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CONTENTS F E AT UR E S
34 It’s time we had a factbased conversation
COVER STORY With the nation facing trillions in unfunded liabilities for entitlements, freshman Republicans like Rep. Bill Huizenga say they’re ready to cast difficult but necessary votes and face the electoral consequences
40 Paycheck program
By encouraging work, the Earned Income Tax Credit is one form of social spending that many conservatives can support
43 Turning 65
JOHN PIPER: With work to be done, this is no time for &
44 Inside out
Missions agencies and churches wrestle with controversial Muslimfriendly translations of the Bible and fallout from “insider movement” tactics
DISPATCHES 5 News 14 Human Race 16 Quotables 18 Quick Takes
48 Counting the cost
Christians in one of China’s largest unregistered churches vow to continue Sunday worship despite intimidation from authorities and growing persecution nationwide
52 Streetcar democracy
Turkey is becoming a model to many in a transitioning Middle East— but that may not be as encouraging as it seems
23
56 Catching her wave
Soul Surfer portrays the comeback spirit and faith of shark attack survivor and champion surfer Bethany Hamilton ON THE COVER: Illustration by Krieg Barrie; Hamilton inset: Mike Coots
56
REVIEWS 23 Movies & TV 26 Books 28 Q&A 30 Music
64
NOTEBOOK 59 Lifestyle 61 Technology 62 Science 63 Houses of God 64 Sports 65 Money 66 Law 67 Religion
75
VOICES 3 Joel Belz 20 Janie B. Cheaney 32 Mindy Belz 71 Mailbag 75 Andrée Seu 76 Marvin Olasky
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“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.” —psa l m 24:1
EDITORIAL Editor in Chief Marvin Olasky Editor Mindy Belz Managing Editor Timothy Lamer News Editor Jamie Dean Senior Writers Janie B. Cheaney • Susan Olasky John Piper • Edward E. Plowman • Andrée Seu Cal Thomas • Gene Edward Veith • Lynn Vincent Reporters Emily Belz • Alisa Harris • Edward Lee Pitts Correspondents Megan Basham • Mark Bergin Anthony Bradley • Rebecca cusey • John Dawson Daniel James Devine • Paul Glader • Amy Henry Meghan Keane • Michael Leaser • Jill Nelson daniel olasky • Arsenio Orteza • Matthew P. Ristuccia Joseph Slife • alissa wilkinson Mailbag Editor Les Sillars Executive Assistant June McGraw Editorial Assistants Kristin Chapman • Katrina Gettman
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Joel Belz
In the clouds A pre-dawn plane ride is the latest lesson in the limits of federal government
KRIEG BARRIE
I
keep trying to put this out of my mind—but three weeks later, I can’t shake it off. My late evening flight from Charlotte to Asheville was already delayed because of “maintenance issues” at LaGuardia in New York. But the airline personnel said we’d take off at 12:15 a.m., and I’d be home by 1 a.m. The “issues,” though, proved to be more serious than they thought, forcing the airline to find alternate “equipment” which would depart, they said, a little after 1:00. Still better, I thought, than checking into a hotel and not getting home until lunch time tomorrow. It’s only a 22-minute flight from Charlotte to Asheville—which means it was a little ominous when after 45 minutes in the air we still hadn’t landed—and especially because we were circling through mountains. “We’re going to give you a little extra this morning,” the pilot finally explained. “I can’t seem to raise anybody at the Asheville tower—seems like they’ve gone home for the night—so we’re going on to the next nearest airport, which is Knoxville, Tenn.” The pilot’s announcement reminded me that just a few days earlier, a similar circumstance had troubled authorities responsible for Reagan airport in Washington, D.C., where two commercial airliners had landed late at night while a controller in the tower was catching a catnap. If it’s not too late now to make a long story short, I’ll report that we arrived safely in Knoxville sometime after 2 a.m., where a fleet of taxicabs eventually ferried us—on winding roads through the mountains—back to the Asheville airport about 6 a.m. The Asheville control tower had already been open for an hour for a new day’s business. “All’s well that ends well,” we’re told. Except. Except that some 40 passengers, and then their families, and then the general public who over the next several days heard
Email: jbelz@worldmag.com
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about this bizarre event, had to wrestle with a growing list of sobering questions. The Asheville tower, we learned, regularly closes at 11 p.m. It has done so for years—along with most control towers at all but the nation’s biggest airports. When the last controller left the tower, he’d apparently left one critical switch in the wrong position, making it too risky for us to land. Too bad. Nobody had his home phone number. Amazingly, everybody was at a loss for a backup plan. What was not lost on these 40 passengers was the keen sense that in yet another of its many, many assignments, the federal government was goofing up yet again. True, we were on a flight operated by a big private corporation. But the rules and procedures established for that flight come from the Federal Aviation Administration. And it just so happened that this was the third or fourth incident within a few days when FAA people had been—almost literally— asleep at the switch. Those lapses led last week to the resignation of a top FAA official and suspension for five air traffic controllers. So let me ask you: If you were sitting there in Seat 8F, descending through the clouds and the tops of the Great Smoky Mountains, would you be inclined to be praying that the folks who run Congress, the postal service, the nation’s public schools, the IRS, and Fannie Mae mortgage services would now guide you to a safe landing? And would you be thinking how spiffy it might be to add our nation’s medical care to the list of such a government’s existing assignments? Or might you join those of us who were standing in the dark at 3 a.m., waiting for a cab ride back through those same mountains, and thinking that there must be, somewhere, a better solution. A M ay 7, 2 0 1 1 W O R L D
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a s a l aw y er , a s a c h r ist i a n
you k now t h e
di sc i pli n e r equ i r e d to suc c e e d Bu t you desi re to ac c om p lish
som e t h i ng mor e l a st i ng. you’re not a lon e.
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Dispatches PLANNED PARENTHOOD: AARON M. SPRECHER /ICON SMI/EPA/LANDOV • KYL: SCOTT J. FERRELL/CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY/GETTY IMAGES
NEWS HUMAN RACE QUOTABLES QUICK TAKES
Just the facts NEWS: Jon Kyl famously misspeaks— but so does Planned Parenthood BY EDWARD LEE PITTS & EMILY BELZ in Washington
>>
R S. J K, speaking on the Senate floor April , claimed that abortions account for “well over percent of what Planned Parenthood does,” the backlash was swift and predictable. Planned Parenthood, fighting to keep open a federal funding stream that last year gave the organization more than million in taxpayer money, claimed abortion makes up only percent of its total services. After a Kyl spokesman tried to douse the firestorm by saying the Arizona senator’s remarks were “not intended to be a factual statement,” left-leaning critics, including comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, erupted in a chorus of derision. A Twitter account satirized Kyl by posting items about the retiring senator that were “not intended to be a factual
statement.” Kyl’s own Senate colleagues began mockingly using the phrase in their own Senate floor speeches. The reality is that Kyl misspoke—but Kyl’s misstatement seems to be more about what he left unsaid than what he proclaimed. A look at Planned Parenthood’s own numbers reveals that abortion makes up more than percent of the services the group provides to pregnant women. Earlier this year Planned Parenthood announced that in it had performed , abortions. That’s more than a quarter of all abortions performed nationwide and a . percent increase over the abortions it WHAT’S LEFT UNSAID?: performed in . Kyl; a Planned Planned Parenthood Parenthood also facility in provided prenatal Houston. M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
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WORLD
4/21/11 5:26 PM
Dispatches > News
LOOKING AHEAD
Elections in Canada
KJV Quadricentennial
Christians around the world will celebrate the th anniversary of the King James Bible on May (see “Royal treatment,” April , ), considered by many the most influential book ever to be published in English. Anglican priests and academics completed the translation, commissioned by England’s th-century king, over a period of seven years.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party will not likely win an outright majority on May in the nation’s fifth election since . And with the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party vying for leftwing votes, polling suggests the Canadian Tories will likely hold onto enough seats in parliament to form a minority government.
GOP debate
Republican presidential hopefuls will square off for debates sponsored by FOX News and the South Carolina Republican Party on May in Greenville, S.C. The debate may force yet-undeclared candidates like U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., off the fence.
Arab League summit?
Upset by Iraq’s Shiite leaders who criticized Bahrain’s Sunni government crackdown on protesters, Persian Gulf nations called for the cancellation of the Arab League summit set for May - in Baghdad—and succeeded in winning an indefinite postponement. “The general environment in the Arab world and the mood which is marred by tensions, vengeance, and human tragedies . . . does not allow for a productive meeting at this stage,” said Arab League President Amr Moussa, who himself is stepping down to run for Egypt’s presidency.
Kentucky Derby
Uncle Mo and Nehro will be there, and The Factor promises to be in the equation—but the th running of the Kentucky Derby does not seem to have a consensus favorite. The May event at Churchill Downs is the opening race of the Triple Crown.
MOTHERS DAY: ISTOCK • HARPER: GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • KING JAMES BIBLE: VICTOR CRISTALES/AP • BACHMANN: ALEX BRANDON/AP • KENTUCKY DERBY: MORRY GASH/AP
services to , women and referred adoption services to just . Adding the three pregnancy-related services together, Planned Parenthood provided abortions to . percent of its , pregnant clients in . How does the organization get its percent claim? One of the organization’s former clinic directors, Abby Johnson, recently wrote in The Hill that the claim is a gimmick. The group, she claims, skews its abortion numbers by “unbundling family planning services so that each patient shows anywhere from five to visits per appointment.” The secret that the organization doesn’t want you to know: The number of abortions it provides is going up while the number of prenatal services and adoption referrals are going down. For every adoption referral in , Planned Parenthood performed slightly more than abortions. Meanwhile, federal funding of Planned Parenthood, which Kyl and his fellow Republicans were trying to end, survived the negotiations over the budget. But pro-lifers succeeded in banning Medicaid funding for abortions in Washington, D.C., and the reaction was telling. On the eve of the mid-April spending deal, a local nonprofit, D.C. Abortion Fund, sent out a fundraising appeal for women who had abortions scheduled for the next day on the taxpayers’ dime. “We never want to turn a single woman away—and now these women need us,” the fundraising alert read. “Your contribution will go to help pay for abortions that D.C. Medicaid will no longer cover.” The popular local blog DCist also broadcast the appeal, and the drive netted ,, enough for the abortions. Or, as DCist put it afterward, the donations “enabled all women to make their appointments.” Congressional Democrats had lifted the ban on D.C. funds for abortion in , funds the district began spending last August. The city has paid for abortions since last August, totaling about ,, according to The Washington Post. One of the three organizations the city contracts with for abortions hadn’t submitted its bills yet. A
Mother’s Day
West Virginia in was the first U.S. state officially to recognize Mother’s Day, and the federal government followed suit in . This year Mother’s Day falls on May .
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“Covenant provided
the foundation I wanted and needed to set out in the professional marketplace.”
in all things christ preeminent
Tr ip Fa r mer ’ 96 is a CPA a nd a pa r t ner w it h t he publ ic accou nt i ng f i r m Henderson, Hutcherson & McCu l lough, where he super v ises consu lt i ng engagements in the construction, real estate, health care, manufacturing, and service industries.
At Covenant, we equip our students to live out extraordinary callings in ordinary places. We teach students to engage culture and cultures, to examine and unfold creation, and to pursue biblical justice and mercy.
“Covenant helped me learn how to learn, how to assess and be critical of ideas and concepts, how to ask questions and be engaged,” he says. “It provided me the foundation I wanted and needed to set out in the professional marketplace.
Are you eager to grapple with difficult questions in pursuit of God’s calling as He redeems all things through Christ? We invite you to visit us.
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“The joke back home is that I left high school as a shy, quiet, studious kid, but I left Covenant as an outgoing, adventurous, active learner who wants to make a difference. I learned that ideas are not neutral— they have consequences. Covenant’s appeal is not just its kingdom-mindedness, which is foundational; it is also its understanding that the kingdom impacts every community, every profession, and every idea.”
Call 888.451.2683 or visit covenant.edu.
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Dispatches > News
Local connections ›
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LIBYAN SLAUGHTER
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MORI: GREG THOMPSON/GENESIS PHOTOS • MISRATA: ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • NIGERIA: SEYLLOU DIALLO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Nearly two months after fighting erupted in Libya, the western town of Misrata became a centerpiece of the bloody battle in mid-April. Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi bombarded the strategic rebel stronghold with rocket launchers and cluster munitions. Close-hand combat also resulted in the death of civilians, including American photographer Chris Hondros and British born Tim Hetherington, who directed the Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo. The International Organization for Migration () managed to evacuate several thousand migrant workers by boat, but the rescue was limited: workers transported the migrants to Benghazi, another Libyan city. From camps in the rebel-held Benghazi, evacuees described mass civilian murders, corpses piling up in the streets, and little food and water left for survivors. workers said they would try to evacuate more of the , migrants camped in the open near Misrata’s port, but the worsening violence was closing the window for rescues.
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4/21/11 5:06 PM
Dispatches > News
Motherhood 2011 As Mother’s Day (kids, it’s May 8) approaches, motherhood in the United States continues to change. While fewer women are having children, a larger number of children are living with single mothers.
82 percent Percentage of women 40 to 44 who had given birth as of 2008. In 1976, 90 percent of women in that age group had given birth Number of births in the past year per 1,000 women 15 to 50 with a graduate or professional degree. These women have a higher fertility rate than those with any other level of education
9.9 million
Number of single mothers living with children younger than 18 in 2010, up from 3.4 million in 1970
5.6 million Number of custodial mothers who were due child support in 2007 Of the 4 million women 15 to 44 years old who had a birth in the last year, 1.5 million (38 percent) were to women who were not married, separated, or married but with an absent spouse. Of those 1.5 million mothers, 425,000 were living with a cohabiting partner
32.6 Number of twin births per 1,000 total births in 2008, the highest rate on record Sources: Census Bureau; National Center for Health Statistics
Jailed Afghan Christian Shoaib Assadullah has been released and has fled Afghanistan. Authorities in Mazar-e-Sharif arrested the 23-year-old Muslim convert last October for giving a Bible to a man who reported him. Like others imprisoned by Afghan officials recently, he was promised legal representation and a court trial, but those were repeatedly denied him. While jailed he was also beaten— and at one point hospitalized. His release came after Western pressure on the Karzai government—but not before his mother, who was ill, had died. From prison Assadullah said, “I am not afraid to die for Jesus but if I die now, I will get to heaven and there won’t be many Afghans.” WORLD learned of Assadullah’s release in March but agreed not to publish it until he received a passport allowing him to leave Afghanistan.
MOTHER: Evelin Elmest/ISTOCK • assadullah: international christian concern • prayer: Jennifer Whitney/San Antonio Express-News/ap CREDIT
38 percent
Afghan freed
Prayer day preserved Secularists can’t challenge the National Day of Prayer, a federal court ruled on April 14. The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) challenged the practice, a tradition since the nation’s founding, claiming the statute violated the Constitution by establishing religion. Last April, District Court Judge Barbara Crabb declared the day of prayer unconstitutional. But the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals now says that the plaintiffs have not suffered injury, a requirement for challenging the statute, since it “imposes duties on the president,” not the plaintiffs: “If anyone suffers injury, therefore, that person is the President, who is not complaining.” It does not hurt the plaintiffs to hear the president request they give thanks, the court said: “The President has made a request; he has not issued a command.” FfRF plans to request that the court rehear the case with its full panel of judges.
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Arturo Rodriguez/ap
71
SPAIN MANAGEMENT: A pro-life rally in Madrid on March , .
Signs of life
A small conservative movement in Spain gains new ground BY WARREN COLE SMITH in Madrid
ARTURO RODRIGUEZ/AP
>>
you would expect to find much of a conservative movement. The country’s president, Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero, leads the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, which is—if you are a conservative—as bad as it sounds. His administration, which began in , has legalized same-sex marriage, made abortion more accessible, and negotiated with terrorist organizations. But even the easy-going Spanish people have had enough. Unemployment in Spain is above percent and Spain’s national debt puts the country in danger of default. This bad news has been a boon to Spain’s tiny but growing conservative movement. “The people of Spain are more conservative than its leaders,” said Elio Gallego Garcia, the director of the Institute of Studies of the Family. “We just need to give the people a voice.” There’s evidence that is happening. A pro-life rally in , organized mostly by Spain’s conservative groups, attracted more than million people to the streets of Madrid. “That event was
important,” said Lola Velarde, president of the European Network for the Institute for Family Policies, based in Madrid. “It showed what is possible if we work together.” Indeed, in recent years, a variety of conservative and pro-family organizations have gained strength. Leonor Tamayo is in charge of international outreach for Profesionales por la Etica, a group that has helped bring more than , complaints before the European Court of Human Rights. The complaints assert that a required subject in schools, Education for Citizenship, subverts the right of parents to educate their children according to their own convictions. The complaints are meeting with mixed results. Nonetheless, Tamayo says that “the important thing is the coordination” between the more than parents organizations throughout the country. The complaints have also kept the issue in the Spanish news. Conservatives in Spain have few of their own media outlets, though that is changing. A conservative weekly
newspaper, Alba (“Dawn”), has a circulation of ,. It is owned by Grupo Intereconomia, a conservative media group founded in , which now has a presence in both radio and television. As for conservative book publishers, one of the few recent efforts has been by the conservative group HazteOir.org, which published the book The Zapatero Project: Chronicle of an Attack on Society. More than , copies have been distributed to conservatives and to the media. But the conservative movement labors under the burden of history. Dictator Francisco Franco ruled Spain for much of the th century, and his strong ties to the Catholic Church hurt the church’s credibility and—by extension—the church’s pro-family and pro-life stands. Also, Spain has been a democracy only since , so civic institutions and a tradition of volunteerism and political activism are almost nonexistent. There’s nothing equivalent to the Tea Party movement, for example. And Protestant evangelicals, who provide an active base for the prolife and pro-family movement in the United States, make up less than percent of Spain’s million people. Many of them are immigrants from Latin America, so evangelical Christianity is often discounted as a foreign religion. Nonetheless, many believe the conservative movement will be able to produce electoral success in . Zapatero has already said he will not stand for reelection. The center-right Popular Party gained seats in the national parliament in the last election. It currently stands at about seats, and needs only for an outright majority. Of course, as the Popular Party has become more, well, popular, it has become more “center than right,” said Garcia. Nonetheless, he said, “We believe that we are at a point where things can only get better. We are gaining strength at every level. We have hope.” A M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
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WORLD
4/21/11 4:21 PM
Dispatches > News
Carolina blues
Power art
Capital of the Confederacy takes on Picasso What’s a conservative city like Richmond, Va., doing with an avant-garde exhibition on Pablo Picasso? For one thing, making a lot of money with it. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is the only East Coast venue for a rare show on the most influential painter of the th century. “Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée Picasso, Paris” is making a seven-city international tour while the collection’s home in France is under renovation. One of the most comprehensive collections from the artist’s -year career, it includes works from his personal collection—paintings, sculptures, and other work Picasso considered too valuable to let go. I’m no Picasso fan but I’m glad I went (at the urging of several readers). I came away with a stronger appreciation of Picasso’s role as a modern painter who ushered in the postmodern obsession with the carnal and the material. I learned Picasso’s cubist work was not abstract but “starting from reality,” as he said, an effort to capture three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional surface. “Masterpieces”—composed as it is of the artist’s own photography, sketch work, notes, sculpture, and paintings that range from the realistic Celestina () to the geometric Jacqueline with Crossed Hands ()—captures a kind of hyper-realism: art less as aesthetic than, as Picasso said, “a form of magic designed as mediator between the strange, hostile world and us.” But making a sell of museum tickets while multiplexes charging half that much sit empty? “Masterpieces” has played to sell-out crowds in Seattle and Richmond and is sure to do so as it travels on in late May to San Francisco before heading overseas. In Richmond the museum sold , tickets the first month of the exhibition—plus a record , memberships—and as in Seattle accommodating crowds forced it to extend weekend hours. Out-of-town visitors taking advantage of hotel packages that include entrance to the show are dropping additional revenue on the city—a lesson in the power of fine art for other cities pulling through economic doldrums.
TORNADO: JIM R. BOUNDS/AP • TORNADO INSET: SHAWN ROCCO/THE NEWS & OBSERVER/AP • PICASSO: P. KEVIN MORLEY/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH/AP CREDIT
A powerful set of storms killed at least people in six southern states over a single April weekend, but the worst damage hit one state: North Carolina. Meteorologists said the storms spawned tornadoes there on April . The state usually averages in an entire year. The twisters killed at least people in North Carolina and damaged or destroyed more than homes. Dramatic accounts included a -month-old baby boy surviving after the winds ripped him from a relative’s arms. Heartbreaking reports included four children—ages months to years—dying after a tree crushed their mobile home. Relief groups dispatched cleanup crews to the area, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association sent a team of chaplains. It’s the second time the group’s chaplains have visited Bertie County in seven months: Last October, Tropical Storm Nicole wreaked havoc in the rural community. “All of us have been stunned at how quickly homes, possessions, businesses, and—most tragically—precious lives have been lost,” said vice president Preston Parrish. “In the blink of an eye, so many people have been plunged into grief and crisis.”
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The
Households Of Strength
Seminar
“DoH a rdTh i ng sTog e th e rWi thFam i l y&Frie nd s” TORNADO: JIM R. BOUNDS/AP • TORNADO INSET: SHAWN ROCCO/THE NEWS & OBSERVER/AP • PICASSO: P. KEVIN MORLEY/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH/AP CREDIT
Featuring Gregg Harris, father, pastor, conference speaker & author
Isaac (age 16)
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Sarah (19)
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HeavenIf God is Good
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4/21/11 12:23 PM
Dispatches > Human Race An appeals court ruled April that the University of North Carolina– Wilmington unconstitutionally denied a professor a promotion because he writes a syndicated column from a conservative political perspective. Although a lower court had ruled that Mike Adams’ writings were not protected by the First Amendment because they could be considered part of his professional duties, the appeals court said, “No individual loses his ability to speak as a private citizen by virtue of public employment.” The case now returns to court to determine whether the university discriminated against Adams.
DISCLOSED Now-retired Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who last August struck down California’s voterapproved marriage amendment, has announced he is gay but insists his sexuality was not relevant to his landmark decision. Proposition supporters disagree, saying Walker, who is in a homosexual relationship, should have recused himself from the case since he could benefit from a ruling in favor of gay marriage.
CREDITED Many adoptive families will be getting a surprise this year from Uncle Sam: really big refund checks. David and Thelma Ward, who have adopted five children over the past few years, earned a , refund because the federal adoption tax credit is refundable for the first time this year. In past years, the onetime tax credit of up to , per child traditionally only offset any owed taxes, with any remaining credits rolling over to the next tax year. But now that the credit is refundable, families like the Wards will get their accumulated credits in one lump sum.
CONVICTED A federal jury convicted former outfielder Barry Bonds, , of obstruction of justice on April but failed to reach a verdict on whether he lied under oath about using steroids during his career. Bonds, who hit the most home runs in Major League Baseball history, was the th individual to be convicted or plead guilty in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative () steroids ring case.
RETIRING David Noebel in October will retire as president of Summit Ministries. The new head will be Jeff Myers, who is currently chairman of Summit and the president of Passing the Baton International.
PROFESSED Real estate mogul Donald Trump, , said in a recent interview with the Christian Broadcast Network that he is a Christian: “I believe in God. . . . I think the Bible is certainly, it is book.” Trump, who is eying a potential presidential run and would need to court evangelical voters, also said he goes to church “as much as I can. Always on Christmas. Always on Easter. Always when there’s a major occasion. And during the Sundays. I’m a Sunday church person. I’ll go when I can.”
policies. Kmiec’s support for the pro-abortion Obama campaign in greatly surprised many of his fellow pro-life activists.
DIED RESIGNED U.S. Ambassador to Malta Kmiec, a prominent Douglas Kmiec conservative Catholic supporter of President Obama’s candidacy, resigned his position after a report by the Office of the Inspector General criticized him for focusing too much time and resources on religious writing instead of diplomacy. Kmiec said the report showed “hostility to expressions of faith” and that inspectors disagreed with Obama’s interfaith
Walter Breuning, the world’s oldest man, died April at the age of . Breuning believed the secret to his longevity was eating only two meals a day, working as long as he could, helping others, and always embracing change.
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DECIDED
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Taught by Professor Jennifer Paxton
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The Story of Medieval England: From King Arthur to the Tudor Conquest
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Discover the True Story of Medieval England While many of us search for the roots of our world in the contributions of modern England, it’s the medieval history of this country where our search must begin. Understanding this era is key to understanding many of the social, political, and cultural legacies that enrich the 21st century. The Story of Medieval England: From King Arthur to the Tudor Conquest tells the remarkable drama of a tumultuous thousand-year period in English history; one dominated by war, conquest, and the struggle to balance the stability of royal power with the rights of the governed. Delivered by distinguished scholar and award-winning Professor Jennifer Paxton, these 36 lectures feature a level of detail and attention that offers fresh insights into medieval England: its rulers and subjects, its times of war and peace, its literature and legends, and much more.
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lecture titles 1. From Britannia to Britain 2. Roman Britain and the Origins of King Arthur 3. The Early Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms 4. The Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons 5. Work and Faith in Anglo-Saxon England 6. The Viking Invasions 7. Alfred the Great 8. The Government of Anglo-Saxon England 9. The Golden Age of the Anglo-Saxons 10. The Second Viking Conquest 11. The Norman Conquest 12. The Reign of William the Conqueror 13. Conflict and Assimilation 14. Henry I—The Lion of Justice 15. The Anarchy of Stephen’s Reign 16. Henry II—Law and Order 17. Henry II—The Expansion of Empire 18. Courtly Love 19 Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade 20. King John and the Magna Carta 21. Daily Life in the 13th Century 22. The Disastrous Reign of Henry III 23. The Conquests of Edward I 24. Edward II—Defeat and Deposition 25. Edward III and the Hundred Years’ War 26. The Flowering of Chivalry 27. The Black Death 28. The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 29. Chaucer and the Rise of English 30. The Deposition of Richard II 31. Daily Life in the 15th Century 32. Henry V and the Victory at Agincourt 33. Henry VI—Defeat and Division 34. The Wars of the Roses 35. Richard III—Betrayal and Defeat 36. England in 1485
The Story of Medieval England: From King Arthur to the Tudor Conquest Course no. 8410 | 36 lectures (30 minutes/lecture)
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4/18/11 10:23 AM
Dispatches > Quotables “They will not preach what they practice.” Author CHARLES MURRAY, in a lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, on “the new upper class and the upper middle class.” Murray said the members of these classes “are behaving in all the right ways. They’re getting married, they’re working hard. . . . They’re doing all the right stuff [but] they won’t dare say: ‘This is the way people ought to be.’”
“Two plus two is four. Never five, much less six or seven, as we have sometimes pretended.”
“All I wanted was the chance to walk where Jesus did here in Israel.” Teen idol JUSTIN BIEBER, complaining via Twitter about paparazzi who dogged him while sightseeing ahead of a Tel Aviv concert.
RAUL CASTRO, president of Cuba, in mid-April at the Cuban Communist Party’s first Congress in years. “No country or person,” said Fidel Castro’s brother, “can spend more than they have.”
“There is a limit to what can be achieved by airpower to stop fighting in a city.” Dutch Brigadier General MARK VAN UHM, chief of operations in Libya, on the challenge of protecting citizens in Misrata, Libya, which Muammar Gaddafi’s forces have been attacking aggressively (see p. ).
BIEBER: MARC PIASECKI/GETTY IMAGES • MURRAY: ONY CENICOLA/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX • CASTRO: JAVIER GALEANO/AP • VAN UHM: OLIVIER CREDITHOSLET/EPA/LANDOV
Atheist author CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, writing on the th anniversary of the King James Bible. “To suggest that Saint Paul, of all people, was gender-neutral,” Hitchens added, “is to re-write the history as well as to rinse out the prose.”
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“A culture that does not possess this common store of image and allegory will be a perilously thin one. To seek restlessly to update it or make it ‘relevant’ is to miss the point, like yearning for a hip-hop Shakespeare.”
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Dispatches > Quick Takes ���� �����
One contestant in the field of thousands of students entered into the Zaner-Bloser National Handwriting Contest stands out, not just because of his penmanship, but because of what he doesn’t have: hands. Born without hands or forearms, fifth-grader Nick Maxim of Maine has managed to work up a technique of using a pen squeezed between his two undeveloped appendages to cross his Ts just as well as the nation’s finest handwriters. “No matter what it is, if he wants to do something, he puts his mind to it and keeps working on it until he gets it the way he wants it,â€? the boy’s father told Portland’s ď?ˇď?ď?´ď?ˇ. So impressed were the contest judges that they created a new trophy in Nick’s name for excellent handwriters with disabilities.
The first few times, Stanislaw Jarmolowicz of Loma Rica, Calif., asked politely. But after a while, he just grabbed his shotgun. Jarmolowicz reportedly blasted away his son’s stereo system after the ďœ˛ďœ´-year-old would not turn the volume down. Yuba County Sheriff’s Department records indicate that Jarmolowicz
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MAXIM: ANDY MOLLOY/THE KENNEBEC JOURNAL/AP •ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • JARMOLOWICZ: HANDOUT • TEXAS: DAVID R. FRAZIER/DANITA DELIMONT/NEWSCOM CREDIT
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Chiding San Francisco for allowing a part of their city to be named after the “flesh of an abused animal,â€? the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals dispatched a letter to San Francisco mayor Edwin Lee urging the city to rename its Tenderloin District to something more vegan. “The city deserves a neighborhood named after a delicious crueltyfree food instead,â€? wrote Tracy Reiman, a ď?°ď?Ľď?´ď?Ą executive vice president. In its place, Reiman suggested the city change the name of the neighborhood to the Tempeh District, paying homage to the soybean-based meat replacement popular in vegan cuisine.
A Scottish ne’er-do-well found himself in a tight spot when a deadline to pay a court-imposed fine for assault was approaching. Without a job, Sean Collins decided to rob a Glasgow bank to pay his court fine. The ďœ˛ďœ¸-year-old approached the teller window with a tuna can filled with modeling clay and wires and told the woman behind the counter to hand over cash else he would detonate his lookalike bomb. But Collins’ plan to commit criminal activity to pay off fines resulting from other criminal activity was foiled. A nearby shoppingcenter camera caught him on video as he walked into a restroom to change clothes.
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complained to his live-in son about the volume of his music on April ďœ´. And after his son apparently refused to turn down the stereo, the elder Jarmolowicz warned his son to step aside and fired his shotgun into the young man’s speakers. Sheriff’s deputies arrested Jarmolowicz but released him after his son indicated he didn’t feel threatened by the episode.
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It’s said that everything’s bigger in Texas—and very soon speed limits might be too. State lawmakers are considering raising some speed limits on West Texas interstate highways to ďœ¸ďœľ miles an hour for the hundreds of miles of flat, straight highways crisscrossing the state’s arid west. If the bill, which has passed Texas’ House of Representatives, becomes a law, Texas will have the nation’s highest speed limits.
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ANTHONY: JUDY FITZPATRICK/AP • RAFT: LISA HOERLER/SIPA/NEWSCOM • MUSTANG: HANDOUT • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • STATUE OF LIBERTY: RICHARD DREW/AP • STAMP: USPS/AP CREDIT
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MAXIM: ANDY MOLLOY/THE KENNEBEC JOURNAL/AP •ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • JARMOLOWICZ: HANDOUT • TEXAS: DAVID R. FRAZIER/DANITA DELIMONT/NEWSCOM CREDIT
ANTHONY: JUDY FITZPATRICK/AP • RAFT: LISA HOERLER/SIPA/NEWSCOM • MUSTANG: HANDOUT • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • STATUE OF LIBERTY: RICHARD DREW/AP • STAMP: USPS/AP CREDIT
When British pensioner Anthony Smith thought of his golden years of retirement, he only had one goal: to fulfill his childhood dream and sail across the Atlantic— on a raft. The -year-old Briton completed his unlikely voyage in April when he sailed his -foot raft into St. Maarten after days at sea. Making a speed of just knots, the raft crept across the Atlantic toward its intended target of the Bahamas, but strong winds blew the raft and its four-person crew off course. Despite landing several hundred miles off course, Smith considered the voyage a success. “Yes, of course it’s a success,” Smith said. “How many people do you know who have rafted across the Atlantic? . . . The word mutiny was only spoken about two or three times a day.”
Bill Fair can only wish it were his garage he was cleaning out. Hired by the Texas attorney general’s office to clean out a storage unit after a judgment against the building’s owner, the Lecompton, Kan., man made an incredible discovery. Under piles of junk, Fair discovered a classic Shelby Mustang—one of only , ever made. Encased in rubbish for perhaps decades, the vintage sports car was pristine, according to Fair. After he reported the discovery to the Texas attorney general’s office, the car was quickly towed to Texas, where state officials hope to auction it off for around ,.
The Postal Service was hoping to honor Lady Liberty; instead it honored Lady Luck. After printing billion copies of a new postage stamp bearing the image of the Statue of Liberty, the Postal Service learned from a keenedeyed collector that it had made a mistake. The image on the stamp was not of the real statue but of a fiberglass and Styrofoam replica outside the New York-New York Hotel, a Las Vegas casino. The Postal Service said it regrets the error but has no plans to issue a recall. The casino is thrilled: “Regardless of how it came about,” said company spokeswoman Yvette Monet, “New York-New York is honored to be the first Las Vegas casino resort to be on a U.S. stamp.”
What would you do if you just inherited a pizzeria from an uncle? That’s the question that German automaker Volkswagen would like to ask you before hiring you to work for them. According to career advice website Glassdoor.com, companies are increasingly asking job candidates bizarre questions in an attempt to pare down an ever more competitive group of potential employees. Some of the odder interview questions included: E “What is the philosophy of martial arts?” —Aflac E “If you had , participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?” —Amazon E “How do you weigh an elephant without using a weigh machine?” — E “How many basketballs can you fit in this room?” —Google E “If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?” —Goldman Sachs M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
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4/21/11 8:24 AM
Janie B. Cheaney
A NATION OF TERRYS
Slacker descendants of the postwar middle class are depleting America’s social capital
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’ T. He’s your cousin, your uncle, or your brother-in-law. He graduated from high school sometime between and , may have attended a year of college, worked a few jobs (but none for long), married once or twice, fathered a few kids, in or out of wedlock—and failed to establish a forward motion in life. “Terry just can’t seem to get it together,” his mother says from time to time. “Terry’s a loser,” is the judgment of his former friends. Terry is often a nice guy: friendly and personable, a fixture at family gatherings and occasional sender of Christmas cards. Unless he’s living with you, which he might be because he doesn’t make enough money to pay the rent, much less buy a home. Drugs or alcohol are part of his problem but not, you suspect, the cause of it. And what is that cause? It’s hard to say. For whatever reason, Terry just can’t function as a fully responsible adult. Teresa also can’t seem to get it together, but she must assume some responsibility for her fatherless children. She wants the best for her kids, of course, but seems unable to provide or even encourage those things, and her children are caught in the same downward spiral. Her only outside involvement is with a loose network of relatives, friends, and non-permanent associations: no commitment to a cause or church, no long-range plans because it’s all she can do to live day to day. Rootless men and single moms have always existed in American society, but not in such numbers. From my own limited observation, it seems there was a break around between young adults who married, started careers, and raised families, and their younger siblings who couldn’t stay
married, couldn’t hold a job, and couldn’t get ahead. Some Terrys and Teresas eventually establish themselves enough to try to be a positive influence on their grandchildren; some never do. Social scientist Charles Murray calls this the New Lower Class: pleasant, inoffensive folks who consume more than they produce. One divorced or never-married guy living with his parents is not a problem, but millions of them are. One single mom raising her children on the fly can be absorbed by society, but millions of them can’t. They may break no laws (unless for substance abuse) and break no windows, but by not contributing, they are destroying. Contributing what? Murray calls it “social capital”—the spirit of volunteerism and association that has always set America apart. Tocqueville remarked on it back in the s, attributing America’s greatness to her “domestic virtue”: family, church, and community. America is the nation where citizens routinely band together in countless small ways to benefit casual acquaintances and even strangers—by cleaning up a park, adopting a highway, volunteering at a homeless shelter. Social capital is an intangible asset built on connections. By and large, unmarried people do not generate social capital. That leaves more slack for the government to pick up, which encourages more individuals to stand down, thus perpetuating more Terrys—whole families of them, if multiple partners and thoughtless procreation amounts to a “family.” What’s most disturbing is that this New Lower Class descended from the mid-thcentury middle class, the postwar generation that participated in the greatest surge of prosperity the world has ever known. They stayed married, went to church, joined the —their children and grandchildren do not, or not consistently. Breaking family bonds leads to the severing of countless minor connections, the kind that hold society together and help people regulate themselves. There’s plenty of blame to go around: the members of the “greatest generation” who didn’t discipline their kids, an enabling welfare state, the willful abdication of personal responsibility, and failing to call sin what it is. The only solution is strong families and strong churches. Families, do not disparage the church; churches, do not neglect the family. God has ordained both for society’s benefit. With fervent prayer and renewed commitment, society can be restored. A Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com
4/20/11 9:55 AM
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Reviews MOVIES & TV BOOKS Q&A MUSIC
Atlas again MOVIE: Ayn Rand and her novel just won’t leave filmmakers alone
THE STRIKE PRODUCTIONS
BY MEGAN BASHAM
For the Ayn Rand devotees paling at the percent critics’ rating over at Rotten Tomatoes, let’s clear one thing up. The movie version of Atlas Shrugged (rated - for one unnecessary and comparatively mild sex scene) is not that bad. It’s not that good either, , you know you are but it is, in its own schmaltzy, B-movie sort of living in interesting times when you way, highly entertaining. happen to review, in the same week, two In this story set five years into the future, films that promote with almost embarthe economy is in the toilet and the Dow has rassing earnestness diametrically opposed taken a deep-sea dive. In this America, outviews of what creates a prosperous society. of-work executives hang out on street corners Neither movie is especially well-executed, wearing sandwich-board copies of their but here’s one thing we can cheer—they are resumés, and politicians demand everabout something. Boldly about something. increasing contributions from the few And even if that something comes in lowremaining corporations that show a profit budget, somewhat clumsy packages, they’re (indeed profits beyond a certain level along far more engaging than the same old polished with owning more than one hectoring carried out by the company and firing employees likes of Sean Penn and George ALSO RAND: Hank Reardon are outlawed). Gas prices have Clooney (did anybody see that (Grant Bowler) and Dagny risen so high, air and car travel Valerie Plame movie?). Taggart (Taylor Schilling).
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Email: mbasham@worldmag.com
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Reviews > Movies & TV
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DOCUMENTARY
I Am
by Megan Basham
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doesn’t ring a bell, chances are the names of his movies will. Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty, and Patch Adams are a just a few of the films that have earned the writer/director enormous commercial if not critical success. His latest movie, I Am, is a documentary that seeks to determine what’s wrong with the world and what can fix it. It marks a radical departure from his previous work. The most engaging element of the film (not rated) is Shadyac’s personal backstory. After a biking accident left him depressed and in constant pain, the multimillionaire realized that private jets, palatial homes, and hobnobbing with fabulous film-industry elite didn’t bring the satisfaction he thought they would, so he set out to find a more meaningful way of life. Shadyac is sincere (in the end, he sold most of his stuff and moved into a trailer park), but once he moves past his own experiences, the answers he offers by way of liberal luminaries like Howard Zinn, Desmond Tutu, and Noam Chomsky dig no deeper than ’s-era sloganeering, with capitalism set up as a cancer. Observations like “Accumulation of private property is considered a mental illness among indigenous cultures,” and “Nothing else in nature takes more than it needs” might excite the average poli-sci sophomore, but isn’t likely to move reasonable adults who’ve had, well, any experience with real life. This isn’t to say that Shadyac doesn’t make some valid points that Western Christians in particular should confront. Conflating the American dream with Christianity has brought us to a place where enormously popular pastors of enormously populated churches teach that the blessings of heaven always manifest themselves as material wealth—not exactly the stuff of picking up crosses and dying to self. The film’s most profound insight, which ironically inspired its title, undercuts Shadyac’s argument that humans possess cooperative, empathetic, essentially good natures. With two simple words G.K. Chesterton sums up our collective sin nature that prevents this earth from becoming the utopia Shadyac and his experts envision. Asked by a London newspaper in what’s wrong with the world, he answered simply—“I am.” See all our movie reviews at mag.com/movies
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RIO: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION • THE CONSPIRATOR: LIONSGATE
dialogue threatens to make it less of a movie and more of a lecture. The very nature of Atlas Shrugged—turning on its head all the typical clichés of who’s a hero and who’s a villain and its refreshing honesty about the way Washington works—gives it a certain liberating energy. However, even the most devoted of Rand devotees may experience a niggling uneasiness when they see their heroes of self-interest played out large and in living color. There’s no escaping that there’s something unattractive about the egotistical, ambitious Hank and off-putting about the determined, but amoral Dagny. Neither bat an eye at embarking on an affair because Reardon’s wife is one of those nonproductive leechers and therefore doesn’t matter much in Rand’s economy. You see, the ridiculous woman throws dinner parties instead of running a company and has the backward view that her wedding anniversary should take precedence over her husband’s work. How pathetic that she should be an eye (or an ear or an arm) when all the truly important people are hands—hands who, apparently, need no other body parts to function. At the end of the day, while Rand’s acolytes may have more logic and the Penn-Clooney-Shadyac collective may have a better sense of artistry, both sides present woefully insufficient ideologies. A
SHADYAC: MICHAEL BUCKNER/GETTY IMAGES
are impractical and highspeed rail once again dominates as the conveyance of choice. This should make railroad heiress Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling) happy. But with her drive, Dagny defies her brother’s crony-capitalist approach of chumming up to Washington lobbyists and decides to form a partnership with like-minded titan-of-industry Hank Reardon (Grant Bowler). Hank has developed a metal lighter and stronger than steel, and together he and Dagny hold the promise of revolutionizing nearly every major industry in the world. That promise is threatened when leading politicians enact legislation to limit Reardon steel’s expansion and hamstring Dagny’s innovations. When Hank and Dagny refuse to back down, governmentfunded scientists are dispatched to lodge trumpedup charges to sway public opinion against the new alloy and union thugs threaten to bar their members from accepting work on the new railway. Most troubling for the pair, however, is the fact that their best employees and colleagues keep disappearing with the same, mysterious question on their lips: “Who is John Galt?” Dagny and Hank don’t find the answer to the question in this installment, which is only the first of a projected three, but the mystery keeps the story chugging along nicely even when didactic
MOVIE
Rio
by Michael Leaser
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, , , this - animated confection from the makers of the Ice Age movies turns south to explore the misadventures of a rare blue macaw and his motley assortment of friends. Captured by exotic bird traders in a Brazilian jungle, a baby blue macaw ends up in the hands of a very protective, bookwormish, little Minnesota girl named Linda. Growing up with Linda, the macaw receives the name Tyler Blu Gunderson, Blu for short, and lives a pampered and routine-oriented life. A clumsy, bespectacled Brazilian ornithologist shows up at Linda and Blu’s front door one day with an earnest plea that they accompany him back to Brazil so he can mate Blu, supposedly the last known male blue macaw, with his last known female blue macaw, Jewel, in order to save the species. Wary at first, Linda eventually relents and takes Blu to Rio de Janeiro. Once there, the matchmaking attempt does not go as planned, and both Blu and Jewel find themselves in the sights of bird traders with dollar signs in their eyes. As voiced by Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Blu is brainy, socially awkward, and completely domesticated, to the point where he does not even know how to fly. Eisenberg’s vocals are a bit grating at first, but they end up serving the character well. Anne Hathaway does a fine job with Jewel, a tough, independent-minded bird who cannot stand the thought of life in a cage. A wild toucan (George Lopez) adds some comedic spice to the proceedings, as does a dimwitted, drooling bulldog (Tracy Morgan). The film is rated , though there are a few mild double-entendres and suggestive comments that will almost certainly go over kids’ heads. All in all, Rio is an entertaining film that all ages should enjoy.
MOVIE
The Conspirator by Toddy Burton
RIO
THE CONSPIRATOR
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defining historical moments, The Conspirator takes as its focus a reluctant and unlikely hero. Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) is thrust into the spotlight as the defense attorney for Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), the one woman tried as a co-conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In the tradition of great courtroom movies (Breaker Morant, Paths of Glory), The Conspirator unfolds with a slow burn. A bit tedious at times and demanding greater attention than your average weekend blockbuster, the film pays off with a thought-provoking resonance. Lingering only briefly in the Civil War battlefield, the world of The Conspirator (rated - for some violent content) is the smokefilled courtroom, shadowed military prisons, and darkened interiors of a nation at war with itself. The story follows the trial of the seven men and one woman arrested and charged as co-conspirators in Lincoln’s assassination.
BOX OFFICE TOP 10 -,
CAUTIONS: Quantity of sexual (S), violent (V), and foul-language (L) content on a - scale, with high, from kids-in-mind.com
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Rio* ............................................. Scream ................................. Hop* ......................................... Hanna ............................... Soul Surfer* ........................ Arthur .............................. Insidious ......................... Source Code* ................ Your Highness .................. Limitless ........................
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The death of the president comes on the heels of Union victory, and the country is wounded with fear and resentment on both sides. In an effort to restore a sense of public order, the secretary of war (Kevin Kline) organizes a swift and merciless military tribunal. With hatred of the Confederacy rampant, press and popular opinion convict the defendants before the trial even begins. Thrust into the midst of this is Aiken, a young Union army hero and an unlikely candidate to defend Surratt. Aiken’s struggle and his ensuing defense comprise the bulk of the film. The resulting story is at times poignant, surprising, and resonant with contemporary allusions. Wright’s performance as the stoic and determined Surratt carries much of the film. As Surratt endures near savage prison conditions and a lawless trial, her drawn face, devotion to her Catholic faith, and sacrificial nature can’t help but reference Joan of Arc. And McAvoy is appealing as the conflicted and passionate hero. The stately directing (from Robert Redford) at times feels overly restrained, but good performances and able storytelling win out. WORLD
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Genre clashes
Fiction, like reality, can remind us of man’s condition and our desperate need for Christ BY MARVIN OLASKY
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N ’ my wife and myself. The website tries to determine from past film orders what kind of movies we’re likely to rent, but we watch films from just about every genre except horror. I imagine the Netflix computer—searching for German/Romanian/ French romances punctuated by car chases, explosions, and philosophy—becoming increasingly frazzled and finally, as in old cartoons, exploding. Genre clashes appear elsewhere as well. I suspect that readers who like Andrée Seu’s poetic writing will also like Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts (Zondervan, ), a book I mentioned a month ago. It’s set in a farming area but includes a vivid account of chaperoning a church’s youth group on a mission trip to a poor area of Toronto. Suddenly a man with a wild mane of graying hair puts on a clown mask and starts yelling full frontal obscenities at the children: “I’m masking the real me! I’m *&%* messed up. Know what I mean?” Voskamp knows what it means: big trouble, potentially. Then the wild man continues: “Look at me! Fried my brain on crack.” But then he cautions them: “Don’t do crack, know what I mean?” Voskamp writes, “He steps into the company of young people. Some look away. . . . His rage shakes us. Shakes the drowsy, shakes the slumbering, shakes us to look at what
we really came to see, to look straightway into it and really open the soul wide to see and it terrifies.” There’s more, a reading of Romans and , beautifully rendered, with Voskamp at the end saying, “Thank you.” She thanks the broken wild man for shaking her and the church youth, for making wretchedness clear to them, for making the desperate need for Christ not an add-on to a mission of good deeds but the ground of our being: “What a wretched man I am.” With Israel’s Independence Day celebration coming on May , take a look, if you dare, at “Israeli family of five killed by terrorist,” a short video miserably watchable on YouTube. The announcement of those March murders led to wild celebrations in Palestinian towns. I watched that video shortly after reading an email from one reader upset that my wife (and I agree with her) recommended a spy novel by Daniel Silva, whose hero is Gabriel Allon. The fictional Allon is a superb restorer of classic paintings and, as part of the Israeli spy agency Mossad, a killer of terrorists. He doesn’t slaughter the innocent. He executes justice under his government’s authority when Arab or Russian governments do the opposite of what they should. Our reader was angry both that we praised books with high body counts and that we support Israel. Well, we do. We also support Christian Palestinians who have been ground between millstones. We’re sympathetic to Palestinian Muslims who oppose the brutal slaughter of children, as many do. We don’t doubt that Israeli soldiers have unintentionally killed Palestinian children, but I know of no instances where they have invaded a Palestinian home and beheaded children in their beds. Israel’s government, like others, does many things wrong, but it has official inquiries when Palestinian civilians are killed under suspicious circumstances. I sadly expect all kinds of bad things to happen in a fallen world, but March’s small holocaust, like the Big One two generations ago, is sickening. If you want to understand why the Israelis feel they’re all alone against the world, except for the support of American evangelicals, read Daniel Silva novels (but don’t read them unless you accept some brutality in fiction, and bad guys using bad words). Silva, in a genre opposite that of Ann Voskamp, also writes wonderfully, and can serve the same purpose for some of us that the wild man in Toronto did for her. That man said, “Look at me.” Silva says, “Look at this world.” A Email: molasky@worldmag.com
4/20/11 2:12 PM
HANDOUT
Reviews > Books
NOTABLE BOOKS
Four books about trauma and recovery > reviewed by
Heaven Is for Real Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent This story of a -year-old child’s near-death experience sits atop the best-seller lists and has become a Shack-like phenomenon, due in great part to alum Lynn Vincent’s ability to flesh out the story of the boy’s burst appendix, apparent death, and miraculous recovery. Whether you like the book will depend largely on whether you are interested in near-death experiences, whether you find them credible, and how much your faith depends on believing them. Read it because it’s an interesting account, but not because you need an eyewitness to tell you something you should know from the Scriptures. Luke : says, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
Unshaken: Rising from the Ruins of Haiti’s Hotel Montana Dan Woolley Woolley had just returned to the Hotel Montana after a day of filming a Compassion International project when the earthquake struck, collapsing the hotel on him and killing his colleague David Hames. Although his leg was badly broken and gashed, he was able to crawl to an open elevator where he huddled for the next hours waiting to be rescued. Woolley describes his wait, explains how his camera and iPhone became tools of survival, and shows how God drew near in his suffering as he struggled with fear over how his death might affect his wife, who struggled for years with major depression, and his two young sons. It’s a compelling story of God’s goodness even in dire circumstances.
The Long Winter: One Man’s Journey Through the Darkness of Foster Care Paul Owen Paul Owen, now a professor at Montreat College, became an orphan after his mother died of cancer when he was . His father died when he was , and his mother did her best to care for him despite her disabilities. He knew material poverty but he didn’t suffer a lack of love. That changed when she died, and he began living with a series of seven foster families in the next four years. He coped with cruelty and indifference by withdrawing—to a bedroom if he had one or to long treks outside if he didn’t. Owen’s ability to understand his younger self (sullen, lonely, desperate for a father’s attention) and to remember telling incidents and conversations (including some offensive language) makes for a compelling story.
SPOTLIGHT Novelist and teacher Walter Wangerin, diagnosed with lung cancer in January , underwent a grueling course of chemo and radiation treatments. During that first year, as he endured relentless pain and increasing breathlessness, he wrote letters to friends in which he described how the diagnosis and ordinary daily events— visits to doctors, a car accident, conversations with his wife and grandchildren—affected his mind and spirit. In Letters from the Land of Cancer (Zondervan, ) he writes, “The cancer, do you see, has accomplished a number of blessings for me.” He describes some of them: “My diseases, far from acting the foe, are profound initiators of spiritual clarity, devout meditation, a faithful (peaceful!) seeking after God, praying, shaping thanksgivings for Jesus’s rebuilding the pathways between God the Father and me.” Interspersed among the letters are short meditations.
JOHN EARLY/AP
HANDOUT
Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Faith . . . and How to Bring Them Back Drew Dyck Should we be worried about the large number of young adults who leave the faith? Won’t they come back when they get married? Drew Dyck says we should worry. Young adulthood is lasting longer, increasing the likelihood that those who leave might never return. All leavers are not the same, he says. He divides them into six categories, profiles individuals who fit the categories, highlights the issues that precipitated their leaving, and provides ways for believers to address them. Dyck provides warm, intelligent, and godly counsel for those who love any kind of leaver, whether modern, postmodern, neo-pagan, recoiler, drifter, or rebel. Email: solasky@worldmag.com; see all our reviews at mag.com/books
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Reviews > Q&A
Inquiring mind University president ROBERT SLOAN shows that faith and learning are not a zero sum game BY MARVIN OLASKY
As a student, did you go to Baylor thinking it was a Christian college? Yes. I had my acceptance letter from the University of Texas, but I wanted to go to a place that I thought would put me in a better environment for nurturing my faith. It was not what I expected: I found Baylor to be more of a large public institution that had a religious department and required chapel. What effect did your psychology courses have on you—and were any taught from a Christian perspective? They pushed me to the edge of my understanding of human nature, of what it means to be human. I didn’t hear a Christian worldview in the psychology department.
Since you arrived as a professing believer, were you able to listen to the professors and see that there was a problem in what they were teaching? I certainly sensed that there was a huge conflict between what I had been taught growing up in a Baptist church. I reached a crisis of faith: I was pushed to a point of despair because if human beings are merely the result of biochemical forces, then Christianity is wrong. Then you went to Princeton for graduate study . . . There I had a real crisis of faith. The professor in the first New Testament class I had critically analyzed the empty tomb narratives and concluded that the resurrection did not happen. Rather, the disciples had a crisis of faith: They went through despair, then felt better and reached into the ancient Near Eastern world to pick out the
GITTINGS/HOUSTON BAPTIST UNIVERSITY
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G , and we’ll hear a lot of vaguely Christian sentiments in commencement speeches at once-Christian schools. Robert Sloan graduated in from Baylor University with a double major in psychology and religion, and later returned to Baylor as a professor. As the university’s president from to he strove to make Baylor a Christian university rather than a secular look-alike, but many professors and influential alumni objected. Sloan resigned amid controversy and in became president of Houston Baptist University.
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mythology of the dying and rising god—and that’s how Christianity was created. You believed the professor? I lost my confidence in the New Testament’s historical reliability. People say you can hang on to the religious experience even when you suspect the historical material is weak, but that loss created despair for me. Didn’t you expect that from Princeton? You do but you don’t. I didn’t expect that emotionally. How did you escape despair? I had a friend at an evangelical seminary who sent me some bibliographies. I began to read.
And eventually you became president. What were your goals? I wanted Baylor to be an academically rigorous place within the framework of a Christian worldview. We began to work hard to hire people of great academic reputation and visibility who were of a Christian sensibility. Hiring Christian people was the college’s policy, but everyone would just wink and nod. They spoke up when I moved to enforce that, but I considered it my responsibility as president to enforce the policy. My critics said I would turn Baylor into a Bible college. You created the Polanyi Center for the Study of Intelligent Design. That
threw up a thousand different issues. It is a shame that in academic life, which is supposed to be marked by open-ended inquiry, people—both left and right—are often dogmatic. Evolution was a dogma for some, almost like a religious faith that couldn’t be questioned.
After years, amid lots of controversy, you agreed to leave. There was a very small pocket of opposition—people who said that being in a university had nothing to do with faith. One faculty member very clearly said, “We have to get rid of the Baptist and religious stuff— there are bigger fish to fry.”
Looking back, what in your Baylor experience stands out to you? I made plenty of mistakes, I was very young and inexperienced as an administrator, but I don’t regret the direction I wanted to facilitate for Baylor because I think it was Baylor’s historic identity. The university has made great strides toward being a great place academi-
Now that you’re at Houston Baptist, what are your hopes and aspirations? We have a -year plan called the Ten Pillars. It rejects the idea that to be more academic you have to give up faith, as if faith and learning are a zero sum game. Students and faculty are willing to embrace the truth of Jesus Christ and then believe that we should not treat religious knowledge as a matter of personal, private and interior emotional value and opinion.
“We need a resurgence of great institutions of learning where a Christian worldview dominates.”
GITTINGS/HOUSTON BAPTIST UNIVERSITY
What books helped? C.S. Lewis’ Miracles. F.F. Bruce on the reliability of the New Testament documents. Did many students lose their faith and not recover? I saw that often. Some tragic stories. It was in that matrix of deep, personal, spiritual crisis that I found my calling. I knew I wanted to be a professor. I ended up teaching at a seminary and then became a professor at Baylor. I got to go to my alma mater, a place that still remained a very mixed culture. Email: molasky@worldmag.com
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became controversial: Why? We brought a couple very fine scholars to be there, but immediately they encountered much opposition by the neo-Darwinians. What objections were there to Intelligent Design at an ostensibly Christian university? I don’t think there was a good objection. Critics said you’re going to embarrass us professionally, everyone knows evolution is true, and who are these people but a bunch of seven-day creationists? The list went on. People
cally that is also faithful to its Christian heritage. I’m proud of the place. Were you able to make any changes in the way Baylor teaches psychology? Yes and no. I decided my job was to attack the problem in the sphere of influence I had and that was first and foremost to make sure the university has outstanding deans, department chairs, and faculty members. Hiring is key: Provosts and deans who fail in hiring are failing the mission of the institution.
Do you think your plan for Baylor is possible, even if not at Baylor? The world needs Christian institutions that are not just small, regional, denominationally related institutions. We need a resurgence of great institutions of learning where a Christian worldview dominates. Many students go off to get doctorates but they get trained in places where there is a separationist view regarding faith and academics. Our aspiration at is to be a comprehensive university with a clear core program but also doctoral programs. So yes, I think it’s possible. Why do Christian institutions drift from their religious roots? It’s always a struggle, but if the board of directors gives up and doesn’t hire the right people, that’s how it happens. A M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
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Reviews > Music
SLUG: Caption
Thriving ‘dinosaurs’
>>
ONCE AGAIN ONCE MORE
pre-eminent prog-rock act of the s. Despite an abundance of competition (the Moody Blues, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Rush), it was who bestrode the post-Woodstock wasteland most like colossi, becoming famous less for their own compositions than for transforming those of Bartok, Mussorgsky, Thchaikovsky, Copland, and Mancini into vehicles for Emerson’s shrieking keyboards and Palmer’s whirligig drumming. (At least one composer, Alberto Ginastera, wholeheartedly approved, endorsing the version of his “Toccata” that recorded for both their studio album Brain Salad Surgery and their live album, Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends—Ladies and Gentlemen, Emerson, Lake & Palmer). Both Emerson, , and Palmer, , have intermittently taken a stab at achieving independence from their identities, the former as a composer of soundtracks, the latter as the drummer
While it was pyrotechnic musicianship that made —and now just E and P—top draws on the concert circuit, fans of the genre also knew a good respite when they heard one. And they seldom heard one better than ’s Once Again, the second album by the British band Barclay James Harvest. Newly reissued in a bonus-track-enhanced th-anniversary edition replete with a .-surround-sound mix of the album on “audio-only” , Once Again picks up where the Moody Blues circa Days of Future Passed left off, enhancing the pastoral elements beloved of prog rock’s more laid-back
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for Asia. But these days both of them include generous portions of in their live sets. Moscow, for instance, finds Emerson leading his band through versions of “Karn Evil (st Impression),” “Lucky Man,” and “Tarkus” (all minutes of it) that practically duplicate the originals, from Emerson’s undiminished synthesizer wizardry to guitarist Marc Bonilla’s ability to sing almost exactly like Greg Lake in his youthful prime. Palmer, on the other hand, has forgone vocals and keyboards altogether, leaving it to his band member Paul Bielatowicz to recreate the melodies on electric guitar. As one might therefore expect, the songs on Working Live, Volume (“Peter Gunn,” “Romeo and Juliet,” all minutes of “Pictures at an Exhibition”) sound leaner and meaner than ever. As one might also expect, even when he isn’t soloing, Palmer’s still-breathtaking drumming is the focal point.
fans with the mellotron (a nowantiquated, orchestra-replicating keyboard) and melodies that evoked memories of green and pleasant lands when they weren’t evoking hallucinations of the cosmos. Unlike the Moody Blues and ,, Barclay James Harvest were not well known in the United States. But John Lees sang better, or at least less affectedly, than both Greg Lake and the Moodys’ Justin Hayward. And no prog-rockers on either side of the Atlantic ever recorded a more gorgeous song than “Mockingbird.” —A.O.
EMERSON: FRANK RUMPENHORST/EPA/CORBIS • PALMER: NEIL LUPIN/GETTY IMAGES
I of jazz during the Harlem Renaissance represented the blending of African spontaneity and European precision, the emergence of “progressive rock” in the late s represented the blending of European precision and rock ’n’ roll iconoclasm. No small accomplishment that. Yet “prog rock,” as it has come to be known, with its penchant for -minute songs and over-the-top grandstanding, has remained the red-headed stepchild of popular music ever since punk rock took the stuffing out of its pretensions over years ago. Not for nothing did critics malign its practitioners as dinosaurs. But, unlike actual dinosaurs, prog rock has managed to survive. In fact, as the latest live albums by the Keith Emerson Band (Moscow [Ais]) and Carl Palmer (Working Live, Volume [Eagle]) attest, it’s healthier than it has been in some time. Emerson and Palmer were twothirds of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the
Email: aorteza@worldmag.com
4/20/11 2:29 PM
ROB LOUD/STRINGER/GETTY IMAGES
Emerson, Lake & Palmer alums show that progressive rock has managed to survive BY ARSENIO ORTEZA
NOTABLE CDs
Five new pop-rock releases > reviewed by
Small Source of Comfort
Bruce Cockburn Having segued from a mystically Christian folk phase into a militantly left wing electric phase, Cockburn now comes full circle. The instrumentation (except maybe the bass) is acoustic, and the instrumentals (four) could pass for bonus cuts on reissues of his pre-breakthrough work. As for the lyrics, while stopping short of praising the Lord of the Starfields, they traffic in an articulate and world-weary puzzlement that’s at least three parts reverence. Only the extended Nixon joke (“Call Me Rose”) falls flat. But then humor never was his strong suit.
Paper Airplane
Alison Krauss & Union Station As all Krauss fans know, the presence of “and Union Station” on her album covers means that every third song or so is sung by Dan Tyminski, a solid-enough bluegrass stalwart but not the real reason that Krauss fans shell out. This time Tyminski is down to three tracks, leaving Krauss singing eight more cuts to add to the best-ofs that her fans are constantly updating on their iPods. None of those eight will disappoint. Richard and Linda Thompson’s “Dimming of the Day” will thrill.
How to Become Clairvoyant Robbie Robertson
ROB LOUD/STRINGER/GETTY IMAGES
EMERSON: FRANK RUMPENHORST/EPA/CORBIS • PALMER: NEIL LUPIN/GETTY IMAGES
When Robertson was wrapping up his career with the Band years ago, he was almost regarded on par with his former employer, Bob Dylan, as a wellspring of roots wisdom. Now, with yet another not-all-that-impressive solo album under his belt, sager heads admit that maybe he should’ve stuck with the Band or quit altogether. Not that he’s boring exactly, but there’s a reason he never sang lead until he had to: He can’t sing. And “Madame X” sounds suspiciously like Benmont Tench’s “Unbreakable Heart.”
SPOTLIGHT Billy Joel isn’t the only rock ’n’ roller incapable of distinguishing between his strengths and his weaknesses. But, to paraphrase the title of one of his many hits, he tends to go to extremes. Consider his two latest Columbia/ Legacy releases— The Hits and Live at Shea Stadium: The Concert. To his credit, he leaves “Just the Way You Are,” one of his least-appealingly smug songs ever (he does have appealingly smug songs) off both and includes “Only the Good Die Young” (his most dramatically effective song) on both. He also opens The Concert with “Prelude/ Angry Young Man,” one of the best songs he ever wrote. But then he turns right around and includes “Captain Jack,” the worst song he ever wrote, on The Concert—and dilutes the pleasure of that album’s Paul McCartney and Tony Bennett cameos with cameos by John Mayer and Garth Brooks. Really, he means well. But if discretion is the better part of valor, he’s a coward.
So Beautiful Or So What Paul Simon Critics are already calling this album, Simon’s minor-label debut, his best work since Graceland. And it is, but less because it’s up to Graceland’s unmatchable standards than because it’s better by a nano-emotion than his last major-label album, ’s Surprise. Pushing , it’s no surprise that he’s pondering eternity any more than it was a surprise that he was pondering mutability at (when he recorded “Slip Slidin’ Away”). What is a surprise is that, as a selfdescribed “wandering Jew,” he leads with “Getting Ready for Christmas Day.” See all our reviews at mag.com/music
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Mindy Belz Jerusalem in the Judean Wilderness and would likely be a suburb but for the security wall built to divide the West Bank from Israel proper. The last all-Christian town in the West Bank, it’s caught between encroaching Israeli settlements and pressing Islamic movements but remains an enclave of budding industry: Craftmaking serves tourism trades, plus the growing Taybeh brewery (run by Palestinian Christians returned from the United States) shores up an otherwise oppressed economy. Over 10,000 Christian residents emigrated to Europe and the United States after the 1967 war, leaving a remnant of about 1,500 today who worship in Catholic and Orthodox churches. Across the courtyard of one Catholic church stands a home—occupied by a Christian family until 1974—that many residents claim can be dated to the time of Christ. It’s urely one of the most under-celebrated portions built of cut stone on three levels, much as were of the life of Jesus is the life He lived after the resurrection, pastoral homes 2,000 years ago. Locals have when—as Acts 1 relates—“He presented Himself alive to dubbed it the “house of parables,” and for as them after His suffering by many proofs, appearing during long as most can remember it’s served as a forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.” museum of sorts to recall the parables taught As the Gospels make plain, during those post-Easter by Jesus. Schoolchildren cross its stone days Jesus interpreted all the Scripture (again) for His threshold, challenging one another to find followers, and instructed them to preach repentance and the most parables inside. forgiveness of sins everywhere, starting in Jerusalem. He Elias, a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem asked that they love Him, and He promised to be with and our guide during my visit with Biola them always. Now tenets of our faith, this was then University professor Judith Rood, chimed in: earth-shaking news. As John could only summarize, if “Here are the lamps, in the high place. Never everything that Jesus did could be written, the world light the lamp and put it on the low level, put it itself could not contain the books. on the high level where everyone can see it.” We It helps to know that Jesus spoke into no placid age. found cracked and whole cisterns, old and new Times, politically and economically, were difficult then as they are now. wineskins, old garments The Jews were divided against one another with new patches tearing and seduced by Greek influence and away, millstones too heavy Roman occupation. The office of high to lift, and a common priest had become an office for hire where ancient hand plow: “You the highest bidder took power under would hold it like this,” Roman auspices and did as he pleased. demonstrated Elias, “and if One built a gymnasium in Jerusalem you look backwards, you where naked athletes took part in Greek will not know where you sporting contests. Embarrassed by their are going and you will not circumcisions, the contestants “hid” them go straight.” via some early form of plastic surgery. In a region of uncerBy Jesus’ birth the Jews had split into tainty and turmoil, it is militant factions—the Pharisees, the good to remember Taybeh. Sadducees, and the Essenes. And by the Its perpetual remnant of time the disciples wrote their four Christian REMNANT: The house of parables in Taybeh. believers (back to the time Gospels—decades after Jesus’ ascension— of Lazarus’ resurrection!) lends hope in an the Romans had destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, and Christianity’s otherwise blighted landscape. Its house of most influential centers could no longer be found there but in Antioch, parables ushers succeeding generations into the Corinth, Damascus, Ephesus, and Rome. timeless reality of Jesus’ earthly teaching, The dispersion makes all the more remarkable the stubbornly Christian teaching so profound no factions, rebellions, makeup of tiny Ephraim, a city where Jesus withdrew after He raised wars, or diseases could halt its spread following Lazarus from the dead but before He made His triumphal entry into His death, resurrection, and ascension. A Jerusalem. Today called Taybeh, it sits less than 20 miles north of
After Easter Sunday The followers of Jesus would scatter but the power of His teaching remains
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‘It’s time we had a
-based fact conversation’ With the nation facing trillions in unfunded liabilities for entitlements, freshman Republicans like Rep. Bill Huizenga say they’re ready to cast difficult but necessary votes and face the electoral consequences b y E d wa r d L e e P i t t s i n Wa s h i n g t o n p h o to g ra p h s b y L e e L o ve/G e n e s i s
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GROWING UP IN THE 1970S in Zeeland, Mich.—a city in the western part of the state founded by the Dutch—Bill Huizenga recalls regular and robust family discussions at the dinner table over two topics: business and politics. “What’s a Watergate and why is everybody arguing about this?” were questions that puzzled the young Huizenga. He listened to discussions about Vietnam, long gas lines, and the struggles facing his dad and uncle’s concrete business. His impression of America during that time: Things just weren’t going right. Today, Huizenga, , has a similar itch about the nation. It’s a big reason why the former realtor and current small business owner now finds himself working just a few miles from the infamous Watergate landmark that brought down a presidency. As one of freshman House lawmakers, Huizenga now goes to work on problems that seem intractable. As taxpayers in April wrestled with income figures and expenses that mostly included a few zeros, Democrats and Republicans disagreed on how to handle federal shortfalls involving numbers with zeroes after them: trillions. After months of wrangling, Congress on April approved a spending bill that cuts billion from the current fiscal year. That’s a mere pinprick in the face of the nation’s trillion debt. But lawmakers couldn’t even agree on that slice without theatrics and bitter partisan rancor that left the nation within an hour of a federal government shutdown. Now an even bigger battle is emerging over the “big three” entitlements of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Together this mandatory spending swallows up percent of the federal budget. These main drivers of
our nation’s mounting debt are structured with an openended, auto-pilot growth mechanism, meaning there is no limit to the amount of spending obligations as more people become eligible. Within a decade unless changes occur they will consume percent of the budget. It seems that no serious proposal to tighten the nation’s fiscal belt can ignore changes to these entitlements. Yet they have long been considered the “third rail” of politics: Touch them and your career in government is dead. But the climate in Washington is slowly and subtly shifting from a culture of spending to a culture of cutting. Huizenga is part of a freshman class that swears the nation’s stability is more important to them than their professional job security. “I’m not afraid to make the tough votes,” he said. “If I’m here for one term or terms, it doesn’t particularly matter to me.” He and others like him now on Capitol Hill are banking on the belief that Americans are ready to join them for this much delayed debate on entitlement reform. Step one, says Huizenga, is acknowledging the crisis.
THE FACTS ARE SOBERING: Just a few years ago government officials predicted that by mandatory spending would require percent of tax revenue. They were off—by almost years. The White House Office of Management and Budget now projects that in the current fiscal year mandatory spending will exceed all federal receipts. That means all other programs from building the military to building roads would have to come from borrowed money. “Why would you stick your head in the sand on this kind of stuff?” asks Huizenga. “It’s time we had a fact-based conversation.”
“I’m not afraid to make the tough votes. If I’m here for one term or terms, it doesn’t particularly matter to me.”
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Americans and budget priorities: WALL STREET JOURNAL/NBC News poll What two items should be the top priority for the federal government? Job creation and economic growth The deficit and government spending Healthcare National security and terrorism Energy and the cost of gas The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Immigration
Will it be necessary to cut Medicare to significantly reduce the deficit?
56% 40% 28% 20% 20% 13% 12%
Not sure
28% Yes
Which of the following programs do you think could be cut significantly?
18%
No
54%
3 Totally or mostly acceptable Subsidies to build new nuclear power plants Federal assistance to state governments The Environmental Protection Agency Medicare Social Security K through 12 education
SOURCE: WSJ/NBC NEWS POLLS
Will it be necessary to cut Social Security to significantly reduce the deficit?
The situation may get a lot worse. Last year’s Congress did not shrink the government; Congress grew it with the new healthcare law. Unless repealed, Obamacare will introduce new entitlement programs in the form of insurance subsidies. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that one in every three federal dollars will go toward health entitlement obligations by 2021. Meanwhile, massive spending obligations will occur over the next several decades as baby boomers retire. Huizenga sees the country at an economic crossroads, and he says saddling the nation’s children with debt is immoral. Before running for Congress Huizenga worked for two years as an administrator with the Zeeland Christian School (see sidebar). His office was right next to the school’s choir room, and he often worked while accompanied by the sounds of students belting out spiritual tunes. Today, he has his school ID hanging in his Washington office as a reminder of those times. “He has had very close contact with the next generation,” explains Bill Van Dyk, the school’s principal: “He now has a significant role to play in what kind of world those kids live in.” Huizenga says he has been encouraged that so many of his freshman colleagues seem to share the same vision: that they are in Washington at the right time to make major changes for future generations. He hopes that this freshman class will learn from the mistakes of their GOP predecessors: “We know that we have to walk the talk.”
Not sure
29% Yes
22%
No
49%
3 Mostly or totally unacceptable
57% 40% 52% 45% 51% 46% 23% 76% 22% 77% 22% 77%
If the deficit can’t be eliminated by cutting wasteful spending, which of these do you favor?
Cut important programs Feb. 2011 June 1995
Raise taxes Feb. 2011 June 1995
35% 27% 33% 23%
That’s why Huizenga said it’s important for the new House to go ahead and tackle spending changes despite likely pushback from the Democratic-led Senate and veto threats from President Obama: “We need to stake our territory. . . . In politics we prove every day that man is depraved, sinful, fallen, and evil. But we also know that God’s got a plan.”
Mathematically, the problem of entitlements is not all that difficult: People are living longer and fewer workers are supporting each retiree. Conservatives support gradually raising the retirement age for Social Security and the eligibility age for Medicare. If both kicked in at age 70, Medicare would see $140 billion in savings and Social Security $247 billion in savings annually by 2030. Many conservatives also support giving reduced entitlement benefits to wealthier Americans. Warren Buffet, for example, would not get a Social Security check. Politically, though, the challenge is great. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey showed fewer than one in four Americans supporting significant changes to Social Security or Medicare. This reluctance crosses party lines and age ranges: By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, Tea Party members opposed cuts to Social Security. But the Heritage Foundation’s Stuart Butler says education is the key. He tells a story about one 80-yearold’s reaction to a recent discussion of entitlements at Ohio State University. The man walked to a microphone
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to move to Washington to work for his district’s congressman, Pete Hoekstra. Then two years later—with Huizenga edging closer to partner status at the firm—Hoekstra called again. This time he asked Huizenga out to lunch, and, after another initial rejection, Huizenga eventually signed on as the congressman’s district director. For six years, Huizenga traveled the district cultivating relationships. That work paid off in 2002 with election to the Michigan legislature—but his time in Lansing was frustrating, as Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm vetoed any conservative bill that managed to pass both chambers. Term-limited out of office after six years, Huizenga felt like a “washed up old has-been at the ripe old age of 39.” The gravel company he had bought an interest in was facing hard times with the collapse of the construction industry. That’s when Huizenga literally got called into the principal’s office one day after dropping his children off at school. “I don’t care if you are 4, 14, or 40, if you get one of those hooked-finger looks from the principal, it is like, ‘What did I do? Am I in trouble?’” But the summons came with a job offer. He went to work at the Zeeland Christian School. Two years later he ran
for Congress. In a seven-way primary Huizenga got outspent 3-to-1 by the frontrunner. He wasn’t sure going to Washington was a door God would open: “I had to come to the point in my own walk that I knew that I was being faithful in the journey,” Huizenga said. “The destination was God’s, and I had to give that over.” Huizenga is strongly pro-life. His wife, Natalie, had five miscarriages leading up to the birth of their first child. Doctors told them that they should consider adoption or a childless marriage. He recalls, “It is times like those that you either get closer to each other and God or get driven away from each other and God.” Today they have five children. Their oldest son recently turned 13, and Huizenga spent the last decade as the Right to Life representative for his church, Haven Christian Reformed Church. Natalie is on the board of a local crisis pregnancy center. Huizenga says his first months in Washington have shown him that he is not alone in his beliefs. “People tell you that I am glad there is at least one person of faith, one Christian, in Washington,” he said, “and then you start describing who some of the people here are and they say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know.’” —E.L.P.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Not long after giving one of his first speeches on the House floor, Rep. Bill Huizenga settled into a plush leather chair beside a fire in the lodge-like Speaker’s Lobby located just off the House chamber. He then told me how his new title as congressman marks the pinnacle of a series of “Jonah moments.” As a high-school senior, Huizenga had no plans to go to college. He figured he’d work for the family business, maybe take some courses at the local community college, and enjoy the quiet life in Zeeland. But school counselors pushed him to Calvin College. He began there as a business major, but his first political science class captivated him. When he tried to tell his advisor that he should remain a business major, the advisor pointed out how animated he got when talking about politics. Soon Huizenga was the chair of the college’s Republican Club. He left school for a semester his senior year to intern at the Republican Study Committee in Washington. After graduation Huizenga again resisted politics and settled on a path toward becoming a partner in a West Michigan real estate firm. When the Republicans took control of the House in 1994, Huizenga turned down a chance
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and said he had spent the presentation sitting beside a university student who told him about his mounting student debt. “I paid into Social Security,” the man said. “I’m entitled to it. But I’d be willing to actually share it with this young man. I shouldn’t get all of this if it means that this young man is indebted all of his life because of it.” The man had two conditions: that the federal government did not take the savings from reduced benefits and spend it elsewhere and that he would be taken care of if faced with a serious illness. “When you lay out the facts to people they seem to be willing to give up some of their entitlements for their grandkids,” said Butler, who added he got similar reactions from places as left-leaning as Berkley, Calif. “Showing politicians that they can actually talk about these issues is crucial.” But some lawmakers seem to be entrenched in the belief that promises to protect entitlements will pay off in the elections. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would be willing to look at Social Security reform but not for another two decades. And Obama’s April address on budget reform had the sound of a campaign speech more than a policy proposal. He skewered Republican budget plans as offering a “deeply
purchase private insurance plans where competition lowers prices. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, the author of the plan, argued that “trying to protect the government’s major entitlement programs by maintaining the status quo is, in fact, the surest way to destroy them.” His plan would also transform the federal portion of Medicaid payments into block grants for states. This would give states more flexibility in providing care to the poor while ending the current competitive grant system that leads to a “spend it or lose it” mindset among state officials.
STILL, RESOLUTIONS BY ONE PARTY are unlikely to resolve the problem. Former Republican Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon, who chaired the Finance Committee during the budget debates of the mid-s, said political restraints tied to the approaching election year mean the “only hope for seeing any significant entitlement reform is that both parties do it and neither party takes the lead.” “The crisis is upon us,” he said at a recent budget forum on Capitol Hill. “But I don’t sense Congress is there yet, and I don’t sense they will be there.” The fact that Obama’s high-profile budget speech was so light on specifics seems to support Packwood’s fears that a grand bargain on the budget will be elusive. But Huizenga and other freshmen say they are there. They may not have the same bully pulpit as the president, but they are going on their own fiscal wake-up tours. Huizenga made three promises during his campaign last fall and even printed them on T-shirts. Protect life. Create jobs. Stop spending. He recently reached , people from his district during three telephone town hall meetings on the budget. He said two-thirds of the callers encouraged him to vote for the Ryan budget. “You have to say it a lot and you have to say it loud to make it sink in,” he said about being upfront about entitlement woes. So, after ending a recent phone conversation with me, Huizenga said his next call was to a Michigan hospital executive who had written urging the congressman to oppose proposed cuts to Medicaid. “We have to budget for future generations,” he said, “not the next election cycle.” A
“Trying to protect the government’s major entitlement programs by maintaining the status quo is, in fact, the surest way to destroy them.”
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
—Paul Ryan
pessimistic” future for America. “We have to use a scalpel and not a machete to reduce the deficit,” Obama said. Days later the Republican-led House did pass a budget blueprint that would cut trillion in spending over the next decade. While promising no changes to people and over, the plan would eventually overhaul Medicare: The government would no longer directly pay medical bills—a practice that does little to encourage efficiency. Instead, federal subsidies would help Medicare patients
Email: lpitts@worldmag.com
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Paycheck program By encouraging work, the Earned Income Tax Credit is one form of social spending that many conservatives can support by C h r i st i na Darne ll in Concord, N. C.
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REWARD: Lorie Conley at f amilies from working for home (facing page) and Della fear of losing benefits, the Knowles with her family. EITC recipients must work to be eligible, and as families increase their income the credit decreases at a slower rate than the income increases. Della Knowles, a social worker in Cabarrus County, which includes Concord, contrasts the money distributed through the EITC with money handed out to people not working. “Most people who are on welfare believe they are entitled to that welfare,” she said. “I think it’s a broken system. It’s draining our economy.” Knowles understands the need for temporary assistance. When her husband was laid off, she enrolled her children in Medicaid for a year. Speaking of the welfare programs, she said, “That’s what all these programs were supposed to be—they were supposed to be temporary.” She sees the EITC as a greater benefit to society. “The EITC is a reward for people who aren’t on all these programs.” Conley is not unusual. I interviewed Laura Stevens, who works as a server at Olive Garden and trainer averaging 25-30 hours of work each week. She studies at a local community college with a full class load and is a single mom to two young girls. The financial strain of supporting her family on a tip-based income has caused
CONLEY: Sam Craston/Genesis FOR WORLD • KNOWLES: HANDOUT
As Washington’s budget battles continue , welfare expenditures are often the prime example of spending that hurts the people it’s supposed to help—but one $59 billion program, the Earned Income Tax Credit, is mainly an exception. Lorie Conley benefits from that program. Her uniform T-shirt is stained with marinara sauce and minestrone soup after a lunch shift in the kitchen of the Olive Garden in Concord, N.C., just north of Charlotte. Her emotions are frayed after hours of pulling hot plates of lasagna and gathering cheese graters scattered across the counters. She’s tired and she’s dirty, but as she absentmindedly twirls her fork in a plate of pasta, her mind is still working, doing the math. Conley, a single mother, raises three children and makes $12.35 an hour as a culinary assistant. “A lot of times, it takes every single thing I get on my check to pay bills,” she said. Her problem now, after working at Olive Garden for five years, is that her preteen son has juvenile diabetes. “I can’t have just any babysitter watch him,” she said. “I need someone who knows what to do if he gets sick or goes unconscious.” She changed her work availability to fit her son’s needs, unable to leave him at night. Since switching to lunch shifts, her 40 hours are down to 25. Conley works hard to provide for her kids. She rides the bus to cut down gas costs. She discontinued cable television in her apartment. And she is thankful for the one governmental program for the poor that most conservatives like, the Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC last year provided Conley with a $5,000 check. She used the money to buy school clothes for her children, to pay her rent in advance, and to save for education: She plans to attend Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and earn a degree in accounting. First enacted in 1975, the EITC is a federal tax credit for low-income workers. Hailed as an alternative to traditional, handout-based welfare programs, supporters of the EITC say it encourages work and stimulates the economy. While federal welfare programs can keep
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Reforming welfare reform Lawmakers seek to extend the successes of the 1996 law b y E m i ly B e l z i n Wa s h i n g t o n The 1996 welfare reforms, passed by a Republican Congress and signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, have cut welfare caseloads by more than half. The reforms, designed to reduce incentives to be on welfare and move able-bodied people into work, have been generally successful, but some aspects of the program still need reforming: Welfare-related spending is one of the highest categories of government spending, according to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, rising precipitously since 1996. States maintain lax work requirements. Also, many measures in the bill to promote marriage have been undermined—Rector has said that nearly all of the states have ignored those measures. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the head of the Republican Study Committee, introduced a new measure to reform welfare reform in March. Jordan’s proposal caps total welfare spending to pre-recession levels, adjusted for inflation, once the unemployment rate returns to 6.5 percent. The bill would hold the now-40 million Americans on food stamps to work requirements. (The 1996 reforms raised work requirements only for recipients of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.) States would have to ensure that a small percentage of recipients spend at least 15 hours a week either working, searching for a job under a supervisor, doing community service, receiving education or job training, or completing drug or alcohol treatment. If states reduce their food-stamp caseloads, they receive a quarter of the money saved back as a grant that they can use for programs for the poor. The bill also includes a “self-sufficiency incentive” that would set aside $300 million in grants for up to three states that have the highest rate of families moving above the poverty line in the previous fiscal year. Finally, the reform bans welfare funds from being used to pay for abortions, except for cases of rape, incest, or to preserve the life of the mother. The debt ceiling and the 2012 budget are chief on the minds of legislators, so Jordan’s reform may not move forward as a stand-alone bill, at least not anytime before appropriations are completed later this year. Elements of it are more likely to be integrated into other legislation. For example, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan incorporated the food-stamp work requirements into his 2012 budget that debuted in April.
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STEVENS: HANDOUT • JORDAN: Tom Williams/Roll Call/getty images
Stevens to consider welfare as an alternative, but not seriously enough to pay a visit to the Division of Social Services. She doesn’t want her girls growing up in government housing, concerned for their safety. “If I don’t need it, I don’t want it,” she said. Instead, when she isn’t working, she focuses on school with plans to establish a nursing career. “IT PUTS ME AHEAD”: Laura Like Conley, Stevens uses Stevens with her girls. the tax credit to pay her bills in advance. “It puts me ahead massively.” She also deposits $1,800 in savings each year for her daughters’ college education, and uses what’s left over to buy them birthday presents. Reflecting on what life would be like without the EITC, her hands instinctively cupped her face. “It would be horrible,” she said. “My kids wouldn’t have a birthday.” Qualifications for a family to receive the EITC are based primarily on income and dependent children. The maximum credit is $5,666, with money sent as part of an individual’s tax refund check. Conley’s annual income of less than $16,000 brought her that $5,000 check. Amy Hiester, a server with one dependent child, who makes between $150 and $400 a week in tips, received a $3,000 credit. The EITC has its flaws. In 2005 the U.S. Government Accountability Office expressed concern about fraud. Former Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., in 2008 complained that “one-fourth to one-third of these EITC returns are based on illegal multiple returns, phony Social Security numbers, and claims of nonexistent children or even makebelieve spouses.” A study in 2009 by Edwin Rubinstein, president of ESR Research, an economics consulting firm, also reported on fraud and inaccuracy within the program. But the EITC is clearly superior to welfare programs that typically penalize work effort: The EITC rewards work. While many of the recipients are single parents, the credit is available to two-parent families when one parent works and the other takes care of the children. Expansion of the EITC during the 1990s encouraged hundreds of thousands of men and women to leave welfare and take low-paying jobs that helped them develop skills and work habits. Those appeals to conservatives indicate why the program that began in 1975 gained expansion through the Reagan Tax Reform Act of 1986 (and further expansion in 1990, 1993, and 2001). EITC recipients who claim credits wrongly can be made ineligible for two years if the IRS determines the error stems from “reckless and intentional disregard” of the rules, and for 10 years in the case of a fraudulent claim. Conservatives are calling for improved enforcement. A —Christina Darnell is a North Carolina journalist
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TURNING 65 With work to be done, this is no time for & by J P
KRIEG BARRIE
TURNING 65 IN JANUARY has me all fired up to get busy. I am close enough to the finish line that the face of Jesus is coming into sharper focus. This is very exciting and makes me want to pick up the pace. Of course, He is not the least impressed with frenzy. Nor is He pleased with boomer indolence. What His face says to me is: “I am your rest every day, and there is good work to do every day till you’re home.” God has called me to this one great thing, and His face affirms it every day: With full courage, now (after ) as always, Christ will be magnified in your body, whether by life or by death (Philippians :). Live now to make much of Christ. Measure everything by this: Will it help more people admire Jesus more intensely and treasure Jesus more deeply? The Bible says, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty” (Psalms :). But of course, “My times are in your hand” (Psalms :). The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. We don’t live one day longer or shorter than God appoints. So at , I am still gagging at the pictures of leathery old sunbathers on white shores and green links. For years, I have thrown hundreds of senior mailings in the recycle bag unopened. Not that I am opposed to saving on lunch at Perkins. Just don’t try to sell me heaven before I get there. There is too much hell left to fight.
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Turning has set me to pondering what people have done in the great years. For example, I just received a copy of the first major biography of Charles Hodge in over a century: Paul C. Gutjahr, Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy (Oxford, ). On the first page, I read, “When people reach their seventies, they often think their work is done. Not so with Hodge. His last years were among this most productive as he sat ensconced in his study, wielding his favorite pen to compose literally thousands of manuscript pages, which would eventually become his monumental Systematic Theology and his incisive What Is Darwinism?” (p. vii). So I started poking around on the internet. Here’s some of what I found (for example, at museumofconceptualart.com/accomplished): At Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of England, and for the next five years led the Western world to freedom. At English writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson began his last major work, The Lives of the English Poets. At Ronald Reagan became the oldest man ever sworn in as president of the United States. He was reelected at . At Benjamin Franklin helped draft the Declaration of Independence. At Grandma Moses started painting.
At John Glenn became the oldest person to go into space. At Johann Wolfgang von Goethe finished writing his famous Faust. At Winston Churchill wrote A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. At Michelangelo created the architectural plans for the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. At Albert Schweitzer ran a hospital in Africa. At Arthur Rubinstein performed one of his greatest recitals in Carnegie Hall. At P.G. Wodehouse worked on his th novel, got knighted, and died. And don’t forget, if you are running this marathon with Jesus, you have a great advantage. God has promised you: “Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah :). Nothing to be ashamed of here. We’ve been dangling in the yoke of Jesus ever since He called us. At our peak, we were totally dependent. So it will be to the end. So, all you boomers just breaking into Medicare, gird up your loins, pick up your cane, head for the gym, and get fit for the last lap. Fix your eyes on the Face at the finish line. There will plenty of time for & in the Resurrection. For now, there is happy work to be done. A
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Missions agencies and churches wrestle with controversial Muslim-friendly translations of the Bible and fallout from “insider movement” tactics by EMILY BELZ
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S a Presbyterian pastor in Atlanta in , minding his own business, when he read an article in Evangelical Missions Quarterly about the “insider movement” in Muslim-majority countries—part of evangelists’ efforts to be more culturally sensitive to Muslims they are trying to win to faith—for example, planting churches that aren’t like Western chapels, but reflect local sensibilities, like sitting on the floor instead of in pews. The movement then was controversial, and years later is increasingly so—and more widespread. Insider movement adherents urge Muslim converts to retain their Muslim “culture,” even continuing to call themselves Muslim, retain some Muslim practices, and remain in a mosque while acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord personally, and most likely privately. At its extreme, individuals within the movement have published translations of the Bible that remove phrases supposedly offensive to Muslims, like “Son of God,” which some Muslims claim is offensive because it insinuates that God had sex with Mary to create Jesus. When Seaton read the piece, he chucked it aside. “It’s on the other side of the world,” he said to himself. But a few months later, one of the missionaries his Presbyterian church supported in a Muslim-majority country met with him to tell him about her work of making the gospel accessible to Muslims. What she was saying sounded a lot like the situation described in the EMQ article, he told her. “That’s us,” she replied. Seaton was surprised. He asked what he might find most controversial about what she was doing, and she told him it was probably the translations she and others were working on, which changed the familial language between Jesus and God. So Mark :, where God’s voice thunders from heaven, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased,” would be translated, “You are my messiah, with you I am well pleased.” When Seaton related this story to me, he said, “You’ve crossed your Rubicon at that point. We in the [Seaton’s denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America] have been unknowingly supporting this.” LOST IN TRANSLATIONS: The insider movement is a growing challenge Pakistani men reading for churches and missions groups, one that they the Bible in Karachi. are just beginning to confront as they question ILYAS J. DEAN/PAK/NEWSCOM M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
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voices are not heard,” they wrote. “We believe that much of the intellectual support and zeal for the promotion of the ‘insider movement’ among evangelicals, are coming from the West or at least Eastern non-MBBs [Muslim-background believers] who are mostly speaking from an outsider perspective about an ‘insider movement.’” Other prominent Muslimbackground believers who have become vocal critics of the insider movement include Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund and Georges Houssney of Horizons International. Churches are just beginning to address the issue head-on. Seaton is now pastor of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Va. In late March, the Potomac Presbytery, a
“If I have to continue to live and obey the same culture—if I have to pray like a Muslim, if I have to keep the fast, if I have to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, then there is no difference, and why did I accept Jesus then?”
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regional governing body in the , passed an overture at Seaton’s urging titled “A Call to Faithful Witness.” It states that translations replacing the words “Son of God” and “God the Father” with non-familial language are “harmful . . . bringing confusion to people in need of Christ.” It urges Presbyterian churches “to assess whether the missionaries and agencies they support use or promote Bible translations that remove familial language in reference to persons of the Trinity, and if so, to withdraw their support.” Seaton wanted the overture to be more than a “we don’t like this” statement, so it also states that churches should “support biblically sound and appropriately contextualized efforts to see Christ’s church established among resistant peoples.” In Minneapolis, Bethlehem Baptist Church, where John Piper is senior pastor, raised the issue in a letter last year to its global partners, posing questions about the extent of cultural contextualization in evangelization. Frontiers, a mission agency for the Muslim world that has Bethlehem as one of its prominent sending churches, also is wrestling with the issue. Its top fundraiser, David Harriman, left the organization last fall after working there years because he believed insider thinking had crept into the organization, and he couldn’t “sell the product” to donors any Email: ebelz@worldmag.com
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longer. “I became increasingly uncomfortable with the way in which we were framing a lot of stuff,” he told me. “At the very least, there was profound confusion.” The leadership affirmed the organization’s commitment to the Bible as the ultimate and inerrant authority for its work, but Harriman said certain practices had changed. Churchplanting in Muslim contexts gave way to a more individualistic personal affirmation of faith, he said: “There’s a profound need for Frontiers to find clarity.” Harriman doesn’t believe Frontiers was directly involved with any of the Muslim-friendly translations, but said he “facilitated” fundraising for one, The True Meaning of the Gospels and Acts, an Arabic translation by Mazhar Mallouhi (who calls himself a “Muslim follower of Christ”) that changes the familial phrases: “Your father who is in heaven” is rendered “God your supreme guardian,” for example. “If Frontiers was unaware, shame on Frontiers and shame on me for not knowing,” Harriman said. Bob Blincoe, the U.S. director of Frontiers, said Harriman was “misguided” and that Blincoe had “answered his objections adequately.” Blincoe told me that Frontiers would not “play loose with the terms of the Bible.” When I asked if Frontiers would use translations that changed the phrase “Son of God,” he responded by saying that Wycliffe Bible Translators does translations, not Frontiers. He had spoken to Wycliffe’s president Bob Creson about the issue. “They’re trying to be faithful to the Scriptures—but helpful,” he said. “I do not want to hear anybody say that Frontiers or any other organization that is worthy of the name missionary is compromising the gospel to make it somehow easy or smooth for the gospel to go down in people’s hearts.” One of Wycliffe’s translators, Rick Brown (though Wycliffe would not say whether he remains affiliated with the organization because of policy not to disclose personal information about staff or ministry partners), has been a proponent of changing the phrase “Son of God” to “Messiah” in order to remove a stumbling block to Muslims. In the Spring edition of the International Journal of Frontier Missions, Brown alluded to organizations that objected to such translations: “On the day of judgment, will those who might have heard and believed the Gospel stand up to accuse such Christians of hindering their salvation? Only God knows.” When I asked how the organization renders the phrase “Son of God” in Muslim contexts, Wycliffe issued this statement: “Wycliffe and our partners have very specific ways of checking translations to ensure that ‘Son of God’ is accurately translated and communicated that in no way diverts the reader from the true meaning of the phrase. It is critical that the deity, authority and position of Jesus be accurately communicated and that they be communicated in such a way that also does not hinder potential for a growing understanding of the Trinity,” the statement read. “This may mean using the term ‘Son of God’ in the text and then including explanatory footnotes. Or, it may mean using an equivalent or similar term in the text (one that will not result in wrong or harmful misunderstanding of the meaning) with footnotes that further explain the meaning.” Seaton believes all Christians should urgently seek more clarity on such matters. “The reason we’re in this mess is the church hasn’t been the church,” he said. “We have to begin with a posture of self-critique and repentance.” A M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
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Counting the cost Christians in one of China’s largest unregistered churches vow to continue Sunday worship despite intimidation from authorities and growing persecution nationwide by Jamie Dean
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he scene for the last indoor worship service in April of Shouwang Church in Beijing was ominous: Nearly 300 church members wept and prayed for freedom to worship in their rented room at the Old Story Restaurant, while framed photos of Chinese Communist Party officials lined the walls. The photos were a stark reminder of the church’s plight. Leaders of the 1,000-member congregation—which holds three services on Sundays—say party officials pressured the restaurant’s owner to evict the group, leading the Christians to a dangerous decision: The unregistered church would openly worship outdoors. In a letter to the congregation, church leaders explained: “Sunday worship is the most basic necessity for Christians in their life of faith.” A week later, an outdoor Sunday gathering on April 10 ended before it began: Police blocked the designated meeting area and detained more than 160 Christians armed with Bibles and hymn sheets. Authorities interrogated the Christians at a nearby elementary school, eventually releasing them, but at least two church leaders remained under house arrest, and many church members said police were monitoring their movements. The next Sunday a similar scene unfolded: Authorities detained nearly 50 members of the Shouwang Church attempting to worship outdoors. (Police later released most of the church members, but a few remained in custody.) The Texas-based ChinaAid reported that all of the church’s leadership remained under house arrest, and that some church members had suddenly lost jobs and faced eviction from their homes. The group suspects government pressure on employers and landlords. The crackdown was swift, but not surprising. HumanSWIFT CRACKDOWN: Police officers (facing page) watch rights groups say government for Shouwang worshippers, persecution against Chinese who were loaded onto Christians has been intensifying buses for interrogation at a for months and has grown nearby school April 10.
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Behind the scenes, Fu—who has regular contact with worse with a new development: revolution in the Middle church leaders—says authorities have tried to convince the East. church to register with the government, even offering the After anonymous online calls for a “Jasmine Revolution” pastor a government position in exchange. Fu says it’s a to protest the Chinese government, authorities have common government strategy: Convincing churches to rounded up as many as 100 human-rights lawyers, activists, register with the state would allow the government to and high-profile dissidents since February. The U.S. State maintain control and deny charges of oppression. Most Department called on Chinese authorities to stop the house churches “extralegal” aren’t acquiescing. detentions. Shouwang Churches Church leaders caught in the have refused to crossfire say their join the official goals aren’t politigovernment cal. But the leaders church, and in an of the Shouwang open letter to their Church also say congregation, the they aren’t backing church leaders said down. They vow to the department of continue meeting religious affairs outdoors—even if it had “overstepped means detentions its jurisdiction” by or arrest—until interfering with officials allow their worship. The reasonable access pastors called on to an indoor the government to meeting space. allow the church to And they’ve gone a meet indoors, saystep further: They ing it would “set a say Chinese “WE WILL PAY THE PRICE”: healthy beginning for the future relationship authorities should let them worship freely, A Sunday service on Oct. 3, between church and state.” even if their church isn’t registered with 2010, before eviction. For now, such a bold declaration may be the government. the beginning of more trouble. Christians in That’s an extraordinary pronouncement. at least six Chinese provinces have reported government Bob Fu, director of ChinaAid, says he can’t think of abuse in the last few weeks. Wang Zhanhu, a pastor in another example of Chinese Christians openly challenging Shaanxi Province, said police beat him with an electric government authorities. “It’s definitely bold,” he said. baton while he was preaching to a crowd in April, leaving Chinese authorities formally require churches to regishim severely injured and hospitalized. Other churches ter with the government, but many congregations refuse report arbitrary raids and detentions. Still, a group of 14 to submit to the oversight of a government that persecutes large house churches in Beijing—all members of the Beijing Christians. The unregistered “house church” movement Ministerial Prayer Fellowship—expressed solidarity with includes groups that meet in homes, office buildings, and the Shouwang Church and pledged to hold weekly prayer other rented spaces and has exploded in numbers over the vigils. ChinaAid urged Christians around the world to pray last two decades. for Shouwang, and a U.S. State Department spokesman Authorities have allowed house churches to meet, as said the United States urges Chinese officials to release long as the groups don’t pose a perceived threat. Even detained church members and to “respect the rights of its the thousand members of Shouwang Church in Beijing citizens, including freedom of religion and assembly.” have managed to meet without government registration. The leaders of Shouwang Church know they could face (Most house churches are much smaller.) Fu believes more dangers. But the pastors told church members: “As authorities have been hesitant to completely shut down the church of Jesus Christ, we should not change our the high-profile congregation—which includes univermode of Sunday worship just because someone or some sity professors, attorneys, and other respected entity decides that we may or may not use a particular intellectuals. meeting place.” And the leaders encouraged detained Instead, authorities began making it hard to continue, members to respond with courage and meekness: “Do interfering with their ability to rent meeting spaces—the not resist, let them take us away, just like a lamb to the church met outdoors in the snow in November 2009—and slaughter. In our hearts, we know we gather for worship— blocking access to a building the church purchased by and for the sake of worship, we will pay the price.” A pressuring the seller to withhold the keys.
Email: jdean@worldmag.com
4/21/11 10:59 AM
WM0511_BestDocs_WM1004B/Bios 4/20/11 12:32 PM Page 1
More Than Dreams For decades, a phenomenon has been recurring in the Muslim world. Men and women, without any knowledge of the Gospel and without any contact with Christians, have been forever transformed after experiencing dreams and visions of Jesus Christ. Here are five stories of former Muslims who now know Jesus as their Savior, recreated in docu-drama format and produced in their original languages with English subtitles. Meet Khalil, a radical Egyptian terrorist who was transformed when Jesus appeared to him; Mohammed, a herdsman in Nigeria who found the deep love of Christ; Dini, an Indonesian teenager who became a Christian on a night that Muslims individualize their prayers to Allah; Khosrow, a young Iranian man who was depressed and without hope; and Ali, a Turkish man in bondage to alcohol. 187 minutes total. DVD - #501117D, $19.99
The Fanny Crosby Story
Robber of the Cruel Streets: George Müller
C.H. Spurgeon: The People’s Preacher
George Müller (18051898) was a German playboy who found Christ and gave his life to serve Christ unreservedly. His mission was to rescue orphans from the wretched street life that enslaved so many children in England during the time of Charles Dickens and Oliver Twist. Müller did rescue, care for, feed, and educate such children by the thousands. The costs were enormous for such a great work. Yet, amazingly, he never asked anyone for money. Instead he prayed, and his children never missed a meal. This docu-drama presents his life story and shows how God answered prayer and met their needs. It is a story that raises foundational questions regarding faith and finances. Also included are two special documentaries on Müller and some of the lives affected by his work. 59 minutes plus 30-minute documentary. DVD - #500939D, $19.99
Here is the intimate story of one of the greatest preachers in the history of the church. We follow him from his youth where, as a young preacher, he is surprisingly called to minister in London and soon captures the love and respect of the nation. He goes on to become one of its most influential figures. This powerful, inspirational docu-drama faithfully recreates the times of C.H. Spurgeon and brings the “people’s preacher” to life as it follows his trials and triumphs with historical accuracy. Made by the award-winning Christian Television Association and filmed on location in England, Scotland, France and Germany, this film vividly captures the spirit and message of a man whose eventful — and sometimes controversial — life is highly relevant to the twenty-first century. 70 minutes. DVD - #501345D, $19.99
The Reckoning
PETAR KUJUNDZIC/Reuters/Landov
This is the amazing biography of the blind hymn writer, Fanny Crosby. As the writer of more than 10,000 hymns, all penned after the age of 40, she is credited with authoring more verse than any human in history. The tragic mistreatment by a charlatan masquerading as a doctor blinded Fanny shortly after birth. Nevertheless, she learned to function as a sighted person except for her inability to read. Fulfilling the roles of wife, mother, friend, teacher, nurse to the sick during the cholera epidemic, humanitarian to the poor and disenfranchised, and friend of presidents — Fanny Crosby was an exceptional woman by any standard. Her legacy lives on through the thousands of hymns that are still sung today. 46 minutes. DVD - #4733D, $14.99
In September 1939, war erupted in Europe as Germany invaded Poland. Eight months later, Hitler publicly broadcasted that he would not invade Holland due to their neutrality during World War I. Within hours, this promise became a treacherous lie that engulfed the small country in World War II. Prejudice and persecution spread. The preservation of human life became a life-and-death mission for a small minority of ordinary Dutch citizens. The Reckoning: Remembering the Dutch Resistance is the international award-winning documentary that captures the compelling story and eyewitness account of six survivors in wartorn Netherlands during World War II. With the revelation of Hitler’s “Final Solution” and the uncertainty of liberation, it reveals the intensely human aspect of the Dutch struggle against Nazi tyranny. 96 minutes plus extras. DVD - #501177D, $19.99
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4/20/11 2:37 PM
by Jill Nelson
map: istock • syria: egypt: stringer/ap • iran: MORTEZA NIKOUBAZL/Reuters/Landov • syria: OSMAN ORSAL/AFP/Getty Images
Turkey is becoming a model to many in a transitioning Middle East—but that may not be as encouraging as it seems
Streetcar democr 9 MIDDLE EAST.indd 52
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map: istock • syria: egypt: stringer/ap • iran: MORTEZA NIKOUBAZL/Reuters/Landov • syria: OSMAN ORSAL/AFP/Getty Images
T
he dramatic toppling of dictatorships in the Middle East has launched a new era and a quest for democratic vision in the Muslim world. As the international community anxiously anticipates the outcomes of uprisings in
Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and the Gulf states, Turkey has maneuvered itself into the spotlight. “If the world is on fire, Turkey is the firefighter,”
proclaimed Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in early April. “Turkey is assuming the leading role for stability in the Middle East.” Touting Turkey’s growing leadership on the chessboard of regional geopolitics and success in creating a model Muslim democracy, Ankara (and its growing number of fans in the Middle East) claims it can serve as a beacon to Arab countries in transition. But the erosion of democratic freedoms at home calls into question Turkey’s ultimate direction and raises concerns about a country that is becoming increasingly Islamist and gradually more powerful. With general elections slated for June 12, how this nation votes may say much about the future of
cracy democracy in the Muslim world.
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With the exception of Bahrain—where a Shiite majority threatens to topple the Sunni monarchy—all of the Arab upheavals have been in countries with Sunni majorities, creating potential candidates for Turkey’s Muslim-style democracy. Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is closer to being a regional power than ever before. “I think something has changed with the revolutions in Arab countries and with the fall of dictatorships. The fact that political space is opening up in those countries and various Islamist parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood which has an ideological affinity to the AKP, are likely to come to power or shared power after elections take place in Tunisia and Egypt means that for the first time the AKP has soft power in Arab capitals.” Ankara has acted accordingly, sending a delegation led by Turkish President Abdullah Gul to Egypt on March 3 and initially opposing military intervention against Muammar Qaddafi’s Libyan regime, delaying NATO involvement. Even before the Arab revolutions, Turkey was jockeying for regional prestige, forging alliances with Syria, Libya, and Iran while ties with Israel and the West decayed. As Turkey is pursuing collaboration with Iran and other neighbors, competition is also driving Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regional agenda. The 2010 Gaza flotilla incident, which resulted in the deaths of nine Turks, thrust Ankara into the leading role as anti-Israel instigator and garnered applause from al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. “Al-Qaeda’s endorsement confirms Erdogan’s push to be seen not merely as a leader of the Muslim world, but the leader,” Hillel Fradkin and Lewis Libby argued in a recent World Affairs article. “While he had previously played merely a supportive role to Iran, with the flotilla affair Erdogan pressed Turkey’s case.” But when it comes to Iran’s controversial nuclear program, Turkey has sided with Tehran, refusing to endorse U.S.-sponsored sanctions against Iran. “There’s something puzzling here,” Cagaptay told me. “Turks should be taking issue with Iran’s
FORGING ALLIANCES: Gul meets with Egypt’s Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi (far left) and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (center), while Erdogan holds talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
4/20/11 9:47 PM
nukes because Turkey and Iran are two large post-imperial states in the Middle East sitting next to one another and they are historic rivals. If Iran gets a bomb, this historic parity between the two countries will be tilted in Iran’s favor forever.” Iran has more natural resources but Turkey’s economy—the second-fastest-growing economy in the world last year—is stronger than Iran’s, and so is its conventional military. Turkey also enjoys more domestic and international support than Iran and is strategically located in both Europe and Asia. Add to this a unique blend of secularism and Islam and Turkey appears to be the inspirational model for post-revolutionary Arab countries. Emerging leaders in both Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda movement and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood have expressed an interest in using Turkey as a model for their own countries. Cagaptay is less optimistic: “I think the AKP’s Turkey will be a false model. It doesn’t lead or result in liberal democracy. It results in something less than that.”
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Since the rise to power of the Islamist AKP in 2002, Prime Minister Erdogan has cleverly and gradually tilted the country eastward, muzzled the press, and diminished the military’s role as guardian of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s vision for a secular state. The latest crackdown on media freedom has resulted in an international outcry. Dozens of journalists are currently in prison—among the highest numbers of jailed journalists in the world, according to Freedom House. Media outlets and political rivals are frequently wiretapped without court order, with authorities citing coup involvement but failing to provide any evidence. In March, Turkish police arrested 13 journalists on charges of conspiring to overthrow the AKP through the alleged
Ergenekon plot, and two of the country’s top journalists, Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik, were included in the arrests. Both journalists worked for media outlets critical of the AKP. U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone on April 13 strongly criticized the state of press freedom in Turkey (according to the Turkish daily Hurriyet), and Reporters Without Borders called the confiscation and destruction of Sik’s unpublished book “a very dangerous precedent.” A constitutional referendum that passed last September enlarged Erdogan’s power and diminished the military’s control over its own membership. Cagaptay says the next step could be a complete rewriting of the nation’s constitution. If the AKP emerges from the June elections with two-thirds representation in the parliament, a new constitution (which is already being discussed) can be drafted without seeking consensus. Close to 55 percent of Turks do not support the AKP and its Islamist policies but, because of the country’s multiparty system, the AKP only needs 45 percent of the vote to win a two-thirds majority in the Parliament. A primary concern in post-revolutionary Arab countries is the prospect of Islamist parties coming to power and eroding democratic freedoms. During his term as mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan proclaimed the following: “Democracy is like a streetcar. You ride it until you get to your destination and then you get off.” Turkey still has a chance to redirect its current course, but it may not be the shining example of a Muslim democracy after all. And with regional ambitions largely unchecked, it could be a force to be reckoned with in years to come. A MUZZLED PRESS: Hundreds of journalists protest the arrests of journalists, including Sener and Sik, in Ankara on March 19.
Email: jnelson@worldmag.com
4/20/11 9:48 PM
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Soul Surfer portrays the comeback spirit and faith of shark attack survivor and champion surfer Bethany Hamilton
G N I H C T CA by ALISA HARRIS in New York
York premiere, Hill recalled that the ambulance passed her RICH PELUSO—vice president of Affirm Films, a Sony Pictures just as Hamilton’s brother, Noah, called with the news. She label that releases Christian films—was getting a cup of coffee followed it to the hospital, praying for the right words and when he noticed on the wall of the local coffee shop a poster sharing the scripture that eventually comforts Hamilton’s of Bethany Hamilton, a girl who lost her arm in a shark attack character in the film: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ but went on to become a professional surfer. Then a friend told declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, Peluso he’d heard Affirm Films was going to make a movie plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah :). about Hamilton’s story. It wasn’t true, but Peluso immediately Arlene Newman Van-Asperen, who plays the mother of inquired and found that the script was languishing at his office. Hamilton’s best surfer friend, said she now tells Hamilton’s No one else was interested, but Peluso dug out the box of scripts, story to the children she teaches at Vacation Bible School. called his boss and said, “We have got to make this movie.” It reminds her, “I can handle my little things.” Kevin Soul Surfer proves that a film with unabashed Christian Sorbo, who plays the family friend who saves the elements can attract big-name talent like Carrie Underwood, surfer’s life after the attack, says he remembers Dennis Quaid, and Helen Hunt while winning at the box hearing the story of the attack in and office. Although it was originally going to appear at just a being angry that something so terrible would few hundred theaters, on its opening weekend in April Soul happen to a young girl. The real story, he Surfer earned . million and the highest per-theater found, is her comeback: “She goes out average of any new wide release. The project “lived and died” there and shows the world she can be a more than once, Peluso said, but like Hamilton herself, the beacon for God and a beacon for Jesus.” film bounced back. Hamilton was the stunts double The film begins with Hamilton at age , already a champion for Anna Sophia Robb, the young surfer who has been winning trophies since she was . On an actress who plays her, and filmed idyllic Hawaii day, she is practicing for her next competition the surfing scenes herself. These when a shark strikes, ripping off her left arm. She makes a scenes make some of the quick physical recovery and is back on her surfboard just film’s best moments and weeks later, but her spiritual recovery is more complicated as its finest cinematography. she struggles to believe she can—and should—keep surfing. As Hamilton runs her Soul Surfer does not dilute the faith that keeps Hamilton fingers along a wall of and her family strong—a priority for director Sean McNamara, water while surfing who refused to work with writers who didn’t understand that straight through the faith was central to the story. Hamilton—who is now a “tube” of a breaking -year-old woman with tan skin and honey-blonde hair— wave, we know why she said that she and her family read and corrected scores of bad wanted to jump back out scripts, including some that downplayed their faith. there. And thanks to the In one of the first scenes, Hamilton (Anna Sophia Robb) film’s integrity in hurries out of the water and straight to an outdoor church portraying her faith, we service where her youth group leader Sarah Hill (Underwood also know how. A in her film debut) is singing, “Blessed Be Your Name.” The film is true to the spiritual story even down to the small details, like the scripture EPIC STORY: Hamilton rides a wave; the Hamilton the real Hill told Hamilton’s family on family; Sarah Hill (Underwood) with Bethany’s youth group in the movie; Hamilton and Robb (left to right). the day of the shark attack. At the New
W O R L D M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
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4/18/11 2:51 PM
Notebook
NICOLE BENGIVENO/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
LIFESTYLE TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HOUSES OF GOD SPORTS MONEY LAW RELIGION
LIFESTYLE: The U.S. healthcare system is expensive and increasingly impersonal, but some doctors are finding a better way
>> › ›
›
TEAM SPORT: Dr. Kate Dewar works in the at Lehigh Valley Hospital Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa. M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
9 LIFESTYLE and TECHNOLOGY.indd 59
WORLD
4/21/11 11:09 AM
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for $10,000. “The system can’t afford the current system,” he says. Dr. Verghese described it as “a healthcare system in which our menu has no prices, we can order filet mignon at every meal.” Despite the satisfaction inherent in the work, the Ecks find it hard to recruit physicians to volunteer at the clinic. They speculate that the stress and time COMMON SENSE: Dr. demands of running a private pracAlieta Eck treats a tice keep many from volunteering. patient in Zarephath. That’s why they are proposing an alternative: What if New Jersey did away with Medicaid altogether? What if the state encouraged more doctors to voluntarily care for the poor at free clinics like Zarephath? And what if, in exchange, the state would provide doctors with malpractice coverage in their private practices, relieving them of that financial burden and discouraging frivolous lawsuits, since the state, like the federal government, is less likely to settle nuisance suits than private insurers are. They believe the result would be better care for the poor and financial savings overall: “If the state were to say we will protect doctors, the doctors would order fewer tests. A good doctor who is a good clinician will give better care.” Verghese, from his different vantage point, similarly concludes that today’s system is bad for budgets, doctors, and patients. Tending to the iPatient, he writes, “can’t begin to compare with the joy, excitement, intellectual pleasure, pride, disappointment, and lessons in humility that trainees might experience by learning from the real patient’s body examined at the bedside.” Verghese describes the careful physical exam as ritual, which “strengthens the patient–physician relationship and enhances the Samaritan role of doctors—all rarely discussed reasons why we should maintain our physicaldiagnosis skills.” Verghese concludes with a cry for better medical training to produce better clinicians, those who understand “the bedside is hallowed ground, the place where fellow human beings allow us the privilege of looking at, touching, and listening to their bodies. Our skills and discernment must be worthy of such trust.” But that’s unlikely to happen unless we make our medical system hospitable once again to doctors like the Ecks and the elder Dewars. A
bowen rodkey for world
Medicine about two approaches to medicine— one traditional and the other expedient. In the traditional approach, “The body is the text, a text that is changing and must be frequently inspected, palpated, percussed, and auscultated [listening to body sounds].” That contrasts with the expedient way, where the “patient is still at the center, but more as an icon for another entity clothed in binary garments: the ‘iPatient.’” He says many hospital doctors pay scant attention to the real patient. Instead they huddle around monitors filled with patient data. It’s the emergency room docs who do the scanning, testing, and diagnosing “so that interns meet a fully formed iPatient long before seeing the real patient.” When doctors don’t spend time observing patients, “simple diagnoses and new developments are overlooked, while tests, consultations, and procedures that might not be needed are ordered.” All this came to mind when I visited recently Drs. John and Alieta Eck, married physicians who share a medical practice in north central New Jersey. They also run a free clinic in Zarephath, N.J., that opened in 2003 and now sees 300-400 patients per month during the 12 hours a week it is open (see “Patients & partners,” Nov. 21, 2009). The current clinic is tiny and located in a flood plain, so it is expanding to a new location on higher ground across the road. The new clinic will have six exam rooms and a small lab. Another room will house a dental chair. There will be large bathrooms, a room for volunteers, a pharmacy, and classrooms for teaching. The Ecks would love to train physicians to be good clinicians there. They see more pathology in the clinics than residents see in hospitals, and the need to provide low-cost care requires them to become the kind of clinicians Dr. Verghese describes. They listen carefully to their patients’ stories. Covered by the Federal Tort Claims Act, which gives free federal medical malpractice coverage for work done at free clinics, they don’t have to order unnecessary tests to ward off lawsuits. They are free, as Alieta Eck says, “to use common sense and treat the patient rather than looking over my shoulder at the lawyer waiting in the wings.” John Eck describes one clinic visit: A woman in her mid40s comes in with a lower-chest pain that’s going up her neck. She has a fast heart rate. As he examines her, he finds her thyroid is a little tender. He thinks maybe that’s why her heart is racing. He gives her a baby aspirin and beta blocker and tells her to come back. When she returns the symptoms are gone. Dr. Eck notes that most doctors would have referred the patient to the emergency room: “If you only get paid $10 from Medicaid, why would you assume liability? Of course you would send her to an emergency room.” There the patient would get a stress test or a stress thallium test along with a bill W O R L D M ay 7, 2 0 1 1
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4/21/11 8:30 AM
Thumbs up: shutterstock • familybhive: handout • hulu • handout • networking • istock • linked in: handout
Notebook > Lifestyle
Notebook > Technology
The Facebook market Friendly links boost business for ticket sellers and retailers BY ALISSA WILKINSON
THUMBS UP: SHUTTERSTOCK • FAMILYBHIVE: HANDOUT • HULU • HANDOUT • NETWORKING • ISTOCK • LINKED IN: HANDOUT
>>
concert season approaching, concert promoters are looking for ways to grow audiences and sell tickets. For them, Facebook is there: The company recently announced data indicating that when users share links to concerts to which they’ve bought tickets, ticket sales increase significantly. For every user who posts that he purchased a ticket from Ticketmaster, friends spend . on Ticketmaster; Eventbrite posts garner an additional .. The phenomenon also works for retail—for instance, American Eagle shoppers referred by Facebook friends spend percent more than average on the site. The effect is so remarkable that of the top e-commerce sites now use the Facebook “Like” button or other Facebook services on their sites.
› Since Facebook affects shopping, some are willing to bet that social media can have a significant effect on investments, too. One such site, Family Bhive, was started as a sort of exclusive Facebook for the very wealthy, whose assets must be verified before they are permitted to join. Groups that cater to that market—charities, lawyers, asset management firms—use the site to link with potential investors and set up meetings. And the site also facilitates members who wish to make connections and share investment insight.
TECH NETWORKING ›
Available in Apple’s App Store: Download ’s iPad app today
9LIFESTYLEandTECHNOLOGY.indd61
M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
WORLD
4/201:5PM
Notebook > Science
STEADFAST HEART Heart disease is the top killer of Americans, but Utahans are less likely than average to die from it.
Screened out?
“Preconception genetic testing” is growing, but it could have terrible consequences BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
W O R L D M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
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College of Cardiology suggested that monthly Mormon fasting may explain why Utah’s heart disease rates are low. The
screening and counseling before receiving a marriage license. The report by the Human Genetics Commission, an advisory body to the government, recommended expanding the availability of voluntary preconception testing and counseling, and requiring that older children be taught about the procedure in school. That possibility raises several ethical issues. One is whether couples who learn their offspring have an increased risk of a genetic condition will be more likely to abort. Another is whether preconception testing will nudge society toward censuring couples who choose to carry handicapped children to term or who have a conviction against family planning. The commission acknowledged the possibility: “Parents may also come to be expected to bear more personal responsibility for having a child with [a genetic] condition if they are seen, in effect, as having chosen not to avoid it.” Is it a couple’s responsibility to prevent the conception of children where a genetic risk is involved, or is that God’s business? There’s also the possibility that young people whose test results indicate they could pass down a serious genetic mutation will be stigmatized and become “unmarriageable,” warned David King, director of the British watchdog Human Genetics Alert. Trends in Europe are sometimes a bellwether for trends in the United States: In the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended that preconception cystic fibrosis screening be offered to high-risk couples—Ashkenazi Jews and other Caucasians. In March the group recommended the screening for all women, whatever their ethnicity.
doctors, from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City, found that -hour fasting temporarily increases human growth hormone and cholesterol levels, and said the body begins burning fat instead of glucose during fasts— lowering cholesterol and heart disease risk in the long run. Some outside experts were unenthusiastic, though, and said more research is needed on the subject. —D.J.D.
ISTOCK
Genetic diseases may appear in offspring when both parents carry a relevant genetic mutation, even if the parents aren’t sick. If the parents, for instance, carry mutations for cystic fibrosis, a debilitating condition that shortens life expectancy, each of their children will have a percent chance of suffering from the disease. Genetic mutations are one reason why close relatives shouldn’t marry, and why risk increases in ethnically distinct populations: Ashkenazi Jews are susceptible to Tay-Sachs disease, and African-Americans have an increased risk for sickle cell anemia. In the island nation Cyprus, where one in seven adults carries a mutation for beta thalassemia, a serious blood disorder, couples must undergo genetic
meeting of the American
Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
4/21/11 4:04 PM
MARK DE FRAEYE/AKG-IMAGES/NEWSCOM
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A has given British government officials two thumbs up to the nation’s increasing practice of “preconception genetic testing.” As opposed to tests that directly check a fetus for genetic disorders, preconception screening identifies couples whose children would have a heightened risk of inheriting a disorder from mom and dad. Until now, such testing has been directed toward particular at-risk population groups.
Doctors at the annual
ISTOCK
MARK DE FRAEYE/AKG-IMAGES/NEWSCOM
Notebook > Houses of God
Women from the Kayan tribe worship at the Presbyterian church in Sarawak, Malaysia.
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WORLD
4/20/11 9:59 PM
Notebook > Sports
Politically incorrect profanity has the ’s best player scrambling to make amends BY MARK BERGIN
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I F the Phoenix Suns dished out a one-game suspension to forward Jason Richardson. His crime: an arrest for speeding mph over the posted limit with an unrestrained -year-old child in the back seat. That April, Boston guard Ray Allen and Orlando forward Dwight Howard received one-game suspensions for throwing elbows at opposing players. In January the fined LeBron James , for a sideline temper tantrum during which he kicked a water bottle. Enter Kobe Bryant. After being whistled for a foul during an April contest with San Antonio, the Lakers guard hurled a profane insult at the referee. His punishment: a , fine handed down from the the following day. Why so
OUT OF THE WOODS
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Kaymer playing the bulk of their schedules overseas, stateside players may miss facing the world’s stiffest competition week in and week out for years to come. It’s enough to get golf fans itching for a world tour, a united global schedule pitting the best players against one another every time they tee it up. And according to both the U.S. and European tours’ respective commissioners, such a dream could become reality. At a press conference last month, PGA Tour head Tim Finchem told reporters that a merging of tours could happen in as little as years. European top man George O’Grady agreed. But all the interest in tour integration and emerging European stars could flatline in a moment were Woods to recapture his past form.
BRYANT: LUCY NICHOLSON/REUTERS/LANDOV • WOODS: CHRIS O’MEARA/AP
When Tiger Woods missed a short eagle putt at the th hole at Augusta during the final round of The Masters, the last best hope to avoid an international sweep of golf’s four major championships slipped away. Even had Woods sunk the putt, the likelihood of holding off Charl Schwartzel was thin at best. The young South African birdied the final four holes at Augusta to win going away and complete the European tour’s four-part mastery of golf’s greatest crowns. For the first time in years, U.S. golf is without a reigning men’s major champion. It gets worse for the world’s highest-paid tour. Just one American (Woods) cracked the top five at Augusta, and just three made the top . In the world golf rankings, European tour pros now hold the top three positions. Add in Europe’s victory in last year’s Ryder Cup, and the illusion of U.S. dominance in the game crumbles. With emerging European talents like Rory McIlroy and Martin
Email: mbergin@worldmag.com
4/21/11 3:59 PM
PORTUGAL: FRANCISCO SECO/AP • BANK OF AMERICA: CHUCK BURTON/AP • CHECKS: ERIC RISBERG/AP
Kobe’s slur
much? The insult contained what might best be described as a gay slur. In the days following the incident, Bryant’s fine proved to be the least of his concerns. After all, he earns more than , per game. But the public-relations backlash had the superstar reeling. He issued a public apology, but gay advocacy groups didn’t buy it. So Bryant provided a second, more complete apology in a nationally broadcast radio interview. Then, with the incident still percolating atop the news cycle, Bryant sat for an extended interview with , during which he called himself “ignorant” and insisted that as a teen he had played the role of gay defender: “I used to beat up a lot of kids even in high school who used to tease my friends because they were gay, or because they were black, or because they were Jewish, or because they were yellow, or because they were whatever.” Bryant has now vowed to work with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation () to raise awareness of how words can hurt people. Much of this action could prove helpful, but might the hysteria be excessive? Just years ago, fellow basketball superstar Allen Iverson fired the identical profanity at a fan during an game. His punishment: a , fine.
Notebook > Money
And Portugal makes three Debt-plagued nation asks for bailout
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By joseph slife
Wracked by political upheaval and faced with unsustainable borrowing costs, Portugal—after months of trying to stave off a debt crisis—turned to the European Commission for help, becoming the third eurozone member to request debt assistance. The bailout request came following the resignation of Prime Minister Jose Socrates, who stepped down after the Portuguese parliament rejected an austerity budget as too severe. Austerity is likely to come anyway. Although details of the bailout package are still being worked out, the plan is expected to require Portugal to institute significant budget cuts in return for between $116 billion and $130 billion in lower-interest loans and other assistance. If that figure holds, the bailout would be about the same size as Ireland’s November 2010 rescue package ($123 billion), but smaller than the one Greece received ($159 billion) a year ago. Portugal has one of the 17-nation eurozone’s smallest and weakest economies, with economic growth averaging only 1 percent a year over the past decade. Over the same period, the nation amassed huge debts. Portugal’s public debt is CRISIS: expected to equal roughly its total economic output Protesting this year, up sharply from being at 60 percent of GDP austerity five years ago. On June 15 a $7 billion debt payment measures is due, 10 days after elections for a new government. in Libson.
Bryant: LUCY NICHOLSON/Reuters/Landov • Woods: Chris O’Meara/ap
portugal: Francisco Seco/ap • bank of america: Chuck Burton/ap • checks: Eric Risberg/ap
‘A pattern of misconduct’ U.S. banking regulators ordered 14 of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders and servicers to overhaul their foreclosure practices, hire outside consultants to review complaints and, if necessary, make restitution to homeowners whom they may have foreclosed on improperly. The consent orders—issued by the Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—stemmed from investigations into the banking firms’ use of “robo-signers” to rubber-stamp foreclosure-related legal documents without verifying the facts of each case. According to a Federal Reserve statement, the enforcement actions are designed to address “a pattern of misconduct and negligence” that led to “unsafe and unsound practices.” The nation’s four largest banks—Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo—are among the 14 lenders and servicers cited. —J.S. Joseph Slife is the assistant editor of SoundMindInvesting.com
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Money back As the April 18 tax-filing deadline approached (three days later than usual), the IRS reported that this year’s average federal income-tax refund (as of April 8) was $2,895. That means that by estimating withholding more accurately (i.e., much closer to actual tax liability), the average taxpayer would have enjoyed an increase in take-home pay of more than $200 per month in 2010. —J.S.
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Notebook > Law
Free to speak
Court ruling protects students who oppose to pro-gay event By lauren sneed
school that permits advocacy of the rights of homosexual students cannot be allowed to stifle criticism of homosexuality.” After all, “people in our society do not have the legal right to prevent criticism of their beliefs or even their way of life.”
DEFACED: Heidi Zamecnik wears her T-shirt after school officials scratched out “not gay.”
When Souhair Khatib and her husband visited the Orange County Superior Court on a probation issue (she had pleaded guilty to welfare fraud but failed to perform community service), the California court revoked her probation and ordered her taken into custody. A male officer at the booking counter ordered Khatib to remove her headscarf, which some Muslims consider a “serious breach of faith.” Reluctantly, Khatib removed the scarf. Detained all day, she attempted to cover her head with the vest she was wearing. At the end of the day the judge heard Khatib’s case and reinstated her probation.
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top: Alliance Defense Fund • bottom: Niko Guido/istock
‘Serious breach of faith’? Khatib promptly filed suit against the county and its officers for violating her religious freedom rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), designed to protect the religious freedoms of institutionalized persons. In March, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the holding facility fell within the definition of both “pretrial detention facility” as well as “jail”—both considered institutions and thus subject to RLUIPA. It sent Khatib’s case back to the trial court to argue that her constitutional rights were violated. —L.S.
Lauren Sneed is a lawyer living in Austin, Texas
4/20/11 3:12 PM
offering plate: Vidriera/istock • The Lazarus Effect: hbo films/(red)
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On April 15, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network marks a “Day of Silence” to promote “tolerance” of homosexuality and to encourage gay students and teachers to speak up. In 2006, Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Ill., permitted students and teachers to participate in the event. Some participants wore T-shirts with slogans “Be Who You Are.” The next school day, several Neuqua students participated in a “Day of Truth”: Heidi Zamecnik and Alexander Nuxoll wore T-shirts reading “Be Happy, Not Gay.” School administrators blotted out the “Not Gay” part of Zamecnik’s T-shirt with ink. Both students filed suit against the school for violating their free-speech rights. In March, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously held that such speech is protected by the First Amendment. The court found that “a
Notebook > Religion
Giving (up) the tithe? Survey shows differing evangelical views on the Old Testament practice BY TIM DALRYMPLE
TOP: ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND • BOTTOM: NIKO GUIDO/ISTOCK
OFFERING PLATE: VIDRIERA/iSTOCK VIDRIERA/ • THE LAZARUS EFFECT: HBO FILMS/(RED)
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B actually require the people of God to tithe? Apparently, American evangelical leaders cannot agree upon an answer. Each month, the National Association of Evangelicals surveys its -member board, which includes the heads of Christian denominations, publishers, educational institutions and mission organizations. In the February survey, percent of respondents claimed that they tithed, giving at least percent of their income to the church, but only percent thought tithing is required biblically. Nationwide, those self-identifying as Christians give an average of . percent of their income to their churches, according to a report from Empty Tomb, Inc. Evangelicals give at a slightly higher rate of percent. Leith Anderson, president of the , notes that the Old Testament requires several tithes for government and religious functions. As Bible expert Ben Witherington notes in Jesus and Money, the New
Testament calls Christians to the higher standard of “sacrificial giving.” Yet some of the responses point to a belief in situational flexibility. One non-tither explained that he gave according to his own financial circumstances as well as the needs around him. Anderson himself, although he tithes, said he believes “the New Testament teaches ‘proportionate giving’ that may be more or less than percent based on income.” Purdue sociologist Dan Olson, who has studied the tithing patterns of American Christians, told that some evangelical leaders may object to the word “required,” as though tithing were necessary for salvation. Even those who believe the tithe is not required might recommend the practice as an expression of gratitude. board member Alan Robinson argues that Christian generosity, while not beholden to the Old Testament legal model, should “greatly exceed” the percent tithe.
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9 LAW and RELIGION.indd 67
RAISING LAZARUS On April , when lectionary-based churches read the story of Lazarus in John , hundreds of American churches participated in a “Lazarus Sunday” event to highlight the fight against / in Africa. Of the estimated million people infected worldwide, million live in Africa south of the Sahara. In Zambia, where most people live on less than per day, has dropped the average life expectancy to . When antiretroviral drugs (s) first became available, they could cost as much as , annually. Only , Africans were on s in . Today, million Africans receive the life-saving drugs, often through religious groups, via the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (), begun by George W. Bush. Pharmaceutical companies worked to lower the cost of the drugs to cents per day, and the Obama administration continued the program. Within days of beginning treatment patients who were walking cadavers have become healthy and hopeful adults and children. Doctors call it “the Lazarus Effect.” U lead singer Bono’s organization spearheaded Lazarus Sunday. , an affiliated group also devoted to the battle, commissioned a film showing the dramatic transformations in those receiving medicines. The Lazarus Effect also tells the story of those, such as a -year-old boy named Raden, for whom the treatment came too late. More than , churches screened the short documentary on Lazarus Sunday, most during Sunday school. While some churches declined to get involved, others encouraged congregants to write their representatives and urge them to maintain funding for . It’s clear that at least percent of the funding will be maintained: The House budget proposal had a decrease of million, which would put at about the level, and percent below this past year’s budget. —T.D.
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the world market Classifieds are priced at $23 per line with an average of 33 characters per line and a minimum of two lines. Bold text and uppercase available for $5 per line; special fonts and highlighting available for an additional charge. You will receive a 10 percent discount with a frequency of four or more. All ads are subject to the approval of world. Advertising in world does not necessarily imply the endorsement of the publisher. Prepayment and written confirmation will be required of all advertisers. contact: Connie Moses, world, P.O. Box 20002, Asheville, nc 28802; phone: 828.232.5481; fax: 828.253.1556; email: cmoses@worldmag.com
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professional employment I Full-time lead semi-truck driver for grain & fertilizer. Management exp. preferred. Self-motivated & able to understand individual customer’s needs. Work hours vary, you must be flexible. Applicant will need excellent driving record, with at least 2 yrs. of class A CDL & tanker exp. Send a copy of your driving record with your resumé and wage requirements to CTS Inc., Box 31, Benton, WI 53803. CTS Inc has been in business since 1998 serving Agriculture in SW WI. I Advertising Account Executive for new ad firm. Flexible: from home or travel, F/T or P/T. National reach, higher-end clientele. Retail, direct, B-to-B. Major newspapers, magazines and web. Generous commission and residuals. Contact greg@sageadvertising.net.
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New Mexico Boys and Girls Ranches are seeking Christian married couples to serve as Resident Advisors and Associate Resident Advisors with youth ages 10-18. Our program focuses on educating youth, teaching life skills and values. Salary, on campus housing, moving allowance and other benefits. For more information, please call 1-800-660-0289
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This is a timely topic that is of utmost importance. The truth concerning the origin of the world as given to us by God in Genesis 1-11 is widely and increasingly denied in evangelical and Reformed circles. Knowledge of God as the Creator is fundamental to our knowledge of God as Redeemer, and therefore, to knowledge of our redemption. REQUEST YOUR FREE COPY TODAY! Write, phone, fax or email: The Evangelism Committee of the Protestant Reformed Church 1777 E. Richton Rd. • Crete, IL 60417 Phone: (708) 672-4600, Fax (708) 672-4601 Email: Shevangelism@juno.com • www.SouthHollandPRC.org
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Located in the heart of New York City, the GENEVA SCHOOL of Manhattan, a Classical, Christian nursery-8 Coed Private School seeks full-time Academic Dean, candidate with potential to become the Head of School. The ideal candidate would have graduate training and at least 5 years of experience teaching and/or leading in a classical, Christian school. He or she would also have a passion for academic achievement that is rooted in classical, integrated curricula. He or she would have a history of working well with all school constituents, and would be passionate about developing the academic stature of the school while contributing to a thriving spiritual influence. If interested, please email resumé and brief statement of your philosophy of the integration of faith and learning to peggy.chen@genevaschool.net.
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summer. on purpose. TEENLEADERSHIPCAMP2011 PATRICK HENRY COLLEGE TEEN LEADERSHIP CAMPS provide high school students the chance to experience a truly unique Christian college. If you are a high school student wondering how to reconcile a serious college career with your growing Christian faith, teen camps at PHC provide a fun and challenging setting. For more information, go to www.phc.edu/teencamps. constitutional law • june 12 - 25 leadership & vocation • june 26 - july 2 mock trial • july 17 - 30 journalism • june 12 - 18 music • june 26 - july 2 art • july 17 - 23 congress • june 19 - 25 history • july 3 - 9 drama • july 24 - 30 debate • june 26 - july 9 www.phc.edu/teencamps • 1.888.338.1776 • teencamps@phc.edu Henry is certified byof theHigher State Council of Higher Education for accredited Virginia and accredited by the Transnational Association of Christian Collegesand and Schools. Schools. Patrick Henry College isPatrick certified by College the State Council Education for Virginia and by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges
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4/20/11 10:05 AM
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I loved the interview with Andy Crouch. As a stay-at-home mom, it was extremely encouraging to read that moms can be culture-makers. I read Hunter’s book last year and it left me flat. He was pretty much telling me I couldn’t make an impact unless I was at the heart of a large network or corporation. For years I’ve been telling my four children to be the best they can be in the areas to which they are called because faithfulness and excellence in large or small pursuits does impact our culture. , Austin, Texas ( )
This column is a perfect example of why I became a Mover. When Glenn Beck first aired I enjoyed his no-nonsense approach to the political injustices in Washington but was quickly turned off by his, at times, hopeless negativity. Although his voice has helped awaken America to our godly historical heritage, I wish he would give more credit to God. San Antonio, Texas
addressing our rapidly deteriorating moral, economic, and constitutional conditions. We should be thankful that the Lord raised up in Beck an effective spokesman for religious freedom and righteousness. It is time for collaboration rather than criticism, common defense rather than doctrinal debate. Montville, N.J.
I’m a Financial Peace University coordinator and, contrary to Witherington’s criticism, the course spends an entire lesson on “thinking where money comes from and where it is going.” It directs people toward the biblical lesson that we are called to be a generous people, seeing wealth not as an entitlement but as an enabler for godly generosity. .
Medina, Ohio
Thanks for the mention of Dave Ramsey. As for his private company not releasing its financial statements, I would no more expect him to share the details of his business than I would divulge the details of mine. East Sparta, Ohio
As a community bank for many years, I’ve enjoyed Ramsey and his inspiring message. Unfortunately, he seems a bit blind to some important biblical and economic concepts beyond his “get out of debt” message. For example, the micro-lending
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic /
Thank you for once again pointing out that we can trust few people to be fully honest. To have the statement “Nothing works apart from Jesus Christ” stripped from Marvin Olasky’s interview shows a basic human problem: We find great difficulty in admitting that fact. Vero Beach, Fla.
Beck is charading as a God-fearing champion for Christians but is obviously deceiving his fans.
Orrington, Maine
I am deeply troubled that few of our churches and evangelical leaders are M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
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movement would be impossible in a world without debt. Historically, John Calvin himself was instrumental in teaching that lending at interest for business purposes was not forbidden in Scripture. This revolutionary change helped unleash the gigantic wealth creation of the past few hundred years by putting unproductive resources to use in business enterprises that otherwise would have never obtained enough capital.
Missoula, Mont.
“Battle of the bulges” ( ) How appropriate to see the articles on the Wisconsin budget battle and financial adviser Dave Ramsey in the same issue. I look forward to the day when I can hear my governor, Scott Walker, call Ramsey’s radio show and scream on our behalf, “We’re debt free!”
Evansville, Wis.
“With these cuts, they may die” ( )
I agree with this article percent! I am all for cutting spending, lowering our country’s debt, and downsizing our government, but let’s first cut the things that don’t affect the well-being and health of human beings.
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s.org
www.sowhatstudie
I have rarely struggled so much while reading an article. My heart hurts for the lives that would be lost if lost even percent of its funding. Yet the federal government cannot afford to continue spending at this rate. Foreign aid should not be a priority and charitable works should be the realm of private individuals. Americans could easily cover the proposed million cuts to . Why don’t we? Brownwood, Texas
Order a FREE catalog or preview pack today! www.gcp.org · 877.300.8884 The publishing ministry of the Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Committee for Christian Education & Publications of the Presbyterian Church in America. © 2011 Great Commission Publications, Suwanee, GA 30024-3897
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“Rethinking assumptions” ( )
Regarding the call in Iowa for churches and religious groups to step up and care for the needy: There is an Iowa-based program called . It helps churches in an area come together to fund a place
where people who need help can get it. The vast majority of those who come through the doors do not attend churches. Groups like this are doing some of what Chuck Hurley of the Iowa Family Policy Center referred to. I wonder how these sorts of organizations affect local or state budgets?
Minneapolis, Minn.
“Sideline pastor” ( ) I was disappointed with this article, which criticizes books written by highprofile coaches for shallow theology. In writing that “Excellence cannot be achieved unless coaches and players are willing to sacrifice and suffer,” it seems that Bobby Bowden is advocating biblically solid advice, not shallow theology. The pursuit of excellence is a way of showing our gratefulness for God’s gifts by bringing them to their full potential.
Kalispell, Mont.
Mark Bergin’s excellent article about the way big-time Christian football coaches fall victim to the pressures of winning opened the door on an area of life too often given a pass by the Christian community. Ohio State’s Jim Tressel is merely one of many Christian coaches who talk the talk but, when the game is on, find it difficult to walk the walk. Greensboro, N.C.
“Multiple division” ( ) I am in total agreement with Janie B. Cheaney’s concern about radical Islamists overrunning the West. Tragically, we have become so obsessed with being politically correct that we have abandoned our American heritage and bowed to extremist ideologies. Longmont, Colo.
“Paralyzing nobility” ( ) The character Javert from Les Miserables seems to personify what this column is about. He pursued Valjean because the rules told him he had to, even though no one seemed to care. He tried to live his entire life without breaking a rule and was unable to show forgiveness or give
4/20/11 10:19 AM
grace. It’s sad when the rules become our god instead of our guidelines.
Is the Bible filled with errors and contradictions? Umm … No. No Errors in My Bible, Sorry About Yours by Mark Johansen
Evansville, Wis.
, ible y B rs M ou s in or ut Y Err Abo No rry So
“Garbage run” ( )
-4
Referring to an “unanticipated” pregnancy as a “not-so-blessed event” was a poor choice of words. Until we recognize that the creation of an eternal being, a child in the womb, is always a blessed event, abortion will remain.
590
“Jujitsu in South Dakota” ( )
308
Beaver Falls, Pa.
098 78N9
Paper $15.85 Kindle $6.85
ISB
The environmental legend that there is an island of garbage in the Pacific Ocean “twice the size of Texas” was recently shown to be a myth by an Oregon State University oceanographer. According to this researcher, the patch of discarded plastic is actually only about percent the size of Texas—still bothersome, but not a doomsday scenario.
rk Ma
en
ans
Joh
This book considers over 90 supposed errors and shows that the Bible is right and the critics are wrong. Science, history, elementary logic. Even a little math. www.electrictactics.com/sorry Available at amazon.com, etc
Flower Mound, Texas
“Ice pond” ( ) I am a homeschooling mother of five children. This morning I spent my time “getting done” and then hushing playing elementary children so that their high-school siblings could finish their work, and I my checking. During a break I read “Ice pond.” Andrée Seu reminded me of an important reason we homeschool, and I cried. Today, I will make eye contact—five times over!
Prosperity, Pa.
Correction A Japanese bus driver safely delivered all the children on a kindergarten school bus to their homes, some after the quake struck. One of the children was later rescued from the rooftop of a home (“Higher ground,” April , p. ).
LETTERS AND PHOTOS Email: mailbag@worldmag.com Write: Mailbag, P.O. Box , Asheville, - Please include full name and address. Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.
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Andrée Seu Geraldine Russell’s kitchen got too crowded, and Jane decided to build her own chapel. It was “rustic modern,” with wooden benches forming a U. “One thing we had at chapel was a blackboard. On it were written prayer requests, and as they were answered, they were erased. . . . When Judy Garland tried to do herself in and was released from , her name went on the blackboard. When we prayed, the Lord said I was to go and give her a message but that there would be a man who would interfere with my seeing her. I was stunned and felt like a jackass. I’d met Judy only once, . . . but I didn’t dare not go.” to grow weary in praying, I want Russell wheedled Judy’s address from her you to remember Jane Russell’s great-great-grandmother Ellen manager and rang her doorbell. Vincente Stevenson in Ireland, whose eight children knew better than to Minnelli, her husband, “came to the door and disturb her at prayer. You may know Jane as a World War II pin-up informed me that Judy was not to see anyone. I girl (though not one of Andy Dufresne’s protectresses in The thought, ‘Lord, You’re too much. You said a man Shawshank Redemption). That was all I knew until this past winter, would stop me.’ I gave him my phone number when my mother asked God into her life and Jane Russell died. and said if she could call me, I had a message for I got the autobiography, Jane Russell: My Path & Detours, and her, figuring that would be the end of that. But Mom and I hunkered down for reading dates. Russell’s life will that afternoon the phone rang and it was Judy. I drive you crazy if your God is too small, or boxed up, but it is as told her about the blackboard and chapel and laced through with God as an th-century bodice. Here is the part that the Lord had told me about life after her teenage to say this to her: abortion: ‘The Lord is my shep“I had a raging fever. . . . Mom herd; I shall not want. . . . prayed for me and read the He maketh me to lie Bible. Every morning as I looked out on down in green pastures. her beautiful garden, all I could see was He restoreth my soul.’ the good Lord and how much He loved “She gave a little gasp, me. . . . Mother said, ‘Daughter the Ten mumbled thank you, and Commandments are like the guardrails hung up. . . . I never knew on the mountain passes. The Lord puts what effect my call had those white guardrails there to protect on her until several years you, not to restrict you. Now if you crash later. She called me about through, you go over the other side, but a young friend of hers if you give Him all the pieces, He’ll put who was in trouble. She you back together.’ I did, and He slowly had asked for help and if healed me. . . . No one, but no one, could we could pray.” ever tell me again that there wasn’t a Jane said she always God and that I didn’t need Him.” wished C.S. Lewis could There were more “detours,” but when be her next husband. She Lew Wasserman of offered Russell liked that in Mere the moon if she would break her conChristianity he argued tract with Howard Hughes, her mother that comparing Jane, a sent a letter with this verse: “He that crabby Christian, with sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth Dick, a good-natured not . . . shall never be moved” (Psalm MOTHER & DAUGHTER: Geraldine and Jane Russell in . agnostic, “does not tell us :-). Jane kept her obligation to whether Christianity Hughes—and mailed him the Scripture. works. The question is what Jane’s tongue would Though she says she never preached, Russell must have “exuded,” be like if she were not a Christian and what because fellow actors became regulars around her mother’s table for Bible Dick’s would be like if he became one.” Russell’s study. On the set of The Paleface at Paramount she “talked about the Lord” conclusion: “Imagine what a hell-raiser I might and another actress, Carmen Cabeen, “was glued to the conversation— be if I didn’t have the Lord!” A starving, not just hungry. She ended up in Mom’s kitchen.”
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Email: aseu@worldmag.com
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4/20/11 10:23 AM
Marvin Olasky
MORE THAN A PULITZER
ProPublica’s second win and the money behind it is revitalizing liberal journalism
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W O R L D M AY 7, 2 0 1 1
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MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP
’ P P on April was largely the same old same old: four prizes for The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, as the good old boys-and-girls network protected its own established enterprises. The most striking news was that ProPublica, a nonprofit organization only three years old, won its second straight Pulitzer, this time for critiquing “The Wall Street Money Machine.” So what? So goes the future of American politics. ProPublica has rapidly become both a major media force and a harbinger of spring for liberal journalists who only recently thought they faced a perpetual winter. And it’s all because a left-wing philanthropic husband and wife have made their second astute bet on long-term institution building. Herbert and Marion Sandler became billionaires through growing the Golden West Financial Corporation, one of the largest mortgage lenders during the housing bubble and the operator of numerous World Savings Bank branches. In they sold their company and its portfolio of subprime loans to Wachovia, getting top dollar. Two years later Wachovia was no more but the Sandlers had . billion. They put half of that into a foundation with a declared mission—according to its and form s—of supporting “the charitable, educational, scientific or religious purposes of the Jewish Community Foundation of San Francisco.” A study by San Francisco’s Institute for Jewish & Community Research, though, showed only percent of Sandler Family Supporting Foundation donations going to Jewish organizations. filings through the first half of show that practice continuing. Instead, the Sandlers tossed millions into the Washington, D.C., Center for American Progress, an organization they and George Soros helped to form in . In Time stated, concerning ’s ’s influence in the upcoming Obama administration, “not since the Heritage Foundation helped guide Ronald Reagan’s transition in has a single outside group held so much sway.” At a time when others among the rich threw dollars into television ads for ephemeral candidacies, the Sandlers and their associates had hit the jackpot. And now the
Sandlers have won again through their million per year pledge to ProPublica (“for the public”). The nonprofit’s Form filings show how veteran journalists gained profitable positions: Editor-in-chief Paul Steiger received , in compensation in and managing editor Stephen Engelberg ,. Tracy Webber, Thomas Miller, and two other senior reporters averaged ,. They worked hard for their money, leading the way for full-time reporters and editors to produce more than long-form stories that received play in inner-circle publications such as the two Times and on Minutes. ProPublica’s filings are unusual in that they include bragging. A boast concerned a ProPublica article that criticized Sarah Palin: “Polls showing a precipitous drop in Palin’s credibility were a reflection of the significant impact of this sort of reporting.” The Sandlers themselves go light on selfglorification. Maybe that’s because some of their investments—in , for example—haven’t turned out that great, and also because their other big funding project, Human Rights Watch, has been so hostile to Israel that they have been subject to criticism in the Jewish community. Other Sandler ideological contributions have gone to Moveon.org, the , and Mother Jones. A positive March/April Columbia Journalism Review article concluded that Herbert Sandler “remains a believer in meticulously researched, crusading journalism. ‘Keep the story alive, pressure people, shame them,’ he says.” Yet, a look at ProPublica’s website listing of its stories shows pressure on Wall Street but almost no pressure on Pennsylvania Ave. Articles tagged “Obama administration” included Nerf ball throws like “Stimulus Spending Likely to Make Administration’s Goal” and “Federal Agencies Bolster Transparency Plans.” ProPublica did criticize the administration from the left, for not releasing some Guantanamo detainees and closing the prison there. Not bad: Defend big government (except when it jails terrorists), attack big business, win a Pulitzer Prize. ProPublica’s success will rouse others on the left to spend less on -second campaign commercials and more on investigative journalism. Conservative evangelicals should wise up as well. A Email: molasky@worldmag.com
4/21/11 3:55 PM
Jason Thacker MDiv Church Planting Murfreesboro, TN
“These are serious times and we’re looking for serious students.” R. Albert Mohler Jr., President
MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Visit online at www.sbts.edu 9 OLASKY-NEW.indd 3
4/20/11 3:24 PM
There’s still
health care for people of faith after health care reform If you are a committed Christian and do not want to purchase mandatory health insurance that forces you to help pay for abortions and other unbiblical medical practices, you can put your faith into practice by sharing medical needs with fellow believers through Samaritan Ministries. The provisions below are on pages 327 and 328 of the 2,409-page health care reform bill, and they protect people of faith who join in sharing medical needs through health care sharing ministries.
“…an organization, members of which share a common set of ethical or religious beliefs and share medical expenses among members in accordance with those beliefs…” Sec. 1501 (b) of HR 3590 at pg. 327, 328 Every month the more than 17,000* households of Samaritan Ministries share more than $4 million* in medical needs directly—one household to another. They also pray for one another and send notes of encouragement. The monthly share for a family of any size has never exceeded $320*, and is even less for singles, couples, and single-parent families. Also, there are reduced share amounts for members aged 25 and under, and 65 and over.
For more information call us toll-free 1-888-268-4377, or visit us online at: www.samaritanministries.org. Follow us on Twitter (@samaritanmin) and Facebook (SamaritanMinistries). * As of April 2011
Biblical faith applied to health care www.samaritanministries.org
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4/20/11 3:25 PM