half-puzzled character remarks, “Is this something to do with feminism?”

But the Stuarts aren’t driven by liberal ideology—they’re a family struggling to stay together under crippling circumstances. After a series of psychotic breakdowns involving a red Speedo, Cam is

institutionalized with manic-depressive disorder while Maggie labors at a lowpaying, dead-end job. So when she’s offered an 18-month scholarship to Columbia University, she grasps it as salvation to a better living and education for her girls.

Unfortunately, that means leaving them under the responsibility of a man who can barely take care of himself.

“Our dad is totally polar bear,” 8-yearold Faith tells her friends—a verbal garble on “bipolar,” but “polar bear” works in describing Cam. He’s both cuddly bear and raging hulk, fragile yet resolute to be the best dad in his situation. His daughters pick up that resilience; despite their shame and resentment, they fiercely love their father: “The thing about Daddy is that he’s always there.”

Infinitely Polar Bear (rated R for language) is a sweet, empathetic portrait of a family that has to make hard choices. It gently prods at themes of race, class, and gender, but the underlying pulse is the sanctity of family—eccentric and dysfunctional, yes, but still able to reflect love, understanding, and kindness. —by SOPHIA LEE

Wolodarsky, Ruffalo, Saldana, and Aufderheide

MOVIE

LIVING WATERS PUBLICATIONS

INFINITELY POL AR BEAR: CL AIRE FOLGER/SONY PICTURES CL ASSICS ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL : FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl R It’s nothing new for coming-of-age tales to introduce the protagonist to death through the loss of a friend.

Requirements for this story are some combination of the following: a self-deprecating hero, benignly neglectful parents, an odd but understanding teacher, an economically challenged neighborhood, and, of course, a heavily foreshadowed but still surprising death.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl has all of the above, plus a narrator who lies to the audience. With a screenplay written by and based on the novel

by Jesse Andrews, this movie is everything The Fault in Our

Stars tried to be. If you liked one, you will most likely enjoy the other. This one is more quirky, in both the way it is filmed and its characters. With a cast boasting Connie Britton, Nick Off erman, Molly Shannon, and Jon Bernthal as the adults, plus a relatable Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, and Olivia Cooke as Cooke, Mann, and Cyler

the kids Greg, Earl, and Rachel, respectively, the first twothirds of the movie are often laugh-out-loud funny.

And then it becomes heavy, along the way promoting clichés that include the bravery of the dying leukemia patient.

Greg’s quest for self-awareness is demonstrated through

a college admissions essay.

The movie achieves most of its comedy through masturbation jokes, a lot of “mild” language, and even an extended “accidentally on drugs” sequence.

(The movie is rated PG-13 for “sexual content, drug material, language and some thematic elements.”)

The lesson of the film is murky but something to do with the rewards of being less selfish and paying attention to the lives of others. At its best, this is a movie about friendship, and it is refreshing that no central teen romance distracts from that bond. But ultimately Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is about “me,” and Greg is easily the least interesting character in the movie. —by ALICIA COHN

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BOOKS

Gays and God

GOOD BOOKS ON HOMOSEXUALITY SHOW THE FLAWS IN ONE SADLY INFLUENTIAL BOOK by Marvin Olasky WORLD last year and this has reviewed positively at least six books regarding homosexuality: Kevin DeYoung’s What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality, Sean McDowell and John Stonestreet’s Same-Sex Marriage, Adam Barr and Ron Citlau’s Compassion without Compromise, Glenn Stanton’s Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor, Rosaria Butterfield’s The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, and Christopher and Angela Yuan’s Out of a Far Country.

I’ve just read a seventh that’s also good, Sam Allberry’s Is God anti-gay? (The Good Book Company).

Allberry differentiates between

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“same-sex attracted” and “gay,” exegetes Scripture briefly but well, and shows how churches can help those who are struggling.

I can’t be positive, though, about Ken Wilson’s A Letter to My Congregation (Read The Spirit Books), an important book because it has already influenced City Church in San Francisco (see p. 32) and others. Sadly, it has numerous exegetical, historical, and sociological flaws: I’ll mention only two: 1 Wilson cites Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18 to claim churches are inconsistent in accepting the remarriages of divorced persons whose first spouses are still alive. But those

who follow the classic exegetical principle, let Scripture interpret Scripture, go immediately to Matthew 19:9, where Jesus says sexual immorality is also an acceptable reason for divorce.

Nothing comparably provides a counter to the Bible’s consistent message starting in Genesis that marriage should be between a man and a woman and its explicit sixfold condemnation of homosexual conduct.

1 Wilson says those biblical condemnations concern particular types of homosexual conduct, but he acknowledges that his case is undercut by the scholarship of N.T. Wright and others.

Wilson repeatedly expresses his support for “contemporary monogamous gay unions” and generalizes that into an embrace of all gays, but does not note the sociological data that most gays are not monogamous. Wilson argues that to love one another we must extend church membership to LGBTs, but how is that loving to those who have struggled to be celibate and have succeeded, only to have the rug now pulled from under them?

I appreciate the honesty of Emory University professor Luke Timothy Johnson, who teaches courses on the New Testament and acknowledges that he and liberal seminary colleagues “do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. … We are fully aware of the weight of scriptural evidence pointing away from our position, yet place our trust in the power of the living God to reveal as powerfully through personal experience and testimony as through written texts.”

Some say subjective experience should outweigh the objective truth of the Bible, but since Butterfield, Yuan, Allberry, and others testify to the power of Christ in changing them, do we balance their subjective experience against other subjectivities? Johnson admits that basing doctrine on experience is “risky,” and he understands that much Christian opposition to homosexuality “has less to do with sex than with perceived threats to the authority of Scripture.”

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Our cover story also quotes Tim Keller,, whose sermons were one highlight of my three years living in New York: Keller’s new book Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism (Viking) should be required reading for many pastors. I always enjoyed waiting for the Jesus turn in his preaching, when Keller would connect the particular text to Christ’s sacrifice: Chapter 3 gives great insights on how the Old Testament shows Christ in every book, genre, theme, profile, image, and story of delivery.

Some pessimists have bought the atheists’ lie that Christianity cannot stand up to intellectual arguments, but Alvin Plantinga disproves that in Knowledge and Christian Belief (Eerdmans, 2015). He knocks down “defeaters” such as the problem of evil, and notes that perhaps God invites to eternal fellowship with Him “creatures who have fallen, suff ered, and been redeemed.” —M.O.

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SHORT STOPS

Notable books

FOUR SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY NOVELS

SPOTLIGHT

reviewed by John Ottinger

THE GRACE OF KINGS Ken Liu Emperor Mapidere united the islands of Dara under his cruel rule, but now a rebellion will destroy the brutal empire. Nebula, World Fantasy, and Hugo awards winner Liu explores the tides of history through the rags-to-riches lives and friendship of two dissimilar men. In the novel’s Asian-influenced setting, nostalgia for the heroic past collides with visions of a unified Dara. Although more hopeful and chaste than Game of Thrones, the novel’s dull, one-dimensional characters and overly descriptive style make it feel disjointed and superficial. Cautions: some implied sex, lots of violence, and an open marriage for a key character.

THE GOSPEL OF LOKI Joanne M. Harris In a suitably whiny voice, the trickster god Loki uses witty aphorisms and wild stories to excuse his actions. He blames bullying by the other Norse gods and his own nature for his machinations, embodying the human desire to justify sin. In Loki’s version of the road to Ragnarok, the Norse myth about a great battle that kills many of the gods, Harris plays out arguments between free will and fate. Often funny and occasionally ribald, this story’s clever retelling of ancient myth examines human depravity.

CLASH OF EAGLES Alan Smale What if the Roman Empire had, in the 13th century, come to conquer North America? In Smale’s alternative history, Rome encounters the Cahokia—the Mississippi civilization that supposedly built the Great Mounds.

Bereft of his legion, Commander Gaius Marcellinus tries to industrialize the Cahokia, whose only technological achievements are the power of flight and mound building. Meanwhile, bloodthirsty Iroquois harry the peaceful Cahokians. Careful characterization, clever extrapolation, and grand battles distinguish this novel honoring patriotism and camaraderie. Cautions: a deeply regretted sexual encounter and cultural nudity.

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PHOENIX ISLAND John Dixon While serving time in a youth boot camp on a remote island, teenage boxer Carl Freeman notices inmates disappearing from the camp. Always ready to fight for the underdog, Carl can’t stand idly by. He soon discovers a conspiracy to create biologically and mentally enhanced killers out of his fellow teens or render them imbeciles in the attempt. Carl knows he must stop the conspirators, but what can one young man do? This gripping, fast-paced, and imaginative teen-friendly thriller celebrates the virtue of protecting others, no matter the cost.

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Controversy erupted when one group of science fiction writers, who felt underrepresented by the awards committee, off ered a competing list of nominees for the Hugo Awards. When their list won many of the five slots available in each award category, the science fiction establishment and major media noticed. The list writers—known oddly as the “Sad Puppies”—believe that books promoting politically correct causes and liberal identity politics have dominated the Hugos in recent years.

Opponents say the “Puppies” are racist, misogynist, and homophobic conservatives undermining science fiction’s most prestigious award by inventing nonexistent persecution.

Members of the World Science Fiction Convention will meet this summer to determine if nomination and voting rules need changing. Any changes would take eff ect in two years. —J.O.

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CULTURE

Q&A

David R. Shedd

Snakes and scorpions examining the future of America’s national security in a changing world by Gordon Middleton photo by Lexey Swall/Genesis

view that mankind can solve all his own problems and that truth is a moving target.

In practical terms, I go back to the mid-1980s and what eventually became known as the Iran-Contra affair. I was serving in Central America at the time.

Congress had passed a law called the Boland Amendment, which prohibited the provision of lethal aid from the U.S. government to Nicaraguans resisting the Sandinista regime in their country.

In retrospect, I may have exceeded the authority in the Boland Amendment.

Private benefactors with ties to the U.S. government continued to deliver lethal assistance to the Nicaraguan Resistance despite the Boland Amendment limiting the support to the resistance to humanitarian assistance. I came away from that experience with soul-searching about how I could or should have done things differently. The issues surrounding the Nicaraguan events challenged me to determine how to do better in making difficult choices, even if it might lead to resigning my position.

Early this year CIA executive David R. Shedd retired after a 33-year career in intelligence. He worked at the White House and for the Director of National Intelligence, and led the Defense Intelligence Agency. Here are edited excerpts from our interview.

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You were born in Bolivia and lived in Latin America as a son of missionaries. Did that experience lead you toward a career in intelligence? My interest in national

security goes back to the events surrounding a presidential election in Chile in 1970, when I became intrigued as a 10-year-old by the amount of international attention a presidential election in Chile received. International news was always a topic of discussion in our family, because my parents and grandparents were long-term missionaries in Latin America. In 1977, I went to Geneva College, and then the Lord opened the door for me to get my master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and to pursue a career in national security focused on Latin America.

Your parents read WORLD? It eventually was a mainstay on my mom and dad’s coffee table because it reflected their values and provided a God-centered perspective on world events. It also challenged my dad in particular to think about events in the world and the belief that God is ultimately in control, no matter how badly events were unfolding outside the four walls of home.

Today, what are the most significant threats to the lives of American citizens at home and abroad? Vladimir Putin is

Who was influential in your spiritual development?

Mike Minter, my senior pastor at Reston Bible Church, is my mentor. His Bible teaching provided me a very strong spiritual foundation. I am also extraordinarily blessed to have a wonderful wife of nearly 34 years, Lisa, who has been my mainstay through the ups and downs of my career.

How has your background as a Christian helped you deal with challenging national security situations?

Having a clear worldview that God is the ultimate authority, I never embraced today’s dominant philosophical views of humanism and relativism—a faulty

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A video of this interview in its entirety can be found at wng.org and in the iPad edition of this issue

seeking to restore the grandeur of Russia by his bellicose actions in the Ukraine today, and potentially in the Baltic countries in the future. He is very active along the lower border countries of the former Soviet Union, and he is not close to stopping his interventionist actions. He is applying some extraordinary lessons from our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the way he masterfully integrates information and conducts deceptive information operations. He is skillfully using cyber network capabilities to conduct 21st-century warfare.

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‘Ignoring the biblical definition of evil will result in very different policy decisions and outcomes. … And some international bad actors … see anybody who approaches them to “negotiate” as a weak counterpart.’ terrorism. These terrorist groups should be thought of as a pandemic, rather than activities of individual terrorist groups. The Islamic State, also known as ISIL, has done horrific deeds, but the effect of establishing a caliphate would do away with Syrian and Iraqi borders that have been in place for a hundred years.

What happens if we ignore the existence of evil in the world or try to wish it away? Ignoring the biblical

definition of evil will result in very different policy decisions and outcomes. Those who try to do so will generally be more accommodating to bad behavior and will try to mitigate that behavior through negotiations. And some international bad actors, described by former President George W. Bush as “evildoers,” see anybody who approaches them to “negotiate” as a weak counterpart. That’s when the snakes and the scorpions come out. I do not ever see any of those bad actors coming to the negotiating table in good faith, especially with a counterpart that appears to be weak.

Discussions of a “cyber agency” are underway in Washington: Would that provide cyber security to the American public and our domestic industries? In the

In the Far East, China’s Xi Jinping is challenging the international order by what the Chinese government believes is the country’s prerogative to pressure our friends and allies in the Asia-Pacific region in what China considers to be its “near abroad.”

What about the Islamic State (ISIL)? Concurrent with challenges posed by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and other state actors are the actions of ­nonstate players especially linked to international

world of cyber we don’t have the 100 years or so that it took to establish the law of the seas. We also face enormous challenges over privacy and civil liberties, as shown by the Edward Snowden case. My great fear is that we are only reacting to the tsunami of cyber attacks, and a major reason is the absence of clear cyber policy framework to define how to operate in cyber space. The House and Senate have been unable to come to terms over cyber laws, and the White House is well behind where it needs to be in pushing for achieving a consensus on cyber policy.

A cyber agency seems to be coming to the party late, because we still have a vacuum on policies. For example, how are decisions to collect, retain data, or attack in the cyber space actually going to be made? Who is going to make these decisions and under what circumstances? Without such a framework, I fear we will continue to make up the rules as we go, while our cyber adversaries continue to improve their capabilities. A —Gordon Middleton is a Patrick Henry College professor

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CULTURE

MUSIC

Paying homage Question: What do the new albums

by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, Dale Watson, and Richard Thompson have in common besides a deep connection to the roots from which their performers first sprouted?

Answer: a humble willingness to pay homage to the giants on whose shoulders they’ve long stood and whose legacies they’re still extending.

On the title cut Django and Jimmie (Legacy), Nelson and Haggard remember the gypsy-jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and the “Singing Brakeman” Jimmie Rodgers, concluding that without them “there might not have been a Merle or Willie.” In “Missing Ol’ Johnny Cash,” they and Bobby Bare reminisce about the Man in Black, borrowing Cash’s famous “chick-a-boom” rhythm, name-checking his greatest hits, and trading salty quips about his wilder side.

Watson pays similar tribute to George Jones on Call Me Insane (Red House). Like Nelson and Haggard’s Cash song,

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“Jonesin’ for Jones” is set to one of its subject’s famous beats (“White Lightning”) and rife with greatest-hits references. Driving the sincerity home is Watson’s Jones-like phrasing, albeit transposed into a baritone range.

Thompson’s Still (Fantasy) qualifies for inclusion by virtue of its concluding track, the eight-minute “Guitar Heroes.”

Coming in for praise are—in order of appearance—Reinhardt, Les Paul, Chuck Berry, James Burton, and The Shadows’ Hank Marvin, all of whom get a verse in which Thompson recreates their respective styles well enough to belie his insistence that he “still [doesn’t] know how [his] heroes did it.”

Yet, as touchingly entertaining as these songs are, they’re not even the best cuts on the albums on which they appear.

The burden-sharing camaraderie achieved by Nelson and Haggard, for instance, who are still plenty reliable individually, takes on a life of its own,

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allowing them to relax enough to make their search for permanence in the face of an ever-changing world as funny as quixotic resignation can be. Their revisitation of “Family Bible” is straightforward, but “It’s Only Money,” “Live This Long,” and the doubleentendre-enriched “It’s All Going to Pot” put wry, serpentine spins on wisdom that should be more conventional than it is.

And their far-from-throwaway version of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” is a reminder that Nelson and Haggard are themselves giants on whose shoulders musicians younger than they (if only a little in Dylan’s case) have stood and still stand.

That Dale Watson is one of those musicians is well-known to anyone who’s followed his two decades of masterly, if underappreciated, recordings. The songs that link him most overtly to the Nelson-Haggard tradition this time are “Everybody’s Somebody in Luchenbach, Texas” (the setting of a hit by Waylon Jennings) and “Mama, Don’t Let Your Cowboys Grow Up to Be Babies” (a play on the title of a chart-topping NelsonJennings duet that will give helicopter parents fits).

The song that suggests that Watson himself treasures a family Bible is “Heaven’s Gonna Have a Honky Tonk.”

“I read in the Good Book,” he sings, “that heaven is a place / that the only thing we’ll have is all we want,” and “Celestial beer is served, / you’ll get high just on the Word.” You’ve heard of stumbling heavenward? Watson obviously has too.

As for Richard Thompson’s Still, it’s an even stronger collection of songs for song’s sake than his 2013 album Electric.

The ancient British-folk echoes that have long infused his work enrich dramatic mini-narratives, and he sings and plays them like a man with lots left to prove.

At 66, he might even be peaking. A

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LEGENDS REMINISCE ABOUT OTHER LEGENDS ON THREE NEW ALBUMS by Arsenio Orteza

Notable CDs

NEW OR RECENT ALBUMS reviewed by Arsenio Orteza IN STYLE AGAIN Jim Ed Brown Brown had nearly five months to enjoy the considerable acclaim that greeted this January release before succumbing to lung cancer at 81.

Wherefore the acclaim? Because, stylistically, he was largely bypassing the calculated sentimentality of his 1970s-80s duets with Helen Cornelius and supplanting it with the golden glow of his 1950s-60s recordings as one third of the Browns.

Verbally, he was looking back on and savoring a life full of blessings. Vocally, he was sounding as if he could’ve gone on singing until he was 100.

CAN’T FORGET: A SOUVENIR OF THE GRAND TOUR Leonard Cohen Like the other live albums that Cohen has released since 2009, this collection’s existence emphasizes his commitment to recouping the wealth his former manager swindled from him. Unlike those other live albums, most of these tracks were recorded not during concerts but during pre-show sound checks. Hence the welcome absence of “Hallelujah” and the welcome presence of “Night Comes On” and the George Jones–minted “Choices”—and “Stages,” which begins with the most hilariously droll monologue Cohen has ever committed to tape.

COLLECTED: 1976-2009

Willy DeVille & Mink DeVille

Tyler Joseph (lyrics, vocals, keyboards) and Josh Dun (drums) have been recording as Twenty One Pilots since 2009, and somehow neither their Christian faith (about which they’re not shy) nor their songs’ allusions to it have clipped their commercial wings— their new album, Blurryface (Fueled by Ramen) debuted at No. 1 atop the Billboard 200. A concept album of sorts, it uses a hard-hitting combination of rap, singing, and glitchhoppy pop-rock to trace the ricochet emotions of a uniquely 21st-century Everyman through sloughs of despond and, occasionally, delectable mountains.

And it’s catchy. Long before the lyrics kick in, the rhythms, melodies, and instrumentation establish a subliminal flow.

Earlier Twenty One Pilots albums and EPs did too, but they did so less eff ectively, sometimes making Joseph’s delivery sound more smart-alecky than he (probably) intended. This time he and Dun achieve a winsome balance. And the lyrics, which are intelligible whether rapped or sung, do kick in.

LANDS & PEOPLES

Bill Mallonee & the Big Sky Ramblers RICH POLK/GET T Y IMAGES FOR MT V

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Seizing the moment, Universal released this threedisc compilation just one month after Bob Dylan told an interviewer that Willy DeVille belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And, given the skill with which it separates DeVille’s wheat from his all-too-abundant chaff, someone was serious about proving Dylan right. Disc Three is mainly miscellany for collectors.

But Discs One and Two could have fans of Tom Waits, the Texas Tornados, and maybe even Bruce Springsteen wondering whether they’ve been barking up the wrong trees.

SPOTLIGHT

Mallonee releases so much music that all but the best of it blurs together. But this album has an identity. Its hooks are worth humming, its verbal details worth pondering, its singing that of someone only four or five albums into his pilgrimage instead of 50-something. He’s still driven, in other words, to bring his considerable folk-rock gifts to bear upon the states of the various unions (Church, State, etc.) of which he remains a sincere but conflicted part. And bring them to bear he does.

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

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MINDY BELZ

Speech, speech

speaking boldly the truth is more needed than ever, with humor where possible

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When poor women are raped who don’t happen to fit the social construct of the moment, the thought police go dumb and mute.

Christian women in chains and forced to wear veils by ISIS militants in Iraq

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You know it’s not morning in America anymore when the comedians can’t tell a joke.

Jerry Seinfeld made headlines for saying in an ESPN radio interview he wouldn’t do shows on college campuses. The atmosphere is too politically correct.

Asked about it later, he complained on Late Night to host Seth Meyers, who seemed to fidget in his chair for where the conversation might be going, “They keep moving the lines in for no reason.” Seinfeld said he used to tell a joke about people scrolling through their cell phone contacts “like a gay French king.” Now audiences take offense. “To suggest that a gay person moves their hands in a flourishing motion,” Seinfeld said, “you now have to apologize for it. There’s a creepy PC thing out there that really bothers me.”

Seinfeld is rare among entertainers and public figures in general to complain that the lines of acceptable speech are moving, instead of himself moving in lockstep with them.

It’s not only speech challenging the new ethos on sexuality that’s targeted. Look at what happened to the illustrious PEN American Center’s literary gala when the group decided to award the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for courageous freedom of expression. Six prominent authors pulled out as gala table hosts. Then, like lemmings, nearly 200 of the group’s 4,000 members signed a protest letter, best-selling writers like Russell Banks, Joyce Carol Oates, and Michael Ondaatje. They cited the magazine’s cultural intolerance and Islamophobia—all in the wake of an attack by Islamic State gunmen that left 12 members of the magazine’s staff dead.

And as if they weren’t dead enough, satirist Garry Trudeau gave a speech accusing the Charlie Hebdo team of “punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority.”

Good thing the Doonesbury creator didn’t have to contend with the likes of George Bernard Shaw. The playwright and social critic, who was

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hardly an outcast with progressives of his day, wrote, “Islam is very different, being ferociously intolerant.” He called it a “Manifold Monotheism” that “becomes in the minds of very simple folk an absurdly polytheistic idolatry. … You accepted Allah or you had your throat cut by someone who did accept him, and who went to Paradise for having sent you to Hell.”

Or Winston Churchill, who had a tendency of punching downward so powerful it may have saved the free world for all kinds of satire and folly. Churchill said of Islam, “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.”

Right now unspeakable things are happening in the name of Islam. A former newspaper editor in Baghdad this month sent me a photo of a young Yazidi woman, burned and disfigured beyond ­recognition after she refused to become an Islamic State bride. Hundreds of women are escaping to tell their stories of brutal sexual slavery, of rapes beyond number, of young girls sold to terrorist soldiers. And the Western literati—the Garry Trudeaus, the Joyce Carol Oateses, and the Ph.D.s who launched the women’s studies programs at a thousand campuses under the banner of upholding women in society—aren’t saying a word about those atrocities. When poor women are raped who don’t happen to fit the social construct of the moment, don’t happen to be the right disenfranchised minority, the thought police go dumb and mute.

With free speech in our so-called free society less free, it’s more and more important to speak boldly, to speak the truth, to speak in love. And that can involve satire and comedy, devices Jesus Himself used to good effect.

I treasure the words of Robert Gregory, a Maine lawyer and volunteer adviser to Bowdoin Christian Fellowship. When the fellowship got booted from campus last year after 40 years of service because it didn’t want to dilute its Christian leadership or its gospel message, Gregory took the heave-ho in stride: “I’m happy to go across the street. I’m happy to go to the basement. Christians have been sharing this message in sewers for hundreds of years.”

Yes, you culture warlords. Give us the lowest place. A

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Hundreds of evangelicals were caught off guard in March when their church leaders, without any open discussion, announced that sexually active homosexuals could become members. How did that happen, and what steps can members of other churches take to forestall such surprises? by M ARVIN OLASKY in SAN FRANCISCO

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wo days after Valentine’s Day in 1997, City Church—an attempt to build a biblically focused congregation in San Francisco—held its first service in a former Army chapel lined with commemorative plaques. Fred Harrell, who had earned his spurs as a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) campus minister, preached on the book of Jonah.

Harrell, a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary, told the seminary’s magazine that God “has called me to take the Gospel to what many consider to be a modern-day Nineveh. I think God is providentially arranging for the ‘sparing’ of the city of San Francisco through a unique, authentic, and historic Christian witness.” The magazine noted, “Fred can hardly contain his excitement.”

California’s Nineveh seemed an unlikely spot for a Biblecentered church to take root. The city’s Orthodox Presbyterian Church faced years of protests after its pastor in 1978, Chuck McIlhenny, dismissed a gay organist. (McIlhenny tells that story in his memoir, When the Wicked Seize a City.) In 1993 gay protesters blocked the doors of another conservative church and pelted a caretaker with eggs. One police official who received a request for protecWorshippers at tion responded, “You must understand.

City Church’s This is San Francisco.”

Russian Center San Francisco, though, is also a city in San Francisco. where trees grow in unlikely places. An DALE K M TAN

1853 map of the city labeled the area that Golden Gate Park now occupies the “Great Sand Bank.” Wind erosion made most farming and gardening in western San Francisco impossible.

But pioneer William Hall, through trial and error, found that by first planting barley he could stabilize the sand dunes enough to dump manure and top soil. Then other plants grew and homes followed.

During the first few months Harrell’s congregation numbered only 30. By the end of 1997, the church had grown enough to move to the Russian Center closer to downtown, which with its stage, red velvet drapes, and 500 seats looks like a small Broadway theater. Harrell said, “We are not seeker-focused or seeker-driven. We are seeking to be biblical.”

City Church received great initial support from other PCA churches that appreciated bravery. Four of them, including the conservative First Presbyterian in Jackson, Miss., contributed at least $300,000 for Harrell’s startup. Attenders say his sermons were Bible-focused but not fiery, taking after those of Tim Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church a continent away (but demographically close) in Manhattan.

City Church grew to 1,000 regular attenders at two services plus a satellite venue. By 2005 it was a regular stop for tourists from the East who carried gifts of praise for a wise child performing an apparent miracle: City Church was sticking to its historic Christian witness and attracting young congregants amid a disordered city that worshipped idols for destruction.

On March 13, 2015, though, members were shocked when Harrell and six elders—two resigned—sent out a letter

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announcing that City Church “will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation.” The letter made it clear that sexually active gay and lesbian couples in same-sex marriages could become church members.

The change surprised more than 40 pastors who on March 25 sent Harrell a letter proposing “Compassion without Compromise.” They asked Harrell and the remaining elders, “How long did you take to make this decision? … Were opposing views openly discussed? … Was there a period of open dialogue where members could give input before the decision was made? Why or why not?”

Harrell’s brief response to those pastors did not answer those questions. I traveled to San Francisco in May and tried to get answers for the benefit of City Church members but also members of churches across the country that may soon face an LGBT juggernaut.

What steps can they take to stop church leaders— under pressure from family members, friends, financiers, and fame-seeking—from calling an audible that is not biblical?

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n retrospect, some members point to a 2006 decision made after long discussion. That year, City Church decided to ordain women elders.

To do so the congregation voted to leave the PCA and join the Reformed Church in America (RCA). Elders promoted that change, but their discussion was not a closely held secret. Drew Yamamoto, then about to become a pastoral intern, said he learned of the plans two months before the official announcement. Harrell said he met 30 or 40 times that year with groups of members: Only a handCity Church were “expanding our empathic imagination.” ful voted against leaving the PCA and joining the RCA. Harrell himself was having tough times. His older son A member of the senior pastoral staff at that time said, “It tweeted in 2013, “Hooray, the pope doesn’t judge my homodid not seem like a big deal.” The most frequent question at sexuality, only my homosexual actions. Now the only barrier meetings was, “Are we on a slippery slope” that could lead to between me and Catholicism is my libido.” When we talked gays becoming members? Harrell and elders pointed to in May, Harrell said the shutdown of the ex-gay organization examples in the Bible of women leaders and said the homoExodus International in 2013 meant “lots of evangelical sexuality issue was of a different character, since the Bible is ­pastors lost that in their tool kits. … More and more LGBT so clear about it. In 2008 Harrell was still telling membership Christians who were sons and daughters classes that City Church was holding and of the church were emerging. … Lots of would hold to the historic Christian view shame, lots of hurt.” of homosexuality.

Source security Harrell recalled in May that during Over the next several years, though, A word about sources for this 2013 his own views were “evolving.” In several disquieting signs appeared. article: Our WORLD policy is to 2014 he suggested that all the elders Members say Harrell’s preaching accept off-the-record comments read Ann Arbor pastor Ken Wilson’s A became more therapeutic and less exeonly when a person’s life or job is Letter to my Congregation. In it Wilson getical: He would typically mention at in jeopardy. Many City Church claims that the Apostle Paul and others the outset the Bible passage just read by members remembered how of his time had no knowledge of innate a layperson, but then offer anecdotes Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich lost his homosexual orientations and loving and quotations from various writers. By post by irritating LGBT activists— same-sex relationships. Wilson says Paul 2012 Harrell was telling an RCA synod so most of my interviews had to was criticizing only gay prostitution and meeting that leaders at “theologically be off the record. In the 45 years exploitation. traditional and pastorally progressive” and 3,000-plus stories since my Boston Globe professional journalistic debut in 1970, I have never seen anywhere outside of Havana and Beijing such a chilling effect. —M.O.

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Harrell That’s not true, preaching according to Tim (above); Keller, Harrell’s role Wilson’s A model. Keller has Letter to my Congregation. pointed out that Wilson’s conclusion about ancient understandings goes against the findings of “the best historical scholarship since the 1980s—by the full spectrum of secular, liberal, and conservative researchers. … Paul knew about mutual same-sex relationships, and the ancients knew of homosexual orientation.” Keller’s conclusion: Paul “categorically condemns all sexual relations between people of the same sex.”

When Wilson pushed his Vineyard church to adopt his view, he almost destroyed the congregation. Last year national Vineyard leaders published a position on “Pastoring LGBT Persons” that annihilated Wilson’s exegesis. Another pastor at Wilson’s church, Donnell Wyche, stood up to him and published an incisive paper on how to strengthen and grow the church without abandoning clear biblical teachings.

ew leaders at City Church are in a financial position to stand up to a pastor who can fire them. Prices of cable-car-sized homes in San Francisco climb halfway to the stars: Rent for a one-bedroom apartment two miles south of the Giants ballpark is $3,000 per month. City Church staffers with families generally receive ample compensation and often take out ample mortgages. Some church leaders not on the payroll have spouses who are.

Seven pastors report to Harrell, with considerable turnover in recent years: Several left after signing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and receiving financial settlements.

Only one left without signing an NDA: He spoke to me initially on the record with great specificity about the negatives he had witnessed, but as our go-to-press date approached he pleaded to have his name removed, citing damage to employment opportunities. This article does not include the information he provided.

From 2012 to 2014, according to a City Church report, the number of households contributing to the church dropped from 807 to 706. Expenses grew as City Church, working with the RCA’s Western Theological Seminary, created a training center for future church leaders, the Newbigin House of Studies. City Church was in good financial shape, though: Church members were generous, and some say a gay billionaire who professes faith in Christ, Peter Thiel—he co-founded PayPal and was an early Facebook investor—became a major donor to Newbigin.

Harrell and administrative pastor Jonathan Gundlach would not confirm that, but in 2012 Thiel’s home was the venue for a Newbigin dinner. Attendees say Harrell spoke of how he was embarrassed by his earlier theological education and had grown immeasurably since then. This year, on Feb. 4, City Church teaching pastor Scot Sherman interviewed Thiel at a Newbigin event held at the Century Club, a prestigious venue. There Sherman called Thiel “a great friend and supporter” of Newbigin House, and announced that Thiel had made Alana Ackerson, a 2014 Newbigin Fellow, the CEO of his foundation.

In the course of the interview, Sherman told Thiel, “You understand theology … better than a lot of theologians do.” He spoke of a “courageous book” Thiel had just written, Zero to One, and its “perfect title.” He also said in response to Thiel comments, “That’s a great idea” and “Wow.”

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majority of City Church elders last October agreed to accept the membership application of a gay man without requiring that he would endeavor to be chaste—but the man did not join, and almost all church members remained unaware of the imminent change. At a meeting of elders this January, Harrell pushed to make the October agreement official policy for everyone.

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ore frustration emerged on April 19 when Ken Wilson (A Letter to my Congregation) preached at City Church’s three morning services that day. Another advocate for gay membership, Mercer professor and Sojourners board member David Gushee, spoke that evening. Congregation members could not directly question Gushee, but had to write their questions on index cards: Scot Sherman then chose ones to ask. At another large-group meeting, members viewed slides supporting the church leaders’ argument, with only questions about the slides allowed.

Harrell did visit small groups, but members say his answers varied according to the makeup of the group. Asked at one “community group” made up of young and hip members whether he would officiate at same-sex weddings, Harrell reportedly replied, “I absolutely would do them.” At another, he said he could not do that now because the RCA does not allow it, but he could see doing them in the future.

Asked about those responses, Harrell saw “no inconsistency in what I’ve said.”

He summarized his view as: “(a) I would. (b) The church has not made that decision and we submit to our classis [a group of RCA churches]. Some people hear ‘a,’ others ‘b,’ and others both.”

Church officials did not schedule large-group meetings at which broad opposition to their change could coalesce.

Harrell and the elders explained in a May 15 statement, “We have decided not to facilitate town-hall style congregational meetings, as we are very concerned that such meetings would lead to many in our community feeling hurt or damaged, rather than encouraging productive communication.”

Several members set up an online forum at which members could share their views and sorrow: Former intern Yamamoto, who worked three years for Jews for Jesus, equated the forum to the Orthodox Jewish tradition of “sitting shiva,” mourning and grieving together. But forum organizers say a church official threatened legal action because they used a church directory to invite potential participants.

Opposition emerged outside the church via critical ­articles in the journal First Things and other publications, and at a March 19 meeting of the classis to which City Church belongs. Other pastors asked Harrell why they were not informed in advance, and Ken Korver, pastor of Emmanuel Reformed Church in Paramount, Calif., said the new City Church position will “harm the church, divide us, and weaken our position.” Six days later the 40-plus RCA

Pastor Ben Pilgreen (left) preaches at Epic Church.

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Elder Alex Lim said he and the five other elders who were present at the January meeting agreed with Harrell. They discussed ways to communicate the change to the entire congregation.

Two developments that month led some City Church members to think it was time for the church to change. Two big evangelical churches in other cities—GracePointe in Nashville and EastLake in Seattle—announced they would now admit noncelibate gays. An article in The Guardian on hip Bay Area churches focused on new entries: Reality, Epic, C3, and The Table. City Church didn’t receive even a mention.

Harrell met on Feb. 9 with the two elders who missed the January meeting. Both opposed the decision. Harrell said he had “ideas to extend the conversation” but a resignation letter from one of the elders on Feb. 27 led him and other elders to suspect that news of the decision might spread before they had a chance to make an official announcement.

On March 13 Harrell and the six elders who supported him emailed their own letter: It declared that City Church’s policy against sexually active gays becoming members “has not led to human flourishing,” so “we will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation”: The church would treat heterosexual and homosexual marriages equally.

The letter stated that elders “invite you into this discussion in safe settings where all can voice disagreement, ­concern, push back,” but many City Church members say the letter was deceptive. One member looked forward to an announced Q-and-A session the Sunday after the elders’ ­letter went out, but was frustrated to find it was only a onesided presentation, with no questions allowed. “There is no dialogue,” another member said. Members critical of the decision often received admonitions against “disunity,” with unity defined as acquiescence.

Proselytizing Christians

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An aggressive homosexual group is winning converts in churches by Juliana Chan Erikson Lisbeth Melendez Rivera, a practicing ­lesbian and Catholic, knows by heart the Bible verses that are specifically about homosexuality. She can rattle off Leviticus 18:22 and tell you where the others are.

That may be because, as director of Latino and Catholic Initiatives for the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign (HRC), she hears them enough from people who object to her behavior. But rather than alter her lifestyle, she decided to revamp her faith and give the verses a nickname: “verses of terror.” She argues that “in the entire Bible, homosexuality is mentioned eight times. Eight verses.”

HRC’s Director of Faith Partnerships and Mobilization MacArthur Flournoy ­similarly sidesteps the “eight passages” and speaks of “faith-based principles like love, unconditional love, hospitality.” To soften Christian opposition to homosexuality HRC has also developed a heart-­ tugging PR campaign and used media allies to paint critics as extremists or ­bigots. And it’s working. Polls show 40 percent of Protestants now favor legalization of same-sex marriage.

Michael Brown, author of Can You Be Gay and Christian?: Responding With Love and Truth to Questions About Homosexuality, says he’s saddened but not surprised by HRC’s success. Speaking of polls that show increasing support for LGBT initiatives, Brown said, “Those same polls will show a higher rate of biblical illiteracy.”

Brown said that Christian unpreparedness, combined with progressive theology, has allowed gay rights groups to lambast opponents like himself and effectively silence debate on the issue. Last September, HRC published a report ­entitled “Export of Hate,” a de facto “hit list” highlighting individuals it says have threatened the gay community’s desire to win global acceptance. Out of the eight profiled, six are Christians.

HRC says its report exposed “a network of American extremists” who “spew venomous rhetoric, outrageous theories, and discredited science.” Turn the page and readers will see each opponent’s expressionless face sketched in high ­contrast black and white attached to a short description of their purported

offenses. It’s hard not to see parallels to police wanted posters.

Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, is on this list. He’s getting fewer phone calls from the media and more irate notes from people asking him why he hates gays. He said, “We can disagree and still have a civil debate about this. But they’re saying, some voices don’t deserve to be heard in the public square, and it’s a very dangerous argument.”

LaBarbera noted one occasion when a magazine invited and later rescinded its invitation to have him speak as the sole representative opposing homosexual practice. The reason: HRC and two other panelists refused to sit at the same table with him. Brown, who also made it onto the list as a “dishonorable mention,” said HRC has worked hard “to demonize the opponents of homosexual practice. … When I say that traditional marriage is between a man and woman and kids deserve a mom and a dad, there’s nothing hateful there.”

HRC has reached millions of living rooms in the South with emotional stories of stay-at-home moms like Mary Jane Kennedy. One HRC video aired last November brought viewers into Kennedy’s leafy Brandon, Miss., backyard. “I’m a Bible-believing, born again Christian,” she says with an unmistakable Southern drawl. She speaks about her grown sons as the camera shows her flipping through

photo albums in her living room. Her voice cracks as she says, “My middle son was about to graduate from college, and he said, ‘Mama, I’m gay.’”

Then she pauses to compose herself, and says, “Nothing in my life had ever ­prepared me for that. I said, ‘What’s going to happen? This is going to tear our family apart.’” The background piano music intensifies as she offers a wrenching appeal: “One of the main things that I want to happen is to open the arms of Jesus Christ to people that have been pressed out of the church. We’ve closed our doors to the people who need us the most. God called us to love each other.” The episode closes with the words, “We are all God’s children,” and HRC’s familiar yellow and blue equal sign logo embedded in one of the letters.

Melendez Rivera, who has shown such videos at conferences and other gatherings, said emotional testimonies like Kennedy’s are powerful. Many evangelical churches, on the other hand, welcome gays to hear the gospel but do not affirm their lifestyle. Bob Lynn, associate pastor at Knox Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, Mich., says his Evangelical Presbyterian congregation understands that Christians should not engage in homosexual practice, but it’s “heartbreaking” that men struggling with same-sex attraction face chaste ­singleness. “We don’t understand the price they have to pay for faithfulness.”

Kennedy

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­ astors sent their letter questioning whether the church p allowed for “open forums” and “public conversations.”

City Church Director of Operations Jonathan Gundlach answers questions of that sort by saying, “Had it not been for those [two dissident] elders, there would have been broader discussion.” Elder Alex Lim says, “I have my own fears that this will distract us.” The message is uniform: Fall in line; pay attention to more important things. Harrell and the elders put this more mellifluously in a statement: They plan to “welcome all people into full Christian community, regardless of sexual orientation, in the name of Jesus, while holding the tension of varying theological/scriptural interpretations.”

It does not seem likely that financial pressure will force a change from the pro-gay position. The City Church website lists average monthly general fund expenses at $385,000. March had five Sundays, and on March 1, 8, 22, and 29 giving was $35,000, $30,000, $25,000, and $28,000 respectively, for a total of $118,000, well below what the budget requires. On March 15, though, the first Sunday after the letter from Harrell and the elders went out, contributions totaled $300,000.

Ninety City Church members on May 20 sent a letter to RCA leaders explaining their concerns and requesting

‘God with City Church started a fire, and embers are now flying all over the city. We have more church plants now than at any time in the history of San Francisco.’ ­—Christopher Robins

City Church’s Mission location (top) and Sutter location at the Russian Center.

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an intervention. On June 13 the denomination’s General Synod (its annual convention) voted 145-73 to form a special council to address “questions of human sexuality as it relates to ordination and marriage” and make recommendations for the General Synod to vote on next year. Many among the two-thirds majority supporting the resolution did so because they want the RCA to oppose homosexual ordination and marriage.

Harrell spoke from the floor against that resolution. He said those favoring it want “uniformity and compliance. …

I spent 16 years in a denomination like that.” Regarding human sexuality, Harrell said, “science tells us that this is an increasingly complex issue. We now know that while we think we encounter a largely gender-binary world, it is not one at all.” He said, “Truth bringing unity is a false premise. Rather, unity brings us truth.”

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n Sunday morning, May 10, the 9 a.m.

City Church service at the Russian Center (usually the larger of the two ­services) had only 150 adults and a smattering of children in attendance.

Pastor Julie Van Til preached about how God loves and accepts us. She noted that “Romans is so hard to preach on,” and quoted Paul Tillich and former Franciscan priest Brennan Manning.

At 10:30 two miles away on a concrete floor in what once was the San Francisco Chronicle building, 21 souls at the service of a brand-new PCA church, Glory San Francisco, lustily sang “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus.”

Pastor Christopher Robins (asked about his name, he says his parents once were hippies) prayed for City Church and asked God to “lead us out of temptation, because I know from experience I will not lead myself.”

Using a whiteboard, Robins preached on Ezekiel and noted that 16 of the 23 times the Bible cites “rebellion” are in that book. He said, “Many people in San Francisco want to be rebels—but rebels against what?” That led into the Lord’s Supper, with Robins explaining, “This table is for rebels who receive Christ. This is a reverse altar call: If you don’t know God, don’t partake.” The contrast with City Church broadening membership was clear.

Later, Robins mused about his PCA plant and its ­predecessor: “God with City Church started a fire, and embers are now flying all over the city. We have more church plants now than at any time in the history of San Francisco.” Embers, yes, and also barley. Fred Harrell, like William Hall in the 19th century, planted a new crop in San Francisco. Residents now do not grow barley, but they enjoy hundreds of tree varietals from around the world, including Japanese Yew, Queensland Kauri, and Italian Alder. And, young evangelicals moving to San Francisco now have at least 20 church choices. A Please turn to my column on p. 64 for thoughts on what members of churches can do to make blindsiding less likely.

 molasky@wng.org  @MarvinOlasky

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The bold, restful life of

Elisabeth Elliot, 1926-2015

UST OBEY and

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have now met four of the seven men who killed our husbands,” 31-year-old missionary Elisabeth Elliot wrote to two friends from an Ecuadorian jungle. It was October 1958.

Two-and-a-half years earlier, a group of Waorani Indians, known locally as Aucas or “savages,” had speared to death Elliot’s ­husband, Jim, along with his four male companions, on a river beach. The missionaries had been attempting to befriend the unreached tribe.

The Indians thought the white men were cannibals.

Now Elliot—along with Valerie, her 3-year-old daughter, and Rachel Saint, the sister of one of the murdered missionaries—was sleeping in a leaky, leaf-thatched hut, eating roasted monkey limbs, swatting gnats, and listening to frogs, cicadas, and chanting Indians at night. The young widow and single mother was voluntarily doing what seemed crazy—living among the very tribe that had massacred her husband. She and Saint hoped to translate the Bible into the Waorani language.

After Valerie asked if one of the tribesmen was her daddy, Elliot explained that no, these were the men who killed him. “Oh,” said the little girl.

by Daniel James Devine photo by courtney Navey

“New situations are only new arenas for faith to be proved,” Elliot wrote to her friends. “Pray that my faith rest firmly in the Pioneer and Perfecter.”

For the next half-century, Elliot made resting in God a life message. She was a best-selling author, speaker, ­professor, and radio teacher, encouraging readers and listeners to trust and obey a sovereign God, whatever the circumstance.

Elliot died June 15 at the age of 88 after a decade of dementia and a series of mini-strokes. She is survived by her daughter, eight grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and her third husband, Lars Gren, 78.

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lliot was born Elisabeth Howard in Belgium to missionary parents. The family returned to the United States while Elliot was still a baby, and her father became editor of The Sunday-School Times in Philadelphia. At home, he led the family in daily hymn singing and readings from the Bible and authors like Charles Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards. He kept a dictionary near the dinner table so the six children (“Betty,” as friends called her, was the second oldest) could look up unfamiliar words. They often set out extra plates for missionary visitors.

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After returning to the United States permanently in 1963, Elliot rediscovered romantic love in the form of Addison Leitch, a religion professor she married in 1969. But tragedy struck again: Leitch died of cancer four years later.

Reflecting on her earthly losses, Elliot wrote in 2003, “God’s ways are mysterious and our faith develops strong muscles as we negotiate the twists and turns of our lives.”

It seemed a mystery to Elliot when, after Leitch’s death, one of her lodgers—a man 10 years her junior— professed an interest in her. She promptly ordered him to move out. But the man, Lars Gren, persisted, clearing her driveway of snow and driving her on errands. The two married in 1977.

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hroughout her life, Elliot authored 28 books on topics like missions work, discipline, suffering, courtship, family life, loneliness, and obedience.

Some books were controversial for including nudity (in photos of tribal members) and for raising ­difficult questions about missions work.

She spoke at women’s conferences. At the prompting of one of her fans, she began the Gateway to Joy radio program, which ran from 1988 to 2001, offering practical insight on motherhood, spiritual disciplines, and theology.

She wrote her notes for each 12-minute radio recording on a single 3-by-5-inch index card.

In both her books and radio talks, she was known for her conservative views of gender roles in marriage and the home. She took aim at modern feminism in Let Me Be a Woman: “The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian does make me a different kind of woman.”

Elliot didn’t mince words and could be blunt. She ­disliked sentimentality. She was also naturally shy. “A lot

lef t and middle: handout • right: courtesy of the Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College

Elisabeth through the Carmichael, whom she years: (1) with Jim at their later called “my first wedding in 1953; (2) with ­spiritual mother.” At Valerie; (3) with Glenda Wheaton College in Revell; (4) with Lars.

Illinois she studied Greek in order to prepare for Bible translation work. There she met Jim Elliot, who was also preparing to be a missionary translator.

The two fell in love, but stayed single (and chaste) for five years, uncertain whether God would ever allow their individual missionary callings to merge.

To their profound delight, God did. They married in Quito, Ecuador, in 1953.

But 27 months later, Elliot was the widowed mother of a 10-month-old baby.

The story of the martyred missionaries made national news, including a feature in Life. Elliot was asked to write an in-depth account. The resulting book was an instant bestseller.

“Through Gates of Splendor was the defining missionary story for evangelicals in the 20th century,” says Kathryn Long, a history professor at Wheaton. “In the hands of Elisabeth Elliot it really became a story of God’s work.”

After Jim was killed, she could have left the field ­altogether. Instead, she chose to continue the work among the Waorani tribe, living among them for two years (Saint stayed her entire life). Ultimately, five of the tribesmen responsible for the massacre (there were six involved, not seven) made professions of faith. Today, about a quarter of the Waorani people are practicing Christians.

During her decade in Ecuador, Elliot studied three indigenous languages but met opportunities for deep discouragement: Her Indian translator was murdered, and a suitcase stuffed with three years’ worth of translation notes disappeared from the top of a bus.

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lef t: photo courtesy of Glenda Revell • right: handout

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LEF T AND MIDDLE: HANDOUT • RIGHT: COURTESY OF THE BILLY GRAHAM CENTER ARCHIVES, WHEATON COLLEGE

LEF T: PHOTO COURTESY OF GLENDA REVELL • RIGHT: HANDOUT

‘God’s ways are mysterious and our faith develops strong muscles as we negotiate the twists and turns of our lives.’ — E L L I O T of people saw her as cool, as wanting to keep people at arm’s length,” says Arlita Winston, a family friend. “That was not the real Elisabeth Elliot.”

Rather, beneath the surface she nurtured a “deep and loving warmth that connected quickly with others going through sorrow,” Winston said.

Fans sent constant letters, and Elliot faithfully responded with handwritten or typed notes, dispensing succinct counsel. One such correspondence resulted in a deep friendship with Glenda Revell, a woman who confided she’d been nearly aborted by her own mother, and had experienced an abusive childhood.

Elliot volunteered to be a substitute mom. She began signing her letters to Revell, “With my love, Mother.” She let Revell’s four children call her and Gren “granny” and “gramps,” and invited the family to their oceanfront home in Gloucester, Mass.

“All the mothering that I missed out on, I have had because God crossed our paths,” Revell says. “I was a street urchin, really. There was nothing that would have recommended me to her.”

She was willing to prod her friends, sometimes with a dose of humor. She once asked Winston, who was recov-

 ddevine@wng.org  @DanJamDevine

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ering from a season of discouragement, “Arlita, why aren’t you teaching?”

Winston balked. “What would I teach?” she said.

Elliot replied dryly: “Well, try the Bible.”

Winston subsequently started a women’s Bible study that grew to 100 people.

Elliot devoured books, especially classical literature.

She played the piano and had memorized many hymns— favorites included “How Firm a Foundation”; “Jesus, I Am Resting, Resting”; and “Like a River Glorious.” She exercised daily, walking, bicycling, or swimming in the ocean. She loved dog shows, plays, and whale watching.

Gren last year told WORLD Elliot had met the onset of chronic memory loss the same way she met previous bereavements: with peace.

“While it is perfectly true that some of my worst fears did, in fact, materialize, I see them now as ‘an abyss and mass of mercies,’ appointed and assigned by a loving and merciful Father who sees the end from the beginning.

He asks us to trust Him,” she wrote in 1996, borrowing the “mass of mercies” line from 17th-century Englishman Sir Thomas Browne.

She emphasized it: “Trust Him! Do what He says!” A JULY 1 1 , 201 5

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Meeting cherry farmer Steve Murray

A persistent drought in California has brought to the surface longsimmering disputes over one of the basic resources of life

BY SOPHIA LEE

in Kern County, Calif.

PHOTO BY JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

probably isn’t the best way to understand the gravity of California’s drought, which experts say is the worst in modern history.

A tall, jolly fourth-generation farmer with light blue eyes and sparse grey hair, Murray laughs often—even right after revealing that he had suffered a 90 percent crop loss due to water shortage this year. For the past two years, he’s been receiving barely 40 percent of his trees’ water needs from his water district. On a typical harvest, he hires 400 to 800 pickers. This year, he could only hire 25.

“We’ve hit the perfect storm,” said Murray, sitting next to a dry fountain that once burbled near the entrance of the Big Red Barn, his storefront in Bakersfield, Calif. “No water, no fruit, no pickers—we couldn’t get anybody to pick our fruits because it wasn’t profitable enough.” He then let out his signature laugh.

But his face turned serious when he mentioned his 80 full-time employees: “We’re not just talking about an individual losing business here. We’re talking about a community of people, the 80 families we support.”

Murray lives next to his orchards in Kern County, an agriculture-rich county in southern Central Valley. Thanks to the state’s extensive water delivery system and its abounding fertile soils, Central Valley produces one-third of the nation’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts.

The once-uninhabitable Kern County, for example, boasts 804,000 acres of fruit and nut trees, each acre bearing about $20,000 worth of high-demand crops such as almonds, grapes, pistachios, citrus, and pomegranates— about 250 crop varieties in all—that feed not just America, but the world.

Next to irrigated farmlands waft the odors of manure and feed from cattle ranches and dairy and poultry farms. Together, Kern County’s agriculture and livestock make up more than $4.7 billion in total value. Today, these vast, seemingly emerald-green fields give the false illusion that all is well in Kern County.

It wasn’t until I sat next to Murray in his old truck, rumbling and bumping over the uneven dirt road between sweet-and-rotsmelling orchards, that signs of the longsuffering, four-year drought began to show.

The Almaden As we bumbled through what he calls “fields Reservoir in San Jose of death and sickness,” Murray pointed out (left); Murray the defects: “Look there, you see the yellow (right) burns on the leaves, the dead limbs sticking out? That’s stress from last year from giving JULY 1 1 , 201 5

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or discard overnight.” But he added optimistically, “This drought is a teachable moment. … California water is a model for much of the world.”

In 2012, when the drought first began, most Californians noticed the triple-digit heat wave without much alarm. They simply took more showers. Another dry year came, and the next.

In January 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a drought state of emergency and beseeched citizens to conserve water.

The government spent millions on raising public awareness.

Highway signs blinked in capital letters: “SERIOUS DROUGHT. HELP SAVE WATER.” Apparently, not enough took heed. Water conservation levels remained dismal. In April 2015, after surveying the lowest-on-record mountain snowpack that’s supposed to flow during the dry summer months, Brown ordered California’s first mandatory statewide 25 percent cut in urban water use.

Under threats of $10,000-per-day fines for noncompliance, urban water districts scrambled to devise carrot-and-stick measures to meet their assigned conservation standards.

Districts restricted lawn watering and hosing, and many cities joined Los Angeles in offering rebates to residents who install high-efficiency appliances or replace lawn grass with drought-tolerant landscaping.

By then, most Californians from middle-class suburban homeowners to inner-city apartment tenants had awakened to the realities of the drought. “Drought-shaming” became a word. Hawk-eyed Californians reported their car-hosing neighbors to water cops, media outlets villainized almond farmers (“one gallon of water per almond!”), and even celebrities apologized for their flowers and hedges.

“California will change as we know it,” said Mike Scott, a Los Angeles–based garden designer who’s seen an uptick in customers requesting drip irrigation in their gardens and droughttolerant plants in their uprooted lawns. “Green lush lawns that make your neighbors jealous will be a thing of the past.”

Gov. Brown has been prophesying that message for years before this drought, though today he’s more excited about

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them less water than they needed. They’ll be dead by fall. … And see those trees over there? Those are our Kitty Cot apricots— they were very popular at the farmers market, but we’re not going to have them this year. We turned their water off April 1.”

A month later, Murray let 50 more acres of his cherry trees wilt prematurely.

This drought isn’t California’s first dry spell, nor will it be the last. What’s significant about it, however, is that it dragged to the surface a long-existing water crisis, an untreated ulcer that tore and bled inside vital organs until one day, the state finally vomited blood—and even then, people are still quibbling about risk factors for surgery.

Since 1960, a period when California’s potential for expansion and prosperity seemed limitless, the state’s population has doubled to almost 40 million. Had state authorities and policymakers prepared for the continuously spiking water demands, they could have mitigated some of the drought effects. Most meaningful efforts, however, have been hampered by a combination of complicated factors—and politics, politics, politics.

“Water is politics,” said David Feldman, a social ecology professor and chairman of the Department of Planning, Policy and Design at UC Irvine. “In a democracy, that political process will be messy. Sure, water’s a basic need, but the way it’s managed is determined by power.”

“Messy” is an understatement. California’s water issues are so convoluted that even water professionals hold fragmented understandings and misperceptions—let alone ordinary people, who tend to oversimplify problems and demand silver-bullet fixes. The result is a courtroom circus: Bay Area liberals and environmentalists condemn Big Ag and big lawns for sucking up precious water; farmers and Republican legislators blame environmentalists for prizing fish over man; federal and state authorities point to man-made climate change; and fringe groups sniff out ways to tie the drought to pet agendas.

Nobody denies the need for long-term, sustainable water policy, but finger-pointing from all groups still blocks effective conversation. Politics complicates already complex challenges to solving the water crisis: highly variable water supply, arcane water laws and rights, aging infrastructure, stymied projects for new dams and canals, unfettered groundwater drilling, and inept water management.

“What we have now is a long tradition of California not being able to manage or solve a lot of our basic problems over water,” Feldman said. “It’s not something you can amend

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In April 2015, after surveying the lowest-onrecord mountain snowpack that’s supposed to flow during the dry summer months, Brown ordered California’s first mandatory statewide 25 percent cut in urban water use.

climate-change doomsaying than detailing how to deal with the water crisis. It’s a sharp divergence of philosophy from his father, Pat Brown, who served as governor in the 1960s.

The late Brown was a visionary during California’s boomboom era. During his aggressive, ambitious governorship, California erected the controversial State Water Project (SWP) to “correct an accident of people and geography,” as Brown Sr. described it. The project brought water from the north and other states to sunny central and Southern California, while also providing flood control, hydroelectricity generation, and recreation through its dams and reservoirs.

The SWP, together with the federal Central Valley Project and the Colorado River Aqueduct, became the backbone of California’s elaborate, sprawling water network, transforming its landscape and economy.

Then sometime around the 1970s, the environmental movement emerged, which dissolved the appetite for water projects. Political squabbles, environmentalist groups, and other special interests shot down plans for dams, canals, and reservoirs. Yet the people who canceled those projects didn’t prepare alternative plans to increase water supply for the ever-growing population.

This battle of man vs. nature culminates at the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the hub of California’s water distribution system and a rich habitat for more than 500 species of wildlife. Think of the Delta as a major valve that regulates, shuts, and controls the flow of the state’s surface water to two-thirds of all Californians and millions of acres of farmland. A failed Delta is like cutting off California’s bloodline—a catastrophe.

But the Delta is ailing. Its water quality is deteriorating due to salt5̀ water incursion, pesticide drainage, and industrial pollution. Its (1) A brown lawn in levees are aging. Bad water quality, Glendora, Calif. (2) A 2014 disrupted water flow direction, and photo shows Lake Oroville at 32 percent of its total other complex factors have dimin3,537,577 acre feet. (3) The ished certain native fish species, California State Capitol which environmentalists argue is Building. (4) Gov. Jerry an indicator of an unhealthy ecoBrown. (5) A plowedout vineyard near system. So they fought to save the Bakersfield, Calif. fish—at all costs, including science.

In 2007, a federal judge ordered severe restrictions in Delta water exports to farmlands, all to “improve conditions” for the delta smelt—tiny, inedible fish listed as “threatened” (not e­ ndangered) under the powerful Endangered Species Act. Unfortunately, this ruling coincided with a hydrologic drought. Not only did the regulation cause significant job and crop loss, “desirable fish” numbers didn’t even improve. Such environmental regulations will not abate even with the drought; early this month, the California State Water Board proposed a new emergency regulation that would implement strict water restrictions on residents along the Russian River region. The goal? To save water for Coho salmon and steelhead trout.

Most reasonable people agree the Delta needs immediate and comprehensive treatment that balances human water needs with environmental stewardship. Over the decades, politicians and interest groups have tried to reach some sort of JULY 1 1 , 201 5 W ORL D

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Workers drill for water for a farmer near Bakersfield, Calif.

compromise. The most recent: the $25 billion, Brown-endorsed Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which proposes reconstructing critical levees and building two new tunnels to convey water underneath or around the Delta. But legal, political, and regulatory challenges have consistently blocked any real action.

Kern County is a good microcosm for under-

standing California’s water issues.

Through the county runs its namesake Kern River, over which a legendary legal battle erupted in the 1880s, resulting in a water rights ruling that set precedent for water laws in the West. Today, the lower riverbanks are all dried up, while the upper river runs at 11 percent of ­normal—a historic low in 120 years of record-keeping. Because of old water rights, any meager trickle goes first to the water district up north with senior rights, leaving nothing for others who also depend on that water. Similar droughtheightened ­conflicts are ­happening all across the state.

Meanwhile, farmers without surface water supply are drilling deeper and deeper for groundwater, seeking ­immediate relief but risking long-term consequences: California’s groundwater, which takes decades to replenish, is depleting at an alarming rate. What’s more, excessive pumping has caused the lands above groundwater aquifers to sink, permanently reducing future storage capacity.

Last year, the governor signed into law an unprecedented three-bill package imposing new restrictions on groundwater pumping. It’ll take years before the law fully kicks in.

While some water professionals complain that this regulation is still too “laissez-faire,” farmers worry that without first addressing unreliable surface water supply, come next drought, they’ll be in a worse pickle. They know they can’t keep pumping forever, but what other alternatives do they have to save their livelihood?

Some environmentalists counter that intensive agriculture should never have been allowed in arid Central Valley.

Let nature return to what it’s meant to be, they say. They’re getting their wish: This year, about 564,000 acres of

previously lush, wildlife-sustaining farmland has returned back to pristine nature: Dust. Tumbleweed. Silence.

“These people don’t understand how important agriculture is, how far we’ve come,” groused John Moore, a fourth-­ generation potato, pistachio, and almond farmer in Arvin, Calif. “Most people just go down to the store and that’s where food originates for them. We were once proud of what we’ve done—we’re feeding the world, we made food less expensive.

Now, my daughter has to apologize for being a farmer.”

Anxiety and frustration levels are also high among state water contractors. I met with Kern County Water Agency ­general manager Jim Beck, a slight, solemn-faced man with encyclopedic knowledge about California water after managing water for 31 years.

His agency distributes SWP water to 14 water districts (primarily for agriculture) and operates the nation’s leading groundwater banking programs, which store water underground during wet years as a safety net for dry years. Banked water has buffered Kern County from the full brunt of the drought for the last three years, but not for long: Its groundwater levels have hit an all-time low.

That keeps Beck up at night, as do other impending “nightmares”: What if an earthquake destabilizes the Delta levees? How will that impact California’s economy, food prices, the national and global economy? Who will help save local jobs and communities?

In Kern County, where only 15 percent of residents have a college degree and 23 percent live below poverty levels, many are dependent on agriculture, not just for income but social mobility. Success stories abound here of someone starting out as a picker, then gradually working up to his own farm.

That American Dream is drying up. For 2015 alone, researchers expect a statewide economic loss of $2.7 billion and the loss of 18,600 jobs in agriculture due to the water shortage.

“These are real issues at stake,” Beck said. “Something is going to happen that will impact all of us—and it’s unavoidable.”

But he also made a remark repeated by others in the water world: “The good side about this crisis is that throughout my whole career, I’ve never heard so many people talk about the need for a long-term solution to the water crisis.”

drilling: David McNew/Get t y Images

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map: Richard Tinker • Bra zil : Agencia Estado via AP Images

This year, about 564,000 acres of previously lush, wildlife-sustaining farmland has returned back to pristine nature: Dust. Tumbleweed.

Silence.

That conversation is indeed buzzing, sprouting ideas both wacky and worthy. Some have suggested hauling an iceberg from the Arctic, while many economists advise establishing a water market that prices water properly. That way, water goes to those who value it most as opposed to those in power. The tradeoff, however, is that it’ll hurt the poor. And without even an adequate water infrastructure, no market exists.

Last November, Californians finally approved Prop 1, a $7.545 billion water bond measure that had been gridlocked in the legislature since its 2009 conception—until intensifying public interest in water issues pushed it to the ballot. The bill adopts a portfolio approach to addressing California’s multifaceted water issues: water quality, supply, and sustainability; environmental protection and restoration; and innovative technologies such as wastewater treatment and desalination plants.

Still, Prop 1 is no immediate fix, and water experts worry that should the drought end tomorrow, Californians will forget that water is a precious, scarce resource. “We take water for granted when we have enough of it, until a drought comes and everybody’s paying attention,” said Doug Parker, director of UC’s California Institute for Water Resources. “Then when we have wet days, everybody sort of returns back to what they used to do.”

A longtime advocate for a systematic plan that combines policy, technology, and conservation, Parker hopes this drought will strike a lasting reality check: “We’ve been seeing people not being flexible to compromise, just sticking to their one path. But fighting over it to the point where we don’t do anything will bring no good, either. … We need to stop thinking that we’re going to solve this problem in a way where everybody will be happy.” A

CALIFORNIA DROUGHT

DRILLING: DAVID MCNEW/GET T Y IMAGES

MAP: RICHARD TINKER • BRA ZIL : AGENCIA ESTADO VIA AP

JUNE 2015



Abnormally Dry



Moderate Drought



Severe Drought



Extreme Drought



Exceptional Drought

DRY BRAZIL Brazil contains the world’s largest rainforest, Andean glaciers, and more renewable water sources than any other country. It is also suff ering what environmentalists say is the country’s worst drought in 80 years. The three largest states of Brazil’s 28 face severe water shortages.

São Paulo is the name of both South America’s largest city and Brazil’s richest and most populous state. Last year the state government began draining reservoirs, and the main reservoir is now only 16 percent full. Officials recently warned the supply could run out before the next rainy season in November.

Part of the problem is man-made. Brazil spent funds to host the 2014 World Cup and next year’s Olympics that the country could have used to move water to cities. A June report by São Paulo’s Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry blamed the state’s water and waste management company (Sabesp) for the regional water shortage. More than a third of São Paulo’s water dripped out of leaky pipes last year between the treatment plant and customers’ houses, according to a study by water sanitation advocacy group Instituto Trata Brasil.

Another part of the problem, though, comes from trade-off s. Brazil’s food needs are great, and rising food prices create incentives to clear more land for agriculture and cattle pasture, but deforestation contributes to drought. Another trade-off : Some São Paulo residents are digging private wells and collecting rainwater, but water stored in open containers caused a tripling of dengue fever cases carried by mosquitoes that like stagnant water.

Investments to improve the water supply are belatedly coming: A $300 million government project will transfer water from the Paraíba River to São Paulo’s main reservoir system by 2016. The government also plans to connect existing dams in August, finishing in 2017. Individual behavior is changing. The São Paulo State Sanitation and Energy Regulatory Agency recently fined customers who increased their water consumption. Last year Sabesp gave water bill discounts to customers who reduced their usage. São Paulo resident Ligia Sonetti now reuses laundry water and takes short showers: “We never wash the cars anymore like we used to.” —Katlyn Babyak

SOURCE: NOA A/NWS/NCEP/CPC

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NOTEBOOK LIFESTYLE / TECHNOLOGY / SCIENCE / money / SPORTS / Research

LIFESTYLE

Art without compromise

marvin ol ask y

Texas professor uses his work to explore human nature by Susan Olasky

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Printmaker Tim High has been a ­professor at The University of Texas at Austin for almost 40 years, ever since the art department hired him as a 24-year-old with a newly minted Master of Fine Arts (MFA).

He says he’s “weathered a lot of storms” over the years, but he’s survived—and even won a teaching award—despite being a Christian. He often incorporates Christian themes into his work: Each piece in his 12-part “Vanity Fair” series of Prismacolor and enamel drawings depicts alluring carnival and midway backgrounds with people in the foreground going about their business, seemingly unaware of the danger.

High’s home studio in Austin bursts with stuff. Cabinets contain prints. Three guitars hang along a wall. Six papier-mâché Mardi Gras masks explore human nature. Half of each face shows the happy expectation of fulfilled desires—alcohol, luxury goods, celebrity. The other half shows the dark side of those desires.

High founded and leads the university’s printmaking program, but he doesn’t limit himself to prints. On one wall of his studio hang two rearing horse sculptures: a “Luciferian horse vs. the Christo horse.” A supine face looks up from the saddle of the faux-jeweled Luciferian horse, and the Holy Spirit in the guise of a dove with a jeweled eye sits on the Christ horse. High spent a year constructing the piece out of papiermâché: “I was thinking about the idea of warfare and the bloody reign of the Antichrist.”

The innovative artist uses Photoshop for some recent work and sometimes invents tools to create particular effects: For example, a wooden One of stylus shaved out from a golf High’s papiertee allows him to create tiny mâché dots that hold back color. He Mardi works slowly and has made Gras only 70 prints in his lifetime. masks

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NOTEBOOK

LIFESTYLE

High in his studio High’s uncompromising with the Luciferian art is hard to characterize horse sculpture on on the political spectrum. the wall behind him In “Feeding Frenzy III,” sharks circle naked swimming babies. The names and logos of big corporations and bad organizations—ABC, IBM, Planned Parenthood, a Nazi swastika, Hustler magazine— decorate the border. He explains: “I opted to ­represent us, the American consumer, as infants stripped bare of any privacy and propriety, in a sink or swim situation.”

High also plays guitar with a band, The Flight Risks, that performs old rock ’n’ roll classics at ­barbecues in his backyard. Most of the members are young, and High, 66, says he may have to quit “when we start smelling like old men.” He also knows that if he made prettier art, it would sell better, and says of another artist who sold out at a solo show, “That’s something I haven’t experienced.”

‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ In some cases, Jerram takes pianos from cities where old ones are common—London, for instance—to cities in other parts of the world where they are rare and expensive.

Melbourne, Australia, hosted the project in January 2014. There, other artists piggy-backed on it. One photographer did a timelapse video of the random people who played a particular piano.

Some musicians played at each of the 24 pianos placed throughout the city. Philanthropist Betty Amsden funded the Melbourne project: “I wanted to see people get together. I wanted people to connect with one another. I wanted people to talk to one another instead of playing with all these mechanical things that they have.

I wanted people to join in and feel part of a lovely program.” —S.O.

high: marvin ol ask y • piano: Ben Birchall/PA/ap

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11:04 AM

boy: Image Source/get t y images • food: FilippoBacci/istock

British artist Luke Jerram says he was sitting in a laundromat and noticed that no one was talking. That gave him an idea: Place a piano in the space to act “as a catalyst for conversation.” Since 2008, Jerram has placed more than 1,300 pianos in public places in cities throughout the world. Local organizers solicit donated pianos. Community groups design and paint them. On each is the invitation, “Play Me, I’m Yours.”

Jerram works with local arts organizations to place the ­pianos in parks and other public spaces for two to three weeks.

U.S. cities that have hosted the local artist-decorated pianos include Austin, Boston, New York, and Florence, S.C. When the project ends, the pianos go to local schools and organizations.

TECHNOLOGY Social dish We can’t yet capture the taste or texture of a wonderfully ­presented meal, but we can certainly take a photograph of it. As more and more restaurant diners use their smartphones and photo-based social media apps such as Instagram to post images of their favorite dishes, the trend is beginning to affect the way chefs market themselves and their creations.

“It’s all about exposure,” chef Dominique Crenn of Atelier Crenn in San Francisco told

Wired magazine. “Instagram came to give a voice to chefs

NOTEBOOK

Reading the signals

Facial recognition software may help hospitals monitor pain in children

by Michael Cochrane

and to the food they serve.”

Crenn, with more than 12,000 Instagram followers, knows social media can build a chef’s reputation and clientele.

And many chefs use Instagram

high: marvin ol ask y • piano: Ben Birchall/PA/ap

boy: Image Source/get t y images • food: FilippoBacci/istock

to gather ideas and learn from and be inspired by each other.

But bad cell phone pictures of a beautifully plated dish can be worse than a bad review. “It affects me when I see a bad review,” chef Ned Bell of the Four Seasons Hotel in Vancouver told Wired. “But it affects me more when someone takes a bad photo of my food. I worry about what my food looks like on the social media world.” —M.C.

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“Mommy, it hurts!”

The cry of a child in pain tugs at any parent or caregiver. In a hospital setting, the ability to assess a child’s level of pain is important for timely pain interventions as well as alerting medical staff to other potential problems. But accurately assessing a child’s pain level in a clinical environment is difficult.

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have tackled this problem by developing a method for measuring pediatric pain using facial recognition software, according to a report in UCSD News.

In a study published last month in the journal Pediatrics, the researchers took videos of 50 children who had undergone appendectomies. They used the software to analyze pain-related facial expressions, using

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clinical data to “train” the computer to associate certain expressions with levels of pain. The result is a tool that can continuously monitor a patient, providing accurate pain level scores.

“The current methods by which we analyze pain in kids are suboptimal,” senior author Dr. Jeannie Huang told UCSD News. “In this study, we developed and tested a new instrument, which allowed us to automatically assess pain in children in a clinical setting. We believe this technology, which enables continuous pain monitoring, can lead to better and more timely pain management.”

Hospitalized children are often too young to describe the intensity of their pain on the standard 0 to 10 scale. As a result, clinical pain assessments of children are often done by nursing staff with the assistance of parents. But

previous studies report that nursing staff often underestimate pain in pediatric patients. And parents, who are more likely to assess their child’s pain accurately, may not always be around.

Huang added that pain checks may not coincide with times when pain occurs and intervention is needed. Since the instrument is capable of “operating in real-time and continuously,” it can alert medical staff to instances of pain when they occur, noted Huang.

The researchers ­compared the computergenerated pain scores with child self-reporting and parent and nurse proxy pain estimations.

“The software demonstrated good-to-excellent accuracy in assessing pain conditions,” said Huang. “Overall, this technology performed equivalent to parents and better than nurses.” A J ULY 1 1 , 2 0 1 5 W ORLD

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SCIENCE

Brain cleaning

Ultrasound waves may restore memory by Julie Borg

them. But in patients with Alzheimer’s disease the protein fragments clump together between the nerve cells and form hard, sticky plaques that gum up brain functioning.

The researchers oscillated the ultrasound waves at high speeds in order to open temporarily the bloodbrain barrier, a layer of the brain that ­protects it from bacteria and toxins. Then they beamed the ultrasound waves into the brain tissue and ­activated the waste-

The hole story For over a century the holes in Swiss cheese have baffled scientists.

Not only were scientists at a loss to explain the presence of the holes, but they also could not explain why the cheese has fewer holes than in the past. Now, scientists in Switzerland have solved the mystery: The holes are caused by tiny bits of hay in the milk.

The researchers at Agroscope, a state center for agricultural research, noted that Swiss cheese has had fewer holes in the past 10 to 15 years as sealed milking machines have replaced open ­buckets and eliminated many hay particles in the milk. —J.B.

Concealed Connection Neuroscientists at the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine were shocked to discover a previously unknown direct connection between the brain and the immune system. Lymphatic vessels had eluded researchers by hiding behind a blood vessel that leads to the sinuses in an area of the brain that is difficult to image.

Although the scientists discovered this connection in the brains of mice, they believe the same anatomy exists in humans.

The lymphatic system transports lymph, a clear, colorless fluid containing white blood cells that helps rid the body of toxins. Scientists formerly believed lymphatic vessels did not go above the base of the skull.

Jonathan Kipnis, professor in the UVA department of neuroscience, believes the large chunks of protein found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients may accumulate because these vessels are not efficiently removing them.

The discovery, Kipnis told The Huffington Post, could have profound implications for the treatment of brain diseases such as autism, Alzheimer’s disease, and multiple sclerosis: “We believe that for every neurological disease that has an immune component to it, these vessels may play a major role.” —J.B.

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Brain: haydenbird/istock • Götz: universit y of queensl and • cheese: anna1311/istock • lymphatic system: SomkiatFakmee/istock

Australian researchers have developed a noninvasive, specifically focused type of ultrasound technology that, in preliminary animal studies, looks promising as a treatment method to restore lost memory function in Alzheimer’s patients.

Scientists have long known that a consistent feature of Alzheimer’s disease is the buildup of amyloid plaques in the brain. Amyloid is a general term for protein fragments that are normally produced in the body. A healthy brain breaks them down and eliminates

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removing microglial cells that removed the plaque buildup.

Seventy-five percent of the mice that received the treatment recovered full memory function, according to ScienceAlert, and the results did not show any damage to surrounding brain tissue.

The researchers believe the discovery could be a breakthrough in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicts 50 million people worldwide.

“The word ‘breakthrough’ is often misused, but in this case I think this really does fundamentally change our understanding of how to treat this disease, and I foresee a great future for this approach,” Jürgen Götz, research director for the Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research, said in a press release.

The researchers plan to begin running trials with larger animals, such as sheep, and hope to begin human trials in about two years.

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CREDIT

NOTEBOOK

MONEY

NOTEBOOK

Rescue rebuke

Court agrees the government went too far in its 2008 AIG bailout

by David Skeel

A federal judge recently handed down a very odd ruling in one of the few serious legal ­challenges to the massive bailouts of 2008 and 2009.

Shareholders of AIG, the giant insurance company that collapsed in September 2008, sued the U.S. government, arguing the government illegally took control of the company when it bailed out AIG. Judge Thomas C. Wheeler of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims agreed but said the shareholders were not entitled to recover any damages.

Usually when a judge issues a ruling like this—you win, but you don’t get anything—the judge is saying the person who sued is right as a matter of law but never should have sued. I think the message in this case is different. Wheeler’s opinion strongly and rightly criticizes the government’s ­conduct. He doesn’t seem to think the lawsuit was a mistake at all.

The supposed legal authority for the government’s $85 billion bailout of AIG was a provision that authorizes the Federal Reserve to make loans to troubled financial institutions under extraordinary

Brain: haydenbird/istock • Götz: universit y of queensl and • cheese: anna1311/istock • lymphatic system: SomkiatFakmee/istock

AIG: Shizuo K ambayashi/AP • Wheeler: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Get t y Images

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circumstances. The key word there is “loans.” The AIG bailout didn’t look like a loan at all. The government forced AIG to fork over new stock that gave the government 79.9 percent voting control of AIG in return for the $85 billion (later increased to $182 billion) that kept AIG afloat. This transaction shrank the old AIG shareholders’ interest down to 20.1 percent.

Prior to Wheeler’s ruling, courts had pretended that the government’s behavior during the crisis was ­perfectly legitimate. When Chrysler and General Motors were bailed out in bankruptcy in 2009, the judges insisted nothing was amiss, even though the Chrysler transaction violated basic bankruptcy principles. In an earlier challenge to the AIG bailout, a federal judge in New York suggested there was no credible basis for questioning the intervention. With Wheeler’s rebuke, a judge has finally acknowledged that the government abused the rule of law during the crisis.

The AIG shareholders won only a moral victory because Wheeler didn’t think the government’s

i­ llegal behavior made the shareholders worse off.

Without the bailout, AIG probably would have filed for bankruptcy, and Wheeler concluded the shareholders might have lost everything if AIG had not been bailed out.

Although Wheeler’s conclusion is defensible, I think he could have given the AIG

shareholders at least a portion of the more than $40 billion they asked for.

We can’t be absolutely sure the shareholders would have been wiped out in bankruptcy. And the government might not have been willing to let AIG fail, even if it had complied with the law.

Wheeler; an AIG office in Tokyo (top).

Unfortunately, Wheeler’s opinion won’t discourage the government from bailing out giant financial ­institutions in the future.

Some experts are calling for Congress to seize this opportunity to impose more oversight on the Fed. I don’t think it’s either desirable or possible to ban bailouts altogether, and the proposals for shackling the Fed in other ways seem misguided. Making bailouts less necessary is a more realistic goal.

Late last year, the House (but not the Senate) passed legislation to make bankruptcy laws better able to handle the bankruptcy of a large financial institution.

These changes might help to wean the Fed from its assumption that bailouts are the only option in a crisis.

Even if the AIG decision doesn’t spur Congress to action, at least one federal court was finally willing to admit that the government ran roughshod over the rule of law in 2008-2009.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward finding a solution. A J ULY 1 1 , 2 0 1 5 W ORLD

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NOTEBOOK

SPORTS Horsing grand slam?

American Pharoah won horse racing’s first Triple Crown in 37 years. But Belmont wasn’t the end for the colt, whose dominance and sociability endeared him to fans. If he continues to train and perform well, trainer Bob Baffert and owner Ahmed Zayat will race through the fall and end his career at the Oct. 31 Breeder’s Cup Classic. When it comes to prestige, the Lexington, Ky., Breeder’s Cup is next in line to the Triple Crown races. It didn’t start until 1984, so no horse has taken all four. Some say the “Grand Slam” era has begun. —A.B.

Athletes’ inaction

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antithesis of “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.”

It’s no coincidence, then, that Philippians 3 and other Scriptures mark the contemplations of many Christian athletes who focus on something higher than the self. “I think everything in life is spiritual, but I think running’s been especially spiritual for me,” said Sarah Kettel, a rising high-school senior who earned All-American status in less than two years as a homeschooled runner. “I’ve learned to trust in Him more … because ­running is hard” (see “Sarah’s gift,” May 30). Biblical passages for Kettel, particularly 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, are more than just ­clichéd motivators.

As in Hong Kong, the International Cycling Union can discourage selfie madness with carefully worded exhortations (though a new hazard, the selfie stick with an extended reach, emerged at the Giro d’Italia in May). But organizers and safety experts can’t touch the worldview contributing to fans’ and athletes’ focus, or lack thereof. A

The old college tries

Phi Slama Jama is back and ready for action.

College athletes can dunk all they please after the NCAA ended a ban during pregame and halftime warm-ups. The most significant changes to men’s college basketball, though, address a dip of five points per game as the game grew more physical. The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel on June 8 instituted a 30-second shot clock, down from 35. It’s the first reduction since 1993, when the shot clock fell from 45 seconds to 35. Referees may also penalize players who fake fouls (aka “flopping”). Coaches will be limited to three second-half time-outs and may not call one while the ball is in play. —A.B.

Marathon: Jason DeCrow/ap • American Pharoah: Al Bello/Get t y Images • shot clock: Doug Pensinger/Get t y Images

The early stages of July’s Tour de France will begin in the Netherlands—not England, like last year. Why? Partly because “thousands” of English, by some reports, were leaning or even stepping into streets last year, turning their backs to cyclists, and taking selfies. Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck needed surgery after a collision with a spectator.

Other cyclists took to Twitter to blast the “dangerous mix of ­vanity and stupidity.”

Cycling is by no means alone in having problems with selfie takers, and neither are athletes guiltless. Pride went before the fall in the 2013 Hong Kong Marathon, when many runners finished “bloodied and bruised” because of other runners abruptly stopping in front of them to take selfies. Some failed to finish this year’s Chongqing race on the mainland as hundreds of competitors clogged the route to grab pictures with a police officer who resembled a celebrity.

In other words, they stopped running the race. Down to the object of the gaze, it’s the

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11:31 AM

krieg barrie

The selfie craze invades sporting events by Andrew Branch

RESEARCH

NOTEBOOK

American views on Islam

Lifeway research conducted a phone survey of 1,000 Americans from Sept. 19 to Sept. 28, 2014 % % Not sure 13 23 Strongly Agree

Agree 18% Somewhat

% 25 Strongly

Disagree

Disagree 22 % Somewhat

Agree

Agree 16 % Somewhat

% 29 Strongly

Disagree

Disagree 23% Somewhat

‘Islam

is a threat to religious freedom in the U.S.’

R Southerners are more likely to agree (46 percent) than those from other regions

R Women (44 percent) are more likely than men (34 percent) to agree

R Northeasterners are less likely to agree (32 percent) than those from other regions

R Nonreligious (22 percent) are less likely than Christians (43 percent) and other religions (34 percent) to agree

R The 18-24 age group is less likely to agree (29 percent) than other age groups

R Those with a high-school degree or less are more likely to agree (47 percent) than those with other education levels

R The 65-plus age group is more likely to agree (51 percent) than other age groups R Catholics are less likely (38 percent) than Protestants (48 percent) to agree

R Whites are more likely (41 percent) than Hispanics (31 percent) to agree

R Evangelicals are likely to agree (53 ­percent vs. 34 percent)

krieg barrie

Marathon: Jason DeCrow/ap • American Pharoah: Al Bello/Get t y Images • shot clock: Doug Pensinger/Get t y Images

‘Islam

is a threat to religious freedom internationally.’

% % Not sure 9 23 Strongly

METHODOLOGY: RANDOM SAMPLE, WEIGHTED BY AGE, GENDER, REGION, ETHNICITY, AND EDUCATION. 95% CONFIDENCE THAT SAMPLING ERROR DOES NOT EXCEED +3.4%. MARGINS OF ERROR HIGHER IN SUBGROUPS.

LifeWayResearch.com

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6/22/15 10:51 AM

MAILBAG SEND LETTERS AND PHOTOS TO MAILBAG@WNG.ORG

M AY 30

‘The ones who stay’

g Some have written off Sandtown in Baltimore as millions of taxpayer dollars wasted. But as this piece described, many great things are happening amid the turmoil through the ministry of New Song and the work of Habitat. Most importantly, the redemption of souls by grace does more than any amount of money.

JOHN WYNN ON WNG.ORG

, The events of 2015 feel like an assault on my faith and core, so I was very thankful for WORLD’s return barrage of articles and columns in this issue.

upset Muslims and so endangered the lives of police officers and others. We must support free speech in a way that stresses the responsibility we as citizens have to regulate our speech.

ROB WORKMAN / GREENVILLE, S.C.

RANDON HOSELTON / NAPLES, N.Y.

‘No concessions’

g Is not an art exhibit that attempts to offend the very opposite of the Golden Rule? Just because someone legally can do something, such as hold an art exhibit to defame Muhammad, Christians shouldn’t necessarily support his right to do so.

Lusaka, Zambia submitted by Steve Slater

, I love it when WORLD takes a stand in the midst of moral confusion. It is so frightening that so many Americans have been bullied into discarding their First Amendment rights. Our selfcensorship now will hasten the demise of our Christian free-speech rights later.

JON KARN / MONTROSE, CALIF.

, Satirists have a legal right to insult Muslims or call a crucifix in a jar of urine “art,” but Christians have to be vocal in insisting that people have no moral right to abuse their freedom.

Our culture was once restrained by Judeo-Christian norms that would have made such insults unthinkable.

LINDA AMES NICOLOSI / ENCINO, CALIF.

‘The couple next door’

, Loving our homosexual neighbors means we care enough to tell them the truth; homosexuality is a sin and not God’s design for sexuality.

JEFF WILBARGER / TOLEDO, OHIO

THOMAS CACKLER ON WNG.ORG

g In a free society, a person has the right to offend my Lord and my faith, just as I have the right to declare my offense and defend that faith. I agree that an event designed to offend Muslims is not a strategy Christians should employ, but should Christians support the right of others to hold such an event? Absolutely.

DANA CELICH ON WNG.ORG

, Isn’t the real danger to free speech citizens who abuse that freedom? The cartoonists created an exposition to , Mail/email g Website

14 MAILBAG.indd 59

 Facebook  Twitter

JULY 1 1 , 201 5

WORLD

59

6/22/15 10:53 AM

MAILBAG

Christ-Centered Focus Pastors as Professors Faculty - Student Discipleship Local Church Driven Master of Divinity Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies • Pre-seminary • Women’s Ministries • Biblical Counseling

g Thank you, especially for the observation that the fact that other sins aren’t handled well doesn’t ­justify handling this one badly. That excuse makes no sense.

JOE BRUCE ON WNG.ORG

g I am so tired of Christians who celebrate their homosexuality and claim the Lord made them that way.

How do we feel about pedophiliac Christians saying they were born that way? We need to stop celebrating sin and surrender to the One who paid the price to make us whole.

SAM LOCHINGER ON WNG.ORG

‘Deathly fears’

710 Broadway St., Vallejo, CA 94590 (707) 645-1043 Visit us on campus or at TCBS.org

, I appreciated Marvin Olasky’s great column on fear of dying. I have worked in an intensive care unit for more than three decades and, having seen enough death for 30 lives, can state that people having faith in the Resurrection generally face death with much more calm. I have been awed at the grace and courage I have seen over these years. It has strengthened my faith immensely.

RICHARD HOTCHKISS / ST. LOUIS, MO.

Fe e

dT

heir Cur iosity, th.

B u il d Their Fai

If you have elementary age children, you know how challenging it can be to find tools that foster a love for learning and support your values. WORLDkids does just that, making it FUN for your kids to learn by exploring God’s world. With digital content featuring brilliant animation and engaging activities and bimonthly magazines full of fascinating stories and trustworthy messages, WORLDkids is sure to spark their interest and captivate their minds.

Get started today, go to kids.wng.org/purchase

g When we see Him face to face, those who have trusted in Him will be so satisfied to be in His presence that everything else will pale in comparison.

DAVID WALDRUP ON WNG.ORG

‘Taken by Raúl’

g It warms my heart and encour-

ages my faith to see Christ’s church in Cuba persevere, undeterred by sanctions and prejudice. I now know better how to pray for them.

JONATHAN WEDEL ON WNG.ORG

 Ah, the workers’ paradise. There is

no such thing as a vacuum. When Christianity and Jesus Christ are pushed aside, the empty space is filled by humanism, the worship of man with its church of public education and sacrament of bloody abortion.

JOHN & PAM DAY ON FACEBOOK

14 MAILBAG.indd 60

‘Cloudy forecasts’

, Thank you for this well-balanced column on the power of negative thinking. I often try to imagine a worst-case scenario and then ask myself, “Could I still trust God if this happened?”

JOSHUA BURBA / NASHVILLE, TENN.

g After several years when nothing went right, I learned that one cannot expect everything to go right no matter what one does. It’s a good lesson that God is sovereign. Things could go awry again and again, but He is in charge and I can trust Him. ANASTASIA MATHER ON WNG.ORG

‘Selling to shells’

g Wow! All I can do is shake my head! Who knew we would become the new Cayman Islands?

KRIS SMILKO ON WNG.ORG

‘Reaching up’

g You reported that after the Nepal earthquake an Indian official encouraged “a total legal ban on religious conversions during meetings with senior Nepali leaders.”

Good luck stopping the work of the Holy Spirit.

JAMES TEICHROEW ON WNG.ORG

‘Dire prediction’

g Our administration’s willingness to sacrifice Christian lives overseas should be beyond comprehension, but it is not. While turning a blind eye to the carnage overseas, it is systematically dismantling religious freedoms at home.

WALLY STANSBURY ON WNG.ORG

‘Far from the Madding Crowd’  Thomas Hardy always challenged the Victorian limitations on young women. It wasn’t modern feminism, but he showed in many books the second-class status of women and their plight to survive the “rules of the day.” I love this book and am sad that the movie won’t come to my area.

PAUL A PARMER SMITH ON FACEBOOK

6/24/15 10:37 AM

Bethany’s story:

‘Wayward shines’

College student

 Great news about this show. I saved this promising-looking TV series on DVR but was dreading that, as so often happens, I would have to delete them even before finishing the pilot because it was such utter rubbish.

Member for ten years Torn ACL & Meniscus

Go to: mysamaritanstory.org

LORI BAKER GALLOWAY ON FACEBOOK

‘Suicidal tendencies’

g Can an ailing, elderly person really offer anything in this life?

Absolutely! God has a history of using the weak, the broken, and the most unlikely to advance His kingdom. If God gives a cup full of pain and suffering, will we turn it away? We must serve Him faithfully until He calls us home.

KEVIN SKINNER ON WNG.ORG

M AY 16

‘Disorientation’

g Transgender issues are so con-

fusing but front and center this year. I have so many questions and am hungry for good answers that are compassionate but truthful. I am worried; will the Christian community be behind on this too?

ALICE KURIHARA ON WNG.ORG

Correction

The medical nonprofit group For Hearts and Souls opened and treated patients in a cath lab in Fallujah the Iraqi government had built (“In extremity, opportunity,” June 13, 2015).

LETTERS & PHOTOS , Email: mailbag@wng.org , Mail: WORLD Mailbag, PO Box 20002, Asheville, NC 28802-9998

Bethany “This is how God works! Just to show how mighty He is, He can use anybody. It can be just a normal person—like me!”

For more than twenty years, Samaritan Ministries’ members have been sharing one another’s medical needs, without using health insurance, through a Biblical model of community among believers. Samaritan members share directly with each other and do not share in abortions and other unbiblical practices.

• More than 47,000 families (over 156,000 individuals)* • Sharing over $13 million* in medical needs each month • The monthly share has never exceeded $405 for a family of any size*

g Website: wng.org  Facebook: facebook.com/ WORLD.magazine  Twitter: @WORLD_mag

Come see what our members are saying and start your own Samaritan story today at: mysamaritanstory.org

Please include full name and address. Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.

Biblical community applied to health care

samaritanministries.org 888.268.4377 facebook.com/samaritanministries twitter.com/samaritanmin * As of May 2015

14 MAILBAG.indd 61

6/22/15 10:55 AM

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6/22/15 10:59 AM

Andrée seu peterson

After we’ve blown it

Doing what is right after having done wrong In a Pennsylvania prison a young man I was visiting with his 9-year-old daughter N. spent a good amount of time hatching a surprise birthday with her for her mother. (This mother has since moved on in life with another man.)

The two were thick as thieves as they excitedly brainstormed possibilities. He had a friend on the outside who would do the leg work; money was no object; she should have fun with it.

On the day of the party, the balloons were delivered, the cake was bought, the presents were displayed—and the mom rejected the whole shebang, calling it manipulative and ­disrespectful of her current mate.

She was in error. I was there. I had been a witness to the plotters’ childlike glee and can attest it was no power play. This was a father bonding with his little girl, for her own delight as much as for Mom’s. No dark interpretation had occurred to him.

When news came to the inmate’s ears that plans had blown up in his face like an exploding birthday party horn in a Popeye cartoon, he was taken aback and felt the sting of the charge of “manipulation,” but he did not react out of his feelings. He decided he had no need to defend himself because he knew the truth (1 Corinthians 4:3). Though not a catechized man, he sensed that there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed (Luke 8:17). Though not a churchman, he intuited that “we can do nothing against the truth” (2 Corinthians 13:8).

Amazingly to me, he understood the wisdom of not pressing his innocence overmuch, reckoning that a person sitting in jail has a well-deserved image problem to overcome and cannot expect people to assume the best of motives. Without realizing it, he paraphrased a verse of Paul’s: “… though if I should wish to boast I would not be a fool, for I would be

krieg barrie

R

 aseupeterson@wng.org

14 SEU PETERSON.indd 63

There is doing things right the first time.

And then there is doing things right after you have done things wrong, which is still pretty good.

speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me” (2 Corinthians 12:6).

He chose to view the fiasco as a learning experience. He put himself in the other man’s shoes and saw the view from there. He realized, too, that this man was now a permanent factor in the situation, which called for wisdom. He explained to N.’s mom that he had acted in good faith, but that he was sorry nonetheless. He even wrote a letter to her man, understanding somehow that a soft answer turns away wrath (Proverbs 15:1).

There are two kinds of innocent actions in life, according to the Bible—­ primary and secondary. That is, there is doing things right the first time. And then there is doing things right after you have done things wrong, which is still pretty good (and which some people never do).

In other words, there is not sinning to begin with, which is better (1 John 2:1), and then there is repentance if you do sin (1 John 1:9). It is the response to rebuke after blowing it that is all-important.

In Corinth, the church had done something wrong and Paul had sternly rebuked them. At this point it could have gone either way. They could have been defensive and stiff-necked, or repented and made things right to the best of their ability. They chose the latter, and took steps to extricate themselves from their self-made mess in a thoughtful and godly way. The apostle commends them: “At every point you have proved yourself innocent in the matter” (2 Corinthians 7:11).

One thinks of the offender in Luke 16, who soberly grasps the seriousness of his guilty ­situation and shrewdly digs out of the hole he has dug, managing to impress even the Lord, who exclaims: “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light” (Luke 16:8).

Surely Wisdom cries aloud, “on the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town”—and in the prison too. “To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man” (Proverbs 8:1-4).

She speaks of grace for sinners, and of innocence before the Lord. And who does not need that? A J U L Y 1 1 , 2 0 1 5 WOR L D

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MARVIN OLASKY

Be on guard

watching for Signs that a church may be about to cave to gay pressures

64

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‘Welcoming people to sin —and twisting the meaning and purpose of church membership in the process— does not welcome anyone to Christ.’

—Rosaria Butterfield

Marc J. K awanishi/Genesis

When leaders of City Church in San Francisco (see p. 32) recently decided to offer membership to same-sex marriage partners, investment banker Liza Hing says “a lot of people in the church were totally blindsided.”

Others see such a change as inevitable. But that’s not the way it has to be, even at churches in cities with large gay populations. Redeemer Presbyterian Church Pastor Tim Keller has shown how to attract thousands of young New Yorkers while remaining biblically faithful.

The Acts 29 Network is also attracting many young Christians to the new churches it plants.

Its president, Matt Chandler, criticizes those who say, “Let’s soften the stances of the Bible in order to win people to Jesus.” He says, “It’s not just those issues that are offensive; it’s Jesus Himself. What goes out the window next is the atoning work of Jesus Christ.”

Chandler adds, “To back away from the teachings of Scripture around issues that our culture finds offensive is to wave the white flag on human flourishing. It is to say, ‘Our Creator God does not know what is best for His creation.

Creation knows what’s best, not the Creator.’

That’s madness.”

Nevertheless, pressures on pastors are likely to become even greater. How can church members—without roasting their pastors for Sunday dinner—take precautions against being blindsided?

Some basics: Take note of psychologese-filled sermons that speak only of God’s love and leave out God’s holiness. Be sensitive to family pressures affecting the judgment of pastors. Be wary when the words of trendy theologians show up in church bulletins.

Administratively, church members should be concerned if the pastor handpicks elders and deacons who are economically dependent on staying in his good graces. Members should critique opaque financial reporting and watch

R

for bylaw changes that centralize power. It’s a bad sign if those who leave are signing non­ disclosure agreements.

When a church sings the hymn “For All the Saints,” with its hope that “thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold, fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,” but avoids discussing current front-line issues, that’s also trouble. Jim Johns, owner of a San Francisco asset management firm, recalls at City Church “no discussion of gays as members.”

Recognizing how church leaders may be pressured to make ungodly accommodations to the gay lobby, church groups should discuss ways to respond and read solid exegetical books such as Kevin DeYoung’s What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? (Crossway, 2015).

Junior pastors committed to Scripture have to be bold and courageous. When the senior pastor of one church wanted to perform same-sex marriages and ordain gay ministers, he said members were free to disagree but tried to isolate them by refusing to hold public forums and purging his staff. A younger pastor raised a ruckus behind closed doors and eventually forced an open discussion that led to the senior pastor’s resignation.

Critical to all of this is thinking through what compassion means. Former lesbian Rosaria Butterfield (see “Journey of grace,” March 23, 2013) emailed me: “The idea that a church cannot be welcoming without being gay-affirming on membership issues runs exactly counter to my experience. … Welcoming people to sin—and twisting the meaning and purpose of church membership in the process—does not welcome anyone to Christ.

When my gay-affirming friends ask me why I do not support gay ‘marriage,’ I tell them that Christians are called to be good neighbors and good neighbors who never put a stumbling block between a fellow image bearer and the God who made us.”

Butterfield noted a critique from one of her readers who “said my orthodox Christian ­apologetics lacked ‘relevance’ to gay people.

This was someone that I know well, so I wrote back and said, ‘Hard is the new relevant.’” As Matt Chandler pointed out, it’s not cruel when Jesus points out sin: “That’s gracious. What would be cruel is if God went, ‘Do you know what? You’re right. That’s what you desire. Go.’” A

 molasky@wng.org  @MarvinOlasky

6/22/15 2:59 PM

EQUIPPING THE CHURCH ON BIBLICAL MANHOOD, WOMANHOOD, MARRIAGE, AND SEXUALITY.

Owen Strachan, Ph.D. PRESIDENT

Associate Professor of Christian Theology, Director of Center for Theology and Culture, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

The culture has shifted.

We’re not giving an inch.

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Ph.D. Candidate Church History and Systematic Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Research Professor, Theology and Biblical Studies, Phoenix Seminary

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President and Professor of Theology and Ed Young, Sr. Chair of Expository Preaching, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

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President, Cedarville University

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